Mary (1542-1587), Queen of Scots, daughter of King James V and his wife Mary of Lorraine, was born in December, 1542, a few days before the death of her father, heart-broken by the disgrace of his arms at Solway Moss, where the disaffected nobles had declined to encounter an enemy of inferior force in the cause of a king whose systematic policy had been directed against the privileges of their order, and whose representative on the occasion was an unpopular favorite appointed general in defiance of their ill-will. On the 9th of September following, the ceremony of coronation was duly performed on the infant. A scheme for her betrothal to Edward, Prince of Wales, was defeated by the grasping greed of his father, whose obvious ambition to annex the crown of Scotland at once to that of England aroused instantly the general suspicion and indignation of Scottish patriotism. In 1548 the Queen of six years old was betrothed to the dauphin Francis, and set sail for France, where she arrived August 15th.

The society in which the child was thenceforward reared is known to readers of Brantome as well as that of Imperial Rome at its worst is known to readers of Suetonius or Petronius—as well as that of papal Rome at its worst is known to readers of the diary kept by the domestic chaplain of Pope Alexander VI. Only in their pages can a parallel be found to the gay and easy record which reveals, without sign of shame or suspicion of offence, the daily life of a court compared to which the court of King Charles II is as the court of Queen Victoria to the society described by Grammont.

Debauchery of all kinds, murder in all forms, were the daily matter of excitement or of jest to the brilliant circle which revolved around Queen Catherine de' Medici. After ten years' training under the tutelage of the woman whose main instrument of policy was the corruption of her own children, the Queen of Scots, aged fifteen years and five months, was married to the eldest and feeblest of the brood on April 24, 1558. On November 17th, Elizabeth became Queen of England, and the princes of Lorraine—Francis the great Duke of Guise, and his brother the Cardinal—induced their niece and her husband to assume, in addition to the arms of France and Scotland, the arms of a country over which they asserted the right of Mary Stuart to reign as legitimate heiress of Mary Tudor. Civil strife broke out in Scotland between John Knox and the Queen Dowager—between the self-styled "Congregation of the Lord" and the adherents of the Regent, whose French troops repelled the combined forces of the Scotch and their English allies from the beleaguered walls of Leith, little more than a month before the death of their mistress in the castle of Edinburgh, on June 10, 1560.

On August 25th Protestantism was proclaimed and Catholicism suppressed in Scotland by a convention of states assembled without the assent of the absent Queen. On December 5th Francis II died; in August, 1561, his widow left France for Scotland, having been refused a safe-conduct by Elizabeth on the ground of her own previous refusal to ratify the treaty made with England by her commissioners in the same month of the preceding year. She arrived nevertheless in safety at Leith, escorted by three of her uncles of the house of Lorraine, and bringing in her train her future biographer, Brantome, and Chastelard, the first of all her voluntary victims. On August 21st she first met the only man able to withstand her; and their first passage of arms left, as he has recorded, upon the mind of John Knox, an ineffaceable impression of her "proud mind, crafty wit, and indurate heart against God and his truth."

And yet her acts of concession and conciliation were such as no fanatic on the opposite side could have approved. She assented, not only to the undisturbed maintenance of the new creed, but even to a scheme for the endowment of the Protestant ministry out of the confiscated lands of the Church. Her half-brother, Lord James Stuart, shared the duties of her chief counsellor with William Maitland of Lethington, the keenest and most liberal thinker in the country. By the influence of Lord James, in spite of the earnest opposition of Knox, permission was obtained for her to hear mass celebrated in her private chapel—a license to which, said the reformer, he would have preferred the invasion of ten thousand Frenchmen.

Through all the first troubles of her reign the young Queen steered her skilful and dauntless way with the tact of a woman and the courage of a man. An insurrection in the North, headed by the Earl of Huntly under pretext of rescuing from justice the life which his son had forfeited by his share in a homicidal brawl, was crushed at a blow by the lord James against whose life, as well as against his sister's liberty, the conspiracy of the Gordons had been aimed, and on whom, after the father had fallen in fight and the son had expiated his double offence on the scaffold, the leading rebel's earldom of Murray was conferred by the gratitude of the Queen. Exactly four months after the battle of Corrichie, and the subsequent execution of a criminal whom she is said to have "loved entirely," had put an end to the first insurrection raised against her, Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard, who had returned to France with the other companions of her arrival, and in November, 1562, had revisited Scotland, expiated with his head the offence of the misfortune of a second detection at night in her bedchamber.

In the same month, twenty-five years afterward, the execution of his mistress, according to the verdict of her contemporaries in France, avenged the blood of a lover who had died without uttering a word to realize the apprehension which, according to Knox, had before his trial impelled her to desire her brother "that, as he loved her, he would slay Chastelard, and let him never speak word." And in the same month, two years from the date of Chastelard's execution, her first step was unconsciously taken on the road to Fotheringay, when she gave her heart at first sight to her kinsman Henry, Lord Darnley, son of Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, who had suffered an exile of twenty years in expiation of his intrigues with England, and had married the niece of King Henry VIII, daughter of his sister Margaret, the widow of James IV, by her second husband, the Earl of Angus. Queen Elizabeth, with the almost incredible want of tact or instinctive delicacy which distinguished and disfigured her vigorous intelligence, had recently proposed as a suitor to the Queen of Scots her own low-born favorite, Lord Robert Dudley, the widower if not murderer of Amy Robsart; and she now protested against the project of marriage between Mary and Darnley.

Mary, who had already married her kinsman in secret at Stirling castle with Catholic rites celebrated in the apartment of David Rizzio, her secretary for correspondence with France, assured the English ambassador, in reply to the protest of his mistress, that the marriage would not take place for three months, when a dispensation from the Pope would allow the cousins to be publicly united without offence to the Church. On July 29, 1565, they were accordingly remarried at Holyrood. The hapless and worthless bridegroom had already incurred the hatred of two powerful enemies, the Earls of Morton and Glencairn; but the former of these took part with the Queen against the forces raised by Murray, Glencairn, and others, under the nominal leadership of Hamilton, Duke of Châtelherault, on the double plea of danger to the new religion of the country, and of the illegal proceeding by which Darnley had been proclaimed king of Scots without the needful constitutional assent of the estates of the realm.

Murray was cited to attend to the "raid" or array levied by the King and Queen, and was duly denounced by public blast of trumpet for his non-appearance. He entered Edinburgh with his forces, but failed to hold the town against the guns of the castle, and fell back upon Dumfries before the advance of the royal army, which was now joined by James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, on his return from a three years' outlawed exile in France. He had been accused in 1562 of a plot to seize the Queen and put her into the keeping of Earl of Arran, whose pretensions to her hand ended only when his insanity could no longer be concealed. Another new adherent was the son of the late Earl of Huntly, to whom the forfeited honors of his house were restored a few months before the marriage of his sister to Bothwell. The Queen now appealed to France for aid; but Castelnau, the French ambassador, replied to her passionate pleading by sober and earnest advice to make peace with the malcontents. This counsel was rejected, and in October, 1565, the Queen marched an army of eighteen thousand men against them from Edinburgh; their forces dispersed in face of superior numbers, and Murray, on seeking shelter in England, was received with contumely by Elizabeth, whose half-hearted help had failed to support his enterprise, and whose intercession for his return found at first no favor with the Queen of Scots.

But the conduct of the besotted boy, on whom at their marriage she had bestowed the title of king, began at once to justify the enterprise and to play into the hands of all his enemies alike. His father set him on to demand the crown matrimonial, which would at least have assured him the rank and station of independent royalty for life. Rizzio, hitherto his friend and advocate, induced the Queen to reply by a reasonable refusal to this hazardous and audacious request. Darnley at once threw himself into the arms of the party opposed to the policy of the Queen and her secretary—a policy which at that moment was doubly and trebly calculated to exasperate the fears of the religious and the pride of the patriotic. Mary was invited if not induced by the King of Spain to join his league for the suppression of Protestantism; while the actual or prospective endowment of Rizzio with Morton's office of chancellor, and the projected attainder of Murray and his allies, combined to inflame at once the anger and the apprehension of the Protestant nobles.

According to one account, Darnley privately assured his uncle George Douglas of his wife's infidelity; he had himself, if he might be believed, discovered the secretary in the Queen's apartment at midnight, under circumstances yet more unequivocally compromising than those which had brought Chastelard to the scaffold. Another version of the pitiful history represents Douglas as infusing suspicion of Rizzio into the empty mind of his nephew, and thus winning his consent to a deed already designed by others.

A bond was drawn in which Darnley pledged himself to support the confederates who undertook to punish "certain privy persons" offensive to the state, "especially a stranger Italian called Davie"; another was subscribed by Darnley and the banished lords, then biding their time in Newcastle, which engaged him to procure their pardon and restoration, while pledging them to insure to him the enjoyment of the title he coveted, with the consequent security of an undisputed succession to the crown, despite the counter-claims of the house of Hamilton, in case his wife should die without issue—a result which, intentionally or not, he and his fellow-conspirators did all that brutality could have suggested to accelerate and secure.

On March 9th the palace of Holyrood was invested by a troop under the command of Morton, while Rizzio was dragged by force out of the Queen's presence and slain without trial in the heat of the moment. The parliament was discharged by proclamation issued in the name of Darnley as king; and in the evening of the next day the banished lords, whom it was to have condemned to outlawry, returned to Edinburgh. On the following day they were graciously received by the Queen, who undertook to sign a bond for their security, but delayed the subscription until the next morning under plea of sickness. During the night she escaped with Darnley, whom she had already seduced from the party of his accomplices, and arrived at Dunbar on the third morning after the slaughter of her favorite. From thence they returned to Edinburgh on March 28th, guarded by two thousand horsemen under the command of Bothwell, who had escaped from Holyrood on the night of the murder, to raise a force on the Queen's behalf with his usual soldierly promptitude.

The slayers of Rizzio fled to England, and were outlawed; Darnley was permitted to protest his innocence and denounce his accomplices; after which he became the scorn of all parties alike, and few men dared or cared to be seen in his company. On June 19th a son was born to his wife, and in the face of his previous protestations he was induced to acknowledge himself the father. But, as Murray and his partisans returned to favor and influence no longer incompatible with that of Bothwell and Huntly, he grew desperate enough with terror to dream of escape to France. This design was at once frustrated by the Queen's resolution. She summoned him to declare his reasons for it in the presence of the French ambassador and an assembly of the nobles; she besought him for God's sake to speak out, and not spare her; and at last he left her presence with an avowal that he had nothing to allege.

The favor shown to Bothwell had not yet given occasion for scandal, though his character as an adventurous libertine was as notable as his reputation for military hardihood; but as the summer advanced, his insolence increased with his influence at court and the general aversion of his rivals. He was richly endowed by Mary from the greater and lesser spoils of the Church; and the three wardenships of the border, united for the first time in his person, gave the lord high admiral of Scotland a position of unequalled power. In the gallant discharge of its duties he was dangerously wounded by a leading outlaw, whom he slew in single combat; and while yet confined to Hermitage castle he received a visit of two hours from the Queen, who rode thither from Jedburgh and back through twenty miles of the wild borderland, where her person was in perpetual danger from the free-booters whom her father's policy had striven and had failed to extirpate.

On January 22, 1567, the Queen visited her husband, who was ill at Glasgow, and proposed to remove him to Craigmillar castle, where he would have the benefit of medicinal baths; but instead of this resort he was conveyed on the last day of the month to the lonely and squalid shelter of the residence which was soon to be made memorable by his murder. Between the ruins of two sacred buildings, with the town hall to the south and a suburban hamlet known to ill-fame as the Thieves' Row to the north of it, a lodging was prepared for the titular King of Scotland, and fitted up with tapestries taken from the Gordons after the battle of Corrichie. On the evening of Sunday, February 9th, Mary took her last leave of the miserable boy who had so often and so mortally outraged her as consort and as queen. That night the whole city was shaken out of sleep by an explosion of gunpowder which shattered to fragments the building in which he should have slept and perished; and next morning the bodies of Darnley and a page were found strangled in a garden adjoining it, whither they had apparently escaped over a wall, to be despatched by the hands of Bothwell's attendant confederates.

Upon the view which may be taken of Mary's conduct during the next three months depends the whole debatable question of her character. According to the professed champions of that character, this conduct was a tissue of such dastardly imbecility, such heartless irresolution, and such brainless inconsistency as forever to dispose of her time-honored claim to the credit of intelligence and courage. It is certain that just three months and six days after the murder of her husband she became the wife of her husband's murderer. On February 11th she wrote to the Bishop of Glasgow, her ambassador in France, a brief letter, of simple eloquence, announcing her providential escape from a design upon her own as well as her husband's life. A reward of two thousand pounds was offered by proclamation for discovery of the murderer. Bothwell and others, his satellites or the Queen's, were instantly placarded by name as the criminals. Voices were heard by night in the streets of Edinburgh calling down judgment on the assassins.

Four days after the discovery of the bodies, Darnley was buried in the chapel of Holyrood with secrecy as remarkable as the solemnity with which Rizzio had been interred there less than a year before. On the Sunday following, Mary left Edinburgh for Seton palace, twelve miles from the capital, where scandal asserted that she passed the time merrily in shooting-matches, with Bothwell for her partner, against Lords Seton and Huntly; other accounts represent Huntly and Bothwell as left at Holyrood in charge of the infant Prince. Gracefully and respectfully, with statesmanlike yet feminine dexterity, the demands of Darnley's father for justice on the murderers of his son were accepted and eluded by his daughter-in-law. Bothwell, with a troop of fifty men, rode through Edinburgh defiantly denouncing vengeance on his concealed accusers. As weeks elapsed without action on the part of the royal widow, while the cry of blood was up throughout the country, raising echoes from England and abroad, the murmur of accusation began to rise against her also. Murray, with his sister's ready permission, withdrew to France.

On April 21st Mary went to visit her child at Stirling, where his guardian, the Earl of Mar, refused to admit more than two women in her train. It was well known in Edinburgh that Bothwell had a body of men ready to intercept her on the way back, and carry her to Dunbar—not, as was naturally inferred, without good assurance of her consent. On April 24th, as she approached Edinburgh, Bothwell accordingly met her at the head of eight hundred spearmen, assured her—as she afterward averred—that she was in the utmost peril, and escorted her, together with Huntly, Lethington, and Melville, who were then in attendance, to Dunbar castle. On May 3d Lady Jane Gordon, who had become Countess of Bothwell on February 22d of the year preceding, obtained, on the ground of her husband's infidelities, a separation, which, however, would not under the old laws of Catholic Scotland have left him free to marry again.

On the day when the first or Protestant divorce was pronounced, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh with every prepared appearance of a peaceful triumph. Lest her captivity should have been held to invalidate the late legal proceedings in her name, proclamation was made of forgiveness accorded by the Queen to her captor in consideration of his past and future services, and her intention was announced to reward them by further promotion; and on the same day (May 12th) he was duly created duke of Orkney and Shetland. The Duke, as a conscientious Protestant, refused to marry his mistress according to the rites of her Church, and she, the chosen champion of its cause, agreed to be married to him, not merely by a Protestant, but by one who before his conversion had been a Catholic bishop, and therefore should have been more hateful and contemptible in her eyes than any ordinary heretic, had not religion as well as policy, faith as well as reason, been absorbed or superseded by some more mastering passion or emotion. This passion or emotion, according to those who deny her attachment to Bothwell, was simply terror—the blind and irrational prostration of an abject spirit before the cruel force of circumstances and the crafty wickedness of men. Hitherto, according to all evidence, she had shown herself on all occasions, as on all subsequent occasions she indisputably showed herself, the most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant and generous, skilful and practical, never to be cowed by fortune, never to be cajoled by craft; neither more unselfish in her ends nor more unscrupulous in her practice than might have been expected from her training and her creed.

But at the crowning moment of trial there are those who assert their belief that the woman who on her way to the field of Corrichie had uttered her wish to be a man, that she might know all the hardship and all the enjoyment of a soldier's life, riding forth "in jack and knapskull"—the woman who long afterward was to hold her own for two days together, without help of counsel, against all the array of English law and English statesmanship, armed with irrefragable evidence and supported by the resentment of a nation—showed herself devoid of moral and physical resolution; too senseless to realize the significance and too heartless to face the danger of a situation from which the simplest exercise of reason, principle, or courage must have rescued the most unsuspicious and inexperienced of honest women who was not helplessly deficient in self-reliance and self-respect.

The famous correspondence produced next year in evidence against her at the conference of York may have been, as her partisans affirm, so craftily garbled and falsified by interpolation, suppression, perversion, or absolute forgery as to be all but historically worthless. Its acceptance or its rejection does not in any degree whatever affect, for better or for worse, the rational estimate of her character. The problem presented by the simple existence of the facts just summed up remains in either case absolutely the same.

That the coarse and imperious nature of the hardy and able ruffian who had now become openly her master should no less openly have shown itself even in the first moments of their inauspicious union is what any bystander of common insight must inevitably have foreseen. Tears, dejection, and passionate expressions of a despair "wishing only for death," bore fitful and variable witness to her first sense of a heavier yoke than yet had galled her spirit and her pride. At other times her affectionate gayety would give evidence as trustworthy of a fearless and improvident satisfaction. They rode out in state together, and if he kept cap in hand as a subject she would snatch it from him and clap it on his head again; while in graver things she took all due or possible care to gratify his ambition by the insertion of a clause in their contract of marriage which made their joint signature necessary to all documents of state issued under the sign manual. She despatched to France a special envoy, the Bishop of Dunblane, with instructions setting forth at length the unparalleled and hitherto ill-requited services and merits of Bothwell, and the necessity of compliance at once with his passion and with the unanimous counsel of the nation—a people who would endure the rule of no foreign consort, and whom none of their own countrymen were so competent to control, alike by wisdom and by valor, as the incomparable subject of her choice.

These personal merits and this political necessity were the only pleas advanced in a letter to her ambassador in England. But that neither plea would avail her for a moment in Scotland she had ominous evidence on the thirteenth day after her marriage, when no response was made to the usual form of proclamation for a raid or levy of forces under pretext of a campaign against the rievers of the border. On June 6th Mary and Bothwell took refuge in Borthwick castle, twelve miles from the capital, where the fortress was in the keeping of an adherent whom the diplomacy of Sir James Melville had succeeded in detaching from his allegiance to Bothwell. The fugitives were pursued and beleaguered by the Earl of Morton and Lord Hume, who declared their purpose to rescue the Queen from the thraldom of her husband. He escaped, leaving her free to follow him or to join the party of her professed deliverers.

But whatever cause she might have since marriage to complain of his rigorous custody and domineering brutality was insufficient to break the ties by which he held her. Alone, in the disguise of a page, she slipped out of the castle at midnight, and rode off to meet him at a tower two miles distant, whence they fled together to Dunbar. The confederate lords on entering Edinburgh were welcomed by the citizens, and after three hours' persuasion Lethington, who had now joined them, prevailed on the captain of the castle to deliver it also into their hands. Proclamations were issued in which the crime of Bothwell was denounced, and the disgrace of the country, the thraldom of the Queen, and the mortal peril of her infant son were set forth as reasons for summoning all the lieges of the chief cities of Scotland to rise in arms on three hours' notice and join the forces assembled against the one common enemy. News of his approach reached them on the night of June 14th, and they marched before dawn with twenty-two hundred men to meet him near Musselburgh. Mary meanwhile had passed from Dunbar to Haddington, and thence to Seton, where sixteen hundred men rallied to her side. On June 15th, one month from their marriage day, the Queen and Bothwell, at the head of a force of fairly equal numbers but visibly inferior discipline, met the army of the confederates at Carberry hill, some six miles from Edinburgh.

It was agreed that the Queen should yield herself prisoner, and Bothwell be allowed to retire in safety to Dunbar with the few followers who remained to him. Mary took leave of her first and last master with passionate anguish and many parting kisses; but in face of his enemies, and in hearing of the cries which burst from the ranks demanding her death by fire as a murderess and harlot, the whole heroic and passionate spirit of the woman represented by her admirers as a spiritless imbecile flamed out in responsive threats to have all the men hanged and crucified in whose power she now stood helpless and alone. She grasped the hand of Lord Lindsay as he rode beside her, and swore "by this hand" she would "have his head for this." In Edinburgh she was received by a yelling mob, which flaunted before her at each turn a banner representing the corpse of Darnley, with her child beside it, invoking on his knees the retribution of divine justice.

From the violence of a multitude, in which women of the worst class were more furious than the men, she was sheltered in the house of the provost, where she repeatedly showed herself at the window, appealing aloud with dishevelled hair and dress to the mercy which no man could look upon her and refuse. At nine in the evening she was removed to Holyrood, and thence to the port of Leith, where she embarked under guard, with her attendants, for the island castle of Lochleven. On the 20th a silver casket containing letters and French verses, miscalled sonnets, in the handwriting of the Queen, was taken from the person of a servant who had been sent by Bothwell to bring it from Edinburgh to Dunbar. Even in the existing versions of the letters, translated from the lost originals and retranslated from this translation of a text which was probably destroyed in 1603 by order of King James on his accession to the English throne—even in these possibly disfigured versions, the fiery pathos of passion, the fierce and piteous fluctuations of spirit between love and hate, hope and rage and jealousy, have an eloquence apparently beyond the imitation or invention of art.

Three days after this discovery Lord Lindsay, Lord Ruthven, and Sir Robert Melville were despatched to Lochleven, there to obtain the Queen's signature to an act of abdication in favor of her son, and another appointing Murray regent during his minority. She submitted, and a commission of regency was established till the return from France of Murray, who, on August 15th, arrived at Lochleven with Morton and Athol. According to his own account the expostulations as to her past conduct which preceded his admonitions for the future were received with tears, confessions, and attempts at extenuation or excuse; but when they parted next day on good terms, she had regained her usual spirits. Nor from that day forward had they reason to sink again, in spite of the close keeping in which she was held, with the daughters of the house for bedfellows. Their mother and the Regent's, her father's former mistress, was herself not impervious to her prisoner's lifelong power of seduction and subjugation. Her son George Douglas fell inevitably under the charm. A rumor transmitted to England went so far as to assert that she had proposed him to their common half-brother Murray as a fourth husband for herself; a later tradition represented her as the mother of a child by him. A third report, at least as improbable as either, asserted that a daughter of Mary and Bothwell, born about this time, lived to be a nun in France.

It is certain that the necessary removal of George Douglas from Lochleven enabled him to devise a method of escape for the prisoner on March 25, 1568, which was frustrated by detection of her white hands under the disguise of a laundress. But a younger member of the household, Willie Douglas, aged eighteen, whose devotion was afterward remembered and his safety cared for by Mary at a time of utmost risk and perplexity to herself, succeeded on May 2d in assisting her to escape by a postern gate to the lake-side, and thence in a boat to the mainland, where George Douglas, Lord Seton, and others were awaiting her. Thence they rode to Seton's castle of Niddry, and next day to Hamilton palace, round which an army of six thousand men was soon assembled, and whither the new French ambassador to Scotland hastened to pay his duty. The Queen's abdication was revoked, messengers were despatched to the English and French courts, and word was sent to Murray at Glasgow that he must resign the regency, and should be pardoned in common with all offenders against the Queen. But on the day when Mary arrived at Hamilton, Murray had summoned to Glasgow the feudatories of the crown, to take arms against the insurgent enemies of the infant King.

On the 13th of May the battle or skirmish of Langside determined the result of the campaign in three-quarters of an hour. Kirkaldy of Grange, who commanded the Regent's cavalry, seized and kept the place of vantage from the beginning, and at the first sign of wavering on the other side shattered at a single charge the forces of the Queen with a loss of one man to three hundred. Mary fled sixty miles from the field of her last battle before she halted at Sanquhar, and for three days of flight, according to her own account, had to sleep on the hard ground, live on oatmeal and sour milk, and fare at night like the owls, in hunger, cold, and fear.

On the third day from the rout of Langside she crossed the Solway, and landed at Workington in Cumberland, May 16, 1568. On the 20th Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys were sent from court to carry messages and letters of comfort from Elizabeth to Mary at Carlisle. On June 11th Knollys wrote to Cecil at once the best description and the noblest panegyric extant of the Queen of Scots—enlarging, with a brave man's sympathy, on her indifference to form and ceremony, her daring grace and openness of manner, her frank display of a great desire to be avenged of her enemies, her readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory, her delight to hear of hardihood and courage, commending by name all her enemies of approved valor, sparing no cowardice in her friends, but above all things athirst for victory by any means at any price, so that for its sake pain and peril seemed pleasant to her, and wealth and all things, if compared with it, contemptible and vile.

Mary was held a prisoner in England for seventeen years. In 1585 she was accused of favoring Anthony Babington's plot against the life of Elizabeth, her captor. Anthony Babington, in his boyhood a ward of Shrewsbury, resident in the household at Sheffield castle, and thus subjected to the charm before which so many victims had already fallen, was now induced to undertake the deliverance of the Queen of Scots by the murder of the Queen of England. It is maintained by those admirers of Mary who assume her to have been an almost absolute imbecile, gifted with the power of imposing herself on the world as a woman of unsurpassed ability, that, while cognizant of the plot for her deliverance by English rebels and an invading army of foreign auxiliaries, she might have been innocently unconscious that this conspiracy involved the simultaneous assassination of Elizabeth. In the conduct and detection of her correspondence with Babington, traitor was played off against traitor, and spies were utilized against assassins, with as little scruple as could be required or expected in the diplomacy of the time.

As in the case of the casket letters, it is alleged that forgery was employed to interpolate sufficient evidence of Mary's complicity in a design of which it is thought credible that she was kept in ignorance by the traitors and murderers who had enrolled themselves in her service—that one who pensioned the actual murderer of Murray and a would-be murderer of Elizabeth was incapable of approving what her keen and practised intelligence was too blunt and torpid to anticipate as inevitable and inseparable from the general design. In August the conspirators were netted, and Mary was arrested at the gate of Tixall Park, whither Paulet had taken her under pretence of a hunting-party. At Tixall she was detained till her papers at Chartley had undergone thorough research. That she was at length taken in her own toils, even such a dullard as her admirers depict her could not have failed to understand; that she was no such dastard as to desire or deserve such defenders, the whole brief course of her remaining life bore consistent and irrefragable witness.

Her first thought on her return to Chartley was one of loyal gratitude and womanly sympathy. She cheered the wife of her English secretary, now under arrest, with promises to answer for her husband to all accusations brought against him; took her new-born child from the mother's arms, and in default of clergy baptized it, to Paulet's Puritanic horror, with her own hands by her own name.

The next or the twin-born impulse of her indomitable nature was, as usual in all times of danger, one of passionate and high-spirited defiance on discovering the seizure of her papers. A fortnight afterward her keys and her money were confiscated, while she, bedridden and unable to move her hand, could only ply the terrible weapon of her bitter and fiery tongue. Her secretaries were examined in London, and one of them gave evidence that she had first heard of the conspiracy by letter from Babington, of whose design against the life of Elizabeth she thought it best to take no notice in her reply, though she did not hold herself bound to reveal it. On September 25th she was removed to the strong castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. On October 6th she was desired by letter from Elizabeth to answer the charges brought against her before certain of the chief English nobles appointed to sit in commission on the cause. In spite of her first refusal to submit, she was induced by the arguments of the vice-chamberlain, Sir Christopher Hatton, to appear before this tribunal on condition that her protest should be registered against the legality of its jurisdiction over a sovereign, the next heir of the English crown.

On October 14 and 15, 1586, the trial was held in the hall of Fotheringay castle. Alone, "without one counsellor on her side among so many," Mary conducted the whole of her own defence with courage incomparable and unsurpassable ability. Pathos and indignation, subtlety and simplicity, personal appeal and political reasoning, were the alternate weapons with which she fought against all odds of evidence or inference, and disputed step by step every inch of debatable ground. She repeatedly insisted on the production of proof in her own handwriting as to her complicity with the project of the assassins who had expiated their crime on the 20th and 21st of the month preceding. When the charge was shifted to the question of her intrigues with Spain, she took her stand resolutely on her right to convey whatever right she possessed, though now no kingdom was left her for disposal, to whomsoever she might choose.

One single slip she made in the whole course of her defence, but none could have been more unluckily characteristic and significant. When Burghley brought against her the unanswerable charge of having at that moment in her service, and in receipt of an annual pension, the instigator of a previous attempt on the life of Elizabeth, she had the unwary audacity to cite in her justification the pensions allowed by Elizabeth to her adversaries in Scotland, and especially to her son. It is remarkable that just two months later, in a conversation with her keepers, she again made use of the same extraordinary argument in reply to the same inevitable imputation, and would not be brought to admit that the two cases were other than parallel. But, except for this single instance of oversight or perversity, her defence was throughout a masterpiece of indomitable ingenuity, of delicate and steadfast courage, of womanly dignity and genius. Finally, she demanded, as she had demanded before, a trial either before the states of the realm lawfully assembled, or else before the Queen in council.

So closed the second day of the trial; and before the next day's work could begin, a note of two or three lines hastily written at midnight informed the commissioners that Elizabeth had suddenly determined to adjourn the expected judgment and transfer the place of it to the star-chamber. Here, on October 25th, the commissioners again met; and one of them alone, Lord Zouch, dissented from the verdict by which Mary was found guilty of having, since the 1st of June preceding, compassed and imagined divers matters tending to the destruction of Elizabeth. This verdict was conveyed to her, about three weeks later, by Lord Buckhurst and Robert Beale, clerk of the privy council. At the intimation that her life was an impediment to the security of the received religion, "she seemed with a certain unwonted alacrity to triumph, giving God thanks, and rejoicing in her heart that she was held to be an instrument" for the restoration of her own faith. This note of exultation as in martyrdom was maintained with unflinching courage to the last. She wrote to Elizabeth and the Duke of Guise two letters of almost matchless eloquence and pathos, admirable especially for their loyal and grateful remembrance of all her faithful servants. Between the date of these letters and the day of her execution wellnigh three months of suspense elapsed.

Elizabeth, fearless almost to a fault in face of physical danger, constant in her confidence even after discovery of her narrow escape from the poisoned bullets of household conspirators, was cowardly even to a crime in face of subtler and more complicated peril. She rejected with resolute dignity the intercession of French envoys for the life of the Queen Dowager of France; she allowed the sentence of death to be proclaimed, and welcomed with bonfires and bell-ringing throughout the length of England; she yielded a respite of twelve days to the pleading of the French ambassador, and had a charge trumped up against him of participation in a conspiracy against her life; at length, on February 1, 1587, she signed the death warrant, and then made her secretaries write word to Paulet of her displeasure that in all this time he should not of himself have found out some way to shorten the life of his prisoner, as in duty bound by his oath, and thus relieve her singularly tender conscience from the guilt of bloodshed.

Paulet, with loyal and regretful indignation, declined the disgrace proposed to him in a suggestion "to shed blood without law or warrant"; and on February 7th the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent arrived at Fotheringay with the commission of the council for execution of the sentence given against his prisoner. Mary received the announcement with majestic tranquillity, expressing in dignified terms her readiness to die, her consciousness that she was a martyr for her religion, and her total ignorance of any conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth. At night she took a graceful and affectionate leave of her attendants, distributed among them her money and jewels, wrote out in full the various legacies to be conveyed by her will, and charged her apothecary Gorion with her last messages for the King of Spain. In these messages the whole nature of the woman was revealed. Not a single friend, not a single enemy, was forgotten; the slightest service, the slightest wrong, had its place assigned in her faithful and implacable memory for retribution or reward. Forgiveness of injuries was as alien from her fierce and loyal spirit as forgetfulness of benefits; the destruction of England and its liberties by Spanish invasion and conquest was the strongest aspiration of her parting soul.

At eight o'clock next morning she entered the hall of execution, having taken leave of the weeping envoy from Scotland, to whom she gave a brief message for her son; took her seat on the scaffold; listened with an air of even cheerful unconcern to the reading of her sentence; solemnly declared her innocence of the charge conveyed in it, and her consolation in the prospect of ultimate justice; rejected the professional services of Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough; lifted up her voice in Latin against his in English prayer; and when he and his fellow-worshippers had fallen duly silent, prayed aloud for the prosperity of her own Church, for Elizabeth, for her son, and for all the enemies whom she had commended over night to the notice of the Spanish invader; then, with no less courage than had marked every hour and every action of her life, received the stroke of death from the wavering hand of the headsman.

FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE

MASSACRE OF THE HUGUENOTS IN AMERICA

A.D. 1565

GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS

The settlement of Florida had its origin in the religious troubles experienced by the Huguenots under Charles IX in France. Their distinguished leader, Admiral Coligny, as early as 1555, projected colonies in America, and sent an expedition to Brazil, which proved unsuccessful. Having procured permission from Charles IX to found a colony in Florida, a designation which embraced in rather an indefinite manner the whole country from the Chesapeake to the Tortugas, he sent an expedition in 1562 from France, under command of Jean Ribault, composed of many young men of good family. They first landed at the St. John's River, where they erected a monument, but finally established a settlement at Port Royal, South Carolina, and erected a fort. After some months, however, in consequence of dissensions among the officers of the garrison and difficulties with the Indians, this settlement was abandoned.

In 1564 another expedition came out under the command of René de Laudonnière, and made their first landing at the River of Dolphins, being the present harbor of St. Augustine, and so named by them in consequence of the great number of dolphins (porpoises) seen by them at its mouth. They afterward coasted to the north, and entered the river St. John's, called by them the river May.

Upon an examination of this river Laudonnière concluded to establish his colony on its banks, and, proceeding about two leagues above its mouth, built a fort upon a pleasant hill of "mean height," which, in honor of his sovereign, he named Fort Caroline. The colonists, after a few months, were reduced to great distress, and were about taking measures to abandon the country a second time, when Ribault arrived with reënforcements.

It is supposed that intelligence of these expeditions was communicated by the enemies of Coligny to the court of Spain. Jealousy of the aggrandizement of the French in the New World, mortification for their own unsuccessful efforts in that quarter, and a still stronger motive of hatred to the faith of the Huguenot, induced the bigoted Philip II of Spain to despatch Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a brave, bigoted, and remorseless soldier, to drive out the French colony, and take possession of the country for himself. The compact made between the King and Menendez was, that he should furnish one galleon completely equipped, and provisions for a force of six hundred men; that he should conquer and settle the country.

He obligated himself to carry one hundred horses, two hundred horned cattle, four hundred hogs, four hundred sheep and some goats, and five hundred slaves—for which he had a permission free of duties—the third part of which should be men, for his own service and that of those who went with him, to aid in cultivating the land and in building; that he should take twelve priests, and four fathers of the Jesuit order. He was to build two or three towns of one hundred families, and in each town should build a fort according to the nature of the country. He was to have the title of Adelantado of the country, as also to be entitled a marquis (and his heirs after him), to have a tract of land, receive a salary of two thousand ducats, a percentage of the royal duties, and have the freedom of all the other ports of New Spain.

His force consisted, at starting, of eleven sail of vessels, with two thousand six hundred men; but, owing to storms and accidents, not more than one-half arrived. He came upon the coast on August 28, 1565, shortly after the arrival of the fleet of Ribault. On September 7th Menendez cast anchor in the River of Dolphins, the harbor of St. Augustine. He had previously discovered and given chase to some of the vessels of Ribault off the mouth of the river May. The Indian village of Selooe then stood upon the site of St. Augustine, and the landing of Menendez was upon the spot where the city of St. Augustine now stands.

Fra Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, the chaplain of the expedition, thus chronicles the disembarkation and attendant ceremonies:

"On Saturday, September 8th, the day of the nativity of Our Lady, the General disembarked, with numerous banners displayed, trumpets and other martial music resounding, and amid salvos of artillery.

"Carrying a cross, I proceeded at the head, chanting the hymn 'Te Deum Laudamus.' The General marched straight up to the cross, together with all those who accompanied him; and, kneeling, they all kissed the cross. A great number of Indians looked upon these ceremonies, and imitated whatever they saw done. Thereupon the General took possession of the country in the name of his majesty. All the officers then took an oath of allegiance to him, as their general and as adelantado of the whole country."

The name of St. Augustine was given, in the usual manner of the early voyagers, because they had arrived upon the coast on the day dedicated in their calendar to that eminent saint of the primitive Church, revered alike by the good of all ages for his learning and piety.

The first troops who landed, says Mendoza, were well received by the Indians, who gave them a large mansion belonging to the chief, situated near the banks of the river. The engineer officers immediately erected an entrenchment of earth, and a ditch around this house, with a slope made of earth and fascines, these being the only means of defence which the country presents; for, says the father with surprise, "there is not a stone to be found in the whole country." They landed eighty cannon from the ships, of which the lightest weighed five hundred pounds.

Menendez had by no means forgotten the errand upon which he principally came; and by inquiries of the Indians he soon learned the position of the French fort and the condition of its defenders. Impelled by necessity, Laudonnière had been forced to seize from the Indians food to support his famished garrison, and had thus incurred their enmity, which was soon to produce its sad results.

The Spaniards numbered about six hundred combatants, and the French about the same; but arrangements had been made for further accessions to the Spanish force, to be drawn from Santo Domingo and Havana, and these were daily expected.

It was the habit of those days to devolve almost every event upon the ordering of a special providence; and each nation had come to look upon itself almost in the light of a peculiar people, led like the Israelites of old by signs and wonders; and as in their own view all their actions were directed by the design of advancing God's glory as well as their own purposes, so the blessing of Heaven would surely accompany them in all their undertakings.

So believed the crusaders on the plains of Palestine; so believed the conquerors of Mexico and Peru; so believed the Puritan settlers of New England—alike in their Indian wars and their oppressive social polity—and so believed, also, the followers of Menendez and of Ribault; and in this simple and trusting faith, the worthy chaplain gives us the following account of the miraculous escape and deliverance of a portion of the Spanish fleet:

"God and his Holy Mother have performed another great miracle in our favor. The day following the landing of the General in the fort he said to us that he was very uneasy, because his galley and another vessel were at anchor, isolated and a league at sea, being unable to enter the port on account of the shallowness of the water, and that he feared that the French might come and capture or maltreat them. As soon as this idea came to him he departed, with fifty men, to go on board of his galleon. He gave orders to three shallops which were moored in the river to go out and take on board the provisions and troops which were on board the galleon. The next day, a shallop having gone out thither, they took on board as much of the provisions as they could, and more than a hundred men who were in the vessel, and returned toward shore; but half a league before arriving at the bar they were overtaken by so complete a calm that they were unable to proceed farther, and thereupon cast anchor and passed the night in that place.

"The day following, at break of day, they raised anchor as ordered by the pilot, as the rising of the tide began to be felt. When it was fully light they saw astern of them, at the poop of the vessel, two French ships which during the night had been in search of them. The enemy arrived with the intention of making an attack upon them. The French made all haste in their movements, for our men had no arms on board, and had only embarked the provisions. When day appeared, and our people discovered the French, they addressed their prayers to Our Lady of Bon Secours d'Utrera, and supplicated her to grant them a little wind, for the French were already close up to them. They say that Our Lady descended herself upon the vessel; for the wind freshened and blew fair for the bar, so that the shallop could enter it. The French followed it; but as the bar had but little depth and their vessels were large, they were not able to go over it, so that our men and the provisions made a safe harbor.

"When it became still clearer they perceived, besides the two vessels of the enemy, four others at a distance, being the same which we had seen in the port the evening of our arrival. They were well furnished with troops and artillery, and had directed themselves for our galleon and the other ship, which were alone at sea. In this circumstance God afforded us two favors: the first was, that the same evening after they had discharged the provisions and the troops I have spoken of, at midnight the galleon and the other vessel put to sea without being perceived by the enemy; the one for Spain, and the other for Havana for the purpose of seeking the fleet which was there; and in this way neither was taken.

"The second favor, by which God rendered us a still greater service, was that on the day following the one I have described there arose a great storm, and so great a tempest that certainly the greater part of the French vessels must have been lost at sea; for they were overtaken upon the most dangerous coast I have ever seen, and were very close to the shore; and if our vessels, that is, the galleon and its consort, are not shipwrecked, it is because they were already more than twelve leagues off the coast, which gave them the facility of manœuvring as well as they could, relying upon the aid of God to preserve them."

Menendez had ascertained from the Indians that a large number of the French troops had embarked on board of the vessels which he had seen off the harbor, and he had good ground for believing that these vessels would either be cast helpless upon the shore, or be driven off by the tempest to such a distance as would render their return for some days impossible. He at once conceived the project of attacking the French fort upon the river May by land.

The troops, having heard mass, marched out in order, preceded by twenty Biscayans and Asturians, having as their captain Martin de Ochoa, a leader of great fidelity and bravery, furnished with axes to open a road where they could not get along. At this moment there arrived two Indians, who said that they had been at the French six days before, and who "seemed like angels" to the soldiers, sent to guide their march. Halting for refreshment and rest wherever suitable places could be found, and the Adelantado always with the vanguard, in four days they reached the vicinity of the fort, and came up within a quarter of a league of it, concealed by a grove of pine trees. It rained heavily, and a severe storm prevailed. The place where they had halted was a very bad one and very marshy; but he decided to stop there, and went back to seek the rear-guard, lest they might lose their way.

About ten at night the last of the troops arrived, very wet indeed, for there had been much rain during the four days; they had passed marshes with the water rising to their waists, and every night there was so great a flood that they were in great danger of losing their powder, their match-fire, and their biscuit; and they became desperate, cursing those who brought them there, and themselves for coming.

Menendez pretended not to hear their complaints, not daring to call a council as to proceeding or returning, for both officers and soldiers went forward very unquietly. Remaining firm in his own resolve, two hours before dawn he called together the Master of the Camp and the captains, to whom he said that during the whole night he had sought of God and his Holy Mother that they would favor and instruct him what he should do most advantageous for their holy service; and he was persuaded that they had all done the same. "But now, gentlemen," he proceeded, "we must make some determination, finding ourselves exhausted, lost, without ammunition or provisions, and without the hope of relief."

Some answered very promptly, "Why should they waste their time in giving reasons? for, unless they returned quickly to St. Augustine, they would be reduced to eating palmettos; and the longer they delayed, the greater trouble they would have."

The Adelantado said to them that what they said seemed very reasonable, but he would ask them to hear some reasons to the contrary, without being offended. He then proceeded—after having smoothed down their somewhat ruffled dispositions, considerably disturbed by their first experience in encountering the hardships of such a march—to show them the danger of retreat was then greater than an advance would be, as they would lose alike the respect of their friends and foes; that if, on the contrary, they attacked the fort, whether they succeeded in taking it or not, they would gain honor and reputation.

Stimulated by the speech of their general, they demanded to be led to the attack, and the arrangements for the assault were at once made. Their French prisoner was placed in the advance; but the darkness of the night and the severity of the storm rendered it impossible to proceed, and they halted in a marsh, with the water up to their knees, to await daylight.

At dawn, the Frenchman recognized the country, and the place where they were, and where stood the fort; upon which the Adelantado ordered them to march, enjoining upon all, at the peril of their lives, to follow him; and coming to a small hill, the Frenchman said that behind that stood the fort, about three bow-shots distant, but lower down, near the river. The General put the Frenchman into the custody of Castaneda. He went up a little higher, and saw the river and one of the houses, but he was not able to discover the fort, although it was adjoining them; and he returned to Castaneda, with whom now stood the Master of the Camp and Ochoa, and said to them that he wished to go lower down, near to the houses which stood behind the hill, to see the fortress and the garrison, for, as the sun was now up, they could not attack the fort without a reconnaissance. This the Master of the Camp would not permit him to do, saying this duty appertained to him; and he went alone with Ochoa near to the houses, from whence they discovered the fort; and, returning with their information, they came to two paths, and leaving the one by which they came, they took the other.

The Master of the Camp discovered his error, coming to a fallen tree, and turned his face to inform Ochoa, who was following him; and as they turned to seek the right path, he stopped in advance, and the sentinel discovered them, who imagined them to be French; but examining them he perceived they were unknown to him. He hailed, "Who goes there?" Ochoa answered, "Frenchmen." The sentinel was confirmed in his supposition that they were his own people, and approached them; Ochoa did the same; but seeing they were not French, the sentinel retreated. Ochoa closed with him, and with his drawn sword gave him a cut over the head, but did not hurt him much, as the sentinel fended off the blow with his sword; and the Master of the Camp, coming up at that moment, gave him a thrust, from which he fell backward, making a loud outcry. The Master of the Camp, putting his sword to his breast, threatened him with instant death unless he kept silence. They tied him thereupon, and took him to the General, who, hearing the noise, thought the Master of the Camp was being killed, and meeting with the Sergeant-major, Francisco de Recalde, Diego de Maya, and Andres Lopez Patino, with their standards and soldiers, without being able to restrain himself, he cried out, "Santiago! Upon them! Help of God, victory! The French are destroyed. The Master of the Camp is in their fort, and has taken it." Upon which, all rushed forward in the path without order, the General remaining behind, repeating what he had said many times; himself believing it to be certain that the Master of the Camp had taken with him a considerable force, and had captured the fort.

So great was the joy of the soldiers, and such their speed, that they soon came up with the Master of the Camp and Ochoa, who was hastening to receive the reward of carrying the good news to the General of the capture of the sentinel. But the Master of the Camp, seeing the spirit which animated the soldiery, killed the sentinel, and cried out with a loud voice to those who were pressing forward, "Comrades! do as I do. God is with us;" and turned running toward the fort, and, meeting two Frenchmen on the way, he killed one of them, and Andres Lopez Patino the other. Those in the environs of the fort, seeing this tragedy enacted, set up loud outcries; and in order to know the cause of the alarm, one of the French within opened the postern of the principal gate, which he had no sooner done than it was observed by the Master of the Camp; and, throwing himself upon him, he killed him and entered the gate, followed by the most active of his followers.

The French, awakened by the clamor, some dressed, others in their night-clothes, rushed to the doors of their houses to see what had happened; but they were all killed, except sixty of the more wary, who escaped by leaping the walls.

Immediately the standards of the Sergeant-major and of Diego Mayo were brought in, and set up by Rodrigo Troche and Pedro Valdes Herrera, with two cavaliers, at the same moment. These being hoisted, the trumpets proclaimed the victory, and the band of soldiers who had entered opened the gates and sought the quarters, leaving no Frenchman alive.

The Adelantado, hearing the cries, left Castaneda in his place to collect the people who had not come up, who were at least half the force, and went himself to see if they were in any danger. He arrived at the fort running; and as he perceived that the soldiers gave no quarter to any of the French, he shouted "that, at the penalty of their lives, they should neither wound nor kill any woman, cripple, or child under fifteen years of age." By which seventy persons were saved, the rest were all killed.

Renato de Laudonnière, the commander of the fort, escaped, with his servant and some twenty or thirty others, to a vessel lying in the river.

Such is the Spanish chronicle, contained in Barcia, of the capture of Fort Caroline. Its details in the main correspond with the account of Laudonnière, and of Nicolas Challeux, the author of the letter printed at Lyons, in France, under date of August, 1566, by Jean Saugrain. In some important particulars, however, the historians disagree. It has been already seen that Menendez is represented as having given orders to spare all the women, maimed persons, and all children under fifteen years of age. The French relations of the event, on the contrary, allege that an indiscriminate slaughter took place, and that all were massacred, without respect to age, sex, or condition; but as this statement is principally made upon the authority of a terrified and flying soldier, it is alike due to the probabilities of the case, and more agreeable to the hopes of humanity, to lessen somewhat the horrors of a scene which has need of all the palliation which can be drawn from the slightest evidences of compassion on the part of the stern and bigoted leader.

Some of the fugitives from the fort fled to the Indians; and ten of these were given up to the Spaniards, to be butchered in cold blood, says the French account—to be sent back to France, says the Spanish chronicle.

September 24th being the day of St. Matthew, the name of the fort was changed to San Matteo, by which name it was always subsequently called by the Spaniards; and the name of St. Matthew was also given by them to the river, now called St. John's, on which it was situated.

The Spaniards proceeded at once to strengthen the fortress, deepening and enlarging the ditch, and raised and strengthened the ramparts and wall in such manner, says the boastful Mendoza, "that, if the half of all France had come to attack it, they could not have disturbed it;" a boast upon which the easy conquest of it by De Gourgues, three years subsequently, affords an amusing commentary. They also constructed, subsequently, two small forts at the mouth of the river, one on each side, which probably were located, the one on Batten Island, and the other at Mayport Mills.

Leaving three hundred soldiers as a garrison under his son-in-law, De Valdez, Master of the Camp, who was now appointed governor of the fort, Menendez marched from St. Augustine, beginning now to feel considerable anxiety lest the French fleet, escaping from the tempest, might return and visit upon his own garrison at St. Augustine the fate of Fort Caroline. He took with him upon his return but fifty soldiers, and, owing to the swollen waters, found great difficulty in retracing his route. When within a league of St. Augustine, he allowed one of the soldiers to go forward to announce his victory and safe return.

The garrison at St. Augustine had been in great anxiety respecting their leader, and from the accounts given by those who had deserted, they feared the total loss of the expedition. The worthy captain thus describes the return of Menendez: "The same day, being Monday, we saw a man coming, crying out loudly. I myself was the first to run to him for the news. He embraced me with transport, crying, 'Victory! Victory! The French fort is ours.' I promised him the present which the bearer of good news deserves, and gave him the best in my power.

"At the hour of vespers our good General arrived, with fifty foot-soldiers very much fatigued. As soon as I learned that he was coming, I ran home and put on a new soutain, the best which I had, and a surplice, and, going out with a crucifix in my hand, I went forward to receive him; and he, a gentleman and a good Christian, before entering, kneeled and all his followers, and returned thanks to the Lord for the great favors which he had received. My companions and myself marched in front in procession chanting, so that we all returned with the demonstrations of joy."

REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS AGAINST SPAIN

RISE OF THE GUEUX OR BEGGARS

A.D. 1566

FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

A universal spirit of revolt pervaded the whole nation. Men began to investigate the rights of the subject, and to scrutinize the prerogative of kings. "The Netherlanders were not so stupid," many were heard to say, with very little attempt at secrecy, "as not to know right well what was due from the subject to the sovereign, and from the king to the subject; and that, perhaps, means would yet be found to repel force with force, although at present there might be no appearance of it." In Antwerp a placard was set up in several places calling upon the town council to accuse the King of Spain before the supreme court, at Spires, of having broken his oath and violated the liberties of the country, for Brabant, being a portion of the Burgundian circle, was included in the religious peace of Passau and Augsburg.

About this time, too, the Calvinists published their confession of faith, and in a preamble, addressed to the King, declared that they, although a hundred thousand strong, kept themselves, nevertheless, quiet, and, like the rest of his subjects, contributed to all the taxes of the country; from which it was evident, they added, that of themselves they entertained no ideas of insurrection. Bold and incendiary writings were publicly disseminated, which depicted the Spanish tyranny in the most odious colors, and reminded the nation of its privileges and occasionally also of its powers.[1]

The warlike preparations of Philip against the Porte, as well as those which, for no intelligible reason, Eric, Duke of Brunswick, about this time made in the vicinity, contributed to strengthen the general suspicion that the Inquisition was to be forcibly imposed on the Netherlands. Many of the most eminent merchants already spoke of quitting their houses and business, to seek in some other part of the world the liberty of which they were here deprived; others looked about for a leader, and let fall hints of forcible resistance and of foreign aid.

That in this distressing position of affairs the Regent might be left entirely without an adviser and without support, she was now deserted by the only person who was at the present moment indispensable to her, and who had contributed to plunge her into this embarrassment. "Without kindling a civil war," wrote to her William of Orange, "it was absolutely impossible to comply now with the orders of the King. If, however, obedience was to be insisted upon, he must beg that his place might be supplied by another, who would better answer the expectations of his majesty and have more power than he had over the minds of the nation. The zeal which on every other occasion he had shown in the service of the crown would, he hoped, secure his present proceeding from misconstruction; for, as the case now stood, he had no alternative between disobeying the King and injuring his country and himself." From this time forth William of Orange retired from the council of state to his town of Breda, where, in observant but scarcely inactive repose, he watched the course of affairs. Count Horn followed his example.

Egmont, ever vacillating between the republic and the throne, ever wearying himself in the vain attempt to unite the good citizen with the obedient subject—Egmont, who was less able than the rest to dispense with the favor of the monarch, and to whom, therefore, it was less an object of indifference, could not bring himself to abandon the bright prospects which were now opening for him at the court of the Regent. The Prince of Orange had, by his superior intellect, gained an influence over the Regent which great minds cannot fail to command from inferior spirits. His retirement had opened a void in her confidence, which Count Egmont was now to fill by virtue of that sympathy which so naturally subsists between timidity, weakness, and good nature. As she was as much afraid of exasperating the people by an exclusive confidence in the adherents of the crown as she was fearful of displeasing the King by too close an understanding with the declared leaders of the faction, a better object for her confidence could now hardly be presented than this very Count Egmont, of whom it could not be said that he belonged to either of the two conflicting parties.

Up to this point the general peace had, it appears, been the sincere wish of the Prince of Orange, the Counts Egmont and Horn, and their friends. They had pursued the true interest of their sovereign as much as the general weal; at least their exertions and their actions had been as little at variance with the former as with the latter. Nothing had as yet occurred to make their motives suspected or to manifest in them a rebellious spirit. What they had done they had done in discharge of their bounden duty as members of a free state, as the representatives of the nation, as advisers of the King, as men of integrity and honor. The only weapons they had used to oppose the encroachments of the court had been remonstrances, modest complaints, petitions. They had never allowed themselves to be so far carried away by a just zeal for their good cause as to transgress the limits of prudence and moderation, which on many occasions are so easily overstepped by party spirit. But all the nobles of the republic did not now listen to the voice of that prudence, all did not abide within the bounds of moderation.

While in the council of state the great question was discussed, whether the nation was to be miserable or not, while its sworn deputies summoned to their assistance all the arguments of reason and of equity, and while the middle classes and the people contented themselves with empty complaints, menaces, and curses, that part of the nation which of all seemed least called upon, and on whose support least reliance had been placed, began to take more active measures. We have already described a class of the nobility whose services and wants Philip, at his accession, had not considered it necessary to remember. Of these, by far the greater number had asked for promotion from a much more urgent reason than a love of the mere honor. Many of them were deeply sunk in debt, from which by their own resources they could not hope to emancipate themselves. When, then, in filling up appointments, Philip passed them over, he wounded them in a point far more sensitive than their pride.

In these suitors he had by his neglect raised up so many idle spies and merciless judges of his actions, so many collectors and propagators of malicious rumor. As their pride did not quit them with their prosperity, so now, driven by necessity, they trafficked with the sole capital which they could not alienate—their nobility, and the political influence of their names; and brought into circulation a coin which only in such a period could have found currency—their protection. With a self-pride, to which they gave the more scope as it was all they could now call their own, they looked upon themselves as a strong intermediate power between the sovereign and the citizen, and believed themselves called upon to hasten to the rescue of the oppressed state, which looked imploringly to them for succor.

This idea was ludicrous only so far as their self-conceit was concerned in it; the advantages which they contrived to draw from it were substantial enough. The Protestant merchants, who held in their hands the chief part of the wealth of the Netherlands, and who believed they could not at any price purchase too dearly the undisturbed exercise of their religion, did not fail to make use of this class of people, who stood idle in the market and ready to be hired. These very men, whom at any other time the merchants, in their pride of riches, would most probably have looked down upon, now appeared likely to do them good service through their numbers, their courage, their credit with the populace, their enmity to the Government, nay, through their beggarly pride itself and their despair. On these grounds they zealously endeavored to form a close union with them, and diligently fostered the disposition for rebellion, while they also used every means to keep alive their high opinions of themselves, and, what was most important, lured their poverty by well-applied pecuniary assistance and glittering promises. Few of them were so utterly insignificant as not to possess some influence, if not personally, yet at least by their relationship with higher and more powerful nobles; and, if united, they would be able to raise a formidable voice against the crown. Many of them had either already joined the new sect or were secretly inclined to it; and even those who were zealous Roman Catholics had political or private grounds enough to set them against the decrees of Trent and the Inquisition. All, in fine, felt the cause of vanity sufficiently powerful not to allow the only moment to escape them in which they might possibly make some figure in the republic.

But much as might be expected from the coöperation of these men in a body, it would have been futile and ridiculous to build any hopes on any one of them singly; and the great difficulty was to effect a union among them. Even to bring them together, some unusual occurrence was necessary; and, fortunately, such an incident presented itself. The nuptials of Baron Montigny, one of the Belgian nobles, as also those of the prince Alexander of Parma, which took place about this time in Brussels, assembled in that town a great number of the Belgian nobles. On this occasion relations met relations; new friendships were formed and old renewed; and, while the distress of the country was the topic of conversation, wine and mirth unlocked lips and hearts, hints were dropped of union among themselves and of an alliance with foreign powers. These accidental meetings soon led to concealed ones, and public discussions gave rise to secret consultations. Two German barons, moreover, a Count of Holle and of Schwarzenberg, who happened at this time to be on a visit to the Netherlands, omitted nothing to awaken expectations of assistance from their neighbors. Count Louis of Nassau, too, had also, a short time before, visited several German courts to ascertain their sentiments.[2] It has even been asserted that secret emissaries of the admiral Coligny were seen at this time in Brabant; but this, however, may be reasonably doubted.

If ever a political crisis was favorable to an attempt at revolution, it was the present: a woman at the helm of government; the governors of provinces disaffected themselves, and disposed to wink at insubordination in others; most of the state counsellors quite inefficient; no army to fall back upon; the few troops there were, long since discontented on account of the outstanding arrears of pay, and already too often deceived by false promises to be enticed by new; commanded, moreover, by officers who despised the Inquisition from their hearts, and would have blushed to draw a sword in its behalf; and lastly, no money in the treasury to enlist new troops or to hire foreigners. The court at Brussels, as well as the three councils, not only divided by internal dissensions, but in the highest degree venal and corrupt; the Regent without full powers to act on the spot, and the King at a distance; his adherents in the provinces few, uncertain, and dispirited; the faction numerous and powerful; two-thirds of the people irritated against popery and desirous of a change—such was the unfortunate weakness of the Government, and the more unfortunate still that this weakness was so well known to its enemies!

In order to unite so many minds in the prosecution of a common object, a leader was still wanting, and a few influential names, to give political weight to their enterprise. The two were supplied by Count Louis of Nassau, and Henry Count Brederode, both members of the most illustrious houses of the Belgian nobility, who voluntarily placed themselves at the head of the undertaking. Louis of Nassau, brother of the Prince of Orange, united many splendid qualities, which made him worthy of appearing on so noble and important a stage. In Geneva, where he studied, he had imbibed at once a hatred to the hierarchy and a love to the new religion, and, on his return to his native country, had not failed to enlist proselytes to his opinions. The republican bias which his mind had received in that school kindled in him a bitter hatred of all that bore the Spanish name, which animated his whole conduct, and only left him with his latest breath. Popery and Spanish rule were in his mind identical, as indeed they were in reality; and the abhorrence which he entertained for the one helped to strengthen his dislike to the other.

Closely as the brothers agreed in their inclinations and aversions, the ways by which each sought to gratify them were widely dissimilar. Youth and an ardent temperament did not allow the younger brother to follow the tortuous course through which the elder wound himself to his object. A cold, calm circumspection carried the latter slowly, but surely, to his aim; and with a pliable subtlety he made all things subserve his purpose; with a foolhardy impetuosity, which overthrew all obstacles, the other at times compelled success, but oftener accelerated disaster. For this reason William was a general, and Louis never more than an adventurer; a sure and powerful arm, if only it were directed by a wise head. Louis' pledge once given was good forever; his alliances survived every vicissitude, for they were mostly formed in a pressing moment of necessity, and misfortune binds more firmly than thoughtless joy. He loved his brother as dearly as he did his cause, and for the latter he died.

Henry of Brederode, Baron of Viane and Burgrave of Utrecht, was descended from the old Dutch counts, who formerly ruled that province as sovereign princes. So ancient a title endeared him to the people, among whom the memory of their former lords still survived and was the more treasured the less they felt they had gained by the change. This hereditary splendor increased the self-conceit of a man upon whose tongue the glory of his ancestors continually hung, and who dwelt the more on former greatness, even amid its ruins, the more unpromising the aspect of his own condition became. Excluded from the honors and employments to which in his opinion his own merits and his noble ancestry fully entitled him—a squadron of light cavalry being all that was intrusted to him—he hated the Government, and did not scruple boldly to canvass and to rail at its measures. By these means he won the hearts of the people.

Besides these two, there were others also from among the most illustrious of the Flemish nobles—the young Count Charles of Mansfeld, a son of that nobleman whom we have found among the most zealous royalists, the Count Kinlemburg, two counts of Bergen and of Battenburg, John of Marnix, Baron of Thoulouse, Philip of Marnix, Baron of St. Aldegonde, with several others, who joined the league, which about the middle of November, in the year 1565, was formed at the house of Von Hammes, king-at-arms of the Golden Fleece. Here it was that six men decided the destiny of their country—as formerly a few confederates consummated the liberty of Switzerland—kindled the torch of a forty-years' war, and laid the basis of a freedom which they themselves were never to enjoy.

The objects of the league were set forth in the following declaration, to which Philip of Marnix was the first to subscribe his name: "Whereas certain ill-disposed persons, under the mask of a pious zeal, but in reality under the impulse of avarice and ambition, have by their evil counsels persuaded our most gracious sovereign the King to introduce into these countries the abominable tribunal of the Inquisition—a tribunal diametrically opposed to all laws human and divine, and in cruelty far surpassing the barbarous institutions of heathenism—which raises the inquisitors above every other power, and debases man to a perpetual bondage, and by its snares exposes the honest citizen to a constant fear of death, inasmuch as anyone—priest, it may be, or a faithless friend, a Spaniard or a reprobate—has it in his power at any moment to cause whom he will to be dragged before that tribunal, and to be placed in confinement, condemned and executed, without the accused ever being allowed to face his accuser or to adduce proof of his innocence—we, therefore, the undersigned, have bound ourselves to watch over the safety of our families, our estates, and our own persons. To this we hereby pledge ourselves, and to this end bind ourselves as a sacred fraternity, and vow with a solemn oath to oppose to the best of our power the introduction of this tribunal into these countries, whether it be attempted openly or secretly, and under whatever name it may be disguised. We at the same time declare that we are far from intending anything unlawful against the King our sovereign; rather is it our unalterable purpose to support and defend the royal prerogative, and to maintain peace, and, as far as lies in our power to put down all rebellion. In accordance with this purpose we have sworn, and now again swear, to hold sacred the Government, and to respect both in word and deed, which witness almighty God!

"Further, we vow and swear to protect and defend one another, in all times and places, against all attacks whatsoever touching the articles which are set forth in this covenant. We hereby bind ourselves that no accusation of any of our followers, in whatever name it may be clothed, whether rebellion, sedition, or other wise, shall avail to annul our oath toward the accused or absolve us from our obligation toward him. No act which is directed against the Inquisition can deserve the name of a rebellion. Whoever, therefore, shall be placed in arrest on any charge, we here pledge ourselves to assist him to the utmost of our ability, and to endeavor by every allowable means to effect his liberation. In this, however, as in all matters, but especially in the conduct of all measures against the tribunal of the Inquisition, we submit ourselves to the general regulations of the league, or to the decision of those whom we may unanimously appoint our counsellors and leaders.

"In witness hereof, and in confirmation of this our common league and covenant, we call upon the holy name of the living God, maker of heaven and earth and of all that are therein, who searches the hearts, the consciences, and the thoughts, and knows the purity of ours. We implore the aid of his holy spirit, that success and honor may crown our undertaking to the glory of his name and to the peace and blessing of our country!"

This covenant was immediately translated into several languages and quickly disseminated through the provinces. To swell the league as speedily as possible, each of the confederates assembled all his friends, relations, adherents, and retainers. Great banquets were held, which lasted whole days—irresistible temptations for a sensual luxurious people, in whom the deepest wretchedness could not stifle the propensity for voluptuous living. Whoever repaired to these banquets—and everyone was welcome—was plied with officious assurances of friendship, and, when heated with wine, carried away by the example of numbers and overcome by the fire of a wild eloquence. The hands of many were guided while they subscribed their signatures; the hesitating were derided, the pusillanimous threatened, the scruples of loyalty clamored down; some even were quite ignorant what they were signing, and were ashamed afterward to inquire. To many whom mere levity had brought to the entertainment, the general enthusiasm left no choice, while the splendor of the confederacy allured the mean, and its numbers encouraged the timorous.

The abettors of the league had not scrupled at the artifice of counterfeiting the signature and seals of the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont, Horn, Megen, and others, a trick which won them hundreds of adherents. This was done especially with a view of influencing the officers of the army, in order to be safe in this quarter if matters should come at last to violence. The device succeeded with many, especially with subalterns, and Count Brederode even drew his sword upon an ensign who wished time for consideration. Men of all classes and conditions signed it. Religion made no difference. Roman Catholic priests even were associates of the league. The motives were not the same with all, but the pretext was similar. The Roman Catholics desired simply the abolition of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the edicts; the Protestants aimed at unlimited freedom of conscience.

A few daring spirits only entertained so bold a project as the overthrow of the present Government, while the needy and indigent based the vilest hopes on a general anarchy. A farewell entertainment, which about this very time was given to the Counts Schwarzenberg and Holle in Breda, and another shortly afterward in Hogstraten, drew many of the principal nobility to these two places, and of these several had already signed the covenant. The Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont, Horn, and Megen were present at the latter banquet, but without any concert of design, and without having themselves any share in the league, although one of Egmont's own secretaries and some of the servants of the other three noblemen had openly joined it. At this entertainment three hundred persons gave in their adhesion to the covenant, and the question was mooted whether the whole body should present themselves before the Regent armed or unarmed, with a declaration or with a petition? Horn and Orange—Egmont would not countenance the business in any way—were called in as arbiters upon this point, and they decided in favor of the more moderate and submissive procedure. By taking this office upon them, they exposed themselves to the charge of having in no very covert manner lent their sanction to the enterprise of the confederates. In compliance, therefore, with their advice it was determined to present their address unarmed and in the form of a petition, and a day was appointed on which they should assemble in Brussels.

The first intimation the Regent received of this conspiracy of the nobles was given by the Count of Megen soon after his return to the capital. "There was," he said, "an enterprise on foot; no less than three hundred of the nobles were implicated in it; it referred to religion; the members of it had bound themselves together by an oath; they reckoned much on foreign aid; she would soon know more about it." Though urgently pressed, he would give her no further information. "A nobleman," he said, "had confided it to him under the seal of secrecy, and he had pledged his word of honor to him." What really withheld him from giving her any further explanation was, in all probability, not so much any delicacy about his honor, as his hatred of the Inquisition, which he would not willingly do anything to advance. Soon after him, Count Egmont delivered to the Regent a copy of the covenant, and also gave her the names of the conspirators, with some few exceptions. Nearly at the same time the Prince of Orange wrote to her: "There was, as he had heard, an army enlisted, four hundred officers were already named, and twenty thousand men would presently appear in arms." Thus the rumor was intentionally exaggerated, and the danger was multiplied in every mouth.

The Regent petrified with alarm at the first announcement of these tidings, and guided solely by her fears, hastily called together all the members of the council of state who happened to be then in Brussels, and at the same time sent a pressing summons to the Prince of Orange and Count Horn, inviting them to resume their seats in the senate.

The members of the senate had not yet dispersed, when all Brussels resounded with the report that the confederates were approaching the town. They consisted of no more than two hundred horse, but rumor greatly exaggerated their numbers. Filled with consternation, the Regent consulted with her ministers whether it was best to close the gates on the approaching party or to seek safety in flight. Both suggestions were rejected as dishonorable; and the peaceable entry of the nobles soon allayed all fears of violence. The first morning after their arrival they assembled at Kuilemburg house, where Brederode administered to them a second oath, binding them, before all other duties, to stand by one another, and even with arms if necessary. At this meeting a letter from Spain was produced, in which it was stated that a certain Protestant, whom they all knew and valued, had been burned alive in that country by a slow fire. After these and similar preliminaries he called on them one after another, by name, to take the new oath, and renew the old one in their own names and in those of the absent. The next day, April 5, 1566, was fixed for the presentation of the petition. Their numbers now amounted to between three hundred and four hundred. Among them were many retainers of the high nobility, as also several servants of the King himself and of the Duchess.

With the Counts of Nassau and Brederode at their head, and formed in ranks of four by four, they advanced in procession to the palace; all Brussels attended the unwonted spectacle in silent astonishment. Here were to be seen a body of men, advancing with too much boldness and confidence to look like supplicants, and led by two men who were not wont to be petitioners and, on the other hand, with so much order and stillness as do not usually accompany rebellion. The Regent received the procession, surrounded by all her counsellors and the Knights of the Fleece. "These noble Netherlanders," thus Brederode respectfully addressed her, "who here present themselves before your highness, wish in their own name, and of many others besides, who are shortly to arrive, to present to you a petition, of whose importance, as well as of their own humility, this solemn procession must convince you. I, as speaker of this body, entreat you to receive our petition, which contains nothing but what is in unison with the laws of our country and the honor of the King."

"Never"—so ran the petition, which, according to some, was drawn up by the celebrated Balduin—"never had they failed in their loyalty to their King, and nothing now could be further from their hearts; but they would rather run the risk of incurring the displeasure of their sovereign than allow him to remain longer in ignorance of the evils with which their native country was menaced, by the forcible introduction of the Inquisition, and the continued enforcement of the edicts. They had long remained consoling themselves with the expectation that a general assembly of the states would be summoned to remedy these grievances; but now that even this hope was extinguished, they held it to be their duty to give timely warning to the Regent. They, therefore, entreated her highness to send to Madrid an envoy, well disposed, and fully acquainted with the state and temper of the times, who should endeavor to persuade the King to comply with the demands of the whole nation, and abolish the Inquisition, to revoke the edicts, and in their stead cause new and more humane ones to be drawn up at a general assembly of the states. But, in the mean while, until they could learn the King's decision, they prayed that the edicts and the operations of the Inquisition be suspended." "If," they concluded, "no attention should be paid to their humble request, they took God, the King, the Regent and all her counsellors to witness that they had done their part, and were not responsible for any unfortunate result that might happen."

The following day the confederates, marching in the same order of procession, but in still greater numbers—Counts Bergen and Kuilemberg having in the interim joined them with their adherents—appeared before the Regent in order to receive her answer. It was written on the margin of the petition, and was to the effect "that entirely to suspend the Inquisition and the edicts, even temporarily, was beyond her powers; but in compliance with the wishes of the confederates, she was ready to despatch one of the nobles to the King, in Spain, and also to support their petition with all her influence. In the mean time she would recommend the inquisitors to administer their office with moderation; but in return, she should expect, on the part of the league, that they should abstain from all acts of violence, and undertake nothing to the prejudice of the Catholic faith." Little as these vague and general promises satisfied the confederates, they were, nevertheless, as much as they could have reasonably expected to gain at first.

The granting or refusing of the petition had nothing to do with the primary object of the league. Enough for them at present that it was once recognized; enough that it was now, as it were, an established body, which by its power and threats might, if necessary, overawe the Government. The confederates, therefore, acted quite consistently with their designs, in contenting themselves with this answer, and referring the rest to the good pleasure of the King. As, indeed, the whole pantomime of petitioning had only been invented to cover the more daring plan of the league, until it should have strength enough to show itself in its true light; they felt that much more depended on their being able to continue this mask, and on the favorable reception of their petition, than on its speedily being granted. In a new memorial, which they delivered three days after, they pressed for an express testimonial from the Regent, that they had done no more than their duty, and been guided simply by their zeal for the service of the King. When the Duchess evaded a declaration, they even sent a person to repeat this request in a private interview. "Time alone and their future behavior," she replied to this person, "would enable her to judge of their designs."

The league had its origin in banquets, and a banquet gave it form and perfection. On the very day that the second petition was presented, Brederode entertained the confederates in Kuilemberg house. About three hundred guests assembled; intoxication gave them courage, and their audacity rose with their numbers. During the conversation one of their number happened to remark that he had overheard the Count of Barlaimont whisper in French to the Regent, who was seen to turn pale on the delivery of the petitions, that "she need not be afraid of a band of beggars (gueux);" in fact, the majority of them had by their bad management of their incomes only too well deserved this appellation. Now, as the very name of their fraternity was the very thing which had most perplexed them, an expression was eagerly caught up, which, while it cloaked the presumption of their enterprise in humility, was at the same time appropriate to them as petitioners. Immediately they drank to one another under this name, and the cry "Long live the Gueux!" was accompanied with a general shout of applause. After the cloth had been removed, Brederode appeared with a wallet over his shoulder, similar to that which the vagrant pilgrims and mendicant monks of the time used to carry; and after returning thanks to all for their accession to the league, and boldly assuring them that he was ready to venture life and limb for every individual present, he drank to the health of the whole company out of a wooden beaker. The cup went round, and everyone uttered the same vow as he set it to his lips. Then one after the other they received the beggar's purse, and each hung it on a nail which he had appropriated to himself. The shouts and uproar attending this buffoonery attracted the Prince of Orange and Counts Egmont and Horn, who, by chance, were passing the spot at the very moment, and on entering the house were boisterously pressed by Brederode, as host, to remain and drink a glass with them.[3]

The entrance of three such influential personages renewed the mirth of the guests, and their festivities soon passed the bounds of moderation. Many were intoxicated; guests and attendants mingled together without distinction, the serious and the ludicrous; drunken fancies and affairs of state were blended one with another in a burlesque medley; and the discussions on the general distress of the country ended in the wild uproar of a bacchanalian revel. But it did not stop here; what they had resolved on in the moment of intoxication, they attempted when sober to carry into execution. It was necessary to manifest to the people in some striking shape the existence of their protectors, and likewise to fan the zeal of the faction by a visible emblem; for this end nothing could be better than to adopt publicly this name of Gueux, and to borrow from it the tokens of the association. In a few days the town of Brussels swarmed with ash-gray garments, such as were usually worn by mendicant friars and penitents. Every confederate put his whole family and domestics in this dress. Some carried wooden bowls thinly overlaid with plates of silver, cups of the same kind, and wooden knives; in short, the whole paraphernalia of the beggar tribe, which they either fixed around their hats or suspended from their girdles. Round the neck they wore a golden or silver coin, afterward called the "Guesen penny," of which one side bore the effigy of the King, with the inscription "True to the King"; on the other side were seen two hands folded together, holding a wallet, with the words "as far as the beggar's scrip." Hence the origin of the name "Gueux," which was subsequently borne in the Netherlands by all who seceded from popery and took up arms against the King.

A name decides the whole issue of things. In Madrid that was called rebellion which in Brussels was styled only a lawful remonstrance. The complaints of Brabant required a prudent mediator; Philip II sent an executioner, and the signal for war was given. An unparalleled tyranny assailed both property and life.

The despairing citizens, to whom the choice of death was all that was left, chose the nobler one on the battle-field. A wealthy and luxurious nation loves peace, but becomes warlike as soon as it becomes poor. Then it ceases to tremble for a life which is deprived of everything that had made it desirable. In a moment the rage of rebellion seizes the most distant provinces; trade and commerce are at a standstill, the ships disappear from the harbors, the artisan abandons his workshop, the rustic his uncultivated fields. Thousands fled to distant lands; a thousand victims fell on the bloody field, and fresh thousands pressed on; for divine, indeed, must that doctrine be for which men could die so joyfully. All that was wanting was the last achieving hand, the enlightened enterprising spirit, to seize on this great political crisis and to mature the offspring of chance to the designs of wisdom. William the Silent devoted himself, a second Brutus, to the great cause of liberty. Superior to a timorous selfishness, he sent in to the throne his resignation of offices which devolved on him objectionable duties, and, magnanimously divesting himself of all his princely dignities, he descended to a state of voluntary poverty, and became but a citizen of the world. The cause of justice was staked upon the hazardous game of battle; but the sudden levies of mercenaries and peaceful husbandmen could not withstand the terrible onset of an experienced force. Twice did the brave William lead his dispirited troops against the tyrant, twice was he abandoned by them, but not by his courage.

Philip II sent as many reënforcements as the dreadful importunity of his viceroy begged for. Fugitives whom their fatherland rejected sought a new country on the ocean, and turned to satisfy, on the ships of their enemy, the demon of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were now formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected out of piratical vessels; and out of morasses arose a republic. Seven provinces threw off the yoke at the same time, to form a new, youthful state, powerful by its waters and its union and despair. A solemn decree of the whole nation deposed the tyrant, and the Spanish name disappeared from all the laws.

For what had now been done no forgiveness remained; the republic became formidable, because it was no longer possible for her to retrace her steps; factions distracted her within; her terrible element, the sea itself, leaguing with her oppressors, threatened her very infancy with a premature grave. She felt herself succumb to the superior force of the enemy, and cast herself a suppliant before the most powerful thrones of Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no longer protect. At last, but with difficulty—so despised at first was this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her opening bloom—a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in this new father of his country, destiny gave her a traitor; and in the critical emergency, when the implacable foe was in full force before her very gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called to protect. The assassin's hand, too, tore the steersman from the rudder, and with William of Orange the career, seemingly, of the infant republic and all her guardian angels fled; but the ship continued to scud along in the storm, and the swelling canvas carried her safe without the steersman's help.

Philip II missed the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor and perhaps also his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with despotism in the obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of glory; and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals for the coming century. A long, devastating war laid waste the open country; victor and vanquished alike were bathed in blood; while the rising republic of the waters gave a welcome to fugitive industry, and out of the ruins erected the noble edifice of its own greatness. For forty years a war lasted, whose happy termination was not to bless the dying eye of Philip; which destroyed one paradise in Europe, to create a new one out of its shattered fragments; which destroyed the choicest flower of military youth; and while it enriched more than a quarter of the globe, impoverished the possessor of the golden Peru. This monarch, who, even without oppressing his subjects, could expend nine hundred tons of gold, but who by tyrannical means extorted far more, heaped on his depopulated kingdom a debt of one hundred and forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up all these treasures and consumed in fruitless labor his royal life. But the Reformation throve amid the devastation of his sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the new republic floated victorious.

LEPANTO: DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH NAVAL POWER

A.D. 1571

SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL

The Gulf of Lepanto is a long inlet of irregular shape, extending east and west, and bounded on the north by the shores of Albania, the ancient Epirus, and on the south by the coast of Morea, and closed at its eastern end by the Isthmus of Corinth. The bold headland on the north side, guarded by the castle of Roumelia, and the lower promontory on the south with the castle of the Morea, advancing from the opposite shores into its waters, divide the long inlet into two unequal parts. The first of these parts consists of the mouth of the gulf and the lake-like basin, together forming the Gulf of Patras. The second is the long reach of waters within the castled headlands called the Gulf (anciently) of Corinth, and now of Epakte or Lepanto. When the hostile fleets came in sight of each other, that of the League was entering the gulf near its northern shore, while that of the Turk was about fifteen miles within its jaws, his vast crescent-shaped line stretching almost from the broad swampy shallows which lie beneath the Acarnanian mountains to the margin of the rich lowlands of the Morea.

As the two armaments now advanced, each in full view of the other, the sea was somewhat high, and the wind, blowing freshly from the east, was in the teeth of the Christians. But in the course of the morning the waves of the gulf fell to a glassy smoothness, and the breeze shifted to the west, a change fortunate for the sailors of the League, which their spiritual teachers did not fail to declare a special interposition of God in behalf of the fleet which carried the flag of his vicar upon earth.

At the sound of the signal gun each captain began to prepare his ship for action. By order of Don John of Austria the sharp peaks of the galleys, the spurs (espolones) as they were called, had been cut off, it being thought expedient to sacrifice those weapons of offence, which were somewhat uncertain in their operation, to insure the more effectual working of the guns on the forecastle and gangway; and the bulwarks had been strengthened, and heightened by means of boarding-nettings. In some vessels the rowers' benches were removed or planked over, to give more space and scope to the soldiers. Throughout the fleet the Christian slaves had their fetters knocked off and were furnished with arms, which they were encouraged to use valiantly by promises of freedom and rewards. Of the Moslem slaves, on the contrary, the chains which secured them to their places were carefully examined, and their rivets secured; and they were, besides, fitted with handcuffs, to disable them from using their hands for any purpose but tugging on the oar. The arquebusier, the musketeer, and the bombardier looked carefully to the state of their weapons, ammunition, and equipments; the sailor sharpened his pike and cutlass; the officer put on his strongest casque and his best-wrought cuirass; the stewards placed supplies of bread and wine in convenient places, ready to the hands of the combatants; and the surgeons prepared their instruments and bandages, and spread tables in dark and shaded nooks, for the use of the wounded.

While these preparations occupied their subordinate officers, the chiefs of the armament repaired to the flag-ship to learn the final resolution and receive the last instructions of Don John of Austria. Some of these went for the purpose of combating that resolution and objecting to those instructions; for that eagerness to fight, which pervaded the soldiers and sailors, was not unanimously shared by their leaders. Veniero, although he had been hitherto very desirous of meeting the enemy, was now anxious and dispirited. Doria and Ascanio de la Corgnia reminded their young commander that the Turk, who was evidently bent upon fighting, had a convenient harbor and arsenal behind him at Lepanto; while for the fleet of the League, far from accessible ports, a disaster implied total destruction. Some of their colleagues ventured to advise Don John to retire while it was still in his power to do so. He refused to discuss a question which had been decided at Corfu. "Gentlemen," he said, "the time for counsel is past, and the time for fighting has come," and with these words dismissed them to their ships.

While the galleys were taking up their positions, Don John of Austria, in complete armor and attended by Don Luis de Cordoba and his secretary Juan de Soto, transferred himself to a frigate remarkable for speed and armed with a single German gun, and ran along the line to the right of the flag-ship, embracing the whole extent of the right wing. As he neared each galley he addressed a few words of encouragement to the officers and men. He reminded the Venetians of the cruel outrages which the Republic had lately received from the Turk in the Adriatic, Corfu, and especially in Cyprus; and that now was the time to take signal vengeance; and he therefore bid them use their weapons as these recollections and the great opportunity required. To the Spaniards he said: "My children, we are here to conquer or to die as Heaven may determine. Do not let our impious foe ask us, 'Where is your God?' Fight in his holy name, and in death or victory you will win immortality." His words were eminently successful. They were in all cases received with enthusiastic applause. The soldiers and sailors were delighted and inspired by the gallant bearing and language of their young leader. As he left them, shipmates who had quarrelled as only shipmates can, and who had not spoken for weeks, embraced, and swore to conquer or to die in the sacred cause of Christ.

As the two fleets approached—the Christians wafted gently onward by a light breeze, the Ottomans plying their oars to the utmost—the Turkish commander, who like Don John sailed in the centre of his line, fired a gun. Don John acknowledged the challenge and returned the salute. A second shot elicited a second reply. The two armaments had approached near enough to enable each to distinguish the individual vessels of the other and to scan their various banners and insignia. The Turks advanced to battle shouting and screaming and making a great uproar with ineffectual musketry. The Christians preserved complete silence. At a certain signal a crucifix was raised aloft in every ship in the fleet. Don John of Austria, sheathed in complete armor, and standing in a conspicuous place on the prow of his ship, now knelt down to adore the sacred emblem, and to implore the blessing of God on the great enterprise which he was about to commence. Every man in the fleet followed his example and fell upon his knees. The soldier, poising his firelock, knelt at his post by the bulwarks, the gunner knelt with his lighted match beside his gun. The decks gleamed with prostrate men in mail. In each galley, erect and conspicuous among the martial throng, stood a Franciscan or a Dominican friar, a Theatine or a Jesuit, in his brown or black robe, holding a crucifix in one hand and sprinkling holy water with the other, while he pronounced a general absolution, and promised indulgence in this life, or pardon in the next, to the steadfast warriors who should quit them like men and fight the good fight of faith against infidel.

In the night between October 6th and 7th, 1571, about the same hour that the Christian fleet weighed anchor at Cephalonia, the Turks had left their moorings in the harbor of Lepanto. While Don John, baffled by the winds and waves, was beating off the Curzolarian Isles, the Pacha was sailing down the gulf before a fair breeze. Every Turk on board the Sultan's fleet believed that he was about to assist in conveying the armament of the Christian powers to the Golden Horn, in obedience to the commands of the Padishah. The soldiers and sailors, lately recruited by large reënforcements, were many of them fresh from quarters on shore. Officers and men were in the highest spirits, eager for the battle which they knew to be at hand, and in which they supposed their success to be certain. For although Ali was well informed as to the position and movements of the fleet of the League, he was no less mistaken as to the strength of the Christians than the Christians were as to his own. He had been more successful in pouring fictions into the ear of Don John than in obtaining accurate intelligence for himself.

The Greek fishermen, in reporting to each leader the condition of his enemy, had, as we have seen, taken care to please and deceive both. Karacosh had indeed been present at the review of Gomenzia, but he had erred considerably in his reckoning of the numbers of the Christian fleet. Either by accident or design, he computed the vessels at fifty less than the real number, and he, besides, greatly underrated the weight of the artillery. Ali was still further deceived by the reports of three Spanish soldiers, captured on the shore near Gomenzia, where they had strayed too far from their boat. These prisoners assured the Pacha that the Christian fleet had not as yet been joined either by the great ships or the galeases, and that forty galleys, sent under Santa Cruz to Otranto for troops, and two galleys with which Andrade had gone on a cruise of observation, had not yet returned. This story confirmed the accounts both of Karacosh and the Greek fishermen. The Pacha was naturally no less anxious to meet Don John with Santa Cruz than Don John had been to meet the Pacha without the Viceroy of Algiers. It was no wonder, then, that the chiefs of the Turkish fleet led their galleys down the gulf in the ardent hope of speedily meeting with an enemy in whom they made certain of finding a rich and easy prey. The three hundred sail of the Sultan moved, as already described, in the form of an immense crescent, stretching nearly from shore to shore.

When the Christian armament first came in sight, nothing was seen of it but the small vanguard of Cardona's Sicilian galleys, and a portion of the right wing under Doria. The rest was hidden by the rocky headlands at the north of the gulf. For a while this circumstance buoyed up the Turks in their belief that the force of the enemy was greatly inferior to their own. As, however, the long lines of the centre under Don John of Austria, and of the left wing under Barbarigo, came galley after galley into view, they began to discover their mistake. The men posted aloft were eagerly questioned by the officers as to the result of their observations, and their answers, always announcing accessions of strength to the Christians, led to misgivings, and to vehement denunciations against Karacosh for the inaccuracy of his report from Gomenzia. When Ali perceived that the Christians had adopted a long straight line of battle, he also caused his fleet to take the same order, drawing in the horns and advancing the centre of his crescent. As the fleets came nearer to each other, the leaders of the League were encouraged by observing that the enemy's rear was not covered by anything that could be called a reserve, but only by a number of small craft. Ali, on the contrary, was surprised to see the galeases which had been pushed forward by the Christians. He inquired what these mahones were, and was told that they were not mahones, but galeases; the very vessels, in fact, which he had been led to believe had been separated from the enemy, and whose formidable artillery he did not expect to encounter. He also observed with concern the large number of the galleys which were Spanish, or western (ponenirinas, as they were called in the Levant), and of a stronger build than those which were constructed at Venice by the Orientals. He now saw that the victory was not to be so easy as he had anticipated, and that he must neglect no means that might avert defeat. A kind-hearted as well as a brave man, he had always been remarkable for the humanity with which he had cared for the unhappy Christian slaves who rowed his galley. He now walked forward to their benches and said to them in Spanish: "Friends, I expect you to-day to do your duty by me, in return for what I have done for you. If I win the battle, I promise you your liberty; if the day is yours, God has given it to you."

When the fleets neared each other, and the Christians were all prostrate before their crucifixes and friars, and no sound was heard on their decks but the voices of the holy fathers, the Turks were indulging in every kind of noise which nature or art had furnished them with the means of producing. Shouting and screaming, they bade the Christians come on "like drowned hens" and be slaughtered; then they danced and stamped and clanged their arms; they blew trumpets, clashed cymbals, and fired volleys of useless musketry. When the Christians had ended their devotions and stood to their guns, or in their ordered ranks, each galley, in the long array, seemed on fire, as the noon-tide sun blazed on helmet and corselet, and pointed blades and pikes with flame. The bugles now sounded a charge, and the bands of each vessel began to play. Before Don John retired from the forecastle to his proper place on the quarter-deck, it is said by one of the officers, who had written an account of the battle, that he and two of his gentlemen, "inspired with youthful ardor, danced a galliard on the gun platform to the music of the fifes." The Turkish line, to the glitter of arms, added yet more splendor of color from the brilliant and variegated garb of the janizaries, their tall and fanciful crests and prodigious plumes, and from the multitude of flags and streamers which every galley displayed from every available point and peak. Long before the enemy were within range the Turkish cannon opened. The first shot that took effect carried off the point of the pennant of Don Juan de Cardona, who in his swiftest vessel was hovering along the line, correcting trifling defects of position and order, like a sergeant drilling recruits. About noon a flash was seen to proceed from one of the galeases of the Christian fleet. The shot was aimed at the flag-ship of the Pacha, conspicuous in the centre of the line, and carrying the sacred green standard of the Prophet. Passing through the rigging of the vessel, the ball carried off a portion of the highest of the three splendid lanterns which hung on the lofty stern as symbols of command. The Pacha, from his quarter-deck, looked up on hearing the crash, and perceiving the ominous mischief, said, "God grant we may be able to give a good answer to this question." The next shot split off a great piece of the poop of an adjacent galley. Of the six galeases four were soon pouring a murderous fire into the Turkish centre and right wing; the remaining two, which were intended to gall the left wing, having been rendered of little use, then and during the battle, by dexterous southerly movements of Aluch Ali. The balls from the galeases appeared to stop the vessels which they struck, and which seemed to have been met as by a wall. Two of them were speedily sunk by the terrible fire. Perceiving the great superiority of the galeases in weight of metal, Ali ordered his galleys not to attempt to attack them, but, avoiding them as well as they could, to push on against the galleys of the Christians. Obedience to this order, however necessary, produced great confusion in the Turkish line.

The Pacha of Alexandria, who led the right wing, endeavored both to elude the galeases and circumvent his antagonists, the Venetians on the Christian left, by passing between them and the shore. Barbarigo observed the movement, and prepared to oppose by adopting it; but his pilots, inferior to those of Sirocco in local knowledge, dreading the shoals and shallows, did not stand toward the coast with sufficient boldness. The Pacha therefore effected his purpose with a few of his vessels and Barbarigo found himself placed between two fires; his own galley at one time being engaged by no less than eight Turkish vessels. As they approached the Christians, the Turks assailed them not only with cannon and musketry, but also with showers of arrows, many of which, from the wounds inflicted by them, were supposed to have been poisoned. As Barbarigo stood giving orders on his quarter-deck, he became a conspicuous mark; and the hail of arrows fell so thick around him that the great lantern which adorned the galley's stern was afterward found to be studded with their shafts. At length one of these ancient missiles pierced the left eye of the gallant commander and compelled his immediate removal below. The wound, in three days, proved mortal. His nephew, Marco Contarini, rushing to his assistance, was also slain. These untoward events for a moment paralyzed the efforts of the Venetians. The galley became the centre of so severe a fire that its defenders were more than once swept away, and it was in great danger of being taken. Frederigo Nano, however, who, by Barbarigo's desire, had assumed the command, succeeded in rallying his men, and not only beat off Sirocco, but made a prize of one of his best galleys and its commander, the corsair Kara Ali. The combat between the Turks and the Venetians seemed inspired by the intensest personal hatred; the Turks thirsting for fresh conquests, the Venetians for vengeance. That they might the more effectually use their weapons, many of the soldiers of St. Mark uncovered their faces and laid aside their shields. No quarter was given, and the slaughter was very great on both sides. One of the Sultan's galleys near the shore being very hard pressed, the Turks jumped overboard and escaped to land. Some of the Venetians followed and slew them as they ran to the cover of some rocks. One of these pursuers, being armed only with a stick, contrived with that simple weapon to pin his victim through the mouth to the ground, to the great admiration of his comrades.

As the centre divisions of the two fleets closed with each other the wisdom of Don John in retrenching the fore-peaks of his vessels became abundantly apparent. The Turks had neglected to take this precaution; the efficiency of their forecastle guns was therefore greatly impaired. Their prows were also much higher than the prows of their antagonists. While their shot passed harmlessly over the enemy, his balls struck their galleys close to water-mark with fatal precision. The fire of the Christians was the more murderous because many of the Turkish vessels were crowded with soldiers both on the deck and below.

Ali and Don John had each directed his helmsman to steer for the flag-ship of the enemy. The two galleys soon met, striking each other with great force. The left prow of the Pacha towered high above the lower forecastle of Don John, and his galley's peak was thrust through the rigging of the other vessel until its point was over the fourth rowing-bench. Thus linked together the two flag-ships became a battle-field which was strongly contested for about two hours. The Pacha had on board four hundred picked janizaries—three hundred armed with the arquebus and one hundred with the bow. Two galliots and ten galleys, all filled with janizaries, lay close astern, the galliots being connected with the Pacha's vessels by ladders, up which reënforcements immediately came when wanted. The galley of Pertau Pacha fought alongside. Don John's consisted of three hundred arquebusiers; but his forecastle artillery was, for reasons above mentioned, more efficient, while his bulwarks, like those of other Christian vessels, were protected from boarders by nettings and other devices with which the Turks had not provided themselves. Requesens, wary and watchful, lay astern with two galleys, from which he led fresh troops into the flag-ship from time to time. Alongside, Vaniero and Colonna were each hotly engaged with an antagonist. The combat between the two chiefs was on the whole not unequal, and it was fought with great gallantry on both sides. From the Turkish forecastle the arquebusiers at first severely galled the Christians. Don Lope de Figueroa, who commanded on the prow of the flag-ship, lost so many of his men that he was compelled to ask for assistance. Don Bernardino de Cardenas, who led a party to his aid, was struck on the chest by a spent ball from an esmeril, and in falling backward received injuries from which he soon expired. Considerable execution was also done by the Turkish arrows, with which portions of the masts and spars bristled. Several of these missiles came from the bow of the Pacha himself, who was probably the last commander-in-chief who ever drew a bowstring in European battle. But on the whole the fire of the Christians was greatly superior to that of the Turks. Twice the deck of Ali was swept clear of defenders, and twice the Spaniards rushed on board and advanced as far as the mainmast. At that point they were on each occasion driven back by the janizaries, who, though led by Ali in person, do not appear to have made good a footing on the deck of Don John. A third attempt was more successful. Not only did the Spaniards pass the mast, but they approached the poop and assailed it with a vigorous fire. The Pacha led on his janizaries to meet them, but it seems with small hope of making a successful resistance, for at the same moment he threw into the sea a small box which was supposed to contain his most precious jewels. A ball from an arquebuse soon afterward struck him in the forehead. He fell forward upon the gangway (crucija). A soldier from Malaga, seizing the body, cut off the head and carried it to Don John, who was already on board the Turkish vessel, leading a fresh body of men to the support of their comrades. The trophy was then raised on the point of a lance, to be seen by friend and foe. The Turks paused for a moment panic-stricken; the Christians shouted victory, and, hauling down the Turkish standard, hoisted a flag with a cross in its place. Don John ordered his trumpets to sound, and the good news was soon proclaimed in the adjacent galleys of the League. The Turks defended their flag-ship but feebly after the death of their Pacha. The vessel, which was the first taken, was in the hands of the Spaniards about two o'clock in the afternoon—about an hour and a half after the two leaders had engaged each other. A brigantine which had been employed in bringing up fresh troops, surrendered almost at the same time. The neighboring galleys of the Sultan had themselves been by this time too severely handled to render much assistance. Only one serious attempt was made to recover the ship of Ali or to avenge its loss. Several galleys from other parts of the line bore down at once upon Don John. The movement was perceived by Santa Cruz, whose vessels of reserve were still untouched. Dashing into the advancing squadron, he had the good-fortune to sink one galley by the force of his fire; and he immediately boarded another and put all the janizaries to the sword. Don John himself dealt with the remaining assailants.

Vaniero and Colonna fought with great gallantry and success, and each vanquished the Turk who had engaged him. The brave old Admiral of Venice fairly earned the Doge's cap, which soon after crowned his hoary brow. He was often in the thickest of the fire; and when, in the absence of many of his men, who had boarded the Turkish flag-ship, his own was also boarded, he repulsed the assailants in person, and, fighting with all the vigor of youth, received a wound in the foot on the deck of the galley of Pertau Pacha, whither he had pursued his advantage. A second Turkish galley, advancing to attack Vaniero, was run into about midships and sunk by Giovanni Contarini. Giovanni de Loredano and Caterino Malipieri were less happy in the enemies whom they encountered, and perished in their sunken vessels. From the flag-ship of Genoa the young Prince of Parma, followed by a single Spanish soldier named Alonso Davalos, leaped into a Turkish galley, fought their way through its defenders without a wound, and might also boast of having, unaided, caused it to strike its flag. Two other Turks afterward surrendered to the Genoese flag-ship, the captain of which, Ettore Spinola, lost his life by an arrow. In the flag-ship of Savoy, under a captain named Leni, of remarkable courage, who was also severely wounded, the Prince of Urbino likewise greatly distinguished himself. The gallant Karacosh was compelled to surrender to Juan Bautista Cortez, a captain of the King of Spain, although his galley was defended by one hundred fifty picked janizaries and was one of the best built and equipped vessels in the fleet. The Eleugina of the Pope had the credit of taking the guard-ship of Rhodes; and the Toscana, also a papal galley, in making a prize of the vessel of the Turkish paymaster recovered to the pontifical squadron the flag-ship of the contingent of Pius IV in the unfortunate battle of Gerbi. The crowning achievement of the central division was performed by the Grand Commander, who attacked and captured after an obstinate and bloody contest, a fine galley, in which were the sons of the deceased Ali Pacha. These lads—Mahomet Bey, aged seventeen years, and Said Bey, aged thirteen—had been brought to sea by their father for the first time. Their capture was of importance, because the mother of one of them was a sister of Sultan Selim.

Juan de Cardona, who sailed on the left of the right wing, finding no enemy opposed to him, brought his vessel round to the rear of the Turkish centre, and attacked Pertau Pacha, with whom Paolo Giordano Orsini was engaged in a somewhat unequal conflict. After a stout resistance the Christians entered the Turkish galley, out of which the Pacha, though wounded, succeeded in escaping in a boat.

The right wing of the Christians and the Turkish left wing did not engage each other until some time after the other divisions were in deadly conflict. Doria and Aluch Ali were, each of them, bent on outmanœuvring the other. The Algerine did not succeed, like Sirocco, in insinuating himself between his adversary and the shore. But the seamen whose skill and daring were the admiration of the Mediterranean were not easily baffled. Finding himself foiled in his first attempt, he slackened his course, and, threatening sometimes one vessel and sometimes another, drew the Genoese eastward, until the inferior speed of some of the galleys had caused an opening at the northern end of the Christian line. Upon this opening the crafty corsair immediately bore down with all the speed of his oars, and passed through it with most of his galleys. This evolution placed him in the rear of the whole Christian line of battle. On the extreme right of the centre division sailed Prior Giustiniani, the commodore of the small Maltese squadron. This officer had hitherto fought with no less success than skill, and had already captured four Turkish galleys. The Viceroy of Algiers had, the year before, captured three galleys of Malta, and was fond of boasting of being the peculiar scourge and terror of the Order of St. John. The well-known white cross banner, rising over the smoke of battle, soon attracted his eye and was marked for his prey. Wheeling round like a hawk, he bore down from behind upon the unhappy prior. The three war-worn vessels of St. John were no match for seven stout Algerines which had not yet fired a shot. The knights and their men defended themselves with a valor worthy of their heroic order. A youth named Bernardino de Heredia, son of the Count of Fuentes, signally distinguished himself; and a Saragossan knight, Geronimo Ramirez, although riddled with arrows like another St. Sebastian, fought with such desperation that none of the Algerine boarders cared to approach him until they saw that he was dead. A knight of Burgundy leaped alone into one of the enemy's galleys, killed four Turks, and defended himself until overpowered by numbers. On board the prior's vessel, when he was taken, he himself, pierced with five arrow wounds, was the sole survivor, except two knights, a Spaniard and a Sicilian, who, being senseless from their wounds, were considered as dead. Having secured the banner of St. John, Aluch Ali took the prior's ship in tow, and was making the best of his way out of a battle which his skilful eye soon discovered to be irretrievably lost. He had not, however, sailed far when he was in turn descried by the Marquess of Santa Cruz, who, with his squadron of reserve, was moving about redressing the wrongs of Christian fortune. Aluch Ali had no mind for the fate of Giustiniani, and resolved to content himself with the banner of Malta. Cutting his prize adrift, he plied his oars and escaped, leaving the prior grievously wounded to the care of his friends, and once more master, not only of his ship, but of three hundred dead enemies who cumbered the deck, a few living Algerine mariners who were to navigate the vessel, and some Turkish soldiers, from whom he had just purchased his life. This struggle cost the order, in killed alone, upward of thirty knights, among whom was the Grand Bailiff of Germany, commander-in-chief of its land forces. A few were also made prisoners, most of them desperately wounded. For one of them, Borgianni Gianfigliazzi, his relations at Florence, supposing him dead, performed funeral obsequies, in spite of which he returned home from captivity, and was afterward ambassador from the Grand Duke to Sultan Amurath. Two other knights, Mastrillo and Caraffa, finding themselves unsupported in an enemy's brigantine, had given themselves up, and had just bribed their captor to spare their lives and admit them to a ransom, when a Neapolitan galley coming by boarded the brigantine and turned their new master into their slave.

The main body of the Turkish left wing, though long of engaging the Christian right, fought with perhaps greater fierceness than any other part of the fleet. The battle was raging in that part of the line with very doubtful aspect, when Don John of Austria found himself free from the attacks of the enemies immediately around him. Thither, therefore, he steered to the assistance of his comrades. The Turks, perceiving the approach of a succoring squadron, and surmising the disasters which had occurred in the centre, immediately gave way and dispersed. Sixteen of the Algerine galleys, however, retired together, and rallying at a little distance, adopted the tactics of their chief, by making a circuit toward the shore of the Morea, and endeavoring to sweep round upon the rear of the Christians. Their manœuvres were closely watched by Don Juan de Cardona, who placed himself in their path with eight galleys. The encounter which took place between the two unequal squadrons was one of the bloodiest episodes of the battle. Cardona was completely successful, disabling some of his antagonists and putting the rest to flight. His loss was, however, very severe. His own galley suffered more damage than any vessel in the fleet which was not rendered absolutely unfit for service. The forecastle was a ruin; the bulwark and defences of all kinds were shattered to pieces; and the masts and spars were stuck full of arrows. Cardona himself, after escaping a ball from an arquebus, which was turned by a cuirass of fine steel given to him at Genoa by the Prince of Tuscany, received a severe wound in the throat, of which he died. Of the five hundred Sicilian soldiers who fought on board his galleys only fifty remained unwounded. Many of the officers were slain, and not one escaped without a wound. Others had suffered even greater loss. In the Florence, a papal galley, not only many knights of St. Stephen were killed, but also every soldier and slave; and the captain, Tommaso de' Medicis, himself severely wounded, found himself at the head of only seventeen wounded seamen. In the San Giovanni, another vessel of the Pope, the soldiers were also killed to a man, the rowing-benches occupied by corpses, and a captain laid for dead with two musket-balls in his neck. The Piamontesa of Savoy had likewise lost her commander and all of her soldiers and rowers.

Although Doria, having suffered himself to be outmanœuvred by Aluch Ali, and having failed to exchange a shot with that leader, could not claim any considerable part of the laurels of the day, he was nevertheless frequently engaged with other foes and made several prizes. He escaped without a wound, though he was covered with blood of a soldier killed by a cannon-ball close behind him.

On the left wing of the Christian fleet, the battle, which had begun so unpropitiously, was also brought to a prosperous issue. The wound of Barbarigo transferred the command to the commissary Canale. Aided by Nano, who commanded Barbarigo's galley, Canale engaged and sunk the vessel of the Pacha of Alexandria. Mahomet Sirocco himself, severely wounded, was fished out of the sea by Gian Contarini, and sent on board Canale's galley. As the wound of the Turk appeared to be mortal, the Venetian relieved him from further suffering by cutting off his head. Marco Quirini likewise did gallant service, compelling several of the enemy to strike their flags. Of the remaining galleys many were run ashore by their crews, of whom the greater number were slain or drowned as they attempted to swim to land.

The victory of the Christians at Lepanto was in a great measure to be ascribed to the admirable tactics of their chief. The shock of the Turkish onset was effectually broken by the dexterous disposition made of the galeases of Venice. Indeed, had the great ships been there to strengthen the sparse line formed by these six vessels, it is not impossible that the Turks would have failed in forcing their way through the wall of that terrible fire. Each Christian vessel, by the retrenchment of its peak, enjoyed an advantage over its antagonist in the freer play of its artillery. When, however, the galleys of Selim came to close combat with the galleys of the League, the battle became a series of isolated struggles which depended more upon individual mind and manhood than upon any comprehensive plan of far-seeing calculation. But Don John of Austria had the merit or the good-fortune of bringing his forces into action in the highest moral and material perfection; of placing admirable means in the hands of men whose spirit was in the right temper to use them. He struck his great blow at the happy moment when great dangers are cheerfully confronted and great things easily accomplished.

His plan of battle was on the whole admirably executed. The galleys of the various confederates were so studiously intermingled that each vessel was incited to do its utmost by the spur of rivalry. Vaniero and Colonna deserve their full share of the credit of the day; and the gallant Santa Cruz, although at first stationed in the rear, soon found and employed his opportunity of earning his share of laurels. On Doria alone Roman and Venetian critics, and indeed public opinion, pronounced a less favorable verdict. His shoreward movement unquestionably had the effect of enabling Aluch Ali to cut the Christian line and fall with damaging force upon its rear, and of rendering the victory more costly in blood and less rich in prizes. This movement was ascribed to the desire of the Genoese to spare his own ships, and to secure a safe retreat for himself in case of a disaster; and he was further even taunted with cowardice for hauling down the gilded celestial sphere, the proud cognizance of his house, which usually surmounted his flag-staff. To the latter charge his friends replied that the sphere was taken down to secure it from injury, it being the gift of his wife, and that his ship was too well known to both the fleets to find safety in the want of her usual badge. The other accusations, they considered, were disposed of by the necessity of shaping his course according to the tactics of the Algerine, and abundantly refuted by the vigor and success with which he at last attacked the enemy. It is not improbable that the true explanation of his conduct is that offered by the captain of a Neapolitan galley, present at the battle, that he wished to gain an advantage over Aluch Ali by seamanship, and that the renegade, no less skilled in the game, played it on this occasion better than he.

Although in numbers, both of men and vessels, the Sultan's fleet was superior to the fleet of the League, this superiority was more than counterbalanced by other important advantages possessed by the Christians. The artillery of the West was of greater power and far better served than the ordnance of the East; and its fire was rendered doubly disastrous by the thronged condition of the Turkish vessels. The lofty-peaked prows of these vessels seriously interfered, as we have already seen, with the working of their guns. A great number of their combatants were armed with the bow instead of the firelock, which placed them at an obvious disadvantage, except during heavy rains, which extinguished the match of the latter weapon. Of the Turks who carried the musket or arquebus few could handle them with the expertness of a Christian soldier. The advantages which the League derived from its galeases were heightened by the fact that a large proportion of its other vessels were superior to their antagonists. The galleys of the King of Spain were, in general, both more strongly built and more carefully protected against boarders than those of the Sultan. Even early in the battle the Moslems began to discover that they were overmatched. In many of the galleys the guns were at once silenced by the heavier artillery of the Christians, in whose hands the fire of the arquebus and the musket, when they came to close quarters, proved so withering that the enemy's deck was sometimes swept clean before they boarded, and the turbaned heads of the janizaries were seen crouching beneath the benches of the slaves. When the conflict was transferred to the Turkish decks, the Christians, however, found themselves fiercely met, and among other means of opposing their progress they perceived that the central gangway (corsia) had been torn up, or they slipped upon planking which had been smeared with butter, oil, or even, it is said, with honey, to render the footing insecure. So efficient were the nettings and other precautions with which Don John of Austria defended the bulwarks of his ships that he was able to inform Philip II that not a Turk had set foot upon a single deck belonging to his majesty.

Such were some of the chief causes of the success of the arms of the League. In the sixteenth century, in a vast concourse of men of the South, hot from battle and largely leavened with priests and friars, it was natural that the victory should be by many ascribed to a more mysterious agency. In the opinion of these persons the Almighty had evidently been fighting on the side of the Pope and the Cross, although they would perhaps have demurred to the logical deduction from that opinion that at Cyprus he had steadily adhered to the drunken Sultan and the Crescent. It was not only in the victory that they saw the finger of Omnipotence, but in many accidents and incidents of the day. The wind, which wafted the Turks swiftly to destruction, changed at the precise moment when it was needed to aid the onset of the Christians. The boisterous sea also sank to smoothness in the special interest of the League. Of the clergy and friars who ministered on the Spanish decks to the wounded and dying, although some of them were struck, not one was killed. The Venetians were less fortunate, having four chaplains killed and three wounded; and the Pope likewise lost one of his friars, who died of his wounds soon after the battle. The churchmen exposed themselves as freely as the combatants, whom they encouraged from conspicuous posts either on deck or in the rigging, and sometimes by example as well as precept. A Spanish Capuchin, an old soldier, had tied his crucifix to a halbert, and, crying that Christ would fight for his faith, led the boarders of his galley over the bulwarks of her antagonist; after using his weapon manfully, he returned victorious and untouched.

An Italian priest, with a great gilded crucifix in one hand and a sword in another, stood cheering on his spiritual sons, unharmed in the fiercest centre of the arrowy sleet and iron hail. A Roman Capuchin, finding his flock getting the worst of it, seized a boat-hook, and, pulling his peaked hood over his face, rushed into the fray, laid about him until he had slain seven Turks and driven the rest from the deck, and lived to call a smile to the thin lips of Pius V by telling the story of his prowess. The green banner of Mecca, brought from the Prophet's tomb, and unfurled from the main-top of Ali, was riddled with shot, which rendered illegible many of the sacred words with which it was embroidered. But the azure standard of the League, blessed by the supreme Pontiff and emblazoned with the image of the crucified Redeemer, remained untouched by bolt or bullet, although masts, spars, and shrouds around were torn and shattered from top to bottom.

The battle was over about four o'clock in the afternoon. The rout of the centre and right wing of the Turk was complete. The vessels which composed these divisions were either sunk or taken, or they had singly sought safety in flight. A few galleys of the left wing still followed the banner of the Viceroy of Algiers. After hovering for a while near the coast of the Morea he made sail for St. Maura. Don John of Austria, with Doria and some other captains, gave him chase, but was compelled to desist for want of oarsmen. The pursuit, however, was not altogether unsuccessful, for several of the panic-stricken Algerines ran their galleys ashore, where some of them suffered shipwreck on the rocks. In the course of the night Aluch Ali and his little squadron of fugitives stole back from St. Maura to Lepanto. That harbor afforded a refuge to about nine-and-twenty vessels, most of them much shattered, the sole remains of the proud and confident armament which had so lately sailed out from between the two castles.

MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW

A.D. 1572

HENRY WHITE              ISAAC D'ISRAELI              JNO. RUDD