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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Famous Affinities of History V1, by Lyndon Orr
+#1 in our series by Lyndon Orr
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+Title: Famous Affinities of History V1
+       The Romance of Devotion
+ŒFú‰^øëeÄ^ø&€uN&Ä_&ƒ
+Author: Lyndon Orr
+
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+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 unedurable
+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
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Famous Affinities of History V1, by Lyndon Orr
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+End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Affinities of History V1, by Lyndon Orr
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