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Title: The Red Book of Heroes
Author: Lang, Leonora Blanche
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Red Book of Heroes" ***
[Illustration: "'Go back,' he said."]
THE RED BOOK OF HEROES
BY MRS. LANG
EDITED BY ANDREW LANG
[Illustration]
WITH 8 COLOURED PLATES AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
BY A. WALLIS MILLS
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1909
All rights reserved
PREFACE
'Life is not all beer and skittles,' said a reflective sportsman, and
all books are not fairy tales. In an imperfect state of existence, 'the
peety of it is that we cannot have all things as we would like them.'
Undeniably we would like all books to be fairy tales or novels, and at
present most of them are. But there is another side to things, and we
must face it. '"Life is real, life is earnest," as Tennyson tells us,'
said an orator to whom I listened lately, and though Longfellow, not
Tennyson, wrote the famous line quoted by the earnest speaker, yet there
is a good deal of truth in it. The word 'earnest,' like many other good
words, has been overdone. It is common to sneer at 'earnest workers,'
yet where would we be without them, especially in our climate?
In a Polynesian island, where the skies for ever smile, and the blacks
for ever dance, earnestness is superfluous. The bread-fruit tree
delivers its rolls punctually every morning, strawberries or other
fruits, as nice, spring beneath the feet of the dancers; the cavern in
the forest provides a roof and shelter from the sun; the sea supplies a
swimming-bath, and man, in time of peace, has only to enjoy himself, eat
and drink, laugh and love, sing songs and tell fairy tales. His drapery
is woven of fragrant flowers, nobody is poor and anxious about food,
nobody is rich and afraid of losing his money, nobody needs to think of
helping others; he has only to put forth his hand, or draw his bow or
swing his fishing-rod, and help himself. To be sure, in time of war, man
has just got to be earnest, and think out plans for catching and
spearing his enemies, and drill his troops and improve his weapons, in
fact to do some work, or have his throat cut, and be put in the oven and
eaten. Thus it is really hard for the most fortunate people to avoid
being earnest now and then.
The people whose stories are told in this book were very different from
each other in many ways. The child abbess, Mère Angélique, ruling her
convent, and at war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does
not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose, with his poems
and his scented love-locks, his devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his
death, to which he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride,
does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all black and shrunk
and wrinkled, and bowed over his furnaces. It is a long way from gentle
Miss Nightingale, tending wounded dogs when a child, and wounded
soldiers when a woman, to Charles Gordon playing wild tricks at school,
leading a Chinese army, watching alone at Khartoum, in a circle of cruel
foes, for the sight of the British colours, and the sounds of the
bagpipes that never met his eyes and ears.
But these people, and all the others whose stories are told, had this in
common, that they were in earnest, though we may be sure that they did
not go about with talk of earnestness for ever in their mouths. It came
natural to them, they could not help it, they liked it, their hearts
were set on two things: to do their very best, and to keep their honour.
The Constant Prince suffered hunger and cold and long imprisonment all
'to keep the bird in his bosom,' as the old Cavalier said, to be true to
honour. 'I will carry with me honour and fidelity to the grave,' said
Montrose; and he kept his word, though his enemies gave him no grave,
but placed his head and limbs on spikes in various towns of his country.
But now his grave, in St. Giles's Church in Edinburgh, is the most
beautiful and honourable in Scotland, adorned with his stainless
scutcheon, and with those of Napiers and Grahams, his kindred and his
friends.
"The grave of March, the grave of Gwythar,
The grave of Gugann Gleddyvrudd,
A mystery to the world, the grave of Arthur,"
says the old Welsh poem, and unknown as the grave of Arthur is the grave
of Gordon. The desert wind may mingle his dust with the sand, the Nile
may sweep it to the sea, as the Seine bore the ashes of that martyr of
honour, the Maid of France. 'The whole earth is brave men's common
sepulchre,' says the Greek, their tombs may be without mark or monument,
but 'honour comes a pilgrim grey' to the sacred places where men cannot
go in pilgrimage.
We see what honour they had of men; the head of Sir Thomas More, the
head of Montrose, were exposed to mockery in public places, the ashes of
Jeanne d'Arc were thrown into the river, Gordon's body lies unknown; but
their honour is eternal in human memory. It was really for honour that
Sir Thomas More suffered; it was not possible for him to live without
the knowledge that his shield was stainless. It was for honour rather
than for religion that the child Angélique Arnauld gave up amusement and
pleasure, and everything that is dear to a girl, young, witty,
beautiful, and gay, and put on the dress of a nun. Later she worked for
the sake of duty and religion, but honour was her first mistress, and
she could not go back from her plighted word.
These people were born to be what they were, to be examples to all of us
that are less nobly born and like a quiet, easy, merry life. We cannot
all be Gordons, Montroses, Angéliques, but if we read about them and
think about them, a touch of their nobility may come to us, and surely
our honour is in our own keeping. We may try never to do a mean thing,
or a doubtful thing, a thing that Gordon would not have been tempted to
do, though we are tempted, more tempted as we grow older and see what
the world does than are the young. I think honour is the dearest and the
most natural of virtues; in their own ways none are more loyal than boys
and girls. Later we may forget that no pleasure, no happiness, not even
the love that seems the strongest force in our natures, is worth having
at the expense of a stain on the white rose of honour. Had she been a
few years older, Angélique might have failed to keep the word which was
extorted from her as a child, but, being young, she kept it the more
easily. What we have to do is to try to be young always in this matter,
to be our natural selves and unspotted from the world. Certainly some
people are a little better, and so far a little happier, because they
have seen the light from Charles Gordon's yet living head, and been half
heart-broken by his end, so glorious to himself, so inglorious to his
fellow countrymen. For his dear sake we may all do a little, sacrifice a
little, to help the Homes for Boys which have been built to his memory,
and to help the poor boys whom he used to help, making himself poor, and
giving his time for them.
We read in the book, 'A Child's Hero,' how the brave Havelock won the
heart of a little child who never saw him. She heard the words 'Havelock
is dead,' and laid her head against the wall and burst into tears. Other
children may feel the same devotion for these splendid people, for
Hannibal, so far away from us, giving his whole heart and whole genius
and his life for his wretched country, for men who would not understand,
who would not aid him:
"Their old art statesmen plied,
And paltered, and evaded, and denied"
till their country was vanquished. Bad as that country was, for
Hannibal's own sake we are all on the side of Hannibal, as we are on the
side of Hector of Troy. 'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said
Hector to his wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle,
'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the
people of Priam of the ashen spear, my father with my mother, and my
brothers, many and brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen;
but most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee weeping away, a
slave to weave at thy master's loom and bear water from thy master's
well, and the passers-by, as they see thee weeping, shall say, "This was
the wife of Hector, the foremost in fight of the men of Troy, when they
fought for their city." But may I be dead, and the earth be mounded
above me, ere I hear thy cry and the tale of thy captivity.'
So he went back into the battle, and never again saw his wife and child.
It was in the spirit of Hector that Hannibal planned and fought and
toiled, till as an old man he bit on the poison ring, and died, and was
free from the Roman captivity that threatened him.
Honour and courage were the masters of the men and women whose stories
are told in this book, but of them all none dared a risk so horrible as
brave Father Damien in the Isle of Lepers. For his adventure among
dreadful people who must give him their own dreadful disease, a Montrose
or a Havelock might have had little heart, for his task had none of the
excitement and glitter of the soldier's duty in war. But they are all,
these men and women, good to live with, good to know, good to go with,
weary camp followers as we are of the Noble Army of Martyrs, and
unworthy of a single leaf from the laurel crown.
A. Lang.
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Lady-in-Chief 1
Prisoners and Captives 25
Hannibal 43
The Apostle of the Lepers 95
The Constant Prince 109
The Marquis of Montrose 135
A Child's Hero 169
Conscience or King 222
The Little Abbess 246
Gordon 281
The Crime of Theodosius 334
Palissy the Potter 352
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOURED PLATES
(Engraved and Printed by André & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey.)
'Go back!' he said [See page 350] Frontispiece
to face p.
Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day 74
Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely
place by the sea 106
A great army of Irishmen have swooped down
on the Atholl country 150
The place was swarming with rats 208
She took all her nuns for a solemn walk 258
They saw a man in uniform shining with gold
flying towards them 316
A jar of water in the figure's right hand
emptied itself on his head 364
FULL-PAGE PLATES
to face p.
Roger could hardly believe his eyes 6
She came forth with a golden circlet round
her head 44
Hannibal was determined not to stir until
the elephants were safely over 58
Under the eyes of the army the combat began 68
In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till
the fatal hour was past 114
About thirty or forty of our honestest
women did fall a railing on Mr. William
Annan 140
'You will soon have no caste left yourself' 194
Often ... he had felt that a terrible death
was very near 218
Sir Thomas sat silent 232
'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered 240
'You are mistaking me for somebody else' 248
The archers set a ladder against the wall,
which the lady instantly threw down 274
Gordon found time to attend to an old dying
woman 310
A shot ended his life 330
'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it
will be too late' 338
'Let him die!' he said 344
The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved 354
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
PAGE
'Tell me what you want to say, and I will
say it' 17
They sprang on the food like wolves 28
He brushed down the walls without hindrance
from anyone 41
All three were apt pupils 51
The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting
and screaming with delight 56
He found right in front of him a huge
precipice 64
The whole four thousand climbed the ridge 77
'Let me release the Romans from their
anxiety,' he said 93
He found the Prince lying unconscious on
the ground 130
For two days they sought in vain for a road
to take them to Caithness 162
He managed to crawl over the floor 179
The Captain obligingly did as he was asked 183
Suddenly the table began to rock 189
In another moment he would have been trampled
under the feet of the Afghan cavalry 191
Not one of their movements passed unnoticed
by her 201
A tired horseman rode into camp 204
The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in
arguing 213
Erasmus was astonished to notice More present
Prince Henry with a roll 228
'Go away! you have no business here.' 253
She fell fainting to the ground 266
He told them stories from English history 303
He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and
stared 314
Fancy poor Madame Palissy's feelings 359
THE LADY-IN-CHIEF
Everybody nowadays is so used to seeing in the streets nurses wearing
long floating cloaks of different colours, blue, brown, grey, and the
rest, and to having them with us when we are ill, that it is difficult
to imagine a time when there were no such people. In the stories that
were written even fifty years ago you will soon find out what sort of
women they were who called themselves 'nurses.' Any kind of person seems
to have been thought good enough to look after a sick man; it was not a
matter which needed a special talent or teaching, and no girl would have
dreamed of nursing anybody outside her own home, still less of giving up
her life to looking after the sick. It was merely work, it was thought,
for _old_ women, and so, at the moment when the patient needed most
urgently some one young and strong and active about him, who could lift
him from one side of the bed to the other, or keep awake all night to
give him his medicine or to see that his fire did not go out, he was
left to a fat, sleepy, often drunken old body, who never cared if he
lived or died, so that _she_ was not disturbed.
* * * * *
The woman who was to change all this was born in Florence in the year
1820 and called after that city. Her father, Mr. Nightingale, seems to
have been fond of giving his family place-names, for Florence's sister,
about a year older than herself, had the old title of Naples tacked on
to 'Frances,' and in after life was always spoken of as 'Parthy' or
'Parthenope.' By and by a young cousin of these little girls would be
named 'Athena,' after the town Athens, and then the fashion grew, and I
have heard of twins called 'Inkerman' and 'Balaclava,' and of an
'Elsinora,' while we all know several 'Almas,' and may even have met a
lady who bears the name of the highest mountain in the world--of course
you can all guess what _that_ is?
* * * * *
Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale did not stay very long in Italy after
Florence's birth. They grew tired of living abroad, and wanted to get
back to their old home among the hills and streams of Derbyshire. Here,
at Lea hall, Florence's father could pass whole days happily with his
books and the beautiful things he had collected in his travels; but he
looked well after the people in the village, and insisted that the
children should be sent to a little school, where they learned how to
read and write and count for twopence a week. If the poor villagers were
ill or unhappy, his wife used to visit them, and help them with advice
as well as with money, and we may be quite sure that her little
daughters often went with her on her rounds.
So the early years of Florence's childhood passed away amidst the
flowery fields and bare hills that overlooked the beautiful river
Derwent. The village, built of stone like so many in the North Country,
lay far below, and on Sundays the two little girls, dressed in their
best tippets and bonnets, used to walk with their father and mother
across the meadows to the tiny church at Dethick. Here nearly two
hundred and fifty years ago one Anthony Babington knelt in prayer,
though his thoughts often wandered to the beautiful Scottish queen, shut
up by order of Elizabeth in Wingfield manor, only a few miles away. Of
course Parthy and Florence knew all about him, and their greatest treat
was a visit to his house, where they could see in the kitchen a
trap-door leading to a large secret chamber, in which a conspirator
might live for weeks without being found out. A great deal of the house
had been pulled down or allowed to fall into decay, but the bailiff, who
lived in the rest, was always glad to see them, and would take them to
all kinds of delightful places, and up little dark narrow winding
stairs, at the end of which you pushed up another trap-door and found
yourself in your bedroom. What a fascinating way of getting there, and
how very, very silly people are now to have wide staircases and straight
passages and stupid doors, which you _know_ will open, instead of never
being sure if the trap-door had not stuck, or some enemy had not placed
a heavy piece of furniture upon it!
* * * * *
But much as the Nightingales, big and little, loved Lea hall, it was
very bare and cold in winter, and Florence's father determined to build
a new house in a more sheltered place. Lea Hurst, as it was called, was
only a mile from the hall, and, like it, overlooked the Derwent; but
here the hills were wooded and kept out the bitter winds which had
howled and wailed through the old house. Mr. Nightingale was very
careful that all should be done exactly as he wished, therefore it took
some time to finish, and _then_ the family could not move in till the
paint and plaster were dry, so that Florence was between five and six
when at last they took possession.
No doubt the two little girls had much to say about the laying out of
the terraced gardens, and insisted on having some beds of their own, to
plant with their favourite flowers. They were greatly pleased, too, at
discovering a very old chapel in the middle of the new house, and very
likely they told each other many stories of what went on there. Then
there was a summer-house, where they could have tea, and if you went
through the woods in May, and could make up your mind to pass the
sheets of blue hyacinths without stopping to pick them till you were too
tired to go further, you came out upon a splendid avenue, with a view of
the hills for miles round. This was the walk which Florence loved best.
* * * * *
It seems, however, that Mr. Nightingale could not have thought Lea Hurst
as pleasant as he expected it to be, for a few months later he bought a
place called Embley, near the beautiful abbey of Romsey, in Hampshire.
Here they all moved every autumn as soon as the trees at Lea Hurst grew
bare; and when the young leaves were showing like a green mist, they
began the long drive back again, sometimes stopping in London on the
way, to see some pictures and hear some music, and have some talk with
many interesting people whom Mr. Nightingale knew. And when they got
home at last, how delightful it was to ride round to the old friends in
the farms and cottages, and listen to tales of all that had happened
during the little girls' absence, and in their turn to tell of the
wonderful sights they had witnessed, and the adventures that had
befallen them! Best of all were the visits to the families of puppies
and kittens which had been born during their absence, for Florence
especially loved animals, and was often sent for by the neighbours to
cure them when they were ill. The older and uglier they were, the
sorrier Florence was for them, and she would often steal out with sugar
or apples or carrots in her pocket for some elderly beast which was
ending its days quietly in the fields, stopping in the woods on the way
to play with a squirrel or a baby rabbit. The game was perhaps a little
one-sided, but what did that matter? As the poet Cowper says,
Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods
To share her home caresses,
And looked up to her human eyes
With sylvan tendernesses.
Beasts and birds were Florence's dear friends, but dearest of all were
her ponies.
While she was at Embley, the vicar, who was very fond of her, used often
to take her out riding when he went on his rounds to see his people.
Florence enjoyed this very much; she knew them all well, and never
forgot the names of the children or their birthdays. Her mother would
often give her something nice to carry to the sick ones, and when the
flowers came out, Florence used to gather some for her special
favourites, out of her own garden.
* * * * *
One day when she and the vicar were cantering across the downs, they saw
an old shepherd, who was a great friend of both of them, attempting to
drive his flock without the help of his collie, Cap, who was nowhere to
be seen.
'What has become of Cap?' they asked, and the shepherd told them that
some cruel boys had broken the dog's leg with a stone, and he was in
such pain that his master thought it would be more merciful to put an
end to him.
Florence was hot with indignation. 'Perhaps _I_ can help him,' she said.
'At any rate, he will like me to sit with him; he must feel so lonely.
Where is he?'
'In my hut out there,' answered the shepherd; 'but I'm afraid it's
little good you or anyone else can do him.'
But Florence did not hear, for she was galloping as fast as she could to
the place where Cap was lying.
'Poor old fellow, poor old Cap,' whispered she, kneeling down and
stroking his head, and Cap looked up to thank her.
'Let me examine his leg,' said the vicar, who had entered behind her;
'he does not hold it as if it were broken. No, I am sure it is not,' he
added after a close inspection. 'Cheer up, we will soon have him well
again.'
Florence's eyes brightened.
'What can I do?' she asked eagerly.
'Oh, make him a compress. That will take down the swelling,' replied the
vicar, who was a little of a doctor himself.
'A compress?' repeated Florence, wrinkling her forehead. 'But I never
heard of one. I don't know how.'
'Light a fire and boil some water, and then wring out some cloths in it,
and put them on Cap's paw. Here is a boy who will make a fire for you,'
he added, beckoning to a lad who was passing outside.
While the fire was kindling, Florence looked about to find the cloths.
But the shepherd did not seem to have any, and her own little
handkerchief would not do any good. Still, cloths she must have, and
those who knew Miss Nightingale in after years would tell you that when
she _wanted_ things she _got_ them.
'Ah, there is Roger's smock,' she exclaimed with delight. 'Oh, _do_ tear
it up for me; mamma will be sure to give me another for him.' So the
vicar tore the strong linen into strips, and Florence wrung them out in
the boiling water, as he had told her.
'Now, Cap, be a good dog; you know I only want to help you,' she cried,
and Cap seemed as if he _did_ know; for though a little tremble ran
through his body as the hot cloth touched him, he never tried to bite,
nor even groaned with the pain, as many children would have done. By and
by the lump was certainly smaller, and the look of pain in Cap's eyes
began to disappear.
Suddenly she glanced up at the vicar, who had been all this time
watching her.
'I can't leave Cap till he is _quite_ better,' she said. 'Can you get
that boy to go to Embley and tell them where I am? Then they won't be
frightened.' So the boy was sent, and Florence sat on till the setting
sun shot long golden darts into the hut.
Then she heard the shepherd fumbling with the latch, as if he could not
see to open it; and perhaps he couldn't, for in his hand he held the
rope which was to put an end to all Cap's sorrows. But Cap did not know
the meaning of the rope and only saw his old master. He gave a little
bark of greeting and struggled on to his three sound legs, wagging his
tail in welcome.
Roger could hardly believe his eyes, and Florence laughed with delight.
'Just look how much better he is,' she said. 'The swelling is very
nearly gone now. But he wants some more compresses. Come and help me
make them.'
'I think we can leave Roger to nurse Cap,' said the vicar, who had just
returned from some of the neighbouring cottages. 'Your patient must have
some bread and milk to-night, and to-morrow you can come to see how he
is.'
'Yes, of course I shall,' answered Florence, and she knelt down to kiss
Cap's nose before the vicar put her up on her pony.
[Illustration: Roger could hardly believe his eyes.]
Now, though Florence was so fond of flowers and animals and everything
out of doors, she was never dull in the house on a wet day. In the first
place, nothing was ever allowed to interfere with her lessons, and
though the little girls had a good governess, their father chose the
books they were to read and the subjects they were to study. Greek,
Latin, and mathematics he taught them himself, and besides he took care
that they could read and speak French, German, and Italian. They were
fond of poetry, and no doubt some of the earliest poems of young Mr.
Tennyson were among their favourites, as well as 'Lycidas' and the
songs of the cavaliers. Parthy was a better artist and a cleverer
musician than Florence, though _she_ could sing and sketch; but both
were good needlewomen, and could make samplers as well as do fine work
and embroidery. When school-time was over and the rain was still coming
down, they would run away to their dolls, who, poor things, were always
ill, so that Florence might have the pleasure of curing them. And though
before Cap's accident she had never heard of a compress, she could make
nice food for them at the nursery fire, and bandage their broken arms
and legs while Parthy held the wounded limb steady.
* * * * *
When they grew older, they went abroad now and then with their parents,
but Florence liked best being at home with her friends in the village,
who were very proud of her wishing to take their pictures with her new
photographic camera. If they had only known it, the children in their
best clothes standing up very stiff and straight did not look half as
pretty as the baskets of kittens with eyes half-innocent, half-wise, or
the funny little pups, so round and fat. But the parents thought the
portraits of their children the most beautiful things in the world, and
had them put into hideous gilt frames and hung on the walls, where
Florence could see them on her frequent visits.
Welcome as she was to all, it was the sick people who awaited her coming
the most eagerly. She was so quiet in her movements, and knew so exactly
what to do without talking or fussing about it, that the invalids grew
less restless in her presence, and believed so entirely that she really
_could_ cure them that they were half cured already! Then before she
left she would read them 'a chapter' or a story to make them laugh, or
anything else they wished for; and it was always a pleasure to listen to
her, for she never stammered, or yawned, or lost her place, or had any
of the tricks that often make reading aloud a penance to the victim.
For the young people both in Derbyshire and Hampshire she formed singing
classes, and some of her 'societies' continue to-day. She was full of
interest in other people's lives, and not only was _ready_ to help them
but _enjoyed_ doing so, which makes all the difference.
* * * * *
There is much nonsense talked in the world about 'born' actors, and
'born' artists, and 'born' nurses. No doubt some are 'born' with greater
gifts in these matters than others, but the most famous artists or
actors or nurses will all tell you that the only work which is lasting
has been wrought by long hours of patient labour. Miss Nightingale knew
this as well as anybody, and as soon as she began to think of doing what
no modern lady had ever done before her, and devoting her life to the
care of the sick, she set about considering how she could best find the
training she needed. She tried, to use her own words, 'to qualify
herself for it as a man does for his work,' and to 'submit herself to
the rules of business as men do.'
So she spent some months among the London hospitals, where her quick eye
and clever fingers, aided by her cottage experience, made her a welcome
help to the doctors. From the first she 'began at the beginning,' which
is the only way to come to a successful end. A sick person cannot get
well where the floor is covered with dirt, and the dust makes him cough;
therefore his nurse must get rid of both dirt and dust before her
treatment can have any effect. After London, Miss Nightingale went to
Edinburgh and Dublin, and then to France and Italy, where the nursing
was done by nuns; and after that she visited Germany, where at the town
of Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine, she found what she wanted.
The hospital of Kaiserswerth, where Miss Nightingale had decided to do
her training, had been founded about sixteen years earlier by Pastor
Fliedner, who was a wise man, content with very small beginnings. At the
time of her arrival it was divided into a number of branches, and there
was also a school for the children, who were taught entirely by some of
the sisters, or deaconesses, as they were called. On entering, everyone
had to go through the same work for a certain number of months, whether
they meant to be hospital nurses or school teachers. All must learn to
sew, cook, scrub, and read out clearly and pleasantly; but as Miss
Nightingale had practised most of these things from the time she was a
child, she soon was free to go into the hospital and attend to the sick
people. The other nurses were German peasant women, but when they found
that she could speak their language, and was ready to work as hard as
any of them, they made friends at once. In her spare hours Miss
Nightingale would put on her black cloak and small bonnet, and go round
to the cottages with Mr. Fliedner, as long ago she had done with the
vicar of Embley, and we may be sure any sick people whom she visited
were always left clean and comfortable when she said good-bye.
But at Kaiserswerth Miss Nightingale had very little chance of learning
any surgery, so she felt that she could not do better than pass some
time in Paris with the nursing sisterhood of St. Vincent de Paul, which
had been established about two hundred years earlier. Here, too, she
went with the sisters on their rounds, both in the hospitals and in the
homes of the poor, and learnt how best to help the people without
turning them into beggars. Every part of the work interested her, but
the long months of hard labour and food which was often scanty and
always different from what she had hitherto had, began to tell on her.
She fell ill, and in her turn had to be looked after by the sisters,
and no doubt in many ways she learned more of sick nursing when she was
a patient than she did when she was a nurse.
* * * * *
It was quite clear that it would be necessary for her to have a good
rest before she grew strong again, and so she went back to Embley, and
afterwards to Lea, and tried to forget that there was any such thing as
sickness. But it is not easy for people who are known to be able and
willing to have peace anywhere, and soon letters came pouring in to Miss
Nightingale begging for her help in all sorts of ways. As far as she
could she undertook it all, and often performed the most troublesome of
all tasks, that of setting right the mistakes of others. In the end her
health broke down again, but not till she had finished what she had set
herself to do.
* * * * *
It was in March 1854 that war broke out between England, France, and
Turkey on the one side, and Russia on the other. The battle-ground was
to be the little peninsula of the Crimea, and soon the Black Sea was
crowded with ships carrying eager soldiers, many of them young and quite
ignorant of the hardships that lay before them.
At first all seemed going well; the victory of the Alma was won on
September 20, 1854, and that of Balaclava on October 25, the anniversary
of Agincourt. But while the hearts of all men were still throbbing at
the splendid madness of the charge when, owing to a mistaken order, the
Light Brigade rode out to take the Russian guns and were mown down by
hundreds, the rain began to fall in torrents and a winter of unusual
coldness was upon them. Nights as well as days were passed in the
trenches that had been dug before the strong fortress of Sebastopol,
which the allies were besieging, and the suffering of our English
soldiers was far greater than it need have been, owing to the
wickedness of many of the contractors who had undertaken to supply the
army with boots and stores, and did not hesitate to get these so cheap
and bad as to be quite useless, while the rest of the money set aside
for the purpose was put into their pockets. The doctors gave themselves
no rest, but there were not half enough of them, while of nurses there
were none. The men did what they could for one another, but they had
their own work to attend to, and besides, try as they would it was
impossible for them to fill the place of a trained and skilful woman. So
they, as well as their dying comrades lying patiently on the sodden
earth, looked longingly at the big white caps of the French sisters, who
for their part would gladly have given help and comfort had not the
wounded of their own nation taken all their time. One or two of the
English officers had been followed to the Crimea by their wives, and
these ladies cooked for and tended the sick men who were placed in rows
along the passages of the barracks, but even lint for bandages was
lacking to them, and after the Alma they wrote letters to their friends
in England entreating that no time might be lost in sending out proper
aid.
These letters were backed by a strong appeal from the war correspondent
of the _Times_, Dr. W. H. Russell, and from the day that his plain
account of the privations and horrors of the suffering army appeared in
the paper, the War Office was besieged by women begging to be sent to
the Crimea by the first ship. The minister, Mr. Sidney Herbert, did not
refuse their offers; though they were without experience and full of
excitement, he saw that most of them were deeply in earnest and under a
capable head might be put to a good use. But where was such a head to be
found? Then suddenly there darted into his mind the thought of Miss
Nightingale, his friend for years past.
It was on October 15 that Mr. Sidney Herbert wrote to Miss Nightingale
offering her, in the name of the government, the post of Superintendent
of the nurses in the East, with absolute authority over her staff; and,
curiously enough, on the very same day _she_ had written to _him_
proposing to go out at once to the Black Sea. As no time was to be lost,
it was clear that most of the thirty-eight nurses she was to take with
her must be women of a certain amount of training and experience. Others
might follow when they had learnt a little what nursing really meant,
but they were of no use now. So Miss Nightingale went round to some
Church of England and Roman Catholic sisterhoods and chose out the
strongest and most intelligent of those who were willing to go, the
remainder being sent her by friends whose judgment she could trust. Six
days after Sidney Herbert had written his letter, the band of nurses
started from Charing Cross.
When after a very rough passage they reached the great hospital of
Scutari, situated on a hill above the Bosphorus, they heard the news of
the fight at Balaclava and learnt that a battle was expected to take
place next day at Inkerman. The hospital was an immense building in the
form of a square, and was able to hold several thousand men. It had been
lent to us by the Turks, but was in a fearfully dirty state and most
unfit to receive the wounded men who were continually arriving in ships
from the Crimea. Often the vessels were so loaded that the few doctors
had not had time to set the broken legs and arms of the men, and many
must have died of blood poisoning from the dirt which got into their
undressed wounds. Oftener still they had little or no food, and even
with help were too weak to walk from the ship to the hospital. And as
for rats! why there seemed nearly as many rats as patients.
The first thing to be done was to unpack the stores, to boil water so
that the wounds could be washed, to put clean sheets on the beds, and
make the men as comfortable as possible. The doctors, overworked and
anxious as they were, did not give the nurses a very warm welcome. As
far as their own experience went, women in a hospital were always in the
way, and instead of helpers became hinderers. But Miss Nightingale took
no heed of ungracious words and cold looks. She did her own business
quietly and without fuss, and soon brought order out of confusion, and a
feeling of confidence where before there had been despair. If an
operation had to be performed--and at that time chloroform was so newly
invented that the doctors were almost afraid to give it, Miss
Nightingale, 'the Lady-in-Chief,' was present by the side of the wounded
man to give him courage to bear the pain and to fill him with hope for
the future. And not many days after her arrival, her coming was eagerly
watched for by the multitudes of sick and half-starved soldiers who were
lying along the walls of the passages because the beds were all full.
It is really hardly possible for us to understand all that the nurses
had to do. First the wards must be kept clean, or the invalids would
grow worse instead of better. Then proper food must be cooked for them,
or they would never grow strong. Those who were most ill needed special
care, lest a change for the worse might come unnoticed; and besides all
this a laundry was set up, so that a constant supply of fresh linen
might be at hand. In a little while, when some of the wounds were
healing and the broken heads had ceased to ache, there would come shy
petitions from the beds that the nurse would write them a letter home,
to say that they had been more fortunate than their comrades and were
still alive, and hoped to be back in England some day.
'Well, tell me what you want to say, and I will say it,' the nurse would
answer, but it is not very easy to dictate a letter if you have never
tried, so it soon ended with the remark,
'Oh! nurse, _you_ write it for me! You will say it much better than I
can.'
[Illustration: 'Tell me what you want to say, and I will say it.']
Would you like to know how the nurses passed their days? Well, first
they got up very early, made their beds, put their rooms tidy, and went
down to the kitchen, where they had some bread, which was mostly sour,
and some tea without milk. Then arrowroot and beef tea had to be made
for the men, and when the night nurses took their turn to rest, those
who were on duty by day went into the wards and stayed there from
half-past nine till two, washing and dressing and feeding the men and
talking over their illnesses with the doctors, who by this time were
thankful for their aid. At two the men were left to rest or sleep while
their tired nurses had their dinner, and little as they might like it,
they thought it their duty to swallow a plateful of very bad meat and
some porter. At three some of them often took a short walk, but that
November the rains were constant and very heavy at Scutari as well as in
the Crimea, and as Miss Nightingale would allow no risk of catching
cold, on these days the nurses all stayed in the hospital, where there
was always something to be done or cooked for the patients, who required
in their weak state to be constantly fed. At half-past five the nurses
left the wards and went to their tea, but that did not take long, and
soon they were back again making everything comfortable for the night,
which began with the entrance of the night nurses at half-past nine.
It was a hard life, and when one remembers how bad their own food was,
it is a marvel that any of them were able to bear it for so long. But,
as Shakespeare says, 'Nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so,'
and it is wonderful how far a brave spirit will carry one. Still, heavy
though the nurses' work was, that of Miss Nightingale was far more of a
strain. It was she on whom everything depended, who had to think and
plan and look forward, and write accounts of it all to Mr. Sidney
Herbert in London, and lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief, at the
Crimea. The orderlies of the regiment gave her willing aid, but they
needed to be taught what to do, and no doubt the Lady-in-Chief often
found that it is far quicker and easier to do things oneself than to
spend time in training another person. Luckily she was prompt to see the
different uses to which men and women could be put, so that there were
no wasted days or weeks, caused by setting them tasks for which they
were unfitted, and in a very short while the hospital, which had been a
scene of horror on her arrival from England, was a well-arranged and
most comfortable place.
But not only were there soldiers to be cared for, there were also their
wives and children, who were almost forgotten and huddled together in a
corner of the barracks, with few clothes and hardly any food. Miss
Nightingale took them under her charge, and placed them in a clean house
close by, giving some of the women work in her laundry and finding
employment for the rest, with the help of the wife of one of the
chaplains. The children were taught for several hours in the day, and
thus their mothers were left free to earn money to support them, while
the widows were given clothes and money, and as soon as possible sent
home.
One morning, as the Lady-in-Chief went her rounds, the men noticed that
her face was brighter than usual and looked as if something had pleased
her very much. So it had, and in the afternoon, when they were all
resting comfortably, they knew what it was. One of the chaplains went
from ward to ward reading a letter which Queen Victoria had written to
Mr. Sidney Herbert, and this was how it ran:--
Windsor Castle, December 6, 1854.
'Would you tell Mrs. Herbert that I begged she would let me see
frequently the accounts she received from Miss Nightingale or Mrs.
Bracebridge, as I hear no details of the wounded, though I see so many
from officers, &c., about the battlefield, and naturally the former must
interest me most.
'Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies
would tell those poor noble wounded and sick men that no one takes a
warmer interest or feels more for their sufferings or admires their
courage and heroism more than their queen. Day and night she thinks of
her beloved troops. So does the Prince.
'Victoria.'
'God save the Queen,' said the chaplain when he had finished, and from
their hearts the men raised a feeble shout, 'God save the Queen.'
* * * * *
Soon another detachment of nurses arrived from home and undertook the
charge of other hospitals along the shores of the Bosphorus. They were
led by Miss Stanley, sister of the famous dean of Westminster, and the
band consisted partly of ladies who gave their services and partly of
nurses who were paid. Some Irish sisters of mercy also accompanied them,
and these were allowed to wear their nun's dress, but the others must
have looked very funny in the Government uniform--loose gowns of grey
tweed, worsted jackets, short woollen cloaks, and scarves of brown
holland with 'Scutari Hospital' in red letters across them. They were
all made the same size, and 'in consequence,' adds sister Mary Aloysius,
who was thankful that _she_ did not need to present such an odd figure,
'the tall ladies appeared to be attired in short dresses, and the short
ladies in long.'
Clad in these strange clothes they reached their destination and were
placed by Miss Nightingale wherever she thought they were most needed.
Cholera was now raging and the rain in the Crimea had turned to bitter
cold, so that hundreds of men were brought in frost-bitten. Often their
garments, generally of thin linen, were frozen so tightly to their
bodies that they had first to be softened with oil and then cut off. The
stories of their sufferings are too terrible to tell, but scarcely one
murmured, and all were grateful for the efforts to ease their pain. If
death came, as it often did, Miss Nightingale was there to listen to
their last wishes.
* * * * *
All through the spring the cholera raged, and at length some of the
nurses, weakened by the strain on mind and body, and the lack of
nourishing food, fell victims. One of them was a personal friend of Miss
Nightingale's, others were Irish nuns working in Balaclava, and their
graves were kept gay with flowers planted by the soldiers. Thus the
Lady-in-Chief found them when in May 1855 she set out to inspect the
hospitals in the Crimea.
What a rest it must have been to be able to lie on deck and watch the
blue waters without feeling that every moment of peace was stolen from
some duty. She had several nurses with her; also her friend Mr.
Bracebridge, whose wife had taken charge of the stores at Scutari, and a
little drummer of twelve, called Thomas, who got amusement out of
everything and kept up their spirits when the outlook seemed gloomiest.
The moment she landed Miss Nightingale, accompanied by a train of
doctors, went at once to the hospitals, thus missing lord Raglan who
came to give her a hearty welcome. Next day, when as in duty bound she
returned his visit, she had the pleasure once more of feeling a horse
under her, and old memories came back and it seemed as if she was again
a child riding with the vicar. As we are told by a Frenchman that she
wore a regular riding-dress, she probably borrowed this from one of the
four English ladies then in the Crimea, for she is not likely to have
had a habit of her own. Her horse was fresh and spirited and nervous,
after the manner of horses, and the noise and confusion of the road that
led to the camp was too much for his nerves. He plunged and kicked and
reared and bucked, and did all that a horse does when he wants to be
unpleasant, but Miss Nightingale did not mind at all--in fact she quite
enjoyed it.
All day long the Lady-in-Chief went about, visiting the hospitals and
even penetrating into the trenches while sharp firing was going on. The
weather was intensely hot--for it is the greatest mistake to look on
the Crimea, which is as far south as Venice or Genoa, as being always
cold--and one day Miss Nightingale was struck down with sudden fever.
She was at once taken to the Sanatorium on a stretcher, which was
followed by the faithful Thomas, and great was the dismay and sorrow of
the whole camp. Fortunately after a fortnight she began to recover,
thanks to the care that was taken of her, but she absolutely refused to
go home, as the doctors wished her to do, and, weak though she was,
returned to Scutari, where soon afterwards she heard of her friend lord
Raglan's death, which was a great shock to her. It was some time before
she was strong enough to go back to her work, and she spent many hours
wandering about the cypress-planted cemetery at Scutari, where so many
English soldiers lay buried, and in planning a memorial to them which
was afterwards set up.
* * * * *
In September Sebastopol fell and the war was over, but the sick and
wounded were still uncured. It was hard for them to hear of their
comrades going home proud and happy in the honours they had won, while
_they_ were left behind in pain and weariness, but it would have been
infinitely harder without the knowledge that Miss Nightingale would bear
them company to the end. After all they stood on English ground before
she did, as when she was well enough she sailed a second time for the
Crimea to finish the work which her illness had caused her to leave
undone.
All through the winter of 1855 she stayed there, driving over the
snow-covered mountains in a little carriage made for the purpose, which
had been given her as a present. Sick soldiers there were in plenty in
the hospitals, and for some time there was an army also, to keep order
until the peace was signed. In order to give the soldiers occupation and
amusement, she begged her friends at home to send out books and
magazines to them, and this the queen and her mother, the duchess of
Kent, were the first to do. Nothing was too small for the Lady-in-Chief
to think of; she arranged some lectures, got up classes for the children
and for anyone who wanted to learn; started a _café_, in hopes to save
the men from drinking; and kept a money-order office herself, so that
the men could, if they wished, send part of their pay home to their
families. And when in July 1856 the British army set sail for England,
Miss Nightingale stayed behind to see a white marble cross twenty feet
high set up on a peak above Balaclava. It was a memorial from her to the
thousands who had died at the mountain's foot, in battle or in the
trenches.
* * * * *
Honours and gifts showered on Miss Nightingale on all sides, and
everybody was eager to show how highly they valued her self-sacrificing
labours. If money had been wanted, it would have poured in from all
quarters; but when the queen had made inquiries on the subject a year
before Miss Nightingale's return, Mr. Sidney Herbert replied that what
the Lady-in-Chief desired above everything was the foundation of a
hospital in which her own special system of nursing could be carried
out. The idea was welcomed with enthusiasm, but none of the sums sent
were as dear to Miss Nightingale's heart as the day's pay subscribed by
the soldiers and sailors. The fund was applied to founding a home and
training school for nurses, attached to St. Thomas' hospital, and Miss
Nightingale helped to plan the new buildings opposite the Houses of
Parliament, to which the patients were afterwards moved.
* * * * *
Miss Nightingale came home with her aunt, Mrs. Smith, calling herself
'Miss Smith' so that she might travel unrecognised, but that disguise
could not be kept up when she got back to Lea Hurst. Crowds thronged to
see her from the neighbouring towns, and the lodge-keeper had a busy
time. However, her father would not allow her to be worried. She needed
rest, he said, and she should have it; and if addresses and plate and
testimonials should pour in (as they did, in quantities) someone else
could write thanks at her dictation. All round Lea Hurst her large
Russian dog was an object of reverence, and as for Thomas the
drummer-boy--well, if you could not see Miss Nightingale herself, you
might spend hours of delight in listening to Thomas, who certainly could
tell you far more thrilling tales than his mistress would ever have
done.
We should all like to know what became of Thomas.
* * * * *
Miss Nightingale is still living, but the privations and over-work of
those terrible months had so broken her down that for the last forty
years she has been more or less of an invalid. Still, her interest is as
wide as ever in all that could help her fellows, and though she was
unable to go among them as of old, she was ready to help and advise,
either personally or by letter. If she had given her health and the
outdoor pleasures that she loved so much in aid of the sick and
suffering, she had won in exchange a position and an influence for good
such as no other woman has ever held.
* * * * *
Since this little account was written, the king has conferred on her the
highest honour he could bestow on a woman, the Order of Merit, while the
lord mayor of London and the corporation have given her the freedom of
the City. Thus her life will end in the knowledge that she has gained
the only honours worth having, those which have not been sought.
PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
I am afraid you will think this a sad story, and so it is, but things
would have been sadder still but for the man I am going to tell you
about. His name was John Howard, and if you were to ask, 'Which John
Howard?' the answer would be, 'John Howard the Philanthropist,' which
means 'a lover of men.'
* * * * *
It is a great title for anyone to win, and no one ever earned it more
truly than this son of the rich upholsterer of Smithfield, born in
Clapton, then a country village of the parish of Hackney, in 1727. As
you will see by and by, Howard spent the last seventeen years of his
life in fighting three giants who were very hard to beat, named
Ignorance, Sloth, and Dirt; and it is all the more difficult to overcome
them because they are generally to be met with together. Unfortunately,
they never can be wholly killed, for when you think they are left dead
on the field after a hard struggle, they always come to life again; but
they have never been quite so strong since the war waged on them by John
Howard, who died fighting against them in a Russian city.
* * * * *
Howard had always been a delicate boy, which made it all the more
wonderful that he could bear the fatigue of the long journeys which he
undertook to help people who could not help themselves. He was married
twice, but neither of his wives lived long, and he had only one little
boy to look after. But when the child was four years old, Howard felt
that it was dull for him to be alone with his father, and without any
play-fellows, so he sent him to a small school kept by some ladies,
where little John, or 'Master Howard,' as it was the fashion to call
him, would be well taken care of.
Howard was a quiet man, and very religious, but, what was rare in those
times, he did not believe everybody in the wrong who thought differently
from himself. He lived quietly among his books on a small estate he
owned near Bedford, called Cardington, where he studied astronomy and
questions about heat and cold, and when only twenty-nine was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society. Medicine always interested him, and he
learned enough of it to be very useful to him during his travels;
indeed, it was owing to his fame as a doctor that he was summoned to see
a young Russian lady dying of fever, which, according to many, infected
him, and caused his own death. In his studies and in the care of his
tenants many peaceful years passed away. The man who afterwards became
known as the champion of 'prisoners and captives, and all who were
desolate and oppressed,' did not allow his own tenants to live in
unhealthy and uncomfortable cottages crowded together in tiny rooms with
water dropping on to their beds from the badly thatched roofs, like many
other landlords both in his day and ours. He opened schools for the
children, and drew up rules for them. The girls were taught reading and
needlework, the boys reading and a little arithmetic. Writing does not
seem to have been thought necessary, as none of the girls learned it,
and only a few of the boys--probably the cleverer ones. On Sundays they
were all expected to go to church or chapel, whichever their parents
preferred.
* * * * *
In spite of the generosity which made John Howard ready to give money or
time to any scheme that seemed likely to be of use to the poor, he was
not popular with his neighbours, and saw very little of them. They
thought him 'odd' because he did not care for races, or cock-fights, or
long dinners that lasted far into the night, where the gentlemen often
drank so much that they could not get home at all. Year by year Howard
was teaching himself to do without things, and by and by he was able to
live on green tea and a little bread and vegetables, with fruit now and
then as a great treat. No wonder he was considered eccentric by the
Bedfordshire country gentlemen!
* * * * *
But, in spite of his quiet ways, Howard had a passion for travelling,
and when a youth threw up the position of grocer's apprentice which his
father had obtained for him, and started for France and Italy.
Immediately after the death of his first wife he determined to go for a
change to Lisbon, then lying in ruins after the recent earthquake.
Before, however, his ship was out of the English Channel it was attacked
and overpowered by a French privateer, and both crew and passengers were
left without anything to eat or drink for nearly two days. They were
then taken to the prison at Brest, thrown into a dark and horribly dirty
dungeon, and apparently forgotten. Besides hunger and thirst, they went
through terrible pangs, fearing lest they were to be left to starve; but
at length the heavy bolts of the iron door were shot back, and a leg of
mutton was thrust inside. Nobody had a knife, every weapon had been
taken from them, and if they had, they were all too hungry to wait to
use it. They sprang on the food like wolves and gnawed it like dogs.
For a week they all remained in their dungeon, and then Howard, at any
rate, was allowed to leave it, and was sent first to Morlaix and then to
Carpaix, where he was kindly treated by the gaoler, in whose house he
lived. Howard gave his word that he would not try to escape, and for
two months he remained there--a prisoner on parole, as it is
called--writing letters to prisoners he had left behind him, who had not
been so fortunate as himself. From what he had gone through he could
easily guess what they were suffering, and determined that when once he
got back to England he would do everything in his power to obtain their
freedom.
[Illustration: They sprang on the food like wolves.]
In two months Howard was informed by his friend the gaoler that the
governor had decided that he should be sent to England, in order that he
might arrange to be exchanged for a French naval officer, after swearing
that in case this could not be managed, he would return as a prisoner to
Brest. It was a great trial of any man's good faith, but it was not
misplaced, and happily the exchange was easily made. No sooner were his
own affairs settled than Howard set about freeing his countrymen, and
very shortly some English ships were sent to Brest with a cargo of
French prisoners and came back with an equal number of English ones, all
of whom owed their liberty to Howard's exertions.
His captivity in France first gave him an idea of the state of prisons
and the sufferings of prisoners, but eighteen years were to pass before
the improvement of their condition became the business of his life.
* * * * *
Mr. Howard was appointed high sheriff for the county of Bedford in 1773,
and as such had the prisons under his charge. The high sheriffs who had
gone before him were of course equally bound to see that everything
inside the gaol was clean and well-ordered, but nobody really expected
them to trouble their heads about the matter, and certainly they never
did. However, Mr. Howard's notion of his duty was very different. He at
once visited the county prison in Bedford, and the misery that he found
there was repeated almost exactly in nearly every prison in the British
Isles. The gaoler in Bedford--and in many other places--had no salary
paid him, and therefore screwed all he could out of his prisoners; and
no matter if a man were innocent or guilty, if a jury had condemned him
or not, he must pay fifteen shillings and fourpence to the gaoler, and
two shillings to the warder who brought him his food--when he had
any--before he was set free. If, as often happened, the prisoners could
not find the money, well, they were locked up till they died, or till
the fees were paid.
When Howard informed the magistrates of what he had found, they were as
much shocked as if it had not been their business to have known all
about it.
'A dreadful state of things, indeed!' they said, 'and they were greatly
obliged to Mr. Howard for having discovered it. Yes, certainly, the
criminals and those who had been confined for debt alone ought to be
placed in different parts of the prison, and the men and women should be
separated, and an infirmary built for the sick. Oh! they were quite
willing to do it, but the cost would be very heavy, and the people might
decline to pay it, unless the high sheriff could point to any other
county which supported its own gaol.'
* * * * *
At the moment, the high sheriff could not, but he had no doubt that such
a county would be easily found, so he at once started on a visit to some
of the prisons, but, to his surprise, he did not discover _one_ in which
the gaoler was paid a fixed salary. And the more he saw of the prisons,
the more he was grieved at their condition. Almost all had dungeons for
criminals built underground, dark, damp, and dirty, and sometimes as
much as twenty feet below the surface; and often these dungeons were
very small and very crowded. Mats or, in a few of the better-managed
prisons, straw was given the prisoners to lie on, but no coverings, and
those who were imprisoned for debt were expected to pay for their own
food or go without it.
* * * * *
Sick at heart with all that he had seen, Howard went home for a short
rest, and then set out again on one of those tours on which he spent
the remaining years of his life, never thinking that the work was done
when he had reported on the terrible evils of the prison system, but
always returning to make sure that his advice had been carried out,
which it often was not. Curious to say, there are few instances of
difficulties being put in the way of his inspecting the prisons in any
of the countries which he visited, while about six months after his
labours began, he was called to the bar of the House of Commons, and
publicly thanked for his services in behalf of those who could not help
themselves.
Mr. Howard was pleased and touched at the honour done him, and at the
proof that
Evil is wrought by want of Thought,
As well as by want of Heart;
but he was much more gratified by two laws that were passed during that
session, one for relieving innocent prisoners from paying fees, and the
other for insisting on certain rules being carried out which were
necessary to keep the prisoners in good health.
* * * * *
This last Act was greatly needed. The bad air, the dirt, and the
closeness of the rooms constantly produced an illness called gaol fever,
from which numbers of prisoners died yearly, one catching it from the
other. Nominally, a doctor was attached to every prison, but instead of
being ready, as doctors generally are, to risk their lives for their
patients, these men usually showed great cowardice. In Exeter, the
doctor when appointed had it set down in writing that he should not be
obliged to attend anyone suffering from gaol fever; in the county gaol
for Cornwall, every prisoner but one was ill of this disease when Howard
paid his first visit there. And no wonder, for here the prison consisted
of only one room with a small window, and three 'dungeons or cages,'
the one for women being only five feet long. The food was let down to
them through a hole in the floor of the room above.
In Derby, Howard was thankful to see that things were far more what they
ought to be. The rooms were larger and lighter, there was an infirmary
for the sick, 'a neat chapel,' and even a bath, 'which the prisoners
were required occasionally to use.' Here the debtors, instead of being
nearly starved, were given the same allowance of food as the criminals.
They were also supplied with plenty of straw, and had fires in the
winter. Newcastle was still better managed, and here the doctor gave his
services free; but the Durham gaol was in a terrible state, and when
Howard went down into the dungeon he found several criminals lying there
half-starved and chained to the floor. The reason of these differences
probably lies in the fact that before Howard's time nobody had ever
taken the trouble to visit the prisons or to see if the rules were
carried out. If, as sometimes happened, the doctor and gaoler were
kind-hearted men, anxious to do their duty, then the prisoners were
tolerably well cared for. If, on the other hand, they were careless or
cruel, the captives had to suffer. This Howard saw, and was resolved, as
far as possible, to put the prisoners out of the power of the gaolers,
who should be made to undergo a severe punishment for any neglect of
duty. For in Howard's mind, though it was, of course, needful that men
should learn that if they chose to commit crimes they must pay for them,
yet he considered that so much useless misery only made the criminals
harder and more brutal, and that the real object of punishment was to
help people to correct their faults, and once more to become honest men
and women.
* * * * *
Having satisfied himself of the state of the English prisons, and done
what he could to improve them, Howard determined to discover how those
in foreign countries were managed. Paris was the first place he stopped
at, and the famous Bastille the first prison he visited. Here, however,
he was absolutely refused admittance, and seems, according to his friend
Dr. Aikin, to have narrowly escaped being detained as a prisoner
himself. But once outside the walls he remembered having heard that an
Act had been passed in 1717, when Louis XV. was seven years old and the
duke of Orleans was regent, desiring all gaolers to admit into their
prisons any persons who wished to bestow money on the prisoners, only
stipulating that whatever was given to those confined in the dungeons
should be offered in the presence of the gaoler.
Armed with this knowledge and a quantity of small coins, Howard called
on the head of the police, who received him politely and gave him a
written pass to the chief prisons in Paris. These he found very bad,
with dungeons in some of 'these seats of woe beyond imagination horrid
and dreadful,' yet not apparently any worse than many on this side of
the Channel.
* * * * *
After Howard's dismal experiences in England, Scotland, Ireland, and
France, it must have given him heartfelt pleasure to visit the prisons
in Belgium, which, with scarcely an exception, were 'all fresh and
clean, no gaol distemper, no prisoners in irons.' The bread allowance
'far exceeds that of any of _our_ gaols. Two pounds of bread a day, soup
once, with a pound of meat on Sunday.' This was in Brussels, but when he
went on to Ghent, things were better still.
Like most of the large towns of Flanders, Ghent had a stirring history,
and its townspeople were rich and prosperous. At the time of Howard's
visit, it was part of the dominions of the emperor Joseph II., brother
of Marie Antoinette, and by his orders a large prison was in course of
building. Though not yet finished, it already contained more than a
hundred and fifty men, and Howard felt as if he must be dreaming when he
saw that each of these prisoners had a room to himself, a bedstead, a
mattress, a pillow, a pair of sheets, with two blankets in winter and
one in summer. Everything was very clean, and the food plentiful and
wholesome. But, besides all this, Howard noted with a feeling of envy
two customs which so far he had tried in vain to introduce into England.
One was that the men and the women should be kept apart, and the other,
that they should be given useful work to employ their time. In England,
a prisoner was sometimes condemned to 'hard labour,' but this was a mere
form. There was no system arranged beforehand for the employment of
convicts, and indeed, till more light was admitted into the English
prisons, it was too dark to work at anything, so they just sat with the
other criminals in the dark, stifling dungeons, with nothing to do and
nothing to think of!
A more horrible punishment could not have been invented, and if the
criminal left the prison at all, he was sure to come out even worse than
he went in. And how was anything else possible?
* * * * *
Now in Ghent, and in most of the Flemish prisons, it was all as
different as could be. The women sat in work-rooms of their own, when
they had finished cleaning and cooking, mending all their own and the
men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash. This done, wool
in what is called its 'raw state' was served out to them--that is, wool
as it had been taken off the sheep's fleece--and they had to comb out
all the tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins were
taken to the men, many of whom were weavers by trade, and by them it was
woven into cloth which was sold.
Thus, in doing work in which they could occupy themselves and take a
pride, the prisoners unconsciously ceased to think all day of the bad
lives they had led, and longed to lead again; and when they had served
the time of their sentences and were discharged, they had a trade to
fall back on, and, what was still more important, the _habit_ of
working.
Besides this, the method of 'hard labour' carried out in the Ghent
prison had another great advantage for the prisoners. Every day each
person's work, which would take him a certain number of hours to finish,
was dealt out, and when it was done, and done _properly_, the prisoners
were allowed, if they chose, to go on working, and the profits of this
work were put aside to be given them when they were discharged. And in
Ghent the criminals were not left, as in England, to the mercy of the
gaoler, nobody knowing and nobody caring what became of them, for the
city magistrates went over the prison once every week, and also arranged
what meals the prisoners were to have till the next meeting.
In a gaol in the beautiful old city of Bruges, the contrast between the
care taken of the sick criminals and the numberless deaths from gaol
fever in his own country filled Howard with the deepest shame. In
Bruges, the doctors did not make stipulations that they should not be
expected to visit infectious patients, but they wrote out their
prescriptions in a book for the magistrates to read. Thus it was
possible for the rulers of the city to judge for themselves how ill a
man might be, and how he was being treated; and as long as the doctor
considered him in need of it, fourteen pence daily--a much larger sum
then than now--was allotted to provide soup and other nourishing food
for the sick person.
* * * * *
When Howard passed from Belgium to Holland he found the same care,
though here the rules respecting the gaolers were stricter, because
they were responsible for the orderly state of the prison and the
conduct of the prisoners.
The gaolers were forbidden, on pain of a fine, to be seen drinking in
public-houses, to quarrel with the prisoners, and to use bad language to
them, and, greatest difference of all from the prisons he was accustomed
to, no strong drink was allowed to be sold within the walls! Debtors
were few, while in England they were more numerous than the criminals;
and in Amsterdam not a single person had been executed for ten years,
whereas in Britain sheep-stealing and all sorts of petty offences were
punished by hanging.
From Holland Mr. Howard travelled to Germany, where, as a whole, the
same sort of rules prevailed; and in Hamburg, the wives of the
magistrates went to the prisons every Saturday to give out the women's
work. In some places the men were set to mend the roads, clean the
bridges, clear away the snow, or do whatever the magistrates desired,
and a guard with fixed bayonets always attended them. But they much
preferred this labour, hard though it often was, to being shut up
indoors, and looked healthy and cheerful.
* * * * *
After three months Mr. Howard returned home and inspected the prison at
Dover, to find to his dismay everything exactly as before; and when,
after a little rest, he set out on a second English tour, scarcely
anywhere did he perceive an improvement. One small prison in the Forest
of Dean was inhabited by two sick and half-starved men, who had been
kept in one room for more than a year almost without water or fire or
any allowance for food. In another, at Penzance, which consisted of two
tiny rooms in a stable-yard, was one prisoner only, who would have died
of hunger had it not been for a brother, even poorer than himself, who
brought him just enough to keep him alive. Again and again Howard paid
out of his own pocket the debts of many of those miserable people, which
sometimes began by being no more than a shilling, but soon mounted up,
with all the fees, to several pounds.
* * * * *
With only short intervals for rest, Howard went on travelling and
inspecting, now in the British Isles and now abroad, and by slow degrees
he began to see an improvement in the condition of the prisoners in his
own country, whether criminals or debtors in gaols or convicts in the
'hulks,' as the rotten old ships used as prisons were called. He was
careful never to leave a single cell unvisited, and spoke his mind
freely both to the keepers and to the magistrates. The House of Commons
always listened with eagerness to all he had to tell, and passed several
Bills which should have changed things much for the better. But the
difficulty lay, not in making the law, but in getting it carried out.
It is wonderful how, during all these travels and the hours spent in the
horrible atmosphere of the prisons, a delicate man like Howard so seldom
was ill. Luckily he knew enough of medicine to teach him to take some
simple precautions, and he never entered a hospital or prison before
breakfast. Dresden and Venice appear to have been the two cities on the
Continent where the prisoners were the worst treated, many of them
wearing irons, and few of them having enough food.
* * * * *
It would be impossible to give an account of all Howard's journeys,
which included Italy, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, and Holland, but
I have told you enough for you to understand what a task he had
undertaken. When he was abroad he was sometimes entreated to attend
private patients, so widely had his fame spread; and though he did not
pretend to be a doctor, he never refused to give any help that was
possible, and it was through this kindness that he lost his life. Once,
during a visit to Constantinople, he received a message from a man high
in the Sultan's favour, begging him to come and see his daughter, as she
was suffering great pain and none of the doctors could do anything to
relieve her. Howard asked the girl some questions, and felt her pulse,
and then gave some simple directions for her treatment which soon took
away the pain, and in a few days she was nearly well. Her father was so
grateful that he offered Howard a large sum of money, just as he would
have done to one of his own countrymen, and was struck dumb when Howard
declined the gift, and asked instead for a bunch of the beautiful grapes
that he had seen hanging in the garden. As soon as the official had made
sure that his ears had not deceived him, he ordered a large supply of
the finest grapes to be sent to Howard daily as long as he stayed in
Constantinople.
So for a whole month we can imagine him enjoying the Pasha's grapes, in
addition to the vegetables, bread, and water which formed his usual
meals, taken at any hour that happened to be convenient. If he wished to
go to visit a prison or hospital or lazaretto, there was no need to put
it off because 'it would interfere with his dinner-hour,' for his dinner
could be eaten any time. Not that there were any hospitals, properly
speaking, in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the Greek
quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a single doctor could be
found to attend them, and the only real hospital in the capital was for
the benefit of cats.
* * * * *
Now in most of the great seaport towns along the Mediterranean,
lazarettos, or pest-houses, were built, so that passengers on arriving
from plague-stricken countries should be placed in confinement for forty
days, till there was no fear of their infecting the people. In England,
in spite of her large trade with foreign lands, there were no such
buildings, and it is only wonderful that the plague was so little heard
of. Howard determined to insist on the wisdom and necessity of the
foreign plan; but as he always made his reports from experience and not
from hearsay, he felt that the time had come when he should first visit
the lazarettos, and then go through the forty days' quarantine himself.
This experiment was more dangerous than any he had yet tried, so instead
of taking a servant with him, as had generally been his habit, he set
out alone in November 1785.
* * * * *
As regards lazarettos, he found, as he had found with regard to prisons
and hospitals, that their condition depended in a great degree on the
amount of care taken by the ruler of the city. In Italy there were
several that were extremely well managed, especially in the dominions of
the grand duke of Tuscany; but he had made up his mind that when the
moment came for his quarantine it should be undergone in Venice, the
most famous lazaretto of them all. He took ship eastwards, and visited
the great leper hospital at the Island of Scio, where everything was
done to make the poor creatures as comfortable as possible. Each person
had his own room and a garden of his own, where he could grow figs,
almonds, and other fruit, besides herbs for cooking.
From Scio Howard sailed to Smyrna, and then changed into another vessel,
bound for Venice, which he knew would be put in quarantine the moment it
arrived in the city. The winds were contrary and the voyage slow, and
off the shores of Greece they were attacked by one of the 'Barbary
corsairs' who infested the Mediterranean. The Smyrna crew fought hard,
for well they knew the terrors of the fate that awaited them if
captured, and when their shot was exhausted they loaded their biggest
gun with spikes and nails, and anything else that came handy. Howard
himself aimed it, and after it had fired a few rounds, the enemy spread
his black sails and retired.
* * * * *
At length, after two months, Venice was reached, and as a passenger on
board a ship from an infected port, Howard was condemned to forty days'
quarantine in the new lazaretto. His cell was as dirty as any dungeon in
any English prison, and had neither chair, table, nor bed. His first
care was to clean it, but it was so long since anyone had thought of
doing such a thing that it was nearly as long before the dirt could be
made to disappear, and meanwhile he was attacked by the same headache
which had always marked his visit to such places, and in a short time
became so ill that he was removed to the old lazaretto. Here he was
rather worse off than before, for the water came so close to the walls
that the stone floor was always wet, and in a week's time he was given a
third apartment, this time consisting of four rooms, but all without
furniture and as dirty as the first.
Ordinary washing was again useless to remove the thick coating of filth
of all kinds, and at length Howard felt himself getting so ill that by
the help of the English consul he was allowed to have some brushes and
lime, which by mixing with water became whitewash. He then brushed down
the walls without hindrance from anyone, though he had made up his mind
that if the guard tried to stop him, he would lock him up in one of the
rooms. Almost directly he grew better, and was able to enjoy his tea and
bread once more.
The rules for purification of the infected ships were most strict, but
it depended on the prior, or head of the lazaretto, whether they were
carried out or not. All woollen, cotton, and silk materials, which were
specially liable to carry infection, were carefully cleansed. The bags
in which they were packed were all emptied, and the men belonging to the
lazaretto were strictly forbidden to touch them with their hands, and
always used canes to turn over the contents of the bags. This was done
daily for forty days, when they were free from infection. Other things
were kept in salt water for forty-eight hours, and short-haired animals
were made to swim ashore.
[Illustration: He brushed down the walls without hindrance from anyone.]
On November 20, Howard was set free, his health having suffered from the
lack of air and exercise, and from anxiety about his son, whom he had
left in England. However, he still continued his tour of inspection, and
it was not till February 1787 that he reached home. After a short time
given to his own affairs, in making the best arrangements that he could
for his son, now completely out of his mind, he was soon busily employed
in putting a stop very vigorously to the erection of a statue to his
honour. The subscriptions to it had been large, for everybody felt how
much the country owed to his unwearied efforts in the cause of his
fellow-men, carried out entirely at his own cost. But Howard would not
listen to them for one moment.
'The execution of your design would be a cruel punishment to me,' he
says in a letter to the subscribers. 'I shall always think the reform
now going on in several of the gaols of this kingdom, which I hope will
become general, the greatest honour and most ample reward I can possibly
receive.'
It was Howard who was right, and his friends who were wrong, for though
after his death they would no longer be denied, it is not the picture of
the statue in St. Paul's which rises before us at the name of John
Howard, but that of the prison cell.
HANNIBAL
If we could go back more than three thousand years, and be present at
one of the banquets of Egypt or of the great kingdoms of the East, we
should be struck by the wonderful colour which blazed in some of the
hangings on the walls, and in the dresses of the guests; and if,
coveting the same beautiful colour for our own homes, we asked where it
came from, the answer would be that it was the famous Tyrian purple,
made at the prosperous town of Tyre, off the coast of Palestine,
inhabited by the Phoenician race.
* * * * *
The Phoenicians were celebrated traders and sent their goods all over
the world. Ships took them to the mouth of the Nile, to the islands in
the Cornish sea, to the flourishing cities of Crete almost as civilised
as our own; while caravans of camels bore Phoenician wares across the
desert to the Euphrates and the Tigris, most likely even to India
itself. Soon the Phoenicians began to plant colonies which, like Tyre
their mother, grew rich and beautiful, and far along the north African
coast--so runs the old story--the lady Dido founded the city of
Carthage, whose marble temples, theatres, and places of assembly were by
and by to vie with those of Tyre itself.
But before these were yet completed, a wanderer, tall and strong and
sun-burned, towering nearly a head over the small Phoenician people,
landed on the coast and was brought before the queen, as Dido was now
called.
His name, he said, was Æneas, and he had spent many years in fighting
before the walls of Troy for the sake of Helen, whom he thought the
loveliest woman in the world, till he had looked on Dido the queen.
After the war was ended he had travelled westwards, and truly strange
were the scenes on which his eyes had rested since he had crossed the
seas.
Dido listened, and as she had talked with many traders from all
countries she understood somewhat of his speech, and bade him stay
awhile and behold the wonders of the city she was building. So Æneas
stayed, and the heart of the queen went out to him; but as the days
passed by he tired of rich food and baths made sweet with perfumes, and
longed for wild hills and the flocks driven by the shepherds. Then one
morning he sailed away, and Dido saw his face no more; and in her grief
she ordered a tall pyre to be reared of logs of sandalwood and cedar.
When all was prepared she came forth with a golden circlet round her
head, and a robe of scarlet falling to her feet, till men marvelled at
her fairness, and laid herself down on the top of the pyre.
'I am ready,' she said to the chief of her slaves, who stood by, and a
lighted torch was placed against the pile, and the flames rose high.
In this manner Dido perished, but her name was kept green in her city to
the end.
[Illustration: She came forth with a golden circlet round her head.]
But though Dido was dead, her city of Carthage went on growing, and
conquering, and planting colonies, in Sicily, Spain, and Sardinia. Not
that the Carthaginians themselves, though a fierce and cruel people,
cared about forming an empire, but they loved riches, and to protect
their trade from other nations it was needful to have strong fleets and
armies. For some time the various Greek states were her most powerful
enemies; but in the third century before Christ signs appeared to
those with eyes to read them that a war between Carthage and Rome was at
hand.
Now it must never be forgotten for a moment that neither then, nor for
over two thousand years later, was there any such thing as Italy, as
_we_ understand it.
The southern part of the peninsula was called 'Greater Greece,' and
filled, as we have said, by colonies from different Greek towns. In the
northern parts, about the river Po, tribes from Gaul had settled
themselves, and in the centre were various cities peopled by strange
races, who for long joined themselves into a league to resist the power
of Rome. But by the third century B.C. the Roman empire, which was
afterwards to swallow up the whole of the civilised world from the
straits of Gibraltar to the deserts of Asia, had started on its career;
the league had been broken up, the Gauls and Greeks had been driven
back, and the whole of Italy south of the river Rubicon paid tribute to
the City of the Seven Hills on the Tiber.
* * * * *
Having made herself secure in Italy, Rome next began to watch with
anxious eyes the proceedings of Carthage in Spain and in Sicily. The
struggle for lordship was bound to come, and to come soon. As to her
army, Rome feared nothing, but it was quite clear that to gain the
victory over Carthage she must have a fleet, and few things are more
striking in the great war than the determination with which Rome, never
a nation of sailors, again and again fitted out vessels, and when they
were destroyed or sunk gave orders to build more. And at last she had
her reward, and the tall galleys, with high carved prows and five banks
of oars, beat the ships which had been hitherto thought invincible.
* * * * *
It was in 263 B.C. that the war at last broke out in Sicily, and after
gaining victories both by land and sea, Rome in the eighth year of the
contest sent an army to Africa, under the consuls Regulus and Volso,
with orders to besiege Carthage. The invading army consisted of forty
thousand men, and was joined as soon as it touched the African shore by
some tributary towns, and also by twenty thousand slaves--for Carthage
was hated by all who came under her rule because of her savage cruelty.
At the news of the invasion the people seemed turned into stone. Then
envoys were sent to beg for peace, peace at any price, at the cost of
any humiliation. But the consuls would listen to nothing, and Carthage
would have fallen completely into her enemy's hands had the Romans
marched to the gates. But at this moment an order arrived from the Roman
senate, bidding Volso with twenty-four thousand men return at once,
leaving Regulus with only sixteen thousand. With exceeding folly Regulus
left the strongly fortified camp, which in Roman warfare formed one of
the chief defences, and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There
Carthage, driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily collected
forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by Xanthippus, a better general
than Regulus, won the day, and only two thousand Romans escaped
slaughter. The victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when news
came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back and her fleets
destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. In her turn Rome might have lain at
the feet of the conqueror, but Carthage had no army strong enough to act
in a foreign land, and contented herself with destroying during the war
seven hundred five-banked Roman ships, which were every time replaced
with amazing swiftness.
* * * * *
The war had raged for sixteen years when Hamilcar Barca, father of the
most famous general before Cæsar (except Alexander the Great), was given
command over land and sea. He was a young man, not more than thirty, and
belonged to one of the oldest families in Carthage. Unlike most of his
nation, he valued many things more highly than money, and despised the
glitter and show and luxury in which all the Carthaginians delighted. A
boy of fourteen when the first Punic war began (for this is its name in
history), his strongest passion was hatred of Rome and a burning desire
to humble the power which had defied his own beloved city. It did not
matter to Hamilcar that his ships were few and his soldiers
undisciplined. The great point was that he had absolute power over them,
and as to their training he would undertake that himself.
So, full of hope he began his work, and in course of time, after hard
labour, his raw troops became a fine army.
Hamilcar's first campaign in Sicily--so often the battleground of
ancient Europe--was crowned with success. The Romans were hemmed in by
his skilful strategy, and if he had only been given a proper number of
ships it would have been easy for him to have landed in Italy, and
perhaps marched to Rome. But now, as ever in the three Punic wars,
Carthage, absorbed in counting her money and reckoning her gains and
losses, could never understand where her real interest lay. She waited
until Rome, by a supreme effort, built another fleet of two hundred
vessels, which suddenly appeared on the west coast of Sicily, and gave
battle to the Carthaginian ships when, too late, they came to the help
of their general. The battle was lost, the fleet destroyed, and Hamilcar
with wrath in his soul was obliged to make peace. Sicily, which Carthage
had held for four hundred years, was ceded to Rome, and large sums of
money paid into her treasury for the expenses of the war.
* * * * *
Bitterly disappointed at the failure forced on him when victory was
within his grasp, Hamilcar was shortly after summoned back to Carthage
to put down a rebellion which the government by its greed and folly had
provoked. The neighbouring tribes and subject cities joined the foreign
troops whose pay had been held back, and soon an army of seventy
thousand men under a good general was marching upon Carthage. So
widespread was the revolt that it took Hamilcar, to whom the people had
insisted on giving absolute power, three years to quell the revolt; but
at length he triumphed, punishing the leaders, and pardoning those who
had only been led.
Peace having been restored, Hamilcar was immediately despatched to look
after affairs in Spain, where both Carthage and Rome had many colonies.
Strange to say, he took with him his three little boys, Hannibal,
Hasdrubal, and Mago, and before they sailed he bade Hannibal, then only
nine, come with him into the great temple, and swear to the gods that he
would be avenged on Rome.
If you read this story you will see how Hannibal kept his oath.
* * * * *
As this is a history of Hannibal, and not of his father, I have not room
to tell you how Hamilcar took measures to carry out the purpose of his
life, namely, the destruction of Rome. To this end he fortified the
towns that had hitherto only been used as manufactories or store-houses,
turned the traders into steady soldiers, sent for heavy armed African
troops from Libya, and the celebrated light horse from Numidia, made
friends with the Iberian (or Spanish) tribes, and ruled wisely and well
from the straits of Gibraltar to the river Ebro. But, busy as he might
be, he always had time to remember his three boys, and saw that they
were trained in the habits and learning of a soldier. All three were apt
pupils, and loved flinging darts and slinging stones, and shooting with
the bow, though in these arts they could not rival their masters from
the Balearic isles, however much they practised.
[Illustration: All three were apt pupils.]
When Hannibal was eighteen, Hamilcar was killed in a battle with some of
the native tribes who had refused to submit to the sway of Carthage. In
spite of the hatred that he cherished for everything Roman, he had
earned the undying respect of the noblest among them. 'No king was
equal to Hamilcar Barca,' writes Cato the elder, and the words of Livy
the historian about Hannibal might also be applied to his father.
'Never was a genius more fitted to obey or to command. His body could
not be exhausted nor his mind subdued by toil, and he ate and drank only
what he needed.' He had failed in his aim, but, dying, he left it as a
heritage to his son, who, on the point of victory, was to fail also.
Under Hamilcar's son-in-law, Hasdrubal, the work of training the army,
encouraging agriculture, and fostering trade was carried on as before.
It was not long before Hasdrubal made his young brother-in-law commander
of the cavalry, and often sought counsel from him in any perplexity.
Hannibal was much beloved, too, by his soldiers of all nations, and to
the end they clung to him through good and ill. He gave back their
devotion by constant care for their comfort--very rare in those
days--seeing that they were fed and warmed before entering on a hard
day's fighting, and arranging that they had proper time for rest. To the
Iberians he was bound by special ties, for before he quitted Spain for
his death-struggle with Rome he married a Spanish princess, little
thinking, when he started northwards in May 218 B.C., that he was
leaving her and her infant son behind him for ever.
* * * * *
All this time Rome had been growing both in her influence and her
dominions, when for a while her very existence was threatened by the
sudden invasion of seventy thousand Gauls, who poured in from the north.
They were defeated in a hard-fought battle and beaten back, but the
struggle with the barbarians was long and fierce, and Rome remained
exhausted. Her attention was occupied with measures needful for her own
defence and in raising both men and money, and except for warning the
Carthaginians not to cross the Ebro, she left them for a time pretty
much to themselves, thinking vainly that, as long as her navy gave her
command of the sea, she had no need to trouble herself about affairs in
Spain or Africa. Indeed, after the severe strain of the Gallic war, the
Roman senate thought that they were in so little danger either from
Carthage or from Greece that their troops might take a sorely needed
rest, and the army was disbanded.
This was Hannibal's chance, and with the siege and fall of the Spanish
town of Saguntum in 218 B.C. began the second Punic war.
* * * * *
For years the young general had been secretly brooding over his plans,
and had prepared friends for himself all along the difficult way his
army would have to march. Unknown to Rome, he had received promises of
help from most of the tribes in what is now the province of Catalonia,
from Philip of Macedon, ruler in the kingdom of Alexander the Great, and
from some of the Gauls near the Rhone and along the valley of the Po.
Many of these proved broken reeds at the time of trial, when their help
was most needed, and even turned into enemies, and Hannibal was too wise
not to have foreseen that this might happen. Still, for the moment all
seemed going as he wished; war was declared, and Rome made ready her
fleet for the attack by sea which she felt was certain to follow.
In our days of telephones and telegrams and wireless telegraphy, it is
very nearly _impossible_ for us to understand how an army of ninety
thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, and thirty-seven elephants could
go right through Spain from Carthagena in the south-east to the Pyrenees
in the north, and even beyond them, without a whisper of the fact
reaching an enemy across the sea. Yet this is what actually occurred.
Rome sent a large force under one consul into Sicily, the troops were
later to embark for Carthage, another to the Po to hold the Gauls in
check, while a third, under Publius Scipio, was shortly to sail for
Spain and there give battle to the Carthaginians. That Hannibal was
fighting his way desperately through Catalonia at that very moment they
had not the remotest idea.
* * * * *
Not only did Hannibal lose many of his men in Catalonia, but he was
obliged to leave a large body behind, under Hanno, his general, to
prevent the Catalans rising behind him, and cutting off his
communications with Spain.
The Pyrenees were crossed near the sea without difficulty, and for a
time the march was easy and rapid along the great Roman road as far as
Nismes, and then on to the Rhone between Orange and Avignon. By this
time the consul, Publius Scipio, who had been prevented for some reason
from going earlier to Spain, and was now sailing along the gulf of Genoa
on his way thither, heard at Marseilles that Hannibal was advancing
towards the river Rhone. The Roman listened to the news with incredulity
and little alarm. How could Hannibal have got over the Pyrenees and he
not know it? A second messenger arrived with the same tale as the first,
but Scipio still refused to believe there was any danger. Why, the late
rains had so swollen the river that it was now in high flood, and how
could any army ford a stream so broad and so rapid? And if it _did_, had
not the envoy said that some Gallic troops were drawn up on the other
side to prevent the enemy landing? So Scipio disembarked his troops in a
leisurely manner, and contented himself with sending out a scouting
party of horse to see where the Carthaginians might be encamped--if they
really were there at all!
* * * * *
Now all the way along his line of march Hannibal had followed his usual
policy, and had gained over to his side most of the Gauls who lay in his
path, and when they seemed inclined to oppose him, a bribe of money
generally made matters smooth. But on reaching the right bank of the
river he found the Gallic tribes, of whom Scipio had heard, assembled in
large numbers on the left bank, just at the very place where he wished
to cross. He knew at once that it was useless to persist in making the
passage here, and some other plan must be thought of.
The first thing Hannibal did was to buy at their full value all the
boats and canoes used by the natives in carrying their goods down to the
mouth of the Rhone, there to be sold to foreign traders. The people,
finding that the army of strange nations with dark skins and curious
weapons did not intend to rob them, but to pay honestly for all they
took, became ready to help them, and offered themselves as guides if
they should be needed. And to prove their good will, they began to help
the soldiers to cut down trees from the neighbouring forests, and to
scoop them into canoes, one for every soldier.
It was the third night after the Carthaginians had reached the river
when Hannibal ordered Hanno, one of his most trusted generals, to take a
body of his best troops up the stream, to a place out of sight and sound
of the Gallic camp, where one of the friendly guides had told him that a
passage might be made. The country at this point was lonely, and the
detachment met with no enemies along the road, and no one hindered them
in felling trees and making rafts to carry them to the further bank.
Early next morning they all got across, and then by Hannibal's express
orders rested and slept, for he never allowed his soldiers to fight when
exhausted. Before dawn they started on their march down the left bank,
sending up, as soon as it was light, a column of smoke to warn Hannibal
that everything had gone smoothly, and that he might now begin to cross
himself.
His men were all ready, and without hurry or confusion took their
places. The heavy-armed cavalry, with their corselets of bronze, and
swords and long spears, entered the larger vessels; two men, standing in
the stern of every boat, holding the bridles of three or four horses
which were swimming after them. It must have required great skill on the
part of the oarsmen to allow sufficient space between the boats, so that
the horses should not become entangled with each other, but no accident
happened either to the larger vessels or to the canoes which contained
the rest of the foot.
[Illustration: The Gauls poured out of their camp shouting and screaming
with delight.]
Exactly as Hannibal expected, for he always seemed to know by magic the
faults that his enemy would commit, at the sight of the Carthaginian
army on the river the Gauls poured out of their camp, and crowded to the
bank, shouting and screaming with delight and defiance. There they
stood, with eyes fixed on the advancing boats, when suddenly Hanno's men
came up and attacked them from behind. They turned to grapple with this
unexpected enemy, thus giving Hannibal time to land his first division
and charge them in the rear. Unable to stand the twofold onslaught, the
Gauls wavered, and in a few minutes disappeared in headlong flight.
When the rest of the army was safe on the left bank a camp was pitched,
and orders given for the morrow. Hannibal's great anxiety was for the
passage of the elephants, still on the other side, for the great
creatures on whose help he counted, perhaps more than he should, were
terribly afraid of water. But no man ever lived who was cleverer at
forming schemes than Hannibal, and at last he hit on one which he
thought would do. Five hundred of his light-armed horsemen from the
African province of Numidia were despatched down the river to find out
how many soldiers Scipio had with him, the number and size of the ships
that had arrived, and, if possible, the consul's future plans. Then the
general chose out some men who were specially fitted to manage the
elephants, and bade them recross the river immediately, giving them
exact directions what they were to do when they were once more on the
right bank.
The plan Hannibal had invented for the passage of the elephants was
this.
The men whom he had left on the other side of the Rhone were ordered to
cut down more trees as fast as possible, and chop them into logs, which
were bound firmly together into rafts about fifty feet broad; when
finished, these rafts were standing on the bank, lashed to trees and
covered with turf, so that they looked just like part of the land. The
rafts stretched a long way into the river, and the two furthest from the
bank were only tied lightly to the others, in order that their ropes
might be cut in a moment. By this means Hannibal felt that it would be
possible for the elephants to be led by their keepers as far as the
outermost rafts, when the ropes would be severed, and the floating
platform rowed towards the further shore. The elephants, seeing the
water all round them, would be seized with a panic, and either jump into
the river in their fright and swim by the side of the raft, guided by
their Indian riders, or else from sheer terror would remain where they
stood, trembling with fear. But though the rafts were to be built
without delay, the passage was on no account to be attempted till the
signal was given from Hannibal's camp.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the Numidians on their way down the left bank of the Rhone had
nearly reached the Roman headquarters when they met the party of cavalry
whom Scipio, on his side, had sent out to reconnoitre. The two
detachments at once fell upon each other and fought fiercely, and then,
as Hannibal had directed, the Numidians retreated, drawing the Romans
after them, till they were in sight of the Carthaginian entrenchments.
Here the cavalry pulled up, and returned unpursued to Scipio with the
news that they had defeated the famous Numidian horsemen in a hot
skirmish, and that Hannibal was entrenched higher up the river.
Immediately Scipio broke up his camp and began his march northwards,
which was just what Hannibal wanted.
But at sunrise that same morning the signal had been given for the
passage of the elephants, and the Carthaginians had started on their way
to the Alps, the heavy-armed infantry in front, with the cavalry in the
rear to protect them. Hannibal himself was determined not to stir till
the elephants were safely over, but everything fell out as he expected,
and the whole thirty-seven were soon safe beside him on dry land,
snorting and puffing with their trunks in the air.
Then he followed his main body, and when Scipio, thirsting to give
battle to the enemy he felt sure of conquering, arrived at the spot
where three days before the Carthaginian army had been encamped, he
found it empty.
[Illustration: Hannibal was determined not to stir until the elephants
were safely over.]
Nothing is so necessary to the success of a campaign as having correct
maps and information about the country through which your army has to
pass. Hannibal, who thought of everything, had thought of this also, and
had paid native guides well to lead him to the nearest passes over the
Alps. For four days the Carthaginians marched along the Rhone, till they
reached the place where the river Isère flows into it. The Gallic chief
of the tribes settled in this part of Gaul, being at war with his
brother, was easily gained over by some assistance of Hannibal's in
securing his rights, and in return he furnished the Carthaginians with
stores from the rich lands he ruled, with new clothes and strong leather
sandals, and, more precious than all, with fresh weapons, for their own
had grown blunted and battered in many a grim fight since the soldiers
left Carthagena.
At the foot of the pass leading over the Mont du Chat, or Cat Mountain,
in a lower range of the Alps, the chief bade them farewell, and returned
to his own dominions. It was then that Hannibal's real difficulties
began. His army consisted of many races, all different from each other,
with different customs and modes of warfare, worshippers of different
gods. There were Iberians from Spain, Libyans and Numidians from Africa,
Gauls from the south of France; but they one and all loved their
general, and trusted him completely, and followed blindly where he led.
Still, the plunge into those silent heights was a sore trial of their
faith, and in spite of themselves they trembled.
As they began their climb they found the pass occupied by numbers of
Gallic tribes ready to hurl down rocks on their heads, or attack them at
unexpected places. Perceiving this, Hannibal called a halt, while his
native scouts stole away to discover the hiding-places of the enemy,
and, as far as possible, how they intended to make their assault.
The guides came back bringing with them the important news that the
tribes never remained under arms during the night, but retired till
daylight to the nearest villages. Then Hannibal knew what to do. As soon
as it was dark he seized upon the vacant posts with his light-armed
troops, leaving the rest, and the train of animals, to follow at
sunrise.
* * * * *
When they returned and saw what had happened in their absence the Gallic
tribes were filled with rage, and lost no time in attacking the
baggage-horses, which were toiling painfully over the rough ground. The
animals, stung by their wounds, were thrown into confusion, and either
rolled down the precipice themselves or pushed others over. To save
worse disasters, Hannibal sounded a charge, and drove the Gauls out of
the pass, even succeeding in taking a town which was one of their
strongholds, and full of stores and horses.
After a day's rest he started again, this time accompanied by some of
the enemy, who came with presents of cows and sheep, pretending to wish
for peace, and offered themselves as guides over the next pass. But
Hannibal feared them 'even when they bore gifts,' and did not put much
faith in their promises. He determined to keep a close watch on them,
but guides of some sort were necessary, and no others were to be had.
However, he made arrangements to guard as far as possible against their
treachery, placing his cavalry and baggage train in front, and his heavy
troops in the rear to protect them.
The Carthaginian army had just entered a steep and narrow pass when the
Gauls, who had kept pace with them all the way, suddenly attacked them
with stones and rocks. Unlike their usual custom, they did not cease
their onslaughts, even during the dark hours, and did great harm; but at
sunrise they had vanished, and without much more trouble the
Carthaginians managed to reach the head of the pass, where for two days
the men and beasts, quite exhausted, rested amidst the bitter cold of
the November snows, so strange to many of the army, who had grown up
under burning suns and the sands of the desert.
* * * * *
Cold and tired though they were, hundreds of miles from their homes, one
and all answered to Hannibal's words, entreating them to put their trust
in him, and they should find ample reward for their sufferings in the
rich plains of Italy which could be seen far below them.
'You are now climbing,' he said, 'not only the walls of Italy, but also
those of Rome. The worst is past, and the rest of the way lies downhill,
and will be smooth and easy to travel. We have but to fight one, or at
most two, battles, and Rome will be ours.'
And so perhaps it might have been if Carthage had only supported the
greatest of her sons, and sent him help when he needed it so badly.
* * * * *
Hannibal was wrong when he told his soldiers that their difficulties
were over, for as all accustomed to mountain-climbing could have
informed him, it was much harder to go down the pass than it had been to
come up it. A fresh fall of snow had covered the narrow track, but
beneath it all was frozen hard and was very slippery. The snow hid many
holes in the ice or dangerous rocks, while landslips had carried away
large portions of the path. No wonder that men and beasts unused to such
ground staggered and fell and rolled down the sides of the precipice. At
length the path, barely passable before, grew narrower still; the army
halted, and an active, light-armed soldier offered to go forward, and
discover if the track became wider, and whether it was possible for even
the men to go on. But the further he went the worse matters seemed. For
some distance he managed, by clinging to a few small bushes which had
wedged themselves into clefts of the rock, to lower himself down the
side of the cliff, which was as steep as the wall of a house. Then he
found right in front of him a huge precipice nearly a thousand feet
deep, formed by a recent landslip, which entirely blocked what was once
a path. As long as this rock remained standing it was plain that no man,
still less an army, could get round it.
[Illustration: He found right in front of him a huge precipice.]
Climbing painfully back the way he had come, the soldier at once went
with his report to Hannibal, who instantly made up his mind what to do.
He carried supplies of some sort of explosive with him--what it was we
do not know--and with this he blew up the rocks in front till there was
a rough pathway through the face of the precipice. Then the soldiers
cleared away the stones, and after one day's hard work the oxen, bearing
the few stores left, and the half-starved, weary horses, were led
carefully along, and down into a lower valley, where patches of grass
could be seen, green amidst the wastes of snow. Here the beasts were
turned loose to find their own food, and a camp was pitched to protect
them.
Still, though the path had proved wide enough for horses and oxen, it
was yet far too narrow for the elephants, and it took the Numidian
troops three more days to make it safe for the great creatures which had
struck such terror into the hearts of the mountain tribes. But weak as
they were, the skin hanging loose over their bones, they made no
resistance, and soon the whole army was marching towards the friendly
Gauls, in the valley of the Po.
This was how in fifteen days Hannibal made the passage of the Little St.
Bernard five months after he had set out from Carthagena. But the
journey had been accomplished at a fearful cost, for of the fifty
thousand men whom he had led from the city there remained only eight
thousand Iberians or Spaniards, twelve thousand Libyans, and six
thousand cavalry, though, strange to say, not one elephant had been
lost.
It was well indeed for the Carthaginians that Scipio was not awaiting
them at the foot of the Alps, but was making his way northwards from
Pisa to the strong fortress of Placentia on the Po.
* * * * *
Among the friendly Gallic tribe of the Insubres, to whom Hannibal was
united by the bond of hate of Rome, the troops rested and slept, and the
horses and elephants grew fat once more. The men had had no time to
think of themselves during those terrible weeks, and their health had
suffered from the bitter cold and the wet clothes, which were often
frozen on them. To add to this, their food had been as scanty as their
labour had been hard, for most of their stores lay buried under the
snows of the Alps. But in the rich, well-watered plains of Italy, 'the
country and the inhabitants being now less rugged,' as the historian
Livy tells us, they soon recovered their strength, and besieged and took
by assault the city of Turin, capital of the territory of the Taurini,
who were always at war with the Gallic allies of Hannibal.
With two Roman armies so near at hand the Gauls did not dare to join him
in any great numbers, though they would gladly have flocked to his
standard. Rome itself was filled with consternation at the news that
Hannibal, whom they had expected to fight in Spain, was really in Italy,
and hastily recalled the troops intended for Carthage, which were still
at the Sicilian town of Lilybæum. On receipt of the order, the general
Tiberius instantly sailed with part of the men for Rome, and ordered the
rest of the legions to proceed to Rimini on the Adriatic, bidding each
man swear that he would reach the city by bedtime on a certain day.
If you look at the map and see the distance they had to go, you will be
amazed that they kept their oaths, and arrived at Rimini in four weeks,
marching daily sixteen miles.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Scipio was encamped in Placentia, and Hannibal, who had no
time to lose in besieging such a strong position, was doing his best to
tempt his enemy into the plain, where his own cavalry could have room to
manoeuvre. But instead of remaining in Placentia, and allowing
Hannibal to wear himself out in waiting, the Roman general left the
town, crossed the Po, and advanced towards the river Ticino, where he
ordered his engineers to build a bridge.
It was quite clear that with the two armies so near each other a battle
could not be long delayed, and both commanders took what measures they
thought necessary.
The way which Hannibal took to 'encourage' his army, as the Greek
historian Polybius calls it, was rather a curious one, and reminds us of
the manner in which lessons were taught in some of the old Bible
stories.
While crossing the Alps he had captured a number of young Gauls in the
very act of hurling rocks on the head of his army. Most commanders, both
in that age and for very long after, would have put them to death at
once, but Hannibal, unlike the Carthaginians, was never unnecessarily
cruel, though he put his prisoners in chains and took care they should
not escape. He now ordered these young men to be brought before him and
placed in the centre of his troops, which were drawn up all round. On
the ground near him lay some suits of armour, once worn by Gallic
chiefs, and a pile of swords, while horses were tethered close by.
Making a short speech, he then offered the young men a chance of saving
their lives with honour, or meeting an honourable death at each other's
hands. Would they take it, or would they rather remain prisoners?
A shout of joy answered him.
'Well, then,' said Hannibal, 'you will each of you draw lots which shall
fight with the other, and the victor of every pair shall be given
armour, a horse, and a sword, and be one of my soldiers.'
Pressing eagerly forward towards the urns which held the lots, the
captives stopped to hold up their hands, as was their custom, praying to
their gods for victory. After the lots were all drawn, they took their
places, and under the eyes of the army the combat began. And when it was
finished, and half the fighters lay dead on the field, it was they, and
not the victors, who were envied by the soldiers, for having gloriously
ended the misery of their lives. For in the old world death was welcomed
as a friend, and seldom was a man found who dared to buy his life at the
cost of his disgrace.
[Illustration: Under the eyes of the army the combat began.]
'The struggle between the captives,' said Hannibal to his army, 'is an
emblem of the struggle between Carthage and Rome. The prize of the
victors will be the city of Rome, and to those who fall will belong the
crown of a painless death while fighting for their country. Let every
man come to the battlefield resolved, if he can, to conquer, and if not
to die.'
* * * * *
It was in this spirit that Hannibal trained his troops and led them to
battle. He never made light of the difficulties that lay before him, or
the dogged courage of the Romans, who rose up from every defeat with
a fresh determination to be victorious. One advantage they had over
Hannibal, and it could hardly be valued too highly. Though the councils
of the senate who sent forth the troops might be divided, though the
consuls who commanded them might be jealous of each other, yet the great
mass of the army consisted of one nation, who together had fought for
years under the eagles of Rome.
Hannibal, on the other hand, had to deal with soldiers of a number of
different races, and his latest recruits, the Gauls, though eager and
courageous, could not be depended upon in battle. When to this is added
the fact that Hannibal was in a country which he did not know, among a
people who feared Rome even while they hated her, and would desert him
at the first sign of defeat; that he had to provide daily for the wants
of both men and animals, and that for sixteen years he remained in Italy
with a dwindling army, striking terror into the hearts of the bravest of
the Romans, you may have some little idea of the sort of man he was.
Well may an historian say that the second Punic war was the struggle of
a great man against a great nation. Take away Hannibal, and the
Carthaginian forces were at the mercy of Rome.
We have no space to describe the various battles in the valley of the
Po, in which Hannibal was always the victor. At the river Trebia he
defeated Scipio in December 218, by aid of the strategy which never
failed, till he taught his enemies how to employ it against himself.
Hannibal was a man who never left anything to chance, and whether his
generals were trusted to draw the enemy from a strong position into the
open field, or to decoy it into an ambuscade, everything was foreseen,
and as far as possible provided against. He took care that his troops
and his animals should go into action fresh, well-fed, and well-armed,
and more than once had the wounds of both horses and men washed with
old wine after a battle. That tired soldiers cannot fight was a truth he
never forgot or neglected.
During the winter months following the victory of Trebia, Hannibal
pitched his camp in the territories of his Gallic allies, and busied
himself with making friendly advances to the Italian cities which had
been forced to acknowledge the headship of Rome. 'He had not come to
fight against them,' he said, 'but against Rome, on their behalf.' So
the Italian prisoners were set free without ransom, while the Roman
captives were kept in close confinement. He also sent out spies to
collect all the information they could as to the country through which
he had to travel. He was anxious, for other reasons, to break up his
camp as soon as he was able, as he saw signs that the Gauls were weary
and rather afraid of having him for a neighbour.
* * * * *
Therefore, in the spring of 217 B.C. he marched southwards, placing the
Spaniards and Libyans in front, with the baggage and stores behind them,
the Gauls, whom he never quite trusted, in the centre, and the Numidian
light horse and cavalry in the rear, under his brother Mago. There were
no elephants to be thought of now, for they had all died of cold after
the battle of Trebia. North of the Arno was a wide tract of marshland,
which had to be crossed before the Apennine mountains could be reached.
Never, during all his campaigns, did Hannibal's army have to undergo
such suffering. In many ways it was worse than the passage of the Alps,
for once in the midst of the morasses, swollen by the melting snows, it
was hardly possible to snatch a moment of sleep. Many of the oxen fell
and died, and when this happened the wearied men stretched themselves on
their still warm bodies, and closed their eyes for a short space.
At length, after three nights and four days of incessant marching, till
the troops were nearly numb with cold, firm ground was reached, and for
a while they rested in peace on the hill of Fiesole, above the Arno.
Here Hannibal formed his plans for the next campaign. He found out that
Flaminius the consul was a vain, self-confident man, with neither
experience nor skill in war. It would be easy, he thought, by laying
waste the rich country to the south, to draw the Roman general from his
camp at Arretium; and so it proved. Flaminius, greedy of glory he could
never gain, refused to listen to the advice of his officers and wait for
the arrival of the other consul, and set out in pursuit of Hannibal, who
felt that victory was once more in his hands.
The place which Hannibal chose for his battle was close to lake
Thrasymene, a reedy basin in the mountains not far from the city of
Cortona. At this spot a narrow valley ran down to the lake, with lines
of hills on both sides, and a very steep mountain at the opposite end of
the lake. At the lake end the hills came so close together that there
was only a small track through which a few men could pass at a time.
Making sure that his enemy was following in his footsteps, Hannibal
placed his steady heavy armed Spaniards and Libyans on the hill at the
end of the valley opposite the lake, in full view of anyone who might
approach them. His Balearic slingers and archers, and light-armed
troops, were hidden behind the rocks of the hills on the right, and the
Gauls and cavalry were posted in gorges on the left, close to the
entrance of the defile, but concealed by folds in the ground. Next day
Flaminius arrived at the lake, and, as Hannibal intended, perceived the
camp on the hill opposite. It was too late to attack that night, but the
next morning, in a thick mist, the consul gave orders for the advance
through the pass. Grimly smiling at the success of his scheme, Hannibal
waited till the Romans were quite close to him, and then gave the
signal for the assault from all three sides at once.
Never in the whole of history was a rout more sudden and more complete.
Flaminius' army was enclosed in a basin, and in the thick fog could get
no idea from which direction the enemy was coming. The soldiers seemed
to have sprung right out of the earth, and to be attacking on every
quarter. All that the Romans could do was to fight, and fight they did
with desperation. But there was no one to lead them, for their generals,
like themselves, were bewildered, and Flaminius speedily met with the
fate his folly deserved. Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day in the
fierce battle, during which even an earthquake passed unheeded.
Multitudes were pushed back into the lake and were dragged down to the
bottom by the weight of their armour. Some fled to the hills and
surrendered on the promise of their lives being spared, and a few
thousands found their way back to Rome.
The victory being won, Hannibal charged the soldiers to seek for the
body of Flaminius, so that he might give it honourable burial, by which
nations in ancient times set special store. But, search as they might,
they could not find it, nor was it ever known what became of him. Very
differently did the Roman general Nero behave eleven years later on the
banks of the Metaurus, when Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal, seeing that
the day was lost, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy. When he
fell, Nero, with savagery worthy of his namesake the emperor, cut off
the head of the Carthaginian and threw it into Hannibal's camp.
[Illustration: Fifteen thousand Romans fell that day.]
There was silence in Rome when bands of wounded and weary soldiers came
flying to the gates, bearing the news of this fresh disaster. Fifteen
thousand men slain, fifteen thousand men taken prisoners! Hardly a
family in Rome that was not stricken, and who could tell when the
banners of the Carthaginians might not be seen on the crests of the
hills? But as the troubles of life show the stuff of which men are made,
Romans were never so great as when their cause seemed hopeless. The city
was at once put in a state of defence, every boy and old man that could
bear arms was sent to the walls, the bridges over the Tiber were
destroyed, and the senate, putting aside the consuls, elected a
dictator, who for six months had absolute power over the whole state.
The man who in this hour of sorest need was chosen to save the city was
Quintus Fabius, whose policy of 'waiting' has become a proverb even to
this day. He was already old, and was never a brilliant general, but,
like most Romans, possessed great common-sense.
Alone among the senate he saw that there was no hope of conquering
Hannibal in a pitched battle. Rome had not then--and, except for Cæsar,
never has had--a single general with a genius equal to his; but there
was one way, and one only, by which he might be vanquished, and that was
to leave him where he was, in the midst of a hostile country, till his
troops grew weary of expecting a battle which never was fought, and his
Gallic allies became tired of inaction and deserted him.
Such was the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed, but his own
countrymen put many obstacles in the way of its success. Many times he
was called a coward for declining a battle which would certainly have
been a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and hung on
Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of whom were raw and
untrained, under his own eye. In vain Hannibal drew up his men in order
of battle and tried by every kind of insult to induce Fabius to fight.
The old general was not to be provoked, and the enemy at length
understood this and retired to his camp.
* * * * *
Immediately after the battle of Thrasymene, Hannibal, knowing quite well
that he was not strong enough to attack Rome, had taken up his
headquarters on the shores of the Adriatic, so as to be at hand if
Philip of Macedon made a descent upon Italy, or Carthage sent the
reinforcements her general had so frequently asked for. But it was as
useless to trust to the promises of the one as to the patriotism of the
other, and having laid waste the country nearly as far south as
Tarentum, he suddenly crossed the Apennines to the plain on the western
sea, where he hoped to gain over some of the cities to his cause. In
this again he was doomed to disappointment, for the rich Campanian
towns, notably Capua, richest of all, held aloof till they knew for
certain who would be conqueror.
In all Hannibal's campaigns nothing is more surprising than the way he
managed to elude his enemies, who were always close to him and always on
the look-out for him; yet he went wherever he wished.
* * * * *
Seeing that he could not hope for support in Campania, Hannibal
determined to carry off the stores and booty he had collected into a
safe place east of the Apennines, in order that his troops might be
well-fed during the winter. This Fabius learned through a spy, and,
knowing that there was only one pass through the mountains, sent a body
of four thousand men to occupy a position in ambush from which they
might fall upon the Carthaginians as they entered the gorge, while he
himself encamped with a large force on a hill near at hand.
We can imagine the old dictator's satisfaction when he had completed his
arrangements for crushing the Carthaginians, and felt that _this_ time
he would put to silence the grumblings of the people in Rome.
Fabius passed the day in preparing his plan of the attack which was to
take place on the morrow, perhaps now and then allowing his secret
thoughts to linger a little on the triumph awaiting him at Rome. But
that very night Hannibal ordered one of his generals to fell some trees
and split them into faggots, which were to be piled close to where two
thousand oxen were tethered outside the camp. The men wondered a little
what was going to happen, but did as they were bid, and then, by
Hannibal's directions, had supper and lay down to sleep. Very early in
the morning they were awakened by Hannibal himself, who bade them follow
him out of the camp and tie the faggots on to the horns of the oxen.
This was soon done, and then the faggots were kindled by a burning
torch, and the oxen were driven up a low ridge which stretched before
the pass.
'Help the drivers get them on to the ridge,' he said to his light
troops, 'and then pass them, shouting and making all the noise you
can.'
The march was conducted silently for some distance, but no sooner did
the soldiers break out into shrieks and yells than the oxen grew
frightened and wildly rushed hither and thither. The Romans in the
defile below heard the shouts and saw the bobbing lights, but could not
tell what they meant. Leaving their post, the whole four thousand
climbed the ridge, where they found the Carthaginians. But it was still
too dark for the Romans to see what these strange lights really were, so
they drew up on the ridge to wait till daybreak, by which time Hannibal
and most of his army were safe through the pass, when he sent back some
of his Spanish troops to help the force he had left behind him. The
troops speedily defeated the entire army of Fabius, who had now come up,
and then, joining Hannibal, pushed on to Apulia.
[Illustration: The whole four thousand climbed the ridge.]
A howl of rage rang through Rome at the news that they had once more
been outwitted, and all Fabius' wise generalship was forgotten in this
fresh defeat. Yet, had they stopped to think, the fault did not lie with
the dictator, whose plans had been well laid, but with the commander of
the troops in the pass, who, instead of sending out scouts to find out
the cause of the disturbance on the ridge, moved his whole body of men,
leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal, in arranging the
surprise, had known something of the commander and what to expect of
him; or he may merely have counted--as he had often done before--on the
effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded on the weakness of
man, and always succeeded.
* * * * *
It was in June 216 B.C. that Hannibal gained his last great battle in
Italy. He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs
into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into
the town of Cannæ, used by the Romans as a storehouse for that part of
Italy.
A Roman army of ninety thousand men amply supplied was coming swiftly to
meet him along the splendid roads, and he had only fifty thousand to
cope with them, the greater number being Gauls, and not to be depended
on. Of the original troops that he had brought from Spain, many were
dead, but he was able to muster ten thousand cavalry, mostly consisting
of the Numidian horse, and in this respect he was superior to the
Romans. There was also to be reckoned to his advantage the fact that the
two consuls, Varro and Paulus, hated each other bitterly, and that
neither of them had any instinct of command, though Paulus was a capable
soldier and a brave man.
There was a custom among the Romans, dating back from ancient days, that
when the two consuls were serving on the same campaign, each should
command on alternate days. It seems strange that such a very practical
nation should have made such a foolish law, but so it was; and on this
occasion it once more led, as it was bound to do, to an utter defeat.
Hannibal played his usual game of sending Numidians across the river to
insult and tease his enemy, till at length Varro exclaimed in wrath that
the next day the command would be his, and that he would give the
Carthaginians battle and teach them something of the majesty of Rome.
In vain the wiser Paulus, who had followed the counsels of Fabius,
reasoned and protested. Varro would listen to nothing, and orders were
given to the army to be ready on the morrow for the attack.
The day before the battle Hannibal spent 'in putting the bodies of his
troops into a fit state to fight,' as the historian tells us--that is,
he made them rest and sleep, and prepare plenty of food for their
breakfast. Early next morning the Romans began to cross the river, which
took several hours, thus leaving their strong camp on the southern bank
with only a small force to defend it, and took up their position in the
plains, where Hannibal's cavalry had ample room to manoeuvre. And, to
make matters worse, the consul formed his men into such close columns
that they could not avoid being hampered by each other's movements.
* * * * *
The two armies when facing each other in order of battle must have
presented a curious contrast. The Roman legions and their allies,
amounting in all to seventy-six thousand men, wore helmets and cuirasses
and carried swords and short throwing-spears. In front, the Carthaginian
troops looked a mere motley crowd, so various were the dress and weapons
of the different nations. It is true that the black-skinned Libyans
might at first sight have been taken for deserters from the Roman camp,
as they, like their enemies, were clad in the same armour and bore the
same arms, the spoils of many a victory; and the young men of the
legions trembled with rage as they beheld the glittering line, and
thought of what it betokened. But the Gauls were almost naked, and their
swords, unlike those of the Romans, could only cut, and were useless for
thrusting, while the Spanish troops were clothed in a uniform of short
linen tunics striped with purple. In the van, or front of the army, were
the small remainder of the contingent from the Balearic Isles, with
their slings and bows.
In spite of the faults committed by Varro in placing his troops,
Hannibal's lines were once broken by the heavy-armed Roman soldiers,
while the cavalry on the wing by the river were fighting in such deadly
earnest that they leaped from their horses and closed man to man. But at
Cannæ, as at Trebia, the honours of the day fell to the Numidians and to
the Spanish and Gallic horse commanded by Hasdrubal. The Romans had been
again routed by an army weaker by thirty thousand men than their own;
the consul Paulus, and Servilius and Atilius, consuls of the year
before, were all dead: only Varro saved his life by a disgraceful
flight.
* * * * *
Still Hannibal did not march to Rome, as the senate expected. Though the
battle of Cannæ decided the wavering minds of those who had been waiting
to see on which side lay the victory; though the southern half of Italy
and many cities of Campania were now anxious to throw in their lot with
him; though Philip of Macedon promised once more to send ships and men
to his support, and thousands of Gauls swarmed into his camp, the army
on which he could actually rely was too small to besiege the city with
any chance of success. He did, indeed, send ambassadors to Rome, with
powers to treat for the ransoming of some Roman prisoners, but as before
in the case of the Gauls, the envoys were not even given a hearing by
the senate.
Till he got reinforcements from Carthage, Hannibal felt he must remain
where he was; but surely she would delay no longer when she knew that
the moment for which Hannibal was waiting had come, and his allies were
ready. So he sent his brother Mago to tell the story of his triumphs and
his needs to the Carthaginian senate, never doubting that a few weeks
would see the tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene
sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not reckon on the
jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his
country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome.
From the first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the
treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too heavy
for his shoulders.
* * * * *
Soon Hannibal began to understand that he would get help from no one,
and from Carthage least of all, and the knowledge was very bitter. The
Romans had gathered together a fresh army of eighty or ninety thousand
men, and had armed a large number of their slaves, offering them
freedom. Any check, however slight, to the Carthaginian army was the
cause of joy and thankfulness in Rome, for, as Livy says, 'not to be
conquered by Hannibal then was more difficult than to vanquish him
afterwards.'
In spite of Thrasymene and Cannæ things were now changed, and it was
Hannibal who was on the defensive. The Romans had learned their lesson,
and the legions always lying at the heels of Hannibal's army were
commanded by experienced generals, who adopted the policy of Fabius and
were careful never to risk a battle.
Thus three years passed away, and Carthage, absorbed in the difficult
task of keeping Spain, from which she drew so much of her wealth, in her
hands, sent thither all the troops she could muster to meet the Romans,
who were gradually gaining ground in the peninsula.
In Italy the war was shifting to the south, and about 213 B.C. Hannibal
was besieged in the town of Tarentum by a Roman fleet which had blocked
the entrance to the gulf on which the city was situated. The alarm in
Tarentum was great; escape seemed impossible; but Hannibal ordered
boards to be placed in the night across a little spit of land that lay
between the gulf and the open sea. When darkness fell, the boards were
greased, and ox-hides stretched tightly over them. Then one by one the
imprisoned Tarentine fleet was dragged along the boards and launched on
the other side, and when all the ships were afloat, they formed in a
line and attacked the Roman vessels, which were soon sunk or destroyed.
It was deeds such as these which showed the power Hannibal still
possessed, and kept alive the Roman dread of him; yet he himself knew
that the triumph of Rome was only a work of time, and that the kingdom
of Carthage was slipping from her.
In Sicily, which had once been hers, and even now contained many towns
which were her allies, a strong Roman party had arisen. Syracuse in the
south was besieged by Appius Claudius by land and by Marcellus by sea,
and its defence is one of the most famous in history. The Greek
engineer, Archimedes, invented all sorts of strange devices new to the
ancient world. He made narrow slits in the walls, and behind them he
placed archers who could shoot through with deadly aim, while they
themselves were untouched. He taught the smiths in the city how to make
grappling irons, which were shot forth from the ramparts and seized the
prows of the ships. By pressing a lever the vessels were slowly raised
till they stood nearly upright, when the grapplers were opened, and the
ships fell back with a splash that generally upset the crew into the
sea, or were filled with water and sunk to the bottom. Of course you
must remember that these were not great vessels with four masts like our
old East Indiamen, but were long, high boats, worked by banks of oars,
the shortest row being, of course, the lowest, nearest the water.
After a while the Romans got so frightened, not knowing what Archimedes
might do next, that they thought every end of loose rope that was lying
about hid some machine for their destruction. For a long while the
engineer kept the enemy at bay, but in the end the power of Rome
conquered; the beautiful marble palaces were ruined, and the paintings
and statues which had been the glory of Syracuse were carried to Rome.
* * * * *
Just at this time news from Spain became more and more gloomy for the
Carthaginians. The young Scipio, who had saved his father's life nine
years before at the battle of the Ticinus, was, at the age of
twenty-six, made commander-in-chief in the peninsula. Though never a
great soldier, Scipio was a good statesman, and had the gift of winning
men to his side. Multitudes of natives flocked to his standard, and many
important places fell into his hands; and in his hour of victory he was
merciful, and caused his captives as little suffering as possible. In
the words of the people themselves, 'he had conquered by kindness.'
Seeing that for the time, at any rate, all was lost in Spain, Hasdrubal
set out with an army to join his brother Hannibal. In Auvergne, in the
centre of Gaul, where he spent the winter, large numbers of Gallic
tribes joined him, and in the spring he crossed the Alps by the same
pass as Hannibal. But the difficulties of nine years earlier were now
absent, for the mountaineers understood at last that no evil to them was
intended, and let the Carthaginian army climb the defile without
attempting to hurt them. Traces of Hannibal's roads remained everywhere,
and thus the troops, consisting perhaps of sixty thousand men, marched
easily along and descended into the plains of the Po. But it was all
useless; before Hasdrubal could join Hannibal, who was still in Apulia,
the consul Nero, encamped near by at the head of a considerable force,
made prisoners some messengers sent by the general to his brother.
Instantly taking steps to have the roads to the north watched by armies,
Nero set off at night with a picked detachment to meet the consul Livius
on the coast of the Adriatic, south of the river Metaurus. Night and day
his men marched, eating as they went food brought them by the peasants.
In less than ten days they had gone two hundred miles, and entered the
camp of Livius by night, so that the Carthaginian general might know
nothing of their arrival. Next morning Nero insisted, against the
opinion of the other generals, that battle should be given immediately,
as he must return and meet Hannibal at once. In vain they protested that
his troops were too tired to fight; he shut his ears, the signal was
sounded, and the army drawn up.
* * * * *
The Carthaginians had already taken their places at the time that the
Romans began to form, when Hasdrubal, riding down his lines to make sure
that everything was done according to his orders, noticed that among the
enemy's array clad in shining armour were a band with rusty shields, and
a bevy of horses which looked lean and ill-groomed. Glancing from the
horses to their riders, he saw that their skins were brown with the sun
of the south and their faces weary. No more was needed to tell him that
reinforcements had come, and that it would be madness to risk a fight.
He could do nothing during the day, but as soon as the night came he
silently broke up his camp and started for the river Metaurus, hoping to
put it between him and the Romans; but it was too late.
Had the Carthaginian army only consisted of old and well-seasoned troops
all might have gone well with it; but the large body of Gauls were
totally untrained, and in their disappointment at not being allowed to
give battle, seized on all the drink in the camp, and fell along the
roadside quite unable to move. Before Hasdrubal could get his vanguard
across the Romans were close upon him, and there was nothing left for
him to do but to post his men as strongly as he could.
For hours they fought, and none could tell with whom the victory would
lie: then a charge by Nero decided it. When the day was hopelessly lost,
Hasdrubal, who had always been in the fiercest of the struggle, cheering
and rallying his men, rode straight at the enemy, and died fighting.
Thus ended the battle of the Metaurus, the first pitched battle the
Romans had ever gained over the Carthaginian army.
The next night Nero set off again for Apulia, bearing with him the head
of Hasdrubal, which, as we have said, he caused to be flung into
Hannibal's tent, staining for ever the laurels he had won.
* * * * *
With the triumph of Nero, and his reception in the Rome which he had
delivered, dates the last act of the second Punic war. At the news of
his brother's defeat, which was a great blow to him, Hannibal retreated
into the most southern province of Italy. His troops, whose love and
loyalty never wavered, were largely composed of foreign levies, and had
not the steadiness and training of his old Libyans and Spaniards. Never
for one moment did he think of abandoning his post till his country
called him, yet his quick eye could not fail to read the signs of the
times. The Roman senate was no longer absorbed by the thought of war.
Relieved by Nero's victory from the crushing dread which for so long had
weighed it down, it was taking measures to encourage agriculture and to
rebuild villages, to help the poor who had been ruined during these
years of strife, to _blot out_, he felt, the traces of the victories he
had won. And he had to watch it all and to know himself powerless,
though he still defied Rome for three years longer, and knew that she
still feared _him_.
* * * * *
It was in the year 204 B.C. that Scipio entreated the senate to allow
him to carry the war into Africa, which he had already visited, and
where he had already made many important allies, among them the famous
Numidian Massinissa, whom he promised to make king over his tribe.
Fabius, now ninety, declared it was folly to take an army to Africa
while Hannibal remained in Italy, and a large party agreed with him. The
people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted
that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the
senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio
should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do
so at the head of no more than thirty thousand or forty thousand men.
That so practical and sensible a nation should not have remembered the
lesson of the defeat of Regulus, and have known the dangers which must
be run by a small army in a foreign land, is truly surprising, and had
Massinissa, with his priceless Numidian horse, not joined the Romans,
Scipio's army would more than once have been almost certainly cut to
pieces.
* * * * *
When it became known that Scipio had landed and was besieging the old
town of Utica, the rich and pleasure-loving citizens of Carthage were
filled with despair. But this did not last long, for one of the leading
men of the city, called Hanno, collected a small force, while Hasdrubal
Gisco and Syphax the Numidian raised another, and between them both
Scipio was forced to retreat. If only Hannibal had been there----But
Hannibal was still in Italy, and no tidings of the struggle had reached
him.
Winter had now set in, and though it was only the mild winter of North
Africa, Scipio entrenched himself securely on rising ground, and
Hasdrubal Gisco with Syphax made their camps close by. The
Carthaginians, who had several times been defeated, now wished to make
peace, and Syphax, whom the Roman general was most anxious to gain over
to his side, was the messenger chosen. While discussing the terms,
Scipio suddenly learned that the Carthaginian and Numidian huts were
built solely of wood and reeds, covered with hastily woven
mats--materials which they had gathered from the woods and streams close
by.
'A spark would set them on fire, and _how_ they would burn,' said the
general to himself, and the evil thought took root, till one night
orders were given to surround the camps stealthily and put flaming
torches against the walls. In a few minutes the country round was
lighted up with a fierce blaze, and the Carthaginians, wakened from
their sleep and not knowing what was happening, were cut down on all
sides before they could defend themselves. This piece of wicked
treachery may be said to have turned the scales in favour of Rome. A
battle followed in a place called 'the great plains,' when Hasdrubal was
beaten and Syphax soon after fell into the hands of the enemy. The
Numidian chief was sent to Rome, and Sophonisba, his wife, took poison
rather than bear the humiliation of walking behind the triumphal car of
the Roman victor.
* * * * *
Massinissa obtained the reward promised for his help--or his
treason--and was made king of Numidia. Again Scipio offered peace, and
the terms he proposed were as good as Carthage had any right to expect;
but, favourable as they were, a few citizens were left to reject them
with scorn. The fastest ship in the Carthaginian navy was sent to Italy
to summon Hannibal from Bruttium and Mago from Milan. When the message
arrived, Mago was already dead, but his troops embarked immediately and
joined Hannibal and his twenty-five thousand men who had landed in
Africa.
It was in this way that Hannibal came back to his native city, after an
absence of thirty-six years. When he had last seen it he had been a boy
of nine, and the events that had since happened crowded into his memory.
Notwithstanding his recent defeats, he had 'left a name at which the
world grew pale,' and during the sixteen years he had spent in Italy
none had dared to molest him. Single-handed he had fought; was it
possible that at last his hour of triumph was at hand?
* * * * *
Now that Hannibal, whom they had deserted and betrayed, was really in
Africa the weak and foolish citizens of Carthage sent orders to him to
fight without delay. For answer he bade the messengers 'confine their
attention to other matters, and leave such things to him, for he would
choose for himself the time of fighting,' and without more ado he began
collecting a number of elephants and all the Numidian horse that had not
gone over to Rome with Massinissa.
He was labouring night and day at this task when again his plans were
spoilt by some citizens of Carthage, who broke the truce which had been
made by seizing some Roman ships. Scipio lost no time in avenging
himself by burning all the towns and villages on the plain, and
occupying the passes on a range of mountains where Hannibal had hoped to
take up his position. Baulked in this project, Hannibal sent to Scipio
to beg for an interview, and tried to obtain for Carthage better terms
than the Roman was inclined to grant.
'You have broken the truce by capturing the vessel containing the Roman
envoys,' he said, 'and now you and your country must throw yourselves on
our mercy, or else conquer us.'
* * * * *
So the armies drew up opposite each other on the field of Zama, on the
bright spring morning of 202 B.C. which was to decide whether
Carthaginians or Romans were to be masters of the world. Hannibal had
about five thousand men more than his enemy, but he was weak in cavalry,
and the eighty elephants which he had placed in front were young and
untrained. The cavalry of the Romans was under the command of Massinissa
and of Lælius, friend of the historian Polybius, and it was this strong
body of Numidian horse which ultimately turned the fate of the day. As
for the elephants, the sound of the Roman trumpets frightened them
before the battle had begun, and threw them into confusion. They charged
right into the middle of the Carthaginian cavalry, followed by
Massinissa and by Lælius, who succeeded in breaking the ranks of the
horse and putting them to flight. For a moment it seemed as if the heavy
armed foreign troops which Hannibal then brought up would prevail
against the Roman legions, but at length they were forced back on to
their own lines, which took them for deserters.
With a cry of 'Treachery!' the foreign soldiers fell on the
Carthaginians, and fighting hard they retreated on Hannibal's reserve,
the well-trained Italians.
* * * * *
At this point there was a pause, and both commanders made use of it to
re-form their armies. Then the battle began afresh, and the generals
left their posts and fought for hours in the ranks of the common
soldiers. At last the cavalry returned from pursuit and threw itself on
the rear of the Carthaginians. This time they gave way, and Hannibal,
seeing that the battle was lost, quitted the field, in the hope that
somehow or other he might still save his country from destruction.
How bitter, in after years, must have been his regret that he had not
died fighting among his men at Zama!
* * * * *
Though Hannibal and the Romans hated each other so much, they were alike
in many respects, and in nothing more than in the way that no defeat
ever depressed them or found them without some plan to turn it into
victory. In truth, in spite of his love for his country, which was
dearer to him than wife or child, Hannibal was far, far more of a Roman
than a Carthaginian.
* * * * *
Peace was made, and, as was inevitable, the terms were less favourable
than when the fate of both countries hung in the balance. Naturally, the
Carthaginians threw the blame on Hannibal, and naturally also, being
filled with the meanest qualities that belong to mankind, when they
found that all was in confusion and no one knew where to turn, they sent
for the man they had abandoned and abused, and bade him set them on
their feet again. In a moment all the wrongs he had suffered at their
hands were forgotten; he accepted the position of dictator or _suffete_,
he caused more humane laws to be passed, and not only saved the people
from ruin and enabled the merchants again to sell their goods, but paid
the large sum demanded as a war indemnity by Rome within the year.
Having done what no other man in Carthage, probably no other man in his
age, could possibly have done, it is needless to remark that his
fellow-citizens grew jealous of him, and listened without anger to
Rome's demand for his surrender, made, it is just to say, in spite of
the indignation of Scipio. To save himself from the people for whom he
had 'done and dared' everything he escaped by night, leaving a sentence
of banishment to be passed on him and the palace of his fathers to be
wrecked. Perhaps--who knows?--he may have wished to save his country
from the crowning shame of giving him up to walk by the chariot wheels
in the triumph of Scipio Africanus.
* * * * *
The remaining years of his life--nearly twenty-five, it is said--are so
sad that one can hardly bear to write about them. The first place at
which he sought refuge was at Ephesus, with Antiochus the Great, lord,
at least in name, of a vast number of mixed races from Asia Minor to the
river Oxus. Here, still keeping in mind the master passion of his life,
he tried to induce Antiochus to form a league by which Rome could be
attacked on all sides. But the king, who had little in him of greatness
but his name, made war before his preparations were half finished, and
gave the chief commands to incapable men, leaving Hannibal to obey
orders instead of issuing them. One by one the allies forsook the king
and joined Rome--even Carthage sending help to the Roman fleet. In 196
B.C. the battle of Magnesia put an end to the war, and the dominions of
Antiochus became a Roman province.
Once more the surrender of Hannibal was made one of the terms of the
treaty, and once more he escaped and spent some time first in Crete, and
then in Armenia, and finally, for the last time, returned to Asia Minor
on the invitation of Prusias, king of Bithynia.
* * * * *
The hearty welcome of Prusias gave Hannibal a feeling of pleasure and
rest that he had not known for long; but he was never destined to be at
peace, and soon after a Roman envoy arrived at the palace of Prusias and
demanded that the enemy of Rome should instantly be given up. To a brave
soldier like Flaminius the mission was highly distasteful, which is
another proof, if one were wanted, how great even in his downfall was
the dread the Carthaginian inspired. 'Italy will never be without war
while Hannibal lives!' had been the cry long, long ago, and it still
rang proudly in his ears. He knew, and had always known, that his life
would end by his own hand, and most likely he was not sorry that the
moment had come.
'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety, since they cannot wait
for the death of one old man,' he said, when he heard that soldiers had
surrounded his house, and drawing from his tunic some poison that he
carried, he swallowed it and fell back dead. He had escaped at last.
[Illustration: 'Let me release the Romans from their anxiety,' he said.]
His last words had told truly the story of his life. It was the one old
man who had held at bay the whole of the great nation.
* * * * *
On reading the tale of his steadfastness, his unselfishness, his
goodness to his soldiers, and the base ingratitude and wickedness with
which his countrymen treated him, more than ever do we instinctively
long that the lost cause had proved the winning one, and again and again
we have to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would have been to
the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of
almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed
for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved
herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The
government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries
she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense.
Considering the customs of the world during the thousand years of her
greatest glory, she was seldom cruel, and her people were ready at all
times to sacrifice themselves for the good of the state.
So it was well for us now and here that Hannibal was overthrown at Zama,
and was banished from Carthage; yet our hearts will always cry out with
Othello, 'Oh, the pity of it!'
THE APOSTLE OF THE LEPERS
No one can travel through the countries of the East or sail about the
lovely islands of the South Seas without constantly seeing before him
men and women dying of the most terrible of all diseases--leprosy. The
poor victims are cast out from their homes, and those who have loved
them most, shrink from them with the greatest horror, for one touch of
their bodies or their clothes might cause the wife or child to share
their doom. Special laws are made for them, special villages are set
apart for them, and in old times as they walked they were bound to utter
the warning cry,
'Room for the leper! Room!'
From time to time efforts have been made to help these unfortunate
beings, and over two hundred years ago a beautiful island in the Ægean
Sea, called Leros, was set apart for them, and a band of nuns opened a
hospital or lazar-house, as it was called, to do what they could to
lessen their sufferings, and sooner or later to share their fate.
Nobody, except perhaps the nuns' own relations, thought much about
them--people in those days considered illness and madness to be shameful
things, and best out of sight. The world was busy with discoveries of
new countries and with wars of conquest or religion, and those who had
no strength for the march fell by the wayside, and were left there.
Nowadays it is a little different; there are more good Samaritans and
fewer Levites; the wounded men are not only picked up on the road, but
sought out in their own homes, and are taken to hospitals, where they
are tended free of cost.
It is the story of a man in our own times, who gave himself up to the
saddest of lives and the most lonely of deaths, that I am now going to
tell you.
On a cold day in January 1841 a little boy was born in the city of
Louvain, in Belgium, to Monsieur and Madame Damien de Veuster. He had
already a brother a few years older, and for some time the children grew
up together, the younger in all ways looking up to the elder, who seemed
to know so much about everything. We have no idea what sort of lives
they led, but their mother was a good woman, who often went to the big
church in the town, and no doubt took her sons with her, and taught them
that it was nobler and better to serve Christ by helping others and
giving up their own wills than to strive for riches or honours. Their
father, too, bade them learn to endure hardness and to bear without
complaints whatever might befall them. And the boys listened to his
counsel with serious faces, though they could be merry enough at times.
The lessons of their early years bore fruit, and one day the elder boy
informed his parents that he wished to become a priest. It was what both
father and mother had expected, and most likely hoped, and they at once
agreed to his desire. Arrangements were soon made for his entering a
training college, where he would have to live until he was old enough to
be ordained.
Joseph, the younger, missed his brother greatly. He loved his father and
mother dearly, but they seemed far too old to share the thoughts and
dreams which came to him in the night-time, or during the quiet moments
that he passed in church. Yet, from what we know of his after-life, we
may be quite certain that he was no mere dreamer, standing aloof from
his fellows. He was fond of carpentering and building; he watched with
interest while the workmen were laying down the pipes which were to
carry the water from the river to some dry field; he noted how the
doctor bound up wounds and treated sores; and indeed no sort of
knowledge that a man may gather in his everyday existence came amiss to
young Damien. As to what he would do when he was a man, he said nothing,
and his parents said nothing either.
On January 3, 1860, Joseph was nineteen, and Monsieur Damien proposed to
take him as a birthday treat to see his brother, and to leave the two
together while he went to the town on some business. It was a long time
since they had met, and there was much to ask and hear. We do not know
exactly what took place, but when Monsieur Damien returned to fetch
Joseph, his son told him that he had made up his mind to follow in his
brother's steps, and to be a priest also.
Monsieur Damien was not surprised; he had long seen whither things were
tending. He would perhaps have liked to keep one son with him, but
Joseph was old enough to judge for himself and he did not intend to make
any objection. Still, he was hardly prepared for the boy's announcement
that farewells were always painful, and that he thought he would best
spare his mother by remaining where he was until she had grown
accustomed to doing without him. Then he would beg permission to come to
see her for the last time before he became a priest.
Very reluctantly Monsieur Damien gave his consent to this plan. He tried
in vain to induce Joseph to think it over and to go back with him; but
the young man was firm, and at length the father took leave of both his
sons, and with a heavy heart returned home to break the news to his
wife.
In this way Joseph Damien set about the work which was by and by to make
his name so famous, though to that he never gave a thought. He does not
seem to have dreamed dreams of greatness, like so many boys, or of
adventures of which he was always the hero. As far as we can guess,
Joseph Damien just did the thing that came next and lay ready to his
hand, and thus fitted himself unconsciously for what was greater and
better. Just now he had to study hard, and as soon as his father had
written to say that neither he nor his mother wished to hold back their
son from the life he had chosen, Joseph entered the same college where
his brother had received his training for the priesthood.
* * * * *
For some time--we do not know if it was years or only months--Joseph
studied hard, hoping that the harder he worked the sooner he would be
ready to go forth on 'active service' against the sin and misery of the
world. His brother's plans were already formed. He was to make one of a
band of priests starting for the islands in the South Seas, which more
than forty years before had been visited by a band of American
missionaries.
It was a strange state of things that prevailed in the lovely group of
the Sandwich Islands when the missionaries arrived there. The isles had
been discovered during the eighteenth century by Captain Cook, but from
the white men, chiefly merchants and traders, who followed him the
natives learned nothing but evil, and fell victims to horrible diseases
hitherto unknown there. To the Americans, who had left snow and ice
behind them, the islands of Hawaii--to use their native name--appeared
fairyland itself. Though the sun beat fiercely on them, cool streams
rushed down the mountain-side, and in the great forests there was
silence as well as darkness. Here the trees were bound together by ropes
of flowery creepers, while outside, in the light and air, were groves of
towering cocoa palms, standing with their roots almost in the water, and
sheltering the huts, which could hardly be seen for the huge clusters
of heliotropes, roses, and lilies that overshadowed them. But the sea!
the sea! it was there that the greatest marvels were to be found!
Fishes, orange, blue and scarlet; corals, seaweeds of every colour,
creatures of every form and shape, whose names no white man knew.
Afterwards, the missionaries learned that volcanoes were scattered over
the islands, some extinct and only showing wide black mouths, others
still blazing and throwing up jets of burning lava, which even in the
sunshine take on a scarlet hue, and in the night gleam a yellowish
white. Besides these wonders, there were also the curious customs of the
people to be studied; and it was very necessary to know these, or a man
might break the law and incur the penalty of death without having the
slightest idea that he was doing any harm. For instance, he might go to
pay a friendly visit to a chief, on whom the shadow of the visitor might
fall; he might lose his way, and seeing a hut surrounded by a palisade
would hasten to ask the shortest road to his tent, not guessing that he
was entering the sacred home of a chieftain. If he offered a tired child
a drink of cocoa-nut milk or a ripe banana, and she took it, he had
brought about her death as certainly as if he had put the rope round her
neck. But shortly before the arrival of the Americans a great king had
abolished these iron rules, though no doubt they still lingered in
out-of-the-way places.
The reigning monarch, son of the late king, was bathing in the
marvellous blue sea with his five wives when a messenger brought him
word that the white strangers had landed. Full of politeness, like all
the islanders, the king at once hastened to greet them, followed by the
ladies. The missionaries felt a little awkward, which was foolish, as
the Hawaiians seldom wore clothes, being more comfortable without them;
but the king noticed that his guests were ill at ease, and determined
that he would be careful not to hurt their feelings again. So when they
had taken leave of him, he sent for one of his servants and bade him
seek for some clothes belonging to a trader who had died in the palace.
A pair of silk stockings was found and a tall and curly brimmed hat,
such as in pictures you may see the duke of Wellington wearing after the
battle of Waterloo. The king smiled and nodded, and the very next
afternoon he put on the hat and the stockings, and highly pleased with
himself set out to call upon his visitors. The missionary whose tent he
entered was sitting inside with his wife, having just put up in one
corner a bed which they had brought with them. They were so amazed at
the sight of this strange figure that they stood silently staring; but
when, in the act of greeting them, Liholiho's glance fell upon the bed,
he completely forgot the object of his visit. 'What a delicious
soft-looking thing, to be sure!' he said to himself, and with a spring
he landed upon the bed, and jumped up and down, while the tall hat
rolled away and settled in a corner.
Like many people, when once he had begun to imitate the customs of other
nations, king Liholiho was very particular in seeing that he was not put
to shame by his own family. The missionary's wife wore clothes, and it
was necessary, therefore, that his own ladies should not go uncovered;
so orders were given accordingly, and when the white lady came to pay
her respects at the palace--a somewhat larger hut than the rest--she
found the brown ladies sitting up in great state to receive her, one of
the widows of the late king being dressed in a garment made of seventy
thicknesses of bark from the trees.
* * * * *
Such were the islands to which Joseph's elder brother longed to go. His
own Church had sent out missionaries over twenty years before, who had
now written home appealing for helpers. He had given in his name among
the first, and had been accepted, when he was suddenly stricken with
fever, and forbidden by the doctor to think of carrying out his plan. In
vain did he argue and entreat; the doctor was firm. 'You would be a
hindrance, and not a help,' he said, and in a paroxysm of grief the
young man hid himself among the bedclothes, where Joseph found him.
'Yes, the doctor is right; you cannot go,' sighed the boy, when his
brother had poured out the tale of his disappointment. 'You might get
the fever again, you know, and only strong men are wanted there. But let
_me_ go instead; I dare say I shall not do as well, but, at any rate, I
will do my best.'
* * * * *
Now there was a strict rule in the college that no student should post a
letter without the superior having first read it. Joseph knew this as
well as anyone, but was far too excited and too much afraid of what the
superior might say to pay any attention to it. So he wrote secretly to
the authorities who were preparing to send out the missionaries, and
begged earnestly that he might be allowed to take his brother's place,
although he had not yet passed the usual examinations for the
priesthood. Perhaps candidates for the South Sea Islands were not very
plentiful just then, or there may have been something uncommon about
Joseph's letter. At all events he was accepted, and when the news was
told him by the superior he could not contain his delight, but rushed
out of doors, running and jumping in a manner that would have greatly
astonished his bishop, could he have seen it.
* * * * *
For several years he worked hard among the islands making friends with
the people, to whom he soon was able to talk in their own language. The
young priest knew something about medicine, and could often give them
simple remedies, so that they learned to look up to him, and were
willing to listen to his teaching of Christianity. He was sociable and
pleasant, and always ready to help in any way he could, and he was
welcomed by many whose religious views differed from his own. Of course
he had not been long there without finding out that the disease of
leprosy was terribly common, and that the Government had set apart the
island of Molokai as a home for the lepers, in order to prevent the
spread of the disease; but the work given him to do lay in other
directions, and in spite of the intense pity he felt for these poor
outcasts he did not take any part in actual relief.
In the year 1873 Father Damien happened to be sent to the island of
Maui, where the great volcano has burnt itself out, and while he was
there the bishop came over to consecrate a chapel which had just been
built. In his sermon he spoke of the sad condition of the colony at
Molokai, and how greatly he wished to spare them a priest who would
devote himself entirely to them. But there was much to do elsewhere, and
it was only occasionally that one could go even on a visit. Besides,
added the bishop, life in Molokai meant a horrible death in a few years
at latest, and he could not take upon himself to send any man to that.
Father Damien heard, and a rush of enthusiasm came over him. He had done
the work which he had been given faithfully and without murmuring, and
now something higher and more difficult was offered. Without a moment's
hesitation he turned to the bishop, his face glowing as it had done more
than ten years before, when the letter which had decided his career had
come to him.
'Some fresh priests have arrived at Hawaii,' he said; 'they can take my
place. Let _me_ go to Molokai.'
And he went, without losing an hour, for a cattle-boat was sailing that
very day for the island of the outcasts.
* * * * *
Every Monday a small steamer left Honolulu for Molokai, bearing any
fresh cases of leprosy that had broken out since the departure of the
last boat. On the shore were the friends and relations of the doomed
passengers, weeping tears as bitter as those of the Athenians in the old
story, when the ship each ninth year left the port with the cargo of
youths and maidens for the Minotaur. Molokai was only seven hours
distance from Hawaii, and on the north side, where the two leper
villages lie situated, are high precipices guarded by a rough sea.
Inland there are dense groves of trees, huge tree-ferns, and thick
matted creepers. Here brilliant-plumaged birds have their home, while
about the cliffs fly the long-tailed white bo'sun birds; but as a whole
Molokai cannot compare in beauty with the islands which Father Damien
had left behind him.
A hospital had been built for the worst cases, and when Father Damien
arrived it was quite full. He at once went to see the poor people and
did all he could to relieve them a little; and when that was impossible,
he sat by their bedsides, speaking to them of the new life they were
soon to enjoy, and often he dug their graves, if nobody else could be
found to do so. The rest of the lepers had taken fright, and had built
themselves wretched houses, or, rather, sheds, of branches of the
castor-oil trees, bound together with leaves of sugar-cane or with
coarse grass. They passed their time in playing cards, dancing, and
drinking, and very rarely took the trouble to wash either themselves or
their clothes. But this was not altogether their fault. Molokai, unlike
many of the other islands, was very badly off for water, and the lepers
had to carry from some distance all that they used. Under these
circumstances it was perhaps natural that they should use as little as
possible.
Such was the state of things when Father Damien reached Molokai, and in
spite of his own efforts, aided sometimes by a few of the stronger and
more good-natured of the lepers, such it remained for many months. The
poor creatures seem to have grown indifferent to their miseries, or only
tried to forget them by getting drunk. Happily the end was at hand; for
when a violent gale had blown down all their huts it was plain, even to
them, that something must be done, and Father Damien wrote at once to
Honolulu the news of the plight they were in.
In a very short time a ship arrived with materials to enable the lepers
to have comfortable houses, and carpenters to put them up. Of course
these carpenters lived quite separate from the inhabitants of the
island, and as long as they did not touch the lepers, or anything used
by them, were in no danger of catching the disease; while in order to
hasten matters the Father turned his own carpentering talents to
advantage, and with the help of some of the leper boys built a good many
of the simpler houses, in which the poorer people were to live. Those
who were richer, or who had rich friends, could afford more comforts;
but all the houses were made after one pattern, with floors raised above
the ground, so that no damp or poisonous vapours might affect them.
But while all this was being done, Father Damien knew that it was
impossible to keep the village clean and healthy unless it had a better
supply of water. He had been too busy since he came to the island to
explore the country in search of springs, but now he began to make
serious inquiries, and found to his joy that there existed at no very
great distance a large and deep lake of cold fresh water, which had
never been known to run dry. At his request, pipes were sent over from
Honolulu by the next steamer, and Father Damien was never happier in
his life than when he and some of the stronger men were laying them down
from the lake to the villages with their own hands. Of course there were
still some who preferred to be dirty, but for the most part the lepers
were thankful indeed for the boon.
Little by little things began to improve, and the king and queen of the
islands were always ready and eager to do all they could to benefit the
poor lepers and to carry out Father Damien's wishes. Regular allowances
of good food were sent weekly to the island, a shop was opened, some
Sisters of Mercy came to nurse the sick and look after the children, a
doctor established himself in the island, and one or two more priests
and helpers arrived to share Father Damien's labours and to comfort him
when he felt depressed and sad; while from time to time a ship might be
seen steaming into Molokai from Honolulu filled with the relations and
friends of the poor stricken people. The sick and the healthy could not,
of course, touch each other--_that_ was forbidden--but they might sit
near enough to talk together, and what happiness it must have been to
both! Late in the evening the ship weighed anchor, and good-byes were
shouted across the water. No doubt hearts were heavy both on deck and on
the shore, where the green cliffs remained crowded as long as the ship
was in sight. But it gave the exiles something to look forward to, which
meant a great deal in their lives.
* * * * *
Now anyone would have thought that, after all Father Damien had done and
obtained for them, the lepers of Molokai would have been filled with
gratitude to their priest. But among the inhabitants of the island there
was a large number who met him sullenly, with downcast faces, and spoke
evil of him behind his back. The priest took no notice, and greeted them
as cheerfully as he did the rest, but he knew well the cause of their
dislike, and he could take no steps to remove it. The reason was not far
to seek; he had tried, and at last succeeded, in putting down the
manufacture of spirits from the ki-tree, which grew all over the island,
and made those who drank it, not stupid, but almost mad. He had been at
Molokai for ten years before their enmity died out, and that was only
when they knew that he, like themselves, was a leper!
For the doom, though long delayed, fell upon him. When he first
suspected it he consulted some of the doctors then on the island, as,
besides the one always living there, there were others who came for a
few months to study the disease under great precautions. They laughed at
his words, and told him that he was as strong as ever he was, and that
no one else could have done what he had done for ten years without
catching the disease, but as he had escaped so far he was probably safe
to the end. Father Damien did not contradict them. He saw that they
really believed what they stated, and were not seeking to soothe his
fears; but he went to a German doctor who had not been present with the
rest and told him the symptoms he had himself noticed. 'You are right,'
said the doctor after a pause, and Father Damien went out and sat in a
lonely place by the sea.
[Illustration: Father Damien went out and sat in a lonely place by the
sea.]
In a little while he had faced it all and was master of himself
again--and more; as his condition became known he felt that he was
working with a new power. Those who had turned a deaf ear to him before
listened to him now; he was no longer a man apart from them, whose
health had been preserved by some sort of charm, but one of themselves.
And the awful curse had not fallen on him by accident, as it had fallen
upon _them_, but he had sought it, wilfully, deliberately, for their
sakes. Thus, out of his very distress, came a new joy to Father
Damien.
Armed with this knowledge he grew more cheerful than he had ever been
before, till the people wondered at him. He held more frequent services
in the churches which had sprung up, held classes for the boys, and
taught them some of the games that he himself had played in the far-away
days in Belgium. The boys were pleasant, well-mannered children, with
the strangest names, some native nicknames, others picked up by their
fathers from the white people and given to their sons, whereas often
they should have been kept for their daughters. In the class of Father
Conradi there were Mrs. Tompkins, The Emetic, Susan, Jane Peter, Eyes of
Fire, The River of Truth, The First Nose, The Window; while in Honolulu,
from which many of them had come, lived their friends, Mrs. Oyster, The
Man who Washes his Dimples, Poor Pussy, The Stomach, and The Tired
Lizard. We should like to know what their sisters were called, but they
were not Father Conradi's business. The Father also took the greatest
interest in the experiments which the Sisters of Mercy were carrying on
in their school, not only to stop the spread of the disease, but to cure
it, for a healing oil had been discovered which had worked marvels in
many people. He encouraged the love of music and singing which existed
among the exiles, whose most precious possession was a kind of
barrel-organ which could play forty tunes, a present from a Scotch lady.
This barrel-organ was never absent from any of the entertainments which,
with the priests and doctors for audience, the lepers got up from time
to time. It even played its part in a performance on one Christmas Day,
which consisted of scenes from Belshazzar's feast. Unluckily it was so
dark that it was not easy for the audience to know exactly what was
going on, but they _did_ perceive that the Babylonish king sat the whole
time with his head on his arms and his arms on the table, like the
Dormouse in the play of 'Alice in Wonderland.' However, the actors were
intensely pleased with themselves, and that was all that mattered.
* * * * *
Father Damien lived for nearly six years after he became a leper, and as
long as he was able he took his part in all that was going on, even
helping to build the churches (there were five of them now) with his own
hands. It was only three weeks before his death that his strength gave
out, and he laid himself on his bed, knowing that he would nevermore
rise from it. So he died, with his friends around him and the noise of
the sea in his ears. His task was done, for he had 'set alight a fire'
in Molokai 'which should never be put out.'
THE CONSTANT PRINCE
When, some years ago, a banquet was given at the Guildhall to king
Alfonso of Spain on the occasion of his marriage to an English princess,
the lord mayor said in his speech that four queens of England were
Spaniards by birth. Can any of you tell me without looking at your
history books what were their names?
Yet in different ways three out of the four are very well known to us.
One flits through a delightful romance of the great deeds of the
Crusaders; a second is remembered for having risked her life to save her
husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the crosses which he
set up on every spot which her body touched on its road to its last
resting-place; while the fourth and latest had a troubled life and every
kind of insult heaped on her.
_Now_ can you guess?
* * * * *
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages between England and
the countries south of the Pyrenees were very frequent, for in those
times Spain was our natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward
III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, married the daughters
of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and Constance, wife of John of
Gaunt, had the pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by in
her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's elder daughter by his
first wife, became queen of Portugal.
Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom of Portugal, for the
legal heir was the queen of Castile, the only child of Fernando. But her
uncle, grand master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of the
Portuguese, who would tell their children in low voices the sad story of
his father's first wife, the beautiful Inez de Castro, whose embalmed
body was crowned by her husband, many years after her cruel murder. And
besides their love for the master of Aviz, the Portuguese hated the
Castilians, as only near neighbours _can_ hate each other, and were
resolved to choose their own sovereign. So war followed, and John of
Gaunt fought with his English soldiers on the side of the master of
Aviz, or 'John I.,' against his wife's nephew, Henry III. of Castile,
and during the war he kept his daughters with him in the peninsula.
* * * * *
It was in 1378 that John I. married Philippa, the elder of the two
princesses. According to the notions of those times the bride must have
been 'quite old,' for she was twenty-seven, only a year younger than her
bridegroom, and very happy they were. The queen of Portugal had been
brought up in England amongst clever people, had heard grave questions
discussed from her childhood, and seen her father grow uneasy as fresh
reports of Richard II.'s follies and extravagance came to his ears. From
her stepmother, Constance of Castile, she had learned to speak Spanish,
and knew much of the customs of the kingdoms south of the Pyrenees; so
that it was easy for her to fall into the ways of her new country,
though she never ceased to love her old land, and to teach her children
to love it too. She trained her sons to bear hardships without
complaining, to be true to their word, and to be affectionate and
faithful to each other, while she had them taught something of the
histories of other countries, and saw that they could speak Latin and
English, as well as Spanish and French. As to the art of war, and all
knightly exercises, she left those to her husband.
* * * * *
When the eldest of the princes, dom Duarte, or Edward, was twenty years
old, he came one day to the king, telling him that he and his three next
brothers, Pedro, Enrique, and John, were burning to strike a blow
against the infidel Moors, and besought him to lead an expedition
against the town of Ceuta, on the African coast. In those days it was
considered a good deed to fight against the followers of Mahomet the
prophet, and king John agreed gladly to what his sons proposed; but he
was more prudent than they, and did not intend to raise the standard of
the Cross before he had made sure of defeating the Crescent. Therefore
he took means to find out secretly the exact position of Ceuta, the
extent of the fortifications, and other things it was needful for him to
know, and then he laid his plans before queen Philippa, who always gave
him good counsel. To his surprise and disappointment Philippa prayed him
to give it all up.
The country, she said, was still poor from the wars of succession with
Castile, which had seated her husband on the throne, and if the men were
taken away across the seas, who would till the fields and reap the
crops?
But, urged the king, he felt sure that the people would welcome the
crusade; he had bidden one of his trusted officers to go amongst them,
and had heard how their faces brightened at the bare idea that perhaps
_some_ day, no doubt in the future, the golden shores of Africa might be
snatched from the unbelievers' grasp. Oh, no, he had no fears about his
army, though of course he would take every care to make victory certain.
Queen Philippa listened, but only shook her head.
'At least you will not go yourself?' she answered after a pause; 'the
kingdom needs you'; then like a wise woman she held her peace and began
to talk of something else.
* * * * *
Although king John did not give up his cherished scheme, he hesitated
about carrying it out for three years longer, and then he succeeded in
blinding the eyes of Europe as to the real object of his preparations. A
large fleet was assembled in the mouth of the Tagus, 'to punish the
Dutch pirates,' it was said; but, just as it was ready to sail, the
queen caught the plague which was raging in Portugal. By this time she
had made up her mind to the war, though she was hardly convinced of its
wisdom, and as soon as she felt that she was nearing death she sent for
her sons, and giving them each a splendid sword which she had ordered to
be specially forged and beautifully inlaid, she added a few words of
counsel. Then she bade her husband farewell, and entreated him to leave
her, lest he also should catch the plague and be lost to his country.
Her sons she kept with her to the end.
A week later, on July 25, 1415, the fleet sailed for Ceuta.
* * * * *
Only two of the king's five sons remained in Portugal, and they were the
youngest, dom John and dom Fernando. Fernando was a delicate boy of
thirteen, versed in Latin, and, like his brother Duarte, a passionate
lover of books, only happy when alone with some old manuscript or roll
of illuminated prayers, yet thirsting to do his duty by ridding the
world of as many infidels as possible. It was a blow when he found that
he was not allowed to join the army of Africa, but, as was his way, he
made no complaint; only when the news came of the fall of Ceuta his
heart burned, half with envy and half with triumph. How he longed to
make one of the group of brothers who had covered themselves with glory,
and had been knighted by their father in the mosque, which was now
consecrated and declared a cathedral. But he was getting stronger every
day, and by-and-by he felt that a halo of glory would enshrine his name
also. And so it has, and will for all time, only it was won in another
way from those of his brothers.
* * * * *
It was soon after his return from Africa that king John's health began
to break down, and though he lived for eighteen years longer, he left
the government of Portugal mostly to his son Duarte, who was guided in
military matters by the advice of his father's old friend, the constable
of the kingdom. Fighting still went on in the neighbourhood of Ceuta,
but though the other princes, or infantes, took part, Fernando stayed in
Portugal.
We know little as to how he passed his time. Probably he shared the
studies of prince Duarte, who collected a large library and himself
wrote a book of philosophical maxims, which gained him the surname of
Duarte the Eloquent. The two brothers were bound together by the same
tastes, and we may be sure Duarte approved when by-and-by Fernando
refused the pope's offer of a cardinal's hat, on the ground--unheard of
at that period--that, not being a priest, he was quite unfitted to wear
it. For the same reason, though the cases were rather different, he
wished also to refuse the office of grand master of the order of Aviz,
which had been held by his father; but in the end Duarte's counsels
prevailed, and he kept it.
* * * * *
Fernando was thirty years old when his father died, and never yet had
his sword left its sheath, though he longed from his soul to join in the
frequent expeditions that went out from Ceuta to attack the strongholds
of the unbelievers scattered about the coast. But king John always
refused to let him leave the country, thinking he was too delicate to
bear the hardships of a soldier's life; and so Fernando stayed at home,
making himself as happy as he could with his books and his prayers, and
long philosophical talks with Duarte. Now Duarte was king, and perhaps
Fernando would be able to gain his heart's desire.
The new king was putting on his robes for the ceremony of his
proclamation when his physician craved humbly an immediate audience. Dom
Duarte wondered what could have happened which made an interview so
necessary at that inconvenient moment, but master Guedelha was an old
friend, so orders were given to admit him at once.
'Oh, senhor,' exclaimed the physician, as soon as they were alone, 'do
not, I beseech you, suffer yourself to be proclaimed before noon; the
hour you have fixed on is an evil one, and the stars which rule it are
against you.'
Sad though he was, dom Duarte could hardly help smiling at the
earnestness of the man; but he answered gravely that, greatly as he
respected the knowledge of the stars, his faith in God was greater
still, and nothing could befall him that was contrary to His will. In
vain Guedelha fell on his knees and implored him to delay till the fatal
hour was past; Duarte refused to change his plans, and at length the old
man rose to his feet.
[Illustration: In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour
was past.]
'I have done all I could,' he said; 'on your own head be it. The years
of your reign will be short and full of trouble to yourself, and to
those you love, and to the country.'
Although dom Duarte had so steadily declined to listen to the prayers of
Guedelha, he had enough 'respect,' as he had said, for the science of
astrology, as the study of the stars was called, to feel very
uncomfortable at the prophecy of the physician. But he could not draw
back now, even if he wished, and 'Eduarte, king of Portugal,' was
thrice proclaimed and the royal standard unfurled and raised. When this
was done, the nobles and officials kissed the king's hand and swore
allegiance to him. Then Duarte went back to his palace, and took off his
crown and robes of state, and put on deep mourning for his father.
* * * * *
For some time dom Duarte had been governing the kingdom under the
direction of John I., so affairs went on much as before. He and his
brothers were the best of friends, and he often sought their counsel,
especially that of dom Pedro, only a year younger than himself. Pedro
was one of the wisest princes in Europe, as well as one of the best, and
if his brothers had listened to his advice the prophecy of master
Guedelha might have come to naught. Like the rest, he loved books, and
even wrote poetry, and during his father's lifetime made many voyages
along the coast of Africa, though he was no discoverer of strange lands
like dom Enrique. But for the present his duty was in Portugal, where
Duarte wanted him.
In this way things went on for two or three years, during which the
plague broke out in Portugal, and people died like flies, as they did in
those days when dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and
prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all in their power to
check it and assist the poor people; but nothing was of much good, and,
as usual, the plague was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.
Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's prophecy was
drawing near fulfilment. And this is how the disasters came about.
The infante--so the Spaniards and Portuguese formerly called their
princes--the infante dom Fernando grew tired of remaining idle at home,
and besought Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under some
foreign king, most likely that of England, where his young cousin Henry
VI. was reigning. 'Of course,' he said, 'if his own country needed him
he would come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been wanderers,
and it was his turn to go with the rest.'
To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened, and there was a
long pause before he spoke. Then he implored Fernando to think no more
of his cherished plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong
would be done to both of them in the minds of men, for strangers would
hold that he, the king, treated his brother so ill that Fernando was
forced to seek his fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed
by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all for its sake.
Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it was plain that even
this brother, who he thought knew him best, had judged him wrongly. For
years the young man had kept silence about his desire to see other
countries, and the ruins of the cities which had once given law to the
world, and the result was that he had been held by all to be a man of no
spirit, a bookworm, content with the little duties that every day
brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by, and a freer life
called to him!
Seeing that his words made no impression on dom Fernando's resolve, the
king sought dom Enrique, praying him to use his eloquence in order to
prevail on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have been wiser to
have left things alone, for Enrique merely turned his brother's thoughts
into a new and more alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign
king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let them cross the sea and
deliver Tangier from the Moslem.
* * * * *
When the king heard of this new project he was nearly beside himself.
After the long wars which seated John on the throne, and the constant
expense of maintaining the fortress of Ceuta, the country was too poor
to be able to undertake a fresh expedition, and then the plague had
carried off so many men that he did not know where the army was to come
from. But the match had been put to the wood, and Enrique secretly went
to the queen and asked for her help to persuade the king, promising that
when he and Fernando should have conquered the north of Africa, they
would go and live there, and leave their possessions in Portugal to her
children.
The bait took; queen Leonor promised to use all her influence, which was
great, with the king, but before she had a chance of doing so the wild
scheme of the two infantes received still stronger support from an
unexpected quarter. Some time earlier the king had asked the pope to
give him a Bull, or papal document, allowing him to raise a crusade
whenever he thought it would have a chance of success. At the moment the
pope was busy with several other affairs nearer home, and returned no
answer. When at last he had leisure to attend to the king of Portugal's
request, and sent over an abbot with the Bull, Duarte seems to have
forgotten all about the matter, and was filled with dismay. Of course
his brothers were delighted and declared that the king could no longer
resist!
In spite, however, of wife, pope, and brothers, the king _did_ resist,
though he went as far as to say that any expedition which _might_ be
undertaken must be directed against Tangier, and that fourteen thousand
men would be the utmost that he could furnish. But when he had yielded
this much, it was difficult for him to refuse his consent, even though
dom John and dom Pedro spoke strongly in a family council of the folly
of beginning a war when the treasury was empty and the people unwilling
to bear the burden of taxation.
Dom Pedro's words found their echo in the heart of Duarte. They said
what his own sense had told him, and he was filled with fears for the
future, though he could not break his promise. One last effort he made,
and this was an appeal to the pope as to whether it was lawful to impose
a tax for the purpose of making war against the infidels. The pope and
his cardinals decided that it was _not_, as the infidels had not made
war upon _him_, and Duarte, though more than ever cast down, had not the
courage to acknowledge that he had been hasty and foolish, and, bitterly
though he repented of his weakness, he allowed Enrique to equip fleets
in Lisbon and in Oporto.
* * * * *
But when, at the end of August 1436, the hour of departure arrived, the
king had recovered himself, and handed Enrique a paper of instructions
which would probably have changed the fate of the expedition had they
been followed. Unfortunately, Enrique was a headstrong man, and thought
that he _must_ know better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not
seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened contemptuously to
dom Pedro when he pointed out that African conquests were both expensive
and useless, that the cities, even if taken, could never become part of
Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold them, and smiled
scornfully at the statement that any Portuguese force besieging Tangier
would in its turn of a surety be besieged by a Moorish host, who would
gather men from all parts and have a supply of provisions constantly at
hand.
'Those whom the gods will to destroy they first infatuate,' says the
proverb, and no man was ever more infatuated than the infante dom
Enrique. The fourteen thousand men of which the king had spoken had
dwindled down to six thousand, and these were but half-hearted. Small as
the force was, dom Duarte had instructed Enrique to divide it into
three, in order to prevent the Moors from concentrating large numbers
upon one place. This counsel Enrique declined to follow, nor did he
attempt to surprise and take Tangier by assault, which might possibly
have been successful. Instead, he allowed the Moors to assemble a large
army and to put the town in a state of defence. Finally, he totally
disobeyed the wise counsel of Duarte to make his camp close to the sea,
where his ships lay at anchor, in order that provisions and a retreat
might be secured to them.
* * * * *
Having thus done all in his power to ensure defeat, only one thing
remained, and that was 'to die like good men with constant souls,' in
the words which the poet Calderon puts into the mouth of Fernando. Too
late Enrique perceived the snare into which his folly had led them, and
assembling his little army, gave orders that at night, when the Moorish
camp was quiet, they should cut their way through to the ships and put
to sea. Their attacks on Tangier had been repulsed with heavy losses, he
told them, and if the enterprise was ever to be carried through they
must first seek reinforcements.
The men agreed with him, and prepared to sell their lives dearly.
Silently at the appointed time they crept up to the Moorish tents,
beyond which lay safety and the great galleons. But the chaplain,
unluckily, had been before them. As soon as darkness fell he had
deserted to the enemy, and the sight of the large force drawn up in
order of battle was the first sign of warning to the Christians that
they had been betrayed.
Even Enrique felt that in the face of such numbers fighting was useless,
but he placed his men in the best position and awaited events. All the
next day the Moors made no sign, but on the following morning envoys
left the ranks and proposed terms of peace. Considering all things, they
were not hard. Ceuta must be surrendered, the Moorish captives in
Portugal be released, and the Christian camp with everything it
contained abandoned to the captors. But the infantes wished to deal
directly with the kings of Fez and Morocco, in order to make sure that
the terms offered would be loyally carried out. They were still
expecting the return of the envoys which they had sent when the Moors,
who had grown more and more impatient at the long wait so close to their
enemies, could be restrained no more and fell on the Portuguese.
* * * * *
In spite of their small numbers, the Portuguese, commanded by dom
Enrique and the bishop of Ceuta, fought so fiercely that after six hours
the Moors were beaten back. After a short rest dom Enrique ordered every
man to repair the trenches and to throw up earthworks to protect the
camp, in case of another assault. They worked hard the whole of that
night, which was Saturday, and when by sunrise on Sunday everything was
finished, the soldiers sank down exhausted where they were, and cried
for food and water. It was long in coming. Then a horrible suspicion,
which turned the men's faces white, ran, no one knew why, from end to
end of the camp. Was there _any_ food? and, worse still, any water?
They had guessed truly; they had no provisions left, and the water had
been cut off by the Moors. For two days they held out, then dom Enrique
decided to accept the terms offered him. He would give up Ceuta and the
Moorish prisoners, would abandon the camp, and would undertake that
Portugal should sign a peace with the Barbary States lying along that
part of the African coast for a hundred years. In return the former
Moorish governor of Ceuta, Salat-ben-Salat, should hand over his son as
a hostage, in exchange for four Portuguese nobles, but the pledge for
the surrender of Ceuta was to be dom Fernando himself.
Bitter were the shame and grief that filled dom Enrique when the results
of his folly were brought home to him, and he instantly begged that he
might be accepted as hostage instead of his brother. No doubt the Moors
would have agreed to this; it mattered little to them which of the
infantes remained captive, but the council of war which Enrique summoned
would not consent. Fernando knew nothing of war, they said, but Enrique,
their commander, could not be spared, though it is hard to see what
Enrique had done except lead them into traps which a recruit might have
foreseen. Dom Fernando was present with the rest of the council, and was
the first to declare that his brother's proposal was not to be thought
of. Then, with a heavy heart, Enrique signed the treaty, and a few hours
later Fernando and he had parted for the last time.
* * * * *
Thus ended the expedition for the taking of Tangier; and what had it
attained? As far as Portugal was concerned, the loss, as stipulated by
treaty, of Ceuta, by which the country set such store; the death of five
hundred out of the six thousand men under the walls of Tangier, which
held out in spite of the field guns used in war for the first time; the
waste of money which had been only raised by the oppression of the
people; and the delivery of the king's favourite brother into the hands
of a cruel race.
Such was the tale which the fugitives had to tell on their arrival at
Lisbon. And while the king was debating the best means of rescuing the
captive, let us see how Fernando himself was faring.
Accompanied by his chaplain, his doctor, his secretary, and a few
friends, who would seem to have gone with him of their own will, dom
Fernando was sent by his captors to the fortress of Tangier, and closely
imprisoned for several days. Perhaps the Moors may have been waiting
for Enrique, who had gone to Ceuta, to deliver up the keys of the town;
but as nothing was heard of him, the captives were taken next to the
little town of Arzilla, further down the coast. Here the Portuguese were
kindly treated by the governor, and Fernando, though the hardships he
had gone through had told heavily on his health, did all he could to
help his friends, who fared no better than himself, and devoted what
money was left to him to ransoming those who had been for some years in
captivity.
For seven months Fernando and his companions remained in Arzilla, and
during all that time both he and his gaoler, Salat-ben-Salat, expected
to receive answers to the many letters the captive prince had been
suffered to write to Enrique respecting his promise to surrender Ceuta,
where he stayed for some time after the embarkation of the Portuguese
army. But after five months the only news that reached Arzilla was that
Enrique had returned to Portugal; so Fernando then wrote to the king
himself, imploring that he would redeem his pledge and set him free. It
seemed little to ask, seeing that a treaty is considered sacred, and
Duarte, from every point of view, was ready to fulfil the stipulation;
but there was a strong party in the state which held that a Christian
city should never be delivered up to the unbelievers, and even Enrique
advised him instead to offer a large ransom and the Moorish captives
then in Portugal in exchange for the infante.
* * * * *
Always distrustful of his own opinion, and fearful of taking any decided
action, Duarte next appealed for counsel to the pope and to the kings of
all the countries of Europe. They sent the politest and most sympathetic
answers to his questions. No words could express their admiration for
dom Fernando's patience under his sufferings, and their pity for his
hard lot, but--faith with Moslems need never be kept, and at all costs
Ceuta must be retained.
Thus, after all, it was the Christians, and not the Moslems, who failed
to keep their word and were responsible for the death of Fernando.
* * * * *
At length news reached Fernando that dom John was starting with a fleet
for his rescue, and then the doom which he dreaded befell him, for he
was sent with his fellow-captives at once to Fez, a city far in the
interior, and delivered over to Lazuraque, the vizier of the young king,
a man whose name was a proverb of cruelty throughout the whole of
Barbary. On their arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole
population turned out to howl at and to stone them, they were thrust
into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The four months that they spent
in this black hole were bad enough, but worse was yet to follow. The
little money that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy chains
were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners, while their food was
hardly fit for dogs or enough to keep them alive. But Fernando at least
never grumbled, and tried to keep up the hearts of his friends.
One morning a warder entered the cell and roughly informed the prince
that he was to go and clean out the vizier's stables, while the others
were to dig up the royal garden. Of course Fernando had never done such
a thing in his life, and now, hardly able to stand from weakness, and
with fetters on his legs, it seemed an impossible task. Still, only to
get out into the sunshine again was delightful to him, and he worked
away with a will. However, he could not have done his cleansing very
thoroughly, or else the vizier had merely wished to humiliate him, for
the next day he was sent to the gardens with the rest. Here he was
almost happy; he loved flowers, and he had the company of his friends,
to whom he could talk freely, for the gaolers, satisfied that they
could not escape, left them very much to themselves. As to food, each
man had two loaves a day, but no meat; however, in this respect Fernando
fared better than the others, for when the king of Fez and his wives
walked through the gardens, as they often did, they would speak to him
with the politeness to which he had long been a stranger, and bid their
slaves bring him fruit and wine from their own table. It seems curious
that king Abdallah did not insist on better treatment for the Portuguese
prince, but he was afraid of Lazuraque, who had ruled the kingdom from
Abdallah's childhood, and dared not interfere.
When darkness fell the captives were taken back to their prison, and
here Fernando had a cell all to himself, and, tired out with his
labours, was glad enough to throw himself on the two sheepskins covered
by an old carpet which served him for a bed, and lay his head on the
bundle of hay which was his pillow.
* * * * *
Matters had gone on in this way for a few weeks, when one day the
captives were told that they were to work in the gardens no more;
heavier chains were fastened to their arms and legs, and they were all
thrust together into one tiny dungeon. Then a message came that dom
Fernando was to be brought before the vizier. With a beating heart the
infante gladly followed his gaoler. Surely Lazuraque would not have
troubled to send for him unless deliverance had been at hand? But his
hopes fell at the sight of Lazuraque's face, which was cruel and stern
as usual.
'Your brother the king of Portugal is dead,' were the words that fell
upon Fernando's ears, and he sank fainting to the ground. When he came
to himself, he was lying chained in his cell, with his friends anxiously
bending over him.
Dom Pedro was now regent, ruling for Duarte's little son, Alfonso V.,
and besides the view which he had always held that the honour of the
country demanded the surrender of Ceuta, he felt bound to carry out the
late king's will, which directed him to deliver Fernando at any cost.
But now it was not Ceuta that Lazuraque wanted, but a huge ransom,
impossible for Portugal to raise, and till this was forthcoming the
horrors of the prisoners' captivity were increased.
For some days after hearing the news Fernando's grief, together with the
stifling air of the cell, made him so ill that his companions expected
that every hour would be his last. Well he guessed that shame at the
result of the expedition, and sorrow for his own fate, had hastened the
end of dom Duarte, and the infante's thoughts flew back to the day of
the proclamation of the king, five years before, and to the prophecy of
master Guedelha. One thing, however, did not occur to him--that it was
Duarte's weakness in allowing the expedition which had brought about the
fulfilment of the prophecy.
* * * * *
After a while Lazuraque saw that unless he meant his captives to die,
which would not have suited him at all, he must free them from their
dungeon, so they were sent back to the gardens. Slowly the years 1439
and 1440 wore away. The hearts of the poor prisoners grew sick, but
Fernando alone never lost his cheerfulness, and kept up the spirits of
the others when they were bowed down with despair.
It was in 1441 that hope suddenly sprang into life again, for the news
reached them that some envoys had arrived from Portugal to treat for
their release, and that the governor of Arzilla was using his influence
on their behalf. Soon after they were removed from Fez near to Ceuta,
where they could once more see the blue Mediterranean and feel
themselves close to Portugal again. But everything came to an end
because neither side would trust the other. Lazuraque, though he still
preferred a ransom, part of which he could have put in his own pocket,
dared not refuse openly to exchange the prince for Ceuta, now that the
envoys had come for the express purpose of delivering up the fortress.
Still, he could place many obstacles in the way of the fulfilment of the
treaty, and declared that the keys of Ceuta must be in his possession
before the infante could be handed over to the envoys. They, on their
side, insisted on Fernando's release before the surrender of the
fortress.
So the poor victim of ill-faith was carried back to Fez, and set to
break stones with his companions. Then the plague broke out among the
Moors, and each man shrank from his sick brother, and left him to die
alone. As far as he might, dom Fernando sought out the plague-stricken
people and nursed them night and day, often going without his own food
that they might be nourished. Perhaps Lazuraque had fled like other rich
men from the city, but at all events he seems to have permitted dom
Fernando to do as he liked till the pestilence had run its course.
* * * * *
It was in March 1442 that Fernando was again taken before Lazuraque, and
though the prisoner always told himself that he had given up hope,
nevertheless his heart beat faster than usual at the summons. The Moor
did not waste words, but went at once to the point.
'I have sent for you to ask what price you will pay for your freedom and
that of your friends,' he said.
Dom Fernando looked at him for an instant before he answered. Long ago
he and his companions had talked over the matter and decided what they
could offer, if they ever had the chance. But now that the moment had
come on which everything depended, his voice seemed choked, and he could
not utter a sound.
'Are you deaf?' inquired Lazuraque impatiently. 'Be quick, or I shall
raise my terms.'
Then Fernando stammered out, 'Fifty thousand doubloons and fifty Moorish
prisoners.'
'Nonsense,' cried Lazuraque, with a scornful laugh. 'Fifty thousand
doubloons for a Portuguese prince! Why, it is a beggarly sum! Take him
away, gaoler, till he learns wisdom.' And the infante was led back to
his dungeon.
It was no more than he had expected, yet he needed all his strength of
will to help him bear the blow. By order of Lazuraque he was allowed to
receive his fellow-prisoners in order to take counsel with them, and at
length it was agreed that amongst them, by the aid of the king and their
families, they would treble their former offer, and promise one hundred
and fifty thousand doubloons and one hundred and fifty captives. This
the vizier agreed to accept, and when they heard the news the prisoners
fell on each other's necks and wept for joy. But for Fernando the hour
of happiness was soon at an end, for till the ransom was paid and the
captives landed on Moorish soil his treatment was worse than ever.
The dungeon into which he was now thrown was smaller and darker than
before, and even his gaoler was forbidden to speak to him. The
loneliness and silence put the finishing touch to the alternate hopes
and fears of the last few months, and one day, when the warder brought
his scanty supply of food, he found the prince lying unconscious on the
ground. Fearing the anger of Lazuraque should his prisoner escape him by
death before the money was received, he at once reported the matter, and
orders were given to remove the captive into a larger cell, where he
could feel the soft winds blowing and even see a ray of the sun. His
companions, who were once more working hard, with the least possible
allowance of sleep, were permitted to see him, and to carry him books
of prayer, as he had been deprived of his own. Greatest boon of all, he
was given a lamp by which he could read them.
[Illustration: He found the prince lying unconscious on the ground.]
Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which some of the
Portuguese came to dig sand every morning to scatter over the floor of
the stables after they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light in
this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that a stone was loose, and
might with a little patience be moved away. It was hard work for one so
weak; still, it gave him something to do and to look forward to, and
prevented him, sitting all day in his prison, from wondering why no
answer to his letter had ever come, and if his brothers had forgotten
him altogether, little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had kept
back everything they had written. When these thoughts came into his head
he worked away at the stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which
was almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts were rewarded,
and he was able to take the stone in and out and speak to his
fellow-captives, who, with sun and air about them, were more fortunate
than he.
Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside a gaol news flies
quickly) that ever since Duarte's death his wife had given great trouble
to dom Pedro by interfering in matters of government, and that civil war
had actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was soon put an
end to by the flight of the queen. The expenses entailed by all this
would, Fernando understood, have prevented the raising of the large
ransom required; and with the lightening of his despair at his apparent
abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque. It was so much easier and
happier for him to believe that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew,
should be playing some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him
to die without a word.
* * * * *
We cannot tell how it really happened, and why the money used by dom
Enrique ('the Navigator' as he was called) in fitting out exploring
expeditions was not employed in setting free the brother who had been
made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is that fifty
thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese would offer, and now
Lazuraque demanded four hundred thousand! This Fernando learnt after
fifteen months of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered
out.
When hope was gone he had nothing left to live for, and on June 1, 1443,
he was too weak even to kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions
implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier room; the vizier
refused all their petitions, and if he had granted them, most likely it
would have been too late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave
to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by him alternately,
so that he was not left alone in his last moments.
Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning of June 5 he awoke
looking happier than he had done since he bade farewell to the shores of
Portugal five years before.
'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor, 'the archangel
Michael and Saint John entreating the Blessed Virgin to have pity on me
and put an end to my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told me
that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown open, and I should
enter.' So saying he begged to confess his sins, and when this was done
he turned on his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and with
the last rays of the sun he was free.
* * * * *
'He that is dead pays all his debts,' writes the poet who more than any
man knew the best and the worst of the human heart, but Lazuraque did
not agree with him. Fernando's body was stripped bare and hung for four
days from the battlements of the city, where, silent and uncomplaining
as in life, it was a prey to every insult the people could heap on it.
Then it was taken down and placed in a box, but still remained unheeded
on the walls. How long it might have stayed there we cannot guess, but
shortly after Fernando's death Lazuraque was stabbed by some victim of
his tyranny, and by-and-by the remnant of dom Fernando's fellow-captives
obtained their release on payment of a small ransom, leaving in Fez the
bones of three of their companions who had not long survived the
Constant Prince. It would seem as if his courage alone had sustained
them, and when he was gone they sank and died also.
* * * * *
In 1448 dom Pedro, who had never ceased to mourn the brother he had been
powerless to save, exchanged an important Moorish prisoner for father
John Alvaro, secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it was
three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but when he arrived he
carried with him the heart of Fernando, which was borne at the head of a
long procession clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where John and
Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and sister lay buried. On the way
they met unexpectedly dom Enrique, master of the Order of Christ,
attended by his knights, and a messenger was sent by the prince to ask
the meaning of the train of mourners.
'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was the answer he
received, and without a word Enrique turned his horse, and accompanied
by his knights rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave
which awaited it.
Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's body was obtained from the
Moors, and was carried over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king
expecting his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was drawn up
on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him were the bishops and abbots of
Portugal and a dense throng of people.
For long they watched and waited, and none that was present forgot the
dead silence that reigned in that multitude, more solemn than prayers,
more welcoming than the sound of guns. At length a ship came in sight
across the bar of the river; then, baring their heads, the crowd parted,
and the bones of the Constant Prince were borne to Batalha.
THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE
Fighting was in the blood of the Grahams, and when James, hereafter to
be known as the 'great marquis of Montrose,' was a little boy he loved
to hear tales of the deeds of his ancestors, who had struck hard blows
for the liberty of Scotland in days of old. One, sir John Graham, a
friend of sir William Wallace's, had been killed at Falkirk more than
three hundred years before; another had died on Flodden field, and a
third had fallen at Pinkie, besides many who had taken part in less
famous battles. James knew all about them, and was proud to belong to
them, and did not guess that it was _his_ name and not _theirs_ which
would be best remembered through the centuries to come.
But the Grahams were not only brave soldiers; they were for the most
part clever men. There was an archbishop among them and a bishop, while
James's grandfather had held the highest offices of the state under king
James VI., and was president of the Parliament when the king was far
away in Westminster talking broad Scotch to the great nobles and
servants of his dead cousin queen Elizabeth. Montrose's own father,
however, had no love either for war or statesmanship, and after he lost
his wife in 1618 stayed quietly at home in one of his many castles,
taking care of his family, keeping accounts of every penny he spent, and
shooting and playing golf with his friends and neighbours.
James, his only son, was six years old when his mother died, but there
were five daughters of all ages, who were always ready to play with the
boy. To be sure, the two eldest, Lilias and Margaret, married early, and
before two years had passed by one was lady Colquhoun and the other lady
Napier of Merchiston. Still Dorothy and Katherine were left, and
Beatrix, who was only three years younger than her brother, and the one
he liked best of all.
* * * * *
When the great business of marrying his two eldest daughters was safely
over, lord Montrose took his little boy with him on a riding tour of
visits to his estates in Forfar, Perthshire, Dunbarton, and the
Lothians, stopping in the houses of his many friends on the way. James
loved horses all his life, and bills for 'shoes for naigs' were
constantly coming in to him. He spent a good deal of time practising
archery at the butts, and would make up matches with the boys who lived
in the different houses where he and his father went to stay; on wet
days they would get out their foils and fence in the hall, or even dance
solemnly with the young ladies. Of course, he did some lessons too, when
he was at home, probably with his sisters, but while his father only
puts down in his accounts the items of six shillings for books and seven
shillings for a 'pig [or stone bottle] of ink,' we read of nine
shillings for bowstrings and three pounds for '12 goiff balls.' As for
tobacco, the elder Montrose smoked the whole day, a new accomplishment
in those times, and an expensive one when tobacco was sometimes as much
as thirteen shillings and fourpence an ounce; but this habit was hated
by James, who never could bear the smell of a pipe all his life long.
* * * * *
After his son's twelfth birthday lord Montrose decided that his son must
go to college at Glasgow like other youths of his age and position. The
news filled the little girls with awe; it seemed to make their brother
a man at once, and they were sure he would never, never want to play
bowls or hide and seek with them again. But James, though in his secret
heart he may have agreed with them, was too kind to say so, and he
comforted them with the thought of the fine things he would bring them
from the great city, and the stories he would have to tell of its
strange ways. And, if they wished, they might even now come and see the
'stands' (or suits) of clothes that had been prepared for him.
Drying their tears, the girls eagerly accepted his offer. The mixed grey
cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming
of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have
liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and
kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit
they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the door on his
white pony, with his tutor, master Forrett, by his side, the pages and a
valet following. Bringing up the rear were some strong, broad-backed
'pockmanty naigs,' or baggage-horses, bearing the plate, linen and
furniture for the large house lord Montrose had taken for his son in
Glasgow.
Gay indeed that house must have looked with its red and green and yellow
curtains and cushions and counterpanes. As for food, it seems to have
been simple enough, if we can judge by the bills sent in by the tutor
for bags of oatmeal and barrels of herrings. There are also, we are glad
to find, some bills for books, among them Raleigh's 'History of the
World,' only recently published, a Latin translation of Xenophon, and
Seneca's Philosophy. These last two James only read because he was
obliged to, but he would sit half the morning poring over the pages of
Raleigh, of whose own life and adventures master Forrett could tell him
much.
For a short time his little sister Katherine lived with him. Probably
she had been ill, and the soft air of the west was thought good for her;
for Glasgow was only quite a small place then, and the sky over the
Clyde was bright and clear, instead of being dark with smoke, as it
often is now. But in two years' time James Graham's life at Glasgow came
to a sudden end, owing to the death of his father, and, distressed and
bewildered at the duties of his new position, he rode swiftly away one
November morning to Kincardine Castle, to make arrangements for the
funeral.
The ceremonies attending the burial of a great noble were of vast
importance in the seventeenth century. The widow, if he had one, was
expected to spend weeks, or even months, in a room hung with black, in a
bed with black curtains and coverings, no ray of sunlight being suffered
to creep through the cracks of the shutters. The young earl of Montrose
had, as we are aware, no mother, but his sisters were kept carefully out
of sight, while he prepared the list of invitations, to be despatched by
men on horseback, to the friends and relations of the dead earl. For
seven weeks they stayed at Kincardine, every guest bringing with him a
large supply of game or venison, though the castle larders already held
an immense amount of food. Poor James must have felt the days terribly
long and dismal, and doubtless escaped, as often as he could, to take
counsel with his brother-in-law, sir Archibald Napier, who remained his
staunch friend to the end.
* * * * *
At length the old customs had been fulfilled; the last guest was gone,
and in January 1627 Montrose, not yet fifteen, set out for the
University of St. Andrews. Here he found many acquaintances, with whom
he played golf or tennis, or, what he loved still more, practised
archery at the butts. Bows instead of pictures hung on his walls, and
in the second year of his residence the place of honour was given to the
bow with which he gained the silver medal that may still be seen in the
college. On wet days he spent his free hours in chess and cards, or in
making verses like all young cavaliers, but he studied Cæsar and other
Latin authors under his tutor master Lambe and worked at his Greek
grammar, so that he might read Plutarch's 'Lives' in the original
tongue. Everybody liked him in spite of his hot temper, he was so
kind-hearted and generous and free with his money, and though never a
bookworm, his mind was quick and thoughtful and his speech ready. His
vacations he either passed with the Napiers, or in visiting the houses
of his friends in Forfar or Fife, hunting, hawking, playing billiards or
attending races; but he never failed to go to the kirk on Sundays or
days of preachings in his best clothes with a nosegay in his coat, for
he was very fond of flowers, and always had them on his table.
* * * * *
At seventeen this pleasant college life came to an end, and Montrose
married Magdalen Carnegie, whose father was later created earl of
Southesk. We do not know very much about his wife, and most likely she
was not very interesting, but the young couple remained at lord
Carnegie's house of Kinnaird for some years, till in 1633 Montrose, now
twenty-one, set out on his journey to Rome, leaving lady Montrose and
two little boys behind him. In his travels 'he made it his work to pick
up the best of the qualities' of the foreigners whom he met, and learned
'as much of the mathematics as is required for a soldier,' but 'his
great study was to read men and the actions of great men.'
What the foreigners in their turn thought of the young man with the long
bright brown hair and grey eyes, whose height was no more than ordinary,
yet whose frame was strong and spare, we do not know. They must have
admired his quickness and skill in games and exercises, and the grace of
his dancing; but his manner kept strangers at a distance, though he was
always kind to his servants and those dependent on him.
* * * * *
During the three years that Montrose spent abroad grave events took
place in Scotland. Charles I., who had already excited the angry
suspicion of his Scotch subjects by what they considered the 'popish'
ceremonies of his coronation at Holyrood, had lately been enraging them
still more by his measures for putting down the national Church and
supporting bishops throughout the country. The king, in spite of many
good qualities, could never be trusted, and was very obstinate. Also,
what was worse both for himself and his people, he could never
understand the signs of the times or the tempers of those with whom he
had to deal. The gatherings held in various parts of Scotland to express
discontent with the king's proceedings did, indeed, alarm him a little,
but not even some strange scenes that took place in 1637 taught him how
serious the matter really was. The Scottish Church then used no
prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop and dean of
Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers in the church of St. Giles'
on Sunday, July 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was
never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst
of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of
Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that
they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them
that the men should afterwards take the business out of their hands.'
We are not told why 'the men' did not do 'the business' to begin with,
but the matrons and serving-maids seemed to have enjoyed themselves so
much on this occasion that they were quite ready for a second effort
a month later.
On August 28 Mr. William Annan preached in St. Giles', defending the
Litany, and when the news was spread about what the subject of his
sermon was to be there arose, says the chronicler, in the town and among
the women a great din.
[Illustration: About thirty or forty of our honestest women did fall a
railing on Mr. William Annan.]
'At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or forty of our honestest
women in one voice before the bishop and magistrates did fall a railing,
cursing, and scolding, with clamours on Mr. William Annan. Some two of
the meanest were taken to the Tolbooth,' or city prison, where Montrose
in after years was himself to lie.
Mr. Annan got safely to his own house, but being troubled over these
events in his mind resolved to ask counsel of his bishop. So that
evening, 'at nine on a mirk night,' he set out in company of three or
four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little
party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of
enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat
him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds,
yet he was in great danger even of killing.'
* * * * *
This was the beginning of the struggle which was to rend Scotland for so
many years. A bond or covenant was drawn up, part of which was copied
from one of the reign of James VI., fifty years before, guarding against
the establishment of 'popery.' But now new clauses were added,
protesting against the appointment of bishops, or allowing priests of
any sort power over the laws of the country. This document Montrose
signed with the rest, and consented to act if necessary as one of the
defenders of the religion and liberty of Scotland.
Charles of course declined to give way on the smallest point, and
issued a proclamation, to be read at Edinburgh, declaring all who
opposed him to be traitors. In answer the malcontents raised a scaffold
beside the cross, and on it stood Warriston, with a reply written by the
nobles representing the people, which was received with shouts of
applause. Montrose sat at Warriston's side, his legs dangling from a
cask.
'Ah, James,' cried old lord Rothes, as he saw him, 'you will never be at
rest till you be lifted up there above the rest, with a rope.'
Strange words, which were exactly fulfilled twelve years later.
So the first covenant was read, and afterwards it was laid on a flat
tombstone in Greyfriars churchyard, and signed by the earl of Sutherland
as the first noble of Scotland, and then by others according to their
degree. During two days it was borne round the city, followed by an
immense crowd, sobbing and trembling with excitement; from time to time
they all stopped for fresh signatures to be added, and copies were made
and sent over the country, so that each man should place his mark. Next,
subscription lists were opened, taxes apportioned, and a war committee
chosen.
And Charles heard and grew frightened, though even yet he did not
understand.
However, the king saw it was needful to do something, and, as was usual
with him, he did the wrong thing. He chose the earl of Hamilton (in whom
he believed blindly, though no one else did) to go down to Scotland as
his commissioner, with leave to yield certain points when once the
covenant had been retracted, but with secret orders to spin out as much
time as possible, so that Charles might be able to get ready an army.
Yet, secret as Hamilton's instructions were, old Rothes knew all about
them, and on his side made preparations. As each week passed it became
increasingly plain that the two parties could never agree. The General
Assembly, which had been held in November in Glasgow Cathedral, was
dissolved by Hamilton, who had presided over it. The covenanters
answered by deposing the bishops, and suppressing the liturgy, and then
dissolving itself; and the earl of Argyll, soon to be Montrose's
deadliest enemy, joined the covenanters.
* * * * *
One town only remained loyal, and this was Aberdeen, situated in the
country of the Gordons, whose chief, the marquis of Huntly, was Argyll's
brother-in-law. Huntly, like Leslie, who held a command in the
covenanting army under Montrose, had seen much foreign service, so
Charles appointed him his lieutenant in the north, though he bound him
hand and foot by orders to do nothing save with Hamilton's consent.
Chafing bitterly under these restrictions, Huntly was forced to disband
his army of two thousand men, and had the mortification of seeing the
covenanters enter Aberdeen the following week, wearing their badge of
blue ribbons in their Highland bonnets.
The citizens were granted easy terms, and all pillage was strictly
forbidden. Huntly himself was given a promise of safe conduct, but was
afterwards held as a prisoner and sent with his son to Edinburgh castle.
It is not clear how far Montrose himself was guilty of this breach of
faith. The covenanters had always detested Huntly, and it is possible
that he found it difficult to act against them, but at any rate he does
not appear to have taken any active steps to stop their proceedings, and
in after days paid a heavy penalty for his weakness.
Shortly after the English army, consisting of nineteen ships and five
thousand men, arrived in the Firth of Forth, but so dense were the
crowds on both shores that Hamilton, who commanded it, saw that landing
was impossible. Suddenly the multitude gathered at Leith (the port of
Edinburgh) parted asunder, and down the midst rode an old lady with a
pistol in her hand. Hamilton looked with the rest and turned pale at the
sight, for the old lady was his own mother, who in a voice that almost
seemed loud enough to reach the vessel where her son stood, declared she
would shoot him dead before he should set foot on land.
The time was evidently not ripe for invasion, so the men encamped on the
little islands in the Forth, and spent their days in drill.
* * * * *
As often during Montrose's wars, Aberdeen was again the centre of
fighting, but again the general preserved the city from pillage, against
the express wishes, and even orders, of the covenanters. Then came the
news that a peace, or rather truce, had been signed at Berwick, by which
Charles had consented that a parliament should assemble in August in
Edinburgh, though, as he insisted that the fourteen Scottish bishops
should be present at its sittings, wise men shook their heads, and
prophesied that no good could come of the measure. Their fears were soon
justified. Riots broke out in the capital, and Aboyne, Huntly's son,
narrowly escaped violence; the people refused to allow the army to be
disbanded or the fortresses to be dismantled, as had been stipulated by
the peace, till the king had fulfilled the promise made by Hamilton at
the assembly at Glasgow of abolishing the bishops.
This he showed no signs of doing, but merely desired a number of the
leading covenanters to appear before him. Six only obeyed, at the risk,
some thought, of imprisonment or death, but neither Rothes nor Montrose,
who headed them, was given to think of peril to themselves.
The old covenanter seems to have told Charles some plain truths, and the
king in return forgot the courtesy which so distinguished him, and
retorted that Rothes was a liar. No man was present when Montrose was
summoned to confer with the king, and neither he nor Charles ever let
fall a word upon the subject; but after that day his friends noted that
he was no longer as bitter as before against his sovereign, nor so
entirely convinced that the covenanters were right in their acts. Yet,
whatever his feelings may have been, he strongly opposed the king's
desire of filling the bishops' vacant places with inferior clergy at the
meeting of Parliament, and, as might have been expected, the assembly
was prorogued, leaving matters precisely as they were.
* * * * *
After this the Scotch took on themselves the management of their own
affairs, and a Committee of Estates was formed, to which was entrusted
absolute power both in state and army. Leslie was one of this committee;
Montrose was another, and immediately he set about raising troops from
his own lands, and carried out the plan of campaign that had been agreed
on by attacking Airlie castle. On its surrender he garrisoned it with a
few men, and went away; but shortly after Argyll arrived, turned out the
garrison, and burned the castle, at the same time accusing Montrose of
treason to the covenant in having spared it. But the Committee of
Estates declared Montrose 'to have done his duty as a true soldier of
the covenant,' and the accusation fell to the ground.
Montrose, however, though entirely cleared of the charge, was not slow
to read the signs of the times. He saw that the covenanters were no
longer content with guarding their own liberties of church and state,
but desired to set at naught the king's authority, perhaps even to
depose him. So he and certain of his friends, Mar, Almond, and Erskine
among them, formed a bond by which they swore to uphold the old covenant
which they had signed in 1638, 'to the hazard of their lives, fortunes,
and estates, against the particular perhaps indirect practising of a
few.' This was the covenant to which Montrose held all his life, and
for which he was hanged beside the city cross.
* * * * *
Having as he hoped taken measures to checkmate Argyll, Montrose joined
the army, which had now swelled to twenty-five thousand men, was the
first to cross the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched straight on
Newcastle. The town surrendered without firing a shot, and Montrose sent
a letter to the king again professing his loyalty. When later he was
imprisoned on a charge of treason to the covenant in so doing, he
answered that his conscience was clear in the matter, and that it was no
more than they had all declared in the covenant, which no man could
deny. But soon another storm was raised on account of the famous bond
which he and his friends had made a short time before they were put in
prison, and the clamour was so great that even his own party was
alarmed, and gave it up to be burned by the hangman.
* * * * *
Montrose's next object was to induce the king to come to Edinburgh in
order to persuade the Scotch that he was ready to keep his word, and to
grant the country the religious and civil liberties demanded by the
covenant. Charles came, and was gracious and charming as he knew how to
be, even going to the Presbyterian service, which he hated. This pleased
everyone, and hopes ran high; but the quarrel was too grave to be
soothed by a few soft words spoken or a few titles given. Plots and
rumours of plots were rife in Edinburgh, and the king was forced to
employ not the men he wished, but the men whom the Parliament desired.
In November he returned to England, first promising that he would never
take into his service Montrose, who had just been released after five
months spent in prison, where he had been thrown with the rest of his
party after the discovery of the bond.
To one who knew Scotland as well as he it was apparent that the Scotch
Parliament and the English would speedily join hands, and he retired to
one of his houses to watch the course of events. The covenanters tried
to win him back, but Montrose felt that they disagreed among themselves,
and that it would be impossible for him to serve under them. Meanwhile
in England things marched rapidly: Edgehill had been fought; episcopacy
had been abolished by Parliament in England as well as Scotland; and
Hamilton's brother Lanark was using the Great Seal to raise a Scotch
army against the king, for, by a treaty called the Solemn League and
Covenant, Scotland was to fight with the English Parliament against the
king, and England was to abolish bishops and become presbyterian like
Scotland. England, however, did not keep her promise.
It was then that Charles, in his desperation, turned to Montrose.
Montrose was too skilful and experienced a general to think lightly of
the struggle before him, but he formed a plan by which Scotland was to
be invaded on the west by the earl of Antrim from Ireland, while he
himself, reinforced by royalist troops, would fall on the Scotch who
were on the border. But the reinforcements he expected hardly amounted,
when they came, to one thousand one hundred men, and these being
composed of the two nations were constantly quarrelling, which added to
the difficulties of the commander. At Dumfries he halted, and read a
proclamation stating that 'he was king's man, as he had been covenanter,
for the defence and maintenance of the true Protestant religion, his
majesty's just and sacred authority, the laws and privileges of
Parliament, the peace and freedom of oppressed and thralled subjects.'
Adding that 'if he had not known perfectly the king's intention to be
such and so real as is already expressed' he would 'never have embarked
himself in his service,' and if he 'saw any appearance of the king
changing' from these resolutions he would continue no longer 'his
faithful servant.'
Thus he said, and thus we may believe he felt, but none the less not a
man joined his standard as he marched along the border. He tried to
reach prince Rupert, the king's nephew, in Yorkshire, but Marston Moor
had been lost before he arrived there. Then, dressed as a groom, he
started for Perthshire, and after four days arrived at the house of his
kinsman Graham of Inchbrackie, where he learned that the whole of the
country beyond the Tay was covenanting, with the single exception of the
territory of the Gordons. No one knew of his presence, for he still wore
his disguise, and slept in a little hut in the woods, where food was
brought him. All day he wandered about the lonely hills, thinking over
the tangled state of affairs, and waiting for the right moment to
strike.
One afternoon when he was lying on the heather, wondering if he ought
not to come out of his hiding, and join either the Gordons or prince
Rupert, he beheld a man running quickly over the moor, holding in his
hand the Fiery Cross, which, as every Highlander knew, was the call to
arms. Starting to his feet, Montrose stopped the man and asked the
meaning of the signal, and whither he was going.
[Illustration: "A great army of Irishmen have swooped down on the
Atholl."]
'To Perth,' answered the messenger, 'for a great army of Irishmen have
swooped down in the Atholl country, and Alastair Macdonald is their
leader. I myself have seen them, and I must not tarry,' so on he sped,
leaving Montrose with his puzzle solved. The Irishmen whom he expected
had arrived, and he would go to meet them.
There was no need for hiding any more, and glad was he to throw off his
disguise and put on his Highland dress again. Then, accompanied by the
laird of Inchbrackie, he walked across the hills to join Macdonald,
bearing the royal standard on his shoulder.
As soon as he reached the meeting-place where the clans and the Irish
were already waiting, he stuck the standard in the ground, and, standing
by it, he read aloud the king's commission to him as lieutenant-general.
Shouts of joy made answer when he had done, and next Montrose went round
the ranks to inspect the troops he was to fight with, and find out what
arms they had. The numbers only amounted to about two thousand three
hundred, and it was not long before the clans began to quarrel with each
other, and all with the Irish. As to their weapons, the Irish had
matchlock guns, which took a long time to load, and one round of
ammunition apiece, while the Highlanders had seized upon anything that
happened to be in their cottages and showed a medley of bows, pikes,
clubs, and claymores--a kind of broad sword. As to horses, they could
only muster three.
* * * * *
With this ragged army Montrose marched, and his first victory was gained
against lord Elcho, on the wide plain of Tippermuir, near Perth. The
covenanting force was nearly double that of the royalists, but many of
the troops were citizens of Perth, who thought more of their own skins
than of the cause for which they were fighting. When Montrose's fierce
charge had broken their ranks, they all turned and fled, and many of
them are said to have 'bursted with running' before they got safely
within the city gates.
In Perth Montrose fitted out his army with stores, arms, and clothes,
and released some of the prisoners on their promising not to serve
against him, while others enlisted under the royal banner. Before he set
out for Aberdeen he was joined by his two eldest sons and their tutor,
master Forrett; and in Forfarshire he found lord Airlie and his sons
awaiting him, with the welcome addition of fifty horse, which formed his
entire cavalry. These, and one thousand five hundred foot, were all the
army he had when he crossed the Dee fifteen miles from Aberdeen, and the
covenanters mustered a thousand more.
Two miles from the town the two armies met. As was his custom, Montrose
sent an envoy summoning the enemy to surrender, and with the envoy went
a little drummer-boy, who was wantonly shot down by a covenanter. When
Montrose heard of this deed of deliberate cruelty his face grew dark,
but he began to dispose his men to the best advantage. Both sides fought
well, and for a moment victory seemed uncertain; then Montrose brought
up reinforcements and decided the day by one of his rapid charges.
He had already bidden the magistrates of Aberdeen to bring out the women
and children to a place of safety as he would not answer for their
lives, but, as he had twice preserved the city from pillage, it is
probable they looked on his words as a mere idle threat, and left them
where they were. After the battle the sack began; houses were burned and
robbed, and many fell victims, though the dead, including those who had
fallen in battle, did not exceed a hundred and eighteen. But his friends
lamented that this time also he had not restrained his soldiers, and a
price of 20,000 l. was set on his head by the enraged covenanters.
* * * * *
Never was Montrose's power of moving his men swiftly from one place to
another more greatly needed than now. The Gordons were all in arms
against him; Argyll was advancing from the south with a strong force,
and Montrose had been obliged to send a large body of men into the west
under Macdonald to raise fresh levies. With the remainder he retired
into the Grampians, and turned and twisted about among the mountains,
Argyll always following.
At Fyvie Montrose suddenly learned that his enemy was within two miles
of him. Hastily ordering all the pewter vessels that could be found in
the castle to be melted down for bullets, he disposed his troops on a
hill, where a few trees and some outhouses gave them cover. Here they
waited while the covenanters gallantly made the best of their way
upwards. Then Montrose turned to young O'Gahan, who commanded the Irish,
and said gaily, 'Come, what are you about? Drive those rascals from our
defences, and see we are not troubled by them again.'
Down came the Irishmen with a rush which scattered the covenanters far
and wide, and seizing some bags of powder that lay handy, the victors
retreated up the hill again, while Montrose with some musketeers
attacked Argyll's flank, till they retired hastily.
After this defeat the covenanting leader went into Argyllshire, where
was his strong castle of Inverary, by the sea. But Montrose crossed the
pathless mountains, deep in snow, drove Argyll to Edinburgh, and when he
came back with all his clan, turned on them suddenly, destroyed them at
Inverlochy, and caused Argyll to escape in a boat.
The hopes of the king's lieutenant rose high as he thought of all he had
done with the few undisciplined troops at his command.
'I trust before the end of this summer I shall be able to come to your
majesty's assistance with a brave army,' he wrote; but meanwhile he
dared not go to Edinburgh, where he had been sentenced to death by the
Committee of Estates, and his property declared forfeited. But though
the campaign had been successful beyond his expectations, yet his heart
was heavy, for his eldest son had died of cold and exposure and the
second was a prisoner in Edinburgh castle.
* * * * *
Such was the state of things when he went west again into the country of
the Macdonalds, who flocked to his standard. On the other hand the
Lowlanders fell off, and began to cast longing eyes at the rewards
promised to those who joined the covenant. If Montrose could only have
forced a battle on Baillie, who commanded the covenanting army, another
victory would probably have been gained, but Baillie was wise, and
declined to fight. Then the Highlanders grew sullen and impatient, and
every day saw them striding over the hills to their own homes. By the
time he reached Dunkeld the royal army had shrunk to six hundred foot
and two hundred horse.
With this small force he entered Dundee, the great fortress of the
covenant, and his men took to drinking. At that moment news was brought
him that Baillie was at the gates, and with marvellous rapidity he
collected his men and marched them out of the east gate as the English
entered by the west. The Grampians were within a long march, and once
there Montrose knew he was safe.
And, far away in Sweden and in Germany, the generals who had been
trained under Wallenstein and under Gustavus Adolphus looked on, and
wondered at the skill with which Montrose met and defeated the armies
and the wealth arrayed against him.
* * * * *
But to those who had eyes to see the end was certain. It was to no
purpose that he, with the aid of the Gordons, now once more on his side,
gained a victory at Auldearn, between Inverness and Elgin, and another
at Alford, south of the Don, which cost him the life and support of
Huntly's son, lord Gordon. In vain did Ogilvies, Murrays, and Gordons
swell his ranks, and the covenanting committee play into his hands by
forcing Baillie to fight when the general knew that defeat was
inevitable. The battle of Kilsyth had been won near Glasgow on August
14, and the day was so hot that Montrose ordered his men to strip to
their shirts so that they might have no more weight to carry than was
strictly necessary. Baillie was not even allowed to choose his own
ground, but though he did all that man could do, the struggle was
hopeless, and the Fife levies were soon in flight.
Only a year had passed since Montrose, now captain-general and viceroy
of Scotland, had taken the field, and yet the whole country was subdued,
largely by the help of the Irish, and of their leader Macdonald, whom he
had knighted after Kilsyth. But for the royalist cause Naseby had been
lost, Wales was wavering, Ireland was useless, and Montrose was not
strong enough to make up for them all.
* * * * *
From Kilsyth, which is near Glasgow, it was easy for Macdonald to lead
his men across the hills and lay waste the territories of his hereditary
enemy Argyll. He would, he said, return to Montrose if he was wanted;
but the marquis took the words for what they were worth, and waited to
see whose turn to desert would come next. It was young Aboyne, who was
tired of fighting, which had not brought him any of the rewards he
thought his due, and he took with him four hundred horse and many
infantry. At the end there only remained five hundred of Macdonald's
Irish, who had cast in their lot with Montrose, and about one hundred
horsemen. With these he marched to the south, trusting in the promises
of help freely given by the great border nobles, and hoping to enter
England and help the king.
* * * * *
And doubtless these promises would have been kept had the king's cause
showed signs of triumph, but the speedy advance of four thousand
horsemen under David Leslie, the best cavalry officer of the day, turned
the scale. Roxburgh and Home at once proclaimed themselves on the side
of the covenant, and only Douglas reached Montrose's camp on the river
Gala, and brought a few untrained and unwilling recruits with him. It
was the best he could do, yet he knew well enough how little reliance
could be placed on his country contingent, who had been taught to look
on the king and Montrose as monsters of evil, seeking to destroy
whatever they held most dear.
It was on September 12 that Montrose drew up his forces at Philiphaugh
between a line of hills and the river Ettrick, while shelter was given
on the west by some rising ground covered with trees. Trenches had been
made still further to protect them, and the Irish foot soldiers were
ordered to occupy the position, which seemed secure against attack. But
on this day, which was destined to decide whether the king or the
covenant should rule Scotland, Montrose's military skill--even his good
sense--deserted him; he posted his horse and best generals at
Philiphaugh, on the other side of the river close to Selkirk, and he
himself slept in the town. More than this, instead of placing his
sentinels himself, as was his invariable custom, he allowed his officers
to do it, and also to send out whatever scouts they may have thought
necessary without orders from himself, while he sat undisturbed, writing
despatches, little knowing that Leslie was only three miles away, at
Sunderland Hall.
So the night of the 12th passed, and Montrose took counsel with the
three men he most trusted, the earls of Crawford and Airlie, and his
brother-in-law, old lord Napier, as to what should be their next step
when the battle was won. The mist was thick and heavy over the land when
morning dawned, but in spite of the cold their hearts grew light as one
scout after another came in, reporting that there was not a sign of an
enemy within miles. Had they been bribed? We shall never know, yet it is
hardly possible that they could all have overlooked the presence of
several thousand men so close to their own camp. At that very moment
Leslie's army was crossing the river, and it began the attack while the
royalists were putting on their uniforms for an inspection.
Montrose was at breakfast in Selkirk when a messenger burst in upon him
with the news, but before he could ford the river with his horse his
left wing had given way under Leslie's steady pressure. At the head of a
handful of troopers, and followed closely by his faithful friends,
Montrose twice charged the covenanters and forced them to retire. But a
detachment of Leslie's men which had crossed the river higher up fell
upon the right wing, composed of the Irish, who were placed in the wood.
Desperate was the fight and bravely and faithfully the king's men died
at their posts. Montrose seems to wish to die too, and bitterly he must
later have regretted that he listened to his friends, who bade him
remember his duty as a general, and besought him to fly. At length he
yielded, and with fifty comrades galloped off the field, bearing the
standards with him.
* * * * *
With the battle of Philiphaugh the cause of the king was hopelessly
lost, and with it also the fortunes of his followers. A hundred of the
Irish surrendered on promise of quarter, and were shot down next day,
while their wives and children were killed on the spot, or imprisoned,
and hanged later. Strange as it may appear to us, Montrose did not
recognise the meaning of the defeat, and, with the dash and energy that
marked him to the last, he collected a fresh army of Highlanders, and
prepared to set out for the south, hoping to rescue his personal
friends, who were now prisoners in Glasgow. Yet again his judgment
failed him, and instead of attacking the English general who was holding
Huntly in check in the north of Aberdeenshire, he left him alone, and
then found that without the Gordons he was not strong enough to cope
with Leslie's army. Once more the mountains were his refuge, and from
their shelter he crept out to attend the burial of his wife in the town
of Montrose. On his way he probably passed the ruins of his castles,
which had been burned by order of the covenanters.
Owing to the special desire of the Scottish rulers every possible
degradation was heaped on the imprisoned nobles, and it was a rare
favour indeed when they were suffered to die on the block, and not by
the common hangman. Lord Ogilvy was saved by his sister, who, like lady
Nithsdale sixty years later, forced him to exchange his clothes for
hers, and remained in his cell, ready to take the consequences.
Then came the rumour that the king, with cropped hair like a Puritan and
wearing a disguise, had ridden over Magdalen bridge at Oxford, attended
by lord Ashburnham and Hudson, his chaplain, and entered the Scottish
camp in the hope of softening his foes by submission. He was soon
undeceived as to the way in which they regarded him, for before he had
even eaten or rested he was begged--or bidden--to order the surrender of
Newark, which still held out, and to command Montrose to lay down his
sword. Charles, whose manhood returned to him in these hours of
darkness, positively refused; but at Newcastle he found he was powerless
to resist, and wrote to his faithful servant to disband his army and to
go himself to France.
In the letter which the marquis sent in reply he asks nothing for
himself, but entreats the king to obtain the best terms possible for
those that had fought for him, and the conditions arranged by Middleton
were certainly better than either king or general expected. The men who
had served in Montrose's wars were given their lives and liberty, and
also were allowed to retain whatever lands had not been already handed
over to other people. As to Montrose himself, he, with Crawford and
Hurry the general, was to leave Scotland before September 1 in a ship
belonging to the Committee of Estates. Should they be found in the
country after that date death would be the penalty.
* * * * *
After disbanding his army--or what was left of it--in the king's name,
and thanking them for their services, Montrose went to Forfarshire to
await the ship which was to convey him to France. But day after day
passed without a sign of it, and the marquis soon became convinced that
treachery was intended, and took measures to prevent it. Leaving old
Montrose, he went to Stonehaven, another little town on the coast, and
settled with a Norwegian captain to lie off Montrose on a certain day.
So when, on August 31, the covenanting captain at last appeared, and
declared his ship would not be ready to sail for another eight days--by
which time, of course, Montrose's life would be forfeit--he found his
bird flown; for the exile and a friend had disguised themselves and put
off one morning in a small boat to the larger vessel that was waiting
for them, and in a week were safe across the North Sea at Bergen.
* * * * *
But Norway was merely a stepping-stone to Paris, where the queen of
England was living under the protection of her sister-in-law, Anne of
Austria, and of the young king Louis XIV. The handsome pension allowed
her in the beginning gradually ceased when the civil war of the Fronde
broke out in 1648, and, as we know, she was found one day by a visitor
sitting with her little girl, whom she had kept in bed because she could
not afford a fire. And even at this time, in 1647, she always spent
whatever she had, so from one cause or another no money was forthcoming
to help Montrose, who perhaps did not understand the situation, and
thought that she was unkind and careless of her husband's welfare. As
often before, he spoke out his feelings when he would have done better
to be silent, and pressed on the queen advice that was not asked for,
and may not have been possible to follow. Yet, if he felt that there was
no place for him in the little English court, ample evidence was given
him of the high respect in which he was held elsewhere. The all-powerful
minister, cardinal Mazarin, desired to enlist him in the French service,
and the greatest nobles paid court to him. Montrose, however, was not
the sort of man to find healing for his sorrows in honours such as
these. He gave a grateful and courteous refusal to all proposals, and
bidding farewell to his hosts, made his way to the Prague to offer his
sword to the emperor Ferdinand. Like the rest, the emperor received him
warmly, and created him a field-marshal, but there was no post for
Montrose in the Austrian army, and in the end he joined some friends in
Brussels, whence he kept up an intimate correspondence with Elizabeth of
Bohemia, Charles I.'s sister, who was staying at the Hague with her
niece, Mary of Orange, and the young prince of Wales.
There in February arrived the news of the king's execution, and when he
heard it Montrose vowed that the rest of his life should be spent in the
service of his son, and in avenging his master. Charles II. did not like
him; he was too grave and too little of a courtier; and besides, the new
king had listened and believed the stories to his discredit brought by
men whose fortunes had been ruined in their own country, and who sought
to build them up in Holland! Charles soon found for himself how untrue
were these tales, and though the two never could become friends, he
recognised Montrose's loyalty and ability and appointed him
commander-in-chief of the royal forces and lieutenant-governor of
Scotland, and gave him leave to get what mercenaries he could from
Sweden and Denmark.
Full of hope, Montrose at once set off on his recruiting journey, and
sent off some troops to the Orkneys to be drilled under the earls of
Kinnoull and Morton; but Morton in a very short time caught fever and
died. Meanwhile his friend, Elizabeth of Bohemia, looked on with
distrust and alarm at her nephew's proceedings, for well she knew--as
did Charles himself--that the surrender of Montrose would be the first
article of any treaty made by the covenant. She even wrote to put
Montrose on his guard; but he, judging the king by himself, believed the
assurances of help and support given in Charles' own letters,
accompanied by the gift of the garter, as a pledge of their fulfilment.
He was bidden to lose no time in opening the campaign, but one thousand
out of the one thousand two hundred men whom he despatched went down in
a great gale, and only two hundred reached the shore. So April had come
before the general had collected sufficient soldiers to march
southwards, and by that time the forces of the enemy were ready to meet
him.
It was on April 27 that Montrose's last battle was fought at Carbisdale,
near the Kyle, where the rivers Shin and Oykel reach the sea. The earl
of Sutherland secured the passes of the hills, while colonel Strachan
and a large body of cavalry approached from the south. When they arrived
within a few miles of the royalist camp at the head of the Kyle,
Strachan ordered two divisions of his cavalry to proceed under cover of
some woods and broken ground, and only suffered a few horse, led by
himself, to remain visible. These were seen, as they were meant to be,
by Montrose's scouts, who, as at Philiphaugh, were either careless or
treacherous or very stupid, and they brought back the report that the
covenanting force was weak. Montrose, taking for granted the truth of
their report, disposed of his foot on a flat stretch of ground, and
ordered his horse to advance. Then the trees and the hills 'started to
life with armed men'; the Orkney islanders fled without striking a blow;
and though the foreign troops made a stout resistance, they were
overpowered by numbers, and those of their leaders who were not dead
were taken prisoners. Montrose, who was badly wounded, fought
desperately on foot, but at length after much entreaty accepted the
horse ridden by Sutherland's nephew and dashed away into the hills,
throwing away as he did so his star, sword and cloak--a fatal act, which
brought about his discovery and death. Their horses were next abandoned,
and Montrose changed clothes with a peasant, and with young lord
Kinnoull and Sinclair of Caithness plunged into the wild mountains that
lay on the west.
[Illustration: For two days they sought in vain for a road to take them
to Caithness.]
Now began for the three fugitives the period of bodily anguish that was
to cease only with their lives. The country was strange to them, and was
almost bare of inhabitants, so that for two days they sought in vain to
find a road which might take them to Caithness, whence they could escape
to France or Norway. During these two days they ate absolutely nothing,
and passed the cold nights under the stars. At length Kinnoull, who had
always been delicate, flung himself down on the heather, and in a few
hours died of exhaustion. There his friends were forced to leave him,
without even a grave, and wandered on, their steps and their hearts
heavier than before, till a light suddenly beamed at them out of the
dusk. It was a shepherd's cottage, where they were given some milk and
oatmeal, the first food they had eaten since the battle; but the man
dared not take them into his hut, lest he should bring on himself the
wrath of the covenant for harbouring royalists, even though he knew not
who they were.
The reward offered for Montrose sharpened men's eyes and ears, and in
two days he was discovered lying on the mountain side almost too weak to
move. It was Macleod of Assynt to whom the deadly shame of his betrayal
is said to belong, and Montrose prayed earnestly that the mercy of a
bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed him. But the man who for many
years had defied all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common
soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with his feet tied
together underneath, and led through roaring, hissing crowds, which
pressed to see him in every town through which they had to pass. The
wounds that he had received in the battle were still untouched, and he
was feverish from the pain. This was another cause of rejoicing to his
foes; but they were careful to give him food lest he should escape them
as Kinnoull had done. And at each halting-place there came a minister to
heap insults and reproaches on his head, which he seldom deigned to
answer. But though the ministers of peace and goodwill had no words bad
enough for him, one is glad to think that Leslie the general did what he
could, and allowed his friends to see him whenever they asked to do so,
and also permitted him to accept and wear the clothes of a gentleman,
which were given him by the people of Dundee. It was to Leslie also that
he probably owed a last interview with his two little boys, when he
stopped for the night at the castle of Kinnaird, from which he had been
married.
* * * * *
From Dundee the prisoner was brought by ship to Leith, and taken to the
palace of Holyrood, where he was received by the magistrates of the city
in their robes of office, with the provost (or mayor) at their head.
Here the order of the Parliament was read, and he listened 'with a
majesty and state becoming him, and kept a countenance high.' Then his
friends, who, like himself, were prisoners, were ordered to walk,
chained two together, through the streets, and behind came Montrose,
seated bareheaded on a chair in a cart driven by the hangman. The
streets of the old town were crowded by people who came to mock and
jeer, but remained dumb with shame and pity. The cart slowly went on its
way, and at seven the Tolbooth prison was reached, with the gallows
thirty feet high standing as it had stood twelve years before beside the
city cross.
* * * * *
The last days of Montrose were disturbed by the constant visits of
ministers, who tried to force from him a confession of treachery to the
covenant, but in vain.
'The covenant which I took,' he said, 'I own it and adhere to it.
Bishops I care not for. I never intended to advance their interest. But
when the king had granted you all your desires, and you were everyone
sitting under his vine and under his fig tree--that then you should have
taken a party in England by the hand and entered into a league and
covenant with them against the king was the thing I judged my duty to
oppose to the yondmost.'
These words are the explanation of Montrose's conduct in changing from
one side to another; but little he guessed that the new king, by whose
express orders he had undertaken his present hopeless mission, had only
a few days before, at the conference of Breda, consented to bid his
viceroy disband his army and to leave Scotland. This knowledge, which
would have added bitterness to his fate, was spared him; as was the
further revelation of the baseness of Charles II., who gave orders to
his messenger not to deliver the document if he found Montrose likely to
get the upper hand.
* * * * *
As an act of extraordinary generosity the Parliament, which had voted to
colonel Strachan a diamond clasp for his share in the final defeat of
Montrose, permitted the prisoner's friends to provide him with a proper
dress, so that he might appear suitably before them. Their courtesy did
not, however, extend to a barber to shave him--a favour which, as he
said, 'might have been allowed to a dog.' But he must have looked very
splendid as he stood at the bar of the House, in black cloth trimmed
with silver, and a deep lace collar, with a scarlet cloak likewise
trimmed with silver falling over his shoulders, a band of silver on his
beaver hat, and scarlet shoes and stockings.
A long list of his crimes was read to him, and these one by one he
denied. 'For the league,' he said, 'I thank God I never was in it, and
so could not break it. Never was any man's blood spilt save in battle,
and even then, many thousand lives have I preserved. As for my coming at
this time, it was by his majesty's just commands'--the commands of the
king who a week earlier had abandoned him! But of what use are words and
denial when the doom is already fixed? The chancellor's reply was merely
a series of insults, and then the prisoner was ordered to kneel and hear
the sentence read by Warriston, by whose side he had stood on the
scaffold in 1638 when the first covenant was read, and old Lord Rothes
had made his dark prophecy.
He had known beforehand what it would be--hanging, drawing, and
quartering, with a copy of his last declaration and the history of his
wars tied round his neck, and no burial for his body unless he confessed
his guilt at the last. This did not trouble him. 'I will carry honour
and fidelity with me to the grave' he had said eight years before, and
that no grave was to be allowed him mattered little.
The ceremony over, he was led back to the Tolbooth, where his gaoler
kept him free from the ministers who would fain have thrust their
sermons and reproaches on the dying man.
* * * * *
Soldiers were early under arms on the morning of May 21, for even now
the Parliament greatly dreaded a rescue. With the 'unaltered
countenance' he had borne ever since his capture Montrose heard the
beating of drums and trumpets, and answered calmly the taunt of
Warriston as to his vanity in dressing his hair.
'My head is yet my own,' said Montrose, 'and I will arrange it to my
taste. To-night, when it will be yours, treat it as you please.'
Every roof and window in the High Street and within sight of the city
cross was filled with people as Montrose, clad in scarlet and black,
walked calmly down at three that afternoon. 'Many of his enemies did
acknowledge him to be the bravest subject in the world,' writes one who
beheld him, and he walked up the steps as quietly as if he were taking
his place to see some interesting sight.
They feared him too much to allow him to speak to the crowd, as was the
custom, but he addressed himself to the magistrates and the ministers
who were standing on the platform. Once more he confessed his faith and
his loyalty, and when, in accordance with the sentence, the hangman
suspended the two books round his neck, he said, 'they have given me a
decoration more brilliant than the garter.' Then he mounted the ladder,
and the hangman burst into tears as he gave the last touch.
* * * * *
So died Montrose, and eleven years later the king who had disowned him
bethought him of his fate. In January 1661 the Parliament, which had
been summoned by the restored monarch, Charles II., 'thought fit to
honour Montrose his carcase with a glorious second burial, to compensate
the dishonour of the first.' His limbs, which had been placed over the
gates of the cities made memorable by his victories, remained in state
at Holyrood for four months, and May 11 was fixed to lay them where they
now rest, in the church of St. Giles. Heralds in their many-coloured
robes arranged the procession, and the train-bands occupied the street
to keep off the dense crowds. The magistrates, headed by the provost,
walked two and two in deep mourning--had any of them taken part in that
brutal scene eleven years ago?--and behind them came the barons and the
burgesses. Next followed the dead man's kinsmen bearing his armour, the
order of the garter, and his field-marshal's baton, and behind the
coffin came his two sons and most of his kindred. Middleton, as lord
high commissioner and representative of the king, occupied the place of
honour, and brought up the rear in a coach drawn by six horses, with six
bareheaded gentlemen riding on each hand.
Thus was Montrose lowered into his grave to the sound of the guns that
he loved, which thundered from the castle. He has a beautiful tomb in
the old church of St. Giles, adorned with the coats-of-arms of the
Grahams and Napiers and his other brothers-in-arms.
A CHILD'S HERO
On a dark January day in the year 1858 a little girl was running quickly
downstairs for her play-hour with her elders. Just as she reached the
foot of the staircase the drawing-room door opened, and her brother came
out with a grave face. 'Havelock is dead!' said he, and at the news the
little girl laid her head against the wall and burst into tears.
* * * * *
Who was this Havelock, that a strange child should care so much about
him? Well, he was a man who worked hard and fought hard all the days of
his life, never shirking his duty or envious of the good luck of others.
Again and again those who had shared the burden and heat of the day with
Havelock got rewards to which it might seem that he had an equal claim;
still, whatever his disappointment he showed no sign, but greeted his
fortunate friends cheerfully, and when it was required of him served
under them with all his might. Just at the end the chance came to him
also, and gloriously he profited by it.
But if you want to know how that came about you must begin at the
beginning.
* * * * *
Henry Havelock was born at Bishop's Wearmouth, close to Sunderland, on
April 5, 1795. His grandfather was a shipbuilder in the flourishing
seaport town, and his son, Henry's father, became a partner in the
business. The Havelocks soon made a name in the trade, and were given a
commission to build the _Lord Duncan_, christened after the famous
admiral, the largest ship ever launched from the port.
Money flowed in rapidly, and when Henry was about three years old his
father determined to leave the north and to go and settle at Ingress
Hall, near Dartford, in Kent, which became the birthplace of his two
youngest sons, Thomas and Charles.
There was no school nearer than three miles, which was too far for them
to walk, so to the great delight of Henry and his elder brother William
ponies were given them, and even if they had disliked their lessons
instead of being fond of books, the pleasure of the ride through the
lanes would have made up for everything. As it was, they were always
hanging about the front door long before it was time to start, and the
moment the coachman brought out the ponies from the stable they would
spring into their saddles in a great bustle, and clatter away over the
grass, pretending that they were very late and would get bad marks if
they did not hurry.
All through Havelock's childhood the continent of Europe was under the
foot of Napoleon, and was forced to submit to his rule. England only had
stood aloof and refused his advances; yet she waited, with the dread
that accompanies the expectation whose fulfilment is delayed, for an
invasion of her own coasts. No story was too bad to be believed of
'Boney,' and women are said to have frightened their naughty children
into good behaviour by threatening to send for 'Boney' to carry them
away. No doubt Havelock heard a great deal from his parents and
schoolfellows of the desperate wickedness of 'Boney,' but, in spite of
the terrible pictures that were drawn, the boy devoured eagerly all the
newspapers wrote of the ogre's campaigns and his battles, and never
joined in the outcry against him.
Before Henry had passed his tenth birthday he was sent, with his brother
William, to the Charterhouse School in the City of London, where he
stayed for seven years. He was always bold and daring, so the other boys
respected him, even though he did not care much for games, and, what was
still worse in their eyes, was fond of Greek and Latin and always did
his work. Still, though it was, they said, very silly for a boy to do
more than he could possibly help, it must be admitted that Havelock
never minded risking his neck when he was dared to do so, would climb
trees or chimneys while others looked on awe-stricken, and would endure
any punishment sooner than betray 'a fellow' who was caught.
During these years of school Havelock had many battles of Napoleon's to
study, and we may be sure that each one in its turn was thoroughly
discussed with the friends who afterwards became celebrated in many
ways--the historians, Grote and Thirlwall, Eastlake the painter, Yates
the actor, and Macnaghten, afterwards murdered at Cabul, while Havelock
was with the force on the way to relieve him. As they grew older they
used to talk over the future together, and not one of them doubted that
he would be in the front rank of whatever profession he might choose.
'My mother wants me to be a lawyer, and she is sure that one day I shall
be lord chancellor,' said Havelock, and no doubt every other mother was
equally convinced of her son's genius. But before his school-days were
over Mrs. Havelock died, to Henry's great grief, and then came the news
that their father had lost a great deal of money, and they must leave
Ingress Hall and move to a smaller house at Clifton.
* * * * *
It was in 1813--the year of the battle of Leipzig, Henry Havelock would
have told you--that the young man took the first step towards becoming
'lord chancellor,' and was entered at the Middle Temple. He set to work
with his usual energy, and when he was too tired to understand any more
of what the law books taught him, he would take down a volume of poetry
and read till he was soothed by the music of the words. But at the end
of a year a change came into his life. His father, whose temper seems to
have been ruined by the loss of his money, quarrelled with him about
some trifling matter. Henry's allowance was withdrawn, and as he could
not live in the Temple upon nothing he was forced to bid good-bye to the
dream of the chancellorship.
At this time in his life he was perplexed and unhappy, though he never
gave up the strong religious faith which he had inherited from his
mother. It was necessary that he should earn his living in some way, but
he could not see what he was to do, and things were so uncomfortable at
home that he wished to leave it as soon as possible.
Happily he had not long to wait, for William, who had joined the 43rd
Regiment and fought at Busaco and Salamanca and Waterloo, came home on
leave, and solved the puzzle.
* * * * *
In the great battle which finally broke the power of Napoleon, William
Havelock had been acting as aide-de-camp to baron von Alten, who had
succeeded to the command of general Craufurd's division. We are told
that William 'had done the baron a service' during the engagement, and
that the general was anxious to prove his gratitude. The special
'service' the young soldier had rendered is not mentioned, but we may
take it for granted that William Havelock had in some way saved his
life. However, in answer to the general's offer of reward, William said
that he had all he could possibly wish for, and so the matter ended for
the moment. But when he came home, and found Henry with all his plans
changed, and not knowing how to set about making a career for himself,
the baron von Alten's words flashed into his mind.
'You were always fond of soldiering,' he said to Henry one day, 'and I
believe you could describe the battles I have fought in almost as well
as I could. If the baron can give me a commission for you, will you take
it? I am sure you would make a splendid soldier.'
Henry's eyes beamed. Somehow he had never thought of that. At the
Charterhouse he had been laughed at for his love of books, and called
the 'Phlos.'--short for 'Philosopher'--by the boys. He had always, too,
been very religious, and after his mother's death (which occurred when
he was about fourteen) had gathered four of his special friends round
him once or twice a week in the big dormitory where they all slept, in
order that they might read the Bible together. Yet there was in Havelock
much of the spirit of the old crusader and of his enemy, the follower of
Mahomet the prophet, and though, unlike them, he did not deal out death
as the punishment of a rejected faith, still he positively delighted in
fighting, and indeed looked on it as a sacred duty.
So the commission was obtained, and Henry, now second lieutenant in the
Rifle Brigade, then called the 95th, was sent to Shorncliffe, and
captain Harry Smith was his senior officer. The Boer war has made us
very well acquainted with the name of this gentleman, for in after years
it was given to the town of Harrismith in South Africa, while his wife's
has become immortal in 'Ladysmith.'
* * * * *
Young Havelock, who was still under twenty-one, made fast friends with
his captain, and listened eagerly to all he could tell of the Punjaub,
where Smith had seen much of service. How he longed to take part in such
deeds! But his turn was slow in coming, and for eight years he remained
inactive in England, while the nation was recovering as best it could
from the strain of the Peninsular War. Most of his messmates grumbled
and fretted at having 'nothing to do,' but this was never Havelock's
way, for if he could not 'do' what he wanted, he did something else. The
young man, only five feet six inches in height, with the long face and
eyes which looked as if they saw things that were hidden from other
people, spent his spare time in studying all that belonged to his
profession. For hours he would pore over books on fortification and
tactics, and try to find for himself why this or that plan, which seemed
so good, turned out when tried a hopeless failure. He had always a pile
of memoirs of celebrated soldiers round him, and often bored his
brother-officers by persisting in talking of the campaigns of
Marlborough or Frederick the Great, instead of discussing the balls or
races that filled their minds. Still, though he made the best of the
circumstances in which he found himself, he looked forward to the
prospect of going to India, where William and Charles already were.
* * * * *
But to get to India it was needful to exchange into another regiment,
and Henry was gazetted to the 13th Light Infantry. The process took some
time, but as usual he found some work for himself, and prepared for his
future life by taking lessons in Persian and Hindostanee.
Now there is no better way of learning a language than to teach it to
somebody else, and on the voyage out to Calcutta, which then took four
months, some of the officers on board ship begged him to form a class in
these two languages. Havelock had passed in London the examination
necessary for the degree of a qualified Moonshee, or native tutor, and
his Persian was so good that regularly throughout his life, when his
superior officers wished to mark their appreciation of his services,
they recommended him for an interpretership! Therefore during those
tedious four months, when land was seldom seen, and the ship sailed on
from St. Helena, whose great captive had not been two years dead, to the
Cape of Good Hope and the island of Ceylon, the little band of students
met and struggled with the strange letters of the two tongues, and by
the time the ship _General Kyd_ arrived at Calcutta in May 1823,
Havelock's pupils could all talk a little, and read tolerably.
* * * * *
At first it seemed as if life in India was going to be as quiet as life
in England, but in 1824 the king of Ava, a Burmese city, demanded that
Eastern Bengal should be given up to him, or war would be instantly
declared. The answer sent to the 'Lord of the Great White Elephant' was
a declaration of war on the part of our viceroy in India. Sir Archibald
Campbell was given the command of the invading force, and he appointed
Havelock to be his deputy-assistant adjutant-general.
It was the young man's first taste of warfare, and a very bitter one it
proved to be. The experiences of Marlborough and Frederick on the
battlefields of Europe were of little use in the jungle, where the
Burmese knew a thousand hiding-places undreamed of by the English, who
had the unhealthy climate to fight against as well. At last Havelock
fell ill like the rest, and was sent to his brother, then stationed at
Poonah, not far from Bombay, to recover his health.
Havelock went very unwillingly; he was doing his work to the
satisfaction of the general, and he knew it; besides, he could not help
thinking that before he got better the war might have ended, or someone
else might be filling his place. However, there was no help for it, and
as soon as he was on board ship he began to feel for the first time how
ill he had really been. Once at Poonah he soon recovered, and in June
was able to return to the camp in Burmah.
For a long while it had been Havelock's habit to hold a sort of Bible
class for any of the men whom he could persuade to come to it; and not
only did he give them religious teaching, but he made them understand
that he expected them to 'live soberly, righteously, and godly,' as the
Catechism says. They were not to quarrel, or to drink too much, or to do
as little work as possible. They were to tell the truth, even if it got
them into trouble, and they were to bear the hardships that fall to the
lot of every soldier--hunger and thirst, heat and cold--without
grumbling. And the men accepted his teaching, and tried to act up to it,
because they saw that Havelock asked nothing of them that he did not
practise himself.
'Havelock's Saints' was their nickname among the rest of the camp, but
sometimes even their enemies were forced to admit that 'Havelock's
Saints' had their uses. One night sir Archibald Campbell ordered a
sudden attack to be made on the Burmese by a certain corps. The
messenger or orderly who was sent with the order returned saying that
the men were too drunk to be fit for duty.
'Then call out Havelock's Saints,' said the commander-in-chief; '_they_
are always sober and to be depended upon, and Havelock himself is always
ready.'
So the night attack was made by the 'Saints,' and the position carried.
* * * * *
At the end of the Burmese war Havelock returned to his regiment, then
commanded by colonel Sale, who became his lifelong friend. All he had
gained in Burmah, except experience, was the rank of a Burmese noble,
conferred on him by the 'Golden King' on account of his services in
making the treaty of peace. This cost the 'Lord of the White Elephant'
nothing, and did no good to Havelock; and six months after the troops
left Burmah he was glad to accept the adjutancy of a regiment in a
pleasant part of India, near some friends. Here he became engaged to be
married to Miss Marshman, daughter of a missionary, and the wedding-day
was soon fixed. Early that morning the bridegroom received a message
that he must go up at once to Calcutta in order to attend a
court-martial to be held at twelve o'clock. Calcutta was a long way from
Chinsurah, and as he was bound to be present at the military trial most
men would have put off the marriage till the following day. But Havelock
was different from other people. He sent one messenger to order the
fastest boat on the river to be in waiting, and another to inform the
bride and her father that they must get ready as quickly as possible.
The ceremony was performed without delay, and as soon as it was over
Havelock ran down to his boat. For several hours he sat in the stifling
court, hearing witnesses and asking them questions as coolly as if there
had been no marriage and no bride, and when the proceedings were ended,
and the sentence passed, he stepped on board the boat again, and arrived
at Chinsurah in time for the wedding dinner.
* * * * *
After he had been at Chinsurah for four years the Government thought
they could do without an adjutant, and thus save money. This fell hardly
on Havelock, who was very poor, and when he went back to his regiment
his wife and child had to live in two tiny rooms on the ramparts. Mrs.
Havelock never complained, but in a hot climate like India plenty of
space and air are necessary for health, and both father and mother were
terrified lest the baby should suffer. However, very soon the new
governor-general gave him the adjutancy of his own regiment, then at
Agra, and things grew brighter. His days were passed in drilling and
looking after his men, but he still took thought for their welfare in
their spare hours, and managed to get some chapels put up for them, and
to open a coffee-house, with games and books, which he hoped might keep
them out of mischief.
* * * * *
Now at this date, and for many years after, it was the custom in the
English army that the officers should _buy_ their promotion, unless a
vacancy occurred by death. Havelock was a poor man, and like many
well-known Indian soldiers had to depend for luck on his 'steps,' or
advancement. If, like Havelock, officers exchanged into other regiments,
they were put back to the bottom of the list, and had to work their way
up all over again.
Besides this there were _two_ armies in India, one belonging to the
English sovereign, and the other to the East India Company's Service,
under which near a hundred years before Clive had won his battles. It
was the officers serving under 'John Company,' as it was called, who had
all the 'plums' of the profession; who governed large provinces, made
treaties with the native princes, and gave orders even to the general
himself. Outram, who afterwards entered Lucknow side by side with
Havelock; sir Henry Lawrence, who died defending the city before Outram
and Havelock fought their way in; John Nicholson, who was killed in the
siege of Delhi, and hundreds of other well-known men, all wore the
Company's colours and received rewards. For the officers of the royal
army it was no uncommon thing for a man to wait fifty years before being
made a general, as lord Roberts's father waited; so, although it was
very disheartening for Havelock to see young men, with not half his
brains but with ten times his income, become captains and majors and
colonels over his head, he knew well what he had to expect, and also
that he possessed thousands of companions in misfortune.
By-and-by the Company's army was done away with, and India is now ruled
in an entirely different way.
It was in the autumn of 1836 that Havelock sent up his wife and little
children for a change to a hill station called Landour. The cool air and
quiet were very restful after the heat of the summer, and at last they
were all able to sleep, instead of tossing to and fro through the dark
hours, longing for the dawn.
One night the moon was shining brightly, and Mrs. Havelock had stepped
out on her verandah before she went to bed, and thought how beautiful
and peaceful everything looked. A few hours later she was awakened by a
dense smoke, and jumping up found that the house was on fire all round
her. She snatched up her baby and opened the door to get to the room
where the two little boys were sleeping with their ayah, or nurse, but
such a rush of flames met her that she staggered back and fell. In an
instant her thin nightdress was on fire, and she was so blinded by the
glare and the smoke that she did not know which way to turn. Happily one
of the native servants heard the noise, and, wrapping a wet blanket
about him which was too damp to burn, he managed to crawl over the floor
and drag her through the verandah to a place of safety. He then ran back
and succeeded in reaching the two boys and putting them beside their
mother, but not before the eldest had been badly burnt.
[Illustration: He managed to crawl over the floor.]
As for the baby, she died in a few days, and it was thought that her
mother, who had been borne unconscious to the house of a neighbour,
could hardly survive her many hours.
Such was the news which reached Havelock at Kurnaul, where the regiment
was now stationed. It was a crushing blow to him, but, with a violent
effort to control himself, he sent a hasty request to the colonel for
leave, and arranged the most important parts of his work, so that it
might be carried on by another officer. He had just finished and was
ready to start when a message was brought in from the men of his
regiment, who were waiting below, begging that he would speak to them
for one moment. Half dazed he hurried out to the courtyard, and then the
sergeant stepped forward from the ranks, and in a few words told him of
the sorrow with which all his company had heard of the terrible
calamity, and hoped that he would accept a month of their pay to go
towards replacing the burnt furniture.
Havelock was touched to the heart, and his eyes filled with tears of
gratitude. His voice shook as he stammered out his thanks, but he could
not take their savings, though to the end of his life he never forgot
the kindness of their offer. Happily Mrs. Havelock did not die, and in a
few months was as well as ever.
* * * * *
In 1838, when Havelock had been twenty-three years a soldier, he
obtained his captaincy by the death of the man above him, and in the end
of the same year the war with Afghanistan gave him another chance of
distinguishing himself.
It was a very unfortunate and badly managed business. The native ruler,
the Ameer or Dost Mohammed, who had for twelve years governed the
country fairly well, was deposed, and a weak and treacherous prince,
hated by all the Afghans, was chosen by us to replace him. This could
only be done by the help of our troops, and although Englishmen who knew
Cabul pointed out to the governor-general the folly of his course, lord
Auckland would listen to no one, and the expedition which was to finish
in disaster was prepared.
Havelock's old friend sir Willoughby Cotton was given the command of the
part of the army destined for Afghanistan itself, while the other half
remained as a reserve in the Punjaub. Cotton appointed Havelock his
aide-de-camp, greatly to his delight, and at the end of December 1838
the march began. As far as the Indus things went smoothly enough, but
after that difficulties crowded in upon them. They had deserts to cross,
and not enough animals to drag their guns and waggons, food grew scarcer
and scarcer, and at length the general ordered 'famine rations' to be
served out. It was winter also, and the country was high and bitterly
cold, and April was nearly at its close before the city of Candahar was
reached. Here sickness broke out among the troops, and they were obliged
to wait in the town till the crops had ripened and they could get proper
supplies for their march to Cabul.
The first step towards winning Cabul was the capture of Ghuzni, a strong
fortress lying two hundred and seventy miles to the north of Candahar.
This was carried by assault during the night, the only gate not walled
up being blown open by the English. In the rush into the town which
followed, colonel Sale was thrown on the ground while struggling
desperately with a huge native, who was standing over him.
'Do me the favour to pass your sword through the body of the infidel,'
cried Sale, politely, to captain Kershaw, who had just come up. The
captain obligingly did as he was asked, and the Afghan fell dead beside
his foe.
[Illustration: The captain obligingly did as he was asked.]
Early in August the British army reached the town of Cabul, on the river
of the same name, and found that the Dost Mohammed had fled into the
mountains of the Hindu Koosh, leaving the city ready to welcome the
British. As everything was quiet, and the army was to remain in Cabul
for the winter, Havelock obtained permission to go back to Serampore,
near Calcutta, in the hope of bringing out a book he had been writing
about the march across the Indus. Unluckily this book, like the two
others he wrote, proved a failure; which was the more unfortunate as, in
order to get it published, Havelock had been obliged to refuse sir
Willoughby Cotton's offer of a Persian interpretership. But he needed
money for his boy's education, and thought he might obtain it through
his book. Therefore this lack of a sale was a bitter disappointment to
him.
Just at that time a company of recruits had been raised for service in
Cabul, and in June 1840 Havelock started in charge of them from
Serampore. He had the whole width of India to cross, and at Ferozepore,
on a tributary of the Indus, he joined general Elphinstone, the
successor of Cotton, who was retiring. Why Elphinstone should have been
chosen to conduct a war which the mountainous country was certain to
render difficult is a mystery, and another mystery is why Elphinstone
should have accepted the appointment, as he was so crippled with gout
that he could hardly move. However, there he was, commander-in-chief of
this part of the expedition, and from this unwise choice resulted many
of the calamities which followed.
* * * * *
The general could not travel fast, and it was more than six months
before they reached Cabul. Havelock, now Persian interpreter to
Elphinstone, was much disturbed at the condition of things that they
found on their arrival, and at the folly which had lost us the support
of the native hill tribes, who had hitherto acted as our paid police and
guarded the passes leading into the Punjaub. So when Sale's brigade,
with a native regiment, a small force of cavalry and artillery, and a
few engineers under the famous George Broadfoot, marched eastwards up
the river Cabul, they discovered that the passes had all been blocked by
the mountaineers, who were ready to spring out and attack the English
from all sorts of unsuspected hiding-places.
Now Havelock had not drawn his sword since the end of the Burmese war,
and directly he saw a chance of fighting he had begged to be allowed to
accept the appointment of staff-officer offered him by Sale. This was
given him, and the troops had only gone a few miles from Cabul when the
fighting began, and Sale was severely wounded.
It is impossible to tell all the details of the march, but much of the
burden of it fell on Havelock's shoulders, as Sale could not go about
and see after things himself. Here, as always, he proved himself, as
Kaye the historian says, 'every inch a soldier.' 'Among our good
officers,' wrote Broadfoot at the time, 'first comes captain Havelock.
The whole of them together would not compensate for his loss. He is
brave to admiration, invariably cool, and, as far as I can see or
judge, correct in his views.'
All along the march up the Cabul these qualities were badly needed, for
it was necessary to watch night and day lest the little army should be
taken unawares by the hill tribes. At last the rocky country was left
behind, and they halted in the rich and well-wooded town of Gundamak, to
rest for a little and to wait Elphinstone's orders. The letters, when
they came, told a fearful tale. The Afghans had risen in Cabul; Burnes,
the East India Company's officer in Afghanistan, had been murdered,
together with other men, among them Broadfoot's brother, and though
there were five thousand British troops stationed only two miles away,
as Havelock well knew, they had never been called out to quell the
insurrection.
Under these circumstances Elphinstone implored Sale to return without
delay to Cabul.
* * * * *
A council of war was held to decide what was to be done. They all saw
that if it had been difficult to get through the passes before, it would
be almost impossible now, when the success at Cabul had given fresh
courage and audacity to the hill-men, and thousands who had hung back
waiting to know if the insurrection would be successful or not would
have rushed to the help of their country. Besides, with five thousand
fresh troops close to the city, the English could hardly be in such
desperate straits. So Sale decided to disobey Elphinstone's orders and
to push on to Jellalabad further up the river.
Jellalabad was not reached without much fighting, and when they entered
the town it was clear that it would not be easy to hold, and that the
walls stood in much need of repair. However, Broadfoot was the kind of
man who felt that whatever _had_ to be done _could_ be done, and he
turned out his corps, consisting of natives of every tribe, to work on
the fortifications. Happily he had brought with him from Cabul all the
tools that were necessary, and the Afghan fire which poured in upon them
was soon checked by Colonel Monteath, who scattered the enemy for the
time being.
This left the garrison a chance of getting in supplies; but they were
short of powder and shot, and orders were issued that it should not be
used unnecessarily.
* * * * *
On the morning of January 8, 1842, three Afghans rode into the town,
bearing a letter from Cabul, signed both by sir Henry Pottinger and
general Elphinstone. This told them that a treaty had been concluded by
which the English had agreed to retire from Afghanistan, and bidding
Sale to quit Jellalabad at once and proceed to India, leaving behind him
his artillery and any stores or baggage that he might not be able to
carry with him.
With one voice the council of war, which was hastily summoned, declined
once more to obey these instructions, which they declared had been wrung
out of Elphinstone by force. Jellalabad should be held at any cost, and
the news that they received during the following week only strengthened
their resolution. The British in Cabul were hemmed in by their enemies,
the cantonments or barracks were deserted, and the sixteen thousand
fugitives had been surrounded outside the city by Afghan troops led by
the son of the Dost Mohammed. These things gave the defenders of
Jellalabad enough to think of, and to fear.
* * * * *
Five days later some officers on the roof of a tall house were sweeping
the horizon with their field glasses to see if there was any chance of
an attack from the Afghans, who were always hovering about watching for
some carelessness on the part of the besieged. But gaze as they might,
nothing was moving in the broad valley, or along the banks of the three
streams which watered it. They were turning away satisfied that at
present there was no danger, when one of them uttered a sudden cry, and
snatching the glasses from his companion, exclaimed, 'Yes, I am right. A
man riding a pony has just come round that corner. It is the Cabul road,
and his clothes are English. Look!'
The others looked, and saw for themselves. The pony's head drooped, and
he was coming wearily down the road, while it was clear that the rider
was urging the poor beast to his best speed. A chill feeling of disaster
filled the little group; they hastened down to the walls and gave a
shout of welcome, and the man waved his cap in answer.
'Throw open the gate,' said the major, and they all rushed out to hear
what the stranger had to tell.
* * * * *
It was a fearful tale. The general in Cabul had listened to the promises
of the son of the Dost Mohammed, and had ordered the five thousand
troops and ten thousand other hangers-on of the British army to leave
their position, in which they were safe, and trust themselves solely to
the Afghans. Cold, hungry, and tired they struggled to the foot of the
mountains; then the signal was given, the Afghans fell on their victims,
and the few who escaped were lost among the snows of the passes. Only
Dr. Brydon had been lucky enough to strike a path where no one followed
him, and in spite of wounds and exhaustion had managed to reach the
walls of Jellalabad.
In silence the men listened, horror in their faces. It seemed impossible
that Englishmen should have walked blindfold into such a trap, and
besides the grief and rage they felt at the fate of their countrymen
another thought was in the minds of all. The Afghans would be
intoxicated by their success, and at any moment might swoop down upon
the ill-defended Jellalabad. Instantly the gates were closed, the
horses saddled, and every man went to his post. At night bonfires were
lit and bugles sounded every half-hour to guide to the city any
fugitives that might be hiding in the woods or behind the rocks. But
none came--none ever came save Brydon.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Sale was daily expecting a relief force under Wild; but
instead there arrived the news that Wild had been unable to fight his
way through the terrible Khyber Pass--the scene of more than one tragedy
in Indian history.
In face of this a council of war was again held to consider what was
best to be done. Most of the officers wished to abandon the city and
make terms with the Afghans, in spite of the lesson that had already
been given them of what was the fate of those who trusted to Afghan
faith. Only Broadfoot and Havelock opposed violently this resolution,
and in the end their views prevailed. Jellalabad was to be defended by
the garrison till general Pollock arrived from the East.
So matters went for the next three months. By this time the raw troops
that had entered the city had become steady and experienced soldiers.
There was a little fighting every now and then, which served to keep up
their spirits, and though food needed to be served out carefully, they
were able sometimes to drive in cattle from the hills, which gave them
fresh supplies. On February 19 Sale received a letter from general
Pollock asking how long they could hold out, and he was writing an
answer at a table, with Havelock beside him, when suddenly the table
began to rock and the books slid on to the ground. Then a whirlwind of
dust rushed past the window, making everything black as night, and the
floor seemed to rise up under their feet.
[Illustration: Suddenly the table began to rock.]
The two men jumped up, and, blinded and giddy as they were, made their
way outside, where they were nearly deafened with the noise of tumbling
houses and the cries of hurt and frightened people. It was no use to
fly, for havoc was all round them, and they were no safer in one place
than another. At last the earth ceased to tremble and houses to fall;
the dust stopped dancing and whirling, and the sun once more appeared.
During the first shock of the earthquake Broadfoot was standing with
another officer on the ramparts, his eyes fixed on the defences, which
had caused him so much labour, and were now falling like nine-pins.
'This is the time for Akbar Khan,' he said, and if Akbar had not dreaded
the earthquake more than British guns the massacre of Cabul would have
been repeated in Jellalabad. But though Akbar feared greatly, he knew
that his soldiers feared yet more; he waited several days till the earth
seemed peaceful again, and then rode up to a high hill from which he
could overlook the city.
'Why, it is witchcraft!' he cried, as he saw the defences all in their
places; for Broadfoot's men had worked so well that in a week everything
had been rebuilt exactly as before.
* * * * *
March passed with some skirmishes, but when April came the senior
officers told Sale that they strongly advised an attack on Akbar, who,
with six thousand men, had taken up a position on the Cabul river two
miles from Jellalabad, and had placed an outpost of three hundred picked
men only three-quarters of a mile outside the walls. Broadfoot had been
badly wounded in a skirmish a fortnight before, and could not fight, so
the attacking party, consisting of three divisions of five hundred each,
were led by Dennie, Monteath and Havelock. Dennie was mortally wounded
in trying to carry the outpost, and Havelock halted and formed some of
his men into a square to await Akbar's charge, leaving part of his
division behind a walled enclosure to the right.
Having made his arrangements, Havelock stood outside the square and near
to the wall, so that he could command both parties, and told his troops
to wait till the Afghans were close upon them before they fired; but in
their excitement they disobeyed orders, and Havelock's horse, caught
between two fires, plunged and threw him. In another moment he would
have been trampled under the feet of the Afghan cavalry had not three of
his soldiers dashed out from the ranks and dragged him into the square.
[Illustration: In another moment he would have been trampled under the
feet of the Afghan cavalry.]
The enemy were thrown into confusion and retired to re-form. They
charged again, and were again repulsed, and by seven that morning
Akbar's camp was abandoned and his power broken.
Pollock's assistance had not been needed; the garrison of Jellalabad had
delivered themselves.
* * * * *
There is no room in this story to tell of the many wars in which
Havelock took part during the next fifteen years, always doing good work
and gaining the confidence of his commanding officers. He fought in the
war with the Mahrattas in 1843, and was made lieutenant-colonel after
the battle of Maharajpore. The following year he was fighting by sir
Hugh Gough's side in the Punjaub against the Sikhs, who were the best
native soldiers in India, and had been carefully trained by French
officers. In this war four battles took place in fifty-five days, all
close to the river Sutlej, but the last action at the village of Sobraon
put an end to hostilities for two years to come.
'India has been saved by a miracle,' writes Havelock, 'but the loss was
terrific on both sides.'
* * * * *
In 1849 Havelock, who had exchanged from the 13th into the 39th, and
again into the 53rd, applied for leave of absence to join his family in
England. It was his first visit home for twenty-six years, and
everything was full of interest to him. His health had broken down, and
if he had been rich enough he would certainly have retired; but he had
never been able to save a six-pence, and there were five sons and two
daughters to be educated and supported. Should he die, Mrs. Havelock
would have a pension of 70 l. a year, and the three youngest children
20 l. each till they were fourteen, when it would cease. This, in
addition to 1,000 l. which he possessed, was all the family had to
depend on.
Therefore, leaving them at Bonn, on the Rhine, where teaching was good
and living cheap, he returned to India in December 1851, rested both in
mind and body, and in good spirits. To his great joy a few months later
his eldest son was given the adjutancy of the 10th Foot, and he himself
was promoted to various posts where the pay was good and the work light.
Now that he had some leisure he went back to his books, and in a letter
to his youngest son, George, on his fifth birthday, he bids him read all
the accounts he can find of the battles that had just been fought in the
Crimea--Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman--and when his father came home to
England again he would make him drawings, and show him how they were
fought. But little George had to understand the battles as best he
might, for his father never came back to explain them to him.
* * * * *
After serving in Persia during the early part of 1857, Havelock was
suddenly ordered to return to India to take part in the struggle which
gave him undying fame, and a grave at Lucknow before the year was out.
According to the testimony of Kaye the historian, for half a century he
had been seriously studying his profession, and knew every station
between Burmah and Afghanistan! 'Military glory,' says Kaye, 'was the
passion of his life, but at sixty-two he had never held an independent
command.'
Now, in the mutiny which had shaken our rule to its foundation, all
Havelock's study of warfare and all his experience were to bear fruit. A
great many causes had led up to that terrible outbreak of the native
soldiers, or sepoys, early in 1857. India is, as you perhaps know, a
huge country made up of different nations, some of whom are Mahometans,
or followers of the prophet Mahomet, and worshippers of one God, while
most of the rest have a number of gods and goddesses. These nations are
divided into various castes or classes, each with its own rules, and
the man of one caste will not eat food cooked by the man of another, or
touch him, or marry his daughter, lest he should become unclean.
It is easy to see how an army composed of all these races would be very
hard to manage, especially as it is impossible for any white man, who is
used to changes going on about him, really to understand the minds of
people who have followed the same customs from father to son for
thousands of years. And if it is difficult for the English officers to
understand the Hindoos, it is too much to expect that soldiers without
education should do so either.
The true cause of the mutiny which wrought such havoc in so short a time
in the north of India was that the number of our British soldiers had
been greatly reduced, and some had been sent to the Crimea, some to
Persia, and some to Burmah. Besides this, the government had been very
weak for many years in its dealings with the native troops. Whenever the
sepoys chose to grumble, which was very often indeed, their grievances
were listened to, and they were generally given what they wanted--and
next time, of course, they wanted more. To crown all, our arsenals
containing military stores were mostly left unprotected, as well as our
treasuries, and from the Indus to the Ganges the native army was waiting
for a pretext to shake off the British rule.
* * * * *
This they found in an order given by the commander-in-chief that a new
sort of rifle, called the Enfield rifle, should be used throughout
India, and it was necessary that the cartridges with which it was loaded
should be greased. As early as the month of January an English workman
employed in the factory of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the cartridges
were made, happened one day to ask a sepoy soldier belonging to the 2nd
Grenadiers to give him some water from his brass pot. This the sepoy
refused, saying that he did not know what caste the man was of, and his
pot might be defiled if he drank from it. 'That is all very fine,'
answered the workman, 'but you will soon have no caste left yourself, as
you will be made to bite off the ends of cartridges smeared with the fat
of pigs and cows'--animals which the Hindoos held to be unclean.
[Illustration: 'You will soon have no caste left yourself.']
This story speedily reached the ears of the officer in charge at Dumdum,
and on inquiry he found that the report had been spread through the
native army that their caste was to be destroyed by causing them to
touch what would defile them.
General Hearsey, the commander of the Bengal division, instantly took
what steps he could to prove to the sepoys that the government had no
intention of making them break their caste, but it was too late.
Chupatties, little cakes which are the common food of the people, were
sent from town to town as a signal of revolt, and on February 19, 1857,
the first troops mutinied.
This was only the beginning; the message of the chupatties spread
further and further, but even now the government failed to understand
the temper of the people. The regiment which had been the earliest to
rebel were merely disarmed and disbanded, and even this sentence was not
carried out for five weeks, while they were allowed to claim their pay
as usual. It is needless to say that in a few weeks the whole of
Northern India was in a flame; the king of Delhi was proclaimed emperor,
and every European who came in the way of the sepoys was cruelly
murdered.
* * * * *
Such was the state of things found by Havelock when he landed in Bombay
from Persia, and was immediately sent on by the governor by sea to
Calcutta, to resume his appointment of adjutant-general to the royal
troops in Bengal. On the way his ship was wrecked, and he had to put in
to Madras, where he heard that the commander-in-chief was dead, and
that sir Patrick Grant, an old friend of Havelock's, had been nominated
temporarily to the post.
As soon as possible Havelock hurried on to Calcutta in company with
Grant, and there the news reached them that Lucknow was besieged by the
celebrated Nana Sahib, the leader of the sepoys and a skilful general,
and that a force was being got ready to go to its relief.
'Your excellency, I have brought you the man,' said Grant to lord
Canning as he presented Havelock, and the command of the 64th and the
78th Highlanders was entrusted to him. These last he knew well, as they
had been with him in Persia, and he thought them 'second to none' in the
service.
But before you can understand all the difficulties Havelock had to fight
with I must tell you a little about the towns on his line of march.
* * * * *
The instructions given to Havelock were to go first to the important
city of Allahabad, situated at the place where the Ganges joins the
Jumna. Allahabad had revolted in May, and the English garrison now
consisted mainly of a few artillerymen between fifty and seventy years
of age. Benares, the 'Holy City' of the Hindoos, a little further down
the Ganges, had been saved by the prompt measures of the resident and
the arrival of colonel Neill with a detachment of the 1st Fusiliers. The
soldiers had come up from Madras and were instantly ordered to Benares,
but when they reached the Calcutta station they found that the train
which was to take them part of the way was just starting.
The railway officials declared that there was no time for the troops to
get in, and they would have to wait for the next train--many hours
after. For all answer Neill turned to his troops, and told them to hold
the engine driver and stoker till the company was seated. But for this
the soldiers could not have got to Benares in time, for that very night
had been fixed for the revolt.
Having put down the rising at Benares, Neill pushed on over the eighty
miles that separated him from Allahabad, the largest arsenal in India
except Delhi. For five days the sepoys had been killing and plundering
the British. On hearing of Neill's approach, two thousand of them
encamped near the fort in order to hold it, but an attack of the
Fusiliers soon dispersed them, and the commander ordered a large number
to be executed in order to strike terror into the rest.
Bad as was the state of things at Allahabad, where the railway had been
destroyed and the garrison was weak, it was still worse in Cawnpore, a
hundred and twenty miles higher up the Ganges. Here sir Hugh Wheeler was
in command, and having spent his whole life among the sepoys it was long
before he would believe in the tales of their treason. Even when at
length his faith was partly shaken by the deeds done under his eyes, he
still did not take all the precautions that were needful. His little
fort, which was to be the last refuge of the sick and wounded, women and
children, in case of attack, was a couple of barracks one brick thick,
which had hitherto been used as a hospital, and in this he gave orders
that provisions for a twenty-five days' siege should be stored. This was
the place for which he intended to abandon the powder magazine, where he
could have held the enemy at bay for months.
* * * * *
With inconceivable carelessness nobody saw that the orders for
provisioning the fort were properly carried out, or the works of defence
capable of resisting an attack. By May 22, however, even sir Hugh
Wheeler was convinced that there was danger abroad, and he directed that
the women and children, whose numbers were now swelled by fugitives
from Lucknow and the surrounding towns, should be placed in it.
Altogether the refugees amounted to about five hundred, and the force of
men to defend them was about equal.
* * * * *
The expected siege did not begin till June 6, when the plain which
surrounds Cawnpore was black with sepoys, led by the treacherous Nana.
For three weeks the prisoners inside the fort underwent the most
frightful sufferings of every kind, and had it not been for the women
the garrison would have tried to cut their way through to the river. As
it was they felt they must stay--till the end.
So the soldiers fought on, and the women helped as best they might,
giving their stockings as bags for grape-shot, and tearing up their
clothes to bind up wounds, till they had scarcely a rag to cover them.
One, the gallant wife of a private of the 32nd, Bridget Widdowson,
stood, sword in hand, over a number of prisoners tied together by a
rope. Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her; her gun was
instantly levelled at the hand which was trying to untie the rope, and
not a man of them escaped while in her charge. By-and-by she was
relieved by a soldier, and in his care many of them got away.
[Illustration: Not one of their movements passed unnoticed by her.]
At length hope sprung up in their hearts, for Nana offered a
safe-conduct for the garrison down the Ganges to Allahabad, if only sir
Hugh Wheeler would surrender the city. It was a hard blow to the old
general, and but for the women and children he and his men would gladly
have died at their posts. But for their sakes he accepted the terms,
first making Nana swear to keep them by the waters of the Ganges, the
most sacred of all oaths to a Hindoo.
The following morning a train of elephants, litters and carts was
waiting to carry the sick, the women, and children down to the river, a
mile away, for after their terrible imprisonment they were all too weak
to walk; and behind them marched the soldiers, each with his rifle.
Crowds lined the banks and watched them as they got into the boats, and
pushed off with thankful hearts into the middle of the stream, leaving
behind them, as they thought, the place where they had undergone such
awful suffering. Suddenly those looking towards the shore saw a blinding
flash and heard a loud report. Nana had broken his oath and ordered them
to be fired on.
One boat alone out of the whole thirty-nine managed to float down the
stream, and the men in it landed and took refuge in a little temple, the
maddened sepoys at their heels. But the fourteen Englishmen were
desperate, and drove back their enemies again and again, till the sepoys
heaped wood outside the walls and set it on fire. It was blowing hard,
and the wind instead of fanning the flames put them out, and the
defenders breathed once more. But their hopes were dashed again as they
saw the besiegers set fire to the logs a second time, and, retiring to a
safe distance, lay a trail of powder to blow up the temple. Then the men
knew they had but one chance, and fixing their bayonets they charged
into the crowd towards the river.
When they reached the banks, seven had got through, and flung themselves
into the stream. Half-starved and weak as they were, they could scarcely
make head against the swift current, and three sank and disappeared. The
other four were stronger swimmers, and contrived to hold out till they
arrived at the territory of an Oude rajah who was friendly to the
English.
It was while they were resting here that they heard of the awful fate of
their countrymen. After a time Nana had desired that the women and
children should be spared, and the remnant were brought back to
Cawnpore. They were lodged, all of them, in two rooms, and here these
stayed, hardly able to breathe, and almost thankful when the expected
doom fell on them. After their sufferings death was welcome, even though
it came by the hand of Nana Sahib.
All this time Havelock (now brigadier-general), ignorant of the horrors
that were taking place, was advancing towards Cawnpore, which he knew
must be in the hands of the English before it was possible to relieve
Lucknow, lying further away across the plain to the north-west of
Allahabad. Neill had sent forward a detachment of four hundred British
soldiers and three hundred Sikhs under major Renaud, and Havelock, who
had arrived in the town just as they were starting, promised to follow
in a day or two, as soon as he could get ready a larger force. Eager
soldier though he was, he had long ago laid to heart the truth of the
old saying, 'for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe
the horse was lost; for want of a horse the man was lost; for want of a
man the kingdom was lost,' and he always took care that his nails were
in their places. Therefore he waited a few days longer than he expected
to do, and spent the time in enlisting a body of volunteer cavalry,
formed partly of officers of the native regiments who had mutinied, of
ruined shopkeepers, of fugitive planters, and of anybody else that could
be taught to hold a gun.
The general was still asleep in the hot darkness of July 1 when a tired
horseman rode into camp and demanded to see him without delay. He was
shown at once into the general's tent, and in a few short words
explained that he had been sent by Renaud with the tidings of the
massacre of Cawnpore.
[Illustration: A tired horseman rode into camp.]
Six days later 'Havelock's Ironsides,' numbering under two thousand men,
of whom a fourth were natives, began the march to Cawnpore, and five
days after the start they had won about half-way to the city the battle
of Futtehpore. It was the first time since the mutiny broke out that the
sepoys had been beaten in the field, and it shook their confidence,
while it gave fresh courage to sir Henry Lawrence and the heroic band
in the residency of Lucknow. But the relief which they hoped for was
still many months distant, and Havelock was fighting his way inch by
inch, across rivers, over bridges, along guarded roads, with soldiers
often half-fed, and wearing the thick clothes that they had carried
through the snows of a Persian winter. But they never flinched and never
grumbled--they could even laugh in the midst of it all! During a fierce
struggle for a bridge over the Pandoo river, one of the 78th Highlanders
was killed by a round shot close to where Havelock was standing.
'He has a happy death, Grenadiers,' remarked the general, 'for he died
in the service of his country'; but a voice answered from behind:
'For mysel, sir, gin ye've nae objection, I wud suner bide alive in the
service of ma cuntra.' And let us hope he did.
The guns across the bridge were captured with a dash, and the sepoys
retreated on Cawnpore. In spite of their victory our men were too tired
to eat, and flung themselves on the ground where they were. Next
morning, July 16, they set out on a march of sixteen miles, after
breakfasting on porter and biscuits, having had no other food for about
forty hours.
At the end of the sixteen miles march, which they had performed under a
burning sun, the bugles sounded a halt. For three hours the troops
rested and fed, and then two sepoys who had remained loyal to their salt
came in with the news that in front of us Nana Sahib, with five thousand
men and eight guns, was drawn up across the Grand Trunk road, down which
he expected our guns to pass; and doubtless they would have been sent
that way had it not been for the timely warning. Now Havelock, with a
strong detachment, crept round through some mango groves between the
enemy's left flank and the Ganges, and attacked from behind; the sepoys
wheeled round in a hurry and confusion, and the Nana dared not order his
right and centre to fire lest they should injure his own men, and before
he could re-form them the pipers of the 78th had struck up and the
Highlanders were upon them, the sound of the slogan striking terror into
the heart of the Hindoos. Once more the Scots charged, led this time by
Havelock himself, and the position was carried.
Yet the Nana was hard to beat, and on the road to Cawnpore he halted
again, and fresh troops streamed out from the gates to his help. It was
his last chance; but he knew that the little British army was wearied
out, and he counted on his reinforcements from the city. But Havelock
noted the first sign of flagging as his men were marching across the
ploughed fields heavy with wet, and knew that they needed the spur of
excitement. 'Come, who is to take that village, the Highlanders or the
Sixty-fourth?' cried he, and before the words were out of his mouth
there was a rush forwards, and the village was taken.
Still, even now the battle of Cawnpore was not ended. Once more the
sepoys re-formed, but always nearer the city, and their deadly fire was
directed full upon us. The general would have waited till our guns came
up to answer theirs, but saw that the men were getting restless. So
turning his pony till he faced his troops, while the enemy's guns were
thundering behind him, he said lightly:
'The longer you look at it the less you will like it. The brigade will
advance, the left battalion leading.'
The enemy's rout was complete, even before our guns had reached the
field of battle. Next morning the news was brought in that while the
battle for the deliverance was being fought the women and children
inside the walls had been shot by order of the Nana. And, as a final
blow, when, the day after, the victor rode through the gate of Cawnpore,
a messenger came to tell him that his old friend sir Henry Lawrence, the
defender of Lucknow, had been struck by a shell a fortnight previously,
and had died two days later in great agony.
'Put on my tombstone,' he gasped in an interval of pain, 'here lies
Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty, and may God have mercy on
him.'
* * * * *
For a while it seemed to Havelock that his whole mission had been a
failure; and indeed he is said never to have recovered the two shocks
that followed so close on each other, though there was no time to think
about his feelings or indulge regret. Like Lawrence, he must 'try to do
his duty,' and the first thing was to put the town in a state of defence
lest the Nana should return, and sternly to check with the penalty of
death the plundering and drunkenness and other crimes of his victorious
army. Then, leaving Neill with three hundred men in Cawnpore, he
prepared to cross the Ganges, now terribly swollen by the late rains,
into the kingdom of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital.
* * * * *
Not for a moment did Havelock make light of the difficulties that lay
before him. They would have been great enough with a large force, and
his was now reduced to twelve hundred British soldiers, three hundred
Sikhs, and ten guns, while cholera had begun to make its appearance.
However, the passage had to be made somehow, and there must be no delay
in making it.
First, boats were collected, and as the boatmen secretly sided with the
sepoys, the hundreds of little craft generally to be seen on the river
had vanished. At length about twenty were found concealed, and as the
Ganges was dangerous to cross in its present state, the old boatmen were
bribed, by promises of safe-conduct and regular pay, to pilot the troops
to the Oude bank. Even under their skilled guidance the river was so
broad that a boat could not perform the passage under eight hours, and a
week passed before the whole force was over and encamped on a strong
position in Oude.
Well, they were at last on the same side as Lucknow--that was something;
but they still had forty-five miles to march, wide rivers to cross, and
Nana to fight, and Havelock knew that the sepoy general had an instinct
for war as keen as his own. But Lucknow must be relieved, and the sooner
the work was begun the better.
* * * * *
Two days after the landing of the British a battle was fought at Onao
against the steady, well-disciplined soldiers of Oude, whose gunners
were said to be the best in India. The fighting was fiercer than any
Havelock had yet experienced, but in the end the enemy was beaten back
and fifteen guns taken. The next day there was another battle and
another victory, but the general had lost a sixth of his men and a third
of his ammunition--and he had only gone one-third of the way. Nana Sahib
was hovering about with a large body of troops, ready to fall on him;
how under the circumstances was it possible for him to reach Lucknow?
Therefore, with soreness of heart, he gave the order to fall back till
the reinforcements which he had been promised came up, and to send the
sick and wounded, of which there were now many, across to Cawnpore.
* * * * *
Deep was the gloom and disappointment of the 'Ironsides' as they marched
back along the road they had come; but far deeper and more awful was the
disappointment of the garrison at Lucknow. They had looked on relief as
so near and so certain that their hardships seemed already things of the
past. Now it appeared as if they were abandoned, and the horrors of the
siege felt tenfold harder to bear. In the heat of an Indian summer the
women and children were forced to leave the upper part of the residency,
where at least there was light and air, and seek safety in tiny rooms
almost under ground, where shot and shell were less likely to penetrate.
These cellars were swarming with large rats, and, what was worse, there
was a constant plague of flies and other insects. Luckily, sir Henry
Lawrence had collected large stores before he died, and had hidden away
a quantity of corn so securely that colonel Inglis, the present
commander, had no idea of its existence, and not knowing how long the
siege might last, was very careful in dealing out rations. There was no
milk or sugar for the babies, and many of them died.
[Illustration: The place was swarming with rats.]
Meanwhile Neill sent over urgent requests that Havelock would come to
his assistance in Cawnpore, as he was threatened on all sides and could
not hold out in case of an attack. Most reluctantly the general gave
the order to recross the Ganges, but before doing so gave battle to a
body of troops entrenched in his rear, and caused them to retreat. This
raised the spirits of his soldiers a little, and they entered Cawnpore
in a better temper than they had been in since their marching orders had
been given.
It was while he was in Cawnpore that Havelock received notice that
major-general Outram was starting from Calcutta to his assistance, and
owing to his superior rank in the army would naturally take command over
Havelock's head, as successor to major-general sir Hugh Wheeler. This
Havelock quite understood, and though disappointed, felt no bitterness
on the subject, welcoming Outram as an old friend, under whom he was
ready to serve cheerfully.
Outram's answer to the generous spirit of Havelock's reception was a
proclamation which showed that he understood and appreciated the
services which seemed so ill-rewarded by the government, and that he too
would not be behindhand in generosity. Till Lucknow was taken Havelock
should be still in command, and it was Outram himself who would take the
lower position.
* * * * *
When Havelock had entered Cawnpore for the second time, he gave orders
to break down the bridges of boats which had been thrown across the
Ganges, so as to check any pursuit from the enemy. Therefore a floating
bridge must be built over which the troops might pass; and so hard did
the men work, that in three days the little army, consisting, with
Outram's reinforcements, of 3,179 soldiers, was once more in Oude.
Here the sepoys were awaiting them, but they were soon put to flight and
some guns captured. In the confusion of the retreat the defeated army
quite forgot to destroy the bridge over the Sye, a deep river flowing
across the plain between the Ganges and the Goomtee, so that when the
British force arrived next day they found nothing to prevent their
crossing at once, as even the fortifications on this further bank had
been abandoned. Soon a faint noise, as of thunder, broke on their ears.
The men looked at each other and said nothing, but their eyes grew
bright and their feet trod more lightly.
It was the sound of the guns of Lucknow, sixteen miles away.
* * * * *
On September 23 the British army reached the Alumbagh, the beautiful
park and garden belonging to the king of Oude. Opposite 12,000 sepoys
were drawn up, the right flank being protected by a swamp. In front of
them was a ditch filled with water from the recent heavy rains, and the
road itself was deep in mud, so that the passage of heavy guns was a
difficult matter. But the soldiers came along with a gallop and got
through the ditch somehow, following our cavalry, which were already on
the other side. On they flew, cavalry and gunners, wheeling so as to get
behind the right of the sepoys, while Eyre's artillery, stationed in the
road, raked with fire the centre and the left. The enemy wavered and
showed signs of giving way, but one gun manned by Oude artillerymen
remained steady. Then young Johnson, who led the Irregular Horse, dashed
along the road for half a mile, followed by a dozen of his men, killed
the gunners and threw the gun into the ditch. When he returned to his
post the enemy was flying to the Charbagh bridge across the canal, with
our army behind them.
* * * * *
It was no use attempting to take the bridge that day; the troops were
exhausted and wet through, and the position strongly fortified. The
order was given to encamp, but there were no tents and no baggage, and
after drinking some grog which was fortunately obtained, the men lay
down on the wet ground wrapped in their great-coats, the rain pouring
heavily on them. But wet, weary and hungry as they were, a great shout
of joy rent the air when Outram announced that he had just received news
that Delhi had been recaptured by the English.
* * * * *
The next day the sun was shining, and as the baggage waggons came up the
men changed the soaking clothes, and slept and rested while the generals
anxiously discussed the best plan for getting into Lucknow. There were
three ways to choose from, all full of danger and difficulty, but in the
end it was decided to force the passage of the Charbagh bridge over the
canal.
This the enemy had evidently expected, for they had erected across it a
barrier seven feet in height, with six guns, one a 24-pounder. Beyond
the bridge, along the canal, were tall houses, and from every window and
loophole a deadly fire would pour. And even supposing that the bridge
was carried, the troops would have to pass through narrow streets and
gardens and palaces, under showers of bullets at every step.
Yet this seemed the only way to Lucknow.
As for the sick and wounded, they were left with the stores and a guard
of three hundred men at the Alumbagh.
* * * * *
Breakfast was over by half-past eight on the morning of September 25,
when the order was given to advance. The first opposition met with by
the leading column, headed by Outram, was near the Yellow House, which
lay along the road to the bridge. Here Maude, one of the best officers
in the army, who was to win his V.C. that day, charged the two guns
whose fire was so deadly, and silenced them, and the troops went on till
they were close to the canal. Then Outram took the 5th Fusiliers and
bore away to the right in order to clear the gardens of the sepoys
hidden in them, and to draw off the attention of the enemy; lieutenant
Arnold, with a company of the Madras Fusiliers, took his station on the
left of the bridge with orders to fire at the houses across the canal,
and right out in the open facing the bridge was Maude, with two light
guns straight in front of the battery. In a bend of the road on one side
some of the Madras Fusiliers supported him, and on the other side, a
little way off, stood Neill and his detachment, waiting for the
diversion to be made by Outram's movement.
To Neill's surprise, not a trace of Outram was to be seen, and Maude
stood shelterless, his gunners falling before the continuous fire from
the bridge. Again and again the Fusiliers from behind filled their
places, only to be swept down like the rest, and now Maude and a
subaltern were doing the work.
'You must do something,' called out Maude to young Havelock; 'I cannot
fight the guns much longer.' Havelock nodded and rode through the fire
that was raking the road to Neill, urging him to order a charge. But
Neill refused. He was not in command, he replied, and could not take
such a responsibility. The young aide-de-camp did not waste time in
arguing, but hurried on to Fraser-Tytler, only to receive the same
answer. Then, turning his horse's head, he galloped hard down the road,
in the direction of the spot where his father was stationed. In a few
minutes he was back and, reining up his horse at Neill's side, while he
saluted with his sword, he said breathlessly:
'You are to charge the bridge, sir.'
It did not occur to Neill that there had not been time for young
Havelock to have reached his father's position and come back so soon,
and therefore that no such order could have been given by the general,
and was simply the invention of the aide-de-camp himself. Quite
unsuspiciously, therefore, he bade the buglers sound the advance, and
Arnold, with twenty-five of his men, rushed on to the bridge and were
instantly shot down. For fully two minutes Harry Havelock on his horse
kept his position in front of the guns with only a private beside him,
and the dead lying in heaps on all sides.
'Come on! Come on!' he cried, turning in his saddle and waving his
sword, while the fire from the houses was directed upon him, and a ball
went through his hat.
And they 'came on' with a rush, wave upon wave, till the guns were
silenced and the barrier carried.
The aide-de-camp had indeed 'done something.'
[Illustration: The young Aide-de-camp did not waste time in arguing.]
* * * * *
The 78th Highlanders held the bridge for three hours till the whole
force was over, and desperate fighting was going on all the time, for
the enemy was coming up in dense numbers. At length a detachment
advanced to a little temple further up the road, which was held by the
sepoys, and succeeded in turning them out. But once inside, the
Highlanders could only defend it with their swords, for the cartridges
were so swelled by exposure to the rain that they would not go into the
guns. After an hour, young Havelock, whose duty lay at the bridge, sent
up some fresh cartridges, and then Webster, who from the shelter of the
temple had been impatiently watching the action of three small cannon
which had been firing down the Cawnpore road, exclaimed:
'Who's for those guns?'
'I'm for the guns!' they all shouted, and the temple door was opened and
Webster leaped out, Macpherson, the adjutant, and the men following. The
guns when captured were thrown into the canal, where those of the
Charbagh bridge were already lying.
* * * * *
Perhaps the most trying part of the whole campaign was the advance
towards the residency through the narrow streets, where the very women
flung down stones, and from the roofs and windows a ceaseless fire
poured upon our men. Deep trenches had been cut along the cross-roads in
order to make the horses stumble, and the smoke was so thick that men
and beasts were nearly blinded. It was here that Neill fell, shot in the
head, and Webster found a grave instead of the Victoria Cross, which
would certainly have been given him. Then there was a rush forward, and
they were within the gates.
For the first few minutes the men did not know what they were saying or
doing, so great was the excitement on both sides; but soon it was plain
that the rescuing party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and
what food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor plentiful.
Most of all they must have rejoiced in the possibility of changing their
clothes, stiff with mud and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself
entered the city with one suit which had hardly been off his back for
six weeks.
* * * * *
Next day Outram resumed his proper position as commander, and Havelock
took a subordinate place as brigadier-general. But to him fell the task
of making up his despatches and recommending certain of his men for the
Victoria Cross. In this Havelock was especially begged by Outram to
mention his son Harry for his gallantry on the Charbagh bridge; corporal
Jakes, who was also worthy of the honour, had unhappily been killed
later in the day. Unluckily, young Havelock had, against his own will,
been previously recommended for the decoration by his father for an act
of extraordinary bravery, but one which he had no sort of right to
perform.
In the battle of Cawnpore young Havelock, then a lieutenant in the 10th
Foot, and aide-de-camp to his father, was sent to order the 64th, who
had been under a heavy fire all day, and were now lying on the ground,
to advance with some other regiments, and take a gun of twenty-four
pounds, which was sweeping the road in front. The 64th at once formed
up, but before they had started their major's horse was shot under him,
and he was forced to dismount. Harry Havelock, carried away by
excitement, never gave him time to get another, but calling on the men
to follow him, rode straight to the mouth of the gun and stayed there
till it was captured.
Now of course this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied
it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as
Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he
had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of
the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would
have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's
action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on
recommending him for the Victoria Cross, though the young man himself,
when his excitement had calmed down, implored his father to leave out
his name, declaring that the recommendation would be put down to
affection. For a month he managed to delay the despatch, but in the end
it was sent and the Cross granted. Therefore Outram's recommendation
after the relief of Lucknow was disregarded, and only captain Maude's
V.C. is associated with the Charbagh bridge.
* * * * *
But although Havelock's force had successfully won its way into the
residency of Lucknow, the town was in no way 'relieved,' for the British
troops were few and the sepoys many. The besieging army crowded up as
before, and bored mines under the buildings, which kept our men
continually on the watch to hinder the town from blowing up. Every day
Havelock went round the entrenchments, and then he returned to the
house, to pass some hours in reading, for now that the frightful strain
of the last six weeks was over he felt tired and broken, and unfit for
work. Much of the time he spent in visiting the banqueting hall, which
had months before been made into a hospital for the soldiers, but there
was little that he or anyone else could do to help them, for all
medicines and bandages and food suited to sick people had been used up
long ago.
* * * * *
In this manner seven weeks went slowly by, while the garrison was
waiting for the arrival of sir Colin Campbell, commander-in-chief in
India, with an army of nearly five thousand men, a mere handful in
numbers compared with the enemy, but yet enough to compass what is known
in history as 'the second relief of Lucknow.' By November 9 news came
that the British troops had reached the Alumbagh, but it was absolutely
necessary that the commander-in-chief should know Outram's plans for the
defence of the city, and tell him the manner in which he himself
intended to attack.
How was this to be done? The country lying between the two generals was
covered with small detachments of sepoys carefully entrenched, and it
seemed impossible for any man to pass through them. Yet without some
knowledge of the sort and of the state of affairs in the residency the
relief expedition could not advance without frightful loss, and might
perhaps end in failure.
Then there entered the room where Outram and Havelock were gloomily
talking over the matter a man, Henry Cavanagh by name, who said that he
would undertake to get through the pickets of sepoys and carry any
message to the English camp. Outram was amazed. Brave though they all
were, not one soldier had volunteered for this forlorn hope, not because
they were afraid, but because if our maps and plans fell into the
enemy's hands, the destruction of our army would certainly follow; and
if a soldier could not do it, with all his experience of war, how could
this man, who knew nothing of soldiering, except what he had learned
during the siege? But when the general looked at Cavanagh's face his
doubts vanished.
Disguised as a native and speaking the language like one, Cavanagh made
his way slowly through the lines till the open plain was reached. Here
he breathed more freely, for, though many dangers awaited him, the worst
risks were over. Often he had seen suspicion in the eyes of the sepoys,
and felt that a terrible death was very near, but he had kept his head
and got through somehow. At length he was within the Alumbagh and could
speak with sir Colin face to face.
[Illustration: Often ... he had felt that a terrible death was very
near.]
The return journey still lay before him, but now he knew better what he
was about, and reached the residency without accident. On November 14
the relieving force was to begin its advance on the town, and on the
15th the general signalled that the attack would begin next day.
This last fight was a desperate one for both sides, and continued far
into the night, while at the Kaiserbagh, or king's palace, the fire was
fiercest of all. The brave deeds that were done that day would fill a
volume, but at length it was over, and Lucknow once more flew the
British flag, planted on the highest tower of the mess house by the hand
of young Roberts.
* * * * *
Did Havelock, one asks oneself, know that this was his last fight also?
He had been present during the whole struggle, but when it was done sank
into the weakness which seemed daily to grow greater. The
commander-in-chief had informed him--probably by means of Cavanagh--that
on September 29 he had been gazetted major-general, and the somewhat
tardily bestowed honour filled him with pleasure. If he had been able to
see any English papers he would have known how eagerly the nation
followed his footsteps, and how warmly they rejoiced in his success.
* * * * *
The capture of Lucknow was only three days old when Havelock was taken
suddenly ill. In order to get him away from the close, infected air of
the town, he was carried in a litter to a quiet wooded place, called the
Dilkoosha, near a bend of the river Goomtee, where a tent was pitched
for him, but as the bullets of the enemy fell around him even here, a
more sheltered spot had to be found for him to lie. His illness did not
appear at first very serious, but he himself felt that he would not
recover. Perhaps he hardly wished to, for he had 'fought a good fight,'
and was too tired to care for anything but rest. His son, whose wound,
received on the day of the fight for the residency, was still unhealed,
sat on the ground by the litter, and gave him anything he wanted. For a
time he lay quiet, and in the afternoon of the 23rd Outram came to see
him, and holding out his hand, Havelock bade his friend good-bye.
'I have so ruled my life for forty years that when death came I might
face it without fear,' he said; and next morning death did come.
* * * * *
Marching on the 25th into the Alumbagh, the victorious army bore with
them Havelock's body, still lying in the litter on which he died. They
dug a grave for him under a mango tree, on which an H. was cut to mark
the place--all they dared do with hosts of the enemy swarming round
them, ready to offer insult to the dead who had defied them.
Thus Henry Havelock died and was buried, though the news did not reach
England for six weeks. So he never knew how the hearts of his countrymen
had been stirred by his courage and his constancy, and that his queen
had made him a baronet and Parliament had voted him a pension of
1,000 l. a year, which was continued to his widow and to his son. But
Guarded to a soldier's grave
By the bravest of the brave,
He hath gained a nobler tomb
Than in old cathedral gloom.
Nobler mourners paid the rite
Than the crowd that craves a sight.
England's banners o'er him waved--
Dead, he keeps the realm he saved.
CONSCIENCE OR KING?
Now we come to quite another sort of hero; a man who enjoyed every day
of his life, and loved books and music and pets of all sorts; who played
with his children and made jokes with them; who held two of the greatest
offices an Englishman can hold, yet laid his head on the scaffold by
order of the king, because his conscience forbade him to swim with the
tide and to take an oath that king demanded of him. If you try, you will
find that this sort of heroism is more difficult than the other. There
is no excitement about it, and no praise. Your friends talk of you with
contempt, and call you a dreamer and a man who sacrifices his family to
his own whims. And very often the family agree with him.
* * * * *
'Verily, daughter, I never intend to pin my soul to another man's back,
for I know not whither he may hap to carry it. Some may do for favour,
and some may do for fear, and so they might carry my soul a wrong way.'
These were the words of sir Thomas More to his favourite daughter when
she came to him in prison, urging him to do as his friends had done, and
swear to acknowledge the king as head of the church instead of the pope.
All his life he had 'carried' his own soul himself, and that was no
small thing to be able to say in the reign of Henry VIII., when men's
hearts failed them for fear, not knowing from day to day what the tyrant
might demand of them.
Thomas More came of a family bred to the law, and his father, afterwards
made a knight and a judge, seems to have been kindly and pleasant, and
like his son in many ways, especially in his fondness for children. He
set great store by books and learning, and taught Thomas to love them
too. The boy was born when the Wars of the Roses were just over, and the
country was beginning to settle down again. In London king Edward IV.
was still the favourite of the people, and after his death, in 1483,
Thomas, then five years old, happened to overhear a gentleman telling
his father that it was prophesied duke Richard of Gloucester would be
king. When the prophecy came to pass, and Richard snatched the crown for
himself, many besides little Thomas were filled with wonder. For Richard
had played his part so well that few guessed at what he really was, or
that the murder of his nephews would be nothing to him, if he could
mount the throne on their bodies.
* * * * *
At that period boys were sent early to school, and after careful
inquiries, John More decided to put his son under the charge of one
Nicholas Holt, headmaster of St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, a
school founded by Henry VI. Here Thomas spent most of his time in
learning Latin, which it was necessary for a gentleman to know. Foreign
languages were very little studied; instead, Latin was used; hence
ambassadors addressed each other in that tongue, and in it men wrote
letters, and often books. Thomas, who had been accustomed all his life
to hear Latin quoted by his father and the lawyers who came to his house
in Milk Street, soon mastered most of the difficulties, knowing well
that he would be considered stupid and ignorant if when he left school
he should ever make a mistake in his declensions, or forget the gender
of a noun.
When John More was satisfied with his son's progress in Latin, he got
leave for him to enter, as was the custom, the house of cardinal Morton
as a sort of page. Thomas was then about twelve, quick and observant,
and though fond of joking, good-tempered and prudent, taking care to
hurt the feelings of nobody. Morton was both a clever and a learned man,
a good speaker and excellent lawyer, and the king, Henry VII.,
frequently took counsel with him and profited by his experience. On his
side, Morton took a fancy to the boy, whose sharp answers amused him.
His keen eyes noticed that Thomas, who, with the other pages, waited at
dinner upon the cardinal and his guests, listened to all that was being
said, while never neglecting his own especial duties.
'This child will prove a marvellous man,' Morton one day whispered to
his neighbour, and the neighbour lived to prove the truth of his words.
Thomas greatly enjoyed the two years he passed in Morton's house, and
made many friends, both amongst his companions and with the older men.
There was always something going on which pleased and interested him,
for he was very sociable, and liked, above everything, a 'good
argument.' At Christmas time all kinds of shows and pageants were to
take place, and the young pages could hardly sleep for excitement,
though their appetites never failed, and the huge pieces of pasty put on
their wooden or pewter plates disappeared surprisingly quick. Of course
they had no forks to help themselves with, but each boy possessed a
knife of his own, in which he took great pride, and a spoon made either
of horn or pewter. At Christmas they were given plenty of good things as
a treat, and the cardinal, like other great men, flung open his doors,
and feasted the poor as well as the rich. Then companies of strolling
players would come by, and beg permission to amuse the guests by their
acting. On this Christmas Day in 1490 the play was in full swing when
young Thomas suddenly appeared on the stage in the great hall, and began
to 'make a part of his own, never studying for the matter, which made
the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside.' It must have
been rather difficult for the poor actors to go on with their parts when
they did not know what the boy was going to say next; but Thomas seems
to have been as clever as he was impudent, and the play ended in
applause and laughter.
* * * * *
In those days boys grew into young men much earlier than they do now,
and set about earning their living, and even getting married, at an age
when to-day they would probably just be leaving a public school. So we
are not surprised at hearing that when Thomas was only fourteen he was
sent by cardinal Morton to Canterbury Hall, Oxford, a college which
afterwards became part of Christ Church, founded by Wolsey. The elder
More was a poor man, and Thomas was not his only child; five others had
been born to him, but, as far as we can gather, three of these died when
they were still babies. Thomas had been brought up from his earliest
years to do without many things which must have seemed necessaries to
the richer boys in Morton's house. But he cared little that his dress
was so much plainer than theirs, and that when he went home he had what
food was needful and no more. As long as he had books, and somebody to
talk to about them, he was quite happy, but even he found the fare of an
Oxford scholar rather hard to digest. However, throughout his life he
always made the best of things, and if he ever went to bed hungry, well,
nobody but himself was any the wiser. Law was the study his father
wished him specially to follow, but he was eager too to learn Greek,
which had lately been introduced into the University, and to improve his
Latin style. He also wrote verses, as was beginning to be the fashion
with young men, and worked out problems in arithmetic and geometry,
while, after his regular work was done, he would carry a French or Latin
chronicle to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone
times. In his spare moments he would play some old music on the flute or
practise on the viol.
* * * * *
After two years, when, according to his son-in-law Roper, 'he was both
in the Greek and Latin tongues sufficiently instructed, he was then, for
the study of the law of the realm, put to an Inn of Chancery, called New
Inn, where for his time he prospered very well, and from thence was
admitted to Lincoln's Inn, with very small allowance, continuing there
his study until he was made and accounted a worthy barrister.' Like the
other youths of his own age--Thomas was eighteen when he was admitted to
Lincoln's Inn--he attended classes where law was taught by professors,
or 'readers,' and took part in the proceedings of mock trials, old
French being the language used. When the trial was over, the reader and
other teachers gave their opinions as to the way in which the scholars
had pleaded, and pointed out the mistakes they had made. We may be sure
that young More delighted in this 'exercise,' and he evidently excelled
in it, for he was soon given a 'readership' himself.
* * * * *
It was during the year following his admission to Lincoln's Inn that
More met for the first time his lifelong friend, the celebrated Erasmus.
Erasmus, the most learned and witty man of his time, came over from
Holland to stay with his former pupil, lord Mountjoy, in his country
house, and while there the young lawyer was invited also to pay a visit
and to make acquaintance with the famous scholar. In spite of the ten
years difference in their ages--More was then twenty-one and Erasmus
ten years older--they took pleasure in almost exactly the same things,
and in their walks through the woods and about the neighbouring villages
would discuss merrily, in Latin of course, all manner of subjects.[1]
One day the two bent their steps to the place where Henry VII.'s younger
children were living, under the care of tutors and ladies. Princess
Margaret, the eldest, afterwards queen of Scotland, stood solemnly
beside her brother Henry, aged nine, who received them with the grand
manner he could always put on when he chose. Princess Mary, at that time
four years old, was kneeling on the floor playing with her dog, and paid
no heed to the visitors, whom she thought old and dull. Erasmus was
astonished to notice More present prince Henry with a roll on which
something, he could not tell what, was written. The prince took it with
a smile, and then looked at Erasmus, who guessed directly that a similar
offering was expected from him also; and this was confirmed by a message
sent him by Henry while the guests were dining, to say how much he hoped
to receive some remembrance of the visit of the great scholar. The
Dutchman, thus pressed, returned answer that had he dreamed his highness
would value any work from his poor pen, he would certainly have prepared
himself, but having been taken by surprise, he could only ask grace for
three days, by which time he would have composed a poem, however
unworthy.
[Footnote 1: On parting, they promised to write to each other, and many
letters passed between them in the three years that Erasmus remained in
England. Previous to his departure, they met once more in lord
Mountjoy's house, and there their walk and talks were resumed.]
The poem when written was of some length, and full of the praises of the
king, his country, and his children. It does not sound amusing, and
probably Henry, content with possessing what in these days we should
call 'Erasmus's autograph,' did not trouble himself to read much of it.
[Illustration: Erasmus was astonished to notice More present Prince
Henry with a roll.]
For three years More held his readership; then he seems to have had a
wish to become a priest, and, in his son-in-law's words, 'gave himself
to devotion and prayer in the Charterhouse of London, religiously
living there, without vow, about four years.'
Religious More remained all his life, but at the end of the four years
he felt that his place was in the world rather than in a monastery, and
this decision was largely helped by a visit he paid to master Colt in
Essex, a gentleman with three daughters. 'Albeit,' says Roper, 'his mind
most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the
fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both
great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister
preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his
fancy toward her and married her.'
This was indeed being good-natured and obliging, and one hopes that the
bride never guessed the reason why he had asked her to be his wife. The
young couple settled down in Bucklersbury in the City, and More
continued his studies at Lincoln's Inn and his attendance at
Westminster, for he had been elected a member of Parliament almost as
soon as he left the Charterhouse and before his marriage. Very early he
had given proof that he did not intend 'to pin his conscience to another
man's back' by refusing to vote for a large grant of money demanded by
Henry VII. as a dowry for his eldest daughter. Chiefly owing to More,
the grant was refused, and 'the king,' according to Roper, 'conceiving
great indignation towards him, could not be satisfied until he had in
some way revenged it. And for as much as he (Thomas) nothing having,
nothing could lose, his grace (the king) devised a causeless quarrel
against his father (the elder More), keeping him in the Tower till he
had made him pay a hundred pounds fine.'
No doubt it was very hard for the More family to raise the money, equal
to about 1,200 l. in our day, and Thomas's heart was hot with wrath. He
angrily spurned various attempts made to gain him over, and 'for some
time thought of leaving England and trying his fortune in other lands.'
In fact, he did pay a short visit both to the Low Countries and to
Paris, but he could not make up his mind to settle in either, and
decided that he could do better for his wife and small children by
continuing his practice at the Bar. The next year Henry VII. died, and
More hoped that a new era was beginning.
* * * * *
The household in Bucklersbury was as happy as any that could have been
found in London. Its mistress, Joan Colt, was, when she married, a
country girl, cleverer at making possets and drying herbs than at
reading books or playing on the viol. But More, who charmed everybody,
easily charmed his wife, and to please him she studied whatever books he
gave her, and worked hard at her music. But after five years she died,
leaving him with four babies, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John, and
in a few months More saw himself obliged to marry again. This time he
chose a widow with a daughter of her own--a lady 'neither young nor
handsome,' as he tells Erasmus--but an excellent housekeeper, and the
best of mothers to his children.
* * * * *
More soon became known not only as an honest man above all bribery, but
as a generous one who would often refuse to take payment for pleading
the cause of a poor man or a widow. His practice at the Bar increased,
and he was made a judge, or under-sheriff, his income reaching 400 l. a
year, which would now be reckoned about 5,000 l. He needed it all, for
besides his own four children and his stepdaughter he had adopted
another girl. This girl, Margaret Gigs, afterwards married a learned
man, Dr. Clements, who lived in More's house, and probably shared with
John Harris the duties of secretary and of tutor in Greek and Latin to
the children. We must not forget either the 'fool,' Henry Patenson, or
sir Thomas's special friend and confidant, William Roper, by-and-by to
be the husband of More's favourite daughter, Margaret, and the man to
whom his heart opened more freely than to anyone else.
* * * * *
It naturally took a good deal of money to support this large household
and to save something for the children, as well as to bestow a tenth
part of his income on the poor, as was More's rule through life. His
charity did not consist in giving to everyone that asked, thereby doing
more harm than good, but he went himself to the cottage to make sure
that the tale he heard was true, and then would gladly spend what was
needed to set the family in the way of earning their own living. If they
proved to be ill, dame Alice, whose heart was soft though her words were
harsh, would bid one of the girls take them nourishing food or possets,
and often the poor pensioners would be invited to the house, to share
the family dinner. At other times the guests would be men of learning,
such as Colet, afterwards dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. Paul's
School, now moved to Hammersmith; Linacre or Grocyn, old friends of long
ago; and of course Erasmus, if he happened to be in London. Poor dame
Alice must have had a dull time of it, for while the room rang with
merry jests in Latin, flavoured sometimes with a little Greek, and even
the children could join in the laughter, she alone was ignorant of the
matter, and felt as a deaf man feels when he watches people dancing to
music that he cannot hear. She must have welcomed the moment when they
left the table, and she could show off the skill she had gained since
her marriage on four musical instruments, on which, to please her
husband, she practised daily--for no man ever lived who was as clever
as Sir Thomas in coaxing people to do as he wished. Quite meekly, though
she had a quick temper, she bore his teasing remarks as he watched her
'binding up her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with
strait-bracing in her body to make her middle small, both twain to her
great pain'; while she on her part was frequently vexed that he 'refused
to go forward with the best,' and had no wish 'greatly to get upward in
the world.'
* * * * *
Yet, in spite of the modesty which vexed his wife so much, More's fame
grew daily wider. The king, Henry VIII., who at this time was at his
best, had always kept an eye on him, and soon bade Wolsey seek him out.
Now More and Wolsey were so different in their ways and in their views
that they could never have become real friends, for while Wolsey was
ambitious, More was always content with what he had, and never desired
to thrust himself into notice. At first he resisted the cardinal's
advances; but rudeness was impossible to him, and as there was no means
of checking Wolsey's persistence, he had to put aside his own feelings
and appear both at the cardinal's house and at court. Indeed, such good
company did Henry find him that, as quick to take fancies as he was to
tire of them, he would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening
alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing, and sat silent,
though no doubt with a twinkle in his eye, resisting all the king's
efforts to make him speak, till at length everyone grew weary of him,
and his place was filled by some livelier man.
How Sir Thomas laughed, and what funny stories he told about it all,
when he had gained his object, at his own table.
[Illustration: Sir Thomas sat silent.]
So the years slipped by, and brought with them many unsought honours to
sir Thomas. Several times he was sent abroad on missions which needed
an honest man, as well as a shrewd one, to carry them through. Sometimes
he was the envoy of the citizens of London, sometimes of the king
himself, and he was present at the wonderful display of magnificence
known to history as 'The Field of the Cloth of Gold'--the meeting of
Francis of France, Henry of England, and the emperor Charles V. He had
remained in London during the fearful time of the sweating sickness, to
which people would fall victims while opening a window, playing with
their children, or even lying asleep. Death followed almost at once, and
'if the half in every town escaped it was thought great favour.' It
spared the house in Bishopsgate in which More had for some time been
living, and where he stayed till, four years later, he moved to a
country place at Chelsea.
Few men have held more dignities than sir Thomas More, or have earned
greater respect in the holding. Within eight years he was
Under-Treasurer, or, as we should say, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Speaker of the House of Commons, and finally Lord Chancellor. Even dame
Alice must have been satisfied; but her content only lasted three years,
as by that time events had occurred which made it necessary either for
sir Thomas to resign the Great Seal always entrusted to the lord
chancellor, or else 'to tie his conscience to another man's back,' and
that back the king's.
* * * * *
In 1531 Henry had decided to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, and
to marry in her stead the beautiful Anne Boleyn. His desire met with
violent opposition from almost all churchmen, and from many statesmen,
among whom was sir Thomas More. The pope, of course, entirely refused
his consent to any such violation of the law, and Henry, whom resistance
only made more obstinate, suddenly resolved to cut himself off
altogether from Rome, and declare that he, and not the pope, was the
head of the English church. This meant that he could do as he pleased
and make his own laws, and he lost no time in demanding the assent of
Parliament to his new claim, and afterwards that of the clergy. Once
these were obtained, there would be nothing to hinder him from divorcing
his first wife and marrying his second. In fact, he would be his own
pope.
* * * * *
For a year the battle raged fiercely, and More watched anxiously for the
issue. He withdrew himself as far as possible from the king, and kept as
much as might be to his own business. At length Henry was victorious.
The greater part of the clergy cast off their allegiance to the pope and
took the oath required by the king. Sir Thomas saw and understood, and
placed his resignation as lord chancellor in the hands of his sovereign.
The loss of his office left More a poor man, and to support the whole
family in Chelsea he had only an income of 1,200 l. a year. To his
great regret, he felt he could no longer lead the easy, happy life that
had been so pleasant to him. So the various married men, husbands of the
girls of the house, took away their wives and sought employment
elsewhere. Only the Ropers remained at hand.
Sir Thomas himself was glad enough to be free of his duties, and to have
time to read books and to prepare himself for the trial of faith that
was sure to come, though at present the king had only fair words for
him, and the clergy had subscribed a large sum as a proof of the esteem
in which they held him. More was much touched and pleased with this
gift, but he refused to accept it, or to allow his family to do so;
instead, he sold his plate and bade dame Alice be careful of her
household expenses.
If left to himself, Henry might perhaps have allowed sir Thomas, whom
he undoubtedly liked, to remain in peace, but his absence from her
coronation rankled deep in Anne Boleyn's heart. The late chancellor was
a man of mark in the sight of Europe, and could count famous men of all
nations among his friends. If he could not be gained over, he must be
punished, for the eyes of England were upon him, and he had but to hold
up his hand for many to follow. So he was one of the first bidden to
take the oath, swearing to put aside the claims of the princess Mary,
daughter of Katherine of Aragon, and to settle the crown on the children
of the new queen.
It was in April 1534 that More was summoned before the royal
commissioners, consisting of Audley, who had succeeded him in the
chancellorship, the abbot of Westminster, Thomas Cromwell as secretary
of state, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. At More's own request,
the Act of Succession, as it was called, was given into his hand, and he
read it through. When he had finished, he informed the commissioners
that he had nothing to say as to the Act itself or to the people that
took the oath, but that he himself must refuse.
It was probably no more than they expected; but Audley replied that he
was very sorry for it, as no man before had declined to swear, and that
sir Thomas might see for himself the names of those who had already
signed, whose consciences were perhaps as tender as his own. More
glanced down the long roll unfolded before him, but only repeated his
answer, nor could any persuasions induce him to give a different one. He
was willing, it seems, to take an oath of obedience to the sovereign and
his successors, but what he would _not_ do was to swear that the king
was the head of the church, and some words declaring this had been
introduced--whether carelessly or wilfully we do not know--into the Act
of Succession, with which they had nothing to do. It was his refusal to
take this part of the oath which caused the downfall of More.
* * * * *
For four days sir Thomas remained a prisoner in the care of the abbot of
Westminster; then he was sent to the Tower. Sir Richard Southwell
conveyed him there and placed him under the custody of the lieutenant of
the Tower, sir Edmund Walsingham, an old friend of the More family. As
appears to have been the custom, his cap and outside gown were taken
from him and kept by the porter, and a man set to spy upon his actions.
This was sorely against the wishes of his gaoler, who would fain have
made More's captivity in the Beauchamp Tower as light as might be; but
at first it was needful to be very strict, lest inquiries should be
made. Later, he was for a while allowed writing materials; he went to
church in St. Peter ad Vincula, where so many famous captives lie
buried, and occasionally walked in the garden, or took exercise in the
narrow walk outside his cell. By-and-by, too, occasional visits from his
family were permitted; his stepdaughter, lady Alington, came to see him,
and so did her mother, dame Alice, More's daughter-in-law Anne, and most
frequently of all his daughter Margaret.
With these indulgences he might have been content, for all his life he
had made the best of things, but the expenses of his captivity weighed
on his soul. The barest food for himself and his servant cost him
fifteen shillings a week (over 5 l. now), and some months later, when
he was convicted of high treason and the lands granted him by the king
were taken from him, his wife was forced to sell her own clothes so that
the money might be paid. But this, we may hope, she kept from sir
Thomas, whose body was bent and broken by painful diseases, though his
spirit was as cheerful as ever. He could even 'inwardly' laugh at dame
Alice when she came to see him for complaining that she would die for
want of air if she was left all night in a locked cell, when 'he knew
full well that every night she shut her own chamber, both doors and
windows, and what was the difference if the doors were locked or not?'
But he durst not laugh aloud nor say anything to her, for, indeed, he
stood somewhat in awe of her.
Most of the hours were passed during the first months of his captivity
in writing books in English or Latin; but when pen and paper were taken
from him, and he could only scribble a few words with the end of a
charred stick, he had plenty of time to think over his life and to
recall the years that had been so happy. The harsh words that he had
written about men whose religion was different from his own did not
trouble him, nor the thought of the imprisonment to which he had
sentenced many of them. In those days everyone held his own religion to
be right, and any that differed from it to be wrong, and though sir
Thomas never would, and never did, send any man to the block for his
faith, yet he would have considered that he had failed in his duty had
he left them at liberty to teach their 'wicked opinions.' So his mind
did not dwell upon those things, but rather upon his coming death, which
he well foresaw, and upon the old days in Bishopsgate and Chelsea, when
he would examine his children in the lessons they had learned, or set
all the girls to write letters in Latin to his friend Erasmus, that he
might see which of them proved to have the most skill. From time to time
during this year efforts were made to gain him over to the side of the
king, who would have given him almost anything he asked as the price of
his conscience. Even Margaret Roper joined with the rest, and begged him
to consider whether it was not his duty to obey the Parliament, and to
remember that it was possible that he might be mistaken in his refusal,
as so many good men and true had taken the oath. But nothing would move
sir Thomas.
[Illustration: 'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered.]
'What now, Mother Eve?' he answered. 'Sit not musing with some serpent
in your breast, or some new persuasion to offer Father Adam the apple
yet once again.'
'I have sworn myself,' said she, and at this More laughed and replied:
'That was like Eve, too, for she offered Adam no worse fruit than she
had eaten herself.'
Finding that his daughter's persuasions were useless, the king and
council sent Cromwell to see if by fair words or threats he could induce
More to declare that the king was head of the church. But, try as he
might, nothing either treasonable or submissive could be wrung from the
prisoner.
'I am the king's true, faithful subject, and pray for his highness, and
all his, and all the realm,' said sir Thomas. 'I do nobody none harm, I
say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good, and if this
be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live. And
I am dying already, and have since I came here been many times in the
case that I thought to die within one hour. And therefore my poor body
is at the king's pleasure.' Then Cromwell took his leave 'full gently,'
promising to make report to the king.
Lord Cromwell having failed also, the whole council next came and put
forth all their skill, with no better result; and it was then determined
to bring sir Thomas out of the Tower, and to try him at Westminster on
the charge of treason. Neither the prisoner nor the judges had any doubt
as to what the verdict would be; but whatever his thoughts as to the
future, More must have rejoiced to be rowing once more on the Thames,
with the air and sunlight all around him, and after a year's confinement
even the sight of Westminster Hall and the assembly met together, as he
knew, to doom him would have been full of interest. He was allowed a
chair, for his legs were so swollen that he could hardly have stood; and
then began the trial which a late lord chancellor has called 'the
blackest crime under the name of the law ever committed in England.' At
the close, sentence was passed. More had been proved guilty of treason,
and was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn.
The constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, sir Thomas's 'very
dear friend,' conducted the condemned man back to prison, and so
sorrowful was the constable's face that any man would have thought that
it was he who was condemned to death. Margaret Roper was waiting on the
wharf, and as her father landed from the barge she flung herself into
his arms, 'having neither respect to herself, nor to the press of people
that were about him.' He whispered some words of comfort and gave her
his blessing, and 'the beholding thereof was to many present so
lamentable that it made them to weep.'
* * * * *
The last shame of hanging was after all not inflicted on him, and the
King decreed that his faithful servant and merry companion should be
executed on Tower Hill, like the rest of the men whose bodies lie in the
church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower walls. The day before
his beheading sir Thomas wrote with a charred stick to Margaret, leaving
her the hair shirt he had always worn under his clothes, and messages
and little remembrances to the rest of the old household. Oddly enough,
his wife is never mentioned.
* * * * *
Very early in the morning of July 6 the king sent sir Thomas Pope to
tell More he was to die before the clock struck nine, and to say that
'he was not to use many words' on the scaffold, evidently fearing lest
the minds of the crowd might be stirred up to avenge his murder.
More answered that he had never meant to say anything at which the king
could be offended, and begged that his daughter Margaret might be
present at his burial. Pope replied that the king had given permission
for his wife and children and any other of his friends to be there, and
sir Thomas thanked him, and then put on a handsome dress of silk which
had been provided on purpose by the Italian Bonvisi.
But sir Thomas was not allowed to be at peace during the short walk
between the Beauchamp Tower and the block, for he was beset first by a
woman who wished to know where he had put some papers of hers when he
was sent to prison, and then by a second, upbraiding him with a judgment
he had given against her when he was chancellor.
'I remember you well, and should give judgment against you still,' said
he; but at length the crowd was kept back, and a path was kept to the
scaffold.
Roper was there, watching, and he noticed that the ladder leading to the
platform was very unsteady. Sir Thomas noticed it too, and with his foot
on the first step turned and said to the lieutenant of the Tower:
'I pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for
myself.'
When he reached the top, he knelt down and prayed; then rising, kissed
the executioner, and said:
'Pluck up thy spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My
neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he
spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding
it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his
head on the block.
* * * * *
Thus died sir Thomas More, because he would not tie his conscience to
another man's back, for he had no enemies save those who felt that this
courage put them to shame, and he had striven all his life to do harm to
no one. After his death, his head, as was the custom, was placed on a
stake, and shown as the head of a traitor on London Bridge for a month,
till Margaret Roper bribed a man to steal it for her, and, wrapping it
round with spices, she hid it in a safe place. It is possible that she
laid it in a vault belonging to the Roper family, in St. Dunstan's
Church in Canterbury, but she herself lies with her mother, in the old
church of Chelsea, where sir Thomas 'did mind to be buried.'
* * * * *
What the king's feelings were when he heard that the act of vengeance
had been accomplished we know not, but the emperor Charles V. spoke his
mind plainly to the English ambassador, sir Thomas Eliott.
'My Lord ambassador, we understand that the king your master hath put
his faithful servant sir Thomas More to death.'
Whereupon sir Thomas Eliott answered 'that he understood nothing
thereof.'
'Well,' said the emperor, 'it is too true; and this we will say, that
had we been master of such a servant, of whose doings ourselves have had
these many years no small experience, we would rather have lost the best
city of our dominions than such a worthy counsellor.'
THE LITTLE ABBESS
A nun!
As one reads the word, two pictures flash into the mind. One is that of
sisters of mercy going quickly through the streets, with black dresses
and flappy white caps, to visit their poor people. If you look at their
faces, you will notice how curiously smooth and unlined they are, even
when they are not young any more, and their expression is generally
quiet and contented, while the women of their own age who live in the
world appear tired and anxious.
The other picture is one that most of us have to make for ourselves, as
few have had a chance of seeing it. This nun is also dressed in black
robes, and has a flowing black veil, and a white band across her
forehead, under which her hair, cut short when she takes her vows, is
hidden away. She never leaves her convent, except for a walk in the
garden, but she often has children to teach, for many convents are great
Roman Catholic schools, and the nuns have to take care that they can
tell their scholars about the discoveries of the present day: about
wireless telegraphy, about radium, about the late wars and the changes
in the boundaries of kingdoms, and many other things.
Of course, nuns are divided into various orders, each with its own
rules, and some, the strictest, do not admit anyone inside the convent
at all, even into a parlour. After a girl has taken the veil, she is
allowed to receive one visit from her friends and relations, and then
she says good-bye to them for ever.
* * * * *
But if you had been living in Paris towards the end of the sixteenth
century, when Catherine de Médicis was queen-mother, and into the days
when Henry IV. was king, and his son Louis succeeded him, you would have
found this picture of a convent very far from the truth. Convents were
comfortable and even luxurious houses, richly endowed, where poor
noblemen and gentlemen sent their daughters for life, paying on their
entrance what money they could spare, but keeping enough to portion one
or two girls--generally the prettiest of the family--or to help the son
to live in state. If, as often happened, the father did not offer
enough, the abbess would try to get more from him, or else refuse his
daughter altogether. If she was accepted, he bade her farewell for the
time, knowing that he could see her whenever he chose, and that she
would lead quite as pleasant and as amusing an existence as her married
sister. Perhaps, too, she might even be allowed to wear coloured
clothes, for there was one order in which the habit of the nuns was
white and scarlet; but even if the archbishop, or the abbot, or the
king, or whoever had supreme power over the convent, insisted on black
and white being worn, why, it would be easy to model the cap and sleeves
near enough to the fashion to look picturesque; and could not the dress
be of satin and velvet and lace, and yet be black and white still?
As to food, no one was more particular about it than the abbess of a
large convent, or else the fine gentlemen and elegant ladies would not
come from Paris or the country round to her suppers and private
theatricals, where the nuns acted the chief parts, or to the balls for
which she was famous. How pleasant it was in the summer evenings to sit
with their friends and listen to music from hidden performers; and could
anything be so amusing as to walk a little way along the road to Paris
till the nuns reached a stretch of smooth green turf, where the monks
from a neighbouring monastery were waiting to dance with them in the
moonlight?
No, decidedly, nuns were not to be pitied when Henry IV. was king.
Yet soon all these joys were to be things of the past, and it was a girl
of sixteen who set her hand to the work.
* * * * *
The family of the Arnaulds were well known in French history as soldiers
or lawyers--sometimes as both, for the grandfather of the child whose
story I am going to tell you commanded a troop of light horse in time of
war, and in time of peace was, in spite of his being a Huguenot--that
is, a Protestant--Catherine's trusted lawyer and adviser. This Antoine
Arnauld, or M. de la Mothe, as he was called, was once publicly insulted
by a noble whose claim to some money Arnauld had been obliged to refuse.
[Illustration: 'You are mistaking me for somebody else.']
'You are mistaking me for somebody else,' answered M. de la Mothe,
quietly.
'What do you mean? I thought you just admitted that you _were_ M. de la
Mothe?' replied the angry nobleman.
'Oh, yes,' said the lawyer, 'so I am; but sometimes I change my long
robe for a short coat, and once outside this court you would not dare to
speak to me in such a manner.'
At this point one of the attendants whispered in his ear that this was
the celebrated soldier, and the nobleman, who seems to have been a
poor-spirited creature, instantly made the humblest apologies.
Many of his relatives remained Huguenots up to the end, but M. de la
Mothe returned to the old religion after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew
in 1572. No man ever had a narrower escape of his life, for his house in
Paris was attacked during the day, and though his servants defended it
bravely, neither he nor his children would have been left alive had
not a messenger wearing the queen's colours been seen pushing through
the crowd. The leaders then called upon the mob to fall back, and the
messenger produced a paper, signed by the queen, giving the family leave
to come and go in safety.
M. de la Mothe's son, Antoine Arnauld, had in him more of the lawyer
than the soldier, and he was clever enough to escape detection for acts
which _we_ should certainly call frauds. But he was an excellent husband
to the wife of thirteen whom he married, and a very affectionate father
to the ten out of his twenty children who lived to grow up.
Monsieur Arnauld was much thought of at the French bar, and was
entrusted with law cases by the court and by the nobles. He was a
pleasant and clever man, and made friends as easily as money, and if he
and his wife had chosen they might have led the same gay life as their
neighbours. But the little bride of thirteen did not care for the balls
and plays in which the fashionable ladies spent so much of their time,
and her dresses were as plain as those of the nuns _ought_ to have been.
She looked well after her husband's comfort, and saw that her babies
were well and happy, and when everything in her own house was arranged
for the day, she went through the door that opened into her father's
Paris dwelling, and sat with her mother, who was very delicate and could
scarcely leave her sofa.
The summer months were passed at monsieur Arnauld's estate of Andilly,
not far from Paris, to which they all moved in several large coaches.
Even here the lawyer was busy most of the day over his books and papers,
but in the evening he was always ready to listen to his wife's account
of her visits to their own poor people, or to those of the village near
by. At a period when scarcely anyone gave a thought to the peasants, or
heeded whether they lived or died, Arnauld's labourers were all well
paid, and the old and ill fed and clothed. And if monsieur Arnauld did
not go amongst them much himself, he allowed his wife to do as she
liked, and gave her sound advice in her difficulties.
As they grew older the children used often to accompany their mother on
her rounds, and learnt from her how to help and understand the lives
that were so different from their own. They saw peasants in bare
cottages contented and happy on the simplest food, and sometimes on very
little of it. They did not think about it at the time, of course, but in
after-years the memory of these poor people was to come back to them;
and they no longer felt strange and shy of those whom they were called
upon to aid.
* * * * *
Madame Arnauld's second daughter, Jacqueline, was a great favourite with
her grandfather, monsieur Marion, and was very proud of it. In Paris
every morning she used to run into his house, locking the door of
communication behind her. If, as often occurred, her brothers and
sisters wanted to come too, and drummed on the panels to make Jacqueline
open it, she would call out through the key-hole:
'Go away! You have no business here, this house belongs to _me_,' and
then she would run through the rooms till she found her grandfather, and
sit chattering to him about the things she liked and the games she was
fond of. She was quick and clever and easily interested, and it amused
monsieur Marion to listen to her when he had no work to occupy him; but
one fact he plainly noticed, and that was that Jacqueline was never
happy unless she was put first.
[Illustration: 'Go away! You have no business here.']
In the year 1599, madame Arnauld, though only twenty-five, had eight
children, and her father, monsieur Marion, who was already suffering
from the disease which afterwards killed him, began to be anxious about
their future. After talking the matter over with his son-in-law, they
decided that it was necessary that the second and third little girls,
Jacqueline and Jeanne, should become nuns, in order that Catherine, the
eldest, might have a larger fortune and make a more brilliant marriage.
Not that monsieur Marion intended that they should be common nuns. He
would do better than that for Jacqueline, and as his majesty Henry IV.
had honoured him with special marks of his favour, he had no doubt that
the king would grant an abbey to each of his granddaughters.
When the plan was told to madame Arnauld, she listened with dismay.
'But Jacqueline is hardly seven and a half,' she said, 'and Jeanne is
five;' but monsieur Marion only laughed and bade her not to trouble
herself, as he would see that their duties did not weigh upon them, and
that though he hoped they would behave better than many of the nuns, yet
they would lead pleasant lives, and their mother could visit them as
often as she liked.
Madame Arnauld was too much afraid of her father to raise any more
objections, but she had also heard too much of convents and their ways
to wish her daughters to enter them. Meanwhile the affair was carried
through by the help of the abbé of Citeaux, and as a rule existed by
which no child could be appointed abbess, the consent of the Pope was
obtained by declaring each of the girls many years older than she really
was. Both Arnauld and Marion considered themselves, and were considered
by others, to be unusually good men, yet their consciences never
troubled them about this wicked fraud.
However, by the aid of the false statement all went smoothly, and the
old and delicate abbess of Port Royal, an abbey situated in a marshy
hollow eighteen miles from Paris, agreed to take Jacqueline as helper or
coadjutrix, with the condition that on the death of the old lady the
little girl was to succeed her, while Jeanne was made abbess of
Saint-Cyr, six miles nearer Paris, where madame de Maintenon's famous
girls' school was to be founded a hundred years later. The duties of
the office were to be discharged by one of the elder nuns till Jeanne
was twenty.
* * * * *
It is always the custom that the young girls or novices should spend a
year in the convent they wish to enter before they take the vows, which
are for life. During that time they can find out if they really wish to
leave the world for ever, or if it was only a passing fancy; while the
abbess, on the other hand, can tell whether their characters are suited
to a secluded existence, or if it would only make them--and therefore
other people--restless and unhappy. When Jacqueline became a novice in
1599, her father invited all his friends, and a very grand company they
were. The child was delighted to feel that she was the most important
person present, and no doubt amused her grandfather by her satisfaction
at being 'first.' No such fuss seems to have been made over Jeanne on a
similar occasion, but in a few weeks both little girls were sent for
eight months to Saint-Cyr.
Abbesses though they might be, they were still the children who had
played in their father's garden only a few weeks before. Jacqueline and
her elder sister Catherine, the one who was 'to be married,' and very
unhappily, were chief in all the games and mischief. They were very
daring, and were always quick at inventing new plays. They were very
sensible, too, and if one of their brothers or sisters hurt themselves
during their games, these two knew what was best to be done without
troubling their mother. They were all fond of each other, and never had
any serious quarrels; but Jacqueline was generally the leader, and the
others, especially the shy and dreamy Jeanne, let themselves be ruled by
her. At Saint-Cyr, Jacqueline, who felt no difference, and speedily
became a favourite of the other novices, ordered her sister about as she
had been accustomed to do, and generally Jeanne obeyed her meekly; but
at last she rebelled and informed Jacqueline, much to her surprise, that
it was _her_ abbey, and that if Jacqueline did not behave properly she
might go away to her own.
* * * * *
Some months of Jacqueline's noviciate had still to run when she was sent
to the abbey of Maubuisson, which belonged to the same order of nuns as
Port Royal, whereas the nuns of Saint-Cyr belonged to another community.
The abbess, Angélique d'Estrées, was a famous woman, and her nuns were
some of the worst and most pleasure-loving in the whole of France. Most
likely madame Arnauld heard of the change with trembling, but she could
do nothing: in October 1600, Jacqueline, then nine years old, took the
veil and the vows of poverty and obedience in the midst of a noble
company. She was far too excited to think about the religious ceremony
which had bound her for life to the cloister, and certainly nobody
else--unless her mother was present--thought about it either. Her very
name was changed too, and instead of 'Jacqueline' she became
'Angélique,' as 'Jeanne' became 'Agnes.'
As soon as the little girl was a professed nun, monsieur Marion and
monsieur Arnauld, who were not satisfied that the pope's consent already
obtained was really sufficient, began afresh to prepare a variety of
false papers, in order that when Angélique took possession of her abbey
no one should be able to turn her out of it. Seventy years before a law
had been passed declaring that no nun could be appointed abbess under
forty, and though this was constantly disregarded, the child's father
and grandfather felt that it was vain to ask the Pope to nominate a
child of nine to the post. So in the declaration her age was stated to
be seventeen; but even that Clement considered too young, and it
required all the influence that monsieur Marion could bring to bear to
induce him at last to give his consent. Permission was long in coming,
and in the midst of the negotiations the old abbess died suddenly, and
Angélique, now ten and a half, was 'Madame de Port Royal.'
* * * * *
When Angélique said good-bye to the nuns at Maubuisson, all of whom had
been fond of her, her mother took her to Port Royal, fearing in her
heart lest the customs of the convent might be as bad as in the one
ruled by madame d'Estrées. But she was consoled at finding the abbey far
too poor to indulge in all the expensive amusements of Maubuisson, and
that it contained only thirteen nuns, so that Angélique would not have
so many people to govern. It was thirty years since a sermon had been
preached within its walls, except on a few occasions when a novice had
taken the veil, and during the carnival, just before Lent, all the
inmates of the convent, the chaplain or confessor among them, acted
plays and had supper parties. Like the Maubuisson sisters, the nuns
always kept their long hair, and wore masks and gloves; but they were
only foolish, harmless young women following the fashion, except the
oldest of them all, whom madame Arnauld managed to get dismissed.
Angélique was now nearly eleven, but much older in her thoughts and ways
than most children of her age, though she was still fond of games, and
spent part of the day playing or wandering about the garden. If it was
wet, she read Roman history, and perhaps she may have learnt something
of housekeeping from the prioress, who saw that all was kept in order.
The abbess said carefully the short prayers appointed for certain hours
of the day, and heard matins every morning at four and evensong every
afternoon. After this was over, she did as she was bidden by her
superior, the abbot of Citeaux, and took all her nuns for a solemn walk
on the hills outside the abbey.
[Illustration: She took all her nuns for a solemn walk.]
At first the young abbess was full of self-importance, and much occupied
with her position. After Agnes's taunts when they were both at St.
Cyr--oh, _long_ ago now!--it was delightful to be able to send her _own_
carriage for her, and play at the old home games in the garden. But
by-and-by the novelty wore off, and she became very tired of her life,
which was always the same, day after day, and would never, never be
different. If only she could be back at Andilly with the rest! and then
she would shut her eyes very tight so that no tears might escape them.
Lively and impulsive though she was, she was not accustomed to speak of
her feelings to others, and did her best to thrust her longing for
freedom into the background. But she grew pale and thin in the struggle,
and at last there came a day when a visitor, guessing what was the
matter, hinted that as she had taken her vows before she was old enough
to do so by law, it would be easy to get absolved from them. Something
of the kind may have perhaps occurred to Angélique, but, put into words,
the idea filled her with horror, for deep down in her mind she felt that
though her profession had been thrust upon her before she knew what she
was doing, she would feel ashamed and degraded all her life if she broke
her vows. Still, she wanted to forget it all if she could, and in order
to distract her thoughts she began to receive and pay visits in the
neighbourhood, to the great grief of her mother, who feared this was the
first step towards the moonlight balls of Maubuisson.
Angélique was far too tender-hearted to withstand her mother's tears,
and gave up paying calls; spending the time instead in reading
Plutarch's 'Lives' and other books about ancient history, and pretending
to herself that she was each of the heroes in turn. But even Plutarch
was a poor substitute for home life, and when her fifteenth birthday was
drawing near she began to wonder if she _could_ stand it any longer.
'I considered,' she says herself, 'if it would be possible for me to
return to the world, and even to get married, without telling my father
or mother, for the yoke had become unsupportable.' Perhaps, she
reflected, she might go to La Rochelle, where some of her Huguenot aunts
were living, and though she had no wish to change her own religion, yet
she was sure they would protect her. As to the difficulties of a young
abbess travelling through France alone, they did not even occur to her,
and she seems to have arranged her plans for escape without informing
the good ladies of their expected visitor.
* * * * *
The day Angélique had fixed for her flight had almost come when she fell
very ill of a sort of nervous fever, chiefly the result of the trouble
of mind she had been going through, though the unhealthy marshes round
Port Royal may have had something to do with her illness. Monsieur and
madame Arnauld at once sent a litter drawn by horses to fetch her to
Paris, where the best doctors awaited her. Her mother hardly left her
bedside, and for some time Angélique was at rest, feeling nothing except
that she was at home, and that the old dismal life of the convent must
be a dream. But as she grew stronger her perplexities came back. She
_could_ not bring such grief on her parents, who loved her so much, yet
the sight of her aunts in their beautiful dresses with long pointed
bodices, and the pretty hoods that covered their hair when they came to
inquire after her, revived all her longings for the amusements of other
girls. Again she kept silence, but secretly induced one of the maids to
make her a pair of corsets, 'to improve her figure.'
* * * * *
It may have been the sight of the corsets which caused monsieur Arnauld,
whose keen eyes nothing escaped, to take alarm. At any rate, one day he
brought a paper, so ill-written that it could hardly be read, and
thrust it with a pen into Angélique's hand, saying, 'Sign this, my
daughter.'
The girl did not dare to refuse, or even to question her father, though
she did manage to make out a word or two, which showed her that the
paper contained a renewal of the vows she so bitterly regretted.
Though custom and respect kept her silent, Angélique's frank and
straightforward nature must have felt bitterly ashamed as well as angry
at the way her father had tried to trick her, and she seems on the whole
to have been rather glad to return to her abbey. The nuns were delighted
to have her back again, and as she remained very delicate all through
the winter, she was a great deal indoors, too tired to do anything but
rest, and read now and then a little book of meditations, which one of
the sisters had given her.
* * * * *
Just at this time an event happened which turned the whole course of
Angélique's life.
A Capuchin monk, father Basil by name, stopped at Port Royal one
evening, and asked the abbess's leave to preach. At first she refused,
saying it was too late; then she changed her mind, for she was fond of
hearing sermons, which, even if they were bad, generally gave her
something to think of. There does not seem to have been anything very
striking about this one, but when it was ended 'I found myself,' says
Angélique, 'happier to know myself a nun than before I had felt wretched
at being one, and that there was nothing in the whole world that I would
not do for God.'
Now Angélique's inward struggles took a different turn; she no longer
desired to be free of her vows, but rather to carry them out to the
utmost of her power, and to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For
some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order
of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on
Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and
instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the
prioress, whom Angélique also consulted, told her that she was not well,
and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite
differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people,
but was a mistake as regarded Angélique. Thus disappointed in both her
counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her post, and to become a
simple nun in some distant convent; but she dared not disobey her newly
awakened conscience, which told her to stay where she was and do her
work.
* * * * *
It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers, Angélique took care that
her reforms began at the right end--namely, with herself. Again and
again we see that when she made a new rule or revived an old one she
practised it secretly herself long before she asked any of her nuns to
adopt it. At this time she was torn between the advice of two of the
Capuchin monks, one of whom urged her to lay down her burden and to
enter as a sister in some other convent; while the other, the father
Bernard, who had alarmed the nuns by his zeal, at last seemed to
understand the position of Angélique, and told her that, having put her
hand to the plough, she must not draw back.
Angélique was only sixteen and in great trouble of mind, and in her sore
distress she did some foolish things in the way of penances which she
afterwards looked on with disapproval, for she never encouraged her nuns
to hurt their bodies so as to injure their minds. Indeed, her character
was too practical for her to adopt the follies which were the fashion in
some of the religious houses not wholly given over to worldly pleasures.
She had no wish to become famous or to be considered a saint when she
knew how far she was from being one, and prayed earnestly and sensibly
never to be allowed to see visions--the visions which she was well
aware were often the result first of fasting, and next the cause of
vanity, with its root in the praise of men.
* * * * *
As usual, the early autumn proved a trying season for Angélique, and she
again fell ill of a fever, and spent some weeks at Andilly with her
troop of brothers and sisters. But she could not shake off the sad
thoughts which were pressing on her, and was glad to go back to the
convent, taking with her little Marie Arnauld, then seven years old. The
winter passed before she could decide what to do, and her illness was
increased by the damp vapours arising from the ponds and marshes around
the abbey. She was worn out by thinking, and at length the prioress was
so alarmed by her appearance that she begged the abbess to do whatever
she thought right, as the sisters would submit to anything sooner than
see her in such misery.
The relief to Angélique's mind was immense, and she instantly called on
the whole community to assemble together. She then spoke to them,
reminding them of the vow of poverty they had taken, and showing them
how, if it was to be kept, they must cease to have possessions of their
own and share all things between them. When she had finished, a nun rose
up and silently left the room, returning in a few minutes with a little
packet containing the treasures by which she had set so much store. One
by one they all followed her example, and Angélique's first battle was
won.
* * * * *
In spite of the French proverb which says 'it is only the first step
which hurts,' the second step on the road to reform was the cause of far
more pain to Angélique, for she was resolved to put an end to the
practice of permitting the relatives and friends of the nuns free
entrance into the convent; and knew that her father, who during all
these years had come and gone as he wished, would not submit quietly to
his exclusion. Therefore she made certain alterations in the abbey:
ordered a foot or two to be added to the walls, and built a parlour
outside with only a small grated window, through which the nuns would be
allowed now and then to talk to their families.
All being ready, she again assembled the sisters, and informed them of
the new rule which was to be carried out, and when shortly after a
novice took the veil, and her friends were entertained outside the
convent, many voices were raised in discontented protest, and more than
once the murmur was heard, 'Ah! it will be a very different thing when
monsieur Arnauld comes.'
* * * * *
But it was not. Angélique never made one rule for herself and another
for her nuns, and by-and-by when her father's work was over in Paris,
and they all moved to Andilly, the abbess knew that her time of trial
had come. She wrote to either her mother or sister, madame le Maître,
begging them to inform her father of the new state of affairs; but this
they do not seem to have done. At all events, on September 24, 1609,
Angélique received a message from her father, saying that they would
arrive the next morning to see her.
Now the abbess of Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman,
delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an
affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her
generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the
matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause of much
pain to both she well knew, and she entreated two or three of the
nuns--among whom was her sister Agnes, who had resigned Saint-Cyr and
was now at Port Royal--to spend the night in praying that her
determination might not falter.
It was at the dinner-hour, about eleven o'clock, that the noise of a
carriage was heard in the outer court of the abbey. The abbess turned
pale and rose from her seat, while those of the sisters whom she had
taken into her confidence hastened away to be ready for the different
duties she had assigned to them. Angélique, holding in her hands the
keys of every outer door leading into the convent, walked to the great
gate, against which monsieur Arnauld, who was accompanied by his wife,
his son, and two of his daughters, was knocking loudly. He was not used
to be kept waiting like this, and did not understand the meaning of it,
and when the tiny window cut in the thick oak panels was suddenly thrown
open, and his daughter's face appeared, he asked impatiently what was
the matter that the gates were locked, and why she did not open them.
Angélique replied gently that if he would go into the parlour beside the
gate she would speak to him through the grating and explain the reason
of the gates being shut; but her father, not believing his ears, only
rapped the louder, while madame Arnauld reproached her daughter with
lack of respect and affection, and monsieur d'Andilly her brother called
her all sorts of names.
The noise was so great that it reached the refectory or dining-hall,
where the nuns were still sitting, and soon their voices were joined to
the clamour, some few upholding the conduct of their abbess, but most of
them condemning her.
At this point monsieur Arnauld, seeing that Angélique would not give
way, bethought him of a trick by which he could gain a footing inside
the walls. If, he said, Angélique had lost all sense of duty and
obedience to her parents, he would not suffer his other children to be
ruined by her example, and Agnes and little Marie must be given up to
him at once. No doubt he reckoned on the great door being opened for the
girls to come out, and that then he would be able to slip inside; but,
unfortunately, Angélique knew by experience of what her father was
capable, and had foreseen his demand. She answered that his wishes
should be obeyed, and seeking out one of the sisters whom she could
trust, gave her the key of a little door leading from the chapel outside
the walls, and bade her let Agnes and Marie out that way. This was done,
and suddenly the two little nuns were greeting their father as if they
had dropped from the skies.
At length understanding that neither abuse nor tricks could move
Angélique, monsieur Arnauld consented to go to the parlour, and there a
rush of tenderness came over him, and he implored her to be careful in
what she did, and not to ruin her health by privations and harsh
treatment. Angélique was not prepared for kindness, and after all she
had undergone it proved too much for her. She fell fainting to the
ground, and lay there without help, for her parents could not reach her
through the grating in the wall, and the nuns, thinking that monsieur
Arnauld was still heaping reproaches on her head, carefully kept away.
At last, however, they realised that help was needed, and arrived to
find their abbess lying senseless. Her first words on recovering were to
implore her father not to leave that day, and the visitors passed the
night in a guest-room which she had built outside the walls, and next
morning she had a long and peaceful talk with her family from a bed
placed on the convent side of the grating.
[Illustration: She fell fainting to the ground.]
In the end the abbot of Citeaux gave permission for monsieur Arnauld
still to inspect the outer buildings and gardens, as he had been in the
habit of doing, while his wife and daughters had leave to enter the
convent itself when they wished. But this was not for a whole year, as
madame Arnauld in her anger had sworn never to enter the gates of Port
Royal, and it was only after hearing a sermon setting forth that vows
taken in haste were not binding that she felt at liberty once more to
see her daughter.
* * * * *
The income left by the founder of Port Royal was very small--about
240 l. a year--little enough on which to support a number of people and
find work for the poor, though, of course, it could perhaps buy as many
things as 1,200 l. a year now.
When Angélique first went there as abbess, monsieur Arnauld, who managed
all the money matters, paid all that seemed necessary for the comfort of
his daughter and the nuns. But after the day when she closed the gates
on him Angélique would no longer accept his help, as she felt she could
not honestly do so while behaving in a manner of which he disapproved.
So she called together her little community, and they thought of all the
things they could possibly do without. The masks and the gloves had
already been discarded, and there seemed to be nothing for the sisters
to give up, if they were to help the sick people and peasants who
crowded about their doors, but their food and their firing. Not that she
intended to support anybody in idleness; Angélique was far too sensible
for that. She took counsel with her father, and found work for the men,
and even the children, in the gardens and lands belonging to the abbey.
Their wages were small, but each day good food was prepared in the
kitchens--Angélique had no belief in bad cooking--and was wheeled out by
the sisters in little carts as far as the garden walls, where the
workmen could eat it while it was hot. Then some of the children or
women were employed as messengers to carry bowls with dinners to the old
and ill. Of course some of these were in the abbey infirmary, and were
looked after by the nuns, and especially by Angélique, who took the one
who seemed to need most care into her own room, while she slept on the
damp floor--for half the sickness at Port Royal was due to the marshes
that surrounded it. If it happened that she had her cell to herself,
there was no fire to warm her, yet she often got up in the night to
carry wood to the long dormitory where several of the nuns slept, so
that they, at least, should not suffer from cold.
All the daily expenses she saw to herself, as debt was hateful to her,
and she and the sisters denied themselves food and wore the cheapest and
coarsest clothes, not for the sake of their own souls, but of other
people's bodies.
* * * * *
In many ways, though she did not know it and certainly would have been
shocked to hear it, Angélique resembled the Puritans, whose influence
in England was daily increasing. She had a special dislike to money
being spent on decorations and ornaments in churches, or in embroidered
vestments for priests, and never would allow any of them in her own. She
also invented a loose and ugly grey dress for the girls to wear who
desired admission to the convent, instead of permitting them to put on
the clothes they had worn at home, as had always been the custom. The
first to wear it was her own sister Anne, who after leading the gay life
of a Parisian young lady for a year, at fifteen resolved to abandon it
for ever and join her three sisters at Port Royal.
It is possible that monsieur Arnauld may have regretted his hastiness in
forcing Angélique and Agnes to become nuns when he saw one daughter
after another following in their footsteps. Anne he had expected to
remain, for she was full of little fancies and vanities, and he could
not imagine her submitting to the work which he knew the abbess loved.
He would have laughed sadly enough if he could have seen how right he
was. On the first night that Anne slept in the abbey, she laid a cloth
on a table in her cell, and tried to make it look a little like the
dressing-table she had left in Paris. Angélique happened to pass the
open door on her way to the chapel, and, smiling to herself, quietly
stripped the table. Some hours later she went by again, and over it was
spread a white handkerchief. This she also removed, but, leaving Anne to
apply the lesson, she did not make any remark, and sent her to clean out
the fowl-house.
* * * * *
By this time the eyes of the world had been turned to Port Royal, and to
the strange spectacle of a girl who, possessed of every talent which
would enable her to shine in society, had deliberately chosen the worst
of everything, and had induced her nuns to choose it too. Possibly the
quiet and useful life led by the Port Royal sisters may have made the
gaieties and disorders of the other convents look even blacker than
before; but however that may be, when Angélique was about twenty-six a
most difficult and disagreeable piece of work was put into her hands.
The king, Louis XIII., a very different man from his father, Henry IV.,
had determined to put an end to the state of things that prevailed, and
resolved to begin with Maubuisson.
Now nobody had ever attempted to interfere with madame d'Estrées, who
was still abbess, and when the abbot of Citeaux, her superior, informed
her that in obedience to the king's commands he proposed to come over
and inspect Maubuisson, she was extremely angry. Without caring for the
consequences, she locked up in a cell two monks who had brought the
message, and kept them without food for some days; after which she
roughly bade them return whence they came, and thought no more about the
matter.
For two years the affair rested where it was; then the king again turned
his attention to Maubuisson, and wrote to the abbot of Citeaux inquiring
why his previous orders had not been carried out, bidding him send an
officer at once and obtain an exact report of the conduct of the nuns
and the abbess.
The commissioner, monsieur Deruptis, arrived with three or four men at
Maubuisson, and congratulated themselves when they found the doors flung
wide and they were invited to enter.
'The reverend mother is too unwell to see anyone to-day,' said the nun
who admitted them, 'but she has prepared rooms in the west tower for
your reception, and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you
herself.' So saying she led them down several passages till she reached
a little door, which she unlocked, and then stood back for them to pass
in. As soon as they were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew
stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men realised what had
happened they heard the key turn in the lock.
For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing to eat but a very
little bread and water; while every morning the commissioner was
severely flogged till he was almost too weak to move. At length, driven
to desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze themselves
through a narrow window, and returned dirty and half-starved to the
abbot.
Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends and relations thought
she had gone too far, and they were besides very angry with her for
allowing her own young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be
secretly married there. They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux
that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he
instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell
the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer the messenger came
back saying that the abbess would listen to nothing; but the abbot, now
thoroughly angry, only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great
gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estrées would refuse to see him
when it came to the point, but she _did_; he then, as was his right,
called an assembly of the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she
declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her bed; so, fuming
with rage, he went back to Paris and told the whole story to the king.
After certain forms of law had been gone through, which took a little
time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the
abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in
Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with
him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the
abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey,
and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the
abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at
last he sent for his archers and ordered them to force an entrance.
'Open, in the king's name!' cried their captain; but as the doors
remained closed, he signed to his men to force them, and soon two
hundred and fifty archers were in the abbey, seeking its abbess. During
the whole day they sought in vain, and began to think that she was not
in the house at all; at length a soldier passing through a dormitory
noticed a slight movement in one of the beds, which proved to contain
the rebellious abbess. The man bade her get up at once, but she told
them that it was impossible, as she had hardly any clothes on. The
soldier, not knowing what to do, sent for his captain, who promptly bade
four archers take up mattress and abbess and all, and place them in the
carriage which stood before the gates.
In this manner, accompanied by one nun, madame d'Estrées entered the
convent of the Penitents.
* * * * *
It is very amusing to read about, but at the time the affair made a
great noise, and the other abbesses who were conscious of having
neglected their vows had long felt very uneasy and watched anxiously
what would happen next. Of course, Maubuisson could not be left without
a head, and as soon as the abbess was removed, the abbot summoned the
nuns before him and informed them that they might choose which of three
ladies should take the place of madame d'Estrées. One of the three was
madame de Port Royal.
The 'ladies of Maubuisson,' as they had always been called, trembled at
the thought of what they might have to undergo at the hands of
Angélique, yet they liked still less the other abbesses proposed. In the
end it was she who was appointed, and a fortnight later arrived at
Maubuisson with three of her own nuns, one being her young sister Marie.
Some of the Maubuisson nuns remembered their new abbess quite well, when
she had lived amongst them nearly seventeen years before. These she
treated with the utmost consideration, for she knew it was unreasonable
to expect them to give up all at once the habits of a lifetime, and she
thought it wiser to gain permission to add thirty young novices to the
community whom she might train herself. To these girls she taught the
duties performed by her own nuns, and herself took part in carrying wood
for the fires, keeping clean the chapel and other parts of the abbey,
washing the clothes, digging up the garden, and singing the chants, for
she had been shocked by the discordant and irreverent manner in which
the services were conducted. She even allowed her novices to wait on the
older nuns, replacing their own servants.
For a year and a half Angélique struggled patiently to soften the hearts
of the Maubuisson 'ladies,' but without success, and her courage and
spirits began to fail her. Then, in September 1619, an event occurred
which, unpleasant though it was, brought her back to her old self, and
this was the sudden return of madame d'Estrées.
At six o'clock one morning the late abbess, who had managed to escape
from the convent where she had been imprisoned, unexpectedly appeared as
the nuns were on their way to church, having been let in secretly by one
of the sisters.
'Madame,' she said to Angélique, 'I have to thank you for the care you
have taken of my abbey, and to request that you will go back to yours.'
'There is nothing I long for more, madame,' replied Angélique, 'but I
have been placed here by the abbot of Citeaux, our superior, and I
cannot leave without his permission.' Upon this madame d'Estrées
declared that she was abbess and would take her proper position; but
Angélique, merely asserting that the king and the abbot had placed her
there, and there she must stay, walked calmly to her own seat, while
madame d'Estrées, not having made up her mind what to do, went off to
see her own nuns, who seldom were present at the early service.
By command of Angélique, everything went on as usual in the abbey,
except that the keys of all the doors had been given up to her. But
after dinner, to her great surprise, the chaplain came to her and
informed her that it was her duty to give way to force, and that if she
did not do so quietly the armed men whom madame d'Estrées had left
outside the walls would thrust her out. The abbess replied that she
could not forsake her charge; but she had hardly spoken when, to her
amazement, five soldiers with naked swords advanced towards her, and
threatened her with violence if she did not do as they wished. But no
Arnauld ever submitted to bullying, and Angélique repeated her words,
and said that nothing but force could make her quit her post.
While this conversation was going on the novices, terrified at what
might be happening to their abbess, crowded round in order to protect
her. They were all very much excited, and when madame d'Estrées, who had
entered also, happened to touch Angélique's veil, one of the young nuns
turned to her and cried out indignantly:
'Wretched woman! Would you dare to pull off the veil of madame de Port
Royal?' and snatching the veil which the abbess had put on her own head,
she tore it off and flung it in a corner.
'Put madame out,' said madame d'Estrées, turning to the gentlemen with
her, and Angélique, who did not resist, was at once thrust out of the
door and into a carriage that was waiting. In an instant the carriage
was covered with novices as with a swarm of flies. The wheels, the
rumble, the coach-box, all were full of them; it was astonishing how
they got there in their heavy, cumbrous clothes. Madame d'Estrées called
to the coachman to whip up the horses, but he, perhaps enjoying the
scene, replied that if he moved he was certain to crush somebody. Then
Angélique left the coach, and the novices got down from their perches
and stood around her.
Finding that this plan had failed, madame d'Estrées ordered one of her
lackeys to stand at the gate of the abbey and to allow Angélique, her
two sisters, and the two Port Royal nuns to pass out, but no one else.
She herself took hold of Angélique, who was nearly torn in half between
her friends and enemies, and pulled her out of the gate, all the novices
pressing behind her. The moment the rival abbesses had passed through a
strong young novice seized hold of madame d'Estrées and forced her to
the ground, keeping her there until every one of her companions was on
the outside. It was in vain that the lackey tried to stop them.
'If you attempt to shut that door we will squeeze you to death,' cried
they, and each in turn gave the door behind which he stood a good push!
At length they were outside, and were walking quietly down the road to
Pontoise, where they took refuge in a church, till the inhabitants,
hearing of their arrival, placed all they had at their disposal.
Great was the indignation of the king and the abbot when, next morning,
a letter from mère Angélique informed them of what had happened.
Instantly a warrant was issued for the arrest of madame d'Estrées, and a
large body of archers was sent off post-haste to Maubuisson in order to
carry it out. But the abbess had received warning of her danger, and was
not to be found, though her flight was so hurried that on searching her
rooms the captain discovered several important papers that she had
left behind her. Her friend, madame de la Serre, took refuge in a
cupboard, which was concealed by tapestry, high up in a wall. The dust
seems to have got into her nose, and she sneezed, and in this manner
betrayed herself to the archers who set a ladder against the wall, which
the lady instantly threw down. The captain then levelled his pistol at
her, and bade his men put up the ladder again.
[Illustration: The archers set a ladder against the wall, which the lady
instantly threw down.]
'I will shoot you if you do not surrender,' he said, and as she was sure
he meant it, she gave herself up.
When all was quiet in the abbey, the archers mounted their horses and
rode to Pontoise, and under their protection Angélique and her nuns
walked back to Maubuisson at ten o'clock that night, escorted by the
people of Pontoise, and lighted by a hundred and fifty torches borne by
the archers. For six months a guard of fifty remained there, but when
madame d'Estrées was at last captured and sent back for life to the
Convent of the Penitents, at the request of Angélique they returned to
their quarters, and she was left to manage the nuns herself.
The last year of her residence at Maubuisson was, if possible, more
unpleasant than the rest had been, for the title of abbess was given to
a lady of high birth whose views were far more worldly than those of
Angélique. She was very angry at the presence of the thirty poor nuns
who had been added to the community, and declared she would turn them
out. So Angélique begged them to come with her to Port Royal, small
though her abbey was, and had them taken there in a number of carriages
sent by madame Arnauld.
* * * * *
After this Angélique, or some of the nuns chosen by her, was often sent
to reform other convents, and very hard work it was. She had, besides,
her own cares at Port Royal, for the abbey, always unhealthy, was made
worse by overcrowding and underfeeding, and the income and the
dormitories which had been held sufficient for sixteen now had to do for
eighty. A low fever broke out, of which many died, and soon it became
clear that the rest would follow if they did not leave. At length, at
the entreaty of her mother, Angélique applied for permission to move
into Paris, where madame Arnauld had taken a house for them.
It is not easy, of course, even in a big town, to find a ready-made
building large enough to hold so many people, and, though Angélique
added a sleeping-gallery, the refectory or dining-room was so small that
the nuns had to dine in parties of four. Her father was dead, and she
does not seem to have thought of consulting any of her brothers; more
space appeared a necessity, and, much as she hated debt, in her strait
she made up her mind that she must borrow money in order to build fresh
dormitories, and, breaking her rule, accepted a rich boarder, who became
the cause of infinite trouble.
Just at this period the king's mother, who was in Paris, paid a visit to
the famous abbess, and inquired if she had nothing to ask for, as it was
her custom always to grant some favour on entering a convent for the
first time.
Angélique replied that she prayed her to implore the king's grace to
allow a fresh abbess to be chosen every three years, and leave being
granted, she and her sister Agnes, who was her coadjutor, instantly
resigned. She meant the change to be a safeguard, so that no one nun
should enjoy absolute power for long; but as regarded her own abbey it
was a great mistake, for she had a gift of ruling such as belonged to
few women, and often when a mean or spiteful sister was elected she
would wreak her ill-temper upon the late abbess, and impose all sorts of
absurd penances upon her, which Angélique always bore meekly.
* * * * *
During the years that followed Angélique not only had her four younger
sisters with her, Agnes, Anne, Marie, and Madeleine, but later her
mother and her widowed sister, madame le Maître. They were all happy to
be together, though the rule of silence laid down by Angélique to
prevent gossip must have stood in the way of much that would have been
pleasant. By-and-by her nieces almost all entered the convent, and, what
is still more surprising, her brothers and several of her nephews, most
of them brilliant and successful men, one by one quitted the bar or the
army, and formed a little band known as the 'Recluses of Port Royal,'
who afterwards did useful work in draining and repairing the abbey 'in
the fields,' so that the nuns could go back to it.
And all this was owing to the example and influence of one little girl,
who had been thrust into a position for which she had certainly shown no
liking.
* * * * *
In the last twenty-five years of Angélique's life her religious views
underwent a change, and her confessor, St. Cyran, who shared them, was
imprisoned, on a charge of heresy, at Vincennes. Even as a young girl
she had left the chapel at Port Royal bare of ornaments, and later sold
the silver candlesticks which were a gift to the altar of Port Royal de
Paris, in order to bestow the money on the poor. Everyone looked up to
her, but by-and-by it began to be whispered that she was 'a dangerous
person,' who thought that the Church needed reforming as well as the
convents, and had adopted the opinions of one Jansen, a Swiss, who
wished to go back to the faith of early times, when St. Augustine was
bishop.
In 1654 she heard through one of her nephews that in consequence of some
of the recluses having resisted a decree of the pope condemning a book
of Jansen's, a resistance supposed to have been inspired by the abbess
herself, it was reported that she was either to be sent to the Bastille
or imprisoned in some convent. She did not take any notice, and neither
threat was fulfilled; but the hatred which the order of the Jesuits bore
to the 'Jansenists,' as their opponents were called, never rested, and
later a command came for the recluses to be dispersed, and the leaders
were forced to go into hiding. Then her schoolgirls were sent to their
homes, 'la belle Hamilton,' a Scotch girl, among them; and after them
went the candidates, or those who wished to take the veil. All these
blows came thick and fast, and Angélique, with health broken from the
incessant labours of over fifty years, was attacked by dropsy.
The nuns were in despair, and hung about her night and day, hoping that
she might let fall some words which they might cherish almost as divine
commands; but Angélique, who, unlike her sister Agnes, had all her life
been very impatient of sentimentality, detected this at once, and took
care 'neither to say nor do any thing remarkable.' 'They are too fond of
me,' she once said, 'and I am afraid they will invent all sorts of silly
tales about me.' And in order to put a stop as far as she could to all
the show and parade which she knew her nuns would rejoice in, as she
felt that her end was drawing near she gave them her last order:
'Bury me in the churchyard, and do not let there be any nonsense after
my death.'
GORDON
Many years hence, when the children of to-day are growing old men and
women, they will perhaps look back over their lives, as I am doing now,
and ask themselves questions about the people they have known or have
heard of. 'Who,' they will say, 'was the person I should have gone to at
once if I needed help?' 'Who was the man whose talk made me forget
everything, till I felt as if I could listen to him for ever?' 'What
woman was the most beautiful, or the most charming?' and they will turn
over the chapters in the Book of Long Ago and give the answers to
themselves, or to the boys and girls who are listening for their reply.
Well, if the question were put throughout England at this moment, 'What
man has kindled the greatest and most undying enthusiasm during your
life?' the answer would be given with one voice:
'Gordon.'
* * * * *
It seemed as if from the very first Nature had intended him for a
soldier. His father came of a clan that has a fighting record even in
Scotch history, and he was living on Woolwich Common, within hearing of
the Arsenal guns, when his fourth son, Charles George, was born on
January 28, 1833. Yet, strange to say, though fearless in many ways, and
accustomed to rough games with his numerous brothers and sisters,
Charles as a small boy hated the roar of cannon. Unlike queen Christina
of Sweden, who at four years old used to clap her hands when a gun was
discharged near her, and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his
fingers in his ears to shut out the noise. It was not lack of courage,
for he showed plenty of that about other things, but simply that the
sudden sound made him jump, and was unpleasant to him.
His life was from the first full of change, as the lives of soldiers'
children often are, for the Gordons were stationed in Dublin and near
Edinburgh before they went out to the island of Corfu when Charles was
seven. During the three years he spent there Charles grew big and strong
and full of daring; guns might fire all day long without his moving a
muscle, and he was always trying to imitate the deeds of boys bigger
than himself. When he saw them diving and swimming about in the
beautiful clear water, he would throw himself from a rock into their
midst, feeling quite sure that somebody would help him to float. And as
courage and confidence are the two chief qualities necessary to make a
good swimmer, by the time he left Corfu he was as much at home in the
sea as any of his friends.
* * * * *
After his tenth birthday his life at Corfu came to an end, and Charles
was brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he
stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his
schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly
inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it
frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen,
it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured
way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very
narrow escape of having his career cut short by dismissal.
At this period his father held the appointment of director of the
carriage department of the Arsenal, and his whole family suffered
greatly from the plague of mice which overran the house they lived in.
After putting up with it for some time, Charles and his brother Henry,
also a cadet, laid traps and caught vast numbers of the mice, and during
the night they carried them stealthily across the road in baskets to the
commandant's house, exactly opposite. Opening a door which they felt
pretty sure of finding unlocked, they emptied the baskets one by one,
and let the mice run where they would. Then the boys crept back softly
to their own room, shaking with laughter at the thought of the
commandant's face when he came down in the morning.
The two youths were great favourites with the workmen in the Arsenal,
who used often to leave off the work they should have been doing to make
squirts, crossbows, and other weapons for Charles and Henry. They must
have trembled sometimes when they heard that the windows of the
storehouse had been mysteriously broken, or that an officer who was
known to be disliked by the cadets had received a deluge of water down
his neck from a hedge bordering the road. But the culprits never
betrayed each other, and the young Gordons soon grew so bold that they
thought they might venture on a piece of mischief which very nearly
ended their military career.
Some earthworks had been newly thrown up near a room where the senior
cadets, known as 'Pussies,' attended lectures on certain evenings in the
week. One night the two Gordons hid themselves behind this rampart, and
while listening to remarks upon fortification and strategy the cadets
were startled by a crash of glass and a shower of small shot falling
about their ears. In an instant they were all up and out of the house,
dashing about in the direction from which the shots had come; and so
quick were they that if Charles and Henry had not known every inch of
the ground and dodged their pursuers, they would certainly have been
caught and expelled, as they richly deserved.
* * * * *
In June 1852 Charles Gordon was given a commission as second lieutenant
in the Engineers, and was sent to Chatham for two years. In spite of the
mice and the crossbows and the earthworks and many other things, he had
gained several good conduct badges, for he had worked hard, and was
noted for being clever both at fortifications and at surveying.
Mathematics he never could learn. So Charles said good-bye to his
father, who was thankful to see him put to man's work--for during the
four years his son had passed at Woolwich he had, as he expressed it,
'felt himself sitting on a powder barrel'--and set out on the career in
which he was to earn a name for justice and truth throughout three
continents.
It was while Gordon was learning in Pembroke Dock something of what
fortifications really were that the Crimean war broke out, and in
December he was ordered to Balaclava, in charge of the materials for
erecting wooden huts for the troops. He went down to Portsmouth and put
the planks and fittings on board some collier boats, but not wishing to
share their voyage, he started for Marseilles, and there took a steamer
to Constantinople. He arrived in the harbour of Balaclava on January 1,
1855, and heard the guns of Sebastopol booming six miles away. The cold
was bitter, men were daily frozen to death in the trenches, food was
very scarce, and the streets of Balaclava were full of 'swell English
cavalry and horse-artillery carrying rations, and officers in every
conceivable costume foraging for eatables.'
Soon the young engineer was sent down to the trenches before Sebastopol,
where he and his comrades were always under fire and scarcely ever off
duty. It was here that his friendship began with a young captain in the
90th Foot, now lord Wolseley, who has many stories to tell of what life
in the trenches was like. Notwithstanding all the suffering and sadness
around them, these young men, full of fun and high spirits, managed to
laugh in the midst of their work. At Christmas-time captain Wolseley and
two of his friends determined to have a plum-pudding, so that they might
feel as if they were eating their Christmas dinner in England. It is
true that they only had dim ideas how a plum-pudding was to be made, and
nothing whatever to make it with, but when one is young that makes no
difference at all. One of the three consulted a sergeant, who told him
he thought it would need some flour and some raisins, as well as some
suet; but as none of these things could be got, they used instead butter
which had gone bad, dry biscuits which they pounded very fine, and a
handful of raisins somebody gave them. Stirring this mixture carefully
by turns, they calculated how long it would have to boil--in one of
captain Wolseley's three towels which he sacrificed for the purpose--so
that they might be able to enjoy it at a moment when they would all be
off duty. Five hours, they fancied, it must be on the fire, but it had
scarcely been boiling one when the summons came to go back to their
work. Resolved not to lose the fruits of so much labour and care, they
snatched the plum-pudding from the pot and ate a few spoonfuls before
running out to their posts. But Wolseley had hardly reached his place
before he was seized with such frightful pains that he felt as if he
would die. His commanding officer, who happened to pass, seeing his face
looking positively green, ordered him back to his hut. But a little rest
soon cured him, and, like the others, he spent the night in the
trenches.
* * * * *
You will have read in the story of the 'Lady in Chief' something about
the hardships which the allied army of English, French, and Turks went
through during the war with the Russians, so I will not repeat it here.
Gordon, whose quick eye saw everything, was greatly struck with the way
the French soldiers bore their sufferings. 'They had nothing to cover
them,' he says, 'and in spite of the wet and cold they kept their health
and their high spirits also.' Our men worked hard and with dogged
determination, but, as a rule, they could not be called lively. True,
till Miss Nightingale and her nurses came out they were left when
wounded to the care of rough and ignorant, however kindly, comrades,
while the French had always their own Sisters of Charity to turn to for
help. But it is pleasant to think that the sons of the men who had
fallen in the awful passage of the Berezina forty years before were
worthy of their fathers, and could face death with a smile and a jest as
well as they.
* * * * *
As the war went on and the assaults on the town of Sebastopol became
more frequent, the English generals learned to know of what stuff their
young officers were made, and what special duties they were fit for.
They marked that Gordon had some of Hannibal's power of guessing, almost
by instinct, what the enemy was doing--a quality that rendered him
extremely useful to his superiors. With all his untiring energy and
eagerness--forty times he was in the trenches for twenty hours--he never
overlooked the details that were necessary to ensure the success of any
work he was entrusted with, and he never relaxed his watchfulness till
the post to be won was actually taken. In his leisure moments he seems
to have been fond of walking as far as he could without running into
danger, and writes home in February of the grass that was springing and
the crocuses that were flowering outside the camp. Sometimes he would go
with a friend down to the great harbour on the north side of which the
Russians were entrenched, and listen to them singing the sad boating
songs of the Volga, or watch them trying to catch fish, chattering
merrily all the while.
At last the forts of the Mamelon and the Malakoff were stormed, and the
Russians abandoned Sebastopol. Gordon, who had often narrowly escaped
death, was mentioned by the generals in despatches; but he did not
receive promotion, and, except a scar, the only token he carried away of
those long months of toil and strain was the cross of the Legion of
Honour bestowed on him by the French. But he was a marked man for all
that, and was sent straight from the Crimea, after peace was made, to
join a mission for fixing fresh frontiers for Russia south-west along
the river Pruth and on the shores of the Black Sea.
* * * * *
Wherever he went, whether he was on the borders of Turkey, in Armenia,
or in the Caucasus, where he proceeded after a winter in England, he
made the best of his opportunities and saw all he could of the country
and the people. He was as fond as ever of expeditions and adventures,
and climbed Ararat till a blinding snowstorm came on and the guides
refused to proceed. In the Caucasus he dined out whenever he was asked,
and was equally surprised at the beauty of the smart ladies (who wore
bracelets made of coal) and at the ingrained dirt of their clothes and
their houses. On the whole, though he thoroughly enjoyed the good
dinners they gave him, he preferred going on shooting expeditions into
the mountains with their husbands and sons.
At the end of 1858 he was ordered home again, and a few months later
obtained his captaincy, and was made adjutant and field-work instructor
at Chatham. But this did not last long, for in a year's time he was
destined to undertake one of the two great missions of his life.
Early in 1860 a war with China broke out, and in this also the French
were our allies. More soldiers were needed, and volunteers were asked
for. Gordon was one of the first to send in his name, but before he
reached Pekin the Taku forts, at the mouth of the Tientsin River--forts
of which in the year 1900 we were to hear so much--had been taken.
However, the famous Summer Palace was still to be captured, and this,
which indeed might be called the eighth wonder of the world, lay out in
the country, eight miles away from Pekin. The grounds, covering more
than twelve miles, were laid out with lakes, fountains, tea-houses,
waterfalls, banks of trees, and beds of flowers, while scattered about
were palaces belonging to different members of the royal family, all
filled with beautiful things--china of the oldest and rarest sorts,
silks, lacquer, cabinets, and an immense variety of clocks and watches.
By order of the English envoy this gorgeous place was given over to
pillage, in revenge for the ill-treatment of some French and British
prisoners. One can form a little idea of the vast amount of treasures it
contained from constantly seeing scattered in houses a watch or a
lacquer box or a china bowl that, we are told, had once decorated the
Summer Palace; they really seem to be endless. Lord Wolseley tells how
he happened to be standing by the French general in the gardens while
the looting was going on, and as a French soldier came out he handed to
his chief something that he had brought expressly for him. Then, turning
to the young English officer, he held out a beautiful miniature of a man
wearing a dress of the time of Louis XIV.
'That is for you, my comrade,' he said, smiling, and Wolseley, heartily
thanking him, examined the gift.
'How,' he thought, 'could a miniature of a French poet living two
hundred years ago have got to Pekin?' Then he remembered that an embassy
from China had arrived in France, bearing presents to the French court.
Louis received them graciously, and showed them the splendours of
Versailles and all the curious and artistic ornaments it contained. When
the envoys left, the king gave them gifts of French manufacture as
valuable as their own to take to their emperor, and among them was this
miniature of Boileau, by Petitot, the greatest of French miniaturists.
The imperial throne, which stands on dragon's claws, and is covered with
cushions of yellow silk, the imperial colour, was bought by Gordon
himself, and presented by him to Chatham, where it may still be seen.
* * * * *
Till the large sum fixed for the expenses of the war was paid General
Staveley was left with three thousand men in command at Tientsin, and
Gordon remained with him. Tientsin is a dreary place in a salt plain,
and the climate is very cold, as it is throughout North China. But
Gordon minded cold far less than heat and mosquitoes, and besides his
days were full from morning till night, building huts for the soldiers
and stables for the horses, and in managing a fund which he had
collected to help some Chinese in the neighbourhood who had been ruined
by the war. Though very careless of his own money, and ready to give it
away without inquiry to any beggar who asked for it, he was most
particular about other people's, and the attention which he paid to
small things enabled him to spend the fund in the manner that would best
aid the poor creatures who had lost everything. Now and then he gave
himself a day's holiday, and explored the country, as he was fond of
doing; and once he rode out to the Great Wall, twenty-two feet high and
sixteen wide, which runs along the north-west of China, over mountains
and across plains, for fifteen hundred miles, and was built two thousand
years ago by an emperor to keep out the invading hosts of the Tartars.
At certain distances strong forts were placed, and these were garrisoned
by Chinese soldiers. As he passed through the more remote villages the
inhabitants would come out of their houses and stare. A white man! They
had heard that there were such, though they had never really believed
it. Well, he was a strange creature truly, with his hair cropped close
and pink in his cheeks, and they did not much admire him!
Nearer Pekin he met long strings, or caravans, of camels laden with tea,
making their way to Russia. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the
mountains it was frightfully cold, and raw eggs were frozen so hard that
no one could eat them; but Gordon could do with as little food as any
man, and did not suffer from the climate. He came back strengthened and
interested, and it was as well he had the short rest to brace him, for
now there lay before him a very difficult task.
* * * * *
For quite thirty years great discontent with government had been felt by
the peasants and lower classes in some of the central provinces of the
empire, and a long while before the war with England broke out a peasant
emperor had been proclaimed. The insurrection--or the Taeping rebellion,
as it is called--could have been easily put down in the beginning, but
ministers in China are slow to move, and it soon became a real danger to
the empire. The great object of the rebels was to gain possession of
Shanghai, the centre of European trade, built in the midst of canals and
rivers, with the great Yang-tse-kiang at hand to carry into the interior
of China the goods of foreign merchants of all countries that come to
its harbour across the Pacific. Pirate vessels, too, haunted its shores,
ready to pounce upon the rich traders, and when their prizes were
captured, they went swiftly away, and hid themselves among the islands
and bogs that stretched themselves a hundred miles to the north and
south of the city.
Thus Shanghai was a very important place both to Chinese, French, and
English; yet for twelve years the rebellion had been allowed to go on
unchecked, burning, pillaging, and murdering, till in 1853 the rebels
had reached a point only a hundred miles distant from Pekin itself. Then
soldiers were hastily collected, and the Taepings forced back; quarrels
broke out among their leaders, and most likely the rebellion would have
melted away altogether had it not been for the appearance four years
later of young Chung Wang, who assumed the command, and proved himself a
most skilful general. As long as he led the Taepings in battle victory
was on their side; if he was needed elsewhere, they were invariably
defeated.
Inspired by his successes, Chung Wang attacked and took several rich and
important towns in the Shanghai district, and held Nankin, the ancient
capital of China. Shanghai trembled when the flames of burning villages
became visible from her towers and pagodas, and even the Chinese felt
that, if they were to be saved at all, measures must be quickly taken.
Volunteers of all nations living in the town, Chinese as well as
Europeans and Americans, put themselves under the command of an American
named Ward, who drilled them, trained them, and fought with them, and,
it is said, gave battle to the rebels on seventy different occasions
without once being beaten. Well had his troops earned the title
afterwards given them at Pekin, of the Ever-Victorious Army.
* * * * *
This was the state of things when, in May 1862, Gordon was sent to
Shanghai in command of the English engineers who, with some French
troops, were to assist the Chinese army in clearing the district round
Shanghai of the dreaded Taepings. The nature of the country, almost
encircled by water, was such that the help of a good engineer was needed
if the expedition was to be successful, and Gordon was busy all day in
surveying the canals or moats outside the walls of some city they were
about to attack, to see at what point he could throw a bridge of boats
across, or where he could best place his reserves. At the end of six
months the enemy was forced back to a distance of forty miles; but the
French admiral Protet had been killed in action, and Ward had fallen
while leading an assault.
By this time the emperor and his ministers at Pekin understood that if
the Taepings were to be put down the Chinese army must be commanded by a
general capable of opposing Chung Wang, and a request was sent to the
English government that the post might be temporarily offered to major
Gordon. After some hesitation, leave was granted, and permission was
given to a certain number of officers to serve under him. The emperor
was overjoyed--much more so than Gordon, who was promptly created a
mandarin. He foresaw many difficulties in store before he could get his
'rabble' of four thousand men into order, and at the outset he had much
trouble with Burgevine, Ward's successor in command of the
Ever-Victorious Army, but a very different man from Ward himself.
However, by the help of the famous Li Hung Chang, Burgevine was
ultimately got rid of, but not before he had done a great deal of
mischief. Gordon was free to devote all his energies to building a
little fleet of small steamers and Chinese gunboats that could go down
the rivers and canals, and hinder the foreign traders from secretly
supplying the rebels with arms and ammunition.
The strict discipline enforced by Gordon made him very unpopular with
his little army, and they could not understand why he made the act of
pillage a crime, to be punished by death. But when we think how wholly
impossible it is for any European or American to guess what is going on
in the mind of any Asiatic, it is surprising, not that he met with
difficulties, but that he ever succeeded in obtaining obedience. As it
was, two thousand of his men deserted after some heavy fighting, and
Ching, the Chinese general, was jealous of him, and incited the troops
to oppose and annoy him in every way. Besides, Li Hung Chang was
behindhand in paying his army, and, as Gordon felt that his own good
faith and honour were pledged to punctual payment, he tendered his
resignation as commander. This frightened the emperor and his ministers
so much that the money due was quickly sent, and by the help of General
Staveley matters were arranged.
At the capture of Quinsan Gordon took prisoners about two thousand
Taepings, whom he drilled with care and enlisted in his own army,
turning them, he said, into much better soldiers than his old ones.
Eight hundred of them he made his own guard, and under his eye they
proved faithful and trustworthy. With the help of his new force he
determined to besiege the ancient town of Soo-chow, situated on the
Grand Canal and close to the Tai-ho, or great lake.
All around it were waterways leading to the sea, but the Grand Canal
itself, stretching away to the Yang-tse-kiang, was held by the Taeping
general Chung Wang.
* * * * *
Now the possession of Soo-chow was of great importance to both parties,
and Gordon at once proceeded to cut off its supplies that came by way of
the sea and the Tai-ho, by putting three of his steamers on the lake, so
that no provisions could get into the city except through the Grand
Canal. On the land side fighting was going on perpetually, and by the
help of a body of good Chinese troops Gordon gained a decisive victory
in the open field. We can scarcely, however, realise all the
difficulties he had to contend with in his army itself. General Ching
not only hated him, and always tried to upset his plans, but was quite
reckless, and if left to himself invariably got into mischief. Then the
minister, Li Hung Chang's brother, who had been given the command of
twenty thousand troops, was utterly without either instinct or
experience, and continually hampered Gordon's movements by some act of
folly. Worst of all, he could not feel sure of the fidelity of his own
officers, and during the siege he found that one of them had actually
given information of his plans to Chung Wang.
As soon as the man's guilt was certain Gordon sent for him, and in the
light of one whose soul had never held a thought that was not honourable
and true the traitor must have seen himself as he really was. We do not
know what Gordon said to him--most likely very little, but he offered
him one chance of retrieving himself, and that was that he should lead
the next forlorn hope.
In spite of his treachery the culprit was able to feel the baseness of
his conduct. He eagerly accepted Gordon's proposal, though he was well
aware that almost certain death was in store. And his repentance was
real, and not merely the effect of a moment's shame, for when, some time
after, a forlorn hope was necessary to carry the stockades before
Soo-chow, Gordon, whose mind had been occupied with other things, had
entirely forgotten all about his promise. But though he did not
remember, the officer did, and claimed his right to lead. He was the
first man killed, but the stockades were carried, and after two months'
siege Soo-chow was won.
* * * * *
Nowhere during Gordon's service in China was the difference between East
and West more clearly shown than in the events that happened after the
capture of Soo-chow. Gordon respected his enemies, who had fought
bravely, and wished them to be granted favourable terms of surrender.
Moh Wang in particular, the captain of the city, had shown special skill
and courage, and before the town fell Gordon had obtained a promise
from Li Hung Chang that the Taeping commander's fate should be placed in
his hands. At a council held inside Soo-chow, Moh Wang desired to hold
out, but the other Wangs (or nobles) all voted for surrender, and at
length they began to quarrel. Moh Wang would not give way, and then Kong
Wang caught up his dagger and struck the first blow. The rest fell upon
Moh Wang, and dragged him from his seat, cutting off his head, which
they sent to Ching the general as a gift.
* * * * *
As plunder had been strictly forbidden by Gordon, he was very anxious to
give his soldiers two months' pay to make up; but one month's pay was
all he could obtain, and that with great difficulty, while the troops,
angry and disappointed, threatened to revolt and to march against Li
Hung Chang, as governor of the province. This was, however, stopped by
Gordon, who then went into the city to the house of Nar Wang, another
Taeping leader, whom he wished also to gain over. On the previous day he
had heard from Ching that at twelve o'clock on the morning of December 6
the Wangs had arranged to meet the governor and surrender Soo-chow, as
the emperor had consented to spare their lives and those of the
prisoners; so Gordon started early in order to catch Nar Wang before he
left, reaching Nar Wang's house just as he and the other Wangs were
mounting their horses for the interview. After talking to them a little
he bade them good-bye, and they rode away.
The fate that they met with was the same as they had dealt to Moh Wang.
It seemed ridiculous to the governor to keep faith with men who had just
delivered themselves and their city into his hands, and almost every
Chinaman would have agreed with him. The Wangs were all taken over to
the other side of the river and there beheaded, their heads being cut
off and flung aside. But somehow, though the murder was committed in
broad daylight, it was kept a secret till the following day.
This breach of faith in murdering men who had surrendered might long
have remained unknown to Gordon but for a slight change in his plans. He
suddenly decided that he would embark on one of his steamers on the
Tai-ho, instead of leaving the city by another route. It was some little
time before steam could be got up, so he went for a walk through the
streets with Dr. Halliday Macartney, whose name will always be connected
with China. To his surprise, crowds of imperialists were standing about,
talking eagerly and excitedly, and it was clear to both Englishmen that
some sort of a disturbance had taken place. Turning a corner they
suddenly met General Ching, who grew so pale and looked so uncomfortable
that Gordon's suspicions were aroused, and he at once inquired if the
Wangs had seen Li Hung Chang, and what had taken place.
Ching replied that they had never been to Li Hung Chang at all, which
astonished Gordon, who answered that he had seen them starting, and if
they had not gone there, where were they? Then Ching said they had sent
a message to the governor stating that they wished to be allowed to keep
twenty thousand men, and to retain half of the city, building a wall to
shut off their own portion. Gordon was greatly puzzled by this
information, and asked if Ching thought that the Wangs could have joined
the Taepings again in some other place; but the Chinese general replied
that he thought most likely that they had returned quietly to their own
homes.
To all appearance Ching was speaking the truth, yet Gordon could not
feel satisfied. Turning to Macartney, who was standing by listening to
the conversation, he begged him to go quickly to Nar Wang's house and
tell him that the surrender must be unconditional, and then to return
to him at a certain spot. When Macartney reached the house where Nar
Wang lived he was informed by the servant who opened it that his master
was out.
'Will he be in soon, for I must see him,' inquired Macartney. 'I have
business of the greatest importance.'
The man looked at him silently, and then drew his hand slowly across his
throat. Macartney understood the ghastly sign, and went swiftly away,
but only just in time to avoid a crowd of pillagers, who poured into the
house and in a few minutes had wrecked or stolen all they could lay
hands on. He soon reached the spot which Gordon had appointed, but, long
though he waited, Gordon never came.
* * * * *
After Macartney had left him Gordon stayed some time talking with Ching,
and trying to find out what had really occurred, for that some dark deed
had taken place he became quite convinced. However, not even torture can
wring from a Chinaman what he does not choose to tell, and at length
Gordon gave up the attempt in despair, and hurried through crowds laden
with plunder to Nar Wang's house in order to see and hear for himself.
The door stood open, and he walked rapidly through the rooms. At first
the dwelling seemed as empty as it was bare, but at length he thought he
saw some eyes looking at him behind a pile of rubbish.
'Come out,' he said; 'I am alone, you have nothing to fear'; and then an
old man crept out, who, with many low bows and polite expressions,
explained that in his nephew's absence the Chinese soldiers had pillaged
his house, and begged the honourable Englishman to help him take away
the ladies, whom he had hidden in a cellar, to his own dwelling.
Gordon was furious at learning that his strict orders against pillage
had been disobeyed, but this was not the moment to think of that. With
some difficulty they all passed through the crowded streets, but when
they reached the old man's house they found a guard round it, and Gordon
was informed that he must consider himself a prisoner. Luckily for him
the Taepings had not yet learned the fate of the Wangs, or his life
would have been speedily taken in payment for theirs.
* * * * *
All that night Gordon remained locked up in one room, impatiently
chafing at the thought of what might be going on in the city. Early in
the morning he got leave to send an interpreter with a letter to the
English lines, ordering his bodyguards to come to his rescue, and to
seize Li Hung Chang as security for the Wangs. His first messenger was
stopped and his letter torn up; but in the afternoon he was himself set
free on a promise to send a guard to protect the Taepings in Nar Wang's
house. This he instantly did, and in his indignation at the permission
given in his absence to the imperialist soldiers to sack the city
refused to see or speak to general Ching.
On receiving Gordon's refusal Ching began to feel that he and Li Hung
Chang had gone rather far, and that the day of reckoning would be a very
uncomfortable one. Some explanation he must make, so he ordered an
English officer to go at once to Gordon and inform him that he knew
nothing of what had become of the Wangs, or whether they were alive or
dead, but that Nar Wang's son was safe in his tent.
'Bring him here,' said Gordon, and he waited in silence till a boy of
fourteen entered the camp at the east gate. From him he learned what had
happened in a few words. All the Wangs, his father among them, had been
taken across the river on the previous day, and there cruelly murdered;
their heads had been cut off, and their bodies left lying on the bank.
Speechless with horror, Gordon set off at once for the place of the
murder, and found the nine headless corpses lying as they had fallen.
Englishman and soldier though he was, tears of rage forced their way
into his eyes at the thought that by this act of treachery on the part
of the Chinese his honour and that of his country had been trampled in
the dust. Then, taking a revolver instead of the stick which was the
only weapon he carried even in action, he went straight to Li Hung
Chang's quarters, intending to shoot him dead and to bear the
responsibility.
But the governor had been warned, and took his measures accordingly. Li
Hung Chang had escaped from his boat, and was hiding in the city. In
vain Gordon, his anger no whit abated, sought for him high and low. No
trace of him could be found; and at last Gordon returned to Quinsan,
where he called a council of his English officers, and informed them
that until the emperor had punished Li Hung Chang as he deserved he
should decline to serve with him, and should resign his command into the
hands of General Brown, who was stationed at Shanghai. As to Li Hung
Chang's offer, sent by Macartney, to sign any proclamation Gordon chose
to write, saying that he was both innocent and ignorant of the murder of
the Wangs, he would not even listen to it.
* * * * *
As soon as General Brown received Gordon's letter at Shanghai he
instantly set out for Quinsan, where Gordon remained with his troops for
two months, while Li Hung Chang's conduct was being inquired into, or,
rather, while the government was trying to find out how the anger of the
English generals and the English envoy on account of the murder of the
Wangs could best be satisfied. For Li Hung had been beforehand with us,
guessing how much he had at stake, and had been much praised for his act
and given a yellow jacket, or, as we should say 'the Garter.' On Gordon
himself a medal of the highest class was bestowed, with a large sum of
money, and, what the imperial government knew he would value much more,
a grant for his wounded men and extra pay for the soldiers. Anything
that tended to make his troops more comfortable Gordon, who had already
devoted to their help his 1,200 l. a year of pay from the Chinese
government, gladly received, but for himself he would accept nothing and
keep nothing, except two flags, which had no connection with the Wang
massacre. Nor did he allow anyone to remain in ignorance of the motive
of his refusal, for he wrote a letter to the emperor himself, in which
he stated that 'he regretted most sincerely that, owing to the
circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow, he was
unable to receive any mark of his majesty the emperor's recognition,'
though he 'respectfully begged his majesty to accept his thanks for his
intended kindness.'
* * * * *
With the taking of Soo-chow the Taeping resistance was really broken,
and soon Nankin and Hangchow were the only important places left to
them, though plenty of fighting was still to be done. To the great
relief of the government Gordon was at length persuaded to resume his
command, more from the thought that he might be able to some extent to
check the cruelty natural to the Chinese than for any other reason. It
is amusing to watch the slavish behaviour of the emperor towards the man
whose help he so greatly needed, and whose anger he so deeply feared.
Once, when Gordon in leading an attack with his wand in his hand, the
only weapon he ever carried, received a bad wound below the knee, his
majesty promulgated a public edict ordering Li Hung Chang to inquire
daily after him, and the governor himself issued a proclamation, setting
forth all the circumstances of the massacre of Soo-chow, and declaring
in the clearest manner that Gordon had been totally ignorant of the
whole affair.
In June 1864 the British government sent an intimation to China that
they considered the country had no further need for Gordon's services,
and wished him set at liberty to return home. Gordon himself would
perhaps have preferred to remain a little longer, but, as he was given
no choice, he quietly disbanded the Ever-Victorious-Army, fearing that,
if led by unscrupulous men, it might become a danger to the empire. He
then visited the general besieging Nankin, whose name was Tseng-kwo-fan,
and gave him a little advice as to the training of troops, and even took
part in directing some of the assaults. Then he took leave of the
general, and a few hours later he had started on his journey. Tien Wang,
one of the Taeping commanders within the walls of Nankin, seeing that
the cause was tottering to its fall, committed suicide in the manner
proper to his rank by swallowing gold leaf. Shortly after the city
itself was stormed, and Chung Wang, whose presence among the rebels was,
said Gordon, equal to an army of five thousand men, fell into the hands
of the victors. He was sentenced to be beheaded, but was given a week's
respite in order to write the history of the rebellion of the Taepings,
who had invaded sixteen out of the eighteen provinces and destroyed six
hundred cities.
* * * * *
By this time Gordon and Li Hung Chang had begun to know more of each
other and to understand a little better the different views of East and
West. Gordon had gained the trust and respect of everybody, even of the
Taeping chiefs themselves, while the prince Kung, in the name of the
emperor, wrote a letter of the most hearty gratitude for Gordon's
services to the British minister at Pekin. The title of Ti-tu, the
highest rank in the Chinese army, had been conferred on him, and also
the yellow jacket, a distinction dating back to the coming of the
present Manchu dynasty in the seventeenth century, and only given to
generals who had been victorious against rebels. Gordon had besides six
dresses of mandarins, and a book explaining how they should be worn.
They were of course the handsomest that China could produce, and the
buttons on the hats alone were worth 30 l. or 40 l. each. From the two
empresses he received a gold medal specially struck in his honour; and
by this he set great store, though not long after, having spent all his
pay on his boys at Gravesend, he sold it for 10 l., and, smoothing out
the inscription, sent the money to the Lancashire Famine Fund.
His own government gave him a step in military rank, and it was as
'Colonel Gordon' that he returned home early in 1865.
* * * * *
The next six years of his life Gordon passed at home, and these years
were, he said, the happiest he had ever spent. He first visited his
family, who were living at Southampton, and to them he was ready to talk
of all that he had seen and done since they last parted. Invitations
poured in upon him from all sides, but he hated being fussed over, and
invariably lost his temper at any attempt to show him off. He was so
angry at a minister who borrowed from Mrs. Gordon his private journal of
the Taeping rebellion, and then sent to have it printed for the other
members of the Cabinet to read, that he rushed straight to the printers
and insisted that the type should at once be destroyed. It was a very
great loss to the world; but the minister had no business to act as he
did without Gordon's permission, and had only himself to thank for what
happened.
Delightful though it was to be back again, Gordon soon got tired of
being idle, so he was given an appointment to superintend the erection
of forts at Gravesend. His leisure hours he devoted to helping the
people round him, especially little ragged boys, whose only playground
and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside. And it is curious that
he, who amongst strangers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often
tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as
suspicious as they are acute. About himself and his own comfort he never
thought, and if he was working would eat, when it was necessary and he
remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his table.
But as he had carefully watched over the welfare of his troops in China,
so in Gravesend he looked after that of his boys. He took into his own
house as many as there was room for, and clothed and fed them, while in
the evenings he taught them geography, and told them stories from
English history and the Bible, and when he considered they had done
lessons long enough he played games with them. By-and-by more boys came
in from the outside and joined his classes. It did not matter to him how
many they were, they were all welcome, and he gave them, as far as the
time allowed, a training which was religious as well as practical,
hoping that some day they might turn out good soldiers and sailors, and
be a protection to the empire. Several of his boys were taken on board
some of the many ships off Gravesend, and the 'kernel,' as they called
him, kept a map stuck over with pins tracing their voyages all over the
world.
[Illustration: He told them stories from English history.]
Most people would have considered that between military duties and boys'
classes they were busy enough; but Gordon still found time to spare for
the ragged schools, and money to provide hundreds of boots and suits for
the little waifs, till he left himself almost penniless.
The large garden attached to his house was of no benefit to himself, but
was lent by him to a number of his friends, each of whom did as he liked
with his own portion, and either kept the fruit and vegetables for his
family, or else sold them. Of course, the 'kernel' was frequently taken
in, and spent his money on those who had no claim to it; but the boys he
helped were seldom a disappointment, any more than the boys of to-day
sent out from the Gordon Boys' Homes founded in his memory.
* * * * *
It must have been a black day indeed for many in Gravesend when Gordon
was despatched by his government on a mission to the Danube, and then
ordered to inspect the graves of those who had fallen in the Crimea
seventeen years before. So he said good-bye to his friends, young and
old, leaving to the ragged schools some gorgeous Chinese flags, which
are still waved at the school treats amidst shouts of remembrance of
their giver.
* * * * *
On his way back from the Crimea Gordon stopped at Constantinople, and
while there a proposal was made to him, on the part of the sultan, to
proceed to Egypt and to take service, with the queen's permission, under
his vassal, the khedive, or ruler, as governor of the tribes in upper
Egypt. Sir Samuel Baker had hitherto held the post, but now wished to
resign, and Gordon, who had always laid greatly to heart the iniquity of
the slave-trade, thought that, as governor of the provinces from which
the supply of slaves was drawn, he might be able to put an end to it.
Leave was granted in the autumn of 1873, and before Gordon returned to
London to make the necessary preparations, he proceeded to Cairo to see
the khedive, or, as he was still called, 'the lieutenant of the sultan.'
* * * * *
When Gordon accepted the position of 'governor of the equatorial
provinces,' with a salary of £2,000 a year, instead of the £10,000
offered him by the khedive, the country, which ten years before had been
rich and prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the
slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able by Europeans as well
as by Arabs. At first elephant-hunting was made the pretext of their
expeditions, but soon they found negroes a more profitable article of
commerce, and whole villages had the strong men and women torn away from
them, till, at the first hint of the approach of a caravan, the people
would abandon their huts and fly off to hide themselves. At length the
trade became so well known and so scandalous that the Europeans were
forced to give it up; but the Arab dealers continued to grow powerful
and wealthy, and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr,
whose name for ever after was closely connected with that of Gordon.
The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a sort of league, with
Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and
of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or
to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose
viceroy he was. The Egyptian government, which had suffered the
slave-trade to proceed unchecked when human life only was at stake, grew
indignant the moment it became a question of money. An army was sent
against Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of
the Soudan or 'land of the black,' south of Khartoum, then a little
group of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile,
three miles from its junction with the White Nile.
But, small though it was, Khartoum was the capital of the province, and
owned a governor's house, with the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side,
and surrounded on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while on
the west side the town was only half a mile distant from the White Nile
itself.
As soon as the khedive understood that he was no match for Zebehr he
determined to make a friend of him, and offered him an alliance with the
title of pasha.
For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this proposal, and the two
armies combined and conquered the province of Darfour; but directly the
pasha wished to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew
frightened, and declared that he was now convinced that the trade in
slaves was wicked and must be put down. Perhaps he guessed that Europe
was hardly likely to be convinced by this sudden change, so, instead of
appointing an Egyptian governor of the equatorial provinces, he
conferred the post first on Sir Samuel Baker, and, later, on Gordon.
* * * * *
It did not take Gordon long to find out that the khedive's newly
discovered zeal in putting down the slave-trade was 'a sham to catch the
attention of the English people,' but the weapon had been thrust into
his hands, and he meant to use it for the help of the oppressed tribes.
Difficulties he knew there would be, and he was ready to fight them, but
one difficulty he hardly made allowance for, which was that among the
Mahometan races throughout the world it was as much a matter of course
to have slaves as it is to us to have houses.
With great care he selected the staff that was to accompany him, and a
body of two hundred troops to inspect Khartoum. He chose five
Englishmen, an American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called
Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud, whom Gordon had
found a prisoner in Cairo. In vain the khedive warned the new
governor-general of the danger of taking such a villain into his
service, and of the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes
of Europe. To Gordon the only thing that mattered was that the man knew
the country through which they were to travel, and as to the rest, his
own neck must take its chance.
* * * * *
It was on March 12, 1874, that Gordon came in sight of Khartoum, where
eleven years later he was to find his grave. He was received on the
banks by the Egyptian governor-general, who ordered salutes to be fired
and the brass band to play. If Gordon did not appreciate the honours
paid to him, he was delighted at the news that a growth of grass and
stones that had hitherto rendered the White Nile impassable had been at
last cut away by the soldiers. Now the river was free, and instead of
the journey to Gondokoro--his own capital, eleven hundred miles south of
Khartoum--taking fourteen months, as in the days of Sir Samuel Baker, he
would be able to perform it in four weeks.
Every moment of the ten days that Gordon stayed at Khartoum was busily
employed in discovering all he could as to the condition of the people
and the state of the government. It did not take him more than a few
hours to learn that the Egyptian government had no authority whatever
over the people, and that the money matters of the Soudan were
hopelessly mixed with those of Cairo. But at present he could only note
what was wrong, and wait to set it right. His work just now lay at
Gondokoro, and thither he must go.
On the 22nd he started up the river, and at each mile, as they drew
nearer and nearer to the equator, he found the climate more trying. It
was, as he says, nothing but 'heat and mosquitoes day and night, all the
year round.' But, exhausting though the climate was, he could not help
being deeply interested in the many things that were new to him. There
were great hippopotamuses plunging about in their clumsy way; the
crocodiles, looking more like stone beasts than living things, basking
motionless on the mud where the river had fallen; the monkeys that had
their homes with the storks among the trees that covered the banks in
places; the storks that sounded as if they were laughing, and 'seemed
highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope
of doing anything.' In a forest higher up they found a tribe, the
Dinkas, dressed in necklaces. Their idea of greeting a white 'chief' was
to lick his hands, and they would have kissed his feet also had not
Gordon jumped up hastily and, snatching up some strings of gay beads he
had brought with him for the purpose, hung them over their heads.
* * * * *
The people of Gondokoro were filled with astonishment when Gordon's
steamer anchored under the river banks. It was a wretched place, worse
even than Khartoum, and inhabited by wretched people, whom ill-treatment
had made at once revengeful and timid. But Gordon did not care how
miserable the place was, he felt sure he could do something to help the
people; and first he began by trying to make friends. For a time it was
uphill work; they had given up planting their little plots of
ground--what was the use when their harvest was always taken from them?
Their only possession of value was their children, and these they often
begged Gordon to buy, to save them from starvation. It seemed too good
to be true when the white man gave them maize, which they baked in
cakes, and fed them while they sowed their patches once more. 'He would
see that no one hurt them,' he said, and little by little, under his
protection, the poor people plucked up heart again and forgot their
troubles, as nobody but negroes can.
Up and down the river he went, establishing some of the forts which he
knew to be necessary if the slave-trade was to be put down. One day Abou
Saoud brought him some letters written by a party of slave-dealers to
the Egyptian governor of Fashoda, on the White Nile, half-way to
Khartoum, saying that they would shortly arrive with a gang of negroes
whom they had captured, and with two thousand cows, which they had also
kidnapped, as was their custom. Gordon was ready for them; the cattle he
kept, not being able to return them to their black owners, and the
negroes he set free. If possible they were sent home, but if that could
not be done he bought them himself, so that no one else should have a
claim to them. The gratitude shown by the blacks was boundless, and one,
a chief of the Dinkas, proved useful to him in many ways. The others,
tall, strong men, gladly served him as hewers of wood and drawers of
water.
So the weeks went on, and in the intervals of capturing more convoys of
slaves Gordon still found time to attend to an old dying woman, whom he
often visited himself, besides daily sending her food, and, what she
loved better still, tobacco. The heat grew worse and worse, and no doubt
the mosquitoes also; and Gordon's only pleasure was wading in the Nile
morning and evening--a very dangerous amusement, as the river swarmed
with crocodiles. But he had heard that crocodiles never attacked
anything that was moving, and certainly he took no harm, and his health
was good. All his white men, however, fell ill, and as there was no one
to nurse them but himself, he would not replace them.
[Illustration: Gordon found time to attend to an old dying woman.]
Meanwhile the natives had learned to trust him, and under his rule
things were looking more prosperous. He saw that his men took nothing
from them without paying for it, whereas the Egyptian governor had
forced them to work without pay; and finding the troops he had brought
from Cairo both cowardly and lazy, he engaged forty Soudanese, on whom
he could depend, and trained them to act as his body-guard.
* * * * *
It was not to be expected that Gordon could carry through all these
measures without becoming an object of hatred to the Egyptian officials,
most of whom were in league with the slave-dealers. Soon he discovered
that many of his men were taking bribes and plotting against him, and of
them all, Abou Saoud was the worst. He even incited the black troops
under him to revolt; but Gordon soon frightened the men into obedience,
and sent their leader down the Nile to Gondokoro.
Yet, in spite of fever, discontent, laziness, and open rebellion, in ten
months (1874), writes one of his subordinates, 'he had garrisoned eight
stations with the seven hundred men whom he had found at Gondokoro too
frightened to stir a hundred yards outside the town, and had sent to
Cairo enough money to pay the expenses of the expedition for this year
and the next, while that of Baker had cost the Egyptian government
£1,170,000.
* * * * *
It seemed to Gordon that if he could establish a route from the great
lake Victoria Nyanza, further south, at the head of the Nile, to
Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, trade would increase and goods be
exchanged far more easily and quickly than if they had to be brought
down the whole length of the Nile, which is often rendered impassable by
shallows and cataracts. Therefore, towards the end of 1874 he set up
posts from Gondokoro towards lake Albert Nyanza, hoping that directly
the Nile fell the steamers he had left at Khartoum might be able to
reach him. But here again he was beset with difficulties and dangers.
The Arabs were lazy, the Egyptians useless and often treacherous, many
of the tribes hostile; and to add to it all, it was almost impossible to
get past the rapids. The boats were very strong, but liable to be upset
at any instant by the plunging of the hippopotamuses in the river. Sixty
or eighty men were often straining at the ropes which were to drag the
craft along, and Gordon took his turn with the rest. Nobody in the camp
worked so hard as the commander. He cooked his food and cleaned his gun,
while the men stood by and stared. When there was nothing else to be
done he mended watches and musical boxes, which he took with him as
presents to the natives, and he kept himself well by walking fourteen
miles daily, in spite of the heat and mosquitoes.
[Illustration: He cleaned his gun while the men stood by and stared.]
'I do not carry arms, as I ought to do,' he said one day, 'for my whole
attention is devoted to defending the nape of my neck from the
mosquitoes,' the enemies he hated most of all. Still inch by inch the
troops fought their way along the river, till at length they reached the
lake of Albert Nyanza. Gordon established forts as he went, though in
the depths of his heart he knew full well that the moment his back was
turned everything would relapse into its former state of oppression and
lawlessness. But what happened afterwards was not _his_ business. He had
done the work set him to the utmost of his power, and that was all for
which he was responsible.
Thus two years passed away, and having mapped out the country he started
northwards, to resign his post to the khedive before returning to
England.
* * * * *
As might have been expected, he was not allowed to throw off his burden
so easily. The khedive had no intention of loosening his hold of a man
who sent money into his treasury instead of taking it out, but, try as
he would, he could not wring from Gordon more than a conditional promise
of coming back. No sooner had Gordon arrived in England than telegrams
were sent after him imploring him to finish his work, and in spite of
his weariness and disgust he felt that he could not leave it half done.
In six weeks the khedive had triumphed, and Gordon was in Cairo.
At his very first meeting with the khedive, when the affairs of the
Soudan were discussed, Gordon stated clearly that he would not go back
unless he was given undivided authority and power over the Soudan as
well as over the other provinces. The khedive granted everything he
asked. The governor-general of the Soudan, Ismail Pasha, was recalled,
and Gordon took his place as ruler over the equatorial provinces,
Darfour, the whole of the Soudan, and the Red Sea coast. He owed
obedience to no one save the khedive, who again was responsible to the
sultan of Turkey. The salary offered him by the khedive was £12,000 a
year, but £6,000 was all that Gordon would accept, and later he cut it
down to £3,000.
* * * * *
With 'terrific exertion' he thought it possible that in three years he
might make a good army in his provinces, with increased trade, a fair
revenue, and, above all, slavery suppressed. It seemed a gigantic work
to undertake, especially when we consider that it had to be carried out
in a district one thousand six hundred miles long and seven hundred
broad. But nothing less would be of any use, and Gordon was not the man
to spare himself if he could make his work permanent. So after a few
days in Cairo he started for the south, going first, by the khedive's
orders, to try and bring about a peace with the kingdom of Abyssinia.
This he did to a certain extent by 'setting a thief to catch a thief,'
that is, by holding one claimant to the throne in check by means of
another. The state with which he was surrounded made him very cross, as
any kind of fuss over him always did. 'Eight or ten men to help me off
my camel, as if I were an invalid,' he writes indignantly. 'If I walk,
everyone gets off and walks; so, furious, I get on again.'
However, these pin-pricks to his temper did not last long, for soon bad
news came from Khartoum, and he had to set out for the Soudan directly.
His daily journey on his camel was never less than thirty, and more
often forty miles. On his arrival at a station he received everybody,
rich and poor, who chose to come to him, listened to all complaints, and
settled all disputes, besides writing constant reports to the khedive of
what he was doing. He had nobody to help him; it was far easier and
quicker for him to do his own work than first to tell someone else what
he wanted done, and then to make sure his instructions were properly
carried out.
* * * * *
At length Khartoum was reached, and Gordon was duly proclaimed
governor-general, the ceremony being, we may be sure, as short as he
could make it. According to the wishes of the khedive, he was treated
like a sultan in the 'Arabian Nights.' On no account was he ever to get
up, even when a great chief came to pay his respects to him, and no one
was allowed to remain seated in his presence. Worse than all, his palace
was filled with two hundred servants.
The first reform he wished to make was to disband a body of six thousand
Bashi-Bazouks, or Arab and Turkish irregular troops, who pillaged the
tribes on the frontiers that they were set to guard, and let the
slave-dealers go free. Of course this could only be done very slowly and
cautiously; but he managed gradually to discharge a few at a time and to
replace them with soldiers from the Soudan, whom he always found very
trustworthy. Then, after setting right many abuses in Khartoum itself,
and giving the outlying houses a proper water-supply, where before the
lack of it had caused disease and discomfort, he began a march of
several hundred miles westwards to Darfour.
Here the whole province had risen up against its new Egyptian masters,
and those tribes which had not already broken out were preparing to
do so. With the hopeful spirit that never deserted him, and which more
than once had created the miracle he had expected, Gordon imagined that
he would be able to turn his enemies into allies. As to his own life,
his faith in God was too real and too firm for him to take that into
consideration. Till his appointed task was finished he was perfectly
safe, and after that he would, in his own words, 'leave much weariness
for perfect peace.'
Thus he went about his work with complete unconcern, and one day arrived
at a discontented place an hour and a half before the few hundred
soldiers that formed his army. Nobody expected him, and when they saw a
man in a uniform shining with gold, flying towards them on the swiftest
camel they had ever beheld, and with only one companion, they were
filled with amazement. Nothing would have been easier than to kill
Gordon; but somehow they never even thought of it, and soon the people
of Darfour and the neighbouring tribes came in and submitted to him. On
the way he was welcomed gladly by the garrisons of the various little
towns, some of whom had received no pay for three years. These
half-starved men, being in their weak condition even more useless than
the ordinary Egyptian soldier, he sent eastwards to be disbanded, and
with an army of five hundred untrustworthy troops, who did not possess a
single cannon, and whose arms were old-fashioned flint-lock guns, he had
to prepare to face the attack of thousands of rebels against the
Egyptian government.
Luckily, for some reason, the rebel army melted away without a shot
being fired, and the danger being passed the Egyptians pushed on to
Dara.
[Illustration: They saw a man in uniform shining with gold flying
towards them.]
Now came the moment to which Gordon had long been looking forward--the
life and death struggle with the slave-dealers, headed by Suleiman, son
of Zebehr, who had armed six thousand of his own slaves, and could
besides summon the help of five thousand good soldiers. How thankfully,
then, Gordon must have greeted the arrival of a powerful tribe seven
thousand strong, who, having suffered bitterly from the slave-traders,
were thirsting for revenge. That after a hard fight the victory remained
with Gordon was owing only to the support of this and other friendly
tribes, for the Egyptians 'crowded into the stockade' and hid there,
safe, as they hoped, from stray spears or wandering bullets.
It is impossible to follow all Gordon's movements during this campaign,
when in the heat of summer, near the equator, he darted about on his
camel from one place to another, 'a dirty, red-faced man, ornamented
with flies,' and often by his unexpected appearance and promptitude
carried the day, 'because he gave his enemies no time to think' or to
plot against him. Hearing at the end of August that Suleiman was about
to attack Dara, he at once rode straight to the spot, which he reached
in the condition I have described.
'If I had no escort of men,' he writes to his sister, 'I had a large
escort of flies. I suppose the queen fly was among them. The people were
paralysed at my arrival, and could not believe their eyes. At dawn I got
up, and putting on the golden armour the khedive gave me, mounted my
horse, and with an escort of my robbers of Bashi-Bazouks rode out to the
camp of the other robbers, about three miles off. There were about three
thousand of them, men and boys: they were dumbfounded at my coming among
them.'
Alone in a tent, with the chiefs, headed by Suleiman, 'a nice-looking
lad of twenty-two,' sitting in a circle round him, Gordon informed them
'in choice Arabic' that he was quite aware that they intended to revolt
against the Egyptian government, and that he intended to disarm them and
break them up.
'They listened in silence and went off to consider what I had said.
They have just now sent in a letter stating their submission, and I
thank God for it,' he continues. 'The sort of stupefied way in which
they heard me go to the point about their doings, the pantomime of
signs, the bad Arabic, was quite absurd.' Then one by one the other
slave-dealers surrendered, and though Suleiman still gave him much
trouble, and was to give more, yet on the whole things had gone much
better than he had feared, and by the middle of October he arrived at
Khartoum, and after a week's hard work took a steamer and went down the
river to Berber and Dongola. In March he very unwillingly continued his
journey to Cairo, at the command of the khedive, who desired to create
him president of the Finance Inquiry. But this was a great mistake;
Gordon's views on the matter were different from those of other men, and
he had been too long accustomed to be absolute master in any task he
undertook to be able to work harmoniously with his equals. The khedive,
too, failed to support him, and Gordon, seeing it was hopeless to expect
to gain his point, and depressed and annoyed with what had taken place,
returned to Khartoum by way of the Suez Canal and Suakim.
* * * * *
Then came the news that Suleiman had revolted, and had overrun the
province of Bahr-el-Ghazal on the south of Darfour. Gordon's old
follower and lieutenant Gessi was sent with some troops to put down the
revolt; but it was a rainy season, and the country was partially under
water. He had only one thousand troops, while daily fresh Arabs swelled
the army of the successful leader; but he was enterprising as well as
prudent, and in the middle of November he came up with the enemy and
entrenched himself behind stockades on the river Dyoor. Here Suleiman
attacked him again and again, and again and again was beaten back. Gessi
sent repeated messages to Gordon for help and ammunition, but all that
the governor general could spare was soon exhausted. At length Gessi
obtained some from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and now was able to leave his
camp and successfully attack bands of slave-dealers. At length he
stormed a town where Suleiman was stationed, and nearly captured 'the
Cub' himself. Finding to his disgust that the leader had escaped, Gessi
followed him westwards through deserted villages and dense forests, and
though he did not succeed in catching his prey, he was able to break up
the gang of slave-dealers.
Meanwhile Gordon had left Khartoum and had gone to the slave-dealers'
headquarters at Shaka, and then back towards Khartoum, capturing many
caravans on the way. During one week, on his way from Oomchanga to
Toashia, he thinks he must have taken about six hundred slaves, and he
puts down the number that had lost their lives in the last four years
from the cruelty of the dealers to have been at least one hundred
thousand in Darfour alone.
At Toashia Gordon had a short interview with Gessi, whom he created a
pasha and made governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a present of £2,000.
On his way back to his province news was brought to Gessi of Suleiman's
whereabouts. He at once started in pursuit with three hundred men, and
came up with Suleiman during the night at Gara. The slave dealer, taken
by surprise, surrendered, and was shot next day, and it would have been
well for the Soudan if Suleiman's father Zebehr had paid the same
penalty for his rebellion against the khedive.
* * * * *
It was in the year 1879 that the khedive Ismail was deposed at Cairo,
and Tewfik appointed in his place. The new khedive seemed fully as
anxious as his predecessors to make use of the one man who feared
neither danger nor responsibility, and bore a charmed life, and Gordon
was at once sent on a fruitless mission to Abyssinia. On his return he
carried out the intention that he had formed for some time, and placed
his resignation in the hands of the khedive. Well he knew that the
Egyptian government cared nothing for the reforms he had made, or the
slave-trade that he had broken. They never supported any of his
measures, and he felt assured that in a few months the state of things
would be as bad as ever.
Sick at heart and worn out in body, he came home early in 1880, having
paused on his way to see Rome. Once in London it was the old story.
Invitations rained on him, only to be refused. To escape from them he
rushed off to Lausanne for peace. But peace and Gordon had little to do
with each other, and he soon received an urgent request from the
ministers of Cape Colony to allow himself to be appointed commander of
the colonial forces. This, however, Gordon refused at once. The war with
the Zulus was only just over, and Gordon, who on all questions involving
the well-being of nations, was very keen-sighted, may well have noted
signs of unrest throughout the whole of South Africa. His health had
been severely tried by all he had gone through, and he needed rest
before he could take active employment.
So he returned to England, and in May, much to everyone's surprise,
accepted the post of secretary to the new viceroy of India, lord Ripon.
But no sooner had the viceregal party reached Bombay than Gordon found
that the work he had to do was not the sort he was suited for. Not
because he thought that anything was beneath his dignity--the man who
had cleaned his own gun and cooked his own food in the Soudan was never
likely to feel that--but his career, as he ought to have known before,
had unfitted him to cope with the minute details bound up with Indian
life, and the immense importance given to the distinctions of caste.
Therefore four days after the ship reached Bombay he resigned,
expressing his regrets for the mistake he had made, and thanking lord
Ripon most warmly for the kindness shown him. His passage money and all
the expenses to which his appointment had put the new government--for
the Liberals had lately come into power--he instantly repaid.
* * * * *
Two days later he received a telegram from sir Robert Hart, director of
the customs in China, begging him to take the first ship to Tientsin,
where his services were badly needed. As his request to the English War
Office for six months' leave was refused, he replied that his object in
going to China was to prevent a war which was likely to break out
between that country and Russia, and therefore, if the permission asked
was not granted, he should be forced to throw up his commission in the
queen's service.
On receipt of this message the government allowed him to go, and for
three months he worked hard, and not only contrived, as he hoped, to
prevent the war with Russia, but to check the revolt of Li Hung Chang,
who desired to place the crown on his own head.
Having accomplished what he intended, he found himself in London in
October, and in 1881 went out to the island of Mauritius, in the Indian
Ocean, to command the engineers.
At last he rested from the heavy responsibilities of the last few years,
though he worked as he always must do, and, now a major-general, in
April 1882 set sail for the Cape, where the governor of the colony, sir
Hercules Robinson, wanted his advice on the settlement and
administration of Basutoland. But when Gordon arrived he found his views
on the subject so totally different from those of the men in power that
he resigned and left, and from London he carried out the great longing
of his life--a visit to the Holy Land. Few people knew and loved their
Bibles like Gordon, and every stone in Palestine was full of interest
to him. Here he was alone and quiet, respecting the faith of others, and
therefore causing them to respect his; talking and praying with those of
different religions, teaching them and learning from them; preparing
himself, as the Master whom he served had also done, for the fiery trial
through which he was to pass.
* * * * *
All this time the king of the Belgians had been offering him the command
of an expedition his majesty was anxious to send to the Congo, and
continued to press the matter in spite of the refusal of Mr. Gladstone,
then prime minister, to lend him Gordon to lead it. On January 1, 1884,
Gordon went over to Brussels to talk over affairs with the king, and
while he was there the English government suddenly decided to send him
at once to the Soudan, where matters were in a very threatening state.
Since Gordon had left the country, four years before, Arabi pasha had
revolted, and been crushed at Tel-el-Kebir, and a dervish in the Soudan,
Mohammed Ahmed by name, had made himself famous by proclaiming himself
mahdi, the expected prophet of the whole Mahometan world. Thousands
flocked to the standard that he raised, and his armed escort stood with
drawn swords in his presence. The Egyptian governor-general summoned him
to Khartoum to answer for his proceedings, but the mahdi answered that
he was master of the country and obeyed no one. The troops despatched
against him he always defeated, and when a new governor-general and a
fresh army gave him battle they were utterly destroyed. Obeid in Darfour
surrendered after a five months' siege, and, flushed with success, he
carried all before him.
In June 1883 colonel Hicks was given by the Egyptian government the
military command at Khartoum, with ten thousand men and thirty guns;
but he had no knowledge of the country where he had to fight, and fell
an easy prey to the mahdi's army, which was ten times as numerous as his
own. The tribes of the eastern Soudan joined the victor's banner, and
here, while Gordon was on his way to Khartoum, Baker pasha was defeated
by Osman Digna, a slave-dealer of Suakim.
* * * * *
On January 17, 1884, Gordon, who was in Brussels, received a telegram
from lord Wolseley, bidding him come over to London by the evening
train. He started at once, and reached London early in the morning, and
at twelve o'clock was taken by Wolseley to the Cabinet Council.
'He went in,' writes Gordon, 'and talked to the ministers, and came back
and said, "Her majesty's government want you to undertake this. The
government are determined to evacuate the Soudan, for they will not
undertake to guarantee its safety. Will you go and do it?" I said,
"Yes!" He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did
Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not
guarantee the future government of the Soudan, and you wish me to go up
to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at
8 P.M. for Calais.'
He was seen off from the station by lord Wolseley and by lord
Hartington, afterwards the duke of Devonshire, who always stood loyally
by him, and repeatedly urged that help must be sent instantly, while his
colleagues in the Cabinet waited to see how things would drift, till the
time for help was past.
On January 26, the day which a year hence was to witness his death,
Gordon, with colonel Stewart, was in Cairo, where he spent two busy
days. The first news that greeted him was the success of the mahdi in
all directions, and that the Mahometans in Syria and in Arabia would
probably rise against their rulers. Yet he does not seem to have
understood any better than the English and Egyptian governments what a
terrific force the man really was, not so much in himself, but because
he stood in the minds of hundreds of thousands for the deliverer who
would aid them to shake off a yoke under which they groaned. 'I do not
believe in the advance of the mahdi,' says Gordon a few days later; 'he
is nephew to my old guide in Darfour, who was a very good fellow,' and
on several occasions he shows that he had no idea as yet of the task
that lay before him, and considered the mahdi a mere puppet in the hands
of the slave-owners, who had joined him to a man. While in Cairo he did
his best to make arrangements to ensure good government. He desired to
see Nubar pasha, of whom he thought highly, placed in power, and the
dangerous Zebehr banished to Cyprus, but Tewfik the khedive would listen
to neither proposal. So, to the horror of some of the anti-slavery
societies in England, who knew nothing of the supreme difficulties of
Gordon's position, the newly appointed governor-general of the Soudan
asked to take Zebehr with him, and keep him under his own eye. 'He is
the ablest man in the Soudan,' said Gordon afterwards, 'a capital
general and a good governor, and with his help I could have crushed the
mahdi.' But Gordon's friends at Cairo had no faith in Zebehr's loyalty,
and much in his hatred of Gordon, and at their entreaty the plan was
given up. Yet Gordon did not sleep one night in Khartoum without knowing
he was right, and writing to beg for Zebehr.
* * * * *
Forty-eight hours after reaching Cairo Gordon started with Stewart and
four Egyptian officers for Khartoum.
'I go with every confidence and trust in God,' he wrote to Wolseley a
few hours before he set out, in the spirit in which he lived and died,
and in twenty days he was at Khartoum, where the whole population came
out to welcome him.
With the help of the garrison of five thousand men Gordon began to
fortify the town, and to throw up proper defences for Omdurman, on the
left bank of the river. Provisions were stored, and a telegraph wire
rigged up between the outworks and his palace, where he spent hours
every day in sweeping the horizon with his field-glass. Once at Khartoum
he began to realise what a force the mahdi had become. In March he wrote
to the English government, 'I shall be caught in Khartoum, and even if I
was mean enough to escape, I've not the power.' He begs both for men and
money, but no notice was taken of his letter; so in April he telegraphs
to sir Evelyn Baring, the English agent in Cairo, saying that he had
asked sir Samuel Baker to try and obtain £30,000 from English and
American millionaires to enable him to get three thousand Turkish
soldiers, 'who would settle the mahdi for ever. I do not see the fun of
being caught here to walk about the streets as a dervish with sandalled
feet,' he goes on; 'not that I shall ever be taken alive.'
He had been sent expressly to evacuate the Soudan, yet he was not
allowed to do it when it came to the point, and, as usually happens,
attempts at compromise proved failures. An expedition was despatched to
Suakim, and two bloody battles were fought, but the only result of these
was to inflame the zeal of the mahdi's followers and to enable him to
capture Berber, the key of the Soudan.
In Khartoum Gordon was using all his skill to fit the place to stand a
siege, for he speedily saw that his garrison of one thousand Soudanese
were all he had to rely on, the three thousand Egyptians and
Bashi-Bazouks being worse than useless. Later his troops amounted to
about double the number, and the population which he had to feed he
reckoned at forty thousand. The provisions, he estimated, would last for
five months; but in the end they had to do for ten, and up to the very
last, when all else was eaten, there was still some corn left in the
granary.
* * * * *
While the river was yet open, and before the Arabs had cut off all
communication between Khartoum and the outer world, Gordon managed to
send away some old and helpless soldiers, various government officials,
and two thousand three hundred refugees, who had fled to the town for
safety. Everything he could think of was done for their comfort; and in
order to prevent the poor black women and children from feeling strange
and frightened, he ordered colonel Duncan to ask a German woman living
at Korosko to be ready to meet and help them. In Khartoum itself there
were no fevers or pestilence, and food was given daily to the very poor.
It was in the middle of March that the town, with its three rings of
defence, was invested by the Arabs; but when the time came for the Nile
to rise it was easy for Gordon to send his steamers up and down both
branches of the river, and to attack the Arab camps. Besides those boats
he had already, he built some new ones, and kept his men busy in the
workshops of the arsenal. But when April came, and there were no answers
to his appeals, he wrote home that the matter _must_ be settled before
the Nile fell in November, when the river route would become not only
difficult but dangerous.
* * * * *
In this way the months went on, and in England his friends were doing
all they could to help him, though vainly. Lord Wolseley repeatedly
urged on the Government the need of sending out a relief force, and in a
letter of July 24, to Gordon's brother, he writes that if he was allowed
to start immediately he could be at Dongola by October 15, and could go
all the way to Khartoum by the river. Lord Hartington, too, never forgot
Gordon, but the rest of the Cabinet turned a deaf ear; they had other
things to think about.
The next move came from the French consul, monsieur Herbin, who was
inside Khartoum. He suggested to Gordon that now that it was September,
and the Nile had risen to its greatest height, the cataracts would be
covered to a depth of thirty or forty feet; therefore it would be quite
easy for a small steamer such as the _Abbas_ to make its way to Dongola,
and from there to send on letters and despatches to Cairo. Gordon
approved of the plan, and Stewart offered to command the little force of
forty or fifty soldiers--all that could be spared to go with it. On
board were some Greeks, monsieur Herbin himself, Stewart, and Power the
'Times' correspondent, the only two friends Gordon had. How he must have
longed to go with them. But that being impossible he put the thought out
of his mind, and gave them most careful directions as to the precautions
they were to take. But on their return journey Gordon's orders were
neglected, the steamer was taken by the mahdi's troops, and all on board
put to death, Stewart among them.
* * * * *
Thus Gordon was left alone in Khartoum, without a creature to share his
responsibility or to help him in his work. From henceforward he was
obliged to see to everything himself, and make sure that his orders were
carried out.
From his journal and letters, which we have up to December 14, we know
all that was going on inside the town: the measures of defence; the
decoration which he invented to reward the soldiers for their courage or
fidelity, an eight-pointed star with a grenade in the centre, and
consisting of three classes, gold, silver, and pewter; the presence of
Slatin (later the sirdar) in the mahdi's camp, and the chains put upon
him. But in November the fighting grew fiercer; the mahdi cut all
communication between Khartoum, stretching from the Blue to the White
Nile, and Omdurman, on the right bank of the latter river. However,
though he took the town, he did not keep it long, for he was shelled out
of it; but day by day his forces crept closer, and Gordon, who had sent
his steamers down to Shendy to meet the relieving troops which he
thought were on their way, had no means of stopping the mahdi when he
began to transport his army from one bank of the Nile to the other, in
preparation for the last assault.
During the summer months Gordon had been cheered by the knowledge that
sir Gerald Graham was fighting Osman Digna and keeping him at bay, but
this was all the consolation he had.
'Up to this date,' he writes on October 29, 'nine people have come up as
reinforcements since Hicks's defeat, and not a penny of money.' Still,
for seven months not a man had deserted; but with the advance of the
mahdi many of the defenders of Khartoum might be seen stealing after
dark to his camp. He sent an envoy across the river to offer Gordon
honourable terms if he would surrender, knowing full well from the
papers which his spies had stolen from the steamer _Abbas_ what straits
the garrison were in. But Gordon, putting little faith in the word of
the mahdi, rejected the proposal and returned for answer, 'We can hold
out twelve years.'
* * * * *
By this time 'Relief Expedition No. 2, to save our national honour,' as
Gordon persisted in calling it, was on its way, and many of us can
recall with what sickening hearts we watched its daily progress. The
obstacles which had been foretold months before by both Gordon and
Wolseley proved even greater than they expected. The Nile had fallen,
and its cataracts, like staircases of rocks, were of course impassable,
and the transport of the boats was a terrible difficulty. Then, owing to
treachery, all the useful camels were spirited away, and only enough
could be collected to carry one thousand men across the desert. Sir
Herbert Stewart started first, and reached the wells of Jakdul on
January 3, and being obliged to halt there, as the camels were needed to
bring up other troops, he occupied the time in building a fort. On the
12th they all pushed on to Abou Klea, where they arrived on the 17th, to
find the mahdi awaiting them. Here two fierce battles were fought, in
one of which sir Herbert Stewart was mortally wounded. In each the mahdi
was defeated, but he proceeded to attack Metemmeh on the 21st, the
British force being now commanded by sir Charles Wilson, who was
unexpectedly reinforced during the battle by some troops on board
Gordon's four steamers, which were returning to Khartoum. Three days
later (January 24) Wilson started in two steamers for Khartoum,
ninety-five miles away, and the river was so low that it was necessary
to be very cautious. On the morning of the 25th one of the boats ran on
a rock, and could not be floated off till nine o'clock that night. As
soon as he possibly could Wilson got up steam again, but eight miles
from Khartoum a native hailed him from the bank. 'Khartoum has fallen!'
he said, 'and Gordon has been shot.'
Wilson would not believe it. To have failed when success was within his
grasp seemed too terrible to think of. It must be one of the mahdi's
devices to stop the advance of our troops, so he went on till he could
command a proper view of the town. The masses of black-robed dervishes
that filled the streets and crowded along the river bank told their own
tale, and, bowing his head, Wilson gave the signal to go back down the
river.
[Illustration: A shot ended his life.]
From Slatin pasha, then a captive in the mahdi's camp, we know how it
happened. Omdurman had fallen on the 13th, but Khartoum would
probably not have been assaulted so soon had not the mahdi suffered
such severe defeats at Abou Klea and at Abou Kru, three days later; then
he hurried back to Khartoum and again summoned Gordon to surrender. His
offer was refused, and addressing his men he informed them that during
the night they were to be conveyed across the river in boats, but that
if victory was to be theirs, absolute silence was necessary.
About half-past three in the morning they were all ready, and attacked
at the same moment both the east and west gates. The east held out for
some time, but the west gate soon gave way, and the rebels entered with
a rush, murdering every man they met. In an open space near the palace
they came up with Gordon, walking quietly in front of a little group of
people to take refuge at the Austrian consul's house. A shot ended his
life, and saved him from the tortures that men like the mahdi inflict on
their captives. Death, as we know, had no terrors for him. 'I am always
ready to die,' he had said to the king of Abyssinia nearly six years
before, 'and so far from fearing your putting me to death, you would
confer a favour on me, for you would deliver me from all the troubles
and misfortunes which the future may have in store.' Now death _had_
delivered him, yet none the less does his fate lie like a blot on the
men who sent him to his doom, and turned a deaf ear to his prayers for
help until it was too late. England was stricken with horror and grief
at the news, and showed her sorrow in the way which Gordon would have
chosen, not by erecting statues or buildings to his memory, but by
founding schools to help the little orphan boys whom he always loved.
But whatever bitterness may have been in the hearts of his friends
towards those who had sacrificed him, Gordon we can be sure would have
felt none.
'One wants some forgiveness oneself,' he said, when he pardoned Abou
Saoud, who had tried to betray him. 'And it is not a dear article.'
THE CRIME OF THEODOSIUS
Everyone who stops to visit the town of Trèves, or Trier, to give it its
German name, must be struck by the number and beauty of its ruins, which
give us some idea of the splendour of the city at the time that Ambrose
the Prefect lived there and ruled his province. About the city were
hills now covered with vines, and through an opening between them ran
the river Moselle. A wall with seven gates defended Trèves from the
German tribes on the east of the Rhine, but only one, the Porta Nigra,
or Black Gate, is left standing. Its cathedral, the oldest in Europe
north of the Alps, was founded in 375 A.D. by Valentinian I., who often
occupied the palace which was sacked and ruined a century later by Huns
and Franks. A great bridge spanned the Moselle, and outside the walls,
where the vineyards now climb the hills, was an amphitheatre which held
30,000 people, and when these came back, tired and dusty, from chariot
races or games, there were baths and warm water in the underground
galleries to make them clean and comfortable.
It was somewhere about the year 333 A.D. that a boy was born at Trèves
in the house of the governor, and called Ambrose, after his father. He
was the youngest of three children, his brother Satyrus being only a
little older than himself, while Marcellina, their sister, who was
nearly four, looked down upon the others as mere babies. Ambrose the
elder was a very important person indeed, for the emperor Constantine
had made him ruler, or prefect, of the whole of Europe west of the
Rhine, that is, of Spain, Gaul or France, and Britain. The prefect was a
good and just man, and the nations were happy under his sway; but he
died after a few years, and his wife, unfortunately, thought it wiser to
leave Trèves and take her children to Rome, where they could get the
best teaching and would become acquainted with their father's friends.
It was a long and difficult journey for a lady and two boys (Marcellina
had already gone to a convent in Rome), though they were rich enough to
travel in tolerable comfort. Even in summer the passage of the Alps was
hard enough, and the towering mountains, steep precipices, and rushing
rivers must have seemed strange and alarming to anyone fresh from the
fertile slopes of the Rhineland. But the boys were not frightened, only
deeply interested, and they quite forgot to be sorry at leaving their
old home in the excitement of what lay before them.
No doubt they had many adventures, or what they would have considered as
such, before they reached the corn-covered plains of Lombardy, and
stopped to rest in the city of Milan, whose name was hereafter to be
bound up for all time with that of little Ambrose. But we are not told
anything about their travels, and when they arrived in Rome they went
straight to the old house, which had been for generations in their
father's family. That family was famous in the annals of the city, and
had become Christian in the time of the persecution; but nowadays
Christians and pagans lived happily together, and divided the public
offices between them.
The children soon settled down in their new surroundings, and felt as if
they had lived all their lives in Rome. Marcellina they seldom or never
saw, and, however much her mother may have longed after her, she was
forced to content herself with her two boys and to take pride in their
success.
* * * * *
The prefect of Rome, Symmachus by name, had taken a great fancy to
Satyrus, in spite of the fact that the boy was brought up a Christian,
while he himself was a pagan. Symmachus shared with the Christian Probus
the chief authority in Rome, and while Satyrus was to be found in his
house during most of the hours when he was not attending, with his
brother, classes in Greek and Latin literature and in law, Ambrose was
no less frequently in that of Probus. Though this caused their mother to
spend many lonely evenings, she was well pleased, for both men bore a
high character, and would be able to help her boys in many ways that
were impossible to a woman. The two youths were very popular, pleasant,
and well-mannered, and with strong common-sense which proved useful in
saving them from pitfalls that might otherwise have been their ruin.
They had friends without number, but they liked no one's company so much
as each other's, and it was a sad moment for both when Symmachus gave
Satyrus a post under his own son, and the two young men set sail for
Asia Minor.
For some time Ambrose remained at home, learning the duties of a prefect
under Probus. He early showed great talent for managing men, a quick eye
for detecting crime, impartiality in giving judgment, and firmness in
seeing it carried out. Probus must have watched anxiously to see how far
the young man's sense of justice and his desire for mercy would act on
each other, but what he saw satisfied him. Ambrose knew at once what was
the important point in every matter, and never allowed his mind to be
confused by things that had nothing to do with the real question. This
was his safeguard as a judge, and this was the principle he held to all
through his life, which caused him to be such a different man from
Hildebrand or Thomas à Becket, or many great bishops who came after him.
To Ambrose, murder was murder, theft was theft, whether it was done by
a Christian or a pagan, and the punishment was equally heavy for both.
Perhaps the emperor Valentinian may have noted the qualities of the
young lawyer, or perhaps he may have consulted with Probus, but in any
case, in the year 372 Ambrose was sent off to govern the whole of North
Italy, under the title of 'consul.' At the utmost he was only
twenty-nine, and he may have been younger, for the date of his birth is
uncertain. But his head was in no way turned by his position, and the
emperor, a well-meaning but tactless man, beheld with satisfaction that
the restless people of Milan, the capital of the north, were growing
daily quieter under the rule of Ambrose. What his own severity had been
powerless to accomplish Ambrose carried through without any difficulty.
The parties, religious as well as political, into which the city was
split up, all came to him with their grievances, and, wonderful to say,
never murmured at his verdicts. Before he had been consul much more than
a year, Milan was in a quieter state than it had been for half a
century.
But the death of the bishop early in 374 threatened to plunge everything
into the old confusion. Valentinian was consulted, but refused to have
anything to do in the matter of the election of a new prelate; it was
not his business, he said. So the bishops streamed in to Milan from the
cities of the north and met in the gallery of one of the large round
churches that were built in those days. In great excitement the people
pressed in below; so much depended on who was chosen--to which party he
belonged. For hours and hours they waited, and every now and then a
murmur ran through the crowd that the announcement was about to be made;
but it died away as fast as it came, and the weary waiting began again.
At last the strain grew too great, and it was quite plain that the
smallest spark of disagreement would kindle a great fire.
A man wiser than the rest saw this, and hastened to summon Ambrose to
the spot.
'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too late. Only you
can keep the peace, so come at once.'
[Illustration: 'Do not delay an instant,' he cried, 'or it will be too
late.']
Ambrose needed no urging. What his friend said was true, and, besides,
he was as a magistrate bound if possible to prevent a riot, or, if one
had already begun, to quell it.
The loud, angry voices ceased as he entered the church, and amidst a
dead silence he begged the crowd to be patient yet a little while
longer, and to remember that the choice of a bishop was one that
affected them all, and could not be made in a hurry. As he spoke he
noted that the excitement began to grow less, and by the time he had
ended the flushed faces were calm again. Then the voice of a child rang
through the church.
'Ambrose, bishop!'
'Ambrose, bishop,' echoed the people, but Ambrose stood for a moment
rooted to the spot. It was the last thing he had expected or wished, but
the continued cries brought him to himself, and hastily leaving the
church he went to the hall where he gave his judgments, the crowd
pressing on him right up to the door.
Never before or since has any man been so suddenly lifted into a
position for which he had made no previous preparation. He, a bishop!
Why, though a Christian, in common with many of his friends and also
with his brother, he had never even been baptized, still less had he
studied any of the things a bishop ought to know. Oh! it was impossible.
It was only a moment's craze, and would be forgotten as soon as he was
out of sight; so he stole away at night and hid himself, intending to
escape to another city. But on his way he was recognised by a man who
had once pleaded a cause before him. A crowd speedily collected, and he
was carried by the people back to his house within the walls, and a
guard placed before it, while a letter was despatched to the emperor
informing him that the lot had fallen upon Ambrose.
'Vox populi, vox Dei' ('The voice of the people is the voice of God').
Valentinian gave a sigh of surprise and relief as he read the wax
tablets before him. Losing no time, he sent a paper, signed by himself,
the imperial seal affixed, nominating Ambrose bishop of Milan, while to
Ambrose he wrote privately, saying that no better choice could have been
made, and that he would support him in everything. But by the time the
messenger reached Milan, Ambrose had escaped again, and was hiding in
the house of a friend outside the walls. However, this effort to avoid
the greatness thrust upon him was as vain as the rest, and he saw that
he must accept what fate had brought him. Within a week he had been
baptized, ordained priest, and consecrated bishop, knowing as little as
any man might of the studies hitherto considered necessary for his
position. But it is quite possible that his ignorance of these may have
been a help instead of a hindrance in the carrying out of his duties.
* * * * *
Now very often, if a man's position is changed, his character seems to
change too, and the very qualities which caused him to be chosen for the
new appointment sink into the background, while others, far less
suitable, take their place. No doubt, during the first days after his
election Ambrose must have been watched carefully by many eyes--for no
one, however popular, is wholly without enemies--and any alteration in
his conduct or way of life would have been noted down. Still, even the
most envious could find no difference. Ambrose the bishop was in all
respects the same as Ambrose the consul, except that he gave away more
money than he had done before, and held himself to a still greater
degree at the disposal of the people.
In these days we are so used to reading of the struggle which raged for
so many centuries between the Church and the State--the Emperor and the
Pope--that it seems quite natural to us that after the death of the
emperor Valentinian (which happened a few months later) the bishop
should become the adviser and minister of his young son Gratian. To
Ambrose, however, the situation was beset with difficulties, and both
disagreeable and dangerous. He had not the least desire to meddle in the
affairs of the empire--the care of the church in Milan was quite enough
for any one man; but when the young emperor Gratian came to him for
advice and guidance it was his duty to give it. Soon matters grew worse
and worse. The Goths crossed the Danube, and defeated the army of the
Eastern Empire near Adrianople; Byzantium, or Constantinople, the city
of Constantine, lay at their mercy; and Italy might be entered through
Hungary and the Tyrol, or by sea from the south.
The tidings reached Milan through the first of the numerous fugitives
who had managed to escape across the Alps. Every day more frightened,
starving people arrived, and the city was taxed to the utmost to find
them food and shelter. Yet even the lot of these poor creatures was
happy in comparison with those who had been taken prisoners by the
Goths, and were doomed to spend their lives in slavery unless they were
ransomed. Ambrose set the rich citizens an example by giving all the
money he had, but after every farthing possible had been raised the
unredeemed captives were still many. There only remained the golden
vessels of the church, which were the pride of Milan, and these the
bishop brought out and melted down, so that as far as in him lay all
prisoners might be freed.
In after-years his enemies sought to use the fact as a handle against
him. He had no right to give what was not his own, they said; but
Ambrose paid little heed to their words; he had done what he knew was
just, and the rest did not matter.
* * * * *
With the appointment of the general Theodosius as emperor of the East
things began to mend. The Goths began to understand that they had a
strong man to deal with, and Ambrose was once more left to act both as
bishop and magistrate in his own diocese, and to give constant advice to
the well-meaning but weak young Gratian. The legal training that Ambrose
had received was now of the highest value, and his experience of men and
the world acquired in Rome preserved him from making many mistakes and
giving ear to lying stories. The cleverest rogues in Milan knew that the
most cunning tale would never deceive the bishop, and would only earn
for themselves a heavy fine or imprisonment. 'Some,' he writes, 'say
they have debts; make sure that they speak truly. Others declare they
have been robbed by brigands; let them prove their words, and show that
the injuries were really received by them.' Under Ambrose's rule
impostors of all kinds grew scarce.
During these years the bishop's life, except for public anxieties, had
been calm and happy, for his brother Satyrus had been with him, and had
given him his help in many ways. At length important business took the
elder brother to Africa, and on his return the ship in which he was
sailing struck on a rock and sank. Luckily, they were not far from land,
and Satyrus was a good swimmer, so with great exertions he managed to
reach a lonely part of the coast. He was kindly cared for by the people,
but there was no means of letting Ambrose hear of his safety, and he had
to wait long before another ship passed that way. Then, when his friends
had abandoned all hope, he suddenly appeared in Milan, to the speechless
joy of the bishop. But not long were they left together. In a little
while Satyrus fell ill, and in spite of the constant care that was given
him, in a few days he died, leaving Ambrose more lonely than before.
After this troubles crowded thick and fast on the bishop. Gratian, whom
he had loved as a son, was treacherously murdered in Gaul by order of
Maximus, who had been given by Gratian himself rule over the prefecture
of Gaul with the title of emperor. The grief of Ambrose was deep; but
besides he was forced to act for Gratian's half-brother Valentinian,
whose mother Justina never failed to send for the bishop to help her out
of her difficulties, and directly he had made things smooth, proceeded
to fall back into them.
Thankful indeed was he when she and her son set out for Thessalonica, to
put themselves under the protection of Theodosius.
In the long line of the emperors of the East there were few more honest
and able than Theodosius. He found his dominions in a state of
confusion, the prey of the barbarian hordes that were always pouring
westwards from the wide plains of Scythia, while internally the strife
in the church was fiercer than ever. Quietly and steadily the emperor
took his measures. Here he pardoned, there he punished, and men felt
that both pardon and punishment were just. He was not yet strong enough
to fight against the rebel Maximus, as he would have liked to do, but he
determined that, cost what it might, he would never forsake the young
Valentinian. Maximus had snatched at some excuse to invade Milan, which
on his entrance he had found abandoned by its chief men, save only
Ambrose, who treated him with contempt and went his own way. The
intruder's efforts to buy support by conciliation failed miserably, and
in a few weeks there came the news that Theodosius was preparing to meet
him on the borders of Hungary, or Pannonia. Then Maximus assembled
what forces he could, and set out across the pass of the Brenner.
Two battles were lost, for the legions of Maximus were but half-hearted;
in the third he was taken prisoner and brought before the emperor.
Theodosius was a merciful man, but his heart was hard towards the
murderer of Gratian. 'Let him die!' he said, and without delay the order
was carried out.
[Illustration: 'Let him die!' he said.]
Now that Maximus was dead the legions were quite ready to return to
their rightful emperor, and as soon as he had settled matters Theodosius
went on to Milan. There he and Ambrose became great friends; the bishop
was much the cleverer of the two, but they were both honest and
straightforward, with great common-sense, and it must have been a relief
to Ambrose, who did not in the least care for being an important person,
to feel that he could at last mind his own business, and leave affairs
of state to the emperor.
It was while all seemed going so smoothly that the supreme crisis in the
lives of both men took place--the event which has linked the names of
Ambrose and Theodosius for evermore.
Thessalonica, the chief town of Macedonia, was a beautiful city, and its
Governor, Count Botheric, a special friend of the Emperor, who
constantly went to pay him a visit when wearied out with the cares of
state, which pressed on him so heavily in Constantinople. The people
were gay and light-hearted, loving shows and pageants of all sorts, but
more especially the games of the circus. In order to celebrate the
defeat of Maximus, Botheric had arranged a series of special displays,
and in the chariot races most of the prizes were carried off by one man,
who became the idol of the moment. Furious, therefore, was the
indignation which ran through the city when, immediately after the
festival was over, the charioteer was accused of some disgraceful crime,
and being found guilty, was thrown into prison by Botheric. In a body
the populace surged up to the house of the Governor and demanded his
release. But Botheric was not the man to be turned from what he knew to
be right by an excited crowd. He absolutely refused to give way, and
told them that the man had deserved the punishment he had given him, and
more too. Then the passion of the mob broke loose. They attacked the
Governor's house and the houses of all who were in authority. The
soldiers who were ordered out were too few to cope with their violence.
In the struggle Botheric was killed, and many of his friends also, and
their bodies subjected to every kind of insult that madness could
suggest.
* * * * *
Theodosius was in Milan when the news reached him, and after a few
moments of stony horror he was seized with such terrific passion that it
almost seemed as if he would die of rage. At last he spoke; to those who
stood around the voice sounded as the voice of a stranger.
'The crime was committed by the whole town,' he said, 'and the whole
town shall suffer.' Then, and without giving himself time to change his
mind, he sat down and wrote the order for a massacre to one of the few
magistrates left alive.
His words were probably reported to Ambrose, and no doubt the bishop
tried his best to calm the wrath of the emperor. But Theodosius was in
no mood to be reasoned with. He declined to see his friend, and left
Milan, shutting himself up in silence till the terrible tale of
vengeance was told.
In obedience to his instructions, games, and especially chariot races,
were announced to take place in the circus. We do not know if the mob
had broken open the prison and released the charioteer in whose honour
so much blood had been shed; but if so we may be sure that he was
present, and was hailed with shouts of welcome. The circus was crowded
from end to end--not a single seat was vacant. The eyes of the
spectators were fixed on the line of chariots drawn up at the
starting-point, and drivers and lookers-on awaited breathlessly the
signal. In their absorption they never noticed that soldiers had drawn
silently up and had surrounded them. A moment later, and a signal was
indeed given, but it was the signal for one of the bloodiest massacres
that ever shocked the ancient world. Probably the authorities who
carried out the emperor's orders went further than he intended, even in
the first passion of his anger. But of one thing we may be quite sure,
and that is that remorse and shame filled his soul when the hideous
story reached him. Not that he would confess it; to the public he would
say he was justified in what he had done, but none the less he would
have given all he had to undo his actions. He came back one night to
Milan, and shut himself up again in his palace.
At the time of the emperor's return Ambrose happened to be staying with
a friend in the country, for his health had suffered from his hard work,
and also from this last blow, and his uncertainty how best to bring
Theodosius to a sense of his crime. When he entered Milan once more, he
waited, in the hope that the emperor might send for him, as he was used
to do; but as no messenger arrived, the bishop understood that
Theodosius refused to see him, and the only course open was to write a
letter.
The occasion was not one for polite phrases, neither was Ambrose the man
to use them. In the plainest words he set his guilt before Theodosius
and besought him to repent. And as his sin had been public, his
repentance must be public too. But this letter remained unanswered.
Theodosius was resolved to brave the matter out, and next day,
accompanied by his usual attendants, he went to the great church.
At the porch Ambrose met him, and refused to let him pass.
'Go back,' he said, 'lest you add another sin to those you have already
committed. You are blinded by power, and even now your heart is hard,
and you do not understand that your hands are steeped in blood. Go
back.'
And Theodosius went back, feeling in his soul the truth of the bishop's
words, but prevented by pride from humbling himself.
Months went on, and the two men still lived as strangers, and now
Christmas was near. Rufinus, prefect of the palace, who was suspected of
having inflamed the wrath of the Emperor in the matter of Thessalonica,
upbraided his master with showing so sad a face while the whole world
was rejoicing. Theodosius then opened his soul to him, and acknowledged
that at length he had repented of his crime and was ready to confess it
before the bishop and the people. Once having spoken, he would not
delay, and there and then went on foot to the church. As before,
Ambrose, who had been warned of his intention, met him in the porch,
thinking that the emperor meant to force his way in, and in that case
the bishop was prepared to put him out with his own hands.
But Theodosius stood with bowed head, and in a low voice confessed his
guilt and entreated forgiveness. 'What signs can you show me that your
repentance is real?' asked Ambrose. 'A crime like yours is not to be
expiated lightly.'
'Tell me what to do, and I will do it,' said Theodosius.
* * * * *
And the proof that Ambrose demanded was neither fasting nor scourging
nor gifts to the church. 'It was that the emperor should write where now
he stood, on the tablets that he always took with him, an order
delaying for thirty days the announcement of any decree passed by a
reigning emperor which carried sentence of death or confiscation of
property to his subjects.' Further, that after the thirty days had
passed the sentence and the circumstances which called it forth must be
considered over again, to make quite sure that no injustice should be
committed. To this Theodosius willingly agreed; not only because it was
the token of repentance imposed on him by Ambrose, but because his own
sense of right and justice made him welcome a law by which the people no
longer should be at the mercy of one man's rage.
The law was written down and read out so that those who stood around
might hear; then Ambrose drew back the bar across the porch, and
Theodosius once more entered the church.
PALISSY THE POTTER
Four hundred years ago a little boy called Bernard Palissy was born in a
village of France, not very far from the great river Garonne. The
country round was beautiful at all times of year--in spring with
orchards in flower, in summer with fields of corn, in autumn with
heavy-laden vines climbing up the sides of the hills, down which rushing
streams danced and gurgled. Further north stretched wide heaths gay with
broom, and vast forests of walnut and chestnut, through which roamed
hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chestnuts that made them so fat,
or burrowing about the roots of the trees for the truffles growing just
out of sight. When the peasants who owned the pigs saw them sniffing and
scratching in certain places, they went out at once and dug for
themselves, for, truffles as well as pigs, were thought delicious
eating, and fetched high prices from the rich people in Périgueux or
even Bordeaux.
But the forests of the province of Périgord contained other inhabitants
than the pigs and their masters, and these were the workers in glass,
the people who for generations had made those wonderful coloured windows
which are the glory of French cathedrals. The glass-workers of those
days were set apart from all other traders, and in Italy as well as in
France a noble might devote himself to this calling without bringing
down on himself the insults and scorn of his friends. Still, at a time
when the houses of the poor were generally built of wood, it was
considered very dangerous to have glass furnaces, with the fire often
at a white heat, in the middle of a town, and so a law was passed
forcing them to carry on their trade at a distance. In Venice the
glass-workers were sent to the island of Murano, where the factories
still are; in Périgord they were kept in the forest, where they could
cut down the logs they needed for their kilns, and where certain sorts
of trees and ferns grew which, when reduced to powder, were needed in
the manufacture of the glass.
* * * * *
Whether the father of Palissy was a glass-maker or not--for nothing is
quite certain about the boy's early years--Bernard must of course have
had many companions among the children of the forest workers, and as he
went through the world with his eyes always open, he soon learnt a great
deal of all that had to be done in order to turn out the bits of glass
that blazed like jewels when the sun shone through them. There were
special kinds of earth, or rocks, or plants to be sought for, and when
found the glass-maker must know how to use them, so as to get exactly
the colour or thickness of material that he wanted. And when he had
spent hours and hours mixing his substances and seeing that he had put
in just the right quantity of each, and no more, perhaps the fire would
be a little too hot and the glass would crack, or a little too cold and
the mixture would not become solid glass, and then the poor man had to
begin the whole process again from the beginning. Bernard stood by and
watched, and noted the patience under failure, as well as the way that
glass was made, and when his turn came the lesson bore fruit.
But Bernard learned other things besides how to make glass. He was
taught to read and write, and by-and-by to draw. In his walks through
the woods or over the hills, his eyes were busy wandering through the
fallen leaves or glancing up at the branches of the trees in search of
anything that might be hidden there. The bright-eyed lizards he
especially loved, and sometimes he would persuade them to stay quiet for
a few minutes by singing some country songs, while he took out his roll
of paper and made rough sketches of them.
[Illustration: The bright-eyed lizards he especially loved.]
* * * * *
But after a while Palissy grew restless, and before he was twenty he
left home and travelled on foot over the south of France, gaining fresh
knowledge at every step, as those do who keep their wits about them. He
had no money, so he paid his way by the help of his pencil, as he was
later to do in the little town of Saintes, taking portraits of the
village innkeeper or his wife, or drawing plans for the new rooms the
good man meant to build now that business was so thriving, and measuring
the field at the back of the house, that he thought of laying out as a
garden of fruits and herbs. And as the young man went he visited the
cathedrals in the towns as well as the forges and the manufactories, and
never rested till he found out why this city made cloth, and that one
silk, and a third wonderful patterns of wrought iron.
We do not know exactly how long Palissy remained on his travels, but as
there was no need for him to hurry and so much for him to see he
probably was away for some years. On his return he seems to have settled
down in the little town of Saintes, on the river Charente, where he
supported himself by doing what we should call surveying work, measuring
the lands of the whole department, and reporting on the kind of soil of
which they were made, so that the government might know how to tax them.
* * * * *
In the year 1538 Palissy married, and a year later came the event which
influenced more than any other the course of his future life. A French
gentleman named Pons, who had spent a long while at the Italian court of
Ferrara, returned to France, bringing with him many beautiful things,
among others an 'earthenware cup, wonderfully shaped and enamelled.'
Pons happened to meet Palissy, and finding that the same subjects
interested them both, he showed him the cup. The young man could
scarcely contain himself at the sight. For some time he had been turning
over in his mind the possibility of discovering enamel, or glaze, to put
on the earthen pots, and now here, in perfection, was the very thing he
was looking for.
During the next two or three years, when he was busy surveying the lands
about Saintes, in order to support his wife and little children, his
thoughts were perpetually occupied with the enamelled cup, and how to
make one like it. If he could only see a few more, perhaps something
might give him a clue; but how was he to do that? Then one day in the
winter of 1542 a pirate boat from La Rochelle, on the coast, sailed into
port with a great Spanish ship in tow, filled with earthenware cups from
Venice, and plates and goblets from the Spanish city of Valencia, famous
for its marvellously beautiful glaze. The news of the capture soon
reached Palissy, and we may be sure he had made a study of the best of
the pots before they were bought by the king, Francis I., and given away
to the ladies of the French court. But the Venetian and Spanish
treasures still kept their secret, and Palissy was forced to work on in
the dark, buying cheap earthen pots and breaking them, and pounding the
pieces in a mortar, so as to discover, if he could, the substances of
which they were made.
* * * * *
All this took a long time, and Palissy gave up his surveying in order to
devote his whole days to this labour of love. The reward, however, was
very slow in coming, and if he had not contrived to save a little money
while he was still a bachelor his wife and children would have starved.
Week after week went by, and Palissy was to be seen in his little
workshop, making experiments with pieces of common pots, over which he
spread the different mixtures he had made. These pieces, he tells us,
'he baked in his furnace, hoping that some of these mixtures might, when
hot, produce a colour'; white was, however, what he desired above all,
as he had heard that if once you had been able to procure a fine white,
it was comparatively easy to get the rest. Remembering how as a boy he
had used certain chemical substances in staining the glass, he put these
into some of his mixtures, and hopefully awaited the result.
But, alas! he 'had never seen earth baked,' and had no idea how hot the
fire of his furnace should be, or in what way to regulate it. Sometimes
the substance was baked too much, and sometimes too little; and every
day he was building fresh furnaces in place of the old ones which had
cracked, collecting fresh materials, making fresh failures, and
altogether wasting a great deal of time and money.
* * * * *
Thus passed several years, and it is a marvel how the family contrived
to live at all, and madame Palissy had reason for the reproaches and
hard words which she heaped on her husband. The amount of wood alone
necessary to feed the furnaces was enormous, and when Palissy could no
longer afford to buy it, he cut down all the trees and bushes in his
garden, and when they were exhausted burned all the tables and chairs in
the house and tore up the floors. Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings
one morning when this sight met her eyes. His friends laughed at him and
told tales of his folly in the neighbouring town, which hurt his
feelings; but nothing turned him from his purpose, and except for the
few hours a week when he worked at something which _would_ bring in
money enough to keep his family alive, every moment, as well as every
thought, was given up to the discovery which was so slow in being made.
[Illustration: Fancy poor madame Palissy's feelings.]
Again he bought some cheap pots, which he broke in pieces, and covered
three or four hundred fragments with his mixtures. These he carried,
with the help of a man, to a kiln belonging to some potters in the
forest, and asked leave to bake them. The potters willingly gave him
permission, and the pieces were laid carefully in the furnace. After
four hours Palissy ventured to examine them, and found one of the
fragments perfectly baked, and covered with a splendid white glaze. 'My
joy was such,' he writes, 'that I felt myself another man'; but he
rejoiced too soon, for success was still far distant. The mixture which
produced the white glaze was probably due to Palissy having added
unconsciously a little more of some special substance, because when he
tried to make a fresh mixture to spread over the rest of the pieces he
failed to obtain the same result. Still, though the disappointment was
great, he did not quite cease to 'feel another man.' He had done what he
had wanted once, and some day he would do it again and always.
* * * * *
It seems strange that Palissy did not go to Limoges, which was not very
far off, and learn the trade of enamelling at the old-established
manufactory there. It would have saved him from years of toil and
heartsickness, and his family from years of poverty. But no! he wished
to discover the secret _for himself_, and this he had no right to do at
the expense of other people.
However, we must take the man as he was, and as we read the story of his
incessant toils we wonder that any human being should have lived to tell
the tale. He was too poor to get help; perhaps he did not want it; but
'he worked for more than a month night and day,' grinding into powder
the substances such as he had used at the moment of his success. But
heat the furnace as he might, it would not bake, and again he was
beaten. He had found the secret of the enamel, but not how to make it
form part of the pots.
Each time victory appeared certain some fresh misfortune occurred, the
most vexatious of all being one which seems due to Palissy's own
carelessness. The mortar used by the potter in building his kiln was
full of small pebbles, and when the oven became very hot these pebbles
split, and mixed with the glaze. Then the enamel was spread over the
earthen pots (which at last were properly baked), and the surface of
each vessel, instead of being absolutely smooth, became as sharp as a
razor and tore the hand of any unlucky person who touched it.
To guard against such accidents Palissy invented some sort of
cases--'lanterns' he calls them--in which to put his pots while in the
kiln, and these he found extremely useful. He now plucked up heart and
began to model lizards and serpents, tortoises and lobsters, leaves and
flowers, but it was a long while before he could turn them out as he
wished. 'The green of the lizards,' he tells us, 'got burned before the
colour of the serpents was properly fixed,' and the lobsters, serpents
and other creatures were baked before it suited the potter, who would
have liked them all to take the same time. But at length his patience
and courage triumphed over all difficulties. By-and-by he learned how to
manage his furnace and how to mix his materials; the victory had taken
him sixteen years to win, but at last he, and not the fire, was master;
henceforth he could make what he liked, and ask what price he chose.
And there we will leave Palissy the artist and turn to the life of
Palissy the Huguenot.
* * * * *
For some years past the reformed religion had spread rapidly in this
corner of France, and Palissy, always anxious to understand everything
that came in his way, began first to inquire into the new doctrines, and
then to adopt them. One of the converts, Philibert Hamelin, a native of
Tours, was seized by the magistrates and condemned to death, and
Palissy, who was his special friend, careless of any risk to himself,
did all that was possible to obtain his pardon; when that proved
hopeless, the potter arranged a plan of escape for the prisoner, but
Hamelin declined to fly, and was hanged at Bordeaux in 1557.
The new religion had changed life outwardly as well as inwardly at
Saintes, as Palissy himself tells us. 'Games, dances, songs, banquets,
smart clothes, were all things of the past. Ladies were forbidden by
Calvin, whose word was law, even to wear ribbons; the wine shops were
empty, for the young men passed their spare hours in the fields; girls
sat singing hymns on the banks of the streams, and boys abandoned their
games, and were as grave as their fathers.' The new faith spread rapidly
in this district, but the converts did not all behave in the peaceable
manner described by Palissy. As the party grew stronger it also grew
more violent, and it was plain to him and to everyone else that civil
war must shortly follow. Cruelty on one side was answered by cruelty on
the other, and Palissy had thrown in his lot with the Huguenots, and by
his writings as well as his words urged them to take arms against the
Catholics. Perhaps the artist in him may have grieved to hear of the
destruction in the beautiful churches of the carved images of the saints
that were broken by axes and hammers; of the pictures that were burned,
or the old illuminated manuscripts that were torn in pieces; but
outwardly he gave his approval, and when things went against the
Huguenots, even Palissy's powerful friends who admired his works could
no longer shut their eyes. He was warned to change his ways, and as he
did not the duke of Montpensier, then governor of the rebellious
provinces, thought he would keep Palissy from greater mischief by
putting him into prison. From Saintes he was sent to Bordeaux, where the
magistrates, irritated at his having given the use of a tower which they
had granted him for a studio as a meeting-place for Huguenots, ordered
him into stricter confinement, while they debated whether the studio
should be destroyed. But the constable of France, Anne de Montmorency,
hearing of this proposal, hastened to the queen dowager, Catherine de
Médicis, who came to the rescue by appointing him potter to the royal
household. In this manner Palissy and his studio both escaped, and soon
afterwards the Treaty of Amboise (1563) gave peace to both parties.
After this the happiest period of Palissy's life began. He was free, he
was on the way to grow rich, and he had leisure to write down the
thoughts and plans that had come to him long ago as a boy in his
wanderings, or lately, in his lonely hours in prison. His children could
be well provided for, and he need have no more anxiety about them. As to
his wife, she appears to have been already dead when fortune at last
visited him, and, indeed, she played but a small part in his life.
Now his first book was composed, and in it we can read about the gardens
that Palissy hoped to lay out if his rich friends, Montmorency, or
Montpensier, or Condé, or even the queen herself, would help him to
carry out his designs.
The garden of Palissy's thoughts was to be very large, and certainly
would cost a great deal of money. It was to be situated under a hill, so
that the flowers and fruits might be protected from the winds, and many
streams were to flow through it. Broad alleys would cross the garden,
ending in arbours, some made of trees, trained or cut into different
shapes, and filled with statues; others of different coloured stones,
with lizards and vipers climbing upon the walls, while on the floor
texts would be picked out in pebbles. Plants and flowers would hang from
the roofs of the grottos, and beside them the rivulets would broaden
into basins where real frogs and fish would gaze with surprise at their
stone companions on the brink. Here and there the stream would be dammed
up into a lake covered with tiny islands, and filled with forget-me-nots
and water-lilies and pretty yellow irises, and at the next turn of the
path the visitor would be delighted by a beautiful statue half hidden by
a grove of trees. Catching sight of an inscription in the left hand of
the figure, he would not resist stepping aside to read it, and as he was
stooping to see what was written a jar of water in the figure's right
hand would empty itself on his head.
[Illustration: A jar of water in the figure's right hands emptied itself
on his head.]
Wet and cross, the visitor would pursue his way, taking care not to go
near another statue standing alone in a wide grassy space, with a ring
dangling from its finger. The children or pages waiting on the lady of
the house would, however, think that the flat lawn would be a splendid
place in which to play at 'tilting at the ring,' and here was a ring
just set up for the purpose. Hastily fetching their toy weapons, they
would choose a starting-place and, holding their lances well back, run
swiftly towards the statue, hoping to thrust the lance-point through the
ring, as by-and-by they would have to do at the sports at a royal
wedding or a coronation. But the moment the ring was touched a huge wet
sponge would swing round from the back of the figure and hit the
champion a sharp blow on the back of the head, to the great delight and
surprise of his companions.
It was not a game that could be played twice on the same person, as
Palissy well knew; but in those days great lords with trains of
attendants frequently stopped at each other's houses on the way to their
own lands, so that a constant supply of fresh pages might be looked for,
all eager to play at tilting at the ring.
* * * * *
It was in 1565 that Palissy was sent for to Paris by the queen, to help
her to decorate and lay out the gardens of the palace of the Tuileries,
which she was now planning, close to the Louvre.
The very name of the place must have sounded home-like in the ears of
Palissy, for Tuileries means nothing more than 'tile-fields,' and for a
long while this part of Paris had been the workshop of brick-makers and
potters outside the walls of the old city. But in the reign of
Catherine's father-in-law, Francis I., they were forced to move
further away, as the king had taken a fancy to the site, and had bought
it for his mother. Gardens were made where the furnaces had stood; but
these were by no means fine enough to please Catherine, and she called
in her favourite architect, Philibert Delorme, to erect a palace in
their place, and bade Palissy, now called 'Bernard of the Tuileries' by
his friends, to invent her a new pleasure-ground stretching away to the
west.
We may be sure that Palissy did not lose this happy chance of carrying
into practice the 'delectable garden' of his dreams. He had his
workshops and kilns on the spot, and a band of skilled potters who baked
the figures of men and animals which he himself fashioned out of clay.
Two of his sons, Nicholas and Mathurin, seem to have inherited some of
his talent, and were his partners, as we learn from a royal account book
of the year 1570, and it must have been pleasant to him to have their
company. The queen herself often walked down from the Louvre close by to
see how he was getting on, and to give her opinion as to the grouping of
some statues or the arrangement of a grotto; and here too came his
friends when in Paris, Montmorency, Condé, Jarnac and others, and
Delorme, Bullant, Filon, and all the great architects of the day. The
château of Ecouen, belonging to Montmorency, situated about twelve miles
from Paris, had been decorated by Palissy before he entered the service
of the queen-mother, and had gained him great fame and many commissions.
At Ecouen the long galleries and the floor of the chapel were paved with
tiles containing pictures of subjects taken out of the Bible. In the
garden was the first 'grotto' the potter ever made, and very proud he
was of it, and still more so of the invention by which, at a signal from
the host, one of the attendants would touch a spring, and streams of
water poured over the guests. It is difficult to imagine the grave
constable, occupied as he was with religious wars, or anxiously
watching affairs of state, playing such rude and silly tricks on the
gentlemen and ladies he was entertaining, and it is pleasanter to think
of them all listening to the songs of birds which, we are told, were
imitated to the life by means of water passing through pipes and reeds.
Altogether, Ecouen was thought a marvel of beauty and fancy, and
everybody who considered they had any claims to good taste made a point
of riding out to visit it.
* * * * *
Safe under royal protection and happy in his work, Palissy did not
trouble himself about the fighting that still raged in the name of
religion. When he was tired of the hot atmosphere of the kiln, he would
wander along the banks of the river, or into the woods and hills about
Paris, and watch the birds and the insects fluttering among the trees.
Then, with his mind full of what he had beheld, he would return to his
workshop, and, calling for clay, would never rise from his chair until
he had made an exact copy of the little scene which had caught his
fancy. First he would form his oval-shaped dish, and in the centre of it
would lie some twisted snakes, with sprays of leaves and flowers
scattered round them, while over the cups of the flowers bees and
butterflies hovered gaily. Or, again, he would fashion a wavy sea,
bordered by shells of all sorts, fishes, frogs, leaves, and butterflies,
and in the middle a great sea-serpent wriggling gracefully across the
dish.
Everything was true to nature and beautifully executed, and in those
days it never seemed to strike anyone that dishes were meant to hold
food and not to be treated as pictures.
* * * * *
Palissy had been working for eight years in Paris when the massacre of
St. Bartholomew took place. No one sought to harm the potter, Huguenot
though he was, and he lived on peacefully, respected by all, for some
time longer.
In 1574 Charles IX., the well-intentioned, half-mad young king, died,
and his brother Henry, a man in every way much worse than himself, came
to the throne. Like the rest of his family, however, he was fond of art,
and protected the potter, and a few months later we find Palissy, quite
unharmed, giving lectures on natural history to some of the most famous
scientific men in Paris. If he wanted to prove a point he had a quantity
of drawings or materials at hand to show them. He spoke well, and the
fame of his lectures spread. The little room was soon filled to
overflowing with lawyers, scholars, and, above all, physicians, the
celebrated monsieur Ambroise Paré, doctor to the queen-mother, and a
Huguenot like himself, at their head.
* * * * *
During nine years Palissy continued to deliver these lectures every
Lent, working steadily most of the day among his furnaces at the
Tuileries. He was now seventy-five, and had escaped so many dangers that
he might well think himself safe to the end, which could not be far off.
But in 1585 Henry III. thought himself obliged to take more active
measures against the Huguenots. Palissy had never concealed--as he had
never obtruded--his faith, and, most likely at the instigation of
someone who envied him, he was at once sent to the prison of the
Bastille, and sentence of death passed upon him.
Yet once again the potter's gift for making friends, perhaps the most
valuable of all his talents in that fierce age, stood him in good stead.
This time it was actually one of the persecuting Guises, the duc de
Mayenne, who saved him, and prevented the decree from being carried out.
For four years Palissy remained a prisoner. Mayenne desired to set him
free, but did not dare to do so, so left him where he was till better
times came. But Palissy had a surer friend than Mayenne, who came to his
rescue. In spite of his strong frame, years passed in a prison of those
days, where hunger, cold, and dirt would break any man down, proved too
much even for Bernard Palissy, now more than eighty years of age. Little
by little he grew weaker, watched and tended, as far as might be, by
those who, like himself, had suffered for conscience' sake. Then one
evening he went to sleep, and woke in the Delectable Garden.
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