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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Famous Affinities of History V1, by Lyndon Orr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Famous Affinities of History V1
+       The Romance of Devotion
+
+Author: Lyndon Orr
+
+Posting Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #4689]
+Release Date: November, 2003
+First Posted: March 3, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS AFFINITIES OF HISTORY V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS AFFINITIES OF HISTORY
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF DEVOTION
+
+
+BY
+
+LYNDON ORR
+
+
+
+VOLUME I OF IV.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
+  ABELARD AND HELOISE
+  QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER
+  MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL
+  QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
+  KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN
+  MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
+  THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
+
+
+Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of
+Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most
+remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and the graphic
+arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It
+has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much
+to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony deserted his almost
+victorious troops and hastened in a swift galley from Actium in pursuit
+of Cleopatra.
+
+The wonder of the story is explained by its extraordinary nature. Many
+men in private life have lost fortune and fame for the love of woman.
+Kings have incurred the odium of their people, and have cared nothing
+for it in comparison with the joys of sense that come from the
+lingering caresses and clinging kisses. Cold-blooded statesmen, such as
+Parnell, have lost the leadership of their party and have gone down in
+history with a clouded name because of the fascination exercised upon
+them by some woman, often far from beautiful, and yet possessing the
+mysterious power which makes the triumphs of statesmanship seem slight
+in comparison with the swiftly flying hours of pleasure.
+
+But in the case of Antony and Cleopatra alone do we find a man flinging
+away not merely the triumphs of civic honors or the headship of a
+state, but much more than these--the mastery of what was practically
+the world--in answer to the promptings of a woman's will. Hence the
+story of the Roman triumvir and the Egyptian queen is not like any
+other story that has yet been told. The sacrifice involved in it was so
+overwhelming, so instantaneous, and so complete as to set this
+narrative above all others. Shakespeare's genius has touched it with
+the glory of a great imagination. Dryden, using it in the finest of his
+plays, expressed its nature in the title "All for Love."
+
+The distinguished Italian historian, Signor Ferrero, the author of many
+books, has tried hard to eliminate nearly all the romantic elements
+from the tale, and to have us see in it not the triumph of love, but
+the blindness of ambition. Under his handling it becomes almost a
+sordid drama of man's pursuit of power and of woman's selfishness. Let
+us review the story as it remains, even after we have taken full
+account of Ferrero's criticism. Has the world for nineteen hundred
+years been blinded by a show of sentiment? Has it so absolutely been
+misled by those who lived and wrote in the days which followed closely
+on the events that make up this extraordinary narrative?
+
+In answering these questions we must consider, in the first place, the
+scene, and, in the second place, the psychology of the two central
+characters who for so long a time have been regarded as the very
+embodiment of unchecked passion.
+
+As to the scene, it must be remembered that the Egypt of those days was
+not Egyptian as we understand the word, but rather Greek. Cleopatra
+herself was of Greek descent. The kingdom of Egypt had been created by
+a general of Alexander the Great after that splendid warrior's death.
+Its capital, the most brilliant city of the Greco-Roman world, had been
+founded by Alexander himself, who gave to it his name. With his own
+hands he traced out the limits of the city and issued the most
+peremptory orders that it should be made the metropolis of the entire
+world. The orders of a king cannot give enduring greatness to a city;
+but Alexander's keen eye and marvelous brain saw at once that the site
+of Alexandria was such that a great commercial community planted there
+would live and flourish throughout out succeeding ages. He was right;
+for within a century this new capital of Egypt leaped to the forefront
+among the exchanges of the world's commerce, while everything that art
+could do was lavished on its embellishment.
+
+Alexandria lay upon a projecting tongue of land so situated that the
+whole trade of the Mediterranean centered there. Down the Nile there
+floated to its gates the barbaric wealth of Africa. To it came the
+treasures of the East, brought from afar by caravans--silks from China,
+spices and pearls from India, and enormous masses of gold and silver
+from lands scarcely known. In its harbor were the vessels of every
+country, from Asia in the East to Spain and Gaul and even Britain in
+the West.
+
+When Cleopatra, a young girl of seventeen, succeeded to the throne of
+Egypt the population of Alexandria amounted to a million souls. The
+customs duties collected at the port would, in terms of modern money,
+amount each year to more than thirty million dollars, even though the
+imposts were not heavy. The people, who may be described as Greek at
+the top and Oriental at the bottom, were boisterous and
+pleasure-loving, devoted to splendid spectacles, with horse-racing,
+gambling, and dissipation; yet at the same time they were an artistic
+people, loving music passionately, and by no means idle, since one part
+of the city was devoted to large and prosperous manufactories of linen,
+paper, glass, and muslin.
+
+To the outward eye Alexandria was extremely beautiful. Through its
+entire length ran two great boulevards, shaded and diversified by
+mighty trees and parterres of multicolored flowers, amid which
+fountains plashed and costly marbles gleamed. One-fifth of the whole
+city was known as the Royal Residence. In it were the palaces of the
+reigning family, the great museum, and the famous library which the
+Arabs later burned. There were parks and gardens brilliant with
+tropical foliage and adorned with the masterpieces of Grecian
+sculpture, while sphinxes and obelisks gave a suggestion of Oriental
+strangeness. As one looked seaward his eye beheld over the blue water
+the snow-white rocks of the sheltering island, Pharos, on which was
+reared a lighthouse four hundred feet in height and justly numbered
+among the seven wonders of the world. Altogether, Alexandria was a city
+of wealth, of beauty, of stirring life, of excitement, and of pleasure.
+Ferrero has aptly likened it to Paris--not so much the Paris of to-day
+as the Paris of forty years ago, when the Second Empire flourished in
+all its splendor as the home of joy and strange delights.
+
+Over the country of which Alexandria was the capital Cleopatra came to
+reign at seventeen. Following the odd custom which the Greek dynasty of
+the Ptolemies had inherited from their Egyptian predecessors, she was
+betrothed to her own brother. He, however, was a mere child of less
+than twelve, and was under the control of evil counselors, who, in his
+name, gained control of the capital and drove Cleopatra into exile.
+Until then she had been a mere girl; but now the spirit of a woman who
+was wronged blazed up in her and called out all her latent powers.
+Hastening to Syria, she gathered about herself an army and led it
+against her foes.
+
+But meanwhile Julius Caesar, the greatest man of ancient times, had
+arrived at Alexandria backed by an army of his veterans. Against him no
+resistance would avail. Then came a brief moment during which the
+Egyptian king and the Egyptian queen each strove to win the favor of
+the Roman imperator. The king and his advisers had many arts, and so
+had Cleopatra. One thing, however, she possessed which struck the
+balance in her favor, and this was a woman's fascination.
+
+According to the story, Caesar was unwilling to receive her. There came
+into his presence, as he sat in the palace, a group of slaves bearing a
+long roll of matting, bound carefully and seeming to contain some
+precious work of art. The slaves made signs that they were bearing a
+gift to Caesar. The master of Egypt bade them unwrap the gift that he
+might see it. They did so, and out of the wrapping came Cleopatra--a
+radiant vision, appealing, irresistible. Next morning it became known
+everywhere that Cleopatra had remained in Caesar's quarters through the
+night and that her enemies were now his enemies. In desperation they
+rushed upon his legions, casting aside all pretense of amity. There
+ensued a fierce contest, but the revolt was quenched in blood.
+
+This was a crucial moment in Cleopatra's life. She had sacrificed all
+that a woman has to give; but she had not done so from any love of
+pleasure or from wantonness. She was queen of Egypt, and she had
+redeemed her kingdom and kept it by her sacrifice. One should not
+condemn her too severely. In a sense, her act was one of heroism like
+that of Judith in the tent of Holofernes. But beyond all question it
+changed her character. It taught her the secret of her own great power.
+Henceforth she was no longer a mere girl, nor a woman of the ordinary
+type. Her contact with so great a mind as Caesar's quickened her
+intellect. Her knowledge that, by the charms of sense, she had mastered
+even him transformed her into a strange and wonderful creature. She
+learned to study the weaknesses of men, to play on their emotions, to
+appeal to every subtle taste and fancy. In her were blended mental
+power and that illusive, indefinable gift which is called charm.
+
+For Cleopatra was never beautiful. Signor Ferrero seems to think this
+fact to be discovery of his own, but it was set down by Plutarch in a
+very striking passage written less than a century after Cleopatra and
+Antony died. We may quote here what the Greek historian said of her:
+
+Her actual beauty was far from being so remarkable that none could be
+compared with her, nor was it such that it would strike your fancy when
+you saw her first. Yet the influence of her presence, if you lingered
+near her, was irresistible. Her attractive personality, joined with the
+charm of her conversation, and the individual touch that she gave to
+everything she said or did, were utterly bewitching. It was delightful
+merely to hear the music of her voice, with which, like an instrument
+of many strings, she could pass from one language to another.
+
+Caesar had left Cleopatra firmly seated on the throne of Egypt. For six
+years she reigned with great intelligence, keeping order in her
+dominions, and patronizing with discrimination both arts and letters.
+But ere long the convulsions of the Roman state once more caused her
+extreme anxiety. Caesar had been assassinated, and there ensued a
+period of civil war. Out of it emerged two striking figures which were
+absolutely contrasted in their character. One was Octavian, the adopted
+son of Caesar, a man who, though still quite young and possessed of
+great ability, was cunning, cold-blooded, and deceitful. The other was
+Antony, a soldier by training, and with all a soldier's bluntness,
+courage, and lawlessness.
+
+The Roman world was divided for the time between these two men, Antony
+receiving the government of the East, Octavian that of the West. In the
+year which had preceded this division Cleopatra had wavered between the
+two opposite factions at Rome. In so doing she had excited the
+suspicion of Antony, and he now demanded of her an explanation.
+
+One must have some conception of Antony himself in order to understand
+the events that followed. He was essentially a soldier, of excellent
+family, being related to Caesar himself. As a very young man he was
+exceedingly handsome, and bad companions led him into the pursuit of
+vicious pleasure. He had scarcely come of age when he found that he
+owed the enormous sum of two hundred and fifty talents, equivalent to
+half a million dollars in the money of to-day. But he was much more
+than a mere man of pleasure, given over to drinking and to dissipation.
+Men might tell of his escapades, as when he drove about the streets of
+Rome in a common cab, dangling his legs out of the window while he
+shouted forth drunken songs of revelry. This was not the whole of
+Antony. Joining the Roman army in Syria, he showed himself to be a
+soldier of great personal bravery, a clever strategist, and also humane
+and merciful in the hour of victory.
+
+Unlike most Romans, Antony wore a full beard. His forehead was large,
+and his nose was of the distinctive Roman type. His look was so bold
+and masculine that people likened him to Hercules. His democratic
+manners endeared him to the army. He wore a plain tunic covered with a
+large, coarse mantle, and carried a huge sword at his side, despising
+ostentation. Even his faults and follies added to his popularity. He
+would sit down at the common soldiers' mess and drink with them,
+telling them stories and clapping them on the back. He spent money like
+water, quickly recognizing any daring deed which his legionaries
+performed. In this respect he was like Napoleon; and, like Napoleon, he
+had a vein of florid eloquence which was criticized by literary men,
+but which went straight to the heart of the private soldier. In a word,
+he was a powerful, virile, passionate, able man, rough, as were nearly
+all his countrymen, but strong and true.
+
+It was to this general that Cleopatra was to answer, and with a firm
+reliance on the charms which had subdued Antony's great commander,
+Caesar, she set out in person for Cilicia, in Asia Minor, sailing up
+the river Cydnus to the place where Antony was encamped with his army.
+Making all allowance for the exaggeration of historians, there can be
+no doubt that she appeared to him like some dreamy vision. Her barge
+was gilded, and was wafted on its way by swelling sails of Tyrian
+purple. The oars which smote the water were of shining silver. As she
+drew near the Roman general's camp the languorous music of flutes and
+harps breathed forth a strain of invitation.
+
+Cleopatra herself lay upon a divan set upon the deck of the barge
+beneath a canopy of woven gold. She was dressed to resemble Venus,
+while girls about her personated nymphs and Graces. Delicate perfumes
+diffused themselves from the vessel; and at last, as she drew near the
+shore, all the people for miles about were gathered there, leaving
+Antony to sit alone in the tribunal where he was dispensing justice.
+
+Word was brought to him that Venus had come to feast with Bacchus.
+Antony, though still suspicious of Cleopatra, sent her an invitation to
+dine with him in state. With graceful tact she sent him a
+counter-invitation, and he came. The magnificence of his reception
+dazzled the man who had so long known only a soldier's fare, or at most
+the crude entertainments which he had enjoyed in Rome. A marvelous
+display of lights was made. Thousands upon thousands of candles shone
+brilliantly, arranged in squares and circles; while the banquet itself
+was one that symbolized the studied luxury of the East.
+
+At this time Cleopatra was twenty-seven years of age--a period of life
+which modern physiologists have called the crisis in a woman's growth.
+She had never really loved before, since she had given herself to
+Caesar, not because she cared for him, but to save her kingdom. She now
+came into the presence of one whose manly beauty and strong passions
+were matched by her own subtlety and appealing charm.
+
+When Antony addressed her he felt himself a rustic in her presence.
+Almost resentful, he betook himself to the coarse language of the camp.
+Cleopatra, with marvelous adaptability, took her tone from his, and
+thus in a moment put him at his ease. Ferrero, who takes a most
+unfavorable view of her character and personality, nevertheless
+explains the secret of her fascination:
+
+Herself utterly cold and callous, insensitive by nature to the flame of
+true devotion, Cleopatra was one of those women gifted with an unerring
+instinct for all the various roads to men's affections. She could be
+the shrinking, modest girl, too shy to reveal her half-unconscious
+emotions of jealousy and depression and self-abandonment, or a woman
+carried away by the sweep of a fiery and uncontrollable passion. She
+could tickle the esthetic sensibilities of her victims by rich and
+gorgeous festivals, by the fantastic adornment of her own person and
+her palace, or by brilliant discussions on literature and art; she
+could conjure up all their grossest instincts with the vilest
+obscenities of conversation, with the free and easy jocularity of a
+woman of the camps.
+
+These last words are far too strong, and they represent only Ferrero's
+personal opinion; yet there is no doubt that she met every mood of
+Antony's so that he became enthralled with her at once. No such woman
+as this had ever cast her eyes on him before. He had a wife at home--a
+most disreputable wife--so that he cared little for domestic ties.
+Later, out of policy, he made another marriage with the sister of his
+rival, Octavian, but this wife he never cared for. His heart and soul
+were given up to Cleopatra, the woman who could be a comrade in the
+camp and a fount of tenderness in their hours of dalliance, and who
+possessed the keen intellect of a man joined to the arts and
+fascinations of a woman.
+
+On her side she found in Antony an ardent lover, a man of vigorous
+masculinity, and, moreover, a soldier whose armies might well sustain
+her on the throne of Egypt. That there was calculation mingled with her
+love, no one can doubt. That some calculation also entered into
+Antony's affection is likewise certain. Yet this does not affect the
+truth that each was wholly given to the other. Why should it have
+lessened her love for him to feel that he could protect her and defend
+her? Why should it have lessened his love for her to know that she was
+queen of the richest country in the world--one that could supply his
+needs, sustain his armies, and gild his triumphs with magnificence?
+
+There are many instances in history of regnant queens who loved and yet
+whose love was not dissociated from the policy of state. Such were Anne
+of Austria, Elizabeth of England, and the unfortunate Mary Stuart.
+Such, too, we cannot fail to think, was Cleopatra.
+
+The two remained together for ten years. In this time Antony was
+separated from her only during a campaign in the East. In Alexandria he
+ceased to seem a Roman citizen and gave himself up wholly to the charms
+of this enticing woman. Many stories are told of their good fellowship
+and close intimacy. Plutarch quotes Plato as saying that there are four
+kinds of flattery, but he adds that Cleopatra had a thousand. She was
+the supreme mistress of the art of pleasing.
+
+Whether Antony were serious or mirthful, she had at the instant some
+new delight or some new charm to meet his wishes. At every turn she was
+with him both day and night. With him she threw dice; with him she
+drank; with him she hunted; and when he exercised himself in arms she
+was there to admire and applaud.
+
+At night the pair would disguise themselves as servants and wander
+about the streets of Alexandria. In fact, more than once they were set
+upon in the slums and treated roughly by the rabble who did not
+recognize them. Cleopatra was always alluring, always tactful, often
+humorous, and full of frolic.
+
+Then came the shock of Antony's final breach with Octavian. Either
+Antony or his rival must rule the world. Cleopatra's lover once more
+became the Roman general, and with a great fleet proceeded to the coast
+of Greece, where his enemy was encamped. Antony had raised a hundred
+and twelve thousand troops and five hundred ships--a force far superior
+to that commanded by Octavian. Cleopatra was there with sixty ships.
+
+In the days that preceded the final battle much took place which still
+remains obscure. It seems likely that Antony desired to become again
+the Roman, while Cleopatra wished him to thrust Rome aside and return
+to Egypt with her, to reign there as an independent king. To her Rome
+was almost a barbarian city. In it she could not hold sway as she could
+in her beautiful Alexandria, with its blue skies and velvet turf and
+tropical flowers. At Rome Antony would be distracted by the cares of
+state, and she would lose her lover. At Alexandria she would have him
+for her very own.
+
+The clash came when the hostile fleets met off the promontory of
+Actium. At its crisis Cleopatra, prematurely concluding that the battle
+was lost, of a sudden gave the signal for retreat and put out to sea
+with her fleet. This was the crucial moment. Antony, mastered by his
+love, forgot all else, and in a swift ship started in pursuit of her,
+abandoning his fleet and army to win or lose as fortune might decide.
+For him the world was nothing; the dark-browed Queen of Egypt,
+imperious and yet caressing, was everything. Never was such a prize and
+never were such great hopes thrown carelessly away. After waiting seven
+days Antony's troops, still undefeated, finding that their commander
+would not return to them, surrendered to Octavian, who thus became the
+master of an empire.
+
+Later his legions assaulted Alexandria, and there Antony was twice
+defeated. At last Cleopatra saw her great mistake. She had made her
+lover give up the hope of being Rome's dictator, but in so doing she
+had also lost the chance of ruling with him tranquilly in Egypt. She
+shut herself behind the barred doors of the royal sepulcher; and, lest
+she should be molested there, she sent forth word that she had died.
+Her proud spirit could not brook the thought that she might be seized
+and carried as a prisoner to Rome. She was too much a queen in soul to
+be led in triumph up the Sacred Way to the Capitol with golden chains
+clanking on her slender wrists.
+
+Antony, believing the report that she was dead, fell upon his sword;
+but in his dying moments he was carried into the presence of the woman
+for whom he had given all. With her arms about him, his spirit passed
+away; and soon after she, too, met death, whether by a poisoned draught
+or by the storied asp no one can say.
+
+Cleopatra had lived the mistress of a splendid kingdom. She had
+successively captivated two of the greatest men whom Rome had ever
+seen. She died, like a queen, to escape disgrace. Whatever modern
+critics may have to say concerning small details, this story still
+remains the strangest love story of which the world has any record.
+
+
+
+
+ABELARD AND HELOISE
+
+
+Many a woman, amid the transports of passionate and languishing love,
+has cried out in a sort of ecstasy:
+
+"I love you as no woman ever loved a man before!"
+
+When she says this she believes it. Her whole soul is aflame with the
+ardor of emotion. It really seems to her that no one ever could have
+loved so much as she.
+
+This cry--spontaneous, untaught, sincere--has become almost one of
+those conventionalities of amorous expression which belong to the
+vocabulary of self-abandonment. Every woman who utters it, when torn by
+the almost terrible extravagance of a great love, believes that no one
+before her has ever said it, and that in her own case it is absolutely
+true.
+
+Yet, how many women are really faithful to the end? Very many, indeed,
+if circumstances admit of easy faithfulness. A high-souled, generous,
+ardent nature will endure an infinity of disillusionment, of
+misfortune, of neglect, and even of ill treatment. Even so, the flame,
+though it may sink low, can be revived again to burn as brightly as
+before. But in order that this may be so it is necessary that the
+object of such a wonderful devotion be alive, that he be present and
+visible; or, if he be absent, that there should still exist some hope
+of renewing the exquisite intimacy of the past.
+
+A man who is sincerely loved may be compelled to take long journeys
+which will separate him for an indefinite time from the woman who has
+given her heart to him, and she will still be constant. He may be
+imprisoned, perhaps for life, yet there is always the hope of his
+release or of his escape; and some women will be faithful to him and
+will watch for his return. But, given a situation which absolutely bars
+out hope, which sunders two souls in such a way that they can never be
+united in this world, and there we have a test so terribly severe that
+few even of the most loyal and intensely clinging lovers can endure it.
+
+Not that such a situation would lead a woman to turn to any other man
+than the one to whom she had given her very life; but we might expect
+that at least her strong desire would cool and weaken. She might
+cherish his memory among the precious souvenirs of her love life; but
+that she should still pour out the same rapturous, unstinted passion as
+before seems almost too much to believe. The annals of emotion record
+only one such instance; and so this instance has become known to all,
+and has been cherished for nearly a thousand years. It involves the
+story of a woman who did love, perhaps, as no one ever loved before or
+since; for she was subjected to this cruel test, and she met the test
+not alone completely, but triumphantly and almost fiercely.
+
+The story is, of course, the story of Abelard and Heloise. It has many
+times been falsely told. Portions of it have been omitted, and other
+portions of it have been garbled. A whole literature has grown up
+around the subject. It may well be worth our while to clear away the
+ambiguities and the doubtful points, and once more to tell it simply,
+without bias, and with a strict adherence to what seems to be the truth
+attested by authentic records.
+
+There is one circumstance connected with the story which we must
+specially note. The narrative does something more than set forth the
+one quite unimpeachable instance of unconquered constancy. It shows
+how, in the last analysis, that which touches the human heart has more
+vitality and more enduring interest than what concerns the intellect or
+those achievements of the human mind which are external to our
+emotional nature.
+
+Pierre Abelard was undoubtedly the boldest and most creative reasoner
+of his time. As a wandering teacher he drew after him thousands of
+enthusiastic students. He gave a strong impetus to learning. He was a
+marvelous logician and an accomplished orator. Among his pupils were
+men who afterward became prelates of the church and distinguished
+scholars. In the Dark Age, when the dictates of reason were almost
+wholly disregarded, he fought fearlessly for intellectual freedom. He
+was practically the founder of the University of Paris, which in turn
+became the mother of medieval and modern universities.
+
+He was, therefore, a great and striking figure in the history of
+civilization. Nevertheless he would to-day be remembered only by
+scholars and students of the Middle Ages were it not for the fact that
+he inspired the most enduring love that history records. If Heloise had
+never loved him, and if their story had not been so tragic and so
+poignant, he would be to-day only a name known to but a few. His final
+resting-place, in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, in Paris, would not be
+sought out by thousands every year and kept bright with flowers, the
+gift of those who have themselves both loved and suffered.
+
+Pierre Abelard--or, more fully, Pierre Abelard de Palais--was a native
+of Brittany, born in the year 1079. His father was a knight, the lord
+of the manor; but Abelard cared little for the life of a petty noble;
+and so he gave up his seigniorial rights to his brothers and went forth
+to become, first of all a student, and then a public lecturer and
+teacher.
+
+His student days ended abruptly in Paris, where he had enrolled himself
+as the pupil of a distinguished philosopher, Guillaume de Champeaux;
+but one day Abelard engaged in a disputation with his master. His
+wonderful combination of eloquence, logic, and originality utterly
+routed Champeaux, who was thus humiliated in the presence of his
+disciples. He was the first of many enemies that Abelard was destined
+to make in his long and stormy career. From that moment the young
+Breton himself set up as a teacher of philosophy, and the brilliancy of
+his discourses soon drew to him throngs of students from all over
+Europe.
+
+Before proceeding with the story of Abelard it is well to reconstruct,
+however slightly, a picture of the times in which he lived. It was an
+age when Western Europe was but partly civilized. Pedantry and learning
+of the most minute sort existed side by side with the most violent
+excesses of medieval barbarism. The Church had undertaken the gigantic
+task of subduing and enlightening the semi-pagan peoples of France and
+Germany and England.
+
+When we look back at that period some will unjustly censure Rome for
+not controlling more completely the savagery of the medievals. More
+fairly should we wonder at the great measure of success which had
+already been achieved. The leaven of a true Christianity was working in
+the half-pagan populations. It had not yet completely reached the
+nobles and the knights, or even all the ecclesiastics who served it and
+who were consecrated to its mission. Thus, amid a sort of political
+chaos were seen the glaring evils of feudalism. Kings and princes and
+their followers lived the lives of swine. Private blood-feuds were
+regarded lightly. There was as yet no single central power. Every man
+carried his life in his hand, trusting to sword and dagger for
+protection.
+
+The cities were still mere hamlets clustered around great castles or
+fortified cathedrals. In Paris itself the network of dark lanes, ill
+lighted and unguarded, was the scene of midnight murder and
+assassination. In the winter-time wolves infested the town by night.
+Men-at-arms, with torches and spears, often had to march out from their
+barracks to assail the snarling, yelping packs of savage animals that
+hunger drove from the surrounding forests.
+
+Paris of the twelfth century was typical of France itself, which was
+harried by human wolves intent on rapine and wanton plunder. There were
+great schools of theology, but the students who attended them fought
+and slashed one another. If a man's life was threatened he must protect
+it by his own strength or by gathering about him a band of friends. No
+one was safe. No one was tolerant. Very few were free from the grosser
+vices. Even in some of the religious houses the brothers would meet at
+night for unseemly revels, splashing the stone floors with wine and
+shrieking in a delirium of drunkenness. The rules of the Church
+enjoined temperance, continence, and celibacy; but the decrees of Leo
+IX. and Nicholas II. and Alexander II. and Gregory were only partially
+observed.
+
+In fact, Europe was in a state of chaos--political and moral and
+social. Only very slowly was order emerging from sheer anarchy. We must
+remember this when we recall some facts which meet us in the story of
+Abelard and Heloise.
+
+The jealousy of Champeaux drove Abelard for a time from Paris. He
+taught and lectured at several other centers of learning, always
+admired, and yet at the same time denounced by many for his advocacy of
+reason as against blind faith. During the years of his wandering he
+came to have a wide knowledge of the world and of human nature. If we
+try to imagine him as he was in his thirty-fifth year we shall find in
+him a remarkable combination of attractive qualities.
+
+It must be remembered that though, in a sense, he was an ecclesiastic,
+he had not yet been ordained to the priesthood, but was rather a
+canon--a person who did not belong to any religious order, though he
+was supposed to live according to a definite set of religious rules and
+as a member of a religious community. Abelard, however, made rather
+light of his churchly associations. He was at once an accomplished man
+of the world and a profound scholar. There was nothing of the recluse
+about him. He mingled with his fellow men, whom he dominated by the
+charm of his personality. He was eloquent, ardent, and persuasive. He
+could turn a delicate compliment as skilfully as he could elaborate a
+syllogism. His rich voice had in it a seductive quality which was never
+without its effect.
+
+Handsome and well formed, he possessed as much vigor of body as of
+mind. Nor were his accomplishments entirely those of the scholar. He
+wrote dainty verses, which he also set to music, and which he sang
+himself with a rare skill. Some have called him "the first of the
+troubadours," and many who cared nothing for his skill in logic admired
+him for his gifts as a musician and a poet. Altogether, he was one to
+attract attention wherever he went, for none could fail to recognize
+his power.
+
+It was soon after his thirty-fifth year that he returned to Paris,
+where he was welcomed by thousands. With much tact he reconciled
+himself to his enemies, so that his life now seemed to be full of
+promise and of sunshine.
+
+It was at this time that he became acquainted with a very beautiful
+young girl named Heloise. She was only eighteen years of age, yet
+already she possessed not only beauty, but many accomplishments which
+were then quite rare in women, since she both wrote and spoke a number
+of languages, and, like Abelard, was a lover of music and poetry.
+Heloise was the illegitimate daughter of a canon of patrician blood; so
+that she is said to have been a worthy representative of the noble
+house of the Montmorencys--famous throughout French history for
+chivalry and charm.
+
+Up to this time we do not know precisely what sort of life Abelard had
+lived in private. His enemies declared that he had squandered his
+substance in vicious ways. His friends denied this, and represented him
+as strict and chaste. The truth probably lies between these two
+assertions. He was naturally a pleasure-loving man of the world, who
+may very possibly have relieved his severer studies by occasional
+revelry and light love. It is not at all likely that he was addicted to
+gross passions and low practices.
+
+But such as he was, when he first saw Heloise he conceived for her a
+violent attachment. Carefully guarded in the house of her uncle,
+Fulbert, it was difficult at first for Abelard to meet her save in the
+most casual way; yet every time that he heard her exquisite voice and
+watched her graceful manners he became more and more infatuated. His
+studies suddenly seemed tame and colorless beside the fierce scarlet
+flame which blazed up in his heart.
+
+Nevertheless, it was because of these studies and of his great
+reputation as a scholar that he managed to obtain access to Heloise. He
+flattered her uncle and made a chance proposal that he should himself
+become an inmate of Fulbert's household in order that he might teach
+this girl of so much promise. Such an offer coming from so brilliant a
+man was joyfully accepted.
+
+From that time Abelard could visit Heloise without restraint. He was
+her teacher, and the two spent hours together, nominally in the study
+of Greek and Hebrew; but doubtless very little was said between them
+upon such unattractive subjects. On the contrary, with all his wide
+experience of life, his eloquence, his perfect manners, and his
+fascination, Abelard put forth his power to captivate the senses of a
+girl still in her teens and quite ignorant of the world. As Remusat
+says, he employed to win her the genius which had overwhelmed all the
+great centers of learning in the Western world.
+
+It was then that the pleasures of knowledge, the joys of thought, the
+emotions of eloquence, were all called into play to charm and move and
+plunge into a profound and strange intoxication this noble and tender
+heart which had never known either love or sorrow. ... One can imagine
+that everything helped on the inevitable end. Their studies gave them
+opportunities to see each other freely, and also permitted them to be
+alone together. Then their books lay open between them; but either long
+periods of silence stilled their reading, or else words of deepening
+intimacy made them forget their studies altogether. The eyes of the two
+lovers turned from the book to mingle their glances, and then to turn
+away in a confusion that was conscious.
+
+Hand would touch hand, apparently by accident; and when conversation
+ceased, Abelard would often hear the long, quivering sigh which showed
+the strange, half-frightened, and yet exquisite joy which Heloise
+experienced.
+
+It was not long before the girl's heart had been wholly won.
+Transported by her emotion, she met the caresses of her lover with
+those as unrestrained as his. Her very innocence deprived her of the
+protection which older women would have had. All was given freely, and
+even wildly, by Heloise; and all was taken by Abelard, who afterward
+himself declared:
+
+"The pleasure of teaching her to love surpassed the delightful
+fragrance of all the perfumes in the world."
+
+Yet these two could not always live in a paradise which was entirely
+their own. The world of Paris took notice of their close association.
+Some poems written to Heloise by Abelard, as if in letters of fire,
+were found and shown to Fulbert, who, until this time, had suspected
+nothing. Angrily he ordered Abelard to leave his house. He forbade his
+niece to see her lover any more.
+
+But the two could not be separated; and, indeed, there was good reason
+why they should still cling together. Secretly Heloise left her uncle's
+house and fled through the narrow lanes of Paris to the dwelling of
+Abelard's sister, Denyse, where Abelard himself was living. There,
+presently, the young girl gave birth to a son, who was named Astrolabe,
+after an instrument used by astronomers, since both the father and the
+mother felt that the offspring of so great a love should have no
+ordinary name.
+
+Fulbert was furious, and rightly so. His hospitality had been outraged
+and his niece dishonored. He insisted that the pair should at once be
+married. Here was revealed a certain weakness in the character of
+Abelard. He consented to the marriage, but insisted that it should be
+kept an utter secret.
+
+Oddly enough, it was Heloise herself who objected to becoming the wife
+of the man she loved. Unselfishness could go no farther. She saw that,
+were he to marry her, his advancement in the Church would be almost
+impossible; for, while the very minor clergy sometimes married in spite
+of the papal bulls, matrimony was becoming a fatal bar to
+ecclesiastical promotion. And so Heloise pleaded pitifully, both with
+her uncle and with Abelard, that there should be no marriage. She would
+rather bear all manner of disgrace than stand in the way of Abelard's
+advancement.
+
+He has himself given some of the words in which she pleaded with him:
+
+What glory shall I win from you, when I have made you quite inglorious
+and have humbled both of us? What vengeance will the world inflict on
+me if I deprive it of one so brilliant? What curses will follow such a
+marriage? How outrageous would it be that you, whom nature created for
+the universal good, should be devoted to one woman and plunged into
+such disgrace? I loathe the thought of a marriage which would humiliate
+you.
+
+Indeed, every possible effort which another woman in her place would
+employ to make him marry her she used in order to dissuade him.
+Finally, her sweet face streaming with tears, she uttered that
+tremendous sentence which makes one really think that she loved him as
+no other woman ever loved a man. She cried out, in an agony of
+self-sacrifice:
+
+"I would rather be your mistress than the wife even of an emperor!"
+
+Nevertheless, the two were married, and Abelard returned to his
+lecture-room and to his studies. For months they met but seldom.
+Meanwhile, however, the taunts and innuendos directed against Heloise
+so irritated Fulbert that he broke his promise of secrecy, and told his
+friends that Abelard and Heloise were man and wife. They went to
+Heloise for confirmation. Once more she showed in an extraordinary way
+the depth of her devotion.
+
+"I am no wife," she said. "It is not true that Abelard has married me.
+My uncle merely tells you this to save my reputation."
+
+They asked her whether she would swear to this; and, without a moment's
+hesitation, this pure and noble woman took an oath upon the Scriptures
+that there had been no marriage.
+
+Fulbert was enraged by this. He ill-treated Heloise, and, furthermore,
+he forbade Abelard to visit her. The girl, therefore, again left her
+uncle's house and betook herself to a convent just outside of Paris,
+where she assumed the habit of a nun as a disguise. There Abelard
+continued from time to time to meet her.
+
+When Fulbert heard of this he put his own interpretation on it. He
+believed that Abelard intended to ignore the marriage altogether, and
+that possibly he might even marry some other woman. In any case, he now
+hated Abelard with all his heart; and he resolved to take a fearful and
+unnatural vengeance which would at once prevent his enemy from making
+any other marriage, while at the same time it would debar him from
+ecclesiastical preferment.
+
+To carry out his plot Fulbert first bribed a man who was the
+body-servant of Abelard, watching at the door of his room each night.
+Then he hired the services of four ruffians. After Abelard had retired
+and was deep in slumber the treacherous valet unbarred the door. The
+hirelings of Fulbert entered and fell upon the sleeping man. Three of
+them bound him fast, while the fourth, with a razor, inflicted on him
+the most shameful mutilation that is possible. Then, extinguishing the
+lights, the wretches slunk away and were lost in darkness, leaving
+behind their victim bound to his couch, uttering cries of torment and
+bathed in his own blood.
+
+It is a shocking story, and yet it is intensely characteristic of the
+lawless and barbarous era in which it happened. Early the next morning
+the news flew rapidly through Paris. The city hummed like a bee-hive.
+Citizens and students and ecclesiastics poured into the street and
+surrounded the house of Abelard.
+
+"Almost the entire city," says Fulques, as quoted by McCabe, "went
+clamoring toward his house. Women wept as if each one had lost her
+husband."
+
+Unmanned though he was, Abelard still retained enough of the spirit of
+his time to seek vengeance. He, in his turn, employed ruffians whom he
+set upon the track of those who had assaulted him. The treacherous
+valet and one of Fulbert's hirelings were run down, seized, and
+mutilated precisely as Abelard had been; and their eyes were blinded. A
+third was lodged in prison. Fulbert himself was accused before one of
+the Church courts, which alone had power to punish an ecclesiastic, and
+all his goods were confiscated.
+
+But, meantime, how did it fare with Heloise? Her grief was greater than
+his own, while her love and her devotion were absolutely undiminished.
+But Abelard now showed a selfishness--and indeed, a meanness--far
+beyond any that he had before exhibited. Heloise could no more be his
+wife. He made it plain that he put no trust in her fidelity. He was
+unwilling that she should live in the world while he could not; and so
+he told her sternly that she must take the veil and bury herself for
+ever in a nunnery.
+
+The pain and shame which she experienced at this came wholly from the
+fact that evidently Abelard did not trust her. Long afterward she wrote:
+
+God knows I should not have hesitated, at your command, to precede or
+to follow you to hell itself!
+
+It was his distrust that cut her to the heart. Still, her love for him
+was so intense that she obeyed his order. Soon after she took the vows;
+and in the convent chapel, shaken with sobs, she knelt before the altar
+and assumed the veil of a cloistered nun. Abelard himself put on the
+black tunic of a Benedictine monk and entered the Abbey of St. Denis.
+
+It is unnecessary here to follow out all the details of the lives of
+Abelard and Heloise after this heart-rendering scene. Abelard passed
+through many years of strife and disappointment, and even of
+humiliation; for on one occasion, just as he had silenced Guillaume de
+Champeaux, so he himself was silenced and put to rout by Bernard of
+Clairvaux--"a frail, tense, absorbed, dominant little man, whose face
+was white and worn with suffering," but in whose eyes there was a light
+of supreme strength. Bernard represented pure faith, as Abelard
+represented pure reason; and the two men met before a great council to
+match their respective powers.
+
+Bernard, with fiery eloquence, brought a charge of heresy against
+Abelard in an oration which was like a charge of cavalry. When he had
+concluded Abelard rose with an ashen face, stammered out a few words,
+and sat down. He was condemned by the council, and his works were
+ordered to be burned.
+
+All his later life was one of misfortune, of humiliation, and even of
+personal danger. The reckless monks whom he tried to rule rose fiercely
+against him. His life was threatened. He betook himself to a desolate
+and lonely place, where he built for himself a hut of reeds and rushes,
+hoping to spend his final years in meditation. But there were many who
+had not forgotten his ability as a teacher. These flocked by hundreds
+to the desert place where he abode. His hut was surrounded by tents and
+rude hovels, built by his scholars for their shelter.
+
+Thus Abelard resumed his teaching, though in a very different frame of
+mind. In time he built a structure of wood and stone, which he called
+the Paraclete, some remains of which can still be seen.
+
+All this time no word had passed between him and Heloise. But presently
+Abelard wrote and gave to the world a curious and exceedingly frank
+book, which he called The Story of My Misfortunes. A copy of it reached
+the hands of Heloise, and she at once sent to Abelard the first of a
+series of letters which have remained unique in the literature of love.
+
+Ten years had passed, and yet the woman's heart was as faithful and as
+full of yearning as on the day when the two had parted. It has been
+said that the letters are not genuine, and they must be read with this
+assertion in mind; yet it is difficult to believe that any one save
+Heloise herself could have flung a human soul into such frankly
+passionate utterances, or that any imitator could have done the work.
+
+In her first letter, which was sent to Abelard written upon parchment,
+she said:
+
+At thy command I would change, not merely my costume, but my very soul,
+so entirely art thou the sole possessor of my body and my spirit.
+Never, God is my witness, never have I sought anything in thee but
+thyself; I have sought thee, and not thy gifts. I have not looked to
+the marriage-bond or dowry.
+
+She begged him to write to her, and to lead her to God, as once he had
+led her into the mysteries of pleasure. Abelard answered in a letter,
+friendly to be sure, but formal--the letter of a priest to a cloistered
+nun. The opening words of it are characteristic of the whole:
+
+To Heloise, his sister in Christ, from Abelard, her brother in Him.
+
+The letter was a long one, but throughout the whole of it the writer's
+tone was cold and prudent. Its very coldness roused her soul to a
+passionate revolt. Her second letter bursts forth in a sort of anguish:
+
+How hast thou been able to frame such thoughts, dearest? How hast thou
+found words to convey them? Oh, if I dared but call God cruel to me!
+Oh, most wretched of all creatures that I am! So sweet did I find the
+pleasures of our loving days that I cannot bring myself to reject them
+or to banish them from my memory. Wheresoever I go, they thrust
+themselves upon my vision, and rekindle the old desire.
+
+But Abelard knew only too well that not in this life could there be
+anything save spiritual love between himself and Heloise. He wrote to
+her again and again, always in the same remote and unimpassioned way.
+He tells her about the history of monasticism, and discusses with her
+matters of theology and ethics; but he never writes one word to feed
+the flame that is consuming her. The woman understood at last; and by
+degrees her letters became as calm as his--suffused, however, with a
+tenderness and feeling which showed that in her heart of hearts she was
+still entirely given to him.
+
+After some years Abelard left his dwelling at the Paraclete, and there
+was founded there a religious house of which Heloise became the abbess.
+All the world respected her for her sweetness, her wisdom, and the
+purity of her character. She made friends as easily as Abelard made
+enemies. Even Bernard, who had overthrown her husband, sought out
+Heloise to ask for her advice and counsel.
+
+Abelard died while on his way to Rome, whither he was journeying in
+order to undergo a penalty; and his body was brought back to the
+Paraclete, where it was entombed. Over it for twenty-two years Heloise
+watched with tender care; and when she died, her body was laid beside
+that of her lover.
+
+To-day their bones are mingled as she would have desired them to be
+mingled. The stones of their tomb in the great cemetery of Pere
+Lachaise were brought from the ruins of the Paraclete, and above the
+sarcophagus are two recumbent figures, the whole being the work of the
+artist Alexandra Lenoir, who died in 1836. The figure representing
+Heloise is not, however, an authentic likeness. The model for it was a
+lady belonging to a noble family of France, and the figure itself was
+brought to Pere Lachaise from the ancient College de Beauvais.
+
+The letters of Heloise have been read and imitated throughout the whole
+of the last nine centuries. Some have found in them the utterances of a
+woman whose love of love was greater than her love of God and whose
+intensity of passion nothing could subdue; and so these have condemned
+her. But others, like Chateaubriand, have more truly seen in them a
+pure and noble spirit to whom fate had been very cruel; and who was,
+after all, writing to the man who had been her lawful husband.
+
+Some of the most famous imitations of her letters are those in the
+ancient poem entitled, "The Romance of the Rose," written by Jean de
+Meung, in the thirteenth century; and in modern times her first letter
+was paraphrased by Alexander Pope, and in French by Colardeau. There
+exist in English half a dozen translations of them, with Abelard's
+replies. It is interesting to remember that practically all the other
+writings of Abelard remained unpublished and unedited until a very
+recent period. He was a remarkable figure as a philosopher and scholar;
+but the world cares for him only because he was loved by Heloise.
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER
+
+
+History has many romantic stories to tell of the part which women have
+played in determining the destinies of nations. Sometimes it is a
+woman's beauty that causes the shifting of a province. Again it is
+another woman's rich possessions that incite invasion and lead to
+bloody wars. Marriages or dowries, or the refusal of marriages and the
+lack of dowries, inheritance through an heiress, the failure of a male
+succession--in these and in many other ways women have set their mark
+indelibly upon the trend of history.
+
+However, if we look over these different events we shall find that it
+is not so much the mere longing for a woman--the desire to have her as
+a queen--that has seriously affected the annals of any nation. Kings,
+like ordinary men, have paid their suit and then have ridden away
+repulsed, yet not seriously dejected. Most royal marriages are made
+either to secure the succession to a throne by a legitimate line of
+heirs or else to unite adjoining states and make a powerful kingdom out
+of two that are less powerful. But, as a rule, kings have found greater
+delight in some sheltered bower remote from courts than in the castled
+halls and well-cared-for nooks where their own wives and children have
+been reared with all the appurtenances of legitimacy.
+
+There are not many stories that hang persistently about the love-making
+of a single woman. In the case of one or another we may find an episode
+or two--something dashing, something spirited or striking, something
+brilliant and exhilarating, or something sad. But for a woman's whole
+life to be spent in courtship that meant nothing and that was only a
+clever aid to diplomacy--this is surely an unusual and really wonderful
+thing.
+
+It is the more unusual because the woman herself was not intended by
+nature to be wasted upon the cold and cheerless sport of chancellors
+and counselors and men who had no thought of her except to use her as a
+pawn. She was hot-blooded, descended from a fiery race, and one whose
+temper was quick to leap into the passion of a man.
+
+In studying this phase of the long and interesting life of Elizabeth of
+England we must notice several important facts. In the first place, she
+gave herself, above all else, to the maintenance of England--not an
+England that would be half Spanish or half French, or even partly Dutch
+and Flemish, but the Merry England of tradition--the England that was
+one and undivided, with its growing freedom of thought, its bows and
+bills, its nut-brown ale, its sturdy yeomen, and its loyalty to crown
+and Parliament. She once said, almost as in an agony:
+
+"I love England more than anything!"
+
+And one may really hold that this was true.
+
+For England she schemed and planned. For England she gave up many of
+her royal rights. For England she descended into depths of treachery.
+For England she left herself on record as an arrant liar, false,
+perjured, yet successful; and because of her success for England's sake
+her countrymen will hold her in high remembrance, since her scheming
+and her falsehood are the offenses that one pardons most readily in a
+woman.
+
+In the second place, it must be remembered that Elizabeth's courtships
+and pretended love-makings were almost always a part of her diplomacy.
+When not a part of her diplomacy they were a mere appendage to her
+vanity. To seem to be the flower of the English people, and to be
+surrounded by the noblest, the bravest, and the most handsome
+cavaliers, not only of her own kingdom, but of others--this was,
+indeed, a choice morsel of which she was fond of tasting, even though
+it meant nothing beyond the moment.
+
+Finally, though at times she could be very cold, and though she made
+herself still colder in order that she might play fast and loose with
+foreign suitors who played fast and loose with her--the King of Spain,
+the Duc d'Alencon, brother of the French king, with an Austrian
+archduke, with a magnificent barbarian prince of Muscovy, with Eric of
+Sweden, or any other Scandinavian suitor--she felt a woman's need for
+some nearer and more tender association to which she might give freer
+play and in which she might feel those deeper emotions without the
+danger that arises when love is mingled with diplomacy.
+
+Let us first consider a picture of the woman as she really was in order
+that we may understand her triple nature--consummate mistress of every
+art that statesmen know, and using at every moment her person as a
+lure; a vain-glorious queen who seemed to be the prey of boundless
+vanity; and, lastly, a woman who had all a woman's passion, and who
+could cast suddenly aside the check and balance which restrained her
+before the public gaze and could allow herself to give full play to the
+emotion that she inherited from the king, her father, who was himself a
+marvel of fire and impetuosity. That the daughter of Henry VIII. and
+Anne Boleyn should be a gentle, timid maiden would be to make heredity
+a farce.
+
+Elizabeth was about twenty-five years of age when she ascended the
+throne of England. It is odd that the date of her birth cannot be given
+with precision. The intrigues and disturbances of the English court,
+and the fact that she was a princess, made her birth a matter of less
+account than if there had been no male heir to the throne. At any rate,
+when she ascended it, after the deaths of her brother, King Edward VI.,
+and her sister, Queen Mary, she was a woman well trained both in
+intellect and in physical development.
+
+Mr. Martin Hume, who loves to dwell upon the later years of Queen
+Elizabeth, speaks rather bitterly of her as a "painted old harridan";
+and such she may well have seemed when, at nearly seventy years of age,
+she leered and grinned a sort of skeleton smile at the handsome young
+courtiers who pretended to see in her the queen of beauty and to be
+dying for love of her.
+
+Yet, in her earlier years, when she was young and strong and impetuous,
+she deserved far different words than these. The portrait of her by
+Zucchero, which now hangs in Hampton Court, depicts her when she must
+have been of more than middle age; and still the face is one of beauty,
+though it be a strange and almost artificial beauty--one that draws,
+attracts, and, perhaps, lures you on against your will.
+
+It is interesting to compare this painting with the frank word-picture
+of a certain German agent who was sent to England by his emperor, and
+who seems to have been greatly fascinated by Queen Elizabeth. She was
+at that time in the prime of her beauty and her power. Her complexion
+was of that peculiar transparency which is seen only in the face of
+golden blondes. Her figure was fine and graceful, and her wit an
+accomplishment that would have made a woman of any rank or time
+remarkable. The German envoy says:
+
+She lives a life of such magnificence and feasting as can hardly be
+imagined, and occupies a great portion of her time with balls,
+banquets, hunting, and similar amusements, with the utmost possible
+display, but nevertheless she insists upon far greater respect being
+shown her than was exacted by Queen Mary. She summons Parliament, but
+lets them know that her orders must be obeyed in any case.
+
+If any one will look at the painting by Zucchero he will see how much
+is made of Elizabeth's hands--a distinctive feature quite as noble with
+the Tudors as is the "Hapsburg lip" among the descendants of the house
+of Austria. These were ungloved, and were very long and white, and she
+looked at them and played with them a great deal; and, indeed, they
+justified the admiration with which they were regarded by her
+flatterers.
+
+Such was the personal appearance of Elizabeth. When a young girl, we
+have still more favorable opinions of her that were written by those
+who had occasion to be near her. Not only do they record swift glimpses
+of her person, but sometimes in a word or two they give an insight into
+certain traits of mind which came out prominently in her later years.
+
+It may, perhaps, be well to view her as a woman before we regard her
+more fully as a queen. It has been said that Elizabeth inherited many
+of the traits of her father--the boldness of spirit, the rapidity of
+decision, and, at the same time, the fox-like craft which often showed
+itself when it was least expected.
+
+Henry had also, as is well known, a love of the other sex, which has
+made his reign memorable. And yet it must be noted that while he loved
+much, it was not loose love. Many a king of England, from Henry II. to
+Charles II., has offended far more than Henry VIII. Where Henry loved,
+he married; and it was the unfortunate result of these royal marriages
+that has made him seem unduly fond of women. If, however, we examine
+each one of the separate espousals we shall find that he did not enter
+into it lightly, and that he broke it off unwillingly. His ardent
+temperament, therefore, was checked by a certain rational or
+conventional propriety, so that he was by no means a loose liver, as
+many would make him out to be.
+
+We must remember this when we recall the charges that have been made
+against Elizabeth, and the strange stories that were told of her
+tricks--by no means seemly tricks--which she used to play with her
+guardian, Lord Thomas Seymour. The antics she performed with him in her
+dressing-room were made the subject of an official inquiry; yet it came
+out that while Elizabeth was less than sixteen, and Lord Thomas was
+very much her senior, his wife was with him on his visits to the
+chamber of the princess.
+
+Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife were also sent to question her,
+Tyrwhitt had a keen mind and one well trained to cope with any other's
+wit in this sort of cross-examination. Elizabeth was only a girl of
+fifteen, yet she was a match for the accomplished courtier in diplomacy
+and quick retort. He was sent down to worm out of her everything that
+she knew. Threats and flattery and forged letters and false confessions
+were tried on her; but they were tried in vain. She would tell nothing
+of importance. She denied everything. She sulked, she cried, she
+availed herself of a woman's favorite defense in suddenly attacking
+those who had attacked her. She brought counter charges against
+Tyrwhitt, and put her enemies on their own defense. Not a compromising
+word could they wring out of her.
+
+She bitterly complained of the imprisonment of her governess, Mrs.
+Ashley, and cried out:
+
+"I have not so behaved that you need put more mistresses upon me!"
+
+Altogether, she was too much for Sir Robert, and he was wise enough to
+recognize her cleverness.
+
+"She hath a very good wit," said he, shrewdly; "and nothing is to be
+gotten of her except by great policy." And he added: "If I had to say
+my fancy, I think it more meet that she should have two governesses
+than one."
+
+Mr. Hume notes the fact that after the two servants of the princess had
+been examined and had told nothing very serious they found that they
+had been wise in remaining friends of the royal girl. No sooner had
+Elizabeth become queen than she knighted the man Parry and made him
+treasurer of the household, while Mrs. Ashley, the governess, was
+treated with great consideration. Thus, very naturally, Mr. Hume says:
+"They had probably kept back far more than they told."
+
+Even Tyrwhitt believed that there was a secret compact between them,
+for he said, quaintly: "They all sing one song, and she hath set the
+note for them."
+
+Soon after this her brother Edward's death brought to the throne her
+elder sister, Mary, who has harshly become known as Bloody Mary. During
+this time Elizabeth put aside her boldness, and became apparently a shy
+and simple-minded virgin. Surrounded on every side by those who sought
+to trap her, there was nothing in her bearing to make her seem the head
+of a party or the young chief of a faction. Nothing could exceed her in
+meekness. She spoke of her sister in the humblest terms. She exhibited
+no signs of the Tudor animation that was in reality so strong a part of
+her character.
+
+But, coming to the throne, she threw away her modesty and brawled and
+rioted with very little self-restraint. The people as a whole found
+little fault with her. She reminded them of her father, the bluff King
+Hal; and even those who criticized her did so only partially. They
+thought much better of her than they had of her saturnine sister, the
+first Queen Mary.
+
+The life of Elizabeth has been very oddly misunderstood, not so much
+for the facts in it as for the manner in which these have been arranged
+and the relation which they have to one another. We ought to recollect
+that this woman did not live in a restricted sphere, that her life was
+not a short one, and that it was crowded with incidents and full of
+vivid color. Some think of her as living for a short period of time and
+speak of the great historical characters who surrounded her as
+belonging to a single epoch. To them she has one set of suitors all the
+time--the Duc d'Alencon, the King of Denmark's brother, the Prince of
+Sweden, the russian potentate, the archduke sending her sweet messages
+from Austria, the melancholy King of Spain, together with a number of
+her own brilliant Englishmen--Sir William Pickering, Sir Robert Dudley,
+Lord Darnley, the Earl of Essex, Sir Philip Sidney, and Sir Walter
+Raleigh.
+
+Of course, as a matter of fact, Elizabeth lived for nearly seventy
+years--almost three-quarters of a century--and in that long time there
+came and went both men and women, those whom she had used and cast
+aside, with others whom she had also treated with gratitude, and who
+had died gladly serving her. But through it all there was a continual
+change in her environment, though not in her. The young soldier went to
+the battle-field and died; the wise counselor gave her his advice, and
+she either took it or cared nothing for it. She herself was a curious
+blending of forwardness and folly, of wisdom and wantonness, of
+frivolity and unbridled fancy. But through it all she loved her people,
+even though she often cheated them and made them pay her taxes in the
+harsh old way that prevailed before there was any right save the king's
+will.
+
+At the same time, this was only by fits and starts, and on the whole
+she served them well. Therefore, to most of them she was always the
+good Queen Bess. What mattered it to the ditcher and yeoman, far from
+the court, that the queen was said to dance in her nightdress and to
+swear like a trooper?
+
+It was, indeed, largely from these rustic sources that such stories
+were scattered throughout England. Peasants thought them picturesque.
+More to the point with them were peace and prosperity throughout the
+country, the fact that law was administered with honesty and justice,
+and that England was safe from her deadly enemies--the swarthy
+Spaniards and the scheming French.
+
+But, as I said, we must remember always that the Elizabeth of one
+period was not the Elizabeth of another, and that the England of one
+period was not the England of another. As one thinks of it, there is
+something wonderful in the almost star-like way in which this girl
+flitted unharmed through a thousand perils. Her own countrymen were at
+first divided against her; a score of greedy, avaricious suitors sought
+her destruction, or at least her hand to lead her to destruction; all
+the great powers of the Continent were either demanding an alliance
+with England or threatening to dash England down amid their own
+dissensions.
+
+What had this girl to play off against such dangers? Only an undaunted
+spirit, a scheming mind that knew no scruples, and finally her own
+person and the fact that she was a woman, and, therefore, might give
+herself in marriage and become the mother of a race of kings.
+
+It was this last weapon, the weapon of her sex, that proved, perhaps,
+the most powerful of all. By promising a marriage or by denying it, or
+by neither promising nor denying but withholding it, she gave forth a
+thousand wily intimations which kept those who surrounded her at bay
+until she had made still another deft and skilful combination, escaping
+like some startled creature to a new place of safety.
+
+In 1583, when she was fifty years of age, she had reached a point when
+her courtships and her pretended love-making were no longer necessary.
+She had played Sweden against Denmark, and France against Spain, and
+the Austrian archduke against the others, and many suitors in her own
+land against the different factions which they headed. She might have
+sat herself down to rest; for she could feel that her wisdom had led
+her up into a high place, whence she might look down in peace and with
+assurance of the tranquillity that she had won. Not yet had the great
+Armada rolled and thundered toward the English shores. But she was
+certain that her land was secure, compact, and safe.
+
+It remains to see what were those amatory relations which she may be
+said to have sincerely held. She had played at love-making with foreign
+princes, because it was wise and, for the moment, best. She had played
+with Englishmen of rank who aspired to her hand, because in that way
+she might conciliate, at one time her Catholic and at another her
+Protestant subjects. But what of the real and inward feeling of her
+heart, when she was not thinking of political problems or the
+necessities of state!
+
+This is an interesting question. One may at least seek the answer,
+hoping thereby to solve one of the most interesting phases of this
+perplexing and most remarkable woman.
+
+It must be remembered that it was not a question of whether Elizabeth
+desired marriage. She may have done so as involving a brilliant stroke
+of policy. In this sense she may have wished to marry one of the two
+French princes who were among her suitors. But even here she hesitated,
+and her Parliament disapproved; for by this time England had become
+largely Protestant. Again, had she married a French prince and had
+children, England might have become an appanage of France.
+
+There is no particular evidence that she had any feeling at all for her
+Flemish, Austrian, or Russian suitors, while the Swede's pretensions
+were the laughing-stock of the English court. So we may set aside this
+question of marriage as having nothing to do with her emotional life.
+She did desire a son, as was shown by her passionate outcry when she
+compared herself with Mary of Scotland.
+
+"The Queen of Scots has a bonny son, while I am but a barren stock!"
+
+She was too wise to wed a subject; though, had she married at all, her
+choice would doubtless have been an Englishman. In this respect, as in
+so many others, she was like her father, who chose his numerous wives,
+with the exception of the first, from among the English ladies of the
+court; just as the showy Edward IV. was happy in marrying "Dame
+Elizabeth Woodville." But what a king may do is by no means so easy for
+a queen; and a husband is almost certain to assume an authority which
+makes him unpopular with the subjects of his wife.
+
+Hence, as said above, we must consider not so much whom she would have
+liked to marry, but rather to whom her love went out spontaneously, and
+not as a part of that amatory play which amused her from the time when
+she frisked with Seymour down to the very last days, when she could no
+longer move about, but when she still dabbled her cheeks with rouge and
+powder and set her skeleton face amid a forest of ruffs.
+
+There were many whom she cared for after a fashion. She would not let
+Sir Walter Raleigh visit her American colonies, because she could not
+bear to have him so long away from her. She had great moments of
+passion for the Earl of Essex, though in the end she signed his
+death-warrant because he was as dominant in spirit as the queen herself.
+
+Readers of Sir Walter Scott's wonderfully picturesque novel,
+Kenilworth, will note how he throws the strongest light upon
+Elizabeth's affection for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Scott's
+historical instinct is united here with a vein of psychology which goes
+deeper than is usual with him. We see Elizabeth trying hard to share
+her favor equally between two nobles; but the Earl of Essex fails to
+please her because he lacked those exquisite manners which made
+Leicester so great a favorite with the fastidious queen.
+
+Then, too, the story of Leicester's marriage with Amy Robsart is
+something more than a myth, based upon an obscure legend and an ancient
+ballad. The earl had had such a wife, and there were sinister stories
+about the manner of her death. But it is Scott who invents the
+villainous Varney and the bulldog Anthony Foster; just as he brought
+the whole episode into the foreground and made it occur at a period
+much later than was historically true. Still, Scott felt--and he was
+imbued with the spirit and knowledge of that time--a strong conviction
+that Elizabeth loved Leicester as she really loved no one else.
+
+There is one interesting fact which goes far to convince us. Just as
+her father was, in a way, polygamous, so Elizabeth was even more truly
+polyandrous. It was inevitable that she should surround herself with
+attractive men, whose love-locks she would caress and whose flatteries
+she would greedily accept. To the outward eye there was very little
+difference in her treatment of the handsome and daring nobles of her
+court; yet a historian of her time makes one very shrewd remark when he
+says: "To every one she gave some power at times--to all save
+Leicester."
+
+Cecil and Walsingham in counsel and Essex and Raleigh in the field
+might have their own way at times, and even share the sovereign's
+power, but to Leicester she intrusted no high commands and no important
+mission. Why so? Simply because she loved him more than any of the
+rest; and, knowing this, she knew that if besides her love she granted
+him any measure of control or power, then she would be but half a queen
+and would be led either to marry him or else to let him sway her as he
+would.
+
+For the reason given, one may say with confidence that, while
+Elizabeth's light loves were fleeting, she gave a deep affection to
+this handsome, bold, and brilliant Englishman and cherished him in a
+far different way from any of the others. This was as near as she ever
+came to marriage, and it was this love at least which makes
+Shakespeare's famous line as false as it is beautiful, when he
+describes "the imperial votaress" as passing by "in maiden meditation,
+fancy free."
+
+
+
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL
+
+
+Mary Stuart and Cleopatra are the two women who have most attracted the
+fancy of poets, dramatists, novelists, and painters, from their own
+time down to the present day.
+
+In some respects there is a certain likeness in their careers. Each was
+queen of a nation whose affairs were entangled with those of a much
+greater one. Each sought for her own ideal of love until she found it.
+Each won that love recklessly, almost madly. Each, in its attainment,
+fell from power and fortune. Each died before her natural life was
+ended. One caused the man she loved to cast away the sovereignty of a
+mighty state. The other lost her own crown in order that she might
+achieve the whole desire of her heart.
+
+There is still another parallel which may be found. Each of these women
+was reputed to be exquisitely beautiful; yet each fell short of
+beauty's highest standards. They are alike remembered in song and story
+because of qualities that are far more powerful than any physical charm
+can be. They impressed the imagination of their own contemporaries just
+as they had impressed the imagination of all succeeding ages, by reason
+of a strange and irresistible fascination which no one could explain,
+but which very few could experience and resist.
+
+Mary Stuart was born six days before her father's death, and when the
+kingdom which was her heritage seemed to be almost in its death-throes.
+James V. of Scotland, half Stuart and half Tudor, was no ordinary
+monarch. As a mere boy he had burst the bonds with which a regency had
+bound him, and he had ruled the wild Scotland of the sixteenth century.
+He was brave and crafty, keen in statesmanship, and dissolute in
+pleasure.
+
+His first wife had given him no heirs; so at her death he sought out a
+princess whom he pursued all the more ardently because she was also
+courted by the burly Henry VIII. of England. This girl was Marie of
+Lorraine, daughter of the Duc de Guise. She was fit to be the mother of
+a lion's brood, for she was above six feet in height and of proportions
+so ample as to excite the admiration of the royal voluptuary who sat
+upon the throne of England.
+
+"I am big," said he, "and I want a wife who is as big as I am."
+
+But James of Scotland wooed in person, and not by embassies, and he
+triumphantly carried off his strapping princess. Henry of England
+gnawed his beard in vain; and, though in time he found consolation in
+another woman's arms, he viewed James not only as a public but as a
+private enemy.
+
+There was war between the two countries. First the Scots repelled an
+English army; but soon they were themselves disgracefully defeated at
+Solway Moss by a force much their inferior in numbers. The shame of it
+broke King James's heart. As he was galloping from the battle-field the
+news was brought him that his wife had given birth to a daughter. He
+took little notice of the message; and in a few days he had died,
+moaning with his last breath the mysterious words:
+
+"It came with a lass--with a lass it will go!"
+
+The child who was born at this ill-omened crisis was Mary Stuart, who
+within a week became, in her own right, Queen of Scotland. Her mother
+acted as regent of the kingdom. Henry of England demanded that the
+infant girl should be betrothed to his young son, Prince Edward, who
+afterward reigned as Edward VI., though he died while still a boy. The
+proposal was rejected, and the war between England and Scotland went on
+its bloody course; but meanwhile the little queen was sent to France,
+her mother's home, so that she might be trained in accomplishments
+which were rare in Scotland.
+
+In France she grew up at the court of Catherine de' Medici, that
+imperious intriguer whose splendid surroundings were tainted with the
+corruption which she had brought from her native Italy. It was, indeed,
+a singular training-school for a girl of Mary Stuart's character. She
+saw about her a superficial chivalry and a most profound depravity.
+Poets like Ronsard graced the life of the court with exquisite verse.
+Troubadours and minstrels sang sweet music there. There were fetes and
+tournaments and gallantry of bearing; yet, on the other hand, there was
+every possible refinement and variety of vice. Men were slain before
+the eyes of the queen herself. The talk of the court was of intrigue
+and lust and evil things which often verged on crime. Catherine de'
+Medici herself kept her nominal husband at arm's-length; and in order
+to maintain her grasp on France she connived at the corruption of her
+own children, three of whom were destined in their turn to sit upon the
+throne.
+
+Mary Stuart grew up in these surroundings until she was sixteen, eating
+the fruit which gave a knowledge of both good and evil. Her
+intelligence was very great. She quickly learned Italian, French, and
+Latin. She was a daring horsewoman. She was a poet and an artist even
+in her teens. She was also a keen judge of human motives, for those
+early years of hers had forced her into a womanhood that was premature
+but wonderful. It had been proposed that she should marry the eldest
+son of Catherine, so that in time the kingdom of Scotland and that of
+France might be united, while if Elizabeth of England were to die
+unmarried her realm also would fall to this pair of children.
+
+And so Mary, at sixteen, wedded the Dauphin Francis, who was a year her
+junior. The prince was a wretched, whimpering little creature, with a
+cankered body and a blighted soul. Marriage with such a husband seemed
+absurd. It never was a marriage in reality. The sickly child would cry
+all night, for he suffered from abscesses in his ears, and his manhood
+had been prematurely taken from him. Nevertheless, within a twelvemonth
+the French king died and Mary Stuart was Queen of France as well as of
+Scotland, hampered only by her nominal obedience to the sick boy whom
+she openly despised. At seventeen she showed herself a master spirit.
+She held her own against the ambitious Catherine de' Medici, whom she
+contemptuously nicknamed "the apothecary's daughter." For the brief
+period of a year she was actually the ruler of France; but then her
+husband died and she was left a widow, restless, ambitious, and yet no
+longer having any of the power she loved.
+
+Mary Stuart at this time had become a woman whose fascination was
+exerted over all who knew her. She was very tall and very slim, with
+chestnut hair, "like a flower of the heat, both lax and delicate." Her
+skin was fair and pale, so clear and so transparent as to make the
+story plausible that when she drank from a flask of wine, the red
+liquid could be seen passing down her slender throat.
+
+Yet with all this she was not fine in texture, but hardy as a man. She
+could endure immense fatigue without yielding to it. Her supple form
+had the strength of steel. There was a gleam in her hazel eyes that
+showed her to be brimful of an almost fierce vitality. Young as she
+was, she was the mistress of a thousand arts, and she exhaled a sort of
+atmosphere that turned the heads of men. The Stuart blood made her
+impatient of control, careless of state, and easy-mannered. The French
+and the Tudor strain gave her vivacity. She could be submissive in
+appearance while still persisting in her aims. She could be languorous
+and seductive while cold within. Again, she could assume the
+haughtiness which belonged to one who was twice a queen.
+
+Two motives swayed her, and they fought together for supremacy. One was
+the love of power, and the other was the love of love. The first was
+natural to a girl who was a sovereign in her own right. The second was
+inherited, and was then forced into a rank luxuriance by the sort of
+life that she had seen about her. At eighteen she was a strangely
+amorous creature, given to fondling and kissing every one about her,
+with slight discrimination. From her sense of touch she received
+emotions that were almost necessary to her existence. With her slender,
+graceful hands she was always stroking the face of some favorite--it
+might be only the face of a child, or it might be the face of some
+courtier or poet, or one of the four Marys whose names are linked with
+hers--Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming, Mary Beaton, and Mary Seton, the
+last of whom remained with her royal mistress until her death.
+
+But one must not be too censorious in thinking of Mary Stuart. She was
+surrounded everywhere by enemies. During her stay in France she was
+hated by the faction of Catherine de' Medici. When she returned to
+Scotland she was hated because of her religion by the Protestant lords.
+Her every action was set forth in the worst possible light. The most
+sinister meaning was given to everything she said or did. In truth, we
+must reject almost all the stories which accuse her of anything more
+than a certain levity of conduct.
+
+She was not a woman to yield herself in love's last surrender unless
+her intellect and heart alike had been made captive. She would listen
+to the passionate outpourings of poets and courtiers, and she would
+plunge her eyes into theirs, and let her hair just touch their faces,
+and give them her white hands to kiss--but that was all. Even in this
+she was only following the fashion of the court where she was bred, and
+she was not unlike her royal relative, Elizabeth of England, who had
+the same external amorousness coupled with the same internal
+self-control.
+
+Mary Stuart's love life makes a piteous story, for it is the life of
+one who was ever seeking--seeking for the man to whom she could look
+up, who could be strong and brave and ardent like herself, and at the
+same time be more powerful and more steadfast even than she herself in
+mind and thought. Whatever may be said of her, and howsoever the facts
+may be colored by partisans, this royal girl, stung though she was by
+passion and goaded by desire, cared nothing for any man who could not
+match her in body and mind and spirit all at once.
+
+It was in her early widowhood that she first met the man, and when
+their union came it brought ruin on them both. In France there came to
+her one day one of her own subjects, the Earl of Bothwell. He was but a
+few years older than she, and in his presence for the first time she
+felt, in her own despite, that profoundly moving, indescribable, and
+never-to-be-forgotten thrill which shakes a woman to the very center of
+her being, since it is the recognition of a complete affinity.
+
+Lord Bothwell, like Queen Mary, has been terribly maligned. Unlike her,
+he has found only a few defenders. Maurice Hewlett has drawn a picture
+of him more favorable than many, and yet it is a picture that repels.
+Bothwell, says he, was of a type esteemed by those who pronounce vice
+to be their virtue. He was "a galliard, flushed with rich blood,
+broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with a laugh so happy and so prompt
+that the world, rejoicing to hear it, thought all must be well wherever
+he might be. He wore brave clothes, sat a brave horse, and kept brave
+company bravely. His high color, while it betokened high feeding, got
+him the credit of good health. His little eyes twinkled so merrily that
+you did not see they were like a pig's, sly and greedy at once, and
+bloodshot. His tawny beard concealed a jaw underhung, a chin jutting
+and dangerous. His mouth had a cruel twist; but his laughing hid that
+too. The bridge of his nose had been broken; few observed it, or
+guessed at the brawl which must have given it to him. Frankness was his
+great charm, careless ease in high places."
+
+And so, when Mary Stuart first met him in her eighteenth year, Lord
+Bothwell made her think as she had never thought of any other man, and
+as she was not to think of any other man again. She grew to look
+eagerly for the frank mockery "in those twinkling eyes, in that quick
+mouth"; and to wonder whether it was with him always--asleep, at
+prayers, fighting, furious, or in love.
+
+Something more, however, must be said of Bothwell. He was undoubtedly a
+roisterer, but he was very much a man. He made easy love to women. His
+sword leaped quickly from its sheath. He could fight, and he could also
+think. He was no brawling ruffian, no ordinary rake. Remembering what
+Scotland was in those days, Bothwell might well seem in reality a
+princely figure. He knew Italian; he was at home in French; he could
+write fluent Latin. He was a collector of books and a reader of them
+also. He was perhaps the only Scottish noble of his time who had a
+book-plate of his own. Here is something more than a mere reveler. Here
+is a man of varied accomplishments and of a complex character.
+
+Though he stayed but a short time near the queen in France, he kindled
+her imagination, so that when she seriously thought of men she thought
+of Bothwell. And yet all the time she was fondling the young pages in
+her retinue and kissing her maids of honor with her scarlet lips, and
+lying on their knees, while poets like Ronsard and Chastelard wrote
+ardent love sonnets to her and sighed and pined for something more than
+the privilege of kissing her two dainty hands.
+
+In 1561, less than a year after her widowhood, Mary set sail for
+Scotland, never to return. The great high-decked ships which escorted
+her sailed into the harbor of Leith, and she pressed on to Edinburgh. A
+depressing change indeed from the sunny terraces and fields of France!
+In her own realm were fog and rain and only a hut to shelter her upon
+her landing. When she reached her capital there were few welcoming
+cheers; but as she rode over the cobblestones to Holyrood, the squalid
+wynds vomited forth great mobs of hard-featured, grim-visaged men and
+women who stared with curiosity and a half-contempt at the girl queen
+and her retinue of foreigners.
+
+The Scots were Protestants of the most dour sort, and they distrusted
+their new ruler because of her religion and because she loved to
+surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and exotic
+elegance. They feared lest she should try to repeal the law of
+Scotland's Parliament which had made the country Protestant.
+
+The very indifference of her subjects stirred up the nobler part of
+Mary's nature. For a time she was indeed a queen. She governed wisely.
+She respected the religious rights of her Protestant subjects. She
+strove to bring order out of the chaos into which her country had
+fallen. And she met with some success. The time came when her people
+cheered her as she rode among them. Her subtle fascination was her
+greatest source of strength. Even John Knox, that iron-visaged,
+stentorian preacher, fell for a time under the charm of her presence.
+She met him frankly and pleaded with him as a woman, instead of
+commanding him as a queen. The surly ranter became softened for a time,
+and, though he spoke of her to others as "Honeypot," he ruled his
+tongue in public. She had offers of marriage from Austrian and Spanish
+princes. The new King of France, her brother-in-law, would perhaps have
+wedded her. It mattered little to Mary that Elizabeth of England was
+hostile. She felt that she was strong enough to hold her own and govern
+Scotland.
+
+But who could govern a country such as Scotland was? It was a land of
+broils and feuds, of clan enmities and fierce vendettas. Its nobles
+were half barbarous, and they fought and slashed at one another with
+drawn dirks almost in the presence of the queen herself. No matter whom
+she favored, there rose up a swarm of enemies. Here was a Corsica of
+the north, more savage and untamed than even the other Corsica.
+
+In her perplexity Mary felt a woman's need of some man on whom she
+would have the right to lean, and whom she could make king consort. She
+thought that she had found him in the person of her cousin, Lord
+Darnley, a Catholic, and by his upbringing half an Englishman. Darnley
+came to Scotland, and for the moment Mary fancied that she had
+forgotten Bothwell. Here again she was in love with love, and she
+idealized the man who came to give it to her. Darnley seemed, indeed,
+well worthy to be loved, for he was tall and handsome, appearing well
+on horseback and having some of the accomplishments which Mary valued.
+
+It was a hasty wooing, and the queen herself was first of all the
+wooer. Her quick imagination saw in Darnley traits and gifts of which
+he really had no share. Therefore, the marriage was soon concluded, and
+Scotland had two sovereigns, King Henry and Queen Mary. So sure was
+Mary of her indifference to Bothwell that she urged the earl to marry,
+and he did marry a girl of the great house of Gordon.
+
+Mary's self-suggested love for Darnley was extinguished almost on her
+wedding-night. The man was a drunkard who came into her presence
+befuddled and almost bestial. He had no brains. His vanity was
+enormous. He loved no one but himself, and least of all this queen,
+whom he regarded as having thrown herself at his empty head.
+
+The first-fruits of the marriage were uprisings among the Protestant
+lords. Mary then showed herself a heroic queen. At the head of a motley
+band of soldiery who came at her call--half-clad, uncouth, and
+savage--she rode into the west, sleeping at night upon the bare ground,
+sharing the camp food, dressed in plain tartan, but swift and fierce as
+any eagle. Her spirit ran like fire through the veins of those who
+followed her. She crushed the insurrection, scattered its leaders, and
+returned in triumph to her capital.
+
+Now she was really queen, but here came in the other motive which was
+interwoven in her character. She had shown herself a man in courage.
+Should she not have the pleasures of a woman? To her court in Holyrood
+came Bothwell once again, and this time Mary knew that he was all the
+world to her. Darnley had shrunk from the hardships of battle. He was
+steeped in low intrigues. He roused the constant irritation of the
+queen by his folly and utter lack of sense and decency. Mary felt she
+owed him nothing, but she forgot that she owed much to herself.
+
+Her old amorous ways came back to her, and she relapsed into the joys
+of sense. The scandal-mongers of the capital saw a lover in every man
+with whom she talked. She did, in fact, set convention at defiance. She
+dressed in men's clothing. She showed what the unemotional Scots
+thought to be unseemly levity. The French poet, Chastelard, misled by
+her external signs of favor, believed himself to be her choice. At the
+end of one mad revel he was found secreted beneath her bed, and was
+driven out by force. A second time he ventured to secrete himself
+within the covers of the bed. Then he was dragged forth, imprisoned,
+and condemned to death. He met his fate without a murmur, save at the
+last when he stood upon the scaffold and, gazing toward the palace,
+cried in French:
+
+"Oh, cruel queen! I die for you!"
+
+Another favorite, the Italian, David Rizzio, or Riccio, in like manner
+wrote love verses to the queen, and she replied to them in kind; but
+there is no evidence that she valued him save for his ability, which
+was very great. She made him her foreign secretary, and the man whom he
+supplanted worked on the jealousy of Darnley; so that one night, while
+Mary and Rizzio were at dinner in a small private chamber, Darnley and
+the others broke in upon her. Darnley held her by the waist while
+Rizzio was stabbed before her eyes with a cruelty the greater because
+the queen was soon to become a mother.
+
+From that moment she hated Darnley as one would hate a snake. She
+tolerated him only that he might acknowledge her child as his son. This
+child was the future James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. It
+is recorded of him that never throughout his life could he bear to look
+upon drawn steel.
+
+After this Mary summoned Bothwell again and again. It was revealed to
+her as in a blaze of light that, after all, he was the one and only man
+who could be everything to her. His frankness, his cynicism, his
+mockery, his carelessness, his courage, and the power of his mind
+matched her moods completely. She threw away all semblance of
+concealment. She ignored the fact that he had married at her wish. She
+was queen. She desired him. She must have him at any cost.
+
+"Though I lose Scotland and England both," she cried in a passion of
+abandonment, "I shall have him for my own!"
+
+Bothwell, in his turn, was nothing loath, and they leaped at each other
+like two flames.
+
+It was then that Mary wrote those letters which were afterward
+discovered in a casket and which were used against her when she was on
+trial for her life. These so-called Casket Letters, though we have not
+now the originals, are among the most extraordinary letters ever
+written. All shame, all hesitation, all innocence, are flung away in
+them. The writer is so fired with passion that each sentence is like a
+cry to a lover in the dark. As De Peyster says: "In them the animal
+instincts override and spur and lash the pen." Mary was committing to
+paper the frenzied madness of a woman consumed to her very marrow by
+the scorching blaze of unendurable desire.
+
+Events moved quickly. Darnley, convalescent from an attack of smallpox,
+was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder. Bothwell was
+divorced from his young wife on curious grounds. A dispensation allowed
+Mary to wed a Protestant, and she married Bothwell three months after
+Darnley's death.
+
+Here one sees the consummation of what had begun many years before in
+France. From the moment that she and Bothwell met, their union was
+inevitable. Seas could not sunder them. Other loves and other fancies
+were as nothing to them. Even the bonds of marriage were burst asunder
+so that these two fiery, panting souls could meet.
+
+It was the irony of fate that when they had so met it was only to be
+parted. Mary's subjects, outraged by her conduct, rose against her. As
+she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women hurled after her
+indecent names. Great banners were raised with execrable daubs
+representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable
+which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after her
+wherever she went.
+
+With Bothwell by her side she led a wild and ragged horde of followers
+against the rebellious nobles, whose forces met her at Carberry Hill.
+Her motley followers melted away, and Mary surrendered to the hostile
+chieftains, who took her to the castle at Lochleven. There she became
+the mother of twins--a fact that is seldom mentioned by historians.
+These children were the fruit of her union with Bothwell. From this
+time forth she cared but little for herself, and she signed, without
+great reluctance, a document by which she abdicated in favor of her
+infant son.
+
+Even in this place of imprisonment, however, her fascination had power
+to charm. Among those who guarded her, two of the Douglas
+family--George Douglas and William Douglas--for love of her, effected
+her escape. The first attempt failed. Mary, disguised as a laundress,
+was betrayed by the delicacy of her hands. But a second attempt was
+successful. The queen passed through a postern gate and made her way to
+the lake, where George Douglas met her with a boat. Crossing the lake,
+fifty horsemen under Lord Claude Hamilton gave her their escort and
+bore her away in safety.
+
+But Mary was sick of Scotland, for Bothwell could not be there. She had
+tasted all the bitterness of life, and for a few months all the
+sweetness; but she would have no more of this rough and barbarous
+country. Of her own free will she crossed the Solway into England, to
+find herself at once a prisoner.
+
+Never again did she set eyes on Bothwell. After the battle of Carberry
+Hill he escaped to the north, gathered some ships together, and preyed
+upon English merchantmen, very much as a pirate might have done. Ere
+long, however, when he had learned of Mary's fate, he set sail for
+Norway. King Frederick of Denmark made him a prisoner of state. He was
+not confined within prison walls, however, but was allowed to hunt and
+ride in the vicinity of Malmo Castle and of Dragsholm. It is probably
+in Malmo Castle that he died. In 1858 a coffin which was thought to be
+the coffin of the earl was opened, and a Danish artist sketched the
+head--which corresponds quite well with the other portraits of the
+ill-fated Scottish noble.
+
+It is a sad story. Had Mary been less ambitious when she first met
+Bothwell, or had he been a little bolder, they might have reigned
+together and lived out their lives in the plenitude of that great love
+which held them both in thrall. But a queen is not as other women; and
+she found too late that the teaching of her heart was, after all, the
+truest teaching. She went to her death as Bothwell went to his, alone,
+in a strange, unfriendly land.
+
+Yet, even this, perhaps, was better so. It has at least touched both
+their lives with pathos and has made the name of Mary Stuart one to be
+remembered throughout all the ages.
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
+
+
+Sweden to-day is one of the peaceful kingdoms of the world, whose
+people are prosperous, well governed, and somewhat apart from the clash
+and turmoil of other states and nations. Even the secession of Norway,
+a few years ago, was accomplished without bloodshed, and now the two
+kingdoms exist side by side as free from strife as they are with
+Denmark, which once domineered and tyrannized over both.
+
+It is difficult to believe that long ago, in the Middle Ages, the
+cities of southern Sweden were among the great commercial centers of
+the world. Stockholm and Lund ranked with London and Paris. They
+absorbed the commerce of the northern seas, and were the admiration of
+thousands of travelers and merchants who passed through them and
+trafficked with them.
+
+Much nearer to our own time, Sweden was the great military power of
+northern Europe. The ambassadors of the Swedish kings were received
+with the utmost deference in every court. Her soldiers won great
+battles and ended mighty wars. The England of Cromwell and Charles II.
+was unimportant and isolated in comparison with this northern kingdom,
+which could pour forth armies of gigantic blond warriors, headed by
+generals astute as well as brave.
+
+It was no small matter, then, in 1626, that the loyal Swedes were
+hoping that their queen would give birth to a male heir to succeed his
+splendid father, Gustavus Adolphus, ranked by military historians as
+one of the six great generals whom the world had so far produced. The
+queen, a German princess of Brandenburg, had already borne two
+daughters, who died in infancy. The expectation was wide-spread and
+intense that she should now become the mother of a son; and the king
+himself was no less anxious.
+
+When the event occurred, the child was seen to be completely covered
+with hair, and for this reason the attendants at first believed that it
+was the desired boy. When their mistake was discovered they were afraid
+to tell the king, who was waiting in his study for the announcement to
+be made. At last, when no one else would go to him, his sister, the
+Princess Caroline, volunteered to break the news.
+
+Gustavus was in truth a chivalrous, high-bred monarch. Though he must
+have been disappointed at the advent of a daughter, he showed no sign
+of dissatisfaction or even of surprise; but, rising, he embraced his
+sister, saying:
+
+"Let us thank God. I hope this girl will be as good as a boy to me. May
+God preserve her now that He has sent her!"
+
+It is customary at almost all courts to pay less attention to the birth
+of a princess than to that of a prince; but Gustavus displayed his
+chivalry toward this little daughter, whom he named Christina. He
+ordered that the full royal salute should be fired in every fortress of
+his kingdom and that displays of fireworks, balls of honor, and court
+functions should take place; "for," as he said, "this is the heir to my
+throne." And so from the first he took his child under his own keeping
+and treated her as if she were a much-loved son as well as a successor.
+
+He joked about her looks when she was born, when she was mistaken for a
+boy.
+
+"She will be clever," he said, "for she has taken us all in!"
+
+The Swedish people were as delighted with their little princess as were
+the people of Holland when the present Queen Wilhelmina was born, to
+carry on the succession of the House of Orange. On one occasion the
+king and the small Christina, who were inseparable companions, happened
+to approach a fortress where they expected to spend the night. The
+commander of the castle was bound to fire a royal salute of fifty
+cannon in honor of his sovereign; yet he dreaded the effect upon the
+princess of such a roaring and bellowing of artillery. He therefore
+sent a swift horseman to meet the royal party at a distance and explain
+his perplexity. Should he fire these guns or not? Would the king give
+an order?
+
+Gustavus thought for a moment, and then replied:
+
+"My daughter is the daughter of a soldier, and she must learn to lead a
+soldier's life. Let the guns be fired!"
+
+The procession moved on. Presently fire spurted from the embrasures of
+the fort, and its batteries thundered in one great roar. The king
+looked down at Christina. Her face was aglow with pleasure and
+excitement; she clapped her hands and laughed, and cried out:
+
+"More bang! More! More! More!"
+
+This is only one of a score of stories that were circulated about the
+princess, and the Swedes were more and more delighted with the girl who
+was to be their queen.
+
+Somewhat curiously, Christina's mother, Queen Maria, cared little for
+the child, and, in fact, came at last to detest her almost as much as
+the king loved her. It is hard to explain this dislike. Perhaps she had
+a morbid desire for a son and begrudged the honors given to a daughter.
+Perhaps she was a little jealous of her own child, who took so much of
+the king's attention. Afterward, in writing of her mother, Christina
+excuses her, and says quite frankly:
+
+She could not bear to see me, because I was a girl, and an ugly girl at
+that. And she was right enough, for I was as tawny as a little Turk.
+
+This candid description of herself is hardly just. Christina was never
+beautiful, and she had a harsh voice. She was apt to be overbearing
+even as a little girl. Yet she was a most interesting child, with an
+expressive face, large eyes, an aquiline nose, and the blond hair of
+her people. There was nothing in this to account for her mother's
+intense dislike for her.
+
+It was currently reported at the time that attempts were made to maim
+or seriously injure the little princess. By what was made to seem an
+accident, she would be dropped upon the floor, and heavy articles of
+furniture would somehow manage to strike her. More than once a great
+beam fell mysteriously close to her, either in the palace or while she
+was passing through the streets. None of these things did her serious
+harm, however. Most of them she luckily escaped; but when she had grown
+to be a woman one of her shoulders was permanently higher than the
+other.
+
+"I suppose," said Christina, "that I could be straightened if I would
+let the surgeons attend to it; but it isn't worth while to take the
+trouble."
+
+When Christina was four, Sweden became involved in the great war that
+had been raging for a dozen years between the Protestant and the
+Catholic states of Germany. Gradually the neighboring powers had been
+drawn into the struggle, either to serve their own ends or to support
+the faith to which they adhered. Gustavus Adolphus took up the sword
+with mixed motives, for he was full of enthusiasm for the imperiled
+cause of the Reformation, and at the same time he deemed it a favorable
+opportunity to assert his control over the shores of the Baltic.
+
+The warrior king summoned his army and prepared to invade Germany.
+Before departing he took his little daughter by the hand and led her
+among the assembled nobles and councilors of state. To them he
+intrusted the princess, making them kneel and vow that they would
+regard her as his heir, and, if aught should happen to him, as his
+successor. Amid the clashing of swords and the clang of armor this vow
+was taken, and the king went forth to war.
+
+He met the ablest generals of his enemies, and the fortunes of battle
+swayed hither and thither; but the climax came when his soldiers
+encountered those of Wallenstein--that strange, overbearing, arrogant,
+mysterious creature whom many regarded with a sort of awe. The clash
+came at Lutzen, in Saxony. The Swedish king fought long and hard, and
+so did his mighty opponent; but at last, in the very midst of a
+tremendous onset that swept all before him, Gustavus received a mortal
+wound and died, even while Wallenstein was fleeing from the field of
+battle.
+
+The battle of Lutzen made Christina Queen of Sweden at the age of six.
+Of course, she could not yet be crowned, but a council of able
+ministers continued the policy of the late king and taught the young
+queen her first lessons in statecraft. Her intellect soon showed itself
+as more than that of a child. She understood all that was taking place,
+and all that was planned and arranged. Her tact was unusual. Her
+discretion was admired by every one; and after a while she had the
+advice and training of the great Swedish chancellor, Oxenstierna, whose
+wisdom she shared to a remarkable degree.
+
+Before she was sixteen she had so approved herself to her counselors,
+and especially to the people at large, that there was a wide-spread
+clamor that she should take the throne and govern in her own person. To
+this she gave no heed, but said:
+
+"I am not yet ready."
+
+All this time she bore herself like a king. There was nothing
+distinctly feminine about her. She took but slight interest in her
+appearance. She wore sword and armor in the presence of her troops, and
+often she dressed entirely in men's clothes. She would take long,
+lonely gallops through the forests, brooding over problems of state and
+feeling no fatigue or fear. And indeed why should she fear, who was
+beloved by all her subjects?
+
+When her eighteenth year arrived, the demand for her coronation was
+impossible to resist. All Sweden wished to see a ruling queen, who
+might marry and have children to succeed her through the royal line of
+her great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but she absolutely
+refused all thought of marriage. She had more suitors from all parts of
+Europe than even Elizabeth of England; but, unlike Elizabeth, she did
+not dally with them, give them false hopes, or use them for the
+political advantage of her kingdom.
+
+At that time Sweden was stronger than England, and was so situated as
+to be independent of alliances. So Christina said, in her harsh,
+peremptory voice:
+
+"I shall never marry; and why should you speak of my having children! I
+am just as likely to give birth to a Nero as to an Augustus."
+
+Having assumed the throne, she ruled with a strictness of government
+such as Sweden had not known before. She took the reins of state into
+her own hands and carried out a foreign policy of her own, over the
+heads of her ministers, and even against the wishes of her people. The
+fighting upon the Continent had dragged out to a weary length, but the
+Swedes, on the whole, had scored a marked advantage. For this reason
+the war was popular, and every one wished it to go on; but Christina,
+of her own will, decided that it must stop, that mere glory was not to
+be considered against material advantages. Sweden had had enough of
+glory; she must now look to her enrichment and prosperity through the
+channels of peace.
+
+Therefore, in 1648, against Oxenstierna, against her generals, and
+against her people, she exercised her royal power and brought the
+Thirty Years' War to an end by the so-called Peace of Westphalia. At
+this time she was twenty-two, and by her personal influence she had
+ended one of the greatest struggles of history. Nor had she done it to
+her country's loss. Denmark yielded up rich provinces, while Germany
+was compelled to grant Sweden membership in the German diet.
+
+Then came a period of immense prosperity through commerce, through
+economies in government, through the improvement of agriculture and the
+opening of mines. This girl queen, without intrigue, without descending
+from her native nobility to peep and whisper with shady diplomats,
+showed herself in reality a great monarch, a true Semiramis of the
+north, more worthy of respect and reverence than Elizabeth of England.
+She was highly trained in many arts. She was fond of study, spoke Latin
+fluently, and could argue with Salmasius, Descartes, and other
+accomplished scholars without showing any inferiority to them.
+
+She gathered at her court distinguished persons from all countries. She
+repelled those who sought her hand, and she was pure and truthful and
+worthy of all men's admiration. Had she died at this time history would
+rank her with the greatest of women sovereigns. Naude, the librarian of
+Cardinal Mazarin, wrote of her to the scientist Gassendi in these words:
+
+To say truth, I am sometimes afraid lest the common saying should be
+verified in her, that short is the life and rare the old age of those
+who surpass the common limits. Do not imagine that she is learned only
+in books, for she is equally so in painting, architecture, sculpture,
+medals, antiquities, and all curiosities. There is not a cunning
+workman in these arts but she has him fetched. There are as good
+workers in wax and in enamel, engravers, singers, players, dancers here
+as will be found anywhere.
+
+She has a gallery of statues, bronze and marble, medals of gold,
+silver, and bronze, pieces of ivory, amber, coral, worked crystal,
+steel mirrors, clocks and tables, bas-reliefs and other things of the
+kind; richer I have never seen even in Italy; finally, a great quantity
+of pictures. In short, her mind is open to all impressions.
+
+But after she began to make her court a sort of home for art and
+letters it ceased to be the sort of court that Sweden was prepared for.
+Christina's subjects were still rude and lacking in accomplishments;
+therefore she had to summon men of genius from other countries,
+especially from France and Italy. Many of these were illustrious
+artists or scholars, but among them were also some who used their
+mental gifts for harm.
+
+Among these latter was a French physician named Bourdelot--a man of
+keen intellect, of winning manners, and of a profound cynicism, which
+was not apparent on the surface, but the effect of which last lasting.
+To Bourdelot we must chiefly ascribe the mysterious change which
+gradually came over Queen Christina. With his associates he taught her
+a distaste for the simple and healthy life that she had been accustomed
+to lead. She ceased to think of the welfare of the state and began to
+look down with scorn upon her unsophisticated Swedes. Foreign luxury
+displayed itself at Stockholm, and her palaces overflowed with
+beautiful things.
+
+By subtle means Bourdelot undermined her principles. Having been a
+Stoic, she now became an Epicurean. She was by nature devoid of
+sentiment. She would not spend her time in the niceties of love-making,
+as did Elizabeth; but beneath the surface she had a sort of tigerish,
+passionate nature, which would break forth at intervals, and which
+demanded satisfaction from a series of favorites. It is probable that
+Bourdelot was her first lover, but there were many others whose names
+are recorded in the annals of the time.
+
+When she threw aside her virtue Christina ceased to care about
+appearances. She squandered her revenues upon her favorites. What she
+retained of her former self was a carelessness that braved the opinion
+of her subjects. She dressed almost without thought, and it is said
+that she combed her hair not more than twice a month. She caroused with
+male companions to the scandal of her people, and she swore like a
+trooper when displeased.
+
+Christina's philosophy of life appears to have been compounded of an
+almost brutal licentiousness, a strong love of power, and a strange,
+freakish longing for something new. Her political ambitions were
+checked by the rising discontent of her people, who began to look down
+upon her and to feel ashamed of her shame. Knowing herself as she did,
+she did not care to marry.
+
+Yet Sweden must have an heir. Therefore she chose out her cousin
+Charles, declared that he was to be her successor, and finally caused
+him to be proclaimed as such before the assembled estates of the realm.
+She even had him crowned; and finally, in her twenty-eighth year, she
+abdicated altogether and prepared to leave Sweden. When asked whither
+she would go, she replied in a Latin quotation:
+
+"The Fates will show the way."
+
+In her act of abdication she reserved to herself the revenues of some
+of the richest provinces in Sweden and absolute power over such of her
+subjects as should accompany her. They were to be her subjects until
+the end.
+
+The Swedes remembered that Christina was the daughter of their greatest
+king, and that, apart from personal scandals, she had ruled them well;
+and so they let her go regretfully and accepted her cousin as their
+king. Christina, on her side, went joyfully and in the spirit of a
+grand adventuress. With a numerous suite she entered Germany, and then
+stayed for a year at Brussels, where she renounced Lutheranism. After
+this she traveled slowly into Italy, where she entered Borne on
+horseback, and was received by the Pope, Alexander VII., who lodged her
+in a magnificent palace, accepted her conversion, and baptized her,
+giving her a new name, Alexandra.
+
+In Rome she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living sumptuously,
+even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly, partly because the
+Swedes disliked her change of religion. She was surrounded by men of
+letters, with whom she amused herself, and she took to herself a lover,
+the Marquis Monaldeschi. She thought that at last she had really found
+her true affinity, while Monaldeschi believed that he could count on
+the queen's fidelity.
+
+He was in attendance upon her daily, and they were almost inseparable.
+He swore allegiance to her and thereby made himself one of the subjects
+over whom she had absolute power. For a time he was the master of those
+intense emotions which, in her, alternated with moods of coldness and
+even cruelty.
+
+Monaldeschi was a handsome Italian, who bore himself with a fine air of
+breeding. He understood the art of charming, but he did not know that
+beyond a certain time no one could hold the affections of Christina.
+
+However, after she had quarreled with various cardinals and decided to
+leave Rome for a while, Monaldeschi accompanied her to France, where
+she had an immense vogue at the court of Louis XIV. She attracted wide
+attention because of her eccentricity and utter lack of manners. It
+gave her the greatest delight to criticize the ladies of the French
+court--their looks, their gowns, and their jewels. They, in return,
+would speak of Christina's deformed shoulder and skinny frame; but the
+king was very gracious to her and invited her to his hunting-palace at
+Fontainebleau.
+
+While she had been winning triumphs of sarcasm the infatuated
+Monaldeschi had gradually come to suspect, and then to know, that his
+royal mistress was no longer true to him. He had been supplanted in her
+favor by another Italian, one Sentanelli, who was the captain of her
+guard.
+
+Monaldeschi took a tortuous and roundabout revenge. He did not let the
+queen know of his discovery; nor did he, like a man, send a challenge
+to Sentanelli. Instead he began by betraying her secrets to Oliver
+Cromwell, with whom she had tried to establish a correspondence. Again,
+imitating the hand and seal of Sentanelli, he set in circulation a
+series of the most scandalous and insulting letters about Christina. By
+this treacherous trick he hoped to end the relations between his rival
+and the queen; but when the letters were carried to Christina she
+instantly recognized their true source. She saw that she was betrayed
+by her former favorite and that he had taken a revenge which might
+seriously compromise her.
+
+This led to a tragedy, of which the facts were long obscure. They were
+carefully recorded, however, by the queen's household chaplain, Father
+Le Bel; and there is also a narrative written by one Marco Antonio
+Conti, which confirms the story. Both were published privately in 1865,
+with notes by Louis Lacour.
+
+The narration of the priest is dreadful in its simplicity and
+minuteness of detail. It may be summed up briefly here, because it is
+the testimony of an eye-witness who knew Christina.
+
+Christina, with the marquis and a large retinue, was at Fontainebleau
+in November, 1657. A little after midnight, when all was still, the
+priest, Father Le Bel, was aroused and ordered to go at once to the
+Galerie des Cerfs, or Hall of Stags, in another part of the palace.
+When he asked why, he was told:
+
+"It is by the order of her majesty the Swedish queen."
+
+The priest, wondering, hurried on his garments. On reaching the gloomy
+hall he saw the Marquis Monaldeschi, evidently in great agitation, and
+at the end of the corridor the queen in somber robes. Beside the queen,
+as if awaiting orders, stood three figures, who could with some
+difficulty be made out as three soldiers of her guard.
+
+The queen motioned to Father Le Bel and asked him for a packet which
+she had given him for safe-keeping some little time before. He gave it
+to her, and she opened it. In it were letters and other documents,
+which, with a steely glance, she displayed to Monaldeschi. He was
+confused by the sight of them and by the incisive words in which
+Christina showed how he had both insulted her and had tried to shift
+the blame upon Sentanelli.
+
+Monaldeschi broke down completely. He fell at the queen's feet and wept
+piteously, begging for pardon, only to be met by the cold answer:
+
+"You are my subject and a traitor to me. Marquis, you must prepare to
+die!"
+
+Then she turned away and left the hall, in spite of the cries of
+Monaldeschi, to whom she merely added the advice that he should make
+his peace with God by confessing to Father Le Bel.
+
+After she had gone the marquis fell into a torrent of self-exculpation
+and cried for mercy. The three armed men drew near and urged him to
+confess for the good of his soul. They seemed to have no malice against
+him, but to feel that they must obey the orders given them. At the
+frantic urging of the marquis their leader even went to the queen to
+ask whether she would relent; but he returned shaking his head, and
+said:
+
+"Marquis, you must die."
+
+Father Le Bel undertook a like mission, but returned with the message
+that there was no hope. So the marquis made his confession in French
+and Latin, but even then he hoped; for he did not wait to receive
+absolution, but begged still further for delay or pardon.
+
+Then the three armed men approached, having drawn their swords. The
+absolution was pronounced; and, following it, one of the guards slashed
+the marquis across the forehead. He stumbled and fell forward, making
+signs as if to ask that he might have his throat cut. But his throat
+was partly protected by a coat of mail, so that three or four strokes
+delivered there had slight effect. Finally, however, a long, narrow
+sword was thrust into his side, after which the marquis made no sound.
+
+Father Le Bel at once left the Galerie des Cerfs and went into the
+queen's apartment, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. He found
+her calm and ready to justify herself. Was she not still queen over all
+who had voluntarily become members of her suite? This had been agreed
+to in her act of abdication. Wherever she set her foot, there, over her
+own, she was still a monarch, with full power to punish traitors at her
+will. This power she had exercised, and with justice. What mattered it
+that she was in France? She was queen as truly as Louis XIV. was king.
+
+The story was not long in getting out, but the truth was not wholly
+known until a much later day. It was said that Sentanelli had slapped
+the marquis in a fit of jealousy, though some added that it was done
+with the connivance of the queen. King Louis, the incarnation of
+absolutism, knew the truth, but he was slow to act. He sympathized with
+the theory of Christina's sovereignty. It was only after a time that
+word was sent to Christina that she must leave Fontainebleau. She took
+no notice of the order until it suited her convenience, and then she
+went forth with all the honors of a reigning monarch.
+
+This was the most striking episode in all the strange story of her
+private life. When her cousin Charles, whom she had made king, died
+without an heir she sought to recover her crown; but the estates of the
+realm refused her claim, reduced her income, and imposed restraints
+upon her power. She then sought the vacant throne of Poland; but the
+Polish nobles, who desired a weak ruler for their own purposes, made
+another choice. So at last she returned to Rome, where the Pope
+received her with a splendid procession and granted her twelve thousand
+crowns a year to make up for her lessened Swedish revenue.
+
+From this time she lived a life which she made interesting by her
+patronage of learning and exciting by her rather unseemly quarrels with
+cardinals and even with the Pope. Her armed retinue marched through the
+streets with drawn swords and gave open protection to criminals who had
+taken refuge with her. She dared to criticize the pontiff, who merely
+smiled and said:
+
+"She is a woman!"
+
+On the whole, the end of her life was pleasant. She was much admired
+for her sagacity in politics. Her words were listened to at every court
+in Europe. She annotated the classics, she made beautiful collections,
+and she was regarded as a privileged person whose acts no one took
+amiss. She died at fifty-three, and was buried in St. Peter's.
+
+She was bred a man, she was almost a son to her great father; and yet,
+instead of the sonorous epitaph that is inscribed beside her tomb,
+perhaps a truer one would be the words of the vexed Pope:
+
+"E DONNA!"
+
+
+
+
+KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN
+
+
+One might classify the kings of England in many ways. John was
+undoubtedly the most unpopular. The impetuous yet far-seeing Henry II.,
+with the other two great warriors, Edward I. and Edward III., and
+William of Orange, did most for the foundation and development of
+England's constitutional law. Some monarchs, such as Edward II. and the
+womanish Henry VI., have been contemptible. Hard-working, useful kings
+have been Henry VII., the Georges, William IV., and especially the last
+Edward.
+
+If we consider those monarchs who have in some curious way touched the
+popular fancy without reference to their virtues we must go back to
+Richard of the Lion Heart, who saw but little of England, yet was the
+best essentially English king, and to Henry V., gallant soldier and
+conqueror of France. Even Henry VIII. had a warm place in the affection
+of his countrymen, few of whom saw him near at hand, but most of whom
+made him a sort of regal incarnation of John Bull--wrestling and
+tilting and boxing, eating great joints of beef, and staying his thirst
+with flagons of ale--a big, healthy, masterful animal, in fact, who
+gratified the national love of splendor and stood up manfully in his
+struggle with the Pope.
+
+But if you look for something more than ordinary popularity--something
+that belongs to sentiment and makes men willing to become martyrs for a
+royal cause--we must find these among the Stuart kings. It is odd,
+indeed, that even at this day there are Englishmen and Englishwomen who
+believe their lawful sovereign to be a minor Bavarian princess in whose
+veins there runs the Stuart blood. Prayers are said for her at English
+shrines, and toasts are drunk to her in rare old wine.
+
+Of course, to-day this cult of the Stuarts is nothing but a fad. No one
+ever expects to see a Stuart on the English throne. But it is
+significant of the deep strain of romance which the six Stuarts who
+reigned in England have implanted in the English heart. The old
+Jacobite ballads still have power to thrill. Queen Victoria herself
+used to have the pipers file out before her at Balmoral to the
+"skirling" of "Bonnie Dundee," "Over the Water to Charlie," and "Wha'll
+Be King but Charlie!" It is a sentiment that has never died. Her late
+majesty used to say that when she heard these tunes she became for the
+moment a Jacobite; just as the Empress Eugenie at the height of her
+power used pertly to remark that she herself was the only Legitimist
+left in France.
+
+It may be suggested that the Stuarts are still loved by many Englishmen
+because they were unfortunate; yet this is hardly true, after all. Many
+of them were fortunate enough. The first of them, King James, an absurd
+creature, speaking broad Scotch, timid, foolishly fond of favorites,
+and having none of the dignity of a monarch, lived out a lengthy reign.
+The two royal women of the family--Anne and Mary--had no misfortunes of
+a public nature. Charles II. reigned for more than a quarter of a
+century, lapped in every kind of luxury, and died a king.
+
+The first Charles was beheaded and afterward styled a "saint"; yet the
+majority of the English people were against his arrogance, or else he
+would have won his great struggle against Parliament. The second James
+was not popular at all. Nevertheless, no sooner had he been expelled,
+and been succeeded by a Dutchman gnawing asparagus and reeking of
+cheeses, than there was already a Stuart legend. Even had there been no
+pretenders to carry on the cult, the Stuarts would still have passed
+into history as much loved by the people.
+
+It only shows how very little in former days the people expected of a
+regnant king. Many monarchs have had just a few popular traits, and
+these have stood out brilliantly against the darkness of the background.
+
+No one could have cared greatly for the first James, but Charles I. was
+indeed a kingly personage when viewed afar. He was handsome, as a man,
+fully equaling the French princess who became his wife. He had no
+personal vices. He was brave, and good to look upon, and had a kingly
+mien. Hence, although he sought to make his rule over England a
+tyranny, there were many fine old cavaliers to ride afield for him when
+he raised his standard, and who, when he died, mourned for him as a
+"martyr."
+
+Many hardships they underwent while Cromwell ruled with his iron hand;
+and when that iron hand was relaxed in death, and poor, feeble Richard
+Cromwell slunk away to his country-seat, what wonder is it that young
+Charles came back to England and caracoled through the streets of
+London with a smile for every one and a happy laugh upon his lips? What
+wonder is it that the cannon in the Tower thundered a loud welcome, and
+that all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose and
+Christmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not only
+monarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and all
+sorts of mirth.
+
+Charles II. might well at first have seemed a worthier and wiser
+successor to his splendid father. As a child, even, he had shown
+himself to be no faint-hearted creature. When the great Civil War broke
+out he had joined his father's army. It met with disaster at Edgehill,
+and was finally shattered by the crushing defeat of Naseby, which
+afterward inspired Macaulay's most stirring ballad.
+
+Charles was then only a child of twelve, and so his followers did
+wisely in hurrying him out of England, through the Scilly isles and
+Jersey to his mother's place of exile. Of course, a child so very young
+could be of no value as a leader, though his presence might prove an
+inspiration.
+
+In 1648, however, when he was eighteen years of age, he gathered a
+fleet of eighteen ships and cruised along the English coast, taking
+prizes, which he carried to the Dutch ports. When he was at Holland's
+capital, during his father's trial, he wrote many messages to the
+Parliamentarians, and even sent them a blank charter, which they might
+fill in with any stipulations they desired if only they would save and
+restore their king.
+
+When the head of Charles rolled from the velvet-covered block his son
+showed himself to be no loiterer or lover of an easy life. He hastened
+to Scotland, skilfully escaping an English force, and was proclaimed as
+king and crowned at Scone, in 1651. With ten thousand men he dashed
+into England, where he knew there were many who would rally at his
+call. But it was then that Cromwell put forth his supreme military
+genius and with his Ironsides crushed the royal troops at Worcester.
+
+Charles knew that for the present all was lost. He showed courage and
+address in covering the flight of his beaten soldiers; but he soon
+afterward went to France, remaining there and in the Netherlands for
+eight years as a pensioner of Louis XIV. He knew that time would fight
+for him far more surely than infantry and horse. England had not been
+called "Merry England" for nothing; and Cromwell's tyranny was likely
+to be far more resented than the heavy hand of one who was born a king.
+So Charles at Paris and Liege, though he had little money at the time,
+managed to maintain a royal court, such as it was.
+
+Here there came out another side of his nature. As a child he had borne
+hardship and privation and had seen the red blood flow upon the
+battlefield. Now, as it were, he allowed a certain sensuous,
+pleasure-loving ease to envelop him. The red blood should become the
+rich red burgundy; the sound of trumpets and kettledrums should give
+way to the melody of lutes and viols. He would be a king of pleasure if
+he were to be king at all. And therefore his court, even in exile, was
+a court of gallantry and ease. The Pope refused to lend him money, and
+the King of France would not increase his pension, but there were many
+who foresaw that Charles would not long remain in exile; and so they
+gave him what he wanted and waited until he could give them what they
+would ask for in their turn.
+
+Charles at this time was not handsome, like his father. His complexion
+was swarthy, his figure by no means imposing, though always graceful.
+When he chose he could bear himself with all the dignity of a monarch.
+He had a singularly pleasant manner, and a word from him could win over
+the harshest opponent.
+
+The old cavaliers who accompanied their master in exile were like
+Napoleon's veterans in Elba. With their tall, powerful forms they
+stalked about the courtyards, sniffing their disapproval at these
+foreign ways and longing grimly for the time when they could once more
+smell the pungent powder of the battle-field. But, as Charles had
+hoped, the change was coming. Not merely were his own subjects
+beginning to long for him and to pray in secret for the king, but
+continental monarchs who maintained spies in England began to know of
+this. To them Charles was no longer a penniless exile. He was a king
+who before long would take possession of his kingdom.
+
+A very wise woman--the Queen Regent of Portugal--was the first to act
+on this information. Portugal was then very far from being a petty
+state. It had wealth at home and rich colonies abroad, while its flag
+was seen on every sea. The queen regent, being at odds with Spain, and
+wishing to secure an ally against that power, made overtures to
+Charles, asking him whether a match might not be made between him and
+the Princess Catharine of Braganza. It was not merely her daughter's
+hand that she offered, but a splendid dowry. She would pay Charles a
+million pounds in gold and cede to England two valuable ports.
+
+The match was not yet made, but by 1659 it had been arranged. The
+Spaniards were furious, for Charles's cause began to appear successful.
+
+She was a quaint and rather piteous little figure, she who was destined
+to be the wife of the Merry Monarch. Catharine was dark, petite, and by
+no means beautiful; yet she had a very sweet expression and a heart of
+utter innocence. She had been wholly convent-bred. She knew nothing of
+the world. She was told that in marriage she must obey in all things,
+and that the chief duty of a wife was to make her husband happy.
+
+Poor child! It was a too gracious preparation for a very graceless
+husband. Charles, in exile, had already made more than one
+discreditable connection and he was already the father of more than one
+growing son.
+
+First of all, he had been smitten by the bold ways of one Lucy Walters.
+Her impudence amused the exiled monarch. She was not particularly
+beautiful, and when she spoke as others did she was rather tiresome;
+but her pertness and the inexperience of the king when he went into
+exile made her seem attractive. She bore him a son, in the person of
+that brilliant adventurer whom Charles afterward created Duke of
+Monmouth. Many persons believe that Charles had married Lucy Walters,
+just as George IV. may have married Mrs. Fitzherbert; yet there is not
+the slightest proof of it, and it must be classed with popular legends.
+
+There was also one Catherine Peg, or Kep, whose son was afterward made
+Earl of Plymouth. It must be confessed that in his attachments to
+English women Charles showed little care for rank or station. Lucy
+Walters and Catherine Peg were very illiterate creatures.
+
+In a way it was precisely this sort of preference that made Charles so
+popular among the people. He seemed to make rank of no account, but
+would chat in the most familiar and friendly way with any one whom he
+happened to meet. His easy, democratic manner, coupled with the grace
+and prestige of royalty, made friends for him all over England. The
+treasury might be nearly bankrupt; the navy might be routed by the
+Dutch; the king himself might be too much given to dissipation; but his
+people forgave him all, because everybody knew that Charles would clap
+an honest citizen on the back and joke with all who came to see him
+feed the swans in Regent's Park.
+
+The popular name for him was "Rowley," or "Old Rowley"--a nickname of
+mysterious origin, though it is said to have been given him from a
+fancied resemblance to a famous hunter in his stables. Perhaps it is
+the very final test of popularity that a ruler should have a nickname
+known to every one.
+
+Cromwell's death roused all England to a frenzy of king-worship. The
+Roundhead, General Monk, and his soldiers proclaimed Charles King of
+England and escorted him to London in splendid state. That was a day
+when national feeling reached a point such as never has been before or
+since. Oughtred, the famous mathematician, died of joy when the royal
+emblems were restored. Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, died, it
+is said, of laughter at the people's wild delight--a truly Rabelaisian
+end.
+
+There was the king once more; and England, breaking through its long
+period of Puritanism, laughed and danced with more vivacity than ever
+the French had shown. All the pipers and the players and panderers to
+vice, the mountebanks, the sensual men, and the lawless women poured
+into the presence of the king, who had been too long deprived of the
+pleasure that his nature craved. Parliament voted seventy thousand
+pounds for a memorial to Charles's father, but the irresponsible king
+spent the whole sum on the women who surrounded him. His severest
+counselor, Lord Clarendon, sent him a remonstrance.
+
+"How can I build such a memorial," asked Charles, "when I don't know
+where my father's remains are buried!"
+
+He took money from the King of France to make war against the Dutch,
+who had befriended him. It was the French king, too, who sent him that
+insidious, subtle daughter of Brittany, Louise de Keroualle--Duchess of
+Portsmouth--a diplomat in petticoats, who won the king's wayward
+affections, and spied on what he did and said, and faithfully reported
+all of it to Paris. She became the mother of the Duke of Lenox, and she
+was feared and hated by the English more than any other of his
+mistresses. They called her "Madam Carwell," and they seemed to have an
+instinct that she was no mere plaything of his idle hours, but was like
+some strange exotic serpent, whose poison might in the end sting the
+honor of England.
+
+There is a pitiful little episode in the marriage of Charles with his
+Portuguese bride, Catharine of Braganza. The royal girl came to him
+fresh from the cloisters of her convent. There was something about her
+grace and innocence that touched the dissolute monarch, who was by no
+means without a heart. For a time he treated her with great respect,
+and she was happy. At last she began to notice about her strange
+faces--faces that were evil, wanton, or overbold. The court became more
+and more a seat of reckless revelry.
+
+Finally Catharine was told that the Duchess of Cleveland--that splendid
+termagant, Barbara Villiers--had been appointed lady of the bedchamber.
+She was told at the same time who this vixen was--that she was no fit
+attendant for a virtuous woman, and that her three sons, the Dukes of
+Southampton, Grafton, and Northumberland, were also the sons of Charles.
+
+Fluttered and frightened and dismayed, the queen hastened to her
+husband and begged him not to put this slight upon her. A year or two
+before, she had never dreamed that life contained such things as these;
+but now it seemed to contain nothing else. Charles spoke sternly to her
+until she burst into tears, and then he petted her and told her that
+her duty as a queen compelled her to submit to many things which a lady
+in private life need not endure.
+
+After a long and poignant struggle with her own emotions the little
+Portuguese yielded to the wishes of her lord. She never again
+reproached him. She even spoke with kindness to his favorites and made
+him feel that she studied his happiness alone. Her gentleness affected
+him so that he always spoke to her with courtesy and real friendship.
+When the Protestant mobs sought to drive her out of England he showed
+his courage and manliness by standing by her and refusing to allow her
+to be molested.
+
+Indeed, had Charles been always at his best he would have had a very
+different name in history. He could be in every sense a king. He had a
+keen knowledge of human nature. Though he governed England very badly,
+he never governed it so badly as to lose his popularity.
+
+The epigram of Rochester, written at the king's own request, was
+singularly true of Charles. No man relied upon his word, yet men loved
+him. He never said anything that was foolish, and he very seldom did
+anything that was wise; yet his easy manners and gracious ways endeared
+him to those who met him.
+
+One can find no better picture of his court than that which Sir Walter
+Scott has drawn so vividly in Peveril of the Peak; or, if one wishes
+first-hand evidence, it can be found in the diaries of Evelyn and of
+Samuel Pepys. In them we find the rakes and dicers, full of strange
+oaths, deep drunkards, vile women and still viler men, all striving for
+the royal favor and offering the filthiest lures, amid routs and balls
+and noisy entertainments, of which it is recorded that more than once
+some woman gave birth to a child among the crowd of dancers.
+
+No wonder that the little Portuguese queen kept to herself and did not
+let herself be drawn into this swirling, roaring, roistering
+saturnalia. She had less influence even than Moll Davis, whom Charles
+picked out of a coffee-house, and far less than "Madam Carwell," to
+whom it is reported that a great English nobleman once presented pearls
+to the value of eight thousand pounds in order to secure her influence
+in a single stroke of political business.
+
+Of all the women who surrounded Charles there was only one who cared
+anything for him or for England. The rest were all either selfish or
+treacherous or base. This one exception has been so greatly written of,
+both in fiction and in history, as to make it seem almost unnecessary
+to add another word; yet it may well be worth while to separate the
+fiction from the fact and to see how much of the legend of Eleanor Gwyn
+is true.
+
+The fanciful story of her birthplace is most surely quite unfounded.
+She was not the daughter of a Welsh officer, but of two petty hucksters
+who had their booth in the lowest precincts of London. In those days
+the Strand was partly open country, and as it neared the city it showed
+the mansions of the gentry set in their green-walled parks. At one end
+of the Strand, however, was Drury Lane, then the haunt of criminals and
+every kind of wretch, while nearer still was the notorious Coal Yard,
+where no citizen dared go unarmed.
+
+Within this dreadful place children were kidnapped and trained to
+various forms of vice. It was a school for murderers and robbers and
+prostitutes; and every night when the torches flared it vomited forth
+its deadly spawn. Here was the earliest home of Eleanor Gwyn, and out
+of this den of iniquity she came at night to sell oranges at the
+entrance to the theaters. She was stage-struck, and endeavored to get
+even a minor part in a play; but Betterton, the famous actor, thrust
+her aside when she ventured to apply to him.
+
+It must be said that in everything that was external, except her
+beauty, she fell short of a fastidious taste. She was intensely
+ignorant even for that time. She spoke in a broad Cockney dialect. She
+had lived the life of the Coal Yard, and, like Zola's Nana, she could
+never remember the time when she had known the meaning of chastity.
+
+Nell Gwyn was, in fact, a product of the vilest slums of London; and
+precisely because she was this we must set her down as intrinsically a
+good woman--one of the truest, frankest, and most right-minded of whom
+the history of such women has anything to tell. All that external
+circumstances could do to push her down into the mire was done; yet she
+was not pushed down, but emerged as one of those rare souls who have in
+their natures an uncontaminated spring of goodness and honesty. Unlike
+Barbara Villiers or Lucy Walters or Louise de Keroualle, she was
+neither a harpy nor a foe to England.
+
+Charles is said first to have met her when he, incognito, with another
+friend, was making the rounds of the theaters at night. The king spied
+her glowing, nut-brown face in one of the boxes, and, forgetting his
+incognito, went up and joined her. She was with her protector of the
+time, Lord Buckhurst, who, of course, recognized his majesty.
+
+Presently the whole party went out to a neighboring coffee-house, where
+they drank and ate together. When it came time to pay the reckoning the
+king found that he had no money, nor had his friend. Lord Buckhurst,
+therefore, paid the bill, while Mistress Nell jeered at the other two,
+saying that this was the most poverty-stricken party that she had ever
+met.
+
+Charles did not lose sight of her. Her frankness and honest manner
+pleased him. There came a time when she was known to be a mistress of
+the king, and she bore a son, who was ennobled as the Duke of St.
+Albans, but who did not live to middle age. Nell Gwyn was much with
+Charles; and after his tempestuous scenes with Barbara Villiers, and
+the feeling of dishonor which the Duchess of Portsmouth made him
+experience, the girl's good English bluntness was a pleasure far more
+rare than sentiment.
+
+Somehow, just as the people had come to mistrust "Madam Carwell," so
+they came to like Nell Gwyn. She saw enough of Charles, and she liked
+him well enough, to wish that he might do his duty by his people; and
+she alone had the boldness to speak out what she thought. One day she
+found him lolling in an arm-chair and complaining that the people were
+not satisfied.
+
+"You can very easily satisfy them," said Nell Gwyn. "Dismiss your women
+and attend to the proper business of a king."
+
+Again, her heart was touched at the misfortunes of the old soldiers who
+had fought for Charles and for his father during the Civil War, and who
+were now neglected, while the treasury was emptied for French
+favorites, and while the policy of England itself was bought and sold
+in France. Many and many a time, when other women of her kind used
+their lures to get jewels or titles or estates or actual heaps of
+money, Nell Gwyn besought the king to aid these needy veterans. Because
+of her efforts Chelsea Hospital was founded. Such money as she had she
+shared with the poor and with those who had fought for her royal lover.
+
+As I have said, she is a historical type of the woman who loses her
+physical purity, yet who retains a sense of honor and of honesty which
+nothing can take from her. There are not many such examples, and
+therefore this one is worth remembering.
+
+Of anecdotes concerning her there are many, but not often has their
+real import been detected. If she could twine her arms about the
+monarch's neck and transport him in a delirium of passion, this was
+only part of what she did. She tried to keep him right and true and
+worthy of his rank; and after he had ceased to care much for her as a
+lover he remembered that she had been faithful in many other things.
+
+Then there came the death-bed scene, when Charles, in his inimitable
+manner, apologized to those about him because he was so long in dying.
+A far sincerer sentence was that which came from his heart, as he cried
+out, in the very pangs of death:
+
+"Do not let poor Nelly starve!"
+
+
+
+
+MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
+
+
+It is an old saying that to every womanly woman self-sacrifice is
+almost a necessity of her nature. To make herself of small account as
+compared with the one she loves; to give freely of herself, even though
+she may receive nothing in return; to suffer, and yet to feel an inner
+poignant joy in all this suffering--here is a most wonderful trait of
+womanhood. Perhaps it is akin to the maternal instinct; for to the
+mother, after she has felt the throb of a new life within her, there is
+no sacrifice so great and no anguish so keen that she will not welcome
+it as the outward sign and evidence of her illimitable love.
+
+In most women this spirit of self-sacrifice is checked and kept within
+ordinary bounds by the circumstances of their lives. In many small
+things they do yield and they do suffer; yet it is not in yielding and
+in suffering that they find their deepest joy.
+
+There are some, however, who seem to have been born with an abnormal
+capacity for enduring hardship and mental anguish; so that by a sort of
+contradiction they find their happiness in sorrow. Such women are
+endowed with a remarkable degree of sensibility. They feel intensely.
+In moments of grief and disappointment, and even of despair, there
+steals over them a sort of melancholy pleasure. It is as if they loved
+dim lights and mournful music and scenes full of sad suggestion.
+
+If everything goes well with them, they are unwilling to believe that
+such good fortune will last. If anything goes wrong with them, they are
+sure that this is only the beginning of something even worse. The music
+of their lives is written in a minor key.
+
+Now, for such women as these, the world at large has very little
+charity. It speaks slightingly of them as "agonizers." It believes that
+they are "fond of making scenes." It regards as an affectation
+something that is really instinctive and inevitable. Unless such women
+are beautiful and young and charming they are treated badly; and this
+is often true in spite of all their natural attractiveness, for they
+seem to court ill usage as if they were saying frankly:
+
+"Come, take us! We will give you everything and ask for nothing. We do
+not expect true and enduring love. Do not be constant or generous or
+even kind. We know that we shall suffer. But, none the less, in our
+sorrow there will be sweetness, and even in our abasement we shall feel
+a sort of triumph."
+
+In history there is one woman who stands out conspicuously as a type of
+her melancholy sisterhood, one whose life was full of disappointment
+even when she was most successful, and of indignity even when she was
+most sought after and admired. This woman was Adrienne Lecouvreur,
+famous in the annals of the stage, and still more famous in the annals
+of unrequited--or, at any rate, unhappy--love.
+
+Her story is linked with that of a man no less remarkable than herself,
+a hero of chivalry, a marvel of courage, of fascination, and of
+irresponsibility.
+
+Adrienne Lecouvreur--her name was originally Couvreur--was born toward
+the end of the seventeenth century in the little French village of
+Damery, not far from Rheims, where her aunt was a laundress and her
+father a hatter in a small way. Of her mother, who died in childbirth,
+we know nothing; but her father was a man of gloomy and ungovernable
+temper, breaking out into violent fits of passion, in one of which,
+long afterward, he died, raving and yelling like a maniac.
+
+Adrienne was brought up at the wash-tub, and became accustomed to a
+wandering life, in which she went from one town to another. What she
+had inherited from her mother is, of course, not known; but she had all
+her father's strangely pessimistic temper, softened only by the fact
+that she was a girl. From her earliest years she was unhappy; yet her
+unhappiness was largely of her own choosing. Other girls of her own
+station met life cheerfully, worked away from dawn till dusk, and then
+had their moments of amusement, and even jollity, with their
+companions, after the fashion of all children. But Adrienne Lecouvreur
+was unhappy because she chose to be. It was not the wash-tub that made
+her so, for she had been born to it; nor was it the half-mad outbreaks
+of her father, because to her, at least, he was not unkind. Her
+discontent sprang from her excessive sensibility.
+
+Indeed, for a peasant child she had reason to think herself far more
+fortunate than her associates. Her intelligence was great. Ambition was
+awakened in her before she was ten years of age, when she began to
+learn and to recite poems--learning them, as has been said, "between
+the wash-tub and the ironing-board," and reciting them to the
+admiration of older and wiser people than she. Even at ten she was a
+very beautiful child, with great lambent eyes, an exquisite complexion,
+and a lovely form, while she had the further gift of a voice that
+thrilled the listener and, when she chose, brought tears to every eye.
+She was, indeed, a natural elocutionist, knowing by instinct all those
+modulations of tone and varied cadences which go to the hearer's heart.
+
+It was very like Adrienne Lecouvreur to memorize only such poems as
+were mournful, just as in after life she could win success upon the
+stage only in tragic parts. She would repeat with a sort of ecstasy the
+pathetic poems that were then admired; and she was soon able to give up
+her menial work, because many people asked her to their houses so that
+they could listen to the divinely beautiful voice charged with the
+emotion which was always at her command.
+
+When she was thirteen her father moved to Paris, where she was placed
+at school--a very humble school in a very humble quarter of the city.
+Yet even there her genius showed itself at that early age. A number of
+children and young people, probably influenced by Adrienne, formed
+themselves into a theatrical company from the pure love of acting. A
+friendly grocer let them have an empty store-room for their
+performances, and in this store-room Adrienne Lecouvreur first acted in
+a tragedy by Corneille, assuming the part of leading woman.
+
+Her genius for the stage was like the genius of Napoleon for war. She
+had had no teaching. She had never been inside of any theater; and yet
+she delivered the magnificent lines with all the power and fire and
+effectiveness of a most accomplished actress. People thronged to see
+her and to feel the tempest of emotion which shook her as she sustained
+her part, which for the moment was as real to her as life itself.
+
+At first only the people of the neighborhood knew anything about these
+amateur performances; but presently a lady of rank, one Mme. du Gue,
+came out of curiosity and was fascinated by the little actress. Mme. du
+Gue offered the spacious courtyard of her own house, and fitted it with
+some of the appurtenances of a theater. From that moment the fame of
+Adrienne spread throughout all Paris. The courtyard was crowded by
+gentlemen and ladies, by people of distinction from the court, and at
+last even by actors and actresses from the Comedie Franchise.
+
+It is, in fact, a remarkable tribute to Adrienne that in her thirteenth
+year she excited so much jealousy among the actors of the Comedie that
+they evoked the law against her. Theaters required a royal license, and
+of course poor little Adrienne's company had none. Hence legal
+proceedings were begun, and the most famous actresses in Paris talked
+of having these clever children imprisoned! Upon this the company
+sought the precincts of the Temple, where no legal warrant could be
+served without the express order of the king himself.
+
+There for a time the performances still went on. Finally, as the other
+children were not geniuses, but merely boys and girls in search of fun,
+the little company broke up. Its success, however, had determined for
+ever the career of Adrienne. With her beautiful face, her lithe and
+exquisite figure, her golden voice, and her instinctive art, it was
+plain enough that her future lay upon the stage; and so at fourteen or
+fifteen she began where most actresses leave off--accomplished and
+attractive, and having had a practical training in her profession.
+
+Diderot, in that same century, observed that the truest actor is one
+who does not feel his part at all, but produces his effects by
+intellectual effort and intelligent observation. Behind the figure on
+the stage, torn with passion or rollicking with mirth, there must
+always be the cool and unemotional mind which directs and governs and
+controls. This same theory was both held and practised by the late
+Benoit Constant Coquelin. To some extent it was the theory of Garrick
+and Fechter and Edwin Booth; though it was rejected by the two Keans,
+and by Edwin Forrest, who entered so throughly into the character which
+he assumed, and who let loose such tremendous bursts of passion that
+other actors dreaded to support him on the stage in such parts as
+Spartacus and Metamora.
+
+It is needless to say that a girl like Adrienne Lecouvreur flung
+herself with all the intensity of her nature into every role she
+played. This was the greatest secret of her success; for, with her,
+nature rose superior to art. On the other hand, it fixed her dramatic
+limitations, for it barred her out of comedy. Her melancholy, morbid
+disposition was in the fullest sympathy with tragic heroines; but she
+failed when she tried to represent the lighter moods and the merry
+moments of those who welcome mirth. She could counterfeit despair, and
+unforced tears would fill her eyes; but she could not laugh and romp
+and simulate a gaiety that was never hers.
+
+Adrienne would have been delighted to act at one of the theaters in
+Paris; but they were closed to her through jealousy. She went into the
+provinces, in the eastern part of France, and for ten years she was a
+leading lady there in many companies and in many towns. As she
+blossomed into womanhood there came into her life the love which was to
+be at once a source of the most profound interest and of the most
+intense agony.
+
+It is odd that all her professional success never gave her any
+happiness. The life of the actress who traveled from town to town, the
+crude and coarse experiences which she had to undergo, the disorder and
+the unsettled mode of living, all produced in her a profound disgust.
+She was of too exquisite a fiber to live in such a way, especially in a
+century when the refinements of existence were for the very few.
+
+She speaks herself of "obligatory amusements, the insistence of men,
+and of love affairs." Yet how could such a woman as Adrienne Lecouvreur
+keep herself from love affairs? The motion of the stage and its mimic
+griefs satisfied her only while she was actually upon the boards. Love
+offered her an emotional excitement that endured and that was always
+changing. It was "the profoundest instinct of her being"; and she once
+wrote: "What could one do in the world without loving?"
+
+Still, through these ten years she seems to have loved only that she
+might be unhappy. There was a strange twist in her mind. Men who were
+honorable and who loved her with sincerity she treated very badly. Men
+who were indifferent or ungrateful or actually base she seemed to
+choose by a sort of perverse instinct. Perhaps the explanation of it is
+that during those ten years, though she had many lovers, she never
+really loved. She sought excitement, passion, and after that the
+mournfulness which comes when passion dies. Thus, one man after another
+came into her life--some of them promising marriage--and she bore two
+children, whose fathers were unknown, or at least uncertain. But, after
+all, one can scarcely pity her, since she had not yet in reality known
+that great passion which comes but once in life. So far she had learned
+only a sort of feeble cynicism, which she expressed in letters and in
+such sayings as these:
+
+"There are sweet errors which I would not venture to commit again. My
+experiences, all too sad, have served to illumine my reason."
+
+"I am utterly weary of love and prodigiously tempted to have no more of
+it for the rest of my life; because, after all, I don't wish either to
+die or to go mad."
+
+Yet she also said: "I know too well that no one dies of grief."
+
+She had had, indeed, some very unfortunate experiences. Men of rank had
+loved her and had then cast her off. An actor, one Clavel, would have
+married her, but she would not accept his offer. A magistrate in
+Strasburg promised marriage; and then, when she was about to accept
+him, he wrote to her that he was going to yield to the wishes of his
+family and make a more advantageous alliance. And so she was
+alternately caressed and repulsed--a mere plaything; and yet this was
+probably all that she really needed at the time--something to stir her,
+something to make her mournful or indignant or ashamed.
+
+It was inevitable that at last Adrienne Lecouvreur should appear in
+Paris. She had won such renown throughout the provinces that even those
+who were intensely jealous of her were obliged to give her due
+consideration. In 1717, when she was in her twenty-fifth year, she
+became a member of the Comedie Franchise. There she made an immediate
+and most brilliant impression. She easily took the leading place. She
+was one of the glories of Paris, for she became the fashion outside the
+theater. For the first time the great classic plays were given, not in
+the monotonous singsong which had become a sort of theatrical
+convention, but with all the fire and naturalness of life.
+
+Being the fashion, Mlle. Lecouvreur elevated the social rank of actors
+and of actresses. Her salon was thronged by men and women of rank.
+Voltaire wrote poems in her honor. To be invited to her dinners was
+almost like receiving a decoration from the king. She ought to have
+been happy, for she had reached the summit of her profession and
+something more.
+
+Yet still she was unhappy. In all her letters one finds a plaintive
+tone, a little moaning sound that shows how slightly her nature had
+been changed. No longer, however, did she throw herself away upon
+dullards or brutes. An English peer--Lord Peterborough--not realizing
+that she was different from other actresses of that loose-lived age,
+said to her coarsely at his first introduction:
+
+"Come now! Show me lots of wit and lots of love."
+
+The remark was characteristic of the time. Yet Adrienne had learned at
+least one thing, and that was the discontent which came from light
+affairs. She had thrown herself away too often. If she could not love
+with her entire being, if she could not give all that was in her to be
+given, whether of her heart or mind or soul, then she would love no
+more at all.
+
+At this time there came to Paris a man remarkable in his own century,
+and one who afterward became almost a hero of romance. This was
+Maurice, Comte de Saxe, as the French called him, his German name and
+title being Moritz, Graf von Sachsen, while we usually term him, in
+English, Marshal Saxe. Maurice de Saxe was now, in 1721, entering his
+twenty-fifth year. Already, though so young, his career had been a
+strange one; and it was destined to be still more remarkable. He was
+the natural son of Duke Augustus II. of Saxony, who later became King
+of Poland, and who is known in history as Augustus the Strong.
+
+Augustus was a giant in stature and in strength, handsome, daring,
+unscrupulous, and yet extremely fascinating. His life was one of
+revelry and fighting and display. When in his cups he would often call
+for a horseshoe and twist it into a knot with his powerful fingers.
+Many were his mistresses; but the one for whom he cared the most was a
+beautiful and high-spirited Swedish girl of rank, Aurora von
+Konigsmarck. She was descended from a rough old field-marshal who in
+the Thirty Years' War had slashed and sacked and pillaged and plundered
+to his heart's content. From him Aurora von Konigsmarck seemed to have
+inherited a high spirit and a sort of lawlessness which charmed the
+stalwart Augustus of Poland.
+
+Their son, Maurice de Saxe, inherited everything that was good in his
+parents, and a great deal that was less commendable. As a mere child of
+twelve he had insisted on joining the army of Prince Eugene, and had
+seen rough service in a very strenuous campaign. Two years later he
+showed such daring on the battle-field that Prince Eugene summoned him
+and paid him a compliment under the form of a rebuke.
+
+"Young man," he said, "you must not mistake mere recklessness for
+valor."
+
+Before he was twenty he had attained the stature and strength of his
+royal father; and, to prove it, he in his turn called for a horseshoe,
+which he twisted and broke in his fingers. He fought on the side of the
+Russians and Poles, and again against the Turks, everywhere displaying
+high courage and also genius as a commander; for he never lost his
+self-possession amid the very blackest danger, but possessed, as
+Carlyle says, "vigilance, foresight, and sagacious precaution."
+
+Exceedingly handsome, Maurice was a master of all the arts that
+pleased, with just a touch of roughness, which seemed not unfitting in
+so gallant a soldier. His troops adored him and would follow wherever
+he might choose to lead them; for he exercised over these rude men a
+magnetic power resembling that of Napoleon in after years. In private
+life he was a hard drinker and fond of every form of pleasure. Having
+no fortune of his own, a marriage was arranged for him with the
+Countess von Loben, who was immensely wealthy; but in three years he
+had squandered all her money upon his pleasures, and had, moreover, got
+himself heavily in debt.
+
+It was at this time that he first came to Paris to study military
+tactics. He had fought hard against the French in the wars that were
+now ended; but his chivalrous bearing, his handsome person, and his
+reckless joviality made him at once a universal favorite in Paris. To
+the perfumed courtiers, with their laces and lovelocks and mincing
+ways, Maurice de Saxe came as a sort of knight of old--jovial, daring,
+pleasure-loving. Even his broken French was held to be quite charming;
+and to see him break a horseshoe with his fingers threw every one into
+raptures.
+
+No wonder, then, that he was welcomed in the very highest circles.
+Almost at once he attracted the notice of the Princesse de Conti, a
+beautiful woman of the blood royal. Of her it has been said that she
+was "the personification of a kiss, the incarnation of an embrace, the
+ideal of a dream of love." Her chestnut hair was tinted with little
+gleams of gold. Her eyes were violet black. Her complexion was
+dazzling. But by the king's orders she had been forced to marry a
+hunchback--a man whose very limbs were so weakened by disease and evil
+living that they would often fail to support him, and he would fall to
+the ground, a writhing, screaming mass of ill-looking flesh.
+
+It is not surprising that his lovely wife should have shuddered much at
+his abuse of her and still more at his grotesque endearments. When her
+eyes fell on Maurice de Saxe she saw in him one who could free her from
+her bondage. By a skilful trick he led the Prince de Conti to invade
+the sleeping-room of the princess, with servants, declaring that she
+was not alone. The charge proved quite untrue, and so she left her
+husband, having won the sympathy of her own world, which held that she
+had been insulted. But it was not she who was destined to win and hold
+the love of Maurice de Saxe.
+
+Not long after his appearance in the French capital he was invited to
+dine with the "Queen of Paris," Adrienne Lecouvreur. Saxe had seen her
+on the stage. He knew her previous history. He knew that she was very
+much of a soiled dove; but when he met her these two natures, so
+utterly dissimilar, leaped together, as it were, through the
+indescribable attraction of opposites. He was big and powerful; she was
+small and fragile. He was merry, and full of quips and jests; she was
+reserved and melancholy. Each felt in the other a need supplied.
+
+At one of their earliest meetings the climax came. Saxe was not the man
+to hesitate; while she already, in her thoughts, had made a full
+surrender. In one great sweep he gathered her into his arms. It
+appeared to her as if no man had ever laid his hand upon her until that
+moment. She cried out:
+
+"Now, for the first time in my life, I seem to live!"
+
+It was, indeed, the very first love which in her checkered career was
+really worthy of the name. She had supposed that all such things were
+passed and gone, that her heart was closed for ever, that she was
+invulnerable; and yet here she found herself clinging about the neck of
+this impetuous soldier and showing him all the shy fondness and the
+unselfish devotion of a young girl. From this instant Adrienne
+Lecouvreur never loved another man and never even looked at any other
+man with the slightest interest. For nine long years the two were bound
+together, though there were strange events to ruffle the surface of
+their love.
+
+Maurice de Saxe had been sired by a king. He had the lofty ambition to
+be a king himself, and he felt the stirrings of that genius which in
+after years was to make him a great soldier, and to win the brilliant
+victory of Fontenoy, which to this very day the French are never tired
+of recalling. Already Louis XV. had made him a marshal of France; and a
+certain restlessness came over him. He loved Adrienne; yet he felt that
+to remain in the enjoyment of her witcheries ought not to be the whole
+of a man's career.
+
+Then the Grand Duchy of Courland--at that time a vassal state of
+Poland, now part of Russia--sought a ruler. Maurice de Saxe was eager
+to secure its throne, which would make him at least semi-royal and the
+chief of a principality. He hastened thither and found that money was
+needed to carry out his plans. The widow of the late duke--the Grand
+Duchess Anna, niece of Peter the Great, and later Empress of Russia--as
+soon as she had met this dazzling genius, offered to help him to
+acquire the duchy if he would only marry her. He did not utterly
+refuse. Still another woman of high rank, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth
+of Russia, Peter the Great's daughter, made him very much the same
+proposal.
+
+Both of these imperial women might well have attracted a man like
+Maurice de Saxe, had he been wholly fancy-free, for the second of them
+inherited the high spirit and the genius of the great Peter, while the
+first was a pleasure-seeking princess, resembling some of those Roman
+empresses who loved to stoop that they might conquer. She is described
+as indolent and sensual, and she once declared that the chief good in
+the world was love. Yet, though she neglected affairs of state and gave
+them over to favorites, she won and kept the affections of her people.
+She was unquestionably endowed with the magnetic gift of winning hearts.
+
+Adrienne, who was left behind in Paris, knew very little of what was
+going on. Only two things were absolutely clear to her. One was that if
+her lover secured the duchy he must be parted from her. The other was
+that without money his ambition must be thwarted, and that he would
+then return to her. Here was a test to try the soul of any woman. It
+proved the height and the depth of her devotion. Come what might,
+Maurice should be Duke of Courland, even though she lost him. She
+gathered together her whole fortune, sold every jewel that she
+possessed, and sent her lover the sum of nearly a million francs.
+
+This incident shows how absolutely she was his. But in fact, because of
+various intrigues, he failed of election to the ducal throne of
+Courland, and he returned to Adrienne with all her money spent, and
+without even the grace, at first, to show his gratitude. He stormed and
+raged over his ill luck. She merely soothed and petted him, though she
+had heard that he had thought of marrying another woman to secure the
+dukedom. In one of her letters she bursts out with the pitiful
+exclamation:
+
+I am distracted with rage and anguish. Is it not natural to cry out
+against such treachery? This man surely ought to know me--he ought to
+love me. Oh, my God! What are we--what ARE we?
+
+But still she could not give him up, nor could he give her up, though
+there were frightful scenes between them--times when he cruelly
+reproached her and when her native melancholy deepened into outbursts
+of despair. Finally there occurred an incident which is more or less
+obscure in parts. The Duchesse de Bouillon, a great lady of the
+court--facile, feline, licentious, and eager for delights--resolved
+that she would win the love of Maurice de Saxe. She set herself to win
+it openly and without any sense of shame. Maurice himself at times,
+when the tears of Adrienne proved wearisome, flirted with the duchess.
+
+Yet, even so, Adrienne held the first place in his heart, and her rival
+knew it. Therefore she resolved to humiliate Adrienne, and to do so in
+the place where the actress had always reigned supreme. There was to be
+a gala performance of Racine's great tragedy, "Phedre," with Adrienne,
+of course, in the title-role. The Duchesse de Bouillon sent a large
+number of her lackeys with orders to hiss and jeer, and, if possible,
+to break off the play. Malignantly delighted with her plan, the duchess
+arrayed herself in jewels and took her seat in a conspicuous stage-box,
+where she could watch the coming storm and gloat over the discomfiture
+of her rival.
+
+When the curtain rose, and when Adrienne appeared as Phedre, an uproar
+began. It was clear to the great actress that a plot had been devised
+against her. In an instant her whole soul was afire. The queen-like
+majesty of her bearing compelled silence throughout the house. Even the
+hired lackeys were overawed by it. Then Adrienne moved swiftly across
+the stage and fronted her enemy, speaking into her very face the three
+insulting lines which came to her at that moment of the play:
+
+    I am not of those women void of shame,
+    Who, savoring in crime the joys of peace,
+    Harden their faces till they cannot blush!
+
+The whole house rose and burst forth into tremendous applause. Adrienne
+had won, for the woman who had tried to shame her rose in trepidation
+and hurried from the theater.
+
+But the end was not yet. Those were evil times, when dark deeds were
+committed by the great almost with impunity. Secret poisoning was a
+common trade. To remove a rival was as usual a thing in the eighteenth
+century as to snub a rival is usual in the twentieth.
+
+Not long afterward, on the night of March 15, 1730, Adrienne Lecouvreur
+was acting in one of Voltaire's plays with all her power and
+instinctive art when suddenly she was seized with the most frightful
+pains. Her anguish was obvious to every one who saw her, and yet she
+had the courage to go through her part. Then she fainted and was
+carried home.
+
+Four days later she died, and her death was no less dramatic than her
+life had been. Her lover and two friends of his were with her, and also
+a Jesuit priest. He declined to administer extreme unction unless she
+would declare that she repented of her theatrical career. She
+stubbornly refused, since she believed that to be the greatest actress
+of her time was not a sin. Yet still the priest insisted.
+
+Then came the final moment.
+
+"Weary and revolting against this death, this destiny, she stretched
+her arms with one of the old lovely gestures toward a bust which stood
+near by and cried--her last cry of passion:
+
+"'There is my world, my hope--yes, and my God!'"
+
+The bust was one of Maurice de Saxe.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART
+
+
+The royal families of Europe are widely known, yet not all of them are
+equally renowned. Thus, the house of Romanoff, although comparatively
+young, stands out to the mind with a sort of barbaric power, more
+vividly than the Austrian house of Hapsburg, which is the oldest
+reigning family in Europe, tracing its beginnings backward until they
+are lost in the Dark Ages. The Hohenzollerns of Prussia are
+comparatively modern, so far as concerns their royalty. The offshoots
+of the Bourbons carry on a very proud tradition in the person of the
+King of Spain, although France, which has been ruled by so many members
+of the family, will probably never again behold a Bourbon king. The
+deposed Braganzas bear a name which is ancient, but which has a
+somewhat tinsel sound.
+
+The Bonapartes, of course, are merely parvenus, and they have had the
+good taste to pretend to no antiquity of birth. The first Napoleon,
+dining at a table full of monarchs, when he heard one of them
+deferentially alluding to the Bonaparte family as being very old and
+noble, exclaimed:
+
+"Pish! My nobility dates from the day of Marengo!"
+
+And the third Napoleon, in announcing his coming marriage with Mlle. de
+Montijo, used the very word "parvenu" in speaking of himself and of his
+family. His frankness won the hearts of the French people and helped to
+reconcile them to a marriage in which the bride was barely noble.
+
+In English history there are two great names to conjure by, at least to
+the imaginative. One is Plantagenet, which seems to contain within
+itself the very essence of all that is patrician, magnificent, and
+royal. It calls to memory at once the lion-hearted Richard, whose short
+reign was replete with romance in England and France and Austria and
+the Holy Land.
+
+But perhaps a name of greater influence is that which links the royal
+family of Britain today with the traditions of the past, and which
+summons up legend and story and great deeds of history. This is the
+name of Stuart, about which a whole volume might be written to recall
+its suggestions and its reminiscences.
+
+The first Stuart (then Stewart) of whom anything is known got his name
+from the title of "Steward of Scotland," which remained in the family
+for generations, until the sixth of the line, by marriage with Princess
+Marjory Bruce, acquired the Scottish crown. That was in the early years
+of the fourteenth century; and finally, after the death of Elizabeth of
+England, her rival's son, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England,
+united under one crown two kingdoms that had so long been at almost
+constant war.
+
+It is almost characteristic of the Scot that, having small territory,
+little wealth, and a seat among his peers that is almost ostentatiously
+humble, he should bit by bit absorb the possessions of all the rest and
+become their master. Surely, the proud Tudors, whose line ended with
+Elizabeth, must have despised the "Stewards," whose kingdom was small
+and bleak and cold, and who could not control their own vassals.
+
+One can imagine also, with Sir Walter Scott, the haughty nobles of the
+English court sneering covertly at the awkward, shambling James, pedant
+and bookworm. Nevertheless, his diplomacy was almost as good as that of
+Elizabeth herself; and, though he did some foolish things, he was very
+far from being a fool.
+
+In his appearance James was not unlike Abraham Lincoln--an unkingly
+figure; and yet, like Lincoln, when occasion required it he could rise
+to the dignity which makes one feel the presence of a king. He was the
+only Stuart who lacked anything in form or feature or external grace.
+His son, Charles I., was perhaps one of the worst rulers that England
+has ever had; yet his uprightness of life, his melancholy yet handsome
+face, his graceful bearing, and the strong religious element in his
+character, together with the fact that he was put to death after being
+treacherously surrendered to his enemies--all these have combined to
+make almost a saint of him. There are Englishmen to-day who speak of
+him as "the martyr king," and who, on certain days of the year, say
+prayers that beg the Lord's forgiveness because of Charles's execution.
+
+The members of the so-called League of the White Rose, founded to
+perpetuate English allegiance to the direct line of Stuarts, do many
+things that are quite absurd. They refuse to pray for the present King
+of England and profess to think that the Princess Mary of Bavaria is
+the true ruler of Great Britain. All this represents that trace of
+sentiment which lingers among the English to-day. They feel that the
+Stuarts were the last kings of England to rule by the grace of God
+rather than by the grace of Parliament. As a matter of fact, the
+present reigning family in England is glad to derive its ancient strain
+of royal blood through a Stuart--descended on the distaff side from
+James I., and winding its way through Hanover.
+
+This sentiment for the Stuarts is a thing entirely apart from reason
+and belongs to the realm of poetry and romance; yet so strong is it
+that it has shown itself in the most inconsistent fashion. For
+instance, Sir Walter Scott was a devoted adherent of the house of
+Hanover. When George IV. visited Edinburgh, Scott was completely
+carried away by his loyal enthusiasm. He could not see that the man
+before him was a drunkard and braggart. He viewed him as an incarnation
+of all the noble traits that ought to hedge about a king. He snatched
+up a wine-glass from which George had just been drinking and carried it
+away to be an object of reverence for ever after. Nevertheless, in his
+heart, and often in his speech, Scott seemed to be a high Tory, and
+even a Jacobite.
+
+There are precedents for this. The Empress Eugenie used often to say
+with a laugh that she was the only true royalist at the imperial court
+of France. That was well enough for her in her days of flightiness and
+frivolity. No one, however, accused Queen Victoria of being frivolous,
+and she was not supposed to have a strong sense of humor. None the
+less, after listening to the skirling of the bagpipes and to the
+romantic ballads which were sung in Scotland she is said to have
+remarked with a sort of sigh:
+
+"Whenever I hear those ballads I feel that England belongs really to
+the Stuarts!"
+
+Before Queen Victoria was born, when all the sons of George III. were
+childless, the Duke of Kent was urged to marry, so that he might have a
+family to continue the succession. In resenting the suggestion he said
+many things, and among them this was the most striking:
+
+"Why don't you call the Stuarts back to England? They couldn't possibly
+make a worse mess of it than our fellows have!"
+
+But he yielded to persuasion and married. From this marriage came
+Victoria, who had the sacred drop of Stuart blood which gave England to
+the Hanoverians; and she was to redeem the blunders and tyrannies of
+both houses.
+
+The fascination of the Stuarts, which has been carried overseas to
+America and the British dominions, probably began with the striking
+history of Mary Queen of Scots. Her brilliancy and boldness and beauty,
+and especially the pathos of her end, have made us see only her intense
+womanliness, which in her own day was the first thing that any one
+observed in her. So, too, with Charles I., romantic figure and knightly
+gentleman. One regrets his death upon the scaffold, even though his
+execution was necessary to the growth of freedom.
+
+Many people are no less fascinated by Charles II., that very different
+type, with his gaiety, his good-fellowship, and his easy-going ways. It
+is not surprising that his people, most of whom never saw him, were
+very fond of him, and did not know that he was selfish, a loose liver,
+and almost a vassal of the king of France.
+
+So it is not strange that the Stuarts, with all their arts and graces,
+were very hard to displace. James II., with the aid of the French,
+fought hard before the British troops in Ireland broke the backs of
+both his armies and sent him into exile. Again in 1715--an episode
+perpetuated in Thackeray's dramatic story of Henry Esmond--came the son
+of James to take advantage of the vacancy caused by the death of Queen
+Anne. But it is perhaps to this claimant's son, the last of the
+militant Stuarts, that more chivalrous feeling has been given than to
+any other.
+
+To his followers he was the Young Chevalier, the true Prince of Wales;
+to his enemies, the Whigs and the Hanoverians, he was "the Pretender."
+One of the most romantic chapters of history is the one which tells of
+that last brilliant dash which he made upon the coast of Scotland,
+landing with but a few attendants and rejecting the support of a French
+army.
+
+"It is not with foreigners," he said, "but with my own loyal subjects,
+that I wish to regain the kingdom for my father."
+
+It was a daring deed, and the spectacular side of it has been often
+commemorated, especially in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley. There we see
+the gallant prince moving through a sort of military panorama. Most of
+the British troops were absent in Flanders, and the few regiments that
+could be mustered to meet him were appalled by the ferocity and
+reckless courage of the Highlanders, who leaped down like wildcats from
+their hills and flung themselves with dirk and sword upon the British
+cannon.
+
+We see Sir John Cope retiring at Falkirk, and the astonishing victory
+of Prestonpans, where disciplined British troops fled in dismay through
+the morning mist, leaving artillery and supplies behind them. It is
+Scott again who shows us the prince, master of Edinburgh for a time,
+while the white rose of Stuart royalty held once more the ancient keep
+above the Scottish capital. Then we see the Chevalier pressing
+southward into England, where he hoped to raise an English army to
+support his own. But his Highlanders cared nothing for England, and the
+English--even the Catholic gentry--would not rise to support his cause.
+
+Personally, he had every gift that could win allegiance. Handsome,
+high-tempered, and brave, he could also control his fiery spirit and
+listen to advice, however unpalatable it might be.
+
+The time was favorable. The British troops had been defeated on the
+Continent by Marshal Saxe, of whom I have already written, and by
+Marshal d'Estrees. George II. was a king whom few respected. He could
+scarcely speak anything but German. He grossly ill-treated his wife. It
+is said that on one occasion, in a fit of temper, he actually kicked
+the prime minister. Not many felt any personal loyalty to him, and he
+spent most of his time away from England in his other domain of Hanover.
+
+But precisely here was a reason why Englishmen were willing to put up
+with him. As between him and the brilliant Stuart there would have been
+no hesitation had the choice been merely one of men; but it was
+believed that the return of the Stuarts meant the return of something
+like absolute government, of taxation without sanction of law, and of
+religious persecution. Under the Hanoverian George the English people
+had begun to exercise a considerable measure of self-government. Sharp
+opposition in Parliament compelled him time and again to yield; and
+when he was in Hanover the English were left to work out the problem of
+free government.
+
+Hence, although Prince Charles Edward fascinated all who met him, and
+although a small army was raised for his support, still the unromantic,
+common-sense Englishmen felt that things were better than in the days
+gone by, and most of them refused to take up arms for the cause which
+sentimentally they favored. Therefore, although the Chevalier stirred
+all England and sent a thrill through the officers of state in London,
+his soldiers gradually deserted, and the Scots insisted on returning to
+their own country. Although the Stuart troops reached a point as far
+south as Derby, they were soon pushed backward into Scotland, pursued
+by an army of about nine thousand men under the Duke of Cumberland, son
+of George II.
+
+Cumberland was no soldier; he had been soundly beaten by the French on
+the famous field of Fontenoy. Yet he had firmness and a sort of
+overmastering brutality, which, with disciplined troops and abundant
+artillery, were sufficient to win a victory over the untrained
+Highlanders.
+
+When the battle came five thousand of these mountaineers went roaring
+along the English lines, with the Chevalier himself at their head. For
+a moment there was surprise. The Duke of Cumberland had been drinking
+so heavily that he could give no verbal orders. One of his officers,
+however, is said to have come to him in his tent, where he was trying
+to play cards.
+
+"What disposition shall we make of the prisoners?" asked the officer.
+
+The duke tried to reply, but his utterance was very thick.
+
+"No quarter!" he was believed to say.
+
+The officer objected and begged that such an order as that should be
+given in writing. The duke rolled over and seized a sheaf of
+playing-cards. Pulling one out, he scrawled the necessary order, and
+that was taken to the commanders in the field.
+
+The Highlanders could not stand the cannon fire, and the English won.
+Then the fury of the common soldiery broke loose upon the country.
+
+There was a reign of fantastic and fiendish brutality. One provost of
+the town was violently kicked for a mild remonstrance about the
+destruction of the Episcopalian meeting-house; another was condemned to
+clean out dirty stables. Men and women were whipped and tortured on
+slight suspicion or to extract information. Cumberland frankly
+professed his contempt and hatred of the people among whom he found
+himself, but he savagely punished robberies committed by private
+soldiers for their own profit.
+
+"Mild measures will not do," he wrote to Newcastle.
+
+When leaving the North in July, he said:
+
+"All the good we have done is but a little blood-letting, which has
+only weakened the madness, but not at all cured it; and I tremble to
+fear that this vile spot may still be the ruin of this island and of
+our family."
+
+Such was the famous battle of Culloden, fought in 1746, and putting a
+final end to the hopes of all the Stuarts. As to Cumberland's order for
+"No quarter," if any apology can be made for such brutality, it must be
+found in the fact that the Highland chiefs had on their side agreed to
+spare no captured enemy.
+
+The battle has also left a name commonly given to the nine of diamonds,
+which is called "the curse of Scotland," because it is said that on
+that card Cumberland wrote his bloodthirsty order.
+
+Such, in brief, was the story of Prince Charlie's gallant attempt to
+restore the kingdom of his ancestors. Even when defeated, he would not
+at once leave Scotland. A French squadron appeared off the coast near
+Edinburgh. It had been sent to bring him troops and a large supply of
+money, but he turned his back upon it and made his way into the
+Highlands on foot, closely pursued by English soldiers and Lowland
+spies.
+
+This part of his career is in reality the most romantic of all. He was
+hunted closely, almost as by hounds. For weeks he had only such sleep
+as he could snatch during short periods of safety, and there were times
+when his pursuers came within an inch of capturing him. But never in
+his life were his spirits so high.
+
+It was a sort of life that he had never seen before, climbing the
+mighty rocks, and listening to the thunder of the cataracts, among
+which he often slept, with only one faithful follower to guard him. The
+story of his escape is almost incredible, but he laughed and drank and
+rolled upon the grass when he was free from care. He hobnobbed with the
+most suspicious-looking caterans, with whom he drank the smoky brew of
+the North, and lived as he might on fish and onions and bacon and wild
+fowl, with an appetite such as he had never known at the luxurious
+court of Versailles or St.-Germain.
+
+After the battle of Culloden the prince would have been captured had
+not a Scottish girl named Flora Macdonald met him, caused him to be
+dressed in the clothes of her waiting-maid, and thus got him off to the
+Isle of Skye.
+
+There for a time it was impossible to follow him; and there the two
+lived almost alone together. Such a proximity could not fail to stir
+the romantic feeling of one who was both a youth and a prince. On the
+other hand, no thought of love-making seems to have entered Flora's
+mind. If, however, we read Campbell's narrative very closely we can see
+that Prince Charles made every advance consistent with a delicate
+remembrance of her sex and services.
+
+It seems to have been his thought that if she cared for him, then the
+two might well love; and he gave her every chance to show him favor.
+The youth of twenty-five and the girl of twenty-four roamed together in
+the long, tufted grass or lay in the sunshine and looked out over the
+sea. The prince would rest his head in her lap, and she would tumble
+his golden hair with her slender fingers and sometimes clip off tresses
+which she preserved to give to friends of hers as love-locks. But to
+the last he was either too high or too low for her, according to her
+own modest thought. He was a royal prince, the heir to a throne, or
+else he was a boy with whom she might play quite fancy-free. A lover he
+could not be--so pure and beautiful was her thought of him.
+
+These were perhaps the most delightful days of all his life, as they
+were a beautiful memory in hers. In time he returned to France and
+resumed his place amid the intrigues that surrounded that other Stuart
+prince who styled himself James III., and still kept up the appearance
+of a king in exile. As he watched the artifice and the plotting of
+these make-believe courtiers he may well have thought of his innocent
+companion of the Highland wilds.
+
+As for Flora, she was arrested and imprisoned for five months on
+English vessels of war. After her release she was married, in 1750; and
+she and her husband sailed for the American colonies just before the
+Revolution. In that war Macdonald became a British officer and served
+against his adopted countrymen. Perhaps because of this reason Flora
+returned alone to Scotland, where she died at the age of sixty-eight.
+
+The royal prince who would have given her his easy love lived a life of
+far less dignity in the years that followed his return to France. There
+was no more hope of recovering the English throne. For him there were
+left only the idle and licentious diversions of such a court as that in
+which his father lived.
+
+At the death of James III., even this court was disintegrated, and
+Prince Charles led a roving life under the title of Earl of Albany. In
+his wanderings he met Louise Marie, the daughter of a German prince,
+Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg. She was only nineteen years of age when
+she first felt the fascination that he still possessed; but it was an
+unhappy marriage for the girl when she discovered that her husband was
+a confirmed drunkard.
+
+Not long after, in fact, she found her life with him so utterly
+intolerable that she persuaded the Pope to allow her a formal
+separation. The pontiff intrusted her to her husband's brother,
+Cardinal York, who placed her in a convent and presently removed her to
+his own residence in Rome.
+
+Here begins another romance. She was often visited by Vittorio Alfieri,
+the great Italian poet and dramatist. Alfieri was a man of wealth. In
+early years he divided his time into alternate periods during which he
+either studied hard in civil and canonical law, or was a constant
+attendant upon the race-course, or rushed aimlessly all over Europe
+without any object except to wear out the post-horses which he used in
+relays over hundreds of miles of road. His life, indeed, was eccentric
+almost to insanity; but when he had met the beautiful and lonely
+Countess of Albany there came over him a striking change. She
+influenced him for all that was good, and he used to say that he owed
+her all that was best in his dramatic works.
+
+Sixteen years after her marriage her royal husband died, a worn-out,
+bloated wreck of one who had been as a youth a model of knightliness
+and manhood. During his final years he had fallen to utter destitution,
+and there was either a touch of half contempt or a feeling of remote
+kinship in the act of George III., who bestowed upon the prince an
+annual pension of four thousand pounds. It showed most plainly that
+England was now consolidated under Hanoverian rule.
+
+When Cardinal York died, in 1807, there was no Stuart left in the male
+line; and the countess was the last to bear the royal Scottish name of
+Albany.
+
+After the prince's death his widow is said to have been married to
+Alfieri, and for the rest of her life she lived in Florence, though
+Alfieri died nearly twenty-one years before her.
+
+Here we have seen a part of the romance which attaches itself to the
+name of Stuart--in the chivalrous young prince, leading his Highlanders
+against the bayonets of the British, lolling idly among the Hebrides,
+or fallen, at the last, to be a drunkard and the husband of an
+unwilling consort, who in her turn loved a famous poet. But it is this
+Stuart, after all, of whom we think when we hear the bagpipes skirling
+"Over the Water to Charlie" or "Wha'll be King but Charlie?"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Affinities of History V1, by Lyndon Orr
+
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