The Baldwin Library
Bor†GEORGE'S
Th Florida Park Street, Bristol
THE
RED TRUE STORY BOOK
WORKS BY ANDREW LANG.
COCK LANE AND COMMON SENSE: a Series of
Papers Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. net.
BAN and ARRIERE BAN: a Rally of Fugitive
Rhymes. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
ST. ANDREWS. With 8 Plates and 24 Illustrations
in the Text by T. Hodge. 8vo. 15s. net.
HOMER AND THE EPIC. Crown 8vo. 9s. net.
CUSTOM AND MYTH: Studies of Early Usage and
Belief. With 15 Illustrations. Orown 8vo. 35. 6d.
BALLADS OF BOOKS. Edited by ANDREW LANG.
Fep. 8vo. 6s.
LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. Fep. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
BOOKS. AND BOOKMEN. With 2 Coloured Plates
and 17 Illustrations. Fep. 8vo. 2s, 6d. net.
OLD FRIENDS. Fep. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
LETTERS ON LITERATURE. Fep. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
GRASS OF PARNASSUS. Fep. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
ANGLING SKETCHES. With 3 Etchings and nu-
merous Illustrations by W.G. Burn-Murdoch. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW
Lana. With 134 Illustrations by H. J. Ford and G. P. Jacomb
Hood. Ciown 8vo. 6s.
THE RED FAIRY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW Lana.
ve Illustrations by H. J. Ford and Laucelot Speed. Crown
VO. 63, :
THE GREEN FAIRY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW
Lana. With 99 Illustrations by H.J. Ford. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW
Lana. With 104 Illustrations by H. J. Ford. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE BLUE POETRY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW
Lana. With 100 Illustrations by H. J. Ford and Lancelot
Speed. Crown 8vo. 6s.
ScHOOL Enirion, without Illustrations. Fep. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
SPkCIAL EpiTIon, printed on Indian paper. With Notes, but
without Illustrations. Crown 8vo.7s. 6d.
THE TRUE STORY BOOK. Edited by ANDREW
Lang. With 66 Jllustrations by H. J. Ford, Lucien Davis,
Lancelot Speed, and L. Bogle. Crown 8vo. 6s.
RARARARADRINS
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
London and New York.
: ro
iggy LA :
aad wid
‘IN THE BORGHESE GARDENS PRACTISED THAT ROYAL GAME OF GOLF.’
(44 a ne OG 5
THE RED
TRUE STORY BOOK
EDITED BY
ANDREW LANG
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENRY J, FORD
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CoO.
AND NEW YORK
1895
All rights reserved
INTROD UCTION
The Red True Story Book needs no long Introduction. The
Editor, in presenting The Blue True Story Book, apologised
for offering tales so much less thrilling and romantic than
the legends of the Fairies, but he added that even real facts
“were, sometimes, curious and interesting. Next year he
promises something quite as true as History, and quite as
entertaining as Fairies !
For this book, Mr. Rider Haggard has kindly viGhiess a
narrative of ‘ Wilson’s Last Fight,’ by aid of conversations
with Mr. Burnham, the gallant American scout. But Mr.
Haggard found, while writing his chapter, that Mr. Burnham
had already told the story in an ‘ Interview ’ published by the
Westminster Gazette. The courtesy of the proprietor of that
journal, and of Mr. Burnham, has permitted Mr. Haggard
to incorporate the already printed narrative with his own
matter.
‘The Life and Death of Joan the Maid’ is by the Editor,
who has used M. Quicherat’s Procés (five volumes, published
for the Historical Society of France), with M. Quicherat’s
other researches. He has also used M. Wallon’s Biography,
the works of Father Ayroles, S.J., the Jeanne d’Arc &
Domremy of M. Siméon Luce, the works of M. Sepet, of
Michelet, of Henri Martin, and, generally, all printed docu-
ments to which he has had access. Of unprinted contem-
porary matter perhaps none is known to exist, except the
vili INTRODUCTION
Venetian Correspondence, now being prepared for publication
by Father Ayroles.
‘ How the Bass was held for King James’ is by the Editor,
mainly from Blackadder’s Life.
‘The Crowning of Ines de Castro’ is by Mrs. Lang, from
Schifer. ‘Orthon,’ from Froissart, ‘Gustavus Vasa,’ ‘Monsieur
de Bayard’s. Duel’ (Brantéme), are by the same lady; also
‘Gaston de Foix,’ from Froissart, and ‘The White Man,’ from
Mile. Aissé’s Letters. ,
Mrs. McCunn has told the story of the Prince’s Scottish
Campaign, from the contemporary histories of the Rising of
1745, contemporary tracts, The Lyon in Mourning, Chambers,
~ Scott, Maxwell of Kirkconnel, and other sources.
The short Sagas are translated from the Icelandic by the
Rev. W. C. Green, translator of Hgil Skalagrim’s Saga.
Mr. S. R. Crockett, Author of The Raiders, told the tales
of ‘The Bull of Earlstoun’ and ‘ Grisell Baillie.’
Miss May Kendall and Mrs. Bovill are responsible for the
seafarings and shipwrecks; the Australian adventures are by
Mrs. Bovill.
Miss Minnie Wright compiled ‘The Conquest of Peru,’
from Prescott’s celebrated History.
Miss Agnes Repplier, that famed essayist of America,
wrote the tale of Molly Pitcher.
‘The Adventures of General Marbot’ are from the
translation of his Autobiography by Mr. Butler.
With this information the Editor leaves the book to
children, assuring. them that the stories are true, except
perhaps that queer tale of ‘Orthon’; and some of the Sagas
also may have been a little altered from the real facts before
the Icelanders became familiar with writing.
CONTENTS
Wilson’s Last Fight
The Life and Death of Joan
PAGE
the Maid 19
How the Bass was held a
King James 92
The Crowning of Inesde Castro 99
The Story of Orthon 105
How Gustavus Vasa won his
Kingdom . . 114
Monsieur de Bayard’s Duel . 122
Story of Gudbrand of the Dales 125
Sir Richard Grenville . 132
The Story of Molly Pitcher . 137
The Voyages, Dangerous Ad-
ventures, and Imminent
Escapes of Captain Richard
Falconer : . 141
Marbot’s March . 150
Eylau. The Mare Lisette . 162
How Marbot crossed the
Danube . - 175
The piteous Death of Gaston,
Son of the Count of Foix . 186
PAGE
Rolf Stake : : . . 191
The Wreck of the‘ Wager’? . 195
Peter Williamson. .. . 218
| A Wonderful Voyage . . 226 ©
The Pitcairn Islanders. . . 238
A Relation of three years’
Suffering of Robert Everard
upon the Island of Assada,
near Madagascar, in a Voy-
age to India, im the year
1686 . : ; . 247
The Fight at Svolder Island .- 252
The Death of Hacon the Good 261
Prince Charlie’s War . . 265
The Burke and Wills Hxplor-
ing Expedition . : . 324
The Story of Emund . . 346
The Man in White 7 . 854
The Adventures of ‘the Bull
| of Earlstown’ : . 358
| The Story of Grisell Baillie’s
| Sheep's Head . . . 366
The Conquest of Peru . . 371
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
‘In the Borghese gardens. practised that royal game of
golf’ : :
Just as his arm was ea. LT fir a
Joan in church :
Joan rides to Chinon . : :
Joan tells the King his secret . : .
The English Archers betrayed by the Stag
The Coronation of Charles VII
‘Instantly a gust of wind blew her off the eek into the
sea’
‘One man... stalked aioe the deck and flourished 6 a
cutlass . . . shouting that he was “king of the
country� .
The Indian threatens “Peter Williamson
‘Another party of Indians arrived, bringing han y acai
and three prisoners’
The savages attack the boat .
‘The madman dwelt alone’
King Olaf leaps overboard
‘In the Borghese gardens practisad that 70: ine pane of
golf’ :
‘I will, though ies amotlion man in “the ij ghands
should draw a sword’
‘He galloped wp the streets of Bdinbur gh ang a
“ Victory ! Victory !�
Manco Capac and Mama Oclilo nae the Childr ren of
the Sun, come from Lake Titicaca to govern and
civilise the tribes of Peru
In one cave the soldiers found vases of nine gold, we
. Frontispiece
. To face p. 10
24
38
42
64
68
92
196
214
~ 218
230
249
256
266
272
294
374
412
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
WOODCUTS IN TEXT
PAGE
One of them Hee his assegait 17
‘The Fairy Tree’. - 20
Joan hears the Voice. . 28
Robert thinks Joan crazed . 34
‘ Sir, this is ill done of you’. 387
‘In a better language than
yours, said Joan . : 46
‘Lead him to the Cross p ?
cried she . 7 50
‘Then spurred she her Heise
- +. and put out the flame’ 58
Joan is wounded by the arrow 57
‘ Now arose adispute among the
captains’ . . 61
One Englishman at dass died
well : é 63
Joan challenges the ‘Muglish
to sally forth . f 73
“Go she would not till she Had
taken that town’ . Paercmy £)
Joan Captured . . . 838
Joan at Beaurevoir . : 85
© They burned Joan the Maid’ > 89
The Bass attacked - ule
frigates. 97
Ines pleads for her life : "101
‘Twill send you a chanipen
whom you will cae more
than you fear me’. . 107
Orthon’s last appearance . . 112
Gustavus leaves school for
good! . . A F . 115
‘Lazy loon! Have you no
work to do?’. : . 119
* Surrender, Don Anise, or
you are a dead man!’ . 123
‘In the following night Gud-
brand dreamed a dream’ . 127
. PAGE
The destruction of the idol . 130
“Still he cried to his men,
“ Hight on, fighton!â€â€™?. . 184
Molly takes her husband’s
place . ‘ . 139
‘As we approached we saw the
pirate sinking’. - 143
Falconer knocks down a bie 145
Falconer returns to his com-
panions . . 148
‘Then, drawing their ssp
they dashed at the rest’ . 152
Marbot’s fight with the
Carabineers in the alley. 157
Lisette catches the thief in the
stable . : : . 164
‘I regarded myself as a hee -
man who is trying to win a
steeplechase’ . : - 166
Lisette carries off the Fission
officer . : . 169
‘ Guided by the tanebort man *
he reached me and found me
living’ ., , . . 172
©“ T will go, sn? Icried’ .177
‘We had to saw the rope’. . 182
‘ The Count leaped up, a knife °
in his hand’, . 188
Gaston in prison : . . 189
‘ But now here sits in the high
seat a thin stake’ : . 192
‘ He fleeth not the flame
Who leapeth o’er the same’. 198
The Captain shoots Mr. Cozens 202
Mr. Hamilton’s fight with the
sea-lion . : ; « . 205
The Cacique fires off the gun. 208
Byron rides past the turnpikes 211
xii
PAGE
The captain guarded a the
mutineers . 228
The Pitcairn iclapaiats on
board the English frigate . 239
Old John Adams teaches the
children . . 245
Death of the supercar 0 . 248
‘None will now deny that
“ Long Snake†sails by’ . 255
Hacon casts his shield away
‘Go, sir, to your general ; tell
him what you have seen...’
Escape of the Duke of Perth . 281
‘In many a panelled parlour’ 284
‘Och no! she be relieved’ . 287
Mrs. Murray of Broughton
distributes cockades to the
crowd . ; : . . 289
James More wounded at
Prestonpans . 293
Crossing Shap Fell . . 301
‘ Many had their broadswords
and dirks sharpened’ . 304
‘The Prince caught him by
the hair’
The poor boy vath mortally
. 307
wounded . 311
The ‘ Rout of Moy’ . 815
The end of Culloden . 322
‘The advance party of eight
started on October 29’ » 327
. 263 |
| Alexander
276 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Golah is abandoned . 332
‘ King, they are gone !’ . 337
Death of Burke . B42
Bessé tntroduced to the Man
in White : : . B55
‘Saw reflected in the mirror
the white figure’ . 356
‘Sometimes he would find a
party searching for him
quite close at hand’ . 360
Gordon wood-
chopping in the eee of
a labourer . ‘ . 362
Grisell brings the sheep’s head
to her father in the vault . 367
A Peruvian postman . 381
Almagro wownded in the eye . 387
Many of the Spaniards were
killed by the snakes and
alligators ; . 389
Amazement of the ae at
seeing a cavalier fall from
his horse . 391
Pizarro sees llamas oa the
Jirst time . 393
Thecavalier displays his dior Se-
manship before Atahuallpa
The friar urges Pizarro to
attack the Peruvians . . 404
The Spaniards destroy the idol
at Pachacamac . . 407
401
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
They were men whose fathers were men’
pe make it clear how Major Wilson and his companions came to
die on the banks of the Shangani on December 4, 1893, it will.
be necessary, very briefly, to sketch the events which led to the war
between the English settlers in Mashonaland in South Africa and
the Matabele tribe, an offshoot of the Zulu race.
In October 1889, at the instance of Mr. Cecil Rhodes and
others interested, the Chartered Company of British South Africa
was incorporated, with the sanction of Her Majesty’s Government.
In 1890 Mashonaland was occupied, a vast and fertile territory
nominally under the rule of Lobengula, king of the Matabele,
which had been ceded by him to the representatives of the Company
in return for certain valuable considerations. It is, however, an
easier task for savage kings to sign concessions than to ensure that
such concessions will be respected by their subjects, especially when
those subjects are-warriors by nature, tradition, and practice, as in
the present case, and organised into regiments, kept from year to
year in perfect efliciency and readiness for attack. Whatever may
have been Lobengula’s private wishes and opinions, it soon became
evident that the gathering of the white men upon their borders,
and in a country which they claimed by right of conquest if they
did not occupy it, was most distasteful to the more warlike sec-
tions of the Matabele.
Mashonaland takes its name from the Mashona tribes who in-
habit it, a peaceful and, speaking by comparison, an industrious
race, whom, ever since they first settled in the neighbourhood, it
had been the custom of the subjects of Lobengula and of his pre-
decessor, Mosilikatze, ‘the lion,’ to attack with every cruelty con-
ceivable, raiding their cattle, slaughtering their men, and sweeping
their maidens and young children into captivity. Terrified, half
R. B
2 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
exterminated indeed, as they were by these constant and unprovoked
onslaughts, the Mashonas welcomed with delight the occupation
of their country by white men, and thankfully placed themselves
under the protection of the Chartered Company.
The Matabele regiments, however, took a different view of the
question, for now their favourite sport was gone: they could no
longer practise rapine and murder, at least in this direction, when-
ever the spirit moved them. Presently the force of habit overcame
their fear of the white men and their respect for treaties, and
towards the end of 1891 the chief Lomaghondi, who lived under
the protection of the Company, was killed by them. Thereon Dr.
Jameson, the Administrator of Mashonaland, remonstrated with
Lobengula, who expressed TeErel saying that the incident had
happened by mistake.
This repudiation notwithstanding, an impi, or armed body of
savages, again crossed the border in 1892, and raided in the
Victoria district. Encouraged by the success of these proceedings,
in July 1893 Lobengula sent a picked company to harry in the
neighbourhood of Victoria itself, writing to Dr. Jameson that he
made no excuse for so doing, claiming as he did the right to
raid when, where, and whom he chose. The ‘indunas,’ or
captains, in command of this force were instructed not to kill
white men, but to fall particularly upon those tribes who were in
their employ. On July 9, 1898, and the following days came
the climax, for then the impi began to slaughter every Mashona
whom they could find. Many of these unfortunates were butchered
in the presence of their masters, who were bidden to ‘stand upon
one side as the time of the white men had not yet come.’
Seeing that it was necessary to take action, Dr. Jameson
summoned the head indunas of the impi, and ordered them to cross
the border within an hour or to suffer the consequences of their
disobedience. The majority obeyed, and those who defied him were
attacked by Captain Lendy and a small force while in the act
of raiding a kraal, some of them being killed and the rest driven
away.
From this moment war became inevitable, for the question
lay between the breaking of the power of Lobengula and the
evacuation of Mashonaland. Into the details of that war it
is not proposed to enter; they are outside the scope of this
narrative. It is enough’to say that it was one of the most
brilliant and suecessful ever carried out by Englishmen. The
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 3
odds against the little force of a thousand or twelve hundred white
men who invaded Matabeleland were almost overwhelming, and
when it is remembered that the Imperial troops did not succeed
in their contest against Cetywayo, the Zulu king, until nearly as
many soldiers were massed in the country as there were able-bodied
Zulus left to oppose them, the brilliancy of the achievement of these
colonists led by a civilian, Dr. Jameson, can be estimated. The
Matabele were beaten in two pitched battles: that of the Shangani
on October 25, and that of the Imbembezi on November 1. They
fought bravely, even with desperation, but their valour was broken
by the skill and the cool courage of the white man. Those terrible .
engines of war, the Maxim guns and the Hotchkiss shells, con-
tributed largely to our success on these occasions. The Matabele,
brave as they were, could not face the incessant fire of the Maxims,
and as to the Hotchkiss they developed a curious superstition. See-
ing that men fell dead in all directions after the explosion of a shell,
they came to believe that as it burst out of each missile numbers
of tiny and invisible imps ran forth carrying death and destruction
to the white men’s foes, and thus it happened that to their minds
moral terrors were added to the physical dangers of warfare.
So strong was this belief among them, indeed, that whenever a
shell struck they would turn and fire at it in the hope that thus
they might destroy the ‘live devils’ who dwelt within it.
After these battles Lobengula, having first set fire to it, fled from
his chief place, Buluwayo, which was occupied by the white men
within a month of the commencement of the campaign.
In reply to a letter sent to him by Dr. Jameson, demanding his
surrender and guaranteeing his safety, Lobengula wrote that he
‘would come in.’
The promised period of two days’ grace having gone by, however,
and there being no sign of his appearance, a force was despatched
from Buluwayo to follow and capture him. ‘This force, which was
under the leadership of Major Patrick W. Forbes, consisted of ninety
men of the Salisbury Column, with Captains Heany and Spreckley
and a mule Maxim gun under Lieutenant Biscoe, R.N.; sixty men
of the Victoria Column commanded by Major Wilson, with a horse
Maxim under Captain Lendy; sixty men of the Tuli Column, and
ninety men of the Bechuanaland Border Police, commanded by
Captain Raaf, C.M.G., accompanied by two horse Maxims and a
mule seven-pounder, commanded by Captain Tancred.
The column, which started on or about November 14, took with
Ba
4 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
it food for three days only, carried by natives, and a hundred rounds
of ammunition perman. After several days’ journeying northward
the patrol reached the Bubye River, where dissensions arose between
Captain Raaf and Major Forbes, the former being of opinion, rightly
enough as the issue showed, that the mission was too dangerous to
be pursued by a small body of men without supplies of food, and
having no reserve of ammunition and no means of carrying the
wounded. The upshot was that Major Forbes decided to return,
but was prevented from doing so by a letter received from Dr.
Jameson, stating that he was sending forward a reinforcement of
- dismounted men under Captain Napier, with food, ammunition,
and wagons, also sixteen mounted men under Captain Borrow.
The force then proceeded to a deserted Mission Station known as
Shiloh. On November 25 the column, three hundred strong and
carrying with it three-quarter rations for twelve days, took up the
King’s wagon spoor about one mile from Shiloh, and followed it
through much discomfort, caused by the constant rain and the
lack of roads, till, on December 8, a point was reached on the
Shangani River, N.N.W. of Shiloh and distant from it about eighty
miles.
On November 29, however, Major Forbes, finding that he could
make small progress with the wagons, sent them away, and pro-
ceeded with the best mounted men and two Maxims only, so that
the actual force which reached the Shangani on the 8rd consisted
of about one hundred and sixty men and.a couple of machine guns.
At this time the information in possession of the leaders of the
column was to the effect that the King was just in front of them
across the river, accompanied only by a few of his followers.
Under these circumstances Major Forbes instructed Major Wilson
and eighteen men to go forward and reconnoitre along Lobengula’s
spoor; the understanding seeming to have been that the party was
to return by sundown, but that if it did not return it was, if neces-
sary, to be supported by the whole column. With this patrol went
Mr. Burnham, the American scout, one of the three surviving white
men who were eye-witnesses of that eventful night’s work, which
ended so tragically at dawn.
What followed is best told as he narrated it by word of mouth
to the compiler of this true story, and to a reporter of the ‘ West-
minster Gazette,’ the editor of which paper has courteously given
permission for the reproduction of the interview. Indeed, it would
be difficult to tell it so well in words other than Mr. Burnham’s own.
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 5
‘In the afternoon of December 3,’ says Mr. Burnham, ‘ I was
scouting ahead of the column with Colenbrander, when in a-strip of
bush we lit on two Matabele boys driving some cattle, one of whom
wecaught and brought in. He was a plucky boy, and when threatened
he just looked us sullenly in the face. He turned out to be a sort
of grandson or grand-nephew of Lobengula himself. He said the
King’s camp was just ahead, and the King himself near, with very
Sketch of . N.B.Supposed distance of King’s Wagons
Route of the Wilson Patrol From Forbes Camp 5 Miles, windings by
and of the the Spoor might be a little more.
Scouts’ride back to Major Forbes
Drawn from memory by Mr.Burnham
- \ eating’s Wagon
\SY% First Fight Deo. 4th.
at Daylight
hangan;
$ fa, G5, eunseeeee
Q
le,
Wilson's Patrol 4 ees
C een.
eg as ae <8. 1 Forbes
Bush’ Mh ekg hse, Dec. 8rd,
Route of the Wilson Patrol. ———— King’s Skerm
b d Dec. 2
Scouts ride to Major Forbes. —>— ey ee Oc.
Walker & Boutall se,
few men, and these sick, and that he wanted to give himself up.
He represented that the King had been back to this place that very
day to get help because his wagons were stuck in a bog. The
column pushed on through the strip of bush, and there, near by,
was the King’s camp—quite deserted. We searched the huts, and
in one lay a Maholi slave-boy, fast asleep. (The Maholis are the
slaves of the Matabele.) We pulled him out, and were questioning
him, when the other boy, the sulky Matabele, caught his eye, and
6 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
gave him a ferocious look, shouting across to him to take care what
he told.
‘The slave-boy agreed with the others that the King had only
left this camp the day before; but as it was getting dark, Major
Forbes decided to reconnoitre before going on with the column. I
learnt of the decision to send forward Major Wilson and fifteen
men on the best horses when I got my orders to accompany them,
and, along with Bayne, to do their scouting. My horse was
exhausted with the work he had done already; I told Major Forbes,
and he at once gave me his. It was a young horse, rather skittish,
but strong and fairly fresh by comparison.
‘Ingram, my fellow-scout, remained with the column, and so
got some hours’ rest; thanks to which he was able not only to do
his part of tracking for the twenty men afterwards sent on to us
through the bush at night, but also, when he and I got through
after the smash, to do the long and dangerous ride down country
to Buluwayo with the despatches—a ride on which he was accom-
panied by Lynch.
‘So we set off along the wagon track, while the main body of
the column went into laager.
‘Close to the river the track turned and led down stream along
the west bank.. Two miles down was a drift’ (they call a fordable
dip a drift in South Africa), ‘and here the track crossed the
Shangani. We splashed through, and the first thing we scouts
knew on the other side was that we were riding into the middle of
a lot of Matabele among some scherms, or temporary shelters.
There were men, and some women and children. The men were
armed. We put a bold face on it, and gave out the usual announce-
ment that we did not want to kill anybody, but must have the King.
The natives seemed surprised and undecided; presently, as Major
Wilson and the rest of the patrol joined us, one of them volunteered
to come along with us and guide us to the King. He was only just
ahead, the man said. How many men were with him? we asked.
The man put up his little finger—dividing it up, so. Five fingers
mean an impi; part of the little finger, like that, should mean fifty
to one hundred men. Wilson said to me, “Go'on ahead, taking
that man beside your saddle; cover him, fire if necessary, but don’t
you let him slip.â€
‘So we started off again at a trot, for the light was failing,
the man running beside my horse, and I keeping a sharp
eye on him. The track led through some thick bush. We
WILSON'’S LAST FIGHT “4
passed several scherms. Five miles from the river we came to a
long narrow vlei [a vlei is a shallow valley, generally with water
in it], which lay across our path. It was now getting quite dark.
Coming out of the bush on the near edge of the vlei, before going
down into it, I saw fires lit, and scherms and figures showing dark
against the fires right along the opposite edge of the vlei. We
skirted the vlei to our left, got round the end of it, and at once
rode through a lot of scherms containing hundreds of people. As
we went, Captain Napier shouted the message about the King
wherever there was a big group of people. We passed scherm after
scherm, and still more Matabele, more fires, and on we rode.
Instead of the natives having been scattering from the King, they
had been gathering. But it was too late to turn. We were hard
upon our prize, and it was understood among the Wilson patrol
that they were going to bring the King in if man could do it. The
natives were astonished: they thought the whole column was on
them: men jumped up, and ran hither and thither, rifle in handi
We went on without stopping, and as we passed more and more
men came running after us. Some of them were crowding on the
rearmost men, so Wilson told off three fellows to “keep those
niggers back.’ They turned, and kept the people in check. At
last, nearly at the other end of the vlei, having passed five sets of
scherms, we came upon what seemed, to be the King’s wagons,
standing in a kind of enclosure, with a saddled white horse tethered
by it. Just before this, in the crowd and hurry, my man slipped
away, and I had to report to Wilson that I hadlost him. Of course
it would not have done to fire. One shot would have been the
match in the powder magazine. We had ridden into the middle of
the Matabele nation.
‘At this enclosure we halted and sang out again, making a
special appeal to the King and those about him. No answer came.
All was silence. A few drops of rain fell. Then it lightened, and
by the flashes we could just see men getting ready to fire on us,
and Napier shouted to Wilson, “ Major, they are about to attack.â€
I at the same time saw them closing in on us rapidly from the
right. The next thing to this fifth scherm was some thick bush;
the order was given to get into that, and in a moment we were out of
sight there. One minute after hearing us shout, the natives with
the wagons must have been unable to see a sign of us. Just then
it came on to rain heavily; the sky, already cloudy, got black as ink ;
the night fell so dark that you could not see your hand before you.
8 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
‘We could not stay the night where we were, for we were so
close that they would hear our horses’ bits. So it was decided to
work down into the vlei, creep along close to the other edge of it
to the end we first came round, farthest from the King’s camp, and
there spend the night. This, like all the other moves, was taken after
consultation with the officers, several of whom were experienced
Kaffir campaigners. It was rough going; we were unable to see
our way, now splashing through the little dongas that ran down
into the belly of the vlei, now working round them, through bush
and soft bottoms. At the far end, in a clump of thick bush, we
dismounted, and Wilson sent off Captain Napier, with a man of his
called Robinson, and the Victoria scout, Bayne, to go back along
the wagon-track to the column, report how things stood, and bring
the column on, with the Maxims, as sharp as possible. Wilson
told Captain Napier to tell Forbes if the bush bothered the
Maxim carriages to abandon them and put the guns on horses,
but to bring the Maxims without fail. We all understood—and
we thought the message was this—that if we were caught there at
dawn without the Maxims we were done for. On the other hand
was the chance of capturing the King and ending the campaign at
a stroke.
‘The spot we had selected to stop in until the arrival of Forbes
was a clump of heavy bush not far from the King’s spoor—and yet
so far from the Kaffir camps that they could not hear us if we kept
quiet. We dismounted, and on counting it was found that three
of the men were missing. They were Hofmeyer, Bradburn and
Colquhoun. Somewhere in winding through the bush from the
King’s wagons to our present position these men were lost. Nota
difficult thing, for we only spoke in whispers, and, save for the
occasional click of a horse’s hoof, we could pass within ten feet of
each other and not be aware of it.
© Wilson came to me and said, “ Burnham, can you follow back
along the vlei where we’ve just come?†I doubted it very much
as it was black and raining; I had no coat, having been sent after
the patrol immediately I came in from firing the King’s huts, and
although it was December, or midsummer south of the line, the
rain chilled my fingers. Wilson said, ‘Come, I must have those
men back.†I told him I should need some one to lead my horse
so as to feel the tracks made in the ground by our horses. He
replied, “I will go with you. I want to see how you American
fellows work.’
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 9
‘ Wilson was no bad hand at tracking himself, and I was put on
my mettle at once. We began, and I was flurried at first, and
did not seem to get on to it somehow; but in a few minutes I
picked up the spoor and hung to it.
‘So we started off together, Wilson and I, in the dark. It was
hard work, for one could see nothing; one had to feel for the
traces with one’s fingers. Creeping along, at last we stood close
to the wagons, where the patrol had first retreated into the
bush.
‘«“ Tf we only had the force here now,†said Wilson, “ we would
soon finish.â€
‘But there was still no sign of the three men, so there was
nothing for it but to shout. Retreating into the vlei in front of
the King’s camp, we stood calling and cooeying for them, long and
low at first, then louder. Of course there was a great stir along
the lines of the native scherms, for they did not know what to make
of it. We heard afterwards that the natives were greatly alarmed
as the white men seemed to be everywhere at once, and the indunas
went about quieting the men, and saying “ Do you think the white
men are on you, children? Don’t you know a wolf's howl when
you hear it?â€
‘ After calling for a bit, we heard an answering call away down
the vlei, and the darkness favouring us, the lost men soon came up
and we arrived at the clump of bushes where the patrol was
stationed. We all lay down in the mud to rest, for we were tired
out. It had left off raining, but it was a miserable night, and the
hungry horses had been under saddle, some of them twenty hours,
and were quite done.
“So we waited for the column.
‘During the night we could hear natives moving across into the
bush which lay between us andthe river. We heard the branches
as they pushed through. After a while Wilson asked me if I
could go a little way around our position and find out what the
Katlirs were doing. I always think he heard something, but he
did: not say so. I slipped out and on our right heard the swirl of
boughs and the splash of feet. Circling round for a little time I
came on more Kaffirs. I got so close to them I could touch them
as they passed, but it was impossible to say how many there were,
it was so dark. This I reported to Wilson. Raising his head on his
hand he asked me a few questions, and made the remark that if the
column failed to come up before daylight, “ we are in a hard hole,â€
10 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
and told me to go out on the King’s spoor and watch for Forbes, so
that by no possibility should he pass us in the darkness. It was
now, I should judge, 1 a.m. on the 4th of December.
‘I went, and for a long, long time I heard only the dropping
of the rain from the leaves and now and then a dog barking in the
scherms, but at last, just as it got grey in the east, I heard a noise,
and placing my ear close to the ground, made it out to be the tramp
of horses. I ran back to Wilson and said “ The column is here.’
‘We all led our horses out to the King’s spoor. f saw the form
of a man tracking. It was Ingram. I gave him alow whistle;
he came up, and behind him rode—not the column, not the Maxims,
but just twenty men under Captain Borrow. It was a terrible
moment—“ /f we were caught there at dawn ’’—and already it was
getting lighter every minute.
‘One of us asked “ Where is the column ? †to which the reply
was, “ You see all there are of us.’ We answered, “ Then you are
only so many more men to die.â€
‘Wilson went aside with Borrow, and there was earnest talk
for a few moments. Presently all the officers’ horses’ heads were
together ; and Captain Judd said in my hearing, “ Well, this is the
end.’ And Kurten said quite quietly, “We shall never get out of
this.â€
‘Then Wilson put it to the officers whether we should try and
break through the impis which were now forming up between us
and the river, or whether we would go for the King and sell our
lives in trying to get hold of him. The final decision was for this
latter.
‘So we set off and walked along the vlei back to the King’s
wagons. It was quite light now and they saw us from the scherms
all the way, but they just looked at us and we at them, and so we
went along. We walked because the horses hadn’t a canter in
them, and there was no hurry anyway.
‘At the wagons we halted and shouted out again about not
wanting to kill anyone. There was a pause, and then came shouts
and a volley. Afterwards it was said that somebody answered, “If
you don’t want to kill, we do.†My horse jumped away to the right
at the volley, and took me almost into the. arms of some natives
who came running from that side. A big induna blazed at me,
missed me, and then fumbled at his belt for another cartridge. It
was not a proper bandolier he had on, and I saw him trying to
pluck out the cartridge instead of easing it up from below with his
Y
yy
fl
Ay
Uy,
i
f/
Y
(i
‘JUST AS HIS ARM WAS POISED I FIRED’
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 13
fiager. As I got my horse steady and threw my rifle down to cover
him, he suddenly let the cartridge be and lifted an assegai. Waiting
to make sure of my aim, just as his arm was poised I fired and hit
him in the chest; he dropped. All happenedin a moment. Then
we retreated. Seeing two horses down, Wilson shouted to some-
body to cut off the saddle pockets which carried extra ammunition.
Ingram picked up one of the dismounted men behind him, Captain
Fitzgerald the other. The most ammunition anyone had, by the
way, was a hundred and ten rounds. There was some very stiff
fighting for a few minutes, the natives having the best of the posi-
tion; indeed they might have wiped us out but for their stupid habit
of firing on the run, as they charged. Wilson ordered us to retire
down the vlei ; some hundred yards further on we came to an ant-
heap and took our second position on that, and held it for some time.
Wilson jumped on the top of the ant-heap and shouted—‘“ Every
man pick his nigger.†There was no random firing, I would be
covering a man when he dropped to somebody’s rifle, and I had to
choose another.
‘Now we had the best of the position. The Matabele came on
furiously down the open. Soon we were firing at two hundred yards
and less; and the turned-up shields began to lie pretty thick over
the ground. It got too hot forthem ; they broke and took cover in
the bush. We fired about twenty rounds per man at this ant-heap.
Then the position was flanked by heavy reinforcements from among
the timbers; several more horses were knocked out and we had to
quit. We retreated in close order into the bush on the opposite side
of the vlei—the other side from the scherms. We went slowly
on account of the disabled men and horses.
‘There was a lull, and Wilson rode up to me and asked if I thought
I could rush through to the main column. A scout on a good horse
might succeed, of course, where the patrol as a whole would not
stand a chance. It was a forlorn hope, but I thought it was only a —
question of here or there, and I said I'd try, asking for a man to
be sent with me. A man called Gooding said he was willing to
‘come, and I picked Ingram also because we had been through
many adventures together, and I thought we might as well see this
last one through together.
‘So we started, and we had not gone five hundred yards when we
came upon the horn of an impi closing in from the river. We saw
the leading men, and they saw us and fired. As they did so I
swerved my horse sharp to the left, and shouting to the others,
14 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
“ Now for it!’ we thrust the horses through the bush at their best
pace. A bullet whizzed past my eye, and leaves, cut by the firing,
pattered down on us; but as usual the natives fired too high.
‘So we rode along, seeing men, and being fired at continually,
but outstripping the enemy. The peculiar chant of an advancing
impi, like a long, monotonous baying or growling, was loud in our
ears, together with the noise they make drumming on their hide
shields with the assegai—you must hear an army making those
sounds to realise them. As soon as we got where the bush was
thinner, we shook off the niggers who were pressing us, and, coming
to a bit of hard ground, we turned on our tracks and hid in some
thick bush. We did this more than once and stood quiet, listening
to the noise they made beating about for uson all sides. Of course
we knew that scores of them must have run gradually back upon
the river to cut us off, so we doubled and waited, getting so near
again to the patrol that once during the firing which we heard
thickening back there, the spent bullets pattered around us. Those
waiting moments were bad. We heard firing soon from the other
side of the river too, and didn’t know but that the column was being
wiped out as well as the patrol.
‘ At last, after no end of doubling and hiding and riding in a triple
loop, and making use of every device known to a scout for destroy-
ing a spoor—it took us about three hours and-a half to cover as many
miles—we reached the river, and found it a yellow flood two hundred
yards broad. In the way African rivers have, the stream, four feet
across last night, had risen from the rain. We did not think our
horses could swim it, utterly tired as they now were; but we were
just playing the game through, so we decided to try. With their
heads and ours barely above the water, swimming and drifting, we
got across and crawled out on the other side. Then for the first time, '
I remember, the idea struck me that we might come through it after
all, and with that the desire of life came passionately back upon me.
We topped the bank, and there, five hundred yards in front to
the left, stood several hundred Matabele! They stared at us in utter
surprise, wondering, I suppose, if we were the advance guard of
some entirely new reinforcement. In desperation we walked our
‘horses quietly along in front of them, paying no attention to them.
We had gone some distance like this, and nobody followed behind,
till at last one man took a shot at us; and with that a lot more of
them began to blaze away. -Almost at the same moment Ingram
caught sight of horses only four or five hundred yards distant; so
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 15
the column still existed—and there it was. We took the last gallop
out of our horses then, and—well, in a few minutes I was falling out °
of the saddle, and saying to Forbes: “It’s all over; we are the last
of that party!’ Forbes only said, “ Well, tell nobody else till we
are through with our. own fight,†and next minute we were just
firing away along with the others, helping to beat off the attack on
the column.’
Here Mr. Burnham’s narrative ends.
What happened to Wilson and his gallant companions, and the
exact manner of their end after Burnham and his two comrades left
them, is known only through the reports of natives who took part
inthe fight. This, however, is certain: since the immortal company
of Greeks died at Thermopyle, few, if any, such stands have been
made in the face of inevitable death. They knew what the issue
must be; for them there was no possibility of escape ; the sun shone
upon them for the last time, and for the last time the air of heaven
blew upon their brows. Around them, thousand upon thousand,
_ were massed their relentless foes, the bush echoed with war-
cries, and from behind every tree and stone a ceaseless fire was
poured upon their circle. But these four-and-thirty men never
wavered, never showed a sign of fear. Taking shelter behind the
boles of trees, or the bodies of their dead horses, they answered the
fire shot for shot, coolly, with perfect aim, without haste or hurry.
The bush around told this tale of them in after days, for the
bark of every tree was scored with bullets, showing that wherever
an enemy had exposed his head there a ball had been sent to seek
him. Also there was another testimony—that of the bones of the
dead Matabele, the majority of whom had clearly fallen shot
through the brain. The natives themselves state that for every
white man who died upon that day, there perished at least ten of
their own people, picked off, be it remembered, singly as they
chanced to expose themselves. Nor did the enemy waste life need-
lessly, for their general ordered up the King’s elephant hunters,
trained shots, every one of them, to compete with the white man’s fire.
For two long hours. or more that fight went on. Now and
again a man was killed, and now and again a man was wounded,
but the wounded still continued to load the rifles that they could not
fire, handing them to those of their companions who were as yet
unhurt. At some period during the fray, so say the Matabele, the
white. men began to ‘sing.’ What is meant by the singing we can
16 | WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
never know, but probably they cheered aloud after repelling a rush
of the enemy. At length their fire grew faint and infrequent, till by
degrees it flickered away, for men were lacking to handle the rifles.
One was left, however, who stood alone and erect in the ring of the
dead, no longer attempting to defend himself, either because he was
weak with wounds, or because his ammunition was exhausted.
There he stood silent and solitary, presenting one of the most
pathetic yet splendid sights told of in the generation that he adorned.
There was no more firing now, but the natives stole out of their
cover and came up to the man quietly, peering at him half afraid.
Then one of them lifted his assegaiand drove it through his breast.
Still he did not fall; so the soldier drew out the spear and, retreating
afew yards, he hurled it at him, transfixing him. Now, very slowly,
making no sound, the white man sank forward upon his face, and
so lay still.
There seems to be little doubt but that this man was none other
than Major Allan Wilson, the commander of the patrol. Native
reports of his stature and appearance suggest this, but there is a
stronger piece of evidence. The Matabele told Mr. Burnham who
repeated it to the present writer, that this man wore a hat of a
certain shape and size, fastened up at the side in a peculiar fashion ;
a hat similar to that which Mr. Burnham wore himself. Now,
these hats were of American make, and Major Wilson was the only
man in that party who possessed one of them, for Mr. Burnham
himself had looped it up for him in = American style, if indeed
he had not presented it to him.
The tragedy seemed to be finished, but it was not so, for as the
natives stood and stared at the fallen white men, from among the
dead a man rose up, to all appearance unharmed, holding in each
hand a revolver, or a ‘little Maxim’ as they described it. Having
gained his feet he walked slowly and apparently aimlessly away
towards an ant-heap that stood at some distance. At the sight the
natives began to fire again, scores, and even hundreds, of shots being
aimed at him, but, as it chanced, none of them struck him. , Seeing
that he remained untouched amidst this hail of lead, they cried out
that he was ‘tagati,’ or magic-guarded, but the indunas ordered
them to continue their fire. They did so, and a bullet passing through
his hips, the Englishman fell down paralysed. Then finding that he
could not turn they ran round him and stabbed him, and he died
firing with either hand back over his shoulders at the slaughterers
behind him.
WILSON’S LAST FIGHT 1?
So perished the last of the Wilson patrol. He seems to have
been Alexander Hay Robertson—at least Mr. Burnham believes
that it was he, and for this reason. Robertson, he says, was the only
man of the party who had grey hair, and at a little distance from
the other skeletons was found a skull to which grey hair still
adhered,
It is the custom among savages of the Zulu and kindred races,
for reasons of superstition, to rip open and mutilate the bodies of
‘One of them lifted his assegai’
enemies killed in war, but on this occasion the Matabele general,
having surveyed the dead, issued an order : ‘ Let them be,’ he said;
‘they were men who died like men, men whose fathers were men.’
No finer epitaph could be composed in memory of Wilson and
his comrades. In truth the fame of this death of theirs has spread
far and wide throughout the native races of Southern Africa, and
Englishmen everywhere reup the benefit of its glory. They also
who lie low, they reap the benefit of it, for their story is immortal,
R. Cc
18 WILSON’S LAST FIGHT
and it will be told hundreds of years hence when it matters no more
to them whether they died by shot and steel on the banks of the Shan-
gani, or elsewhere in age and sickness. At least through the fatal
storm of war they have attained to peace and honour, and there
within the circle of the ruins of Zimbabwe they sleep their sleep,
envied of some and revered by all. Surely it is no small thing to
have attained to such a death, and England may be proud of her
sons who won it.
19
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
JOAN THE MAID
E
THE FAIRIES’ TREE
OUR hundred'and seventy years ago, the children of Domremy,
a little village near the Meuse, on the borders of France and
Lorraine, used to meet and dance and sing beneath a beautiful
beech-tree, ‘lovely as a lily.’ They called it ‘The Fairy Tree,’ or
‘The Good Ladies’ Lodge,’ meaning the fairies by the words ‘ Good
Ladies.’ Among these children was one named Jeanne (born 1412),
the daughter of an honest farmer, Jacques d’Arc. Jeanne sang
more than she danced, and though she carried garlands like the
other boys and girls, and hung them on the boughs of the Fairies’
Tree, she liked better to take the flowers into the parish church,
and lay them on the altars of St. Margaret and St. Catherine. It
was said among the villagers that Jeanne’s godmother had once
seen the fairies dancing; but though some of the older people
believed in the Good Ladies, it does not seem that Jeanne and the
other children had faith in them or thought much about them.
They only went to the tree and to a neighbouring fairy well to eat
cakes and.laugh and play. .Yet these fairies were destined to be
fatal to Jeanne d’Arc, JoAN THE MarpEv, and her innocent childish
sports were to bring her to the stake and the death by fire. For
she was that famed Jeanne la Pucelle, the bravest, kindest, best,
and wisest of women, whose tale is the saddest, the most wonderful,
‘and the most glorious page in the history of the world. It isa
page which no good Englishman and no true Frenchman can read
without sorrow and bitter shame, for the English burned Joan
with the help of bad Frenchmen, and the French of her party did
not pay a sow, or write a line, or strike a stroke to save her. But
the Scottish, at least, have no share in the disgrace. The Scottish.
archers fought on Joan’s side ; the only portrait of herself that Joan
c2
20 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
ever saw belonged to a Scottish man-at-arms; their historians
praised her as she deserved; and a Scottish priest from Fife stood
by her to the end.t
To understand Joan’s history it is necessary to say, first, how
we come to know so much about one who died so many years ago,
and, next, to learn how her country chanced to be so wretched
before Joan came to deliver it and to give her life for France.
ho Tord
Be
‘The Fairy Tree’
We know so much about her, not from poets and writers of
books who lived in her day, but because she was tried by French
priests (1431), and all her answers on everything that she ever did
in all her life were written down in Latin. Theseanswers fill most
of a large volume. Then, twenty years later (1550-1556), when the
1 This unnamed monk of Dunfermline describes Joan as ‘a maid worthy to he re-
membered, who caused the recovery of the kingdom of France from the hands of the
tyrant Henry, King of England. This maid I saw and knew, and was with her in her
conquests and sieges, ever present with her in her life and at her end.’ The monk pro-
posed to write Joan's history ; unhappily his manuscrint ends in the middle of a sentence.
The French historians, as was natural, say next to nothing of their Scottish allies. See
Quicherat, Procts, y. 839 ; and The Book of Pluscarden, edited by Mr. Felix Skene,
LIFE AND DEATH.OF JOAN THE MAID 21
English had been driven out of France, the French king collected
learned doctors, who examined witnesses from all parts of the
country, men and women who had known Joan as a child, and in
the wars, and in prison, and they heard her case again, and de-
stroyed the former unjust judgment. The answers of these wit-
nesses fill two volumes, and thus we have all the Maid’s history,
written during her life, or not long after her death, and sworn to on
oath. We might expect that the evidence of her friends, after they
had time to understand her, and perhaps were tempted to overpraise
her, would show us a picture different from that given in the trial
by her mortal enemies. But though the earlier account, put forth
by her foes, reads like a description by the Scribes and Pharisees
of the trial of Our Lord, yet the character of Joan was so noble
that the versions by her friends and her enemies practically agree
in her honour. Her advocates cannot make us admire her more
than we must admire her in the answers which she gave to her
accusers. The records of these two trials, then, with letters and
poems and histories written at the time, or very litttle later, give
us all our information about Joan of Arc.
Next, as to ‘the great pitifulness that was in France’ before
Joan of Arc came to deliver her country, the causes of the misery
are long to tell and not easy to remember. ‘To put it shortly, in
Joan’s childhood France was under a mad king, Charles VI., and
was torn to pieces by two factions, the party of Burgundy and the
party of Armagnac. The English took advantage of these disputes,
and overran the land. France was not so much one country,
divided by parties, as a loose knot of states, small and great, with
different interests, obeying greedy and selfish chiefs rather than the |
king. Joan cared only for her country, not for a part of it. She
fought not for Orleans, or Anjou, or Britanny, or Lorraine, but for
France. In fact, she made France @ hation again. Before she ap-
peared everywhere was murder, revenge, robbery, burning of towns,
slaughter of peaceful people, wretchedness, and despair. It was to
redeem France from this ruin that Joan came, just when, in 1429,
the English were besieging Orleans. Had they taken the strong
city of Orleans, they could have overrun all southern and central
France, and would havo driven the natural king of France, Charles
the Dauphin, into exile. From this ruin Joan saved her country ;
but if you wish to know more exactly how matters stood, and who
the people were with whom Joan had to do, you must read what
follows. If not, you can ‘skip’ to Chapter III.
22 LIFE AND DHATH OF JOAN THE MAID
II
A PAGE OF HISTORY
S you know, Edward III. had made an unjust claim to the
French crown, and, with the Black Prince, had supported it by
the victories of Crecy and Poictiers. But Edward died, and the Black
Prince died, and his son, Richard II., was the friend of France, and
married a F=ench princess. Richard, too, was done to death, but
Henry IV., who succeeded him, had so much work on his hands in
England that he left France alone. Yet France was wretched, be-
cause when the wise Charles V. died in 1380, he left two children,
Charles the Dauphin, and his brother, Louis of Orleans. They were
only little boys, and the Dauphin became weak-minded; moreover,
they were both in the hands of their uncles. The best of these re-
lations, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1404. His son, John the
Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, was the enemy of his own cousin,
Louis of Orleans, brother of the Dauphin Charles, who was now
king, under the title of Charles VI. John the Fearless had Louis
of Orleans murdered, yet Paris, the capital of France, was on the
side of the murderer. He was opposed by the Count of Armagnac.
Now, the two parties of Armagnac and Burgundy divided Trance ;
the Armagnacs professing to be on the side of Charles the
Dauphin. They robbed, burned, and murdered on all sides. Mean-
while, in England, Henry V. had succeeded to his father, and the
weakness of France gave him a chance to assert his unjust claim
to its throne. He defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415, he
carried the Duke of Orleans a prisoner to London, he took Rouen,
and overran Normandy. The I’rench now attempted to make peace
among themselves. The Duke of Burgundy had the mad Charles VI.
in his power. The Dauphin was with the opposite faction of
Armagnac. But, if the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy be-
came friends, the Armagnacs would lose all their importance. The
power would be with the Duke of Burgundy. The Armagnacs,
therefore, treacherously murdered the duke, in the name of the
Dauphin, at a meeting on the Bridge of Montereau (1419). The
son of the duke, Philip the Good, now became Duke of Burgundy,
and was determined to revenge his murdered father. He therefore
made friends with Henry V. and the English. The English being
now so strong in the Burgundian alliance, their terms were ac-
cepted in the Peace of Troyes (1420). The Dauphin was to be shut
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 23
out from succeeding to the French crown, and was called a Pretender.
Henry V. married the Dauphin’s sister Catherine, and when the
mad Charles VI. died, Henry and Catherine were to be King and
Queen of England and France. Meantime, Henry V. was to punish
the Dauphin and the Armagnacs. But Henry V. died first, and,
soon after, the mad Charles died. Who, then, was to be King of
France? The Armagnacs held for the Dauphin, the rightful heir.
The English, of course, and the Burgundians, were for Henry VI.,
a baby of ten months old. He, like other princes, had uncles, one
of them, the Duke of Gloucester, managed affairs in England ;
another, the Duke of Bedford, the Regent, was to keep down France.
The English possessed Paris and the North; the Dauphin retained
the Centre of France, and much of the South, holding his court at
Bourges. It is needless to say that the uncles of the baby Henry
VI., the Dukes of Gloucester and Bedford, were soon on bad terms,
and their disputes made matters easier for the Dauphin. He lost
two great battles, however, Crevant and Verneuil, where his Scottish
allies were cut to pieces. The hearts of good Frenchmen were with
him, but he was indolent, selfish, good-humoured, and governed by
a fat, foolish favourite, La Tremouille. The Duke of Bedford now
succeeded in patching up the quarrels among the English, and then
it was determined (but not by Bedford’s advice) to cross the Loire,
to invade Southern France, to crush the Dauphin, and to conquer
the whole country. But, before he could do all this, Bedford had to
take the strong city of Orleans, on the Loire. And against the walls
of Orleans the tide of English victory was broken, for there the flag
of England went down before the peasant girl who had danced below
the Fairy Tree of Domremy, before Joan the Maiden.
IIt
THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN THE MAIDEN
IHE English were besieging Orleans; Joan the Maid drove them
from its walls. How did it happen that a girl of seventeen,
who could neither read nor write, became the greatest general on
the side of France? How did a woman defeat the hardy English
soldiers who were used to chase the French before them like sheep ?
‘We must say that France could only be saved by a miracle, and
hy a miracle she was saved. This is a mystery; we cannot under-
stand it. Joan the Maiden was not as other men and women are.
24 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
But, as a little girl, she was a child among children, though better,
kinder, stronger than the rest, and, poor herself, she was always
good and helpful to those who were poorer still.
Joan’s parents were not indigent; they had lands and cattle,
and a little money laid by in case of need. Her father was, at
one time, doyen, or head-man,of Domremy. Their house was hard
by the church, and was in the part of the hamlet where the people
were better off, and had more freedom and privileges than many
of their neighbours. They were devoted to the Royal House of
France, which protected them from the tyranny of lords and earls
further east. As they lived in a village under the patronage of St.
Remigius, they were much interested in Reims, his town, where
the kings of France were crowned, and were anointed with Holy
Oil, which was believed to have been brought in a sacred bottle by
an angel.
In the Middle Ages, the king was not regarded as really king
till this holy oil had been poured on his head. Thus we shall see,
later, how anxious Joan was that Charles VII., then the Dauphin,
should be crowned and anointed in Reims, though it was still in
the possession of the English. It is also necessary to remember
that Joan had once an elder sister named Catherine, whom she loved
dearly. Catherine died, and perhaps affection for her made Joan more
fond of bringing flowers to the altar of her namesake, St. Catherine,
and of praying often to that saint.
Joan was brought up by her parents, as she told her judges, to
be industrious, to sew and spin. She did not fear to match herself
at spinning and sewing, she said, against any woman in Rouen.
When very young she sometimes went to the fields to watch the
cattle, like the goose-girl in the fairy tale. As she grew older, she
worked in the house, she did not any longer watch sheep and cattle.
But the times were dangerous, and, when there was an alarm of
soldiers or robbers in the neighbourhood, she sometimes helped to
drive the flock into a fortified island, or peninsula, for which her
father was responsible, in the river near her home. She learned her
creed, she said, from her mother. Twenty years after her death,
her neighbours, who remembered her, described her as she was when
achild. Jean Morin said that she was a good industrious girl, but
that she would often be praying in church when her father and
mother did not know it. Beatrix Estellin, an old widow of eighty.
said Joan was a good girl. When Domremy was burned, Joan
would go to church at Greux, ‘and there was not a better girl in the
My
JOAN IN CHURCH
LIFH AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 27
two towns.’
ple, well-behaved girl.’ Jean Waterin, when he was a boy, had seen
Joan in the fields, ‘and when they were all playing together, she
would go apart, and pray to God, as he thought, and he and the
others used to laugh at her. She was good and simple, and often
in churches and holy places. And when she heard the church bell
ring, she would kneel down in the fields.’ She used to bribe the
sexton to ring the bells (a duty which he rather neglected) with
presents of knitted wool.
All those who had seen Joan told the same tale: she was
always kind, simple, industrious, pious, and yet merry and fond of
playing with the others round the Fairy Tree. They say that the
singing birds came to her, and nestled in her breast.!
’ Thus, as far as anyone could tell, Joan was a child like other chil-
dren, but more serious and more religious. One of her friends, a girl
called Mengette, whose cottage was next to that of Joan’s father,
said: ‘Joan was so pious that we other children told her she was
too good.’
In peaceful times Joan would have lived and married and died
and been forgotten. But the times were evil. The two parties of
Burgundy and Armagnac divided town from town and village
from village. It was as in the days of the Douglas Wars in Scot-
Jand, when the very children took sides for Queen Mary and King
James, and fought each other in the streets. Domremy was for the
Armagnacs—that is, against the English and for the Dauphin, the
son of the mad Charles VI. But at Maxey, on the Meuse, a village
near Domremy, the people were all for Burgundy and the English.
The boys of Domremy would go out and fight the Maxey boys
with fists and sticks and stones. Joan did not remember having
taken part in those battles, but she had often seen her brothers and
the Domremy boys come home all bruised and bleeding.
THE RAID OF DOMREMY
Once Joan saw more of war than these schoolboy bickers. It
was in 1425, when she was a girl of thirteen. There was a kind of
robber chief on the English side, a man named Henri d@’Orly, from
Savoy, who dwelt in the castle of Doulevant. There he and his
* M. Quicherat thinks that this is a mere fairy tale, but the author has sometimes
seen wild birds (a lark, kingfisher, robin, and finch) come to men, who certainly had
none of the charm of Joan of Arc. A thoughtful child, sitting alone, and very still,
might find birds alight on her in a friendly way, as has happened to the author. If she
fed them, so much the better.
28 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN VHE MAID
band of armed men lived and drank and plundered far and near.
One day there galloped into Domremy a squadron of spearmen,
who rode through the fields driving together the cattle of the
villagers, among them the cows of Joan’s father. The country
LIFE AND DEATH Of JOAN THE MAID 29
‘people could make no resistance ; they were glad enough if their
houses were not burned. So off rode Henri d@’Orly’s men, driving
the cattle with their spear-points along the track to the castle of
Doulevant. But cows are not fast travellers, and when the robbers
had reached a little village called Dommartin le France they
rested, and went to the tavern to make merry. But by this time a
lady, Madame d’Ogévillier, had sent in all haste to the Count de
Vaudemont to tell him how the villagers of Domremy had been
ruined. So he called his squire, Barthélemy de Clefmont, and
bade him summon his spearsand mount andride. It reminds us of
the old Scottish ballad, where Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead
has seen all his cattle driven out of his stalls by the English ;
and he runs to Branxholme and warns the water, and they with
Harden pursue the English, defeat them, and recover Telfer’s kye,
with a great spoil out of England. Just so Barthélemy de
Clefmont, with seven or eight lances, galloped down the path to
Dommartin le France. There they found the cattle, and d’Orly’s
men fled like cowards. So Barthélemy with his comrades was
returning very joyously, when Henri d’Orly rode up with a troop
of horse and followed hard after Barthélemy. He was wounded
by a lance, but he cut his way through d’Orly’s men, and also
brought the cattle back safely—a very gallant deed of arms.
‘We may fancy the delight of the villagers when ‘the kye cam’
hame.’ It may have been now that an event happened, of which
Joan does not tell us herself, but which was reported by the king's
seneschal, in June 1429, when Joan had just begun her wonderful
career. The children of the village, says the seneschal, were
running races and leaping in wild joy about the fields; possibly
their gladness was caused: by the unexpected rescue of their cattle.
Joan ran so much more fleetly than the rest, and Jeaped so far,
that the children believed she actually few, and they told her so!
Tired and breathless, ‘out of herself,’ says the seneschal, she
paused, and in that moment she heard a Voice, but saw no man;
the Voice bade her go home, because her mother had need of her.
And when she came home the Voice said many things to her abcut
the great deeds which God bade her do for France. We shall
later hear Joan’s own account of how her visions and Voices first
came to her.! ,
Three years Jater there was an alarm, and the Domremy people
fled to Neufchiteau, Joan going with her parents. Afterwards her
1 See M. Siméon Luce, Jeanne d’Are a Domremy.
50 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
enemies tried to prove that she had been a servant at an inn in
Neufchateau, had lived roughly with grooms and soldiers, and had
learned to ride. But this was absolutely untrue. An ordinary
child would have thought little of war and of the sorrows of her
country in the flowery fields of Domremy and Vaucouleurs; but
Joan always thought of the miseries of France la bele, fair France,
and prayed for her country and her king. A great road, on the
lines of an old Roman way, passed near Domremy, so Joan would
hear all the miserable news from travellers. Probably she showed
what was in her mind, for her father dreamed that she ‘ had gone
off with soldiers,’ and this dream struck him so much, that he told
his sons that he, or they, must drown Joan if she so disgraced her-
self. For many girls of bad character, lazy and rude, followed the
soldiers, as they always have done, and always will. Joan’s father
thought that his dream meant that Joan would be like these women.
It would be interesting to know whether he was in the habit of
dreaming true dreams. For Joan, his child, dreamed when wide
awake, dreamed dreams immortal, which brought her to her glory
and her doom.
THE CALLING OF JOAN THE MAID
When Joan was between twelve and thirteen, a wonderful thing
befell her. We have already heard one account of it, written when
Joan was in the first flower of her triumph, by the seneschal of the
King of France. A Voice spoke to her and prophesied of what she
was todo. But about all these marvellous things it is more safe to
attend to what Joan always said herself. She told the same story
both to friends and foes; to the learned men who, by her king’s
desire, examined her at Poictiers, before she went to war (April 1429) ;
and to her deadly foes at Rouen. No man can read her answers
to them and doubt that she spoke what she believed. And she died
for this belief.. Unluckily the book that was kept of what she said
at Poictiers is lost. Before her enemies at Rouen there were many
things which she did not think it right to say. On one point, after
for long refusing to speak, she told her foes a kind of parable, which
we must not take as part of her real story.
When Joan was between twelve and thirteen (1424), so she
swore, ‘a Voice came to her from God for her guidance, but when
first it came, she was in great fear. And it came, that Voice, about
noonday, in the summer season, she being in her father’s garden.
And Joan had not fasted the day before that, but was fasting when
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 31
the Voice came.' And she heard the Voice on her right side,
towards the church, and rarely did she hear it but she also saw a
great light.’ These are her very words. They asked her if she
heard these Voices there, in the hall of judgment, and she an-
swered, ‘If I were in a wood, I should well hear these Voices
coming to me.’ The Voices at first only told her ‘to be a good
girl, and go to church.’ She thought it was a holy Voice, and that
it came from God; and the third time she heard it she knew it was
the voice of an angel. The Voice told her of ‘the great pity there
was in France,’ and that one day she must go into France and help
the country. She had visions with the Voices; visions first of
St. Michael, and then of St. Catherine and St. Margaret.†She hated
telling her hypocritical judges anything about these heavenly
visions, but it seems that she really believed in their appearance,
believed that she had embraced the knees of St. Margaret and St.
Catherine, and she did reverence to them when they came to her.
‘I saw them with my bodily eyes, as I see you,’ she said to her
judges, ‘ and when they departed from me I wept, and well I wished
that they had taken me with them.’
What are we to think about these visions and these Voices which
were with Joan to her death ?
Some have thought that she was mad; others that she only told
the story to win a hearing and make herself important ; or, again,
that a trick was played on her to win her aid. The last idea is im-
possible. The French Court did not want her. The second, asevery-
one will admit who reads Joan’s answers, and follows her step by
step from childhood to victory, to captivity, to death, is also impos-
sible. She was as truthful as she was brave and wise. But was she
partially insane? It is certain that mad people do hear voices which
are not real, and believe that they come to them from without. But
these mad voices say mad things. Now, Joan’s Voices never said
anything but what was wise beyond her own wisdom, and right and
true. She governed almost all her actions by their advice. When
she disobeyed ‘her counsel,’ as she called it, the result was evil,
and once, as we shall see, was ruinous. Again, Joan was not only
healthy, but wonderfully strong, ready, and nimble. In all her
? Here we follow Father Ayroles's correction of Quicherat’s reading of the manu-
scripts.
* The Voice and vision of St. Michacl alarmed her at first. In 1425 the French
had defeated the English by sea, under “Mount St. Michael, the only fortress in
Normandy which never yielded to England. Consequently St. Michael was in high esteem
as the patron of France, and, of all saints, he was most likely to be in Joan’s mind. (See
Siméon Luce, Jeanne d’Are & Domremy.) On the other hand, Father Ayroles correctly
argues that Joan first heard the Voices the year before the victory near Mount St. Michael,
32 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
converse with princes and priests and warriors, she spoke and acted
like one born in their own rank. In mind, as in body, she was a
marvel, none such has ever been known. It is impossible, then, to
say that she was mad.
In the whole history of the world, as far as we know it, there is
only one example like that of Joan of Arc. Mad folk hear voices ;
starved nuns, living always with their thoughts bent on heaven,
women of feeble body, accustomed to faints and to fits, have heard
voices and seen visions. Some of them have been very good
women; none have been strong, good riders, skilled in arms, able
to march all day long with little food, and to draw the arrow from
their own wound and mount horse and charge again, like Joan of
Are. Only one great man, strong, brave, wise, and healthy, has
been attended by a Voice, which taught him what to do, or rather
what not to do. That man was Socrates, the most hardy soldier,
the most unwearied in the march, and the wisest man of Greece.
Socrates was put to death for this Voice of his, on the charge of
‘bringing in new gods.’ Joan of Arc died for her Voices, because
her enemies argued that she was no saint, buta witch! These two,
the old philosopher and the untaught peasant girl of nineteen,
stand alone in the endless generations of men, alone in goodness,
wisdom, courage, strength, combined with a mysterious and fatal
gift. More than this it is now forbidden to usto know. But, when
we remember that such a being as Joan of Arc has only appeared
once since time began, and that once just when France seemed lost
beyond all hope, we need not wonder at those who say that France
was saved by no common good fortune and happy chance, but by
the will of Heaven.'
In one respect, Joan’s conduct after these Voices and visions
began, was perhaps, as regarded herself, unfortunate. She did
not speak of them to her parents, nor tell about them to the
‘priest when she confessed. Her enemies were thus able to say,
later, that they could not have been holy visions or Voices, other-
wise she would not have concealed them from her father, her
mother, and the priest, to whom she was bound to tell everything,
and from whom she should have sought advice. Thus, long after-
wards, St. Theresa had visions, and, in obedience to her priest, she
at first distrusted these, as perhaps a delusion of evil, or a temptation
M. Quicherat distinguishes three strange kinds of power in Joan. These are the
power of seeing at a distance, the power of learning the secret thoughts of men, and the
power of foretelling future events. Of each class ‘ one example at least rests on evidence
so solid, that it cannot be rejected without rejecting the whole basis of the history.’- He
merely states facts, which he makes no attempt to explain. Apergus Nouveauer, p. 61.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 383
‘of spiritual pride. Joan, however, was afraid that her father would
interfere with her mission, and prevent her from going to the king.
She believed that she must not be ‘disobedient to the heavenly
vision.’
HOW JOAN THE MAID WENT TO VAUCOULEURS
It was in 1424 that the Voices first came to Joan the Maid.
The years went on, bringing more and more sorrow to France. In
1428 only a very few small towns in the east still held out for the
Dauphin, and these were surrounded on every side by enemies.
Meanwhile the Voices came more frequently, urging Joan to go
into France, and help her country. She asked how she, a girl, who
could not ride or use sword and lance, could be of any help? Rather
would she stay at home and spin beside her dear mother. At the
same time she was encouraged by one of the vague old prophecies
which were as common in France as in Scotland. A legend ran
‘that France was to be saved by a Maiden from the Oak Wood,’
and there wasan Oak Wood, le bois chénu, near Domremy. Some
such prophecy had an influence on Joan, and probably helped people
to believe in her. The Voices, moreover, instantly and often com-
manded her to go to Vaucouleurs, a neighbouring town which was
loyal, and there meet Robert de Baudricourt, who was captain of
the French garrison. Now, Robert de Baudricourt was not what is
« called a romantic person. Though little over thirty, he had already
married, one after the other, two rich widows. He was a gallant
soldier, but a plain practical man, very careful of his own interest,
and cunning enough to hold his own among his many enemies,
English, Burgundian, and Lorrainers. It was to him that Joan
must go, a country girl to a great noble, and tell him that she, and
she alone, could save France! Joan knew what manner of man
Robert de Baudricourt was, for her father had been obliged to visit
him, and speak for the people of Domremy when they were oppressed,
She could hardly hope that he would listen to her, and it was with
a heavy heart that she found a good reason for leaving home to
visit Vaucouleurs. Joan had a cousin, a niece of her mother’s, who
was married to one Durand Lassois, at Burey en Vaux, a village
near Vaucouleurs. This cousin invited Joan to visit her for a
week. At the end of that time she spoke to her cousin’s husband.
There was an old saying, as we saw, that France would be rescued
by a Maid, and she, as she told Lassois, was that Maid. Lassois
listened, and, whatever he may have thought of her chances, he
led her to Robert de Baudricourt.
R. b
84 LIFH AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
Joan came, on May 13, 1428, in her simple red dress, and walked
straight up to the captain among his men. She knew him, she
said, by what her Voices had told her, but she may also have heard
him described by her father. She told him that the Dauphin must
keep quiet, and risk no battle, for before the middle of Lent next
zt AL of iy
= i |
ea
UV S y
“Ay Ya Be
A Lhe
A = ‘
ze
K He Se
f (x
- SF ) y
a 3 f
) an Yea > WA t
abn : s y ; >
ye Tr
wh ht 4
ipl 34 Ab ,
he ad hy).
len
Wah \ (pee al
| I, 4 aS Y
ee
fy as | SAL.
i he Oe Fy n=
i y Het
I \ aE Wie —
ze ; ‘ é 2 i <]
= ee ~ swe SS ¢
ace KO _—— 2 i) Ter \
Robert thinks Joan crazed
year (1429) God would send him succour. She added that the king-
dom belonged, not to the Dauphin, but to her Master, who willed
_ that the Dauphin should be crowned, and she herself would lead
him to Reims, to be anointed with the holy oil.
‘And who is your Master?’ said Robert.
‘The King of Heaven !’
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 85
Robert, very naturally, thought that Joan was crazed, and
shrugged his shoulders. He bluntly told Lassois to box her ears,
and take her back to her father. So she had to go home; but here
new troubles awaited her. The enemy came down on Domremy
and burned it; Joan and her family fled to Neufchateau, where they
stayed for afew days. It was perhaps about this time that a young
man declared that Joan had promised to marry him, and he actually
brought her before a court of justice, to make her fulfil her promise.
Joan was beautiful, well-shaped, dark-haired, and charming in
her manner.
We have a letter which two young knights, André and Guy
de Laval, wrote to their mother in the following year. ‘The Maid
was armed from neck to heel,’ they say, ‘but unhelmeted; she
carried a lance in her hand. Afterwards, when we lighted down
from our horses at Selles, I went to her lodging to see her, and she
called for wine for me, saying she would soon make me drink wine
in Paris’ (then held by the English), ‘and, indeed, she seems a thing
wholly divine, both to look on her and to hear her sweet voice.’
It is no wonder that the young man of Domremy wanted to
marry Joan; but she had given no promise, and he lost his foolish
law-suit. She and her parents soon went back to Domremy.'
HOW JOAN THE MAID WENT AGAIN TO VAUCOULEURS
In Domremy they found that the enemy had ruined everything.
Their cattle were safe, for they had been driven to Neufchateau,
but when Joan looked from her father’s garden to the church, she
saw nothing but a heap of smoking ruins. She had to go to say
her prayers now. at the church of Greux. These things only made
her feel more deeply the sorrows of her country. The time was
drawing near when she had prophesied that the Dauphin was to
receive help from heaven—namely, in the Lent of 1429. On that
year the season was held more than commonly sacred, for Good
Friday and the Annunciation fell on the same day. So, early in
January, 1429, Joan the Maid turned her back on Domremy, which
she was never to see again. Her cousin Lassois came and asked
leave for Joan to visit him again; she said good-bye to her father
and mother, and to her friend Mengette, but to her dearest friend
Hauvette she did not even say good-bye, for she could not bear it.
She went to her cousin’s house at Burey, and there she stayed for
} The date of this affair and that of the flight to Neufchateau are uncertain.
D2
86 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
six weeks, hearing bad news of the siege of Orleans by the English.
Meanwhile, Robert de Baudricourt, in Vaucouleurs, was not easy
in his mind, for he was likely to lose the protection of René of
Anjou, the Due de Bar, who was on the point of joining the
English. Thus Robert may have been more inclined to listen to
Joan than when he bade her cousin box her ears and take her
back to her father. A squire named Jean de Nouillompont met
Joan one day.
‘ Well, my lass,’ said he, ‘is our king to be driven from France,
and are we all to become English ?’
‘I have come heré,’ said Joan, ‘to bid Robert de Baudricourt
lead me to the king, but he will not listen tome. And yet to the
king I must go, even if I walk my legs down to the knees; for
none in all the world—king, nor duke, nor the King of Scotland’s
daughter—-can save France, but myself only. Certes, I would
rather stay and spin with my poor mother, for to fight is not my
calling; but I must go andI must fight, for so my Lord will have it.’
‘And who is your Lord ?’ said Jean de Nouillompont.
‘He is God,’ said the Maiden.
‘Then, so help me God, I shall take you to the king,’ said Jean,
putting her hands in his. ‘ When do we start?’
‘To-day is better than to-morrow,’ said the Maid.
Joan was now staying in Vaucouleurs with Catherine le Royer.
One day, as she and Catherine were sitting at their spinning-wheels,
who should come in but Robert de Baudricourt with the cwré of
the town. Robert had fancied that perhaps Joan was a witch!
He told the priest to perform some rite of the Church over her, so
that if she were a witch she would be obliged to run away. But
when the words were spoken, Joan threw herself at the knees of
the priest, saying, ‘ Sir, this is ill done of you, for you have heard
my confession and know that I am not a witch.’
Robert was now half disposed to send her to the king and let
her take her chance. But days dragged on, and when Joan was
not working she would be on her knees in the crypt or underground
chapel of the Chapel Royal in Vaucouleurs. Twenty-seven years
later a chorister boy told how he often saw her praying there for
France. Now people began to hear of Joan, and the Duke of
Lorraine asked her to visit him at Nancy, where she bade him lead a
better life. He is said to have given her a horse and some money.
On February 12 the story goes that she went to Robert de Baudri-
court.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 37
‘You delay too long,’ she said. ‘On this very day, at Orleans,
the gentle Dauphin has lost a battle.’
This was, in fact, the Battle of Herrings, so called because the
English defeated and cut off a French and Scottish force which
attacked them as they were bringing herrings into camp for
JAX";
‘Sir, this is ill done of you’
provisions in Lent. If this tale is true, Joan cannot have known
of the battle by any common means; but though it is vouched for
by the king’s secretary, Joan has told us nothing about it herself,
* It oceurs in the Chronique de la Pucelle, by Cousinot de Montreuil, at that time the
King’s secretary, and elsewhere.
38 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
Now the people of Vaucouleurs bought clothes for Joan to wear
on her journey to the Dauphin. They were such clothes as men
wear—doublet, hose, surcoat, boots, and spurs—and Robert de
Baudricourt gave Joan a sword.
In the end this man’s dress, which henceforth she always wore,
proved the ruin of Joan. Her enemies, the English and false
French, made it one of their chief charges against her that she
dressed, as they chose to say, immodestly. It is not very clear
how she came to wear men’s garments. Jean de Nouillompont,
her first friend, asked her if she would go to the king (a ten days’
journey on horseback) dressed as she was, in her red frock. She
answered ‘that she would gladly have a man’s dress,’ which he
says that he provided. Her reason was that she would have to be
living alone among men-at-arms, and she thought that it was more
modest to wear armour like the rest. Also her favourite saint, St.
Margaret, had done this once when in danger. St. Marina had
worn a monk’s clothes when obliged to live'in a monastery. The
same thing is told of St. Eugenia.'! Besides, in all the romances
of chivalry, and the favourite poems of knights and ladies, we find
fair maidens fighting in-arms like men, or travelling dressed as
pages, and nobody ever thought the worse of them. Therefore
this foolish charge of the English against Joan the Maid was a
mere piece of cruel hypocrisy.
HOW JOAN THE MAID RODE TO CHINON
On February 23, 1429, the gate of the little castle of Vaucouleurs,
‘the Gate of France,’ which is still standing, was thrown open.
Seven travellers rode out, among them two squires, Jean de
Nouillompont and Bertrand de Poulengy, with their attendants,
and Joan the Maid. ‘Go, and let what will come of it come!’ said
Robert de Baudricourt. He did not expect much to come of it. It
was a long journey—they were eleven days on the road—and a
dangerous. But Joan laughed at danger. ‘God will clear my path
to the king, for to this end I was born.’ Often they rode by night,
stopping at monasteries when they could. Sometimes they slept
out under the sky. Though she was so young and so beautiful,
with the happiness of her long desire in her eyes, and the glory of
her future shining on her, these two young gentlemen never dreamed
of paying their court to her and making love, as in romances they
> Theod. de Leliis, Procés, ii. 42,
JOAN RIDES TO CHINON
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 41
do, for they regarded her ‘as if she had been an angel.’ ‘They
were in awe of her,’ they said, long afterwards, long after the angels
had taken Joan to be with their company in heaven. And all the
knights who had seen her said the same. Dunois and d’Aulon and
the beautiful Duc d’Alencon, ‘le beaw Duc’ as Joan called him,
they all said that she was ‘a thing enskied and sainted.’ So on
they rode, six men and a maid, through a country full of English
and Burgundian soldiery. There were four rivers to cross, Marne,
Aube, Seine, and Yonne, and the rivers were ‘ great and mickle o’
spate,’ running red with the rains from bank to bank, so that they
could not ford the streams, but must go by unfriendly towns, where
‘alone there were bridges. Joan would have liked to stay and go to
church in every town, but this might not be. However, she heard
mass thrice at the church of her favourite saint, Catherine de
Fierbois, between Loches and Chinon, in a friendly country. And
a strange thing happened later in that church.
From Fierbois Joan made some clerk write to the king that she
was coming to help him, and that she would know him among all
his men. Probably it was here that she wrote to beg her parents’
pardon, and they forgave her, she says. Meanwhile news reached
the people then besieged in Orleans that a marvellous Maiden was
riding to their rescue. On March 6 Joan arrived in Chinon, where
for two or three days the king’s advisers would not let him see her.
At last they yielded, and she went straight up to him, and when he
denied that he was the king, she told him that she knew well who
he was. :
‘There is the king,’ said Charles, pointing to a richly dressed noble.
‘No, fair sire. You are he!’
Still, it was not easy to believe. Joan stayed at Chinon in the
house of a noble lady. The young Duc d’Alencon was on her side
from the first, bewitched by her noble horsemanship, which she had
never learned. Great people came to see her, but, when she was
alone, she wept and prayed. The king sent messengers to inquire
about her at Domremy, but time was going on, and Orleans was
not relieved.
HOW JOAN THE MAID SHOWED A SIGN TO THE KING
Joan was weary of being asked questions. One day she went
to Charles and said, ‘Gentle Dauphin, why do you delay to believe
me? I tell you that God has taken pity on you and your people,
at the prayer of St. Louis and St. Charlemagne, And I will tell
42 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
you, by your leave, something which will show you that you should
believe me.’
Then she told him secretly something which, as he said, none
could know but God and himself. A few months later, in July,
aman about the court wrote a letter, in which he declares that
none knows what Joan told the king, but he was plainly as glad as
if something had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. We
have three witnesses of this, one of them is the famous Dunois, to
whom the king himself told what happened.
What did Joan say to the king, and what was the sign? About
this her enemies later examined her ten times. She told them
from the very first that she would never let them know ; that, if
they made her speak, what she spoke would not be the truth. At
last she told them a kind of parable about an angel and a crown,
which neither was nor was meant to be taken as true. It was the
king’s secret, and Joan kept it.
We learn the secret in this way. There was a man named
Pierre Sala in the service of Louis XI. and Charles VIII. of France.
In his youth, Pierre Sala used to hunt with M. de Boisy, who, in
his youth, had been gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles VIL.,
Joan’s king. To de Boisy Charles VII. told the secret, and de Boisy
told it to Pierre Sala. At this time of his misfortunes (1429), when
his treasurer had only four crowns in his coffers, Charles went into
his oratory to pray alone, and he made his prayer to God secretly,
not aloud, but in his mind.
Now, what Joan told the king was the secret prayer which he
had made in his own heart when alone. And, ten years later, when
Joan was long dead, an impostor went about saying that she was
the Maid, who had come to life again. She was brought to Charles,
who said, ‘ Maiden, my Maid, you are welcome back again if you
can tell me the secret that is between you and me.’ But the false
Maid, falling on her knees, confessed all her treason.
This is the story of the sign given to the king, which is not the
least strange of the things done by Joan the Maid. But there is a
thing stranger yet, though not so rare.
The king to whom Joan brought this wonderful message, the
king whom she loved so loyally, and for whom she died, spoiled all
her plans. He, with his political advisers, prevented her from
driving the English quite out of France. These favourites, men
like the fat La Tremouille, found their profit in dawdling and
delaying, as politicians generally do. Thus, in our own time, they
JOAN TELLS THE KING HIS SECRET
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 45
hung off and on, till our soldiers were too late to rescue Gordon
from the Arabs. Thus, in Joan’s time, she had literally to goad
them into action, to drag them on by constant prayers and tears.
They were lazy, comfortable, cowardly, disbelieving ; in their hearts
they hated the Maid, who put them to so much trouble. As for
Charles, to whom the Maid was so loyal, had he been a man like
the Black Prince, or even like Prince Charlie, Joan would have
led him into Paris before summer was ended. ‘I shall only last
one year and little more,’ she often said to the king. The Duc
d’Alencgon heard her,! and much of that precious year was wasted.
Charles, to tell the truth, never really believed in her; he never
quite trusted her; he never led a charge by her side; and, in the
end, he shamefully deserted her, and left the Maid to her doom.
HOW JOAN THE MAID WAS EXAMINED AT POICTIERS
Weeks had passed, and Joan had never yet seen a blow struck
in war. She used to exercise herself in horsemanship, and
knightly sports of tilting, and it is wonderful that a peasant girl
became, at once, one of the best riders among the chivalry of
France. The young Due d’Alengon, lately come from captivity in
England, saw how gallantly she rode, and gave her a horse. He
and his wife were her friends from the first, when the politicians
and advisers were against her. But, indeed, whatever the Maid
attempted, she did better than others, at once, without teaching or
practice. It was now determined that Joan should be taken to
Poictiers, and examined before all the learned men, bishops, doctors,
and higher clergy who still were on the side of France. There was
good reason for this delay. It was plain to all, friends and foes,
that. the wonderful Maid was not like other men and women, with
her Voices, her visions, her prophecies, and her powers. All agreed
that she had some strange help given to her; but who gave it?
This aid must come, people thought then, either from heaven or
hell—either from God and his saints, or from the devil and his
angels. Now, if any doubt could be thrown on the source whence
Joan’s aid came, the English might argue (as of course they did),
that she was a witch and a heretic. If she was a heretic and a
witch, then her king was involved in her wickedness, and so he
might be legally shut out from his kingdom. It was necessary,
therefore, that Joan should be examined by learned men. They
» Procks, iii. 99.
46 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
must find out whether she had always been good, and a true
believer, and whether her Voices always agreed in everything with
the teachings of the Church. Otherwise her angels must be devils
in disguise. For these reasons Joan was carried to Poictiers. During
three long weeks the learned men asked her questions, and, no
doubt, they wearied her terribly. But they said it was wonderful
how wisely this girl, who ‘did not know A from B,’ replied to their
puzzling inquiries. She told the story of her visions, of the command
—"\
oe
=
‘In a better language than yours,’ said Joan
laid upon her to rescue Orleans. Said Guillaume Aymeri, ‘You
ask for men-at-arms, and you say that God will have the English to
leave France and go home. If that is true, no men-at-arms are
needed; God’s pleasure can drive the English out of the land.’
‘In God’s name,’ said the Maid, ‘the men-at-arms will fight,
and God will give the victory.’ Then came the learned Seguin ;
‘a right sour man was he,’ said those who knew him.
Seguin was a Limousin, and the Limousins spoke in a queer
accent at which the other French were always laughing.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 417
‘In what language do your Voices speak ?’ asked he.
‘In a better language than yours,’ said Joan, and the bishops
smiled at the country quip.
‘We may not believe in you,’ said Seguin, ‘unless you show us
a sign.’
‘I did not come to Poictiers to work miracles,’ said Joan; ‘ take
me to Orleans, and I shall show you the signs that Iam sent to
do.’ And show them she did.
Joan never pretended to work miracles. Though, in that age,
people easily believed in miracles, it is curious that none worth
mentioning were invented about Joan in her own time. She knew
things in some strange way sometimes, but the real miracle was
her extraordinary wisdom, genius, courage, and power of enduring
hardship.
At. last, after examining witnesses from Domremy, and the
Queen of Sicily and other great ladies to whom Joan was entrusted,
the clergy found nothing in her but ‘goodness, humility, frank
maidenhood, piety, honesty, and simplicity.’ As for her wearing a
man’s dress, the Archbishop of Embrun said to the king, ‘It is more
becoming to do these things in man’s gear, since they have to be
done amongst men.’
The king therefore made up his mind at last. Jean and Pierre,
Joan’s brothers, were to ride with her to Orleans; her old friends,
her first friends, Jean de Nouillompont and Bertrand de Poulengy,
had never left her. She was given a squire, Jean d’Aulon, a very
good man, and a page, Louis de Coutes, and a chaplain. The
king gave Joan armour and horses, and offered her a sword. But
her Voices told her that, behind the altar of St. Catherine de
Fierbois, where she heard mass on her way to Chinon, there was
an old sword, with five crosses on the blade, buried in the earth. That
sword she was to wear. A man whom Joan did not know, and had
never seen, was sent from Tours, and found the sword in the place
which she described. The sword was cleaned of rust, and the king
gave her two sheaths, one of velvet, one of cloth of gold, but Joan
had a leather sheath made for use in war. She also commanded a
banner to be made, with the Lilies of France ona white field. There
was also a picture of God, holding the round world, and two angels
at the sides, with the sacred words, Juzsu Marra. On another flag
was the Annunciation, the Virgin holding a lily, and the angel
coming to her. In battle, when she led a charge, Joan always
carried her standard, that she might not be able to use her sword.
48 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
She wished to kill nobody, and said ‘she loved her banner forty
times more than her sword.’ Joan afterwards broke St. Catherine’s
sword, when slapping a girl (who richly deserved to be slapped)
with the flat of the blade. Her enemies, at her trial, wished to prove
that her flag was a kind of magical talisman, but Joan had no
beliefin anything of that kind. What she believed in was God,
her Voices, and her just cause. When once it was settled that she
was to lead an army to relieve Orleans, she showed her faith by
writing a letter addressed to the King of England; Bedford, the
Regent; and the English generals at Orleans. This letter was sent
from Blois, late in April. It began Juzsu Marta. Joan had no
ill-will against the English. She bade them leave France, ‘ and if
you are reasonable, you yet may ride in the Maid’s company, where
the French will do the fairest feat of arms that ever yet was done
for Christentie.’ Probably she had in her mind some Crusade.
But, before France and England can march together, ‘do ye justice
to the King of Heaven and the Blood Royal of France. Yield to
the Maid the keys of all the good towns which ye have taken and
assailed in France.’ If they did not yield to the Maid and the
king, she will come on them to their sorrow. ‘Duke of Bedford, the
Maid prays and entreats you not to work your own destruction !’
We may imagine how the English laughed and swore when
they received this letter. They threw the heralds of the Maid into
prison, and threatened to burn them as heretics. From the very
first, the English promised to burn Joan as a witch and a heretic.
This fate was always before her eyes. But she went where her
Voices called her.
HOW JOAN THE MAID RODE TO RELIEVE ORLEANS
At last the men-at-arms who were to accompany Joan were
ready. She rode at their head, as André de Laval and Guy de
Laval saw her, and described her in a letter to their mother. She
was armed in white armour, but unhelmeted, a little axe in her
hand, riding a great black charger, that reared at the door of her
lodging and would not let her mount.
““Tjead him to the Cross!†cried she, for a Cross stood on the
roadside, by the church. There he stood as if he had been stone,
and she mounted. ‘Then she turned to the church, and said, in
her girlish voice, “ You priests and churchmen, make prayers and
processions to God.†Then she cried, “ Forwards, Forwards!†and
on she rode, a pretty page carrying her banner, and with her little
A La Toor Neuve .
B-Porte cde S'* Catherine
C_Porte de Bourgogne .
D-_Porte Parisis |
E-Porte Bernier.
F. Porte Renart.
Enger For He
Londres
& ate Beissée pant
A trenches
prenches
Les Augustins
used as a fort
the Eng lis
, ORLEANS
%.,
Showing, the position of the Enclish forts
“eer when Joan arrived —.
50 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
axein her hand.’ And so Joan went to war.! She led, she says,
ten or twelve thousand soldiers.» Among the other generals were
Xaintrailles and La Hire. Joan made her soldiers confess them-
selves; as for La Hire, a brave rough soldier, she forbade him to
‘Lead him to the Cross!’ cried she
swear, as he used to do, but, for his weakness, she permitted him
to say, By my béton! This army was to defend a great convoy of
» This description is a few weeks later than the start from Blois.
* This estimate was probably incorrect ; 3,500 was more like the actual number,
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 51
provisions, of which the people of Orleans stood in sore need.
Since November they had been besieged, and now it was late April.
The people in Orleans were not yet starving, but food came in
slowly, and in small quantities. From the first the citizens had
behaved well; a Scottish priest describes their noble conduct.
They had burned all the outlying suburbs, beyond the wall, that
they might not give shelter to the English. They had plenty of
cannon, which carried large rough stone balls, and usually did little
harm. But a gun was fired, it is said by a small boy, which killed
Salisbury, the English general, as he looked out of an arrow-slit in
a fort that the English had taken.
The French general-in-chief was the famous Dunois, then called
the Bastard of Orleans. On the English side was the brave Talbot,
who fought under arms for sixty years, and died fighting when
he was over eighty. There were also Suffolk, Pole, and Glasdale,
whom the French called ‘ Classidas.’ The English had not soldiers
enough to surround and take so large a town, of 30,000 people, in
ordinary war. But as Dunois said, ‘two hundred English could
then beat a thousand French ’—that is, as the French were before
the coming of the Maid.
The position of Orleans was this ; is may be most easily under-
stood from the map.
Looking down the river Loire, Orleans lies on your right hand.
It had strong walls in an irregular square ; it had towers on the
wall, and a bridge of many arches crossing to the left side of the
river.. At the further end of this bridge were a fort and rampart
called Les Tourelles, and this fort had already been taken by the
English, so that no French army could cross the bridge to help
Orleans. Indeed, the bridge was broken. The rampart and the
fort of Les Tourelles were guarded by another strong work, called
Les Augustins. All round the outside of the town, on the right
bank, the English had built strong redoubts, which they called
bastilles. ‘Paris’ was the bastille which blocked the road from
Paris, ‘London’ and ‘ Rouen’ were bastilles on the western side,
but on the east, above the town, and on the Orleans bank of the
Loire, the English had only one bastille, St. Loup. Now, as Joan’s
army mustered at Blois, south of Orleans, further down the river,
she might march on the left side of the river, cross it by boats
above Orleans, and enter the town where the English were weakest
and had only one fort, St. Loup. Or she might march up the right
bank, and attack the English where they were strongest, and had
E2
52 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
many bastilles. ‘The Voices bade the Maid act on the boldest plan,
and enter Orleans where the English were strongest, on the righs
bank of the river. The English would not move, said the Vuices.
She was certain that they would not even sally out against her.
But Dunois in Orleans, and the generals with the Maid, thought
this plan very perilous, as, indeed, it was. ‘hey therefore deceived
her, caused her to think that Orleans was on the left bank of the Loire,
and led her thither. When she arrived, she saw that they had not
played her fair, that the river lay between her and the town, and
the strongest force of the enemy.
The most astonishing thing about Joan is that, though she had
never yet seen a sword-stroke dealt in anger, she understood
the great operations of war better than seasoned generals. It
was not only that she, like old Bliicher, always cried Forwards !
Audacity, to fight on every chance, carries men far in battle.
Prince Charlie, who was no great general, saw that, and while his
flag went forward he never lost a fight. But Joan ‘was most ex-
pert in war,’ said the Due d’Alencon, ‘both with the lance and in
massing an army, and arraying battle, and in the management of
artillery. For all men marvelled how far-sighted and prudent she
was in war, as if she had been a captain of thirty years’ standing,
and, above all, in the service of the artillery, for in that she was
right well skilled.’ !
This girl of seventeen saw that, if a large convoy of provisions
was to be thrown into a besieged town, the worst way was to try
to ferry the supplies across a river under the enemy’s fire. But
Dunois and the other generals had brought her to this pass, and
the Maid was sore ill-pleased. Now we shall see what happened,
as it is reported in the very words of Dunois, the French general in
Orleans. - Joan had been brought, as we said, to the wrong bank of
the Loire; it ran between her and the town where she would be.
The wind was blowing in her teeth ; boats could not cross with the
troops and provisions. There she sat her horse and chafed till
Dunois came out and crossed the Loire to meet her. This is what
he says about Joan and her conduct.
HOW JOAN THE MAID ENTERED ORLEANS
They were on the wrong side of the Loire, opposite St. Loup,
where the English held a strong fort.? ‘I did not think, and the
2 Proces, iii. 100.
® Procés, iii, pp. 5, 6, 7. They were ‘near Saint Loup,’ he says, ‘on the right bank of
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 53
other generals did not think,’ says Dunois, ‘ that the men-at-arms
with the Maid were a strong enough force to bring the provisions
into the town. Above. all, it was difficult to get boats and ferry
over the supplies, for both wind and stream were dead against us.
Then Joan spoke to me thus:
‘Then spurred she her horse . . . and put out the flame’
«« Aye you the Bastard of Orleans ? â€â€™
‘« That am I, and glad of your coming.â€
‘“Ts it you who gave counsel that I should come hither by
that bank of the stream, and not go straight where Talbot and
the English are? â€
the Loire above Orleans.’ But (p. 7) he says that after their conversation he and Joan
crossed to the right from the left bank. At all events they were some six miles higher
up the river than Orleans,
54 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
‘«“T myself, and others wiser than I, gave that advice, and we
think it the better way and the surer.â€
‘Tn God’s name, the counsel of our God is wiser and surer
than yours. You thought to deceive me, and you have deceived
yourselves, for I bring you a better rescue than ever shall come to
soldier or city—that is, the help of the King of Heaven. . . .â€
‘Then instantly, and as it were in one moment, the wind changed
that had been dead against us, and had hindered the boats from
carrying the provisions into Orleans, and the sails filled.’
Dunois now wished Joan to cross by boat and enter the town,
-but her army could not cross, and she was loth to leave them, lest
they fell into sin, for she had made them all confess at Blois.
However, the army returned to Blois, to cross by the bridge there,
and come upon the Orleans bank, as Joan had intended from the
first. Then Joan crossed in the boat, holding in her hand the lily
standard. Soshe and La Hire and Dunois rode into Orleans, where
the people crowded round her, blessing her, and trying to kiss ber
hand. Night had fallen, there were torches flaring in the wind,
and, as the people thronged about her, a torch set fire to the fringe
of her banner. ‘Then spurred she her horse, and turned him
gracefully and put out the flame, as if she had long followed the
wars, which the men-at-arms beheld with wonder, and the folk of
Orleans.’ So they led her with great joy to the Regnart Gate, and
the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans,
and there was she gladly received, with her two brothers and her
gentlemen, her old friends, Nouillompont and Poulengy.
Next day, without leave from Joan, La Hire led a sally gainst
the English, fought bravely, but failed, and Joan wished once more
to bid the English go in peace. The English, of course, did not obey -
her summons, and it is said that they answered with wicked words
which made her weep. For she wept readily, and blushed when
she was moved. In her anger she went to a rampart, and, crying
aloud, bade the English begone ; but they repeated their insults, and
threatened yet again to burn her. Next day (May 1), Dunois went
off to bring the troops from Blois, and Joan rode round and in-
spected the English position. They made no attempt to take her.
A superstitious fear of her ‘witchcraft’ had already fallen on them;
they had lost heart and soon lost all. On May 4 the army returned
from Blois. Joan rode out to meet them, priests marched in pro-
cession, singing hymns, but the English never stirred. They were
expecting fresh troops under Fastolf. ‘If you do not let me know
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 55
when Fastolf comes,’ cried the Maid merrily to Dunois, ‘I will
have your head cut off.’ But for some reason, probably because
they did not wish hr to run risk, they did not tell Joan when the
next fight began. She had just lain down to sleep when she leaped
up with a noise, wakening her. squire. ‘My Voices tell me,’ she
said, ‘that I must go against the English, but whether to their
forts or against Fastolf I know not.’
There was a cry in the street; Joan armed herself; her page
came in,
‘Wretched boy!’ she said. ‘French blood is flowing, and you
never told me!’
In a moment she was in the street, the page handed to her the
lily flag from the upper window. Followed by her squire, d’Aulon,
she galloped to the Burgundy Gate. They met wounded men.
‘ Never do I see French blood but my hair stands up on my head,’
said Joan. She rode out of the gate to the English fort of St. Loup,
which the Orleans men were attacking. Joan leaped into the
fosse, under fire, holding her banner, and cheering on her men.
St. Loup was taken by the French, in spite of a gallant defence,
and Joan wept for the dead English, fearing that they had died
unconfessed. Next day was Ascension Day. Joan, thinking ‘the
better the day the better the deed,’ was for fighting. There was
no battle, but she again summoned the English to withdraw, and
again was insulted, and wept.
The French generals now conceived a plan to make a feint, or
a sham attack, on the English forts where they were strongest, on
the Orleans side of the river. The English on the left side would
cross to help their countrymen, and then the French would take the
forts beyond the bridge. Thus they would have a free path across
the river, and would easily get supplies, and weary out the English.
They only told Joan of the first part of their plan, but she saw that
they were deceiving her. When the plan was explained she agreed
to it, her one wish was to strike swiftly and strongly. However,
they did not carry out the plan, they only assailed the forts on the
left bank.
The French attacked the English fort of Les Augustins, beyond
the river, but suddenly they fled to their bridge of boats; while
the English sallied out, yelling their insults at Joan. She turned,
she gathered a few men, and charged. The English ran before her |
like sheep ; she planted her banner again in the ditch. The French
hurried back to her, a great Englishman, who guarded the breach,
56 LIFE AND DHATH OF JOAN THE MAID
was shot; two French knights leaped in, the others followed, and
the English took refuge in the redoubt of Les Tourelles, their strong
fort at the bridge-head.
The Maid returned to Orleans, and, though it was a Friday,
and she always fasted on Fridays, she was so weary that she ate
some supper. A bit of bread, her page reports, was all that she
usually ate. Now the generals sent to Joan and said that enough
had been done. They had food, and could wait for another army
from the king. ‘ You have been with your council,’ she said, ‘ I have
been with mine. The wisdom of God is greater than yours. Rise
early to-morrow, do better than your best, keep close by me ; for to-
morrow have I much to do, and more than ever yet I did, and
to-morrow shall my blood flow from a wound above my breast.’ *
Joan had always said at Chinon that she would be wounded at
Orleans. From a letter by a Flemish ambassador, written three
weeks before the event happened, we know that this is true.?
Next morning Joan’s host had got a fine fish for breakfast.
‘Keep it till evening, and I will bring you a God-damn’ (an
Englishman) ‘to eat his share,’ said the Maid, ‘and I will return
by the bridge ;’ which was broken.
The generals did not wish to attack the bridge-tower, but Joan
paid them no attention. They were glad enough to follow, lest she
took the fort without them.
About half-past six in the morning the fight began. The
French and Scottish leaped into the fosse, they set ladders against
the walls, they reached the battlements, and were struck down by
English swords and axes. Cannon-balls and great stones and arrows
rained onthem. ‘Fight on!’ cried the Maid; ‘the place is ours.’ At
one o’clock she set a ladder against the wall with her own hands,
but was deeply wounded by an arrow, which pierced clean
through between neck and shoulder. Joan wept, but seizing the
arrow with her own hands she dragged it out. The men-at-arms
wished to say magic spells over the wound to ‘ charm’ it, but this
the Maid forbade as witcheraft. ‘Yet,’ says Dunois, ‘she did not
withdraw from the battle, nor took any medicine for the wound;
and the onslaught lasted from morning till eight at night, so that
there was no hope of victory. Then I desired that the army should
go back to the town, but the Maid came to me and bade me wait a
little longer. Next she mounted her horse and rode into a vine-
1 Following Pasquerel, her priest. Procés, iii. 109.
* Quicherat, Nouveaux Apercus, p. 76.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 57
yard, and there prayed for the space of seven minutes or eight.
Then she returned, took her banner, and stood on the brink of the
Joan is wounded by the arrow
fosse. The English trembled when they saw her, but our men
returned to the charge and met with no resistance. The English
58 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
fied or were slain, and Glasdale, who had insulted the Maid, was
drowned’ (by the burning of the drawbridge between the redoubt
and Les Tourelles. The Maid in vain besought him, with tears,
to surrender and be ransomed), ‘and we returned gladly into
Orleans.’ The people of Orleans had a great share in this victory.
Seeing the English hard pressed, they laid long beams across the
broken arches of the bridge, and charged by this perilous way.
The triumph was even more that of the citizens than of the army.
Homer tells us how Achilles, alone and unarmed, stood by the
fosse and shouted, and how all the Trojans fled. But here was a
greater marvel; and the sight of the wounded girl, bowed beneath
the weight of her banner, frighted stouter hearts than those of the
men of Troy.
Joan returned, as she had prophesied, by the bridge, but she did
not make her supper off the fish: she took a little bread dipped
in wine and water, her wound was dressed, and she slept. Next
day the English drew up their men in line of battle. The French
went out to meet them, and would have begun the attack. Joan
said that God would not have them fight.
‘If the English attack, we shall defeat them; we are to let them
go in peace if they will.’
Mass was then said before the French army.
When the rite was done, Joan asked: ‘Do they face us, or have
they turned their backs ?’
It was the English backs that the French saw that day:
‘Talbot’s men were in full retreat on Meun.
From that hour May 8 is kept a holiday at Orleans in honour of
Joan the Maiden. Never was there such a deliverance. In a
week the Maid had driven a strong army, full of courage and well
led, out of forts like Les Tourelles. The Due d’Alencon visited it,
and said that with a few men-at-arms he would have felt certain
of holding it for a week against any strength however great. But
Joan not only gave the French her spirit : her extraordinary courage
in leading a new charge after so terrible a wound, ‘six inches
deep,’ says d’Alengon, made the English think that they were
fighting a force not of this world. And that is exactly what they
were doing.
HOW JOAN THE MAID TOOK JARGEAU FROM THE ENGLISH
The Maid had shown her sign, as she promised; she had
rescued Orleans. Her next desire was to lead Charles to Reims,
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 59
through a country occupied by the English, and to have him
anointed there with the holy oil. Till this was done she could only
regard him as Dauphin—king, indeed, by blood, but not by conse-
cration.
After all that Joan had accomplished, the king and his advisers
might have believed in her. She went to the castle of Loches, where
Charles was: he received her kindly, but still he did not seem
eager to go to Reims. It was a dangerous adventure, for which
he and his favourites like La Tremouille had no taste. It seems
that more’ learned men were asked to give their opinion. Was it
safe and wise to obey the Maid? On May 14, only six days after
the relief of Orleans, the famous Gerson wrote down his ideas.
He believed in the Maid. The king had already trusted her
without fear of being laughed at; she and the generals did not
rely on the saints alone, but on courage, prudence, and skill.
Even if, by ill fortune, she were to fail on a later day, the fault
would not be hers, but would be God’s punishment of French in-
gratitude. ‘Let us not harm, by our unbelief or injustice, the help
which God has given us so wonderfully.’ Unhappily the French,
or at least the Court, were unbelieving, ungrateful, unjust to Joan,
and so she came to die, leaving her work half done. The Arch-
bishop of Embrun said that Joan should always be consulted in
great matters, as her wisdom was of God. And as long as the
French took this advice they did well; when they distrusted and
neglected the Maid they failed, and were defeated and dishonoured.
Councils were now held at Tours, and time was wasted as usual.
As usual, Joan was impatient. With Dunois, who tells the story,
she went to see Charles at the castle of Loches. Some nobles and
clergy were with him; Joan entered, knelt, and embraced his
knees. i
‘Noble Dauphin,’ she said, ‘do not hold so many councils, and
such weary ones, but come to Reims and receive the crown.’
Harcourt asked her if her Voices, or ‘ counsel ’ (as she called it)
gave this advice.
She blushed and said: ‘I know what you mean, and will tell
you gladly.’
The king asked her if she wished to speak before so many people.
Yes, she would speak. When they doubted her she prayed,
‘and then she heard a Voice saying to her:
6“ Fille Dé, va, va, va, je serai a ton arde, va!â€
1 «Daughter of God, go on, and I will help thee’
60 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
‘And when she heard this Voice she was right glad, and wished
that she could always be as she was then; and as she spoke,’ says
Dunois, ‘she rejoiced strangely, lifting her eyes to heaven.’ And
still she repeated: ‘I will last for only one year, or little more ;
use me while you may.’
Joan stirred the politicians at last. They would go to Reims,
but could they leave behind them English garrisons in Jargeau,
where Suffolk commanded, in Meun, where Talbot was, and in
other strong places? Already, without Joan, the French had
attacked Jargeau, after the rescue of Orleans, and had failed.
‘Joan agreed to assail Jargeau. Her army was led by the ‘ fair
duke,’ d’Alencon. He had but lately come from prison in England,
and his young wife was afraid to let him go to war. ‘ Madame,’
said Joan, ‘I will bring him back safe, and even better than he is
now.’ We shall see how she saved his life. It was now that Guy
and André de Laval saw her, and wrote the description of her
black horse and white armour. They followed with her gladly,
believing that with her glory was to be won.
Let us tell what followed in the words of the Duc d’Alencon.
‘We were about six hundred lances, who wished to go against
the town of Jargeau, then held by the English. That night we
slept in a wood, and next day came. Dunois and Florence d’Illiers
and some other captains. When we were all met we were about
twelve hundred lances; and now arose a dispute among the cap-
tains, some thinking that we should attack the city, others not so,
for they said that the English were very strong, and had many
men.! Seeing this difference, Jeanne bade us have no fear of any
numbers, nor doubt about attacking the English, because God was
guiding us. She herself would rather be herding sheep than fight-
ing, if she were not certain that God was with us. Thereon we rode
to Jargeau, meaning to oecupy the outlying houses, and there pass
the night; but the English knew of our approach, and drove in our
skirmishers. Seeing this, Jeanne took her banner and went to the
front, bidding our men be in good heart. And they did so much
that they held the suburbs of Jargeau that night... . Next
morning we got ready our artillery, and brought guns up against
the town. After some days a council was held, and I, with others,
was ill content with La Hire, who was said to have parleyed with
Tord Suffolk. La Hire was sent for, and came. Then it was
‘ Str Walter Scott reckons that there were five men to each ‘lance’; perhaps four
men is more usually the right number.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 61
decided to storm the town, and the heralds cried, ‘To the attack!â€
and Jeanne said to me, “ Forward, gentle duke.†I thought it
was too early, but she said, “ Doubt not; the hour is come when
God pleases. Ah, gentle duke, are you afraid? Know you not
that I promised your wife to bring you back safe and sound?†as
indeed she had said. As the onslaught was given, Jeanne bade
<< S
laRow &
“Now arose a dispute among the captains’
me leave the place where I stood, “ or yonder gun,†pointing to
one on the walls, “ will slay you.†Then I withdrew, and a little
later de Lude was slain in that very place. And I feared greatly,
considering the prophecy of the Maid. Then we both went to-
gether to the onslaught; and Suffolk cried for a parley, but no
man marked him, and we pressed on. Jeanne was climbing a
62 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
ladder, banner in hand, when her flag was struck by a stone, and
she also was struck on her head, but her light helmet saved her.
She leaped up again, crying, “ Friends, friends, on, on! Our Lord
has condemned the English. They are ours; be of good heart.â€
In that moment Jargeau was taken, and the English fled to the
bridges, we following, and more than eleven hundred of them were
slain.’ .
One Englishman at least died well. He stood up on the
battlements, and dashed down the ladders till he was shot by a
famous marksman of Lorraine.
Suffolk and his brother were taken prisoners. According to
one account, written at the time, Suffolk surrendered to the Maid,
as ‘the most valiant woman in the world.’ And thus the Maid
stormed Jargeau.
Â¥
HOW THE MAID DEFEATED THE ENGLISH AT PATHAY, AND
OF THE STRANGE GUIDE
The French slew some of their prisoners at Jargeau. Once
Joan saw a man-at-arms strike down a prisoner. She leaped from
her horse, and laid the wounded Englishman’s head on her breast,
consoling him, and bade a priest come and hear his confession.
Cruel and cowardly deeds are done in all wars, but when was there
ever such a general as the Maid, to comfort the dying ?
From Jargeau the Maid rode back to Orleans, where the people
could not look on her enough, and made great festival. Many men
came in to fight under her flag, among them Richemont, who had
been on bad terms with Charles, the uncrowned king. Then Joan
took the bridge-fort at Meun, which the English held; next she
drove the English at Beaugency into the citadel, and out of the town.
As to what happened next, we have the story of Wavrin, who
was fighting on the English side under Fastolf.! The garrison
of the English in Beaugency, he says, did not know whether
to hold out or to yield. Talbot reported all this to Bedford, at
Paris, and large forces were sent to relieve Beaugency. Wavrin
rode with his captain, Fastolf, to Senville, where Talbot joined
them, and a council was held. Fastolf said that the English
had lost heart, and that Beaugency should be left to its fate, while
the rest held out in strong places and waited for reinforcements.
But Talbot cried that, if he had only his own people, he would fight
* In Procés, iy, 414.
ee
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 63
the French, with the help of God and St. George. Next morning
Fastolf repeated what he had said, and declared that they would
lose all King Henry had won. But Talbot was for fighting. So
One Englishman at least died well
64 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
they marched to a place between Meun and Beaugency, and drew
up in order of battle. The French saw them, and occupied a strong
position on a little hill. The English then got ready, and invited
the French to come down and fight on the plain. But Joan was
not so chivalrous as James IV. at Flodden.
‘Go you to bed to-night, for it is late; to-morrow, so please God
and Our Lady, we will see you at close quarters.’
The English then rode to Meun, and cannonaded the bridge-fort,
which was held by the French. They hoped to take the bridge,
cross it, march to Beaugency, and relieve the besieged there. But
that very night Beaugency surrendered to the Maid! She then
bade her army march on the English, who were retreating to Paris
as soon as they heard how Beaugency had yielded. But how was
the Maid to find the English? ‘Ride forward,’ she cried, ‘and you
shall have a sure guide.’ They had a guide, and a strange one.
The English were marching towards Paris, near Pathay, when
their éclairewrs (who beat the country on all sides) came in with
the news that the French were following. But the French knew
not where the English were, because the deserted and desolate
country was overgrown with wood.
Talbot decided to do what the English did at Crecy, where
they won so glorious a victory. He lined the hedges in a narrow
way with five hundred archers of his best, and he sent a galloper to
bring thither the rest of his army. Oncame the French, not seeing
the English in ambush. In a few minutes they would have been
shot down, and choked the pass with dying men and horses. But
now was the moment for the strange guide.
A stag was driven from cover by the French, and ran blindly
among the ambushed English bowmen. Not knowing that the
French were so near, and being archers from Robin Hood’s country,
who loved a deer, they raised a shout, and probably many an arrow
flew at the stag. The French éclairewrs heard the cry, they saw
the English, and hurried back with the news.
‘Forward!’ cried the Maid; ‘if they were hung to the clouds
we have them. To-day the gentle king will gain such a victory as
never yet did he win.’ !
The French dashed into the pass before Talbot had secured it. .
Fastolf galloped up, but the English thought that he was in flight ;
the captain of the advanced guard turned his horse about and made
off. Talbot was taken, Fastolf fled, ‘making more sorrow than ever
* D'Alencon, Procés, iii. 98,
THE ENGLISH ARCHERS BETRAYED BY THE STAG
LIFE AND DEHATH OF JOAN THE MAID 67
yet did man.’ The French won a great victory. They needed
their spurs, as the Maid had told them that they would, to follow
their flying foes. The English lost some 8,000 men. In the
evening Talbot, as a prisoner, was presented to the Duc d’Alencon.
‘You did not expect this in the morning ?’ said the duke.
‘Fortune of war !’ said Talbot.
So ended the day of Pathay, and the adventure of the Strange
Guide.
HOW THE MAID HAD THE KING CROWNED AT REIMS
Here are the exploits which the Maid and the loyal French did in
one week. She took Jargeau on June 11; on June 15 she seized
the bridge of Meun; Beaugency yielded to her on June 17; on
June 18 she defeated the English army at Pathay. Now sieges were
long affairs in those days, as they are even to-day, when cannon are
so much more powerful than they were in Joan’s time. Her success
seemed a miracle to the world.
This miracle, like all miracles, was wrought by faith. Joan
believed in herself, in her country, and in God. It was not. by
visions and by knowing things strangely that she conquered, but by
courage, by strength (on one occasion she never put off her armour
for six days and six nights), and by inspiring the French with the
sight of her valour. Without her visions, indeed, she would never
have gone to war. She often said so. But, pene at war, her word
was ‘ Help yourselves, and God will help you.’ Who could be lazy
or a caward when a girl set such an example ?
The King of France and his favourites could be indolent and
cowards. Had Charles VII. been such a man as Charles Stuart
was in 1745, his foot would have been in the stirrup, and his lance in
rest. In three months the English would have been driven into
the sea. But the king loitered about the castles of the Loire with
his favourite, La Tremouille, and his adviser, the Archbishop of
Reims. They wasted the one year of Joan. There were jealousies
against the Constable de Richemont of Brittany who had come
with all his lances to follow the lily flag. If once Charles were king
indeed and the English driven out, La Tremouille would cease to
be powerful. This dastard sacrificed the Maid in the end, as he
was ready to sacrifice France to his own private advantage.
At last, with difficulty, Charles was brought to visit Reims, and
consent to be crowned like his ancestors. Seeing that he was never
likely to move, Joan left the town where he was and went off into
FQ
68 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THH MAID
the country. This retreat brought Charles to his senses. The
towns which he passed by yielded to him; Joan went and summoned
each. ‘Now she was with the king in the centre, now with the
rearguard, now with the van.’ The town of Troyes, where there
was an English garrison, did not wish to yield. There was a council
in the king’s army: they said they could not take the place.
‘In two days it shall be yours, by force or by good will,’ said
the Maid.
‘Six days will do,’ said the chancellor, ‘if you are sure you
speak truth.’
Joan made ready for an attack. She was calling ‘ Forward!’
when the town surrendered. Reims, after some doubts, yielded
also, on July 16, and all the people, with shouts of ‘ Noel!’
welcomed the king. On July 17 the king was crowned and
anointed with the Holy Oil by that very Archbishop of Reims
who always opposed Joan. The Twelve Peers of France were not
all present—some were on the English side—but Joan stood by
Charles, her banner in her hand. ‘It bore the brunt, and deserved
to share the renown,’ she said later to her accusers.
When the ceremony was ended, and the Dauphin Charles was
a crowned and anointed king, the Maid knelt weeping at his feet.
‘Gentle king,’ she said, ‘now is accomplished the will of God,
who desired that you should come to Reims to be consecrated, and
to prove that you are the true king and the kingdom is yours.’
‘Then all the knights wept for joy.
The king bade Joan choose her reward. Already horses, rich
armour, jewelled daggers, had been given to her. These, adding to
the beauty and glory of her aspect, had made men follow her more
gladly, and for that she valued them. She, too, made gifts to
noble ladies, and gave much to the poor. She only wanted money
to wage the war with, not for herself. Her family was made
noble; on their shield, between two Iilies, a sword upholds the
crown. Her father was at Reims, and saw her in her glory.
What reward, then, was Joan to choose? She chose nothing for
herself, but that her native village of Domremy should be free
from taxes. This news her father carried home from the splendid
scene at Reims.
Would that we could leave the Maiden here, with Orleans
saved, and her king crowned! ‘Would that she, who wept when
her saints left her in her visions, and who longed to follow them,
could have been carried by them to their Paradise !
THE CORONATION OF CHARLES VII
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 71
But Joan had another task; she was to be foiled by the
cowardice of her king; she was to be captured, possibly by
treachery ; she was to be tried with the most cruel injustice ; she
was to die by fire; and was. to set, through months of agony, such
an example of wisdom, courage, and loyal honour as never was
shown by man.
Did Joan look forward to her end, did she know that her days
were numbered? On the journey to Reims she met some Dom-
remy people at Chalons, and told them that she ‘feared nothing
but treachery.’ Perhaps she already suspected the political enemies,
the Archbishop of Reims and La Tremouille, who were to spoil her
mission.
As they went from Reims after the coronation, Dunois and the
archbishop were riding by her rein. The people cheered and
cried Noel.
‘They are a good people, said Joan. ‘Never saw I any more
joyous at the coming of their king. Ah, would that I might be so
happy when I end my days as to be buried here!’
Said the archbishop :
‘Oh, Jeanne, in what place do you hope to die ?’
Then she said :
‘Where it pleases God; for I know not that hour, nor that
place, more than ye do. But would to God, my maker, that now
Imight depart, and lay down my arms, and help my father and
mother, and keep their sheep with my brothers and my sister, who
would rejoice to see me!’ !
Some writers have reported Joan’s words as if she meant that
she wished the king to let her go home and leave the wars. In
their opinion Joan was only acting under heavenly direction till
the consecration of Charles. Afterwards, like Hal of the Wynd,
she was ‘ fighting for her own hand,’ they think, and therefore she
did not succeed. But from the first Joan threatened to drive the
English quite out of France, and she also hoped to bring the Duc
Orléans home from captivity in England. If her Voices had told
her not to go on after the coronation, she would probably have said
so at her trial, when she mentioned one or two acts of disobedience
to her Voices. Again, had she been anxious to go home, Charles VII.
and his advisers would have been only too glad to let her go.
They did not wish her to lead them into dangerous places, and
they hated obeying her commands.
’Dunois. Proces, iii. 14.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
-T
bo
Some French authors have, very naturally, wished to believe
that the Maid could make no error, and could not fail; they
therefore draw a line between what she did up to the day of
Reims, and what she did afterwards. They hold that she was
divinely led till the coronation, and not later. But it is difficult to
agree with them here. As we saw, Gerson told the French that
by injustice and ingratitude they might hinder the success of the
Maid. His advice was a prophecy.
IV.
HOW THE MAID RODE TO PARIS
\ \7 HAT was to be done after the crowning of the king? Bed-
ford, the regent for the child Henry VI., expected to see
Joan under the walls of Paris. He was waiting for the troops
which the Cardinal of Winchester had collected in England as a
crusading army against the Hussite heretics, a kind of Protestants
who were giving trouble. Bedford induced Winchester to bring
his men to France, but they had not arrived. The Duke of Bur-
gundy, the head of the great French party which opposed Charles,
had been invited by the Maid to Reims. Again she wrote to him:
‘Make a firm, good peace with the King of France,’ she said ;
‘forgive each other with kind hearts’—for the Duke’s father had
been murdered by the friends of Charles. ‘I pray and implore
you, with joined hands, fight not against France. Great pity it
woull be of the great battle and bloodshed if your men come
against us.’
The Duke of Burgundy, far from listening to Joan’s prayer, left
Paris and went to raise men for the English. Meanwhile Charles
was going from town to town, and all received him gladly. But
Joan soon began to see that, instead of marching west from
Reims to Paris, the army was being led south-west towards the
Loire. There the king would be safe among his dear castles,
where he could live indoors, ‘in wretched little rooms,’ and
take his ease. Thus Bedford was able to throw 5,000 men of
Winchester’s into Paris, and even dared to come out and hunt for
the French king. The Trench should have struck at Paris at once
as Joan desired. The delays were excused, because the Duke of
Burgundy had promised to surrender Paris in a fortnight. But
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 73
this he did merely to gain time. Joan knew this, and said there
would be no peace but at the lance-point.
mn wae a
a Bh CCN
Rf) A fai \; Ay :
A A lil aed ae
N\ F go
Joan challenges the English to sally forth
Here we get the best account of what happened from Perceval
de Cagny, a knight in the household of the Due d’Alencon. He
74 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
wrote his book in 1436, only five years after Joan was burned, and
he spoke of what he knew well, as a follower of Joan’s friend, ‘ the
fair duke.’ The French and English armies kept watching each
other, and there were skirmishes near Senlis. On August 15 the
Maid and d’Alencon hoped for a battle. But the English had
fortified their position in the night with ditches, palisades, and a
‘laager’ of wagons. Come out they would not, so Joan rode up
to their fortification, standard in hand, struck the palisade, and
challenged them to sally forth. She even offered to let them
march out and draw themselves up in line of battle. La Tremouille
thought this a fine opportunity of distinguishing himself. He rode
into the skirmish, his horse fell with him, but, by evil luck, he was
rescued. We donot hear that La Tremouille risked himself again.!
The Maid stayed on the field all night, and next day made a
retreat, hoping to draw the English out of their fort. But they
were too wary, and went back to Paris.
More towns came in to Charles. Beauvais yielded, and the
Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, had to fly to the English.
He revenged himself by managing Joan’s trial and having her
burned. Compiégne, an important place north of Paris, yielded,
and was handed to Guillaume de Flavy as governor. In rescuing
this fatal place later, Joan was taken prisoner. Now the fortnight
was over, after which the Duke of Burgundy was to surrender Paris.
But he did nothing of the kind, and there were more ‘long weary
councils,’ and a truce was arranged with Burgundy till Christmas.
But the Maid was weary of words. She called the Due d’Alencon
and said: ‘ My fair duke, array your men, for, by my staff, I would
fain see Paris more closely than I have seen it yet.’
On August 23 the Maid and d’Alencon left the king at Com-
piégne and rode to St. Denis, where were the tombs of the kings
of France. ‘And when the king heard that they were at St. Denis,
he came, very sore against his will, as far as Senlis, and it seems
that his advisers were contrary to the will of the Maid, of the Due
d’Alencon, and of their company.’
The great captains, Dunois, Xaintrailles, d’Alencon, were
soldiers, and the king’s advisers and favourites were clergymen,
like the Archbishop of Reims, or indolent men of peace, like
La Tremouille. They declared, after the Maid was captured,
that she ‘took too much on herself,’ and they were glad of her fall.
» Journal du Siege. Procés, iv. 195, As it stands, this authority is thirty years later
than the events,
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 75
But she had shown that nobody but herself and her soldiers and
captains were of any use to France.
The king was afraid to go near Paris, but Bedford was afraid to
stay in the town. He went to Rouen, the strongest English hold
in Normandy, leaving the Burgundian army and 2,000 English in
Paris.
Every day the Maid and d’Alencon rode from St. Denis and
-insulted the gates of Paris, and observed the best places for an
attack in force. And still Charles dallied and delayed, still the
main army did not come up. Meanwhile Paris was strengthened
by the English and Burgundians. The people of the city were told
that Charles intended to plunder the place and utterly destroy it,
‘which is difficult to believe,’ says the Clerk of Parliament, who was
in the city at that time.’ It was ‘difficult to believe,’ but the Paris
people believed it, and, far from rising for their king and country,
they were rather in arms against the Maid. They had no wish to
fall in a general massacre, as the English and Burgundians falsely
told them would be their fate.
Thus the delay of the king gave the English time to make Paris
almost impregnable, and to frighten the people, who, had Charles
marched straight from Reims, would have yielded as Reims did.
D’Alencon kept going to Senlis urging Charles to come up with
the main army. He went on September 1—the king promised to
start next day. D’Alencon returned to the Maid, the king still
loitered. At last d’Alencon brought him to St. Denis on September 7,
and there was a skirmish that day.
HOW THE MAID WAS WOUNDED IN ATTACKING PARIS, AND HOW THE
KING WOULD NOT LET THE ASSAULT BEGIN AGAIN
In all descriptions of battles different accounts are given, each
man telling what he himself saw, or what he remembers. As to
the assault on Paris on September 8, the Maid herself said a few
words at her trial. Her Voices had neither commanded her to
attack nor to abstain from attacking. Her opinion was that the
captains and leaders on her side only meant to skirmish in force,
and to do deeds of chivalry. But her own intention was to press
onwards, and, by her example, to make the army fcllow her. It
was thus that she took Les Tourelles at Orleans. This account
’ This man was Clement de Fauquemberque. When he recorded the relief of
Orleans, he drew on the margin of his paper a litt!e fancy sketch of Joan, with long hair,
a Woman's dress, a sword, and a banner with the monogram of Jesus, This sketch
stil. exists, (races, iv. 451.)
76 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
scarcely agrees with what we read in the book of Perceval de Cagny,
who was with his lord, the Due d’Alencon. He says that about
eight on the morning of September 8, the day of Our Lady, the
army set forth; some were to storm the town; another division was
to remain under cover and protect the former if a sally was made by
the English. The Maid, the Marshal de Rais, and De Gaucourt
led the attack on the Porte St. Honoré. Standard in hand, the Maid
leaped into the fosse near the pig market. ‘The assault was long
and fierce, and it was marvel to hear the noise of cannons and
culverins from the walls, and to see the clouds of arrows. Few of
those in the fosse with the Maid were struck, though many others on
horse and foot were wounded with arrows and stone cannon-balls,
but by God’s grace and the Maid’s good fortune, there was none of
them but could return to camp unhelped. The assault lasted from
noon till dusk, say eight in the evening. After sunset the Maid was
struck by a crossbow bolt in the thigh; and, after she was hurt,
she cried but the louder that all should attack, and that the place
was taken. But as night had now fallen, and she was wounded,
and the men-at-arms were weary with the long attack, De Gaucourt
and others came and found her, and, against her will, brought her
forth from the fosse. And so ended that onslaught. But right sad
she was to leave, and said, “ By my baton, the place would have
been taken.†They put her on horseback, and led her to her
quarters, and all the rest of the king’s company who that day had
come from St. Denis.’
So Cagny tells the story. He was, we may believe, with
d’Alencon and the party covering the attack. Jean Chartier, who
was living at the time, adds that the Maid did not know that the
inner moats were full of water. When she reached the water, she
had faggots and other things thrown in to fill up a passage. At
nightfall she would not retreat, and at last d’Alencon came and
forced her to return. The Clerk of Parliament, who, of course,
was within the walls, says that the attack lasted till ten or eleven
o'clock at night, and that, in Paris, there was acry that all was lost.
Joan behaved as gallantly as she did at Les Tourelles. Though
wounded she was still pressing on, still encouraging her men, but
she was not followed. She was not only always eager to attack,
but she never lost heart, she never lost grip. An army of men as
brave as Joan would have been invincible.
* This was not far from the present Théatre Francais. The statue of the Maid, on
horseback, is near the place where she was wounded.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 77
‘ Next day,’ says Cagny, ‘in spite of her wound, she was first in
the field. She went to d’Alencon and bade him sound the trumpets
for the charge. D’Alencon and the other captains were of the same
mind as the Maid, and Montmorency with sixty gentlemen and
many lances came in, though he had been on the English side
before. So they began to march on Paris, but the king sent
messengers, the Duc de Bar, and the Comte de Clermont, and com-
pelled the Maid and the captains to retun to St. Denis. Right
sorry were they, yet they must obey the king. They hoped to take
Paris from the other side, by a bridge which the Due @’ Alencon
had made across the Seine. But the king knew the duke’s and the
Maid’s design, and caused the bridge to be broken down, anda
council was held, and the king desired to depart and go to the
Loire, to the great grief of the Maid. When she saw that they
would go, she dedicated her armour, and hung it up before the
statue of Our Lady at St. Denis, and so right sadly went away in
company with the king. And thus were broken the will of the Maid
and the army of the king.’
The politicians had triumphed. They had thwarted the Maid,
they had made her promise to take Paris of no avail. They had
destroyed the confidence of men in the banner that had never gone
back. Now they might take their ease, now they might loiter in
the gardens of the Loire. The Maid had failed, by their design,
and by their cowardice. The treachery that she, who feared
nothing else, had long dreaded, was accomplished now. ‘The will
of the Maid and the army of the king were broken.’ !
EOW THE MAID AND HER FAIR DUKE WERE SEPARATED
FROM EACH OTHER
The king now went from one pleasant tower on the Loire to
another, taking the Maid with him. Meanwhile, the English took
and plundered some of the cities which had yielded to Charles, and
they carried off the Maid’s armour from the chapel in Saint Denis,
where she had dedicated it, ‘because Saint Denis! is the cry of France.’
Her Voices had bidden her stay at Saint Denis, but this she was not
permitted todo, and now she must hear daily how the loyal towns that
she had won were plundered by the English. The French garrisons
* Paris, as the Clerk of Parliament wrote in his note-book, could only be taken by
hlockave, Tt was a far larger city than Orleans, and we see how long the English, in the
leight of courage and confidence, were delayed by Orleans. But the Maid did not know
the word ‘impossible’ Properly supported, she could probably have taken Paris by
assault ; at the least she would not have left it while she lived.
78 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
also began to rob, as they had done before she came. There was ‘great
pity in France’ again, and all her work seemed wasted. The Duce
d’Alencon went to his own place of Beaumont, but. he returned,
and offered to lead an army against the English in Normandy, if
the Maid might march with him. Then he would have had
followers in plenty, for the people had not wholly lost faith. ‘ But
La Tremouille, and Gaucourt, and the Archbishop of Reims, who
managed the king and the war, would not consent, nor suffer the
Maid and the duke to be together, nor ever again might they
meet.’ So says Cagny, and he adds that the Maid loved the fair
duke above other men, ‘and did for him what she would do for no
other.’ She had saved his life at Jargeau, but where was the
duke when Joan was a prisoner? We do not know, but we may
believe that he, at least, would have helped her if he could. They
were separated by the jealousy of cowards, who feared that the
duke might win too much renown and become too powerful.
HOW MARVELLOUSLY THE MAID TOOK SAINT-PIERRE-LE-MOUSTIER
Even the banks of Loire, where the king loved to be, were not
free from the English. They held La Charité and Saint-Pierre-le-
Moustier. Joan wanted to return to Paris, but the council sent her
to take La Charité and Saint-Pierre-le-Moustier. This town she
attacked first. Her squire, a gentleman named d’Aulon, was with
her, and described what he saw. ‘When they had besieged the
place for some time, an assault was commanded, but, for the great
strength of the forts and the numbers of the enemy, the French
were forced to give way. At that hour, I who speak was wounded
by an arrow in the heel, and could not stand or walk without
crutches. But I saw the Maid holding her ground with a handful
of men, and, fearing ill might come of it, I mounted a horse and
rode to her, asking what she was doing there alone, and why she
did not retreat like the others. She took the salade from her head,
and answered that she was not alone, but had in her company fifty
thousand of her people; and that go she would not till she had
taken that town.
‘ But, whatever she said, I saw that she had with her but four
men or five, as others also saw, wherefore I bade her retreat. Then
she commanded me to have faggots brought, and planks to bridge
fosses. And, as she spoke to me, she cried in a loud voice, “All
of you, bring faggots to fill the fosse.â€â€ And this was done, whereat
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 79
I greatly marvelled, and instantly that town was taken by assault
with no great resistance. And all that the Maid did seemed to me
rather deeds divine than natural, and it was impossible that so
young a maid should do such deeds without the will and guidance
of Our Lord.’
This was the last great feat of arms wrought by the Maid. As
at Les Tourelles she won by sheer dint of faith and courage, and so
might she have done at Paris, but for the king. At this town the
‘Go she would not till she had taken that town’
soldiers wished to steal the sacred things in the church, and the
goods laid up there. ‘But the Maid right manfully forbade and
hindered them, nor ever would she permit any to plund2r.’ So says
Reginald Thierry, who was with her at this siege. Once a Scottish
man-at-arms let her know that her dinner was made of a stolen
calf, and she was very angry, wishing to strike that Scot. He came
from a land where ‘lifting cattle’ was thought rather a creditable
action,
80 LIFE AND DEATH UF JOAN THE MAID
HOW THE MAID WAITED WEARILY AT COURT
From her latest siege the Maid rode to attack La Charité. But,
though the towns helped her as well as they might with money and
food, her force was too small, and was too ill provided with every-
thing, for the king did not send supplies. She raised the siege and
departed in great displeasure. The king was not unkind, he en-
nobled her and her family, and permitted the dignity to descend -
through daughters as well as sons; no one else was ever so
honoured. Her brothers called themselves Du Lys, from the lilies of
their crest, but Joan kept her name and her old banner. She was
trailed after the Court from place to place; for three weeks she stayed
with a lady who describes her as very devout and constantly in
church. People said to Joan that it was easy for her to be brave,
as she knew she would not be slain, but she answered that she had
no more assurance of safety than any one of them. Thinking her
already a saint, people brought her things to touch.
‘Touch them yourselves,’ she said; ‘your touch is as good as
mine.’
She wore a little cheap ring, which her father and mother had
given her, inscribed JHESu MARIA, and she believed that with this ring
she had touched the body of St. Catherine. But she was humble,
and thought herself no saint, though surely there never was a
better. She gave great alms, saying that she was sent to help the
poor and needy. Such was the Maid in peace.
HOW THE MAID MET AN IMPOSTOR
There was a certain woman named Catherine de la Rochelle,
who gave out that she had visions. A beautiful lady, dressed in
cloth of gold, came to her by night, and told her who had hidden
treasures. These she offered to discover that there might be money
for the wars, which Joan needed sorely. A certain preacher, named
Brother Richard, wished to make use of this pretender, but Joan
said that she must first herself see the fair lady in cloth of gold.
So she sat up with Catherine till midnight, and then fell asleep,
when the lady appeared, so Catherine said. Joan slept next day,
and watched all the following night. Of course the fair lady never
came. Joan bade Catherine go back to her family; she needed
money for the war, but not money got by false pretences. So she
told the king that the whole story was mere folly. This woman
afterwards lied against the Maid when she was a prisoner.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 81
HOW THE MAID'S VOICES PROPHESIED OF HER TAKING
Winter melted into spring; the truce with Burgundy was
prolonged, but the Burgundians fought under English colours. The
king did nothing, but in Normandy La Hire rode in arms to the
gates of Rouen. Paris became doubtfully loyal to the English.
The Maid could be idle no longer. Without a word to the king
she rode to Lagny, ‘for there they had fought bravely against the
English.’ These men were Scots, under Sir Hugh Kennedy.
In mid-April she was at Melun. There ‘she heard her Voices
almost every day, and many a time they told her that she would
presently be taken prisoner.’ Her year was over, and as the
Voices prophesied her wound at Orleans, now they prophesied her
captivity. She prayed that she might die as soon as she was
taken, without the long sorrow of imprisonment. Then her Voices
told her to bear graciously whatever befell her, for so it must be.
But they told her not the hour of her captivity. ‘If she had known
the hour she would not then have gone to war. And often she
prayed them to tell her of that hour, but they did not answer.’
These words are Joan’s. She spoke them to her judges at
Rouen. .
Among all her brave deeds this was the bravest. Whatever
the source of her Voices was, she believed in what they said. She
rode to fight with far worse than death under shield before her
eyes, knowing certainly that her English foes would take her, they
who had often threatened to burn her.
HOW THE MAID TOOK FRANQUET D’ARRAS
There was in these parts a robber chief on the Burgundian side
named Franquet d’Arras. The Maid had been sent, as she said, to
help the poor who were oppressed by these brigands. Hearing
that Franquet, with three or four hundred men-at-arms, was near
Lagny-sur-Marne, the Maid rode out to seek him with four hundred
French and Scots. The fight is described in one way by Monstrelet,
in another by Cagny and Joan herself. Monstrelet, being a Bur-
gundian writer, says that Franquet made a gallant resistance
till he was overwhelmed by numbers, as the Maid called out the
garrison of Lagny. Cagny says that Franquet’s force was greater
than that of the Maid who took him. However this may be,
Franquet was a knight, and so should have been kept prisoner till
he paid his ransom. Monstrelet tells us that Joan had his head
Be G
82 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
cut off. She herself told her judges that Franquet confessed to
being a traitor, robber, and murderer; that the magistrates of
Senlis and Lagny claimed him as a criminal; that she tried to
exchange him for a prisoner of her own party, but that her man
died, that Franquet had a fair trial, and that then she allowed justice
to take its course. She was asked if she paid money to the captor
of Franquet.
‘Tam not treasurer of France, to pay such moneys,’ she answered
haughtily.
Probably Franquet deserved to die, but a trial by his enemies
was not likely to be a fair trial.
At Lagny the Maid left a gentler memory. She was very fond
of children, and had a girl’s love of babies. A boy of three days
old was dying or seemed dead, and the girls of Lagny carried it to
the statue of Our Lady in their church, and there prayed over
it. For three days, ever since its birth, the baby had lain in a
trance without sign of life, so that they dared not christen it. ‘It
was black as my doublet,’ said Joan at her trial, where she wore
mourning. Joan knelt with the other girls and prayed; colour
came back into the child’s face, it gasped thrice, was baptised, then
died, and was buried in holy ground. So Joan said at her trial.
She claimed no share in this good fortune, and never pretended that
she worked miracles.
HOW THE MAID FOUGHT HER LAST FIGHT
The name of Joan was now such a terror to the English that
men deserted rather than face her in arms. At this time the truce
with Burgundy ended, and the duke openly set out to besiege the
strong town of Compiégne, held by de Flavy for France. Joan
hurried to Compiégne, whence she made two expeditions which
were defeated by treachery. Perhaps she thought of this, perhaps
of the future, when in the church of Compiégne she declared one
day to a crowd of children whom she loved that she knew she was
sold and betrayed. Old men who had heard her told this tale long
afterwards.
Burgundy. had invested Compiégne, when Joan, with four
hundred men, rode into the town secretly at dawn. That day
Joan led a sally against the Burgundians. Her Voices told her
nothing, good or bad, she says. The Burgundians were encamped
at Margny and at Clairoix, theEnglish at Venette, villages on a plain
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 83
near the walls. Joan crossed the bridge on a grey charger, in a
surcoat of crimson silk, rode through the redoubt beyond the
bridge, and attacked the Burgundians. Flavy in the town was
to prevent the English from attacking her in the rear. He had
boats on the river to secure Joan’s retreat if necessary.
: Ry
4) ie
[eee ay) ire
* My
SAS,
So,
a,
Ay
Ki f NG
AU CVOKMIMH
i
Joan captured
Joan swept through Margny, driving the Burgundians before
her; the garrison of Clairoix came to their help; the battle was
doubtful. Meanwhile the English came up; they could not have
reached the Burgundians, to aid them, but some of the Maid’s men,
: a2
84 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
seeing the English standards, fled. The English followed them
under the walls of Compiégne; the gate of the redoubt was closed
to prevent the English from entering with the runaways. Like
Hector under Troy, the Maid was shut out from the town which
she came to save.
Joan was with her own foremost line when the rear fled. They
told her of her danger, she heeded not. For the last time rang out
in that girlish voice: ‘Allez avant! Forward, they are ours !’
Her men seized her bridle and turned her horse’s head about.
The English held the entrance from the causeway ; Joan and a few
men (her brother was one of them) were driven into a corner of
the outer wall. A rush was made at Joan. ‘Yield! yield! give
your faith to me!’ each man cried.
‘I have given my faith to Another,’ she said, ‘and I will keep
iy oath.’
Her enemies confess that on this day Joan did great feats of
arms, covering the rear of her force when they had to fly.
Some French historians hold that the gates were closed by
treason that the Maid might be taken. We may hope that this
was not so; the commander of Compiégne held his town success-
fully for the king, and was rescued by Joan’s friend, the brave Pothon
de Xaintrailles.
HOW THE MAID LEAPED FROM THE TOWER OF BEAUREVOIR
The sad story that is still to tell shall be shortly told. There is
no word nor deed of the Maid’s, in captivity as in victory, that is
not to her immortal honour. But the sight of the wickedness of
men, their cowardice, cruelty, greed, ingratitude, is not a thing to
linger over.
The Maid, as a prisoner of the Bastard of Wandomme, himself
a man of Jean de Luxembourg, was led to Margny, where the
Burgundian and English captains rejoiced over her. They had
her at last, the girl who had driven them from fort and field.
Luxembourg claimed her and carried her to Beaulieu. Not a
French lance was laid in rest to rescue her; not a sou did the
king send to ransom her. Where were Dunois and d’Alencon,
Xaintrailles and La Hire? The bold Buccleugh, who carried
Kinmont Willie out of Carlisle Castle, would not have left the
Maid unrescued at Beaulieu. ‘ What is there that a man does
not dare?’ he said to the angry Queen Elizabeth. But Dunois,
@Alencon, Xaintrailles, La Hire, dared all things. Something
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 85
which we do not know of must have held these heroes back, and,
being ignorant, it does not become us to blame them.
Joan was the very spirit of chivalry, but in that age of chivalry
she was shamefully deserted. As a prisoner of war she should
properly have been held to ransom. But, within two days of her
capture, the Vicar-General of the Inquisition in France claimed
her as a heretic and a witch. The English knights let the priests
and the University of Paris judge and burn the girl whom they
seldom dared to face in war. The English were glad enough to
use French priests and doctors who would sell themselves to the
task of condemning and burning their maiden enemy. She was
the enemy of the English, and they did actually believe in witch-
craft. The English were hideously cruel and superstitious: we
may leave the French to judge Jean de Luxembourg, who sold the
girl to England; Charles, who moved not a finger to help her;
Bishop Cauchon and the University of Paris, who judged her
lawlessly and condemned her to the stake; and the Archbishop
of Reims, who said that she had deserved her fall. There is dis-
honour in plenty; let these false Frenchmen of her time divide
their shares among themselves.
From Beaulieu, where she lay from May to August, Luxembourg
carried his precious prize to Beaurevoir, near Cambrai, further from
the French armies. He need not have been alarmed, not a French
sword was drawn to help the Maid. At Beaurevoir, Joan was
kindly treated by the ladies of the Castle. These ladies alone up-
held the honour of the great name of France. They knelt and
wept before Jean de Luxembourg, imploring him not to sell Joan
to Burgundy, who sold her again to England. May their names
_ever be honoured! One of the gentlemen of the place, on the
other hand, was rude to Joan, as he confessed thirty years later.
Joan was now kept in a high tower at Beaurevoir, and was
allowed to walk on the leads. She knew she was sold to England,
she had heard that the people of Compiégne were to be massacred.
She would rather die than fall into English hands, ‘ rather give her
soul to God, than her body to the English.’ But she hoped to
escape and relieve Compiégne. She, therefore, prayed for counsel
to her Saints; might she leap from the top of the tower? Would
they not bear her up in their hands? St. Catherine bade her not
to leap; God would help her and the people of Compiégne.
Then, for the first time as far as we know, the Maid wilfully
disobeyed her Voices, She leaped from the tower, They
86 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
found her, not wounded, not a limb was broken, but stunned.
She knew not what had happened; they told her she had leaped
down. For three days she could not eat, ‘yet was she comforted
by St. Catherine, who bade her confess and seek pardon of God,
and told her that, without fail,
they of Compiégne should be
relieved before Martinmas.’
This prophecy was fulfilled.
Joan was more troubled
about Compiégne, than about
her own coming doom. She
was already sold to the
English, like a sheep to the
slaughter ; they bought their
French bishop Cauchon, he
summoned his shavelings,
the doctors of the University
and of the Inquisition.
The chivalry of England
locked up the Maid in an
iron cage at Rouen. The
rest was easy to men of
whom all, or almost all,
were the slaves of supersti-
tion, fear, and greed. They
were men like ourselves,
and no worse, if perhaps no
better, but their especial
sins and temptations were
those to which few of us are
inclined. ‘We, like Charles,
are very capable of deserting,
or at least of delaying to
rescue, our bravest and best,
like Gordon in Khartoum.
Joan at Beaurevoir But, as we are not afraid of
witches, we do not cage and
burn girls of nineteen. If we were as ignorant as our ancestors
on this point, no doubt we should be as cowardly and cruel.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 87
Vv
HOW THE MAID WAS TRIED AND CONDEMNED, AND HOW
BRAVELY SHE DIED
Arour the trial and the death of the Maid, I have not the heart
to write a long story. Some points are to be remembered.
The person who conducted the trial, itself illegal, was her deadly
enemy, the false Frenchman, the Bishop of Beauvais, Cauchon,
whom she and her men had turned out of his bishoprick. It is
most unjust and-‘unheard of, that any one should be tried by a judge
who is his private enemy. Next, Joan was kept in strong irons day
and night, and she, the most modest of maidens, was always guarded
by five brutal English soldiers of the lowest rank. Again, she was
not allowed to receive the Holy Communion as she desired with
tears. Thus weakened by long captivity and ill usage, she, an un-
taught girl, was questioned repeatedly for three months, by the
most cunning and learned doctors in law of the Paris University.
Often many spoke at once, to perplex her mind. But Joan always
showed a wisdom which confounded them, and which is at least as
extraordinary as her skill in war. She would never swear an oath
to answer all their questions. About herself, and all matters bearing
on her own conduct, she would answer. About the king and the
secrets of the king, she would not answer. If they forced her .to
reply about these things, she frankly said, she would not tell them
the truth. The whole object of the trial was to prove that she
dealt with powers of evil, and that her king had been crowned and
aided by the devil. Her examiners, therefore, attacked her day by
day, in public and in her dungeon, with questions about these
visions which she held sacred, and could only speak of with a blush
among her friends. Had she answered (as a lawyer said at the
time), ‘it seemed to me I saw a saint,’ no man could have con-
demned her. Probably she did not know this, for she was not
allowed to have an advocate of her own party, and she, a lonely
girl, was opposed to the keenest and most learned lawyers of
France. But she maintained that she certainly did see, hear, and
touch her Saints, and that they came to her by the will of God.
This was called blasphemy and witchcraft. And now came in the
fatal Fairies! She was accused of dealing with devils under the
Tree of Domremy.
88 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
Most was made of her refusal to wear woman's dress. For this
she seems to have had two reasons; first, that to give up her old
dress would have been to acknowledge that her mission was ended;
next, for reasons of modesty, she being alone in prison among ruffianly
men. She would wear woman’s dress if they would let her take the
Holy Communion, but this theyrefused. To these points she was con-
stant, she would not deny her visions; she would not say one word
against her king, ‘the noblest Christian in the world’ she called
him, who had deserted her. She would not wear woman’s dress in
prison. We must remember that, as she was being tried by
churchmen, she should have been, as she often prayed to be, in a
prison of the church, attended by women. They set a spy on her,
a caitiff priest named L’Oyseleur, who pretended to be her friend,
and who betrayed her. The English soldiers were allowed to bully,
threaten, and frighten away every one who gave herany advice. They
took her to the torture-chamber, and threatened her with torture,
but from this even these priests shrunk, except a few more cruel
and cowardly than the rest. Finally, they put her up in public, oppo-
site a pile of wood ready for burning, and then set a priest to preach
at her. All through her trial, her Voices bade her ‘ answer boldly,’
in three months she would give her last answer, in three months
‘she would be free with great victory, and come into the Kingdom of
Paradise.’ In three months from the first day of her trial she went
free through the gate of fire. Boldly she answered, and wisely. She
would submit the truth of her visions to the Church, that is, to God,
and the Pope. But she would not submit them to ‘the Church,’ if that
meant the clergy round her. At last, in fear of the fire, and the stake
before her, and on promise of being taken to a kindlier prison among
women, and released from chains, she promised to ‘abjure,’ to re-
nounce her visions, and submit to the Church, that is to Cauchon, and
her other priestly enemies. Some little note on paper she now signed
with a cross, and repeated ‘with a smile,’ poor child, a short form
of words. By some trick this signature was changed for a long
document, in which she was made to confess all her visions false.
It is certain that she did not understand her words in this sense.
Cauchon had triumphed. The blame of heresy and witchcraft
was cast on Joan, and on her king as an accomplice. But the
English were not satisfied; they made an uproar, they threatened
Cauchon, for Joan’s life was to be spared. She was to be in prison
all her days, on bread and water, but, while she lived, they dared
scarcely stir against the French. They were soon satisfied.
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 89
Joan’s prison was not changed. There soon came news that she
had put on man’s dress again. The judges went to her. She told
them (they say), that she put on this dress of her own free will.
In confession, later, she told her priest that she had been refused
any other dress, and had been brutally treated both by the soldiers
and by an English lord. In self-defence, she dressed in the only
attire within her reach. In any case, the promises made to her
‘ They burned Joan the Maid’
had been broken. The judge asked her if her Voices had been with
her again ?
‘Yes.’
‘What did they say?’
‘God told me by the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret
of the great sorrow of my treason, when I abjured to save my life;
that I was damning myself for my life’s sake,’
90 LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID
‘Do you believe the Voices come from St. Margaret and St.
Catherine ?’
‘Yes, and that they are from God.’
She added that she had never meant to deny this, had not
understood that she had denied it.
All was over now; she was a ‘relapsed heretic.’
The judges said that they visited Joan again on the morning of
her death, and that she withdrew her belief in her Voices; or, at
least, left it to the Church to decide whether they were good or bad,
while she still maintained that they were real. She had expected
release, and, for the first time, had been disappointed. At the
stake she understood her Voices: they had foretold her martyrdom,
‘ great victory ’ over herself, and her entry into rest. But the docu-
ment of the judges is not signed by the clerks, as all such docu-
ments must be. One of them, Manchon, who had not been present,
was asked to sign it; he refused. Another, Taquel, is said to have
been present, but he did not sign. The story is, therefore, worth
nothing.
Enough. They burned Joan the Maid. She did not suffer
long. Her eyes were fixed on a cross which a priest, Martin
L’Advenu, held up before her. She maintained, he says, to her
dying moment, the truth of her Voices. With a great cry of
Jesus! she gave up her breath, and her pure soul was with God.
Even the English wept, even a secretary of the English king
said that they had burned a Saint. One of the three great crimes
of the world’s history had been committed, and, of tlie three, this
was the most cowardly and cruel. It profited the English not at
all. ‘Though they ceased not to he brave,’ says Patrick Abercromby,
a Scot,’ ‘yet they were almost on all occasions defeated, and within
the short space of twenty-two years, lost not only all the conquests
made by them in little less than a hundred, but also the inheritances
which they had enjoyed for above three centuries bypast. It is
not my part to follow them, as the French and my countrymen
did, from town to town, and from province to province; I take
much more pleasure in relating the glories than the disgraces of
England.’
This disgrace the English must, and do, most sorrowfully con-
fess, and, that it may never be forgotten while the civilised world
stands, there lives, among the plays of Shakspeare, whether he
wrote or did not write it, that first part of ‘Henry VI.,’ which
* In 1715,
LIFE AND DEATH OF JOAN THE MAID 91
may pair with the yet more abominable poem of the Frenchman,
Voltaire. ;
Twenty years after her death, as we saw, Charles VII, in his
own interest, induced the Pope and the Inquisition, to try the case
of Joan over again. It was as certain that the clergy would find
her innocent, now, as that they would find her guilty before. But,
happily, they collected the evidence of most of the living people
who had known her. Thus we have heard from the Domremy
peasants how good she was as a child, from Dunois, d’Alencon,
d’Aulon, how she was beautiful, courteous, and brave, from Isam-
bart and L’Advenu, how nobly she died, and how she never made
one complaint, but forgave all her enemies freely. All these old
Latin documents were collected, edited, and printed, in 1849, by
Monsieur Jules Quicherat, a long and noble labour. After the publi-
cation of this book, there has been, and can be, no doubt about the
perfect goodness of Joan of Arc. The English long believed silly
stories against her, as a bad woman, stories which were not
even mentioned by her judges. The very French, at different
times, have mocked at her memory, in ignorance and disbelief.
They said she was a tool of politicians, who, on the other hand,
never wanted her, or that she was crazy. Men mixed up with her
glorious history the adventures of the false Maid, who pretended to be
Joan come again, and people doubted as to whether she really died at
Rouen. In modern times, some wiseacres have called the strongest
and healthiest of women ‘hysterical,’ which is their way of account-
ing for her Voices. But now, thanks mainly to Monsieur Quicherat,
and other learned Frenchmen, the world, if it chooses, may know
Joan as she was; the stainless Maid, the bravest, gentlest, kindest,
and wisest woman who ever lived. Her country people, in her life-
time, called her ‘the greatest of Saints, after the Blessed Virgin,’
and, at least, she is the greatest concerning whose deeds and noble
sufferings history preserves a record. And her Voices we leave to
Him who alone knows all truth.
92
HOW THE BASS WAS HELD
FOR KING JAMES
HE Bass Rock is a steep black mass of stone, standing about
two miles out to sea, off the coast of Berwickshire. The sheer
cliffs, straight asa wall, are some four hundred feet in height. At
the top there is a sloping grassy shelf, on which a few sheep are
kept, but the chief inhabitants of the rock are innumerable hosts
of sea-birds. Far up the rock, two hundred years ago, was a
fortress, with twenty cannons and a small garrison. As a boat can
only touch at the little island in very fine weather, the fortress was
considered by the Government of Charles II. an excellent prison
for Covenanters. There was a house for the governor, and a chapel
where powder was kept, but where no clergyman officiated. As
the covenanting prisoners were nearly all ministers, and a few of
them prophets, it was thought, no doubt, that they could attend to
their own devotions for themselves. They passed a good deal of
their time in singing psalms. One prisoner looked into the cell of
another late at night, and saw a shining white figure with him,
which was taken for an angel by the spectator. Another prisoner, a
celebrated preacher, named Peden, once told a merry girl that
a ‘sudden surprising judgment was waiting for her,’ and in-
stantly a gust of wind blew her off the rock into the sea. The
Covenanters, one of whom had shot at the Archbishop of St.
Andrews, and hit the Bishop of Orkney, were very harshly
treated. ‘They were obliged to drink the twopenny ale of the
governor’s brewing, scarcely worth a half-penny the pint,’ an in-
convenience which they probably shared with the garrison. They
were sometimes actually compelled to make their own beds, a cruel
hardship, when their servants had been dismissed, probably for plot-
ting their escape. They had few pleasures except writing accounts of
their sufferings, and books on religion; or studying Greek and
Hebrew,
‘INSTANTLY A GUST OF WIND BLEW HER OFF THE ROCK,
INTO THE SEA’
HOW THE BASS WAS HELD 95
When King James II. was driven from his throne, in 1688, by
the Prince of Orange, these sufferers found release, they being
on the Orange side. But the castle of the Bass did not yield to
William till 1690; it was held for King James by Charles Mait-
land till his ammunition and stores were exhausted. The Whigs,
who were now in power, used the Bass for a prison, as their enemies
had done, and four Cavalier prisoners were shut up in the cold, smoky,
unwholesome jail, just as the Covenanters had been before. These
men, Middleton, Halyburton, Roy, and Dunbar, all of them young,
had been in arms for King James, and were taken when his Majesty’s
forces were surprised and defeated by Livingstone at Cromdale Haugh.
Middleton was a lieutenant; his friends were junior in rank, and
were only ensigns.
These four lads did not devote their leisure to the composition
of religious treatises, nor to the learning of Latin and Greek. On the
other hand they reckoned it more worthy of their profession to turn
the Whig garrison out of the Bass, and to hold it for King James.
For three years they held it against all comers, and the Royal flag,
driven out of England and Scotland, still floated over this little rock
in the North Sea.
This is how the Four took the Bass. They observed that when
coals were landed all the garrison except three or four soldiers
went down to the rocky platform where there was a crane for raising
goods. When they went, they locked three of the four gates on
the narrow rocky staircase behind them.
On June 15, 1691, the soldiers went on this duty, leaving, to
guard the Cavaliers, La Fosse, the sergeant, Swan, the gunner, and
one soldier. These men were overpowered, or won over, by
Middleton, Roy, Dunbar, and Halyburton, who then trained a gun
on the garrison below, and asked them whether they would retire
peacefully, or fight? They preferred to sail away in the coal vessel,
and very foolish they must have felt, when they carried to the
Whigs in Edinburgh the news that four men had turned them out
of an impregnable castle, and held it for King James.
Next night young Crawford of Ardmillan, with his servant and
two Irish sailors, seized a long-boat on the beach, sailed over, and
ioined the brave little garrison of the Bass. Crawford had been
lurking in disguise for some time, and the two Irishmen had
escaped from prison in Edinburgh, and were not particularly well
disposed to the government of William.
When the news reached King James, in France, he sent a ship,
96 HOW THE BASS WAS HELD
laden with provisions and stores of all kinds, and two boats, one of
them carrying two light guns. The Whigs established a force on
the shore opposite, and their boats cruised about to intercept
supplies, but in this they failed, the Cavaliers being too quick and
artful to be caught easily.
On August 15, however, the enemy seized the large boat at night.
Now Ardmillan and Middleton were absent in search of supplies,
and, being without their leader, Roy and Dunbar thought of sur-
rendering. But just as they were about signing articles of surrender,
Middleton returned with a large boat and plenty of provisions, and
he ran his boat under the guns of his fort, whence he laughed at
the enemies of his king. Dunbar, however, who was on shore en-
gaged in the business of the surrender, was held as a prisoner.
The Whigs were not much nearer taking the Bass. On Septem-
ber 3 they sent a sergeant and a drummer to offer a free pardon to
the Cavaliers. They were allowed to land on the rock, but Middle-
ton merely laughed at the promise of a free pardon, and he kept
the sergeant and drummer, whom he afterwards released. A
Danish ship, sailing between the Bass and shore, had a gun fired
across her bows, and was made prize of; they took out everything:
that they needed, and then let her go.
The Cavaliers lived a gay life: they had sheep on the Bass,
plenty of water, meat, biscuits, beer and wine. Cruising in their
boats they captured several ships, supplied themselves with what
they wanted, and held the ships themselves to ransom. When
food ran short they made raids on the shore, lifted cattle, and,
generally, made war support war.
The government of the Prince of Orange was driven beyond its
patience, and vowed that the Bass should be taken, if it cost all the
revenue of the country. But Middleton had plenty of powder, he
had carefully collected more than five hundred balls fired at his
fort by the English, and he calmly awaited the arrival of hostile
men-of-war. The ‘Sheerness’ (Captain Roope) and the ‘London
Merchant’ (Captain Orton) were sent with orders to bombard the
Bass and destroy the fort. After two days of heavy firing, these
vessels had lost a number of men, their rigging was cut to pieces,
and the ships were so damaged that they were glad to slink off to
harbour.
A close watch was now set, the ‘Lion’ (Captain Burd), a dogger
-of six guns, and a long-boat cruised constantly in the neighbourhood.
Captain Burd is described as ‘ a facetious and intelligent man,’ and
FOR KING JAMES 97
a brave officer, but his intelligence and courage were no match for
Middleton. In August 1693 a French frigate of twelve guns
sailed under the Bass and landed supplies. But the Cavaliers were
so few that they had to borrow ten French sailors to help in the
landing of the provisions. At this moment the ‘Lion’ bore down
on the French vessel, which was obliged to cut her cables to avoid
being run down. The garrison of the Bass was thus left with ten
more mouths to feed, and with only the small supplies that had
been landed. They were soon reduced te two ounces of raw rusk
dough for each man, every day. Halyburton was caught and con-
demned to be hanged, and a Mr. Trotter, who had helped the
The Bass attacked by the frigates
Cavaliers, was actually hanged on shore, within sight of the Bass.
Middleton fired a shot and scattered the crowd, but that did not
save poor Trotter.
Middleton hed now only a few pounds of meal left. He therefore
sent in a Hag of truce, and announced that he would surrender, but
upon his own terms. Very good terms they were. Envoys were dis-
patched by the Whigs: Middleton gave them an excellent luncheon
out of provisions kept for the purpose, and choice French wines.
He had also set coats and caps on the muzzles of guns, above, on
the rocks, so that the Whig envoys believed he had plenty of
men, and no scarcity of provisions. Their lordships returned,
R. H
98 : HOW THE BASS WAS HELD
and told the Privy Council that the Bass was in every respect
well provisioned and well manned. Middleton’s terms were,
therefore, gladly accepted..
He got a full pardon for every one then in the garrison, and for
every one who had ever been in it (including Halyburton, now
under sentence of death), ‘and none hereafter shall call them
to account.’ They were to depart with all the honours of war,
with swords and baggage, in their own boat. They were to
be at liberty to come or go, whenever they pleased, till May 15,
1694; and a ship, properly supplied, was to be ready to carry them
to France, if they preferred to join Dundee’s gallant officers in the
French service. Finally, all their expenses were to be paid! The
‘aliment’ formerly granted to them, and unpaid when they
seized the Bass, was to be handed over to them. On these terms
Middleton took leave of the fortress which he could not have
held for a week longer. There have been greater deeds of arms,
but there never was one so boyish, so gallant, and so gay.
99
THE CROWNING OF INES DE CASTRO
BOUT the year 1340, when Edward III. was King of England,
a young Spanish lady set out from Castile on the long journey
to the Court of Portugal. She was the only daughter of John
Manuel, Duke of Villena, a very rich and powerful noble, much
dreaded by the King of Castile for his boldness and restlessness.
Not many years before he had suddenly left his post as Warden
of the French Marches, to fight against the Moors in the province
of Murcia, and though the King was very angry at his conduct, he
did not dare to punish him, for fear that in some way be himself
would suffer. Villena’s daughter Constance had passed much of
her time at the Castilian Court, where she lived in the state that
was expected of a great lady of those days, but when the treaty was
made which decided that she was to marry Dom Pedro, Crown
Prince of Portugal, her household was increased, and special
attendants-appointed to do honour to her rank.
Now among the ladies chosen to form part of Constance’s court,
was a distant cousin of her own, the beautiful and charming Ines de
Castro. Like Henry II. at the sight of Fair Rosamond, the young
Dom Pedro, who was not more than twenty years of age, fell
passionately in love with her. He did all in his power to hide his
feelings from his bride, the Infanta Constance, but did not sueceed,
andin a few years she died, it was said of grief at her husband’s cold-
ness, after giving birth to the Infant, Dom Fernando (1845). After
her death, Dom Pedro’s father King Alfonso was anxious that he
should marry again, but he refused all the brides proposed for him,
and people whispered among themselves that he was already secretly
wedded to Ines de Castro. Time went on, and they had four children,
but Ines preferred to live quietly in a convent in the country, and
never took her place as Dom Pedro’s wife. Still, however secluded
u2
100 THE CROWNING OF INES Di CASTRO
she might be, large numbers of her fellow Castilians, weary of the
yoke of their own King, Pedro the Cruel, flocked into Portugal, and
looked to her for protection, which Dom Pedro for her sake always
gave them, and chief among these foreign favourites were Ines’ two
brothers, Fernando and Alvaro Perez de Castro. This state of
things was very bitter to the old Portuguese courtiers, who com-
plained to the’ King that in future the country would only be
governed by Spaniards. These rumours grew so loud that in
time they even reached the ears of the Queen, and she, with the
Archbishop of Braga, gave Dom Pedro solemn warning that some
plot was assuredly forming which would end in his ruin. But Dom
Pedro, naturally fearless, had faith in his father’s goodwill towards
him, and looked on these kindly warnings as mere empty threats,
so proceeded gaily on his path. Thus in silence was prepared the
bloody deed.
When the courtiers thought all was ready they went in a
deputation to Alfonso IV., and pointed out what might be expected
in the future if Ines de Castro was allowed to remain the fountain-
head for honours and employments to all her countrymen who were
attracted to Portugal by the hopes of better pay. They enlarged on
the fact that the national laws and customs would be changed, and
Portugal become a mere province of Spain; worse than all, that the
life of the Infant Dom Fernando was endangered, as upon the death
of the King, the Castros would naturally desire to secure the
succession to the children of Ines. If Ines were only out of the
way, Dom Pedro would forget her, and consent to make a suitable
marriage. So things went on, working together for the end of Ines.
At last the King set forth, surrounded by many of his great
nobles and high officials, for Coimbra, a small town in which was
situated the Convent of Santa Clara, where Ines de Castro quietly
dwelt, with her three surviving children. On seeing the sudden
arrival of Alfonso with this great company of armed knights, the
soul of Ines shrank with a horrible fear. She could not fly, as
every avenue was closed, and Dom Pedro was away on the chase,
as the nobles very well knew. Pale as an image of death, Ines
clasped her children in her arms, and flung herself at the feet of the
King. ‘ My lord,’ she: cried, ‘have I given you cause to wish my
death? Your son is the Prince; I can refuse him nothing. Have
pity on me, wife as Iam. Kill me not without reason. Andif you
have no compassion left for me, find a place in your heart for your
grandchildren, who are of your own blood.’
THE CROWNING OF INES DE CASTRO 101
The innocence and beauty of the unfortunate woman, who indeed
had harmed no one, moved the King, and he withdrew to think
better what should be done. But the envy and hatred of the
ie
i
x Mi}
ry
ie
AY 1
i |
i
Hel Lat
r Hi
nat
i
ip
a
i] i *|
nt
i xi
K y, Sd) ’.
i = ~ Soy ti vd
BY HEN t F = SESE
| y eB I SMe
7 cs fp, 7 =
A eS
S| =
ce
— “oe
om =
“a _ eS
es — Ss
eee ES ~ CE
ft a NE ai)
a= a Kent
~ Ne
Ines pleads for her life
courtiers would not suffer Ines to triumph, and again they brought
forward their evil counsels.
‘Do what you will,’ at length said the King. And they did it.
A nameless pain filled the soul of Dom Pedro when on his
102 THE CROWNING OF INES DE CASTRO
return he stood before the bloody corpse of Ines, whom he had
loved so well. But soon another feeling took possession of him,
which shut out everything else—the desire to revenge himself on
her murderers. Hastily calling together the brothers of Ines and
some followers who were attached to his person, he took counsel
with them, and then collecting all the men-at-arms within his
reach, he fell upon the neighbouring provinces and executed a
fearful vengeance, both with fire and sword, upon the innocent
inhabitants. How long this rage for devastation might have lasted
cannot be told, but Dom Pedro was at Jength brought to a better
mind by Goncalo Pereira, Archbishop of Braga, who, by the help
of the Queen, succeeded in establishing peace between father and
son.
So a parchment deed was drawn up between the King and the
Infant, in which Dom Pedro undertook to pardon all who had been
engaged in the murder of Ines, and Alfonso promised to forgive
those who had taken his son’s side, and borne arms against himself.
And for his part Dom Pedro vowed to perform the duties of a
faithful vassal, and to banish from his presence all turbulent and
restless spirits. So peace was made.
Two years had hardly passed after this event before King
Alfonso lay on his death-bed in Lisbon, and then, thinking over
what would happen when he was dead, the feeling gradually came
over him that in spite of Dom Pedro’s solemn oath the murderers of
Ines would not be safe from his revenge. Therefore he sent for the
three knights, Diogo Lopez Pacheco, Alvaro Goncalves, and Pedro
Coelho, who had counselled him to do the dreadful deed and had
themselves struck the blow, and bade them leave their property
and all they had, and fly while there was yet time to foreign lands
for refuge. The knights saw the wisdom of the advice, and sought
shelter in Castile. Then Alfonso prepared himself to die, the
murder of Ines lying heavy on his soul in his last days (1857).
King Pedro was thirty-seven years old when he ascended the
throne, and his first care was to secure peace to his kingdom. To
this end he sent several embassies to the King of Castile, who made
a compact with Alfonso ‘to be the’friend of his friends, and the
enemy of his enemies.’ The results of this treaty may be easily
guessed at. The King of Portugal engaged to send back to Castile
all who had fled to his dominions from the tyranny of Pedro the Cruel,
the ally of the Black Prince, and was to receive in return the mur-
derers of Ines, two of whom he put to a horrible death. The third,
THE CROWNING OF INES DE CASTRO 103
Pacheco, was more fortunate. A’ beggar to whom he had been
accustomed to give alms discovered his danger, and hastened to
_warn the knight, who was away from the city on a hunting expedition.
By his advice Pacheco changed clothes with the beggar, and made
his way through Aragon to the borders of France, where he took
refuge with Henry of Trastamara, half-brother of the King of
Castile. Here he remained, a poor knight without friends or
property, till the year 1867, when on his death-bed the King of
Portugal suddenly remembered that when dying the other two
knights had sworn that Pacheco was guiltless of the murder of
Ines, and ordered his son to recall him from exile and to restore
ail his possessions. Which Dom Fernando joyfully did.
That, however, happened several years after the time we are
speaking of, when Dom Pedro had only just ascended the throne.
Having satisfied his feelings ‘of revenge against the murderers of
Ines, a nobler desire filled his heart. He resolved that she who
had been so ill-spoken of during her life, and had died such a
shameful death, should be acknowledged openly as his wife and
queen before his Court and his people. So he assembled all the
great nobles and ofticers, and, laying his hand on the sacred books,
swore solemnly that seven years before he had taken Ines de
Castro to wife, and had lived with her in happiness till her death,
but that through dread of his father the marriage had been kept
secret ; and he commanded the Lord High Chamberlain to:prepare
a deed recording his oath. And in case there should still be.some
who did not believe, three days later the Bishop of Guarda and the
Keeper of the King’s Wardrobe bore witness before the great lords
gathered together ic Coimbra that they themselves had been
present at the secret marriage, which had taken place at Braganza,
in the royal apartments, according to the rites of the Church.
This solemn function being over, the last act in the history of
Ines was begun. By command of the King her body was taken
from the convent of Santa Clara, where it had lain in peace for
many years, and was clad in royal garments: a crown was placed on
her head and a sceptre in her hand, and she was seated on a throne
for the subjects, who during her life had despised her, to kneel and
kiss the hem of her robe. One by one the knights and the nobles
and the great officers of the Crown did homage to the dead woman,
and when all had bowed before what was left of the beautiful
Ines they placed her in a splendid cofiin, which was borne by
knights over the seven leagues that lay between Coimbra and
104 THE CROWNING OF INES DE CASTRO
Alcobaga, the royal burying-place of the Portuguese. In this
magnificent cloister a tomb had been prepared carved in white
marble, and at the head stood a statue of Ines in the pride of
her beauty, crowned a queen. Bishops and soldiers, nobles and
peasants, lined the road to watch the coffin pass, and thousands
with lighted torches followed the dead woman to her resting place,
till the whole long road from Coimbra to Aleobaca was lit up with
brightness. So, solemnly, Ines de Castro was laid in her grave,
and the honours which had been denied her in life were heaped
avound her tomb.
1 Schiifer’s Geschichte von Portugal.
105
THE STORY OF ORTHON
[There may be some who doubt whether the following story is in all
respects perfectly true. It is taken, however, from a history book, the
‘Chronicle of Jean Froissart,’ who wrote about the wars of the Black
Prince.]
(jenat marvel it is to think and consider of a thing that I will
tell you, and that was told to me in the house of the Comte de
Foix at Orthez, by him who gave me to know concerning the battle
of Juberot. And I will tell you of this matter, what it was, for
since the Squire told me this tale, whereof you shall presently have
knowledge, certes I have thought over it a hundred times, and
shall think as long as I live. ‘
‘Certain it is,’ quoth the Squire, ‘ that the day after the fight at
Juberot the Comte de Foix knew of it, whereat men marvelled
much how this might be. And all day, on the Sunday and the
Monday and the Tuesday following, he made in his castle of Orthez
such dull and simple cheer that none could drag a word out of
him. All these three days he would not leave his chamber, nor
speak to knight or squire, howsoever near him they might be.
And when it came to Tuesday at evening, he called his brother, Sir
Ernault Guillaume, and said to him in a low voice:
““ Our men have fought, whereat I am grieved; for that has
befallen them of their journey which I told them before they set
out.â€â€
‘Sir Ernault, who is a right wise knight and of good counsel,
knowing well the manner and ways of his brother the Count, held
his peace for a little while. Then the Count, willing to show his
heart, and weary of his long sadness, spoke again, and louder
than before, saying :
‘“ By God, Sir Ernault, it is as I tell you, and shortly we shall
106 VHE STORY OF ORTHON
have news; for never did the land of Béarn lose so much in one
day—no, not these hundred years—as it has lost this time in
Portugal.â€
‘Many knights and squires standing round who heard the Count
noted these words, and in ten days learned the truth from them
who had been in the fight, and who brought tidings, first to the
Count, and afterwards to all who would hear them, of what befell at
Juberot. Thereby was the Count’s grief renewed, and that of all
in the country who had lost brothers and fathers, sons and friends,
in the fray.’
‘Marry!’ said I to the Squire, who was telling me his tale, ‘and
how could the Count know or guess what befell? Gladly would
I learn this.’
‘By my faith,’ said the Squire, ‘he knew it well, as appeared.’
‘Is he a prophet, or has he messengers who ride at night with
the wind? Some art he must have.’
Then the Squire began to laugh.
‘Truly he must learn by some way of necromancy; we know
not here truly how he does it, save by phantasies.’
‘Ah, good sir, of these fancies prithee tell me, and I will be
grateful. If it is a matter to keep silent, silent will I keep it, and
never, while I am in this country, will I open my mouth thereon.’
‘I pray you do not, for I would not that any should know I
had spoken. Yet others talk of it quietly when they are among
their friends.’
Thereon he drew me apart into a corner of the castle chapel,
and then began his tale, and spoke thus:
‘It may be twenty years since there reigned here a baron
named Raymond, lord of Corasse, a town and castle seven leagues
from Orthez. Now, the lord of Corasse, at the. time of which I
speak, held a plea at Avignon before the Pope against a clerk of
Catalonia who laid claim to the tithes of his town, the said clerk
belonging to a powerful order, and claiming the right of the tithes
of Corasse, which, indeed, amounted toa yearly sum of one hun-
dred florins. This right he set forth and proved before all men,
for in his judgment, given in the Consistory General, Pope Urban V.
declared that the clerk had won his case, and that the Chevalier
had no ground for his claim. The sentence once delivered, letters
were given to the clerk enabling him to take possession, and he
rode so hard that in a very short time he reached Béarn, and by
virtue of the papal bull appropriated the tithes. The Sieur de
THE STORY OF ORTHON. 107
Corasge was right wroth with the clerk and his doings, and came
to him and said:
‘“ Master Martin, or Master Pierre, or whatever your name may
’
‘I will send you a champion whom you will fear more than
you fear me’
be, do you think that I am going to give up my rights just because
of those letters of yours? I scarce fancy you are bold enough to
lay hands on property of mine, for you will risk your life in’ the
108 THE STORY OF ORTHON
doing. Go elsewhere to seek a benefice, for of my rights you shall
have none, and this I tell you, once and for all.â€
‘The mind of the clerk misgave him, for he knew that the
Chevalier cared not for men’s lives, and he dared not persevere.
So he dropped his claims, and betook himself to his own country
orto Avignon. And when the moment had come that he was to de-
part, he entered into the presence of the Sieur de Corasse, and said :
‘« Sir, it is by force and not by right that you lay hands on the
property of the Church, of which you make such ill-use. In this
land you are stronger than I, but know that as soon as I may I will
send you a champion whom you will fear more than you fear me.â€
‘The Sieur de Corasse, who did not heed his words, replied :
*“ Go, do as you will; I fear you as little alive as dead. For all
your talk, I will never give up my rights.â€
‘Thus parted the clerk and the Sieur de Corasse, and the clerk
returned to his own country, but whether that was Avignon or
Catalonia I know not. But he did not forget what he had told the
Sieur de Corasse when he bade him farewell; for three months
after, when he expected it least, there came to the castle of Corasse,
while the Chevalier was quietly sleeping, certain invisible mes-
sengers, who began to throw about all that was in the castle, till it
seemed as if, truly, nothing would be left standing. The Chevalier
heard it all, but he said nought, for he would not be thought a
coward, and indeed he had courage enough for any adventure that
might befall.
‘These sounds of falling weights continued for along space, then
ceased suddenly.
‘When the morning came, the servants all assembled, and their
lord having arisen from bed they came to him and said, “Sir,
have you also heard that which we have heard this night?� And
the Sieur de Corasse hid it in his heart and answered, “ No; what
have you heard?â€â€™ And they told him how that all the furniture
was thrown down, and all the kitchen pots had been broken. But
he began to laugh, and said it was a dream, and that the wind had
caused it. “Ah no,†sighed his wife ; “I also have heard.â€
‘When the next night arrived, the noise-makers arrived too, and
made more disturbance than before, and gave great knocks at the
doors, and likewise at the windows of the Sieur de Corasse. And
the Chevalier leaped out of his bed and demanded, “ Who is it that
rocks my bed at this hour of the night?â€
‘And answer was made him, “ That which I am, I am.â€
THE STORY OF ORTHON 109
‘Then asked the Chevalier, “ By whom are you sent here?â€
“« By the clerk of Catalonia, to whom you have done great wrong,
for you have taken from him his rights and his heritage. Hence
you will never be suffered to dwell in peace till you have given
him what is his due, and he is content.â€
‘« And you, who are so faithful a messenger,†inquired the
Chevalier, “what is your name ?’’
‘«“ They call me Orthon.â€
‘“Orthon,†said the knight, “the service of a clerk is worth
nothing, and if you trust him, he will work you ill. Leave me in
peace, I pray you, and take service with me, and I shall be grate-
ful.â€
‘Now, the knight was pleasing to Orthon, so he answered, “Is
this truly your will?â€
«« Yes,†replied the Sieur de Corasse. “ Do no ill unto those that
dwell here, and I will cherish you, and we shall be as one.â€
‘“No,†spoke Orthon. ‘TI have no power save to wake you and
others, and to disturb you when you fain would sleep.â€
*“Doas I say,†said the Chevalier; “ we shall agree well, if only
you will abandon this wicked clerk. With him there is nothing
but pain, and if you serve me——-â€
*« Since it is your will,†replied Orthon, “it is mine also.â€
‘The Sieur de Corasse pleased Orthon so much that he came
often to see him in his sleep, and pulled away his pillow or gave
great knocks against the window of the room where he lay. And
when the Chevalier was awakened he would exclaim, “ Let me sleep,
I pray you, Orthon!â€
““ Not so,†said Orthon ; “I have news to give you.â€
«« And what news will you give me? Whence come you ?â€
‘Then said Orthon, “I come from England, or Germany, or
Hungary, or some other country, which I left yesterday, and such-
and-such things have happened.â€
‘Thus it was that the Sieur de Corasse knew so much when he
went into the world; and this trick he kept up for five or six years.
But in the end he could not keep silence, and made it known to
the Comte de Foix in the way I shall tell you.
‘The first year, whenever the Sieur de Corasse came into the
presence of the Count at Ortais or elsewhere, he would say to him:
“ Monseigneur, such-and-such a thing has happened in England, or
in Scotland, or in Germany, or in Flanders, or in Brabant, or in
some other country,†and the Comte de Foix marvelled greatly at
110 THE STORY OF ORTHON
these things. But one day he pressed the Sieur de Cofasse so hard
that the knight told him how it was he knew all that passed in the
world and who told him. When the Comte de Foix knew the
truth of the matter, his heart leapt with joy, and he said: ‘ Sieur de
Corasse, bind him to you in love. I wouldI had such a messenger.
He costs you nothing, and knows all that passes throughout -the
world.’’
‘« Monseigneur,â€â€™ said the Chevalier, “ thus will I do.â€
‘Thus the Sieur de Corasse was served by Orthon, and that for
long. I know not if Orthon had more than one master, but certain
it is that every week he came, twice or thrice during the night, to
tell to the Sieur de Corasse the news of all the countries that he had
visited, which the Sieur wrote at once to the Comte de Foix, who
was of all men most joyed in news from other lands. One day when
the Sieur de Corasse was with the Comte de Foix, the talk: fell
upon Orthon, and suddenly the Count inquired, “ Sieur de Corasse,
have you never seen your messenger ?â€â€™
‘ He answered, “ No, by my faith, Monseigneur, and I have never
even asked to.†:
‘« Well,†he replied, “it is very strange. If he had been as
friendly to me as he is to you, I should long ago have begged him
to show me who and what he is. And TI pray that you will do all
you can, so that I may know of what fashion he may be. You tell
me that his speech is Gascon, such as yours or mine.â€
‘« By my faith,†said the Sieur de Corasse, “itis only the truth.
His Gascon is as good as the best; and, since you advise it, I will
spare myself no trouble to see what he is like.â€
‘Two or three nights after came Orthon, and finding the Sieur de
Corasse sleeping soundly, he pulled the pillow, so as to wake him.
So the Sieur de Corasse awoke with a start and inquired, “ Who
is there?â€
‘ He answered, “I am Orthon.â€
‘* And whence do you come ?â€â€™
‘“ From Prague in Bohemia. ‘The Emperor of Rome is dead.â€
** And when did he die?â€
“«The day before yesterday.â€
“* And how far is it from Prague to this ?â€
‘« How far?’ he answered. ‘“ Why, it is sixty days’ journey.â€
«« And you have come so quickly ? â€
‘“ But, by my faith, I travel more quickly than the wind.â€
‘*« And have you wings?â€
THE STORY OF ORTHON lit
“* By my faith, no.â€
‘« How, then, do you fly so fast?â€
“Said Orthon, “ That does not concern you.â€
““No,â€â€™ he replied; “but-I would gladly see of what form you are.â€
‘Said Orthon, “ My form does not concern you. Content you
with what I tell you and that my news is true.â€
““ Now, as I live,†cried the Sieur de Corasse, “I should love
you better if I had but seen you.â€
‘Said Orthon, “Since you have such burning desire to see me,
the first thing you behold: to-morrow morning on getting out of
bed will be I.â€
‘« Tt is enough,†Snsgarsd the Sieur de Corasse. “Go. I take
leave of you for this night.â€
“When the day dawned, the Sieur de Corasse arose from his bed,
but his: wife was filled with such dread of meeting Orthon that she
feigned to be ill, and protested she would lie abed all day; for she
said, “ Suppose I were to see him ?â€
““ Now,†cried the Sieur de Corasse, “see what I do,†and he
jumped from his bed and sat upon the edge, and looked about for
Orthon; but he saw nothing. ‘Then he threw back the windows so
that he could note more clearly all that was in the room, but again
he saw nought of which he could say, ‘‘ That is Orthon.â€â€™
‘The day passed and night came. Hardly had the Sieur de
Corasse climbed up into his bed than Orthon arrived, and began to
talk to him, as his custom was.
‘““Go to, go to,†said the Sieur de Corasse; “you are but a
bungler.. You promised to show yourself to me yesterday, and you-
never appeared.â€
“«“ Never appeared,†said he. “ But I did, by my faith.â€
*“ You did not.â€
“« And did you see nothing,†said Orthon, “when you leapt
from your bed ?â€
‘The Sieur de Corasse thought for a little; then he answered.
“Yes,†he replied ; “ as I was sitting on my bed and thinking of you,
I noticed two long straws on the floor twisting about and playing
together.â€
‘« That was I,†said Orthon. “That was the form I had taken
upon me.â€
‘ Said the Sieur de Corasse : “ That is not enough. You must take
another form, so that I may see you and know you.â€
“*You ask so much that I shall become weary of you
â€
112 THE STORY OF ORTHON
and you will lose me,†re-
plied Orthon.
‘“You will never be-
come weary of me and I
shall never lose you,’ an-
swered the Sieur de Corasse;
“if only I see you once, I
shall be content.â€
‘So be it,†said Orthon;
“to-morrow you shall see
me, and take notice that
the first thing you see as
you leave your room will
beI.â€
‘““Té is enough,†spoke
the Sieur de Corasse ; “and
now go, for I fain would
Orthon’'s last appearance
THE STORY OF ORTHON 113
‘So Orthon went; and when it was the third hour next morning *
the Sieur de Corasse rose and dressed as was his custom, and, leaving
his chamber, came out into a gallery that looked into the central
court of the castle. He glanced down, and the first thing he saw
was a sow, larger than any he had ever beheld, but so thin that it
seemed nothing but skin and bone. The Sieur de Corasse was
troubled at the “sight of the pig, and said 7 his servants: “Set on
the dogs, and let them chase out that sow.’
‘The varlets departed and loosened the dogs, and urged them to
attack the sow, which uttered a great cry and looked at the Sieur
de Corasse, who stood leaning against one of the posts of his chamber.
They saw her no more, for she vanished, and no man could tell
whither she had gone.
‘Then the Sieur de Corasse entered into his room, pondering
deeply, for he remembered the words of Orthon and said to himself:
“T fear me that I have seen my messenger. I repent me that I
have set my dogs upon him, and the more that perhaps he will
never visit me again, for he has told me, not once ens many times,
that if I angered him he would depart from me.’
‘And in this he said well; for Orthon came no more to the castle
of Corasse, and in less than a year its lord himself was dead.’
2 Six o’clock.
114
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM
EARLY four hundred years ago, on May 12, 1496, Gustavus
Vasa was born in an old house in Sweden. His father was a
noble of a well-known Swedish family, and his mother could claim
as her sister one of the bravest and most unfortunate women of her
time. Now, it was the custom in those days that both boys and
girls should be sent when very young to the house of some great
lord to be taught their duties as pages or ladies-in-waiting, and to
be trained in all sorts of accomplishments. So when Gustavus Vasa
had reached the age of six or seven, he was taken away from all
his brothers and sisters and placed in the household of his uncle by
marriage, whose name was Sten Sture. At that time Sweden had
had no king of her own for a hundred years, when the kingdom had
become united with Norway and Denmark in the reign of Queen
Margaret bya treaty that is known in history as the Union of Calmar
(1897). As long as Queen Margaret lived the three kingdoms were
well-governed and happy ; but her successors were by no means as
wise as she, and at the period we are writing of the Danish stewards
of King Hans and his son, Christian II., oppressed and ill-treated
the Swedes in every possible way, and Sten Sture, regent though he
was, had no power to protect them. From time to time the
Danish kings came over to Sweden to look after their own interests,
and on one of these visits King Hans saw little Gustavus Vasa at
the house of Sten Sture in Stockholm. He is said to have taken
notice of the boy, and to have exclaimed grimly that Gustavus
would be a great man if he lived; and the Regent, thinking that
the less attention the King paid to his unwilling subjects the safer
their heads would be, at once sent the boy back to his father.
For some years Gustavus lived at home and had a merry time,
learning to shoot by hitting a mark with his arrows before he was
allowed any breakfast, and roaming all over the woods in his little
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM 115
coat of scarlet cloth. At thirteen he was sent for a time to school
at Upsala, where he learned music as well as other things, and even
Gustavus leaves school for good !
taught himself'to make musical instruments. One day, however,
the Danish schoolmaster spoke scornfully of the Swedes, and
12
116 HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM
Gustavus, dashing the sword which he carried through the book
before him, vowed vengeance on all Danes, and walked out of
the school for good.
As far as we know, Gustavus probably remained with his father
for the next few years, and we next hear of him in 1514 at the Court
of Sten Sture the younger. Already he had obtained a reputation
among his friends both for boldness and caution, and though so young
had learned experience by carefully watching all that was going
on around him. His enemies, too, even the wicked Archbishop
Trolle of Upsala, had begun to fear him without knowing exactly
why, and he had already made a name for himself by his courage
at the Swedish victory of Brinkyrka, when the standard was
borne by Gustavus through the thickest of the fight. This battle
dashed to the ground the King’s hopes of getting Sten Sture, the
Regent, into his power by fair means, so he cried treachery to
persuade the Swede to enter his ship. But the men of Stockholm
saw through his wiles and declined this proposal, and the King was
driven to offer the Swedes a meeting in a church, on condition
that Gustavus Vasa and five other distinguished nobles should be
sent first on board as hostages. This was agreed to; but no sooner
had the young men put off in their boat than a large Danish vessel
cut off their retreat, and they were at once carried off to Denmark
as prisoners.
For one moment it seemed likely that Gustavus would be hanged,
and Sweden remain in slavery for many years longer, and indeed,
if his life was spared, it was only because Christian thought it might
be to his own advantage. Still, spared it was, and the young man
was delivered to the care of a distant relation in Jutland, who was
to forfeit 4002. in case of his escape. Here things were made as
pleasant to him as possible, and he was allowed to hunt and shoot,
though always attended by keepers.
One day, after he had behaved with such prudence that his
keepers had almost given up watching him, he managed, while
strolling in the great park, to give them the slip, and to hide
himself where there was no chance of anyone finding him. He
contrived somehow to get hold of a pilgrim’s dress; then that
of a cattie-driver, and in this disguise he made his way to the free
city of Liibeck, and threw himself on the mercy of the burgo-
master or mayor. By this time his enemies were on his track, and
his noble gaoler, Sir Eric Bauer, claimed him as an escaped prisoner.
But the people of Liibeck, who at that moment had a trade quarrel
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA.WON HIS KINGDOM 117
with Denmark, declared that the fugitive was not a prisoner who
had broken his parole, but a hostage who had been carried off by
treachery, and refused to give him up, though perhaps their own
interest had more to do with their steadfastness than right and
justice. As it was, Gustavus was held fast in Liibeck for eight
months before they would let him go, and it was not until May
1520 that he crossed thé Baltic in a little fishing-smack, and sailed
for Stockholm, then besieged by Danish ships and defended by the
widow of the Regent. But finding the town closely invested, he
made for Calmar, and after a short stay in the castle he found his
way into the heart of the country, learning sadly at every step how
the worst enemies of Sweden were the Swedes themselves, who
betrayed each other to their Danish foes for jealousy and gold.
Iike Prince Charlie, however, he was soon to find faithful hearts
ainong his countrymen, and for every traitor there were at least a
hundred who were true. While hiding on his father’s property, he
sent some of his tenants to Stockholm, to find out the state of affairs
there. The news they brought was terrible. A fearful massacre,
known in history as. the Blood Bath, had taken place by order of
the King. Citizens, bishops, nobles, and even servants had been
executed in the public market, and the King’s thirst for blood was
not satisfied until some hundreds of Swedes had laid down their
lives. Among those who fell on the first day was the father of
Gustavus Vasa, who is said to have indignantly rejected the pardon
offered him by the King for his fidelity to his country. ‘No,’ he
exclaimed; ‘let me die with all these honest men.’ So he died, and
his son-in-law after him, and his wife, her mother, sister, and three
daughters were thrown into prison, where some of them were
starved to death. To crown all, a price was set on the head of
Gustavus.
On hearing this last news Gustavus resolved to take refuge in
the province of Dalecarlia, and to trust to the loyalty of the peasants.
By this time it was the end of November (1520), and the snow lay
thick upon the ground; but this was rather in his favour, as his
enemies would be less likely to pursue bim. So he cut his hair
short and put on the dress of a peasant, which in those days
consisted of » short, thick jacket, breeches with huge buttons, anda
low soft hat. Then he bought an axe and plunged into the forest.
Here he soon made a friend for life in a very tall, strong woodcutter,
known to his neighbours by the name of the ‘Bear-slayer.’ This wood-
cutter was employed by a rich man, Petersen by name, who had a
118 HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM
large property near by, and had been at school with Gustavus Vasa.
at Upsala. But hearing that Danish spies were lurking around,
Gustavus would not confide even in him, but patiently did what
work was given him like a common servant. An accident betrayed
him. A maid-servant happened one -day to see the golden collar
that Gustavus wore next his skin, and told her master. Petersen
then recognised his old schoolfellow; but knowing that he would
lose his own head if he gave him shelter, he advised the young noble
to leave his hiding-place, and take shelter with another old friend,
Arendt, who had once served under him. Here he was received
with open arms; but this hospitality only concealed treachery, for
his old comrade had formed a close friendship with the Danish
stewards who ruled the land, and only wanted an opportunity to
deliver Gustavus up to them. However, he was careful not to let
his guest see anything of his plan, and even pretended to share his
schemes for ridding the country of the enemy. So he hid Gustavus
in an attic, where he assured him he would be perfectly safe, and
left him, saying he would go round to all the neighbouring estates
to enlist soldiers for their cause. But of course he was only going
to give information about Gustavus, and to gain the reward.
Now, it was only an accident that prevented his treachery being
successful. The first man he applied to, though a friend to the
Danes, scorned to take a mean advantage of anyone, and told the
traitor to go elsewhere.
Furiously angry, but greedy and determined as ever, the traitor
set forth for the house of the Danish steward who lived nearest,
well knowing that from him he would receive nothing but grati-
tude.
But the traitor’s wife happened to be standing at her own door
as her husband drove by, and guessed what had occurred and
where he was going. She was an honest woman, who despised all
that was base and underhand, so she stole out to one of her servants
whom she could trust, and ordered him to make ready a sledge, for
he would have to go on a journey. Then, in order that no one
should know of Gustavus’s escape until it was too late to overtake
him, she let him down out of the window into the sledge, which
drove off at once, across a frozen lake and past the copper-mines of
Fahlun, to a little village at the far end, where Gustavus left his
deliverer, giving him a beautiful silver dagger as a parting gift.
Sheltered by one person after another, and escaping many
dangers on the way, Gustavus found himself at last in the cottage of
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM 119
one of the royal foresters, where he received a hospitable welcome
from the man and his wife. But unknown to himself, Danish
‘Lazy loon! Have you no work to do?’
spies had been for some time on his track, and no sooner had
Gustavus sat down to warm his tired limbs before the fire where
120 HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM
the forester’s wife was baking bread, than they entered and inquired
if Gustavus Vasa had been seen to pass that way. Another
moment and they might have become curious about the stranger
sitting at the hearth, when the woman hastily turned round, and
struck him on the shoulder with the huge spoon she held in her
hand. ‘Lazy loon!’ she cried. ‘ Have you no work to do? Off with
you at once and see to your threshing.’ The Danes only saw before
them a common Swedish servant bullied by his mistress, and it
never entered their heads to ask any questions; so once again
~ Gustavus was saved.
Next day the forester hid him under a load of hay, and prepared
to drive him through the forest to the houses of some friends—
foresters like himself—who lived in a distant village. But Gustavus
was not to reach even this place witnout undergoing a danger
different from those he had met with before; for while they were
jogging peacefully along the road they came across one of the
numerous parties of Danes who were for ever scouring the country,
and on seeing the cart a man stepped up, and thrust through the
hay with his spear. Gustavus, though wounded, managed not to
ery out, but reached, faint with loss of blood, his next resting-
place.
After spending several days hidden among the boughs of a fir-tree,
till the Danes began to think that their information must be false
and Gustavus be looked for elsewhere, the fugitive was guided by
one peasant after another through the forests till he found himself
at the head of a large lake, and in the centre of many thickly-peopled
villages. Here he assembled the dwellers in the country round, and
spoke to them in the churchyard, telling of the wrongs that Sweden
had suffered and of her children that had been slain. The peasants
were moved by his words, but they did not wish to plunge into a war
till they were sure.of being successful, so they told Gustavus that
they must find out something more before they.took arms; mean-
time he was driven to seek a fresh hiding-place.
Gustavus was terribly dejected at the downiall of his hopes, for
he had thought, with the help of the peasants, to raise at once the
standard of rebellion ; still he saw that flight was the only chance just
now, and Norway seemed his best refuge. However, some fresh
acts of tyranny on the part of their Danish masters did what
Gustavus’s own words had failed to do, and suddenly the peasants
took their resolve and sent for Gustavus to be their leader.
The messengers found him at the foot of the Dovre-Fjeld Moun-
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM 121
tains between Norway and Sweden, and he joyfully returned with
them, rousing the people as he went, till at last he had got
together a force that far outnumbered the army which was sent to
meet it.
Gustavus was not present at the first battle, which was fought
on the banks of the Dale River, for he was travelling about preach-
ing arising among the Swedes of the distant provinces, but he
arrived just after, to find that the peasants had gained an over-
whelming victory. The fruits of this first victory were far-reaching.
It gave the people confidence, thousands flocked to serve under
Gustavus’s banner, and within a few months the whole country,
excepting Stockholm and Calmar, was in his hands. Then the
nobles, in gratitude to their deliverer, sought to proclaim him king,
but this he refused as long as a single Swedish castle remained
beneath the Danish yoke, so for two more years he ruled Sweden
under the title of Lord Protector. Then in 1528, when Stockholm
and Calmar at last surrendered, Gustavus Vasa was crowned king.' -
* Chapman's History of Gustavus Vasa,
MONSIEUR DE BAYARD’S DUEL
OW, when Monsieur de Bayard was fighting in the kingdom of
Naples, he made prisoner a valiant Spyanish captain, Don
Alonzo de Soto-Mayor by name, who, not liking his situation, com-
plained of the treatment he received, which he said was unworthy
of his dignity as a knight. This was, however, quite absurd, and
against all reason, for, as all the world knows, there never was a
man more courteous than Monsieur de Bayard. At length, Mon-
sieur de Bayard, wearied with the continued grumblings of the
Spaniard, sent him a challenge. This was at once accepted,
whether the duel should be fought on foot or on horseback, for Don
Alonzo refused to withdraw anything that he had said of the
French knight.
When the day arrived, Monsieur de la Palisse, accompanied by
two hundred gentlemen, appeared on the ground, escorting their
champion Monsieur de Bayard, mounted on a beautiful horse, and
dressed all in white, as a mark of humility, the old chronicler tells
us. But Don Alonzo, to whom belonged the ‘choice of arms,
declared that he preferred to fight on foot, because (he pretended)
he was not so skilful a horseman as Monsieur de Bayard, but really
because he knew that his adversary had that day an attack of
malarial fever, and he hoped to find him weakened, and so to get
the better of him. Monsieur de la Palisse and Bayard’s other
supporters advised him, from the fact of his fever, to excuse him-
self, and to insist on fighting on horseback ; but Monsieur de Bayard,
who had never trembled before any man, would make no difficulties,
and agreed to everything, which astonished Don Alonzo greatly, as
he had expected a refusal. An enclosure was formed by a few
large stones piled roughly one on another. Monsieur de Bayard
placed himself at one end of the ground, accompanied by several
brave captains, who all began to offer up prayers for their champion.
Don Alonzo and his friends took up a position at the other end,
MONSIEUR DE BAYARD’S DUEL 123
and sent Bayard the weapons that they had chosen—namely, a short
sword and a poignard, with a gorget and coat of mail. Monsieur
de Bayard did not trouble himself enough about the matter to
raise any objection. For second he had an old brother-at-arms,
Bel-Arbre by name, and for keeper of the ground Monsieur de la
Palisse, who was very well skilled in all these things. The Spaniard
also chose a second and a keeper of the ground. So when the
‘Surrender, Don Alonzo, or you are a dead man!’
combatants had taken their places, they both sank on their knees
and prayed to God; but Monsieur de Bayard fell on his face and
kissed the earth, then, rising, made the sign of the cross, and went
straight for his enemy, as calmly, says the old chronicler, as if he
were in a palace, and leading out a lady to the dance.
Don Alonzo on his side came forward to meet him, and asked,
‘Seftor Bayardo, what do you want of me?’ He answered, ‘ Tc
defend my honour,’ and without more words drew near ; and each
124 MONSIEUR DE BAYARD’S DUHL
thrust hard with the sword, Don Alonzo getting a slight wound on
his face. After that, they thrust at each other many times more,
without touching. Monsieur de Bayard soon discovered the ruse of
his adversary, who no sooner delivered his thrusts than he at once
covered his face so that no hurt could be done him; and he bethought
himself of a way to meet it. So, the moment Don Alonzo raised his
arm to give athrust, Monsieur de Bayard also raised his; but he kept
his sword in the air, without striking a blow, and when his enemy’s
weapon had passed harmlessly by him, he could strike where he
chose, and gave such a fearful blow at the throat that, in spite of
the thickness of the gorget, the sword entered to the depth of
four whole fingers, and he could not pull it out. Don Alonzo,
feeling that he had got his death-blow, dropped his sword and
grasped Monsieur de Bayard round the body, and thus wrestling
they both fell to the ground. But Monsieur de Bayard, quick to
see and to do, seized his sword, and, holding it to the nostrils
of his enemy, he cried, ‘Surrender, Don Alonzo, or you are a dead
man;’ but he got no answer, for Don Alonzo was dead already.
Then his second, Don Diego de Guignonnes, came forward and said,
‘Setior Bayardo, you have conquered him,’ which everyone could
see for himself. But Monsieur. de Bayard was much grieved, for,
says the chronicler, he would have given a hundred thousand
crowns, 1f he had had them, to have made Don Alonzo surrender.
Still, he was grateful to God for having given him the victory, and
gave thanks, and, kneeling down, kissed the earth three times.
And after the body of Don Alonzo was carried from the ground, he
said to the second, ‘Don Diego, my lord, have I done enough?’
And Don Diego answered sadly, ‘Enough and too much, Sefor
Bayardo, for the honour of Spain.’ ‘You know,’ said Monsieur de
Bayard, ‘that as the victor the body is mine to do as I will, but I
yield it to you; and truly, I would that, my honour satisfied,
it had fallen out otherwise.’ So the Spaniards bore away their
champion with sobs and tears, and the French led off the conqueror
with shouts of joy, and the noise of trumpets and clarions, to the
tent of Monsieur de la Palisse, after which Monsieur de Bayard
went straight to the church to give thanks in that he had gained
the victory. Thus it happened to the greater renown of Monsieur
de Bayard, who was esteemed not only by the French, his country-
men, but by the Spaniards of the kingdom of Naples, to be a
peerless knight, who had no equal look where you may.!
* Brantome.
125
STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES!
HERE was a man named Gudbrand of the Dales, who was as
good as king over the Dales though he had but the title of
duke. He had one son, of whom this story makes mention.
Now when Gudbrand heard that King Olaf was come to Loa and
was compelling men to receive Christianity, he cut the war-arrow
and summoned all the dalesmen to meet him at the village called
Houndthorpe. Thither came they all in countless nunibers, for
the lake Logr lies near, and they could come by water as well as
by land.
There Gudbrand held an assembly with them, and said: ‘There
is aman come to Loa named Olaf; he would fain offer us a faith
other than we had before, and break all our gods in sunder. And
he says that he has a God far greater and mightier. A wonder it
is that the earth does not burst in sunder beneath him who dares
to say such things ; a wonder that our gods let him any longer walk
thereon. And I expect that if we carry Thor out of our temple,
wherein he stands and hath alway helped us, and he see Olaf and
his men, then will Olaf's God and Olaf himself and all his men
melt away and come to nought.’
At this they all at once shouted loud, and said that Olaf should
" never escape alive if he came to meet them. ‘Never will he dare
to go further south by the. Dales,’ said they. Then they appointed
seven hundred men to go and reconnoitre northwards to Breida.-
This foree was commanded by Gudbrand’s son, then eighteen
years old, and many other men of renown with him; and they
came to the village called Hof and were there for three nights,
where they were joined by much people who had fled from Lesja
Loa and Vagi, not being willing to submit to Christianity.
But King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd, after appointing teachers of
1 From the Saga of King Olaf the Holy, or St. Olaf.
126 STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES
religion at Loa and Vagi, crossed over the channel between Vagi
and the land and came to Sil, and were there for the night; and
they heard the tidings that a large force was before them. And
the people of the country who were at Breida heard of the King’s
movements, and prepared for battle against him. But when the
King rose in the morn, then he clad him for war, and marched south
by Silfield, nor stayed till he came to Breida, where he saw a large
army arrayed for battle.
Then the King set his men in array and rode himself before
them, and, addressing the country-folk, bade them embrace Chris-
tianity.
They answered: ‘Thou wilt have other work to do to-day
than to mock us.’
And they shouted a war-shout and smote their shields with
their weapons. Then the King’s men ran forward and hurled their
spears ; but the country-folk turned and fled, few of them standing
their ground. Gudbrand’s son was there taken prisoner; but King
Olaf gave him quarter and kept him near himself. Three nights
the King was there. Then spake he with Gudbrand’s son, saying:
‘Go thou back now to thy father and tell him that I shall come
there soon.’
Whereupon he went back home and told his father the ill
tidings, how they had met the King and fought with him; ‘ but our
people all fled at the very first,’ said he, ‘and I was taken prisoner.
The King gave me quarter, and bade me go and tell thee that he
would come here soon. Now have we left no more than two
hundred men out of that force with which we met him, and I
advise thee, father, not to fight with that man.’
‘One may hear,’ said Gudbrand, ‘that all vigour is beaten put
of thee. Ill luck went with thee, and long will thy journey ke
spoken of. Thou believest at once those mad fancies which that
man brings who hath wrought foul shame on thee and thine.’
In the following night Gudbrand dreamed a dream. A man
came to him, a shining one, from whom went forth great terror.
And thus he spake: ‘Thy son went not ona path of victory
against King Olaf; and far worse wilt thou fare if thou resolvest
to do battle with the King, for thou wilt fall, thyself and all thy
people, and thee and thine will wolves tug and ravens rend.’
Much afraid was Gudbrand at this terror, and told it to Thord
Fat-paunch, a chief man of the Dales.
He answered : ‘ Just the same vision appeared to me.’
STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES 127
And on the morrow they bade the trumpet-blast summon an
assembly, and said that they thought it good counsel to hold a
conference with that man who came from
the north with new doctrine, and to learn
what proofs he could bring.
es After this Gudbrand said to his son:
‘Thou shalt go to the King who spared thy
i Ww life, and twelve men shall go with thee.’
And so it was done.
‘In the following night Gudbrand dreamed a dream’
128 STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES
And they came to the King and told him their errand—that the
country-folk would fain hold a conference with him, and would
have a truce between them. The King liked that well, and they
settled it so by a treaty between them till the appointed meeting
should be; and this done they went back and told Gudbrand and
Thord of the truce. The King then went to the village called
Lidsstadir, and stayed there five nights. Then he went to meet
the country-folk, and held a conference with them; but the day
was very wet.
As soon as the conference was met, the King stood up and said
that the dwellers in Lesja Loa and Vagi had accepted Christianity
and broken down their heathen house of worship, and now believed
in the true God who made heaven and earth and knew all things.
Then the King sat down; but Gudbrand answered:
‘We know not of whom thou speakest. Thou callest him God
whom neither, thou seest nor anyone else. But we have that god
who may be seen every day, though he is not out to-day because
the weather is wet; and terrible will he seem to you, and great
fear will, I expect, strike your hearts if he come into. our assembly.
But since thou sayest that your God is so ‘powerful, then let Him
cause that to-morrow the weather be cloudy but without rain, and
meet we here again.’ ;
Thereafter the King went home to his lodging, and with him
Gudbrand’s son as a hostage, while the King gave them another
man in exchange. In the evening the King asked Gudbrand’s son
how their god was made. He said that he was fashioned to re-
present Thor: he had a hammer in his hand, and was tall of
stature, hollow within, and there was a pedestal under him on
which he stood when out-of-doors ; nor was there lack of gold and
silver upon him. Four loaves of bread were brought to him every
day, and flesh-meat therewith. After this talk they went to bed.
But the King was awake all night and at his prayers.
With dawn of day the King went to mass, then to meat, then
to the assembly. And the weather was just what Gudbrand
had bargained for. Then stood up the bishop in his gown, with
mitre on head and crozier in hand; and he spoke of the faith
before the country-folk, and told of the many miracles which God
had wrought, and brought his speech to an eloquent conclusion.
Then answered Thord Fat-paunch: ‘ Plenty of words has that
horned one who holds a staff in his hand crooked at the top like a
wether’s horn. But seeing that you, my good fellows, claim that
STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES 129
your God works so many miracles, bespeak of Him for to-morrow
that He let it be bright sunshine; and meet we then, and do one
of the twain, either agree on this matter or do battle.’
And with that they broke up the assembly for the time.
There was aman with King Olaf named Kolbein Strong; he was
from the Firths by kin. He had ever this gear, that he was girded
with a sword, and had a large cudgel or club in his hand. The
King bade Kolbein be close to him on the morrow. And then he
said to his men: :
‘Go ye to-night where the country-folk’s ships are, and bore
holes in them all, and drive away from their farm-buildings their
yoke-horses.’ And they did so.
But the King spent the night in prayer, praying God that H>
would solve this difficulty of His goodness and mercy. And when
service times were over (and that was towards daybreak) then
went he to the assembly. When he came there but few of the
country-folk had come. But soon they saw a great multitude
coming to the assembly; and they bare among them a huge image
of a man, all glittering with gold and silver; which when those
who were already at the assembly saw, they all leapt up and bowed
before this monster. Then was it set up in the middle of the place
of assembly: on the one side sat the folk of the country, on the
other the King and his men.
Then up stood Gudbrand of the Dales and spake: ‘ Where is
now thy God, O King? Methinks now He boweth His beard full
low; and, as I think, less is now thy bragging and that of the
horned one whom ye call bishop, and who sits beside thee—yea,
less than it was yesterday. For now is come our god who rules
all, and he looks at you with keen glance, and I see that ye are now
full of fear and hardly dare to lift your eyes. Lay down now your
superstition and believe in our god, who holds all your counsel in
his hand.’ And so his words were ended.
The King spake with Kolbein Strong, so that the country-folk
knew it not: ‘If it so chance while I am speaking that they look
away from their god, then strike him the strongest blow thou canst
with thy club.’
Then the King stood up and spake: ‘ Plenty of words hast thou
spoken to us this morning. Thou thinkest it strange that thou
canst not see our God; but we expect that He will soon come to us.
Thou goest about to terrify us with thy god, who is blind and deaf
and can neither help himself nor others, and can in no way leave
R K
130 STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES
his place unless he be carried; and I expect now that evil is close
upon him. Nay, look now and see toward the east, there goeth
now our God with great light.’
Just then up sprang the sun, and toward the sun looked the
country-folk all. But in that moment Kolbein dealt such a blow
The destruction of the idol
on their god that he burst all asunder, and thereout leapt rats as
big as cats, and vipers and snakes.
But the country-folk fled in terror, some to their ships, which
when they launched, the water poured in and filled them, nor could
they so get away, and some who ran for their horses found them
not. Then the King had them called back and said he would fain
STORY OF GUDBRAND OF THE DALES 131
speak with them; whereupon ‘the country-folk turned back and
assembled.
Then the King stood up and spake.
‘I know not,’ said he, ‘what means this tumult and rushing
about that ye make. But now may well be seen what power your
god has, whom ye load with gold and silver, meat and food,
and now ye see what creatures have enjoyed all this—rats and
snakes, vipers and toads. And worse are they who believe in such
things, and will not quit their folly. Take ye your gold and jewels
that are here now on the field and carry them home to your wives,
and never put them again on stocks or stones. But now there are
two choices for us: that you accept Christianity or do battle with
me to-day. And may those win victory to whom it is willed by the
God in whom we believe.’
Then stood up Gudbrand of the Dales and spake: ‘Much
scathe have we gotten now in our god; but, as he cannot help
himself, we will now believe in the God in whom thou believest.’
And so they all accepted Christianity.
Then did the bishop baptize Gudbrand and his son. King Olaf
and Bishop Sigurd left religious teachers there, and they parted
friends who before were foes. And Gudbrand had a church built
there in the Dales.
EQ
182
SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE
IR RICHARD GRENVILLE, of Bideford, in Devon, was one
of the most noted admirals in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Although he had large estates, and was very rich, he liked better
to go abroad to the new countries just then discovered, or to fight
for his country, than to stay at home.
From his wonderful courage and determination never to fly from
an enemy, however great the odds might be against him, he -had
the good fortune to win glory in the most glorious sea-fight that
has ever been fought.
In 1591 he was vice-admiral of a small fleet consisting of six
line of battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, under
the command of Lord Thomas Howard. In the month of August
in that year, they lay at anchor off the island of Flores, where they
had put in for a fresh supply of water, and to take in ballast, as well
as to refresh the crew, for many of them were sick.
Half of the crew of Grenville’s ship were disabled and were on
shore, when news was brought that a Spanish Armada, consisting
of fifty-three ships, was near at hand.
When the admiral heard it, knowing himself to be at a disad-
vantage, he instantly signalled to the rest of the fleet to cut or
weigh their anchors and to follow him out to sea.
All the commanders obeyed his summons but Sir Richard
Grenville, whose duty as vice-admiral was to follow at the rear of
the fleet; he also waited until his men who were on shore could
rejoin him.
Meanwhile he had everything set in readiness to fight, and all
the sick were carried to the lower hold.
The rest of the English ships were far away, hull down on the
horizon, and the Spaniards, who had come up under cover of the
island, were already bearing down in two divisions on his weather-
bow before the ‘ Revenge’ was ready to sail. Then the master and
SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE 133
others, seeing the hopelessness of their case, begged Sir Richard
to trust to the good sailing of his ship, ‘ to cut his maine saile and
cast about, and to follow the admiral.’
But Sir Richard flew into a terrible passion, and swore he would
hang any man who should then show himself to be a coward. ‘That
he would rather choose to dye than to dishonour himselfe, his
countrie, and her maiestie’s shippe.’
He boldly told his men that he feared no enemy, that he would
yet pass through the squadron and force them to give him way.
Then ‘were the hundred men on the ‘Revenge’ who were able
to fight and to work the ship, fired with the spirit of their commander,
and they sailed out to meet the foe with a cheer.
All went well for a little time, and the ‘ Revenge’ poured a
broadside into those ships of the enemy that she passed. But
presently a great ship named ‘San Felipe’ loomed over her path
and took the wind out of her sails, so that she could no longer
answer to her helm.
While she lay thus helplessly, all her sails of a sudden slack and
sweeping the yards, she fired her lower tier, charged with crossbar
shot, into the‘ San Felipe.’ Then the unwieldy galleon of a thousand
and five hundred tons, which bristled with cannon from stem to
stern, had good reason to repent her of her temerity, and ‘shifted
herselfe with all dilligence from her sides, utterly misliking her
entertainment.’ It is said she foundered shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile four more Spanish vessels had come up alongside the
‘Revenge,’ and lay two on her larboard and two on her starboard.
Then a hand to hand fight began in terrible earnest. As those
soldiers in the ships alongside were repulsed or thrown back into
the sea, yet were their places filled with more men from the galleons
around, who brought fresh ammunition and arms. ‘The Spanish
ships were filled with soldiers, in some were two hundred besides
mariners, in some five hundred, in others eight hundred.
‘And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his
ears when he leaps from the water to the land.’
Grenville was severely hurt at the beginning of the fight, but he
paid no heed to his wound, and stayed on the upper decks to cheer
and encourage his men. Two of the Spanish ships were sunk by
his side, yet two more came in their places, and ever and ever more
as their need might be.
Darkness fell upon the scene, and through the silence the
musketry fire crackled unceasingly, and the heavy artillery boomed
134 SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE
from time to time across the sea. About an hour before midnight
Grenville was shot in the body, and while his wound was being
dressed, the surgeon who attended him was killed, and at the same
time Grenville was shot again in the head.
Still he cried to his men, ‘ Fight on, fight on!’
Before dawn the Spaniards, weary of the fight that had raged for
‘Still he cried to his men, “ Fight on, fight on !’’?
fifteen hours, that had cost them fifteen ships and fifteen hundred
men, had drawn off to a little distance, and lay around her in a
ring.
Daylight discovered the little ‘Revenge’ a mere water-logged
hulk, with rigging and tackle shot away, her masts overboard, her
upper works riddled, her pikes broken, all her powder spent, and
forty of her best inen slain.
SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE 185
The glow that heralded sunrise shot over the sky and stained
the placid waters beneath to crimson. In this sea of blood the
wreck lay, her decks ruddy with the stain of blood sacrificed for
honour.
She lay alone at the mercy of the waves, and unable to move
save by their rise and fall, alone with her wounded and dying and
her dead to whom could come no help.
Then Sir Richard Grenville called for the master gunner, whom
he knew to be both brave and trusty, and told him to sink the
ship, so that the Spaniards might have no glory in their conquest. He
besought his sailors to trust themselves to the mercy of God, and
not to the mercy of men, telling them that for the honour of their
country the greater glory would be theirs if they would consent to
die with him.
The gunner and many others cried, ‘ Ay, ay, sir,’ and consented
to the sinking of the ship.
But the captain and master would not agree to it: they told Sir
Richard that the Spanish admiral would be glad to listen to a com-
position, as themselves were willing to do. Moreover there were
still some men left who were not mortally wounded, and who
might yet live to do their country good service. They told him
too that the Spaniard could never glory in having taken the ship,
for she had six feet of water in the hold already, as well as three
leaks from shot under water, that could not be stopped to resist a
heavy sea. :
But Sir Richard would not listen to any of their reasoning.
Meanwhile the master had gone to the general of the Armada,
Don Alfonso Baffan, who, knowing Grenville’s determination to fight
to the last, was afraid to send any of his men on board the ‘ Re-
venge ’ again, lest they should be blown up or sink on board of her.
The general yielded that ‘all their lives should be saved, the
companie sent for England, and the better sorte to pay such reason-’
able ransome as their estate would beare, and in the meane season
to be free from galley or imprisonment.’
. After the men had heard what the captain said they became
unwilling to die, and with these honourable terms for surrender
they drew back from Sir Richard and the master gunner. ‘The
maister gunner, finding himselfe prevented and maistered by the
greater number, would have slaine himselfe with a sword had he
not beene by force withheld and locked into his cabben.’
Then the Spanish general sent to the ‘Revenge’ to bring Sir
136 SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE
Richard to his own ship; for he greatly admired his wonderful
courage.
Sir Richard told him they might do what they chose with his
body, for he did not care for it; and as he was: being carried from
his ship in a fainting state, he asked those of his men near him to
pray for him.
He only lived for three days after this, but was treated with the
greatest courtesy and kindness by the Spaniards. He did not speak
again until he was dying, when he said:
‘Here am I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind,
for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that
hath fought for his country, Queen, religion, and honour. Whereby
my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always
leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier,
that hath done his dutie as he was bound to do.’
137
THE STORY OF MOLLY PITCHER
T is a strange and interesting thing to see how history repeats
itself in a series of noble and picturesque incidents which are
so much alike that they might be easily mistaken for one another.
Perhaps in the years to come they will be mistaken for one
another, and then those learned scholars who love to deny all the
things that are worth believing will say, as they say now of
William Tell and the apple: ‘Whenever an event is represented
as happening in different countries and among different nations,
we may be sure that it never happened at all.’ Yet to Spain
belongs Augustina, the Maid of Saragossa; to England, brave
Mary Ambree; and to America, Molly Pitcher, the stout-hearted
heroine of Monmouth ; and these three women won for themselves
honour and renown by the same valorous exploits. .Augustina is
the most to be envied, for her praises have been sung by a great
poet; Mary Ambree has a noble ballad to perpetuate her fame ;
Molly Pitcher is still without the tribute of a verse to remind her
countrymen occasionally of her splendid courage in the field.
The Spanish girl was of humble birth, young, poor, and very
handsome. When Saragossa was besieged by the French during
the Peninsular War, she carried food every afternoon to the soldiers
who were defending the batteries. One day the attack was so
fierce, and the fire so deadly, that by the gate of Portillo not a
single man was left alive to repulse the terrible enemy. When
Augustina reached the spot with her basket of coarse and scanty
provisions, she saw the last gunner fall bleeding on the walls. Not
for an instant did she hesitate ; but springing over a pile of dead
bodies, she snatched the match from his stiffening fingers and fired
the gun herself. Then calling on her countrymen to rally their
broken ranks, she led them back so unflinchingly to the charge that
the French were driven from the gate they had so nearly captured,
and the honour of Spain was saved. When the siege was lifted
138 THE STORY OF MOLLY PITCHER
and the city free a pension was settled on Augustina, together with
the daily pay of an artilleryman, and she was permitted to wear upon
her sleeve an embroidered shield bearing the arms.of Saragossa.
Lord Byron, in his poem ‘ Childe Harold,’ has described her beauty
her heroism, and the desperate courage with which she defended
the breach :
‘ Who can avenge so well a leader’s fall ?
What maid retrieve when man’s flushed hope is lost !
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foiled by a woman’s hand before a battered wall ?’
For the story of Mary Ambree we must leave the chroniclers—
who to their own loss and shame never mention her at all—and
take refuge with the poets. From them we learn all we need to
know, and it is quickly told. Her lover was slain treacherously in
the war between Spain and Holland, the English being then allies
of the Dutch; and, vowing to avenge his death, she put on his
armour and marched to the siege of Ghent, where she fought with
reckless courage on its walls. Fortune favours. the brave, and
wherever the maiden turned her arms the enemy was repulsed,
until at last the gallant Spanish soldiers vied with the English in
admiration of this valorous foe :
‘Tf England doth yield such brave lassies as thee,
Full well may she conquer, faire Mary Ambree.’
Even the Great Prince of Parma desired to see this dauntless
young girl, and finding her as chaste as she was courageous and
beautiful, he permitted her to sail for home without any molesta-
tion from his army.
‘Then to her own country she back did returne,
Still holding the foes of faire England in scorne ;
Therefore English captaines of every degree
Sing forth the brave valours of Mary Ambree.’
And now for Molly Pitcher, who, unsung and almost unremem-
bered, should nevertheless share in the honours heaped so liberally
upon the Spanish and English heroines. ‘A red-haired, freckled-
faced young Irishwoman,’ without beauty and without distinction,
she was the newly-wedded wife of an artilleryman in Washington’s
little army. On June 28, 1778, was fought the battle of Monmouth,
famous for the admirable tactics by which Washington regained
THE STORY OF MOLLY PITCHER 139
the advantages lost through the negligence of General Charles Lee,
and also for the splendid charge and gallant death of Captain
Moneton, an officer of the English grenadiers. It was a Sunday
morning, close and sultry. As the day advanced, the soldiers
on both sides suffered terribly from that fierce, unrelenting heat in
which America rivals India. The thermometer stood at 96 in
Molly takes her husband’s place
the shade. Men fell dead in their ranks without a wound, smitten
by sunstroke, and the sight of them filled their comrades with dis-
may. Molly Pitcher, regardless of everything save the anguish of
the sweltering, thirsty troops, carried buckets of water from a
neighbouring spring, and passed them along the line. Back and
forward she trudged. this strong, brave, patient young woman, while
140 THH STORY OF MOLLY PITCHER
the sweat poured down her freckled face, and her bare arms:
blistered in the sun. She was along time in reaching her husband—
so many soldiers begged for drink as she toiled by—but at last she
saw him, parched, grimy, spent with heat, and she quickened her
lagging steps. Then suddenly a ball whizzed past, and he fell
dead by the side of his gun before ever the coveted water had
touched his blackened lips. Molly dropped her bucket, and for one
dazed moment stood staring at the bleeding corpse. Only for a
moment, for, amid the turmoil of battle, she heard the order given
to drag her husband's cannon from the field. The words roused
her to life and purpose. She seized the rammer from the trodden
grass, and hurried to the gunner’s post. There was nothing
strange in the work to her. She was too well versed in the ways
of war for either ignorance or alarm... ‘Strong, skilful, and fearless,
she stood by the weapon and directed its'deadly fire until the fall
of Moneton turned the tide of victory.",The British troops under
Clinton were beaten back after a desperate struggle, the Americans
took possession of the field, and the battle of Monmouth was won.
On the fcllowing day, poor Molly, no longer a furious Amazon,
but a sad-faced widow, with swollen eyes, and a scanty bit of
crapé pinned on her broad young bosom, was presented to Washing-
ton, and received a sergeant’s commission with half-pay for life.
It is said that the French officers, then fighting for the freedom of
the colonies, that is, against the English, were so delighted with
her courage that they added to this reward a cocked hat full of
gold pieces, and christened her ‘ La Capitaine.’ What befell her in
after-years has never been told. She lived and died obscurely, and
her name has well-nigh been forgotten in the land she served. But
the memory of brave deeds can never wholly perish, and Molly
Pitcher has won for herself a little niche in the temple of Fame,
where her companions are fair Mary Ambree and the dauntless
Maid of Saragossa.
141
THE VOYAGES, DANGEROUS ADVENTURES, AND
IMMINENT ESCAPES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD
FALCONER}
WAS born at a town called Bruton, in Somersetshire, and my
parents were well-to-do people. My mother died when I was
very young; my father, who had been a great traveller in his days,
often told me of his adventures, which gave me a strong desire for
a roving life. I used to beg my father to let mego to sea with some
captain of his acquaintance; but he only warned me solemnly
against the dangers to which sailors were exposed, and told me I
should soon wish to be at home again.
But at last, through my father’s misfortunes, my wish was
gratified, for he was robbed of a large sum of money, and found
himself unable to provide for me as he wished. Disaster followed
disaster till he was compelled to recommend to me the very life he
had warned me against. I left him for Bristol, carrying with me a
letter he had written to a captain there, begging him to give me all
the help in his power, and never saw him again. But Captain
Pultney, his friend, welcomed me like a son, and before long got me
a berth on the ‘ Albion’ frigate, in which I set sail for Jamaica on
May 2, 1699.
When we were in the Bay of Biscay a terrible storm came on ;
the billows ran mountains high, and our vessel was the sport of the
waves. A ship that had overtaken and followed us the day before
seemed to be in yet worse distress, and signalled to us for aid; but
we could not get very near them without danger to ourselves. We
sent out our long-boat, with two of our men; but the rope that held
her to the ship broke with the violence of the waves, and she was
carried away, nor did we ever hear what became of our unhappy
comrades. Very soon, in spite of the labour of the crew, the vessel
* London, 1720.
142 VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER
we were trying to help went down, and out of fifty-four men, only
four were saved who had the good fortune to catch the ropes we
threw out to them. When they told us their story, however, we
could not help wondering at the escape we had had, for the lost ship
belonged to a pirate, who had only been waiting till the storm was
over to attack us, and the men we had saved had, according to their
own account, been compelled against their will to serve the pirates.
Very soon the storm abated, and we continued our voyage.
It was not long before we had another adventure with pirates,
and the next time they caught us at midnight, and, hailing us,
commanded us to come on board their ship with our captain. We
answered that we had no boat, and asked them to wait till the
morning. At this, the pirate captain threatened to sink us, and
therewith fired a gun at our vessel.
But we, being on our guard, had already mustered our guns and
our forces, thirty-eight men, counting the passengers, who were as
ready ‘to fight as any of us. So we sent them back a broadside,
which surprised them and did them some damage. Then we tacked
about, and with six of our guns raked the enemy fore and aft; but
we were answered very quickly with a broadside that killed two of
our men and wounded a third. Presently they boarded us with
about fourscore men, and we found all our resistance idle, for they
drove us into the forecastle, where we managed to barricade
ourselves, and threatened to turn our own guns against us if we did
not surrender immediately. But our captain being resolute, ordered
us to fire on them with our small-arms. Now close to our steerage
was a large cistern lined with tin, where several cartridges of powder
happened to be; and, happily for us, in the tumult of the firing this
powder took fire, and blew part of the quarter-deck and at least
thirty of the enemy into the air. On this we sallied out, and drove
the rest into their own vessel again with our cutlasses, killing several.
But, alas! with the explosion and the breach of the quarter-deck our
powder-room was quite blocked up, and we had to go on fighting
with what powder we had by us. Fight we did, nevertheless, for
at least four hours, when dawn broke, and to our great joy we saw
another ship not far away, and distinguished English colours. At
this sight we gave a great shout and fired our small-arms again ;
but our enemies very quickly cut away their grappling irons, and
did their best to make off. Their rigging, however, was so shattered
that they could not hoist sail, and in the meantime up came the
English ship, and without so much as hailing the pirate, poured a
VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER 148
broadside into her. Then followed a desperate fight. As for us, we
steered off, to clear away the lumber from our powder-room, as we
had nothing left io charge our guns with. In half-an-hour we had
loaded again, and returned to the fight; but as we approached we
saw the pirate sinking. The English ship had torn a hole in her
between wind and water, so that she sank in an instant, and only
eight men were saved. They told us that their captain was a pirate
from Guadaloupe, and when they sank they had not more than
twenty men left out of a hundred and fifty. On board our ship
‘As we approached we saw the pirate sinking ’
seven sailors and two passengers were killed, while the Guernsey
frigate that rescued us had lost sixteen men and three wounded.
I need now relate no more of our adventures on the voyage till
I come to a very sad one which befell me in October. We were
sailing towards Jamaica, and one day I went into the boat astern
which had been hoisted overboard in the morning to look after a
wreck we had seen on the water. I pulled a book out of my pocket
and sat reading in the boat ; but before I was aware, a storm began
to rise, so that I could not get up the ship side as usual, but called
for the ladder of ropes in order to get back that way. Now, whether
144 VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER
the ladder was not properly fastened above, or whether, being seldom
used, it broke through rottenness, I cannot tell, but down I fell into
the sea, and though, as I heard afterwards, the ship tacked about to
take me up, I lost sight of it in the dusk of the evening and the
gathering storm. :
Now my condition was terrible. I was forced to drive with the
wind and current, and after having kept myself above water for
about four hours, as near as I could guess in my fright, I felt my
feet touch ground every now and then, and at last a great wave
flung me upon the sand. It was quite dark, and I knew not what
to do; but I got up and walked as well as my tired limbs would
carryme. For I could discover no trace of firm land, and supposed
I was on some sandbank which the sea would overflow at high tide.
But by-and-by I had to sit down out of sheer exhaustion, though I
only looked for death. All my sins came before me, and I prayed
earnestly, and at last recovered calm and courage.
In spite of all my efforts to keep awake, I fell fast asleep before
dawn came.
In the morning I was amazed to find myself among four or five
very low sandy islands, all separated half-a-mile or more, as I
guessed, by the sea. With that I became more cheerful, and walked
about to see if I could find anything eatable. To my grief I found
nothing but a few eggs, that I was obliged to eat raw, and this
almost made me wish that the sea had engulfed me rather than
thrown me on this desert island, which seemed to me inhabited only
by rats and several kinds of birds.
A few bushes grew upon it, and under these I had to shelter at
night, but. though I searched through the island, I could not find a
drop of fresh water. Nor could I have continued to live, having
only the eggs I found, if I had not sueceeded in knocking down some
birds with a stick, which made me a grand banquet. This gave me
heart to try to make a fire after the fashion of the blacks by rubbing
two sticks together, and I managed to do this after a while, and
cooked my birds on the fire I had lit.
That night came a great storm, with the reddest lightning I had
ever seen, and rain that drenched me through. But in the morning
I had the joy of finding several pools of rain-water; and this put it
into my mind to make a kind of well, that I might keep a supply
of water by me.
With my hands and a stick I dug a hollow place, large enough
to hold a hogshead of water, and when it was dug I paved it with
VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER 145
stones, and, getting in, stamped them down hard, and beat the sides
close with my stick so that the well would hold water a long time.
But how to get it there was a difficulty, till by soaking my shirt,
which was pretty fine, in water, I found that I could make it fairly
water-tight, and with this holland bucket carry two gallons at a
time, which only leaked out about a pint in two hundred yards.
By this contrivance, in two days I had filled my well.
Falconer knocks down a bird
I next made myself a cupboard of earth by mixing water with
it; but unhappily it lasted only four days, the sun drying it so fast
that it cracked.
I had.a small Ovid, printed by Elzevir, which fortunately I had
put in my pocket as I was going up the ladder of ropes. This was
a great solace, for I could entertain myself with it under a bush till
I fell asleep. Moreover, I had good health, thongh at first I was
troubled with headache for want of my hat, which I had lost inthe
R. L
146 VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER
water. But I made myself a wooden cap of green sprigs, and
lined it with one of the sleeves of my shirt.
The island I was upon seemed about two miles round, and
perfectly deserted. Often did I wish to have companions in my
misfortune, and even—Heaven forgive me!—hoped for a wreck.
I fancied that if I stayed there long alone I should lose the power
of speech, so I talked aloud, asked myself questions, and answered
them. If anybody had been by to hear they would certainly have
thought me bewitched, I used to ask myself such odd questions !
But one morning a violent storm aroge, which continued till
noon, when I caught sight of a ship labouring with the waves. At
last, with the fury of the tempest, it was completely thrown out of
the water upon the shore, a quarter of a mile from the place where
I was watching. I ran to see if there was anyone I could help,
and found four men, all who were in the vessel, trying to save what
they could out of her. When I came up and hailed them in
English they were mightily surprised, and asked me how I came
there. I told them my story, and they were greatly distressed for
themselves as well as for me, since they found there was no hope
of getting their vessel off the sands; so we began to bemoan
each other’s misfortunes. But I must confess that I was never
more rejoiced in my whole life, for they had on board plenty of
everything for a twelvemonth, and nothing spoiled. We worked
as hard as we could, and got out whatever would be useful to us
before night. Then, taking off the sails, we built a tent big enough
to hold twenty men, and now I thought myself in a palace.
The names of my four companions were Thomas Randal,
Richard White, William Musgrave, and Ralph Middleton. When
we had been together some time we began to be very easy, and to
wait contentedly till we should get out of this strait. But at last
it came into our minds that a determined effort might free us, and
at once we set to work to clear the sand from the ship. We
laboured at the task for sixteen days, resting only on Sundays, and
by that time we had thrown up the sand on each. side, making a
passage for our vessel right to the surface of the water where it
was lowest. We next got poles to put under the vessel to launch
her out, and resolved on the day following, God willing, to thrust
her into the water. But we were prevented by the illness of Mr.
Randal, who had been the guide and counsellor of our whole party.
Tt soon became evident that he could not recover, and the week
after he died.
VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER 147
After this we succeeded in launching our vessel, but again a
terrible misfortune happened. We had made the ship fast with
two anchors the night before we intended to begin our voyage, and
my companions resolved to stay on shore, while I, as for some
nights had been my custom, slept on board.
I rested very contentedly, and in the morning went on deck
ready to call my companions. To my horror the sea surrounded
the vessel; there was not a glimpse of land! The shock was sd
terrible that I fell down on the deck unconscious. How long I
continued so I know not, but when I came to myself a little re-
flection told me what had happened. A hurricane had risen and
torn away the vessel while I slept heavily, for the night before we
had all drunk too freely, and my remorse was the more bitter for
remembering Mr. Randal, the good man whose warnings, had he
lived, would have prevented this misfortune.
But fate was kinder to me than I deserved. For a fortnight I
was tossed upon the sea without discovering land, and with only
the company of the dog that had been poor Mr. Randal’s. But
three days later I saw land right ahead, to my great joy, though joy
was not unmixed with fear, as I did not know into whose hands
I might fall. It was on January 30 that I reached the bay and
town of Campeche, where I was met by two canoes, with a
Spaniard and six Indians, who, on learning something of my story,
I speaking in broken French, which the Spaniard understood,
immediately took me on shore to the Governor. He, on hearing
of my arrival, sent for me where he sat at dinner, and received me
with the utmost kindness.
These generous Spaniards not only feasted me while I remained
there, but soon collected among themselves money enough to fit
out my vessel ready to go and rescue my poor companions left on
the desert island. On February 15 we sailed from Campeche Bay,
after I, having nothing else to give, had. offered my Ovid to the
Governor. He took it kindly, saying that he should prize it very
highly, not only for its own sake, but in memory of my mis-
fortunes.
Fitteen days after we reached the island, and found my three
companions, but in a miserable condition. For they were left
without provisions and with hardly any fresh water, every neces-
sary being on board the ship; and when we arrived they had been
five days without eating or drinking, and were too weak to crawl
in search of food. But now, for the time being, their misfortunes
L2
148 -VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER
were ended, and I cannot describe the joy with which they wel-
comed us after having almost despaired of any human help.
We soon set out again in the Spanish ship, and by-and-by, not
without a number of adventures on the way, we reached Jamaica,
where I met with my old shipmates, who were very much sur-
Falconer returns to his companions
prised to see me, thinking that I had been lost in the sea many
months ago. The ship had hung lights out for several hours that
I might know where to swim, but all to no purpose, as I could see
nothing through the darkness of the storm. I found that the
captain was very ill, and went to visit him on shore. He told me
that he did not expect to live long, and was glad I had come to
VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN RICHARD FALCONER 149
take charge of the ship, which would. have sailed before if he had
been fit to command her. A. week after he died, entrusting me
with the management of his affairs, and messages to his wife, who
lived at Bristol.
We set sail for England on June 1, 1700, and on August 21 we
discovered the Land’s End. How rejoiced I was to see England
once more, let them judge that have escaped so many perils as I
had done. My first task: when I-reached Bristol was to inquire for
my father; but a bitter disappointment awaited me. He was
dead, broken down before his time by grief and misfortune. : I
could not bear to stay on shore, where everything reminded me of
him, and, for all my delight in coming back to England, it was not
long before I set sail again in quest of fresh adventures.
150
MARBOT’S MARCH
| HAVE now [says General Marbot, speaking of his Spanish cam-
- paign]reached one of the most terrible experiences of my military
career. Marshal Lannes had just won a great victory, and the next
day, after having received the reports of the generals, he wrote his
despatch for one of our officers to take to the Emperor. Napoleon’s
practice was to give a step to the officer who brought him the news
of an important success, and the marshals on their side entrusted
such tasks to officers for whose speedy promotion they were anxious.
Jt was a form of recommendation which Napoleon never failed
to recognise. Marshal Lannes did me the honour of appointing
me to carry the news of the victory of Tudela, and I could indulge
the hope of being major before long. But, alas! I had yet much
blood to lose before I reached that rank.
The high road from Bayonne. to Madrid by Vittoria, Miranda
del Ebro, Burgos, and Aranda forks off at Miranda from that
leading to Saragossa by Logrofio. A road from Tudelato Aranda
across the mountains about Soria forms the third side of a great
triangle. While Lannes was reaching Tudela the Emperor had
advanced from Burgos to Aranda. It was, therefore, much shorter
for me to go from Tudela to Aranda than by way of Miranda del
Ebro. The latter road, however, had the advantage of being
covered by the French armies; while the other, no doubt, would
be full of Spanish fugitives who had taken refuge after Tudela in
the mountains. The Emperor, however, had informed Lannes that
he was sending Ney’s corps direct from Aranda to Tudela; so
thinking Ney to be at no great distance, and that an advanced
force which he had pushed on the day after the battle to get touch
of him at Taragona would secure me from attack as far as Aranda,
Lannes ordered me to take the shortest road. I may frankly
admit that if I had had my choice I should have preferred to make
the round by Miranda and Burgos; but the marshal’s orders were
MARBOT’S MARCH | 151
positive, and how could I express any fear for my own person in
the presence of a man who knew no more fear for others than he
did for himself ?
The duties of marshal’s aide-de-camp in Spain were terrible.
During the revolutionary wars the generals had couriers paid by
the state to carry their despatches; but the Emperor, finding that
these men were not capable of giving any intelligible account of
what they had seen, did away with them, and ordered that in
future despatches should be carried by aides-de-camp. This was
all very well as long as we were at war among the good Germans,
to whom it never occurred to attack a French messenger; but the
Spaniards waged fierce war against them. This was of great
advantage to the insurgents, for the contents of our despatches
informed them of the movements of our armies. I do not think I
am exaggerating when I say that more than two hundred staff
officers were killed or captured during the Peninsular War.. One
may regret the death of an ordinary courier, but it is less serious
than the loss of a promising officer, who, moreover, is exposed to
the risks of the battlefield in addition to those of a posting journey.
A great number of vigorous men well skilled in their business
begged’ to be allowed to do this duty, but the Emperor never
consented.
Just as I was starting from Tudela, Major Saint-Mars hazarded
a remark intended to dissuade Lannes from sending me over the
mountains. The marshal, however, answered, ‘Oh, he will meet
Ney’s advance guard to-night, and find troops echelonned all the
way to the. Emperor’s head-quarters.’ This was too decided for
any. opposition, so I left Tudela November 4, at nightfall, with a
detachment: of cavalry, and got without any trouble as far as
Taragona, at the foot of the mountains. In this little town I found
Lannes’ advance guard. The officer in command, hearing nothing
of Ney, had pushed an infantry post six leagues forward towards
Agreda. But as this body was detached from its supports, it had
been ordered to fall back on Taragona if the night passed without
Ney’s scouts appearing.
After Taragona there is no more high road. The way lies
entirely over mountain paths covered with stones and splinters of
rock. The officer commanding our advanced guard had, therefore,
only infantry and a score of hussars of the 2nd (Chamborant) Regi-
ment. He gave me a troop horse and two orderlies, andI went on
my way in brilliant moonlight. When we had gone two or three
152 MARBOT’S MARCH
lcagues we heard several musket-shots, and bullets whistled close
past us. We could not see the marksmen, who were hidden among
the rocks. A little farther on we found the corpses of two French
infantry soldiers, recently killed. They were entirely stripped.
but their shakoes were near them, by the numbers on which I
could see that they belonged to one of the regiments in Ney’s corps.
Some little distance farther we saw a horrible sight. A young
officer of the 10th Mounted Chasseurs, still wearing his uniform,
‘Then, drawing their swords, they dashed at the rest?
was nailed by his hands and feet, head downwards, to a ban door.
A small fire had been lighted beneath him. Happily, his tortures
had been ended by death ; but as the blood was still flowing from
his wounds, it was clear that the murderers were not far off. I
drew my sword; my two hussars handled their carbines. It was
just as well that we were on our guard, for a few moments later
seven or eight Spaniards, two of them mounted, fired upon us from
behind a bush. We were none of us wounded, and my two hussars
replied to the fire, and killed each his man. Then, drawing their
MARBOT’S MARCH 153
swords, they dashed at the rest. I should have been very glad to
follow them, but my horse had lost a shoe among the stones and
was limping, so that I could not get him into a gallop. I was the
more vexed because I feared that the hussars might let themselves
be carried away in the pursuit and get killed in some ambush. I
called them for five minutes; then I heard the voice of one of them
saying, in a strong Alsatian accent, ‘Ah! you thieves! you don’t
know the Chamborant Hussars yet. You shall see that they mean
business.’ My troopers had knocked over two more Spaniards, a
Capuchin mounted on the horse of the poor lieutenant, whose haver-
sack he had put over his own neck, and a peasant on a mule, with
the clothes of the slaughtered soldiers on his back. It was quite
clear that we had got the murderers. The Emperor had given
strict orders that every Spanish civilian taken in arms should be
shot on the spot; and, moreover, what could we do with these
two brigands, who were already seriously wounded, and who had
just killed three Frenchmen so barbarously ? I moved on, there-
fore, so as not to witness the execution, and the hussars shot
the monk and the peasant, repeating, ‘Ah, you don’t know the
Chamborant!’ I could not understand how an officer and two
privates of Ney’s corps could be so near Taragona when their regi-
ments had not come that way; but most probably they had been
captured elsewhere, and were being taken te Saragossa, when their
escort learned the defeat of their countrymen at Tudela, and mas-
sacred their prisoners in revenge for it.
After this not very encouraging start I continued my journey.
We had gone for some hours, when we saw a bivouac fire of the
detachment belonging to the advance guard which I had left at
Taragona. The sub-lieutenant in command, having no tidings of
Ney, was prepared to return to Taragona at daybreak, in pursuance
of his orders. He knew that we were barely two leagues from
Agreda, but did not know of which side that town was in posses-
sion. This was perplexing for me. The infantry detachment
would return in a few hours, and if I went back with it, when it
might be that in another league I should fall in with Ney’s column,
I should be giving a poor display of courage, and laying myself open
to reproach from Lannes. On the other hand, if Ney was still a
day or two’s march away, it was almost certain that I should be
murdered by the peasants of the mountains or by fugitive soldiers.
What was more, I had to travel alone, for my two brave hussars
had orders to return to Taragona when we had found the infantry
154 MARBOT’S MARCH
detachment. No matter; I determined to push on; but then
came the difficulty of finding a mount. There was no farm or
village in this deserted place where I could procure a horse. That
which I was riding was dead laine; and even if the hussars had
been able, without incurring severe punishment, to lend me one of
theirs, theirs were much fatigued. The horse that had belonged
to the officer of chasseurs had received a bullet in the thigh during
the fighting. There was only the peasant’s mule left. This was a
handsome beast, and, according to the laws of war, belonged to the
two hussars, who, no doubt, reckoned on selling her when they got
back to the army. Still the good fellows made no demur about
lending her to me, and put my saddle on her back. But the
infernal beast, more accustomed to the pack than to the saddle,
was so restive that directly I tried to get her away from the group
of horses and make her go alone she fell to kicking, until I had to
choose between being sent over a precipice and dismounting.
So I decided to set out on foot. After I had taken farewell of
the infantry officer, this excellent young man, M. Tassin by name
—he had been a friend of my poor brother Felix at the military
school—came running after me, and said that he could not bear’
to let me thus expose myself all alone, and that though he had no
orders, and his men were raw recruits, with little experience in war,
he must send one with me, so that I might at least have a musket
and some cartridges in case of an attack. ,We agreed that I should
send the man back with Ney’s corps; and I went off, with the
soldier accompanying me. He was a slow-speaking Norman, with
plenty of slyness under an appearance of good nature. The Nor-
mans are for the most part brave, as I learnt when I commanded
the 23rd Chasseurs, where I had five or six hundred of them. Still,
in order to know how far I could rely on my follower, I chatted
with him as we went along, and asked if he would stand his ground
if we were attacked. He said neither yes nor no, but answered,
‘Well, sir, we shall see.’ Whence I inferred that when the
moment of danger arrived my new companion was not. unlikely to
go and see how things were getting on in the rear.
The moon had just set, and as yet daylight had not appeared.
It was pitch-dark, and at every step we stumbled over the great
stones with which these mountain paths are covered. It was an
unpleasant situation, but I hoped soon to come upon Ney’s troops,
and the fact of having seen the bodies of soldiers belonging to his
corps increased the hope. So I went steadily on, listening for
MARBOT’S MARCH : 155
diversion to the Norman’s stories of his country. Dawn appeared
at last, and I saw the first houses of a large village. It was
Agreda. I was alarmed at finding no outposts, for it showed that
not only did no troops of the marshal’s occupy the place, but that
his army corps must be at least half a day further on. The map
showed no village within five or six leagues of Agreda, and it was
impossible that the regiments could be quartered in the mountains,
far from any inhabited place. So I kept on my guard, and before
going any farther reconnoitred the position.
Agreda stands in a rather broad valley. It is built at the foot
of a lofty hill, deeply escarped on both sides. The southern slope,
which reaches the village, is planted with large vineyards. The
ridge is rough and rocky, and the northern slope covered with thick
coppice, a torrent flowing at the foot. Beyond are seen lofty
mountains, uncultivated and uninhabited. The principal street of
Agreda runs through the whole length of the place, with narrow
lanes leading to the vineyards opening into it. As I entered the
village I had these lanes and the vineyards on my right. This
is important to the understanding of my story.
Everybody was asleep in Agreda; the moment was favourable
for going through it. Besides, I had some hope—feeble, it is true
—that when I reached the farther end I might perhaps see the
fires of Marshal Ney’s advance guard. So I went forward, sword
in hand, bidding my soldier cock his musket. The main street was
covered with a thick bed of damp leaves, which the people placed
there to make manure; so that our footsteps made no sound, of
which I was glad. I walked in the middle of the street, with the
soldier on my right; but, finding himself no doubt in a too con-
spicuous position, he gradually sheered off to the houses, keeping
close to the walls so that he might be less visible in case of an
attack, or better placed for reaching one of the lanes which open
into the country. This showed me how little I could rely on the
man; but I made no remark to him. The day was beginning to
break. We passed the whole of the main street without meeting
any one. Just as I was congratulating myself on reaching the last
houses of the village, I found myself at twenty-five paces’ distance,
face to face with four Royal Spanish Carabineers on horseback with
drawn swords. Under any other circumstances I might have
taken them for French gendarmes, their uniforms being exactly
similar, but the gendarmes never march with the extreme advanced
guard. These men, therefore, could not belong to Ney’s corps, and
156 MARBOT’S MARCH
I at once perceived they were the enemy. Ina moment I faced
about, but just as I had turned round to the direction from which
I had come I saw a blade flash six inches from my face. I threw
my head sharply back, but nevertheless got a severe sabre-cut on
the forehead, of which I carry the sear over my left eyebrow to this
day. The man who had wounded me was the corporal of the
carabineers, who, having left his four troopers outside the village,
had according to military practice gone forward to reconnoitre.
That I had not met him was probably due to the fact that he had
been in some side lane, while I had passed through the main street.
He was now coming back through the street to rejoin his troopers,
when, seeing me, he had come up noiselessly over a layer of leaves
and was just going to cleave my head from behind, when, by
turning round, I presented to him my face and received his blow
on my forehead. At the same moment the four carabineers, who
seeing that their corporal was all ready for me had not stirred,
trotted up to join him, and all five dashed upon me. I ran
mechanically towards the houses on the right in order to get my
back against a wall; but by good luck I found, two paces off, one
of the steep and narrow lanes, which went up to the vineyards.
The soldier had already reached it. I flew up there too with the
five carabineers after me; but at any rate they could not attack me
all at once, for there was only room for one horse to pass. The
brigadier went in front; the other four filed after him. My posi-
tion, although not as unfavourable as it would have been in the
street, where I should have been surrounded, still remained
alarming; the blood flowing freely from my wound had in a
moment covered my left eye, with which I could not see at all, and
I felt that it was coming towards my right eye, so that I was
compelled by fear of getting blinded to keep my head bent over the
left shoulder so as to bring the blood to that side. I could not
staunch it, being obliged to defend myself against the corporal, who
was cutting at me heavily. I parried as well as I could, going up
backwards all the time. After getting rid of my scabbard and my
busby, the weight of which hampered me, not daring to turn my
head for fear of losing sight of my adversary, whose sword was
crossed with mine, I told the light infantry man, whom I believed
to be behind me, to place his musket on my shoulder, and fire at
the Spanish corporal. Seeing no barrel, however, I leapt a pace
back and turned my head quickly. Lo and behold, there was my
scoundrel of a Norman soldier flying up the hill as fast as his legs
MARBOT’S MARCH 157
would carry him. The corporal thereupon attacked with redoubled
vigour, and, seeing that he could not reach me, made his horse rear
so that his feet struck me more than once on the breast. Luckily, as
the ground went on rising the horse had no good hold with his hind
legs, and every time that he came down again I landed a sword cut
on his nose with such effect that the animal presently refused to rear
at me any more. Then the brigadier, losing his temper, called out
to the trooper behind him, ‘Take your carbine: I will stoop down,
and you can aim at the Frenchman over my shoulders.’ I saw that
this order was my death-signal; but as in order to execute it the
158 MARBOT’S MARCH
trooper had to sheathe his sword and unhook his carbine, while
all this time the corporal never ceased thrusting at me, leaning
right over his horse’s neck, I determined on a desperate action,
which would be either my salvation or my ruin. Keeping my eye
fixed on the Spaniard, and seeing in his that he was on the point
of again stooping over his horse to reach me, I did not move until
the very instant when he was lowering the upper part of his body
towards me; then I took a pace to the right, and leaning quickly
over to that side, I avoided my adversary’s blow, and plunged half
my sword-blade into his left flank. With a fearful yell the corporal
fell back on the croup of his horse; he would probably have fallen
to the ground if the trooper behind him had not caught him in his
arms. My rapid movement in stooping had caused the despatch
which I was carrying to fall out of the pocket of my pelisse. I
picked it up quickly, and at once hastened to the end of the lane
where the vines began. There I turned round and saw the cara-
bineers busy round their wounded corporal, and apparently much
embarrassed with him and with their horses in the steep and narrow
. passage.
This fight took less time than I have taken to relate it. Finding
myself rid, at least for the moment, of my enemies, I went through
the vines and reached the edge of the hill. Then I considered that
it would be impossible for me to accomplish my errand and reach
the Emperor at Aranda. I resolved, therefore, to return to
Marshal Lannes, regaining first the place where I had left M. Tassin
and his picket of infantry. I did not hope to find them still there ;
but at any rate the army which I had left the day before was in that
direction. I looked for my soldier in vain, but I saw something that
was of more use to me—a spring of clear water. I halted there a
moment, and, tearing off a corner of my shirt, I made a compress
which I fastened over my wound with my handkerchief. The blood
spurting from my forehead had stained the despatches which I held
in my hand, but I was too much occupied with my awkward
position to mind that.
The agitations of the past night, my long walk over the stony
paths in boots and spurs, the fight in which I had just been engaged,
the pain in my head, and the loss of blood had exhausted my
strength. I had taken no food since leaving Tudela, and here I had
nothing but water to refresh myself with. I drank long draughts
of it, and should have rested longer by the spring had I not. perceived
three of the Spanish. carabineers riding out of Agreda and coming
MARBOT’S MARCH 159
towards me through the vines. If they had been sharp enough to
‘dismount and take off their long boots, they would probably have
succeeded in reaching me ; but their horses, unable to pass between
the vine stocks, ascended the steep and rocky paths with difficulty.
Indeed, when they reached the upper end of the vineyards they
found themselves brought up by the great rocks, on tke top of which
I had taken refuge, and unable to climb any farther. Then the
troopers, passing along the bottom of the rocks, marched parallel
with me a long musket-shot off. They called to me to surrender,
saying that as soldiers they would treat me as a prisoner of war,
while if the peasants caught me I should infallibly be murdered.
This reasoning was sound, and I admit that if I had not been
charged with despatches for the Emperor, I was so exhausted that
I should perhaps have surrendered.
However, wishing to preserve to the best of my ability the
precious charge which had been entrusted to me, I marched on
Without answering. Then the three troopers, taking their carbines,
opened fire upon me. Their bullets struck the rocks at my feet but
none touched me, the distance being too great for a correct aim. I
was alarmed, not at the fire, but at the notion that the reports
would probably attract the peasants who would be going to their
work in the morning, and I quite expected to be attacked by these
fierce mountaineers. My presentiment seemed to be verified, for I
perceived some fifteen men half a league away in the valley
advancing towards me at a run. They held in their hands some-
thing that flashed in the sun. I made no doubt that they were
peasants armed with their spades, and that it was the iron of these
that shone thus. I gave myself up for lost, and in my despair I
was on the point of letting myself slide down over the rocks on the
north side of the hill to the torrent, crossing it as best I could, and
hiding myself in some chasm of the great mountains which arose on
the farther side of the gorge. Then, if I was not discovered, and if
I still had the strength, I should set out when night came in the
direction of Taragona.
This plan, though offering many chances of failure, was my last
hope. Just as I was about to putit into execution, I perceived that
the three carabineers had given up firing on me, and gone forward
to reconnoitre the group which I had taken for peasants. At their
approach the iron instruments which I had taken for spades or
mattocks were lowered, and I had the inexpressible joy of seeing a
volley fired at the Spanish carabineers. Instantly turning, they
160 MARBOT’S MARCH
took flight towards Agreda, as it seemed, with two of their number
wounded. ‘The newcomers, then, are French!’ I exclaimed.
‘Here goes to meet them!’ and, regaining a little strength from
the joy of being delivered, I descended, leaning on my sword. The
French had caught sight of me; they climbed the hill, and I found
myself in the arms of the brave Lieutenant Tassin.
This providential rescue had come about as follows. The soldier
who had deserted me while I was engaged with the carabineers in
the streets of Agreda had quickly reached the vines ; thence, leaping
across the vine stocks, ditches, rocks, and hedges, he had very quickly
run the distance which lay between him and the place where we
had left M. Tassin’s picket. The detachment was on the point of
starting for Taragona, and was eating its soup, when my Norman
came up all out of breath. Not wishing, however, to lose a mouth-
ful, he seated himself by a cooking-pot and began to make a very
tranquil breakfast, without saying a word about what had happened
at Agreda. By great good luck he was noticed by M. Tassin, who,
surprised at seeing him returned, asked him where he had quitted
the officer whom he had been told off to escort. ‘Good Lord, sir,’
replied the Norman, ‘I left him in that big village with his head
half split open, and fighting with Spanish troopers, and they were
cutting away at him with their swords like anything.’ At these
words Lieutenant Tassin ordered his detachment to arms, picked
the fifteen most active, and went off at the double towards Agreda.
The little troop had gone some way when they heard shots, and
inferred from them that I was still alive but in urgent need of
succour. Stimulated by the hope of saving me, the brave fellows
doubled their pace, and finally perceived me on the ridge of the hill,
serving as a mark for three Spanish troopers.
M. Tassin and his men were tired, and I was at the end of my
strength. We halted, therefore, for a little, and meanwhile you
may imagine that I expressed my warmest gratitude to the lieu-
tenant and his men, who were almost as glad as I was. We returned
to the bivouac where M. Tassin had left the rest of his people. The
cantiniére of the company was there with her mule carrying two
skins of wine, bread, and ham. I bought the lot and gave them to
the soldiers, and we breakfasted, as I was very glad to do, the two
hussars whom I had left there the night before sharing in the meal.
One of these mounted the monk’s mule and lent me his horse, and
so we set out for Taragona. I was in horrible pain, because the
blood had hardened over my wound. At Taragona I rejoined
MARBOT’S MARCH ; 161
Lannes’ advance guard: the general in command had my wound
dressed, and gave me a horse and an escort of two hussars. I
reached Tudela at midnight, and was at once received by the
marshal, who, though ill himself, seemed much touched by my
misfortune. It was necessary, however, that the despatch about
the battle of Tudela should be promptly forwarded to the Emperor,
who must be impatiently awaiting news from the army on the Ebro.
Enlightened by what had befallen me in the mountains, the marshal
consented that the officer bearing it should go by Miranda and
Burgos, where the presence of French troops on the roads made
the way perfectly safe. I should have liked very much to be the
bearer, but I was in such pain and so tired that it would have been
physically impossible for me to ride hard. The marshal therefore
entrusted the duty to his brother-in-law, Major Guéhéneuc. I
handed him the despatches stained with my blood. Major Saint-
Mars, the secretary, wished to re-copy them and change the
envelope. ‘No, no,’ cried the marshal, ‘the Emperor ought to see
how valiantly Captain Marbot has defended them.’ So he sent off
the packet just as it was, adding a note to explain the reason of the
delay, eulogising me, and asking for a reward to Lieutenant Tassin
and his men, who had hastened so zealously to my succour, without
reckoning the danger to which they might have been exposed if the
enemy had been in force.
The Emperor did, as a matter of fact, a little while after, grant
the Cross both to M. Tassin and to his sergeant, and a gratuity of
100 francs to each of the men who had accompanied them. As for
the Norman soldier, he was tried by court martial for deserting his
post in the presence of the enemy, and condemned to drag a shot
for two years, and to finish his time of service in a pioneer company.
162,
EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE
\ENERAL MARBOT, one of Napoleon’s most distinguished
soldiers, thus describes his adventures at the battle of Eylau.
‘To enable you to understand my story, I must go back to the
autumn of 1805, when the officers of the Grand Army, among
their preparations for the battle of Austerlitz, were completing
their outfits. I had two good horses, the third, for whom I was
looking, my charger, was to be better still. It was a difficult thing
to find, for though horses were far less dear than now, their price
was pretty high, and I had not much money; but chance served me
admirably. I met a learned German, Herr von Aister, whom I had
known when he was a professor at Soréze. He had become tutor
to the children of a rich Swiss banker, M. Scherer, established at
Paris in partnership with M. Finguerlin. He informed me that
M. Finguerlin, a wealthy man, Jiving in fine style, had a large stud,
in the first rank of which figured a lovely mare, called Lisette, easy
in her paces, as light as a deer, and so well broken that a child
could lead her. But this mare, when she was ridden, had a terrible
fault, and fortunately a rare one: she bit like a bulldog, and
furiously attacked people whom she disliked, which decided M.
Finguerlin to sell her. She was bought for Mme. de Lauriston
whose husband, one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp, had written to
her to get his campaigning outfit ready. When selling the mare
M. Finguerlin had forgotten to mention her fault, and that very’
evening a groom was found disembowelled at her feet. Mme. de
Lauriston, reasonably alarmed, brought an action to cancel the
bargain; not only did she get her verdict, but, in order to prevent
further disasters, the police ordered that a written statement should
be placed in Lisette’s stall to inform purchasers of her ferocity, and
that any bargain with regard to her should be void unless the pur-
chaser declared in writing that his attention had been called to the
notice. You may suppose that with such a character as this the
EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE 163
mare was not easy to dispose of, and thus Herr von Aister informed
me that her owner had decided to let her go for what anyone would
give. I offered 1,000 francs, and M. Finguerlin delivered Lisette
to me, though she had cost him 5,000. This animal gave me a
good deal of trouble for some months. It took four or five men to
saddle her, and you could only bridle her by covering her eyes and
fastening all four legs; but once you were on her back, you found
her a really incomparable mount.
‘ However, since while in my possession she had already bitten
several people, and had not spared me, I was thinking of parting
with her. But I had meanwhile engaged in my service Francis
‘Woirland, a man who was afraid of nothing, and he, before going
near Lisette, whose bad character had been mentioned to him,
armed himself with a good hot roast leg of mutton. When the
animal flew at him to bite him, he held out the mutton; she
seized it in her teeth, and burning her gums, palate, and tongue, gave
a scream, let the mutton drop, and from that moment was perfectly
submissive to Woirland, and did not venture to attack him again.
I employed the same method with a like result. Lisette became as
docile as a dog, and allowed me and my servant to approach her
freely. She even became a little more tractable towards the stable-
men of the staff, whom she saw every day, but woe to the strangers
who passed near her! I could quote twenty instances of her ferocity,
but I will confine myself to one. While Marshal Augereau was
staying at the chateau of Bellevue, near Berlin, the servants of the
staff, having observed that when they went to dinner someone stole
the sacks of corn that were left in the stable, got Woirland to un-
fasten Lisette and leave her near the door. The thief arrived,
slipped into the stable, and was in the act of carrying off a sack,
when the mare seized him by the nape of the neck, dragged him
into the middle of the yard, and trampled on him till she broke two
of his ribs. At the shrieks of the thief people ran up, but Lisette
would not let him go till my servant and I compelled her, for in
her fury she would have flown at anyone else. She had become
still more vicious ever since the Saxon hussar officer, of whom I
have told you, had treacherously laid open her shoulder with a
sabre-cut on the battlefield of Jena.
‘Such was the mare which I was riding at Eylau at the moment
when the fragments of Augereau’s army corps, shattered by a hail
of musketry and cannon-balls, were trying to rally near the great
cemetery, You will remember how the 14th of the line had
m2
164 EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE
remained alone on a hillock, which it could not quit except by the
Emperor’s order. The snow had ceased for the moment; we could
see how the intrepid regiment, surrounded by the enemy, was
waving its eagle in the air to show that it still held its ground and
asked for support. The Emperor, touched by the grand devotion of
these brave men, resolved to try to save them, and ordered
Augereau to send an officer to them with orders to leave the hillock,
form a small square, and make their way towards us, while a
eT
: ‘i f
ayy |
Lisette catches the thief in the stable
brigade of cavalry should march in their direction and assist their
efforts. This was before Murat’s great charge. It was almost
impossible to carry out the Emperor’s wishes, because a swarm of
Cossacks was between us and the 14th, and it was clear that any
officer who was sent towards the unfortunate regiment would be
killed or captured before he could get to it. But the order was
positive, and the marshal had to comply.
‘It was customary in the Imperial army for the aides-de-camp
to place themselves in file a few paces from their general, and for
the one who was in front to go on duty first: then, when he had
EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE 165
performed his mission, to return and place himself last, in order
that each might carry orders in his turn, and dangers might be
shared equally. A brave captain of engineers named Froissard,
who, though not an aide-de-camp, was on the marshal’s staff,
happened to be nearest to him, and was bidden to carry the order
to the 14th. M. Froissard galloped off; we lost sight of him in the
midst of the Cossacks, and never saw him again nor heard what
had become of him. The marshal, seeing that the 14th did not
move, sent an officer named David; he had the same fate as
Froissard: we never heard of him again. Probably both were
killed and stripped, and could not be recognised among the
many corpses which covered the ground. For the third time the
marshal called, ‘The officer for duty.†It was my turn.
‘Seeing the son of his old friend, and I venture to say his
favourite aide-de-camp, come up, the kind marshal’s face changed
and his eyes filled with tears, for he could not hide from himself
that he was sending me to almost certain death. But the Emperor
must be obeyed. I was a soldier; it was impossible to make one
of my comrades go in my place, nor would I have allowed it; it
would have been disgracing me. So I dashed off. But though
ready to sacrifice my life I felt bound to take all necessary pre-
cautions to save it. I had observed that the two officers who went
before me had gone with swords drawn, which led me to think that
they had purposed to defend themselves against any Cossacks who
might attack them on the way. Such defence, I thought, was ill-
considered, since it must have compelled them to halt in order to
fight a multitude of enemies, who would overwhelm them in the
end. So I went otherwise to work, and leaving my sword in the
scabbard, I regarded myself as a horseman who is trying to win a
steeplechase, and goes as quickly as possible and by the shortest
line towards the appointed goal, without troubling himself with
what is to right or left of his path. Now, as my goal was the hil-
lock occupied by the 14th, I resolved to get there without taking any
notice of the Cossacks, whom in thought I abolished. This plan
answered perfectly. Lisette, lighter than a swallow and flying
rather than running, devoured the intervening space, leaping the
piles of dead men and horses, the ditches, the broken gun-carriages,
the half- extinguished bivouac fires. Thousands of Cossacks
swarmed over the plain. The first who saw me acted like sports-
men who, when beating, start a hare, and announce its presence to
each other by shouts of ‘“ Your side! Your side!’’ but none of the
166 EYLAU. THE MARE LISHETTE
Cossacks tried to stop me, first, on account of the extreme rapidity of
my pace, and also probably because, their numbers being so great,
each thought that I could not avoid his comrades farther on ; so that
I escaped them all, and reached the 14th regiment without either
myself or my excellent mare having received the slightest scratch.
‘I regarded myself as a horseman who is trying
to win a steeplechase ’
‘I found the 14th formed in square on the top of the hillock, but
as the slope was very slight the enemy’s cavalry had been able to
deliver several charges. These had been vigorously repulsed, and
the French regiment was surrounded by a circle of dead horses and
dragoons, which formed a kind of rampart, making the position by
this time almost inaccessible to cavalry; as I found, for in spite of
EYLAU. THK MARE LISETTE 167
the aid of our men, I had much difficulty in passing over this
horrible entrenchment. At last Iwas in the square. Since Colonel
Savary’s death at the passage of the Wkra, the 14th had been com-
manded by a major. While I imparted to this officer, under a hail
of balls, the order to quit his position and try to rejoin his corps,
he pointed out to me that the enemy’s artillery had been firing on
the 14th for an hour, and had caused it such loss that the handful
of soldiers which remained would inevitably be exterminated as
they went down into the plain, and that, moreover, there would
not be time to prepare to execute such a movement, since a Russian
column was marching on him, and was not more than a hun-
dred paces away. “I see no means of saving the regiment,†said
the major; “return to the Emperor, bid him farewell from the
14th of the line, which has faithfully executed his orders, and
bear to him the eagle which he gave us, and which we can
defend no longer: it would add too much to the pain of death to
see it fall into the hands of the enemy.’ Then the major handed
me his eagle, saluted for the last time by the glorious fragment
of the intrepid regiment with cries of “ Vive l’Empereur!â€â€™ they
were going to die for him. It was the Cesar moriturt te salutant
of Tacitus,! but in this case the cry was uttered by heroes. The
infantry eagles were very heavy, and their weight was increased by
a stout oak pole on the top of which they were fixed. The length
of the pole embarrassed me much, and as the stick without the
eagle could not constitute a trophy for the enemy, I resolved with
the major’s consent to break it and only carry off the eagle. But at
the moment when I was leaning forward from my saddle in order to
get a better purchase to separate the eagle from the pole, one of
the numerous cannon-balls which the Russians were sending at us
went through the hinder peak of my hat, less than an inch from
my head. The shock was all the more terrible since my hat, being
fastened on by a strong leather strap under the chin, offered more
resistance to the blow. I seemed to be blotted out of existence,
but I did not fall from my horse; blood flowed from my nose,
my ears, and even my eyes; nevertheless I still could hear
and see, and I preserved all my intellectual faculties, although my
limbs were paralysed to such an extent that I could not move a
single finger.
‘Meanwhile the column of Russian infantry which we had just
perceived was mounting the hill; they were grenadiers wearing
. [As a matter of fact, Suetonius, ‘The destined to die salute thee.’]
168 EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE
mitre-shaped caps with metal ornaments. Soaked with spirits, and
in vastly superior numbers, these men hurled themselves furiously
on the feeble remains of the unfortunate 14th, whose soldiers had
for several days been living only on potatoes and melted snow;
that day they had not had time to prepare even this wretched meal.
Still our brave Frenchmen made a valiant defence with their
bayonets, and when the square had been broken, they held together
in groups and sustained the unequal fight for a long time.
‘During this terrible struggle several of our men, in order not
to be struck from behind, set their backs against my mare’s flanks,
she, contrary to her practice, remaining perfectly quiet. If I had
been able to move I should have urged her forward to get away
from this field of slaughter, But it was absolutely impossible for
me to press my legs so as to make the animal I rode understand
my wish. My position was the more frightful since, as I have said,
I retained the power of sight and thought. Not only were they
fighting all round me, which exposed me to bayonet-thrusts, but a
Russian officer with a hideous countenance kept making efforts to
run me through. As the crowd of combatants prevented him from
reaching me, he pointed me out to the soldiers around him, and
they, taking me for the commander of the French, as I was the
only mounted man, kept firing at me over their comrades’ heads,
so that bullets were constantly whistling past my ear. One of
them would certainly have taken away the small amount of life
that was still in me had not a terrible incident led to my escape
from the mélée.
‘Among the Frenchmen who had got their flanks against my
mare’s near flank was a quartermaster-sergeant, whom I knew from
having frequently seen him at the marshal’s, making copies for
him of the “ morning states.’ This man, having been attacked and
wounded by several of the enemy, fell under Lisette’s belly, and
was seizing my leg to pull himself up, when a Russian grenadier,
too drunk to stand steady, wishing to finish him by a thrust in the
breast, lost his balance, and the point of his bayonet went astray
into my cloak, which at that moment was puffed out by the wind.
Seeing that I did not fall, the Russian left the sergeant and aimed
a great number of blows at me. These were at first fruitless, but
one at last reached me, piercing my left arm, and I felt with a kind
of horrible pleasure my blood flowing hot. The Russian grenadier
with redoubled fury made another thrust at me, but, stumbling
with the force which he put into it, droye his bayonet into my
EHYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE 169
mare’s thigh. Her ferocious instincts being restored by the pain,
she sprang at the Russian, and at one mouthful tore off his nose,
lips, eyebrows, and all the skin of his face, making of him a living
death’s-head, dripping with blood. Then hwiling herself with fury
among the combatants, kicking and biting, Lisette upset everything -
that she met on her road. The officer who had made so many
attempts to strike me tried to hold her by the bridle; she seized
Lisette carries off the Russian officer
him by his belly, and carrying him off with ease, she bore him out
of the crush to the foot of the hillock, where, having torn out his
entrails and mashed his body under her feet, she left him dying
on the snow. Then, taking the road by which she had come, she
made her way at full gallop towards the cemetery of Eylau.
Thanks to the hussar’s saddle on which I was sitting, I kept my
seat. But a new danger awaited me. The snow had begun to
170 EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE
fall again, and great flakes obscured the daylight when, having
arrived close to Eylau, I found myself in front of a battalion of
the Old Guard, who, unable to see clearly at a distance, took me
for an enemy’s officer leading a charge of cavalry. The whole
battalion at once opened fire on me; my cloak and my saddle were
riddled, but I was not wounded nor was my mare. She continued
her rapid course, and went through the three ranks of the battalion
as easily as-a snake through a hedge. But this last spurt had ex-
hausted Lisette’s strength; she had lost much blood, for one of the
large veins in her thigh had been divided, and the poor animal
collapsed suddenly and fell on one side, rolling me over on the
other.
‘Stretched on the snow among the piles of dead and dying,
unable to move in any way, I gradually and without pain lost con-
sciousness. I felt as if I was being gently rocked to sleep. At last
I fainted quite away without being revived by the mighty clatter
which Murat’s ninety squadrons advancing to the charge must have
made in passing close to me and perhaps over me. I judge that
my swoon lasted four hours, and when I came to my senses I found
myself in this horrible position. I was completely naked, having
nothing on but my hat and my right boot. A man of the transport
corps, thinking me dead, had stripped me in the usual fashion, and
wishing to pull off the only boot that remained, was dragging me
by one leg with his foot against my body. The jerks which the
man gave me no doubt had restored me to my senses. I succeeded
in sitting up and spitting out the clots of blood from my throat.
The shock caused by the wind of the ball had produced such an
extravasation of blood, that my face, shoulders, and chest were
black, while the rest of my body was stained red by the blood from
my wound. My hat and my hair were full of bloodstained snow,
and as I rolled my haggard eyes I must have been horrible to see.
Anyhow, the transport man looked the other way, and went off
with my property without my being able to say a single word to
him, so utterly prostrate was I. But I had recovered my mental
faculties, and my thoughts turned towards God and my mother.
‘The setting sun cast some feeble rays through the clouds. I
took what I believed to be a last farewell of it. “If,†thought I, “Thad
only not been stripped, some one of the numerous people who pass
near me would notice the gold lace on my pelisse, and, recognising
that I am a marshal’s aide-de-camp, would perhaps have carried
me to the ambulance. But seeing me naked, they do not distin-
EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE 171
guish me from the corpses with which I am surrounded, and,
indeed, there soon will be no difference between them and me. I
cannot call help, and the approaching night will take away all hope
of succour. The cold is increasing: shall I be able to bear it till
to-morrow, seeing that I feel my naked limbs stiffening already ? â€â€™
So I made up my mind to die, for if I had been saved by a miracle
in the midst of the terrible mélée between the Russians and the
14th, could I expect that there would be a second miracle to extract
me from my present horrible position? The second miracle did
take place in the following manner. Marshal Augereau had a
valet named Pierre Dannel, a very intelligent and very faithful
fellow, but somewhat given to arguing. Now it happened during
our stay at La Houssaye that Dannel, having answered his master,
got dismissed. In despair, he begged me to plead for him. This
I did so zealously that I succeeded in getting him taken back
into favour. From that time the valet had been devotedly attached
tome. The outfit having been all left behind at Landsberg, he had
started all out of his own head on the day of battle to bring pro-
visions to his master. He had placed these in a very light waggon
which could go everywhere, and contained the articles which the
marshal most frequently required. This little waggon was driven
by a soldier belonging to the same company of the transport corps
as the man who had just stripped me. This latter, with my
property in his hands, passed near the waggon, which was standing
at the side of the cemetery, and, recognising the driver, his old
comrade, he hailed him, and showed him the splendid booty which
he had just taken from a dead man.
‘Now you must know that when we were in cantonments on the
Vistula the marshal happened to send Dannel to Warsaw for pro-
visions, and I commissioned him to get the trimming of black
astrachan taken from my pelisse, and have it replaced by grey, this
having recently been adopted by Prince Berthier’s aides-de-camp,
who set the fashion in the army. Up to now, I was the only one
of Augereau’s officers who had grey astrachan. Dannel, who was
present when the transport man made his display, quickly recog-
nised my pelisse, which made him look more closely at the other
effects of the alleged dead man. Among these he found my watch,
which had belonged to my father and was marked with his cypher.
The valet had no longer any doubt that I had been killed, and
while deploring my loss, he wished to see me for the last time
Guided by the transport man he reached me and found me living.
172 HYLAU. THE MARE LISETTE
Great was the joy of this worthy man, to whom I certainly owed
my life. He made haste to fetch my servant and some orderlies,
and had me carried to a barn, where he rubbed my body with
rum. Meanwhile someone went to fetch Dr. Raymond, who came
at length, dressed the wound in my arm, and declared that the
release of blood due to it would be the saving of me.
‘My brother and my comrades were quickly round me; some-
‘Guided by the transport man he reached me and found me living’
thing was given to the transport soldier who had taken my clothes,
which he returned very willingly, but as they were saturated with
water and with blood, Marshal Augereau had me wrapped in things
belonging to himself. The Emperor had given the marshal leave
to go to Landsberg, but as his wound forbad him to ride, his
aides-de-camp had procured a sledge, on which the body of a
carriage had been placed. The marshal, who could not make up
his mind to leave me, had me fastened up beside him, for I was
too weak to sit upright.
EYLAU. THH MARE LISETTH 173
‘Before I was removed from the field of battle I had seen my
poor Lisette near me. The cold had caused the blood from her
wound to clot, and prevented the loss from being too great. The
creature had got on to her legs and was eating the straw which the -
soldiers had used the night before for their bivouacs. My servant,
who was very fond of Lisette, had noticed her when he was help-
ing to remove me, and cutting up into bandages the shirt and hood
of a dead soldier, he wrapped her leg with them, and thus made
her able to walk to Landsberg. The officer in command of the
small garrison there had had the forethought to get quarters ready
for the wounded, so the staff found places in a large and good inn.
‘In this way, instead of passing the night without help, stretched
naked on the snow, I lay on a good bed surrounded by the atten-
tion of my brother, my comrades, and the kind Dr. Raymond.
The doctor had been obliged to cut off the boot which the trans-
port man had not been able to pull off, and which had become all
the more difficult to remove owing to the swelling of my foot.
You will see presently that this very nearly cost me my leg, and
perhaps my life.
‘We stayed thirty-six hours at Landsberg. This rest, and the
good care taken of me, restored me to the use of speech and senses,
and when on the second day after the battle Marshal Augereau
started for Warsaw I was able to be carried in the sledge. The
journey lasted eight days. Gradually I recovered strength, but as
strength returned I began to feel a sensation of icy cold in my right
foot. At Warsaw I was lodged in the house that had been taken
for the marshal, which suited me the better that I was not able to
leave my bed. Yet the wound in my arm was doing well, the
extravasated blood was becoming absorbed, my skin was recovering
its natural colour. The doctor knew not to what he could ascribe
my inability to rise, till, hearing me complaining of my leg, he
examined it, and found that my foot was gangrened. An accident
of my early days was the cause of this new trouble. At Soréze I
had my right foot wounded by the unbuttoned foil of a schoolfellow
with whom I was fencing. It seemed that the muscles of the
part had become sensitive, and had suffered much from cold while
I was lying unconscious on the field of Eylau; thence had resulted
a swelling which explained the difficulty experienced by the
soldier in dragging off my right boot. The foot was frost-bitten,
and as it had not been treated in time, gangrene had appeared in
the site of the old wound from the foil. The place was covered
174 EYLAU. THE MARE LISETTEH
with an eschar as large as a five-franc piece. The doctor
turned pale when he saw the foot: then, making four servants hold
me, and taking his knife, he lifted the eschar, and dug the mortified
flesh from my foot just as one cuts the damaged part out of an
apple. The pain was great, but I did not complain. It was other-
wise, however, when the knife reached the living flesh, and laid
bare the muscles and bones till one could see them moving. Then
the doctor, standing on a chair, soaked a sponge in hot sweetened
wine, and let it fall drop by drop’ into the hole which he had just
dug in my foot. The pain became unbearable. Still, for eight
days I had to undergo this torture morning and evening, but my
leg was saved.
‘Nowadays, when promotions and decorations are bestowed so
lavishly, some reward would certainly be given to an officer who
had braved danger as I had done in reaching the 14th regiment ;
but under the Empire a devoted act of that kind was thought so
natural that I did not receive the cross, nor did it ever occur to me
toask for it. A long rest having been ordered for the cure of Marshal
Augereau’s wound, the Emperor wrote to bid him return for treat-
ment to France, and sent to Italy for Masséna, to whom my
brother, Bro, and several of my comrades were attached. Augereau
took me with him, as well as Dr. Raymond and his secretary. I
had to be lifted in and out of the carriage; otherwise I found my
health coming back as I got away from those icy regions towards a
milder climate. My mare passed the winter in the stables of M.
de Launay, head of the forage department. Our road lay through
Silesia. So long as we were in that horrible Poland, it required
twelve, sometimes sixteen, horses to draw the carriage at a walk
through the bogs and quagmires; but in Germany we found at
length civilisation and real roads.
‘ After a halt at Dresden, and ten or twelve days’ stay at Frank-
fort, we reached Paris about March 15. I walked very lame, wore
my arm in a sling, and still felt the terrible shaking caused by the
wind of the cannon-ball; but the joy of seeing my mother again,
and her kind care of me, together with the sweet influences of the
spring, completed my cure. Before leaving Warsaw I had meant
to throw away the hat which the ball had pierced, but the marsha]
kept it as a curiosity and gave it to my mother. It still exists in
my possession, and should be kept as a family relic.’
175
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
Paes crossing the Traun, burning the bridge at Mauthhausen,
and passing the Enns, the army advanced to Moélk, without
knowing what had become of General Hiller. Some spies assured
us that the archduke had crossed the Danube and joined him, and
that we should on the morrow meet the whole Austrian army,
strongly posted in front of Saint-Pélten. In that case, we must
make ready to fight a great battle; but if it were otherwise, we
had to march quickly on Vienna in order to get there before the
enemy could reach it by the other bank. For want of positive
information the Emperor was very undecided. ‘ The question to
be solved was, Had General Hiller crossed the Danube, or was he
still in front of us, masked by a swarm of light cavalry, which,
always flying, never let us get near enough to take a prisoner from
whom one might get some enlightenment ?
Still knowing nothing for certain, we reached, on May 7, the
pretty little town of Mélk, standing on the bank of the Danube,
and overhung by an immense rock, on the summit of which rises a
Benedictine convent, said to be the finest and richest in Christen-
dom. From the rooms of the monastery a wide view is obtained
over both banks of the Danube. There the Emperor and many
marshals, including Lannes, took up their quarters, while our staff
lodged with the parish priest. Much rain had fallen during the
week, and it had not ceased for twenty-four hours, and still was
falling, so that the Danube and its tributaries were over their
banks. That night, as my comrades and I, delighted at being
sheltered from the bad weather, were having a merry supper with
the parson, a jolly fellow, who gave us an excellent meal, the aide-
de-camp on duty with the marshal came to tell me that I was
wanted, and must go up to the convent that moment. I was so
comfortable where I was that I found it annoying to have to leave
176 HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
a good supper and good quarters to go and get wet again, had but I
to obey.
All the passages and lower rooms of the monastery were full of
soldiers, forgetting the fatigues of the previous days in the monks’
good wine. On reaching the dwelling-rooms, I saw that I had
been sent for about some serious matter, for generals, chamberlains,
orderly officers, said to me repeatedly, ‘ The Emperor has sent for
you.’ Some added, ‘It is probably to give you your commission as
major.’ This I did not believe, for I did not think I was yet of
sufficient importance to the sovereign for him to send for me at
such an hour to give me my commission with his own hands. I
was shown into a vast and handsome gallery, with a balcony look-
ing over the Danube; there I found the Emperor at dinner with
several marshals and the abbot of the convent, who has the title of
bishop. On seeing me, the Emperor left the table, and went
towards the balcony, followed by Lannes. I heard him say in a
low tone, ‘The execution of this plan is almost impossible; it
would be sending a brave officer for no purpose to almost certain
death.’ ‘He will go, sir, replied the marshal; ‘I am certain he
will go, at any rate we can but propose it to him.’ Then, taking
me by the hand, the marshal opened the window of the balcony
over the Danube. The river at this moment, trebled in volume by
the strong flood, was nearly a league wide; it was lashed by a fierce
wind, and we could hear the waves roaring. It was pitch-dark,
and the rain fell in torrents, but we could see on the other side a
jong line of bivouac fires. Napoleon, Marshal Lannes, and I, being
alone on the balcony, the marshal said, ‘On the other side of the
river, you see an Austrian camp. Now, the Emperor is keenly
desirous to know whether General Hiller’s corps is there, or still
on this bank. In order to make sure he wants a stout-hearted
man, bold enough to cross the Danube, and bring away some
soldier of the enemy’s, and I have assured him that you will go.’
Then Napoleon said to me, ‘Take notice that I am not giving you
an order; I am only expressing a wish. I am aware that the
enterprise is as dangerous as it can be, and you can decline it with-
out any fear of displeasing me. Go, and think it over for a few
moments in the next room; come back and tell us frankly your
decision.’
I admit that when I heard Marshal Lannes’ proposal I had
broken out all over in a cold sweat; but at the same moment, a
feeling, which I cannot define, but in which a love of glory and of
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE 177
my country was mingled, perhaps, with a noble pride, raised my
ardour to the highest point, and I said to myself, ‘The Emperor
has here an army of 150,000 devoted warriors, besides 25,000 men
of his guard, all selected from the bravest. He is surrounded with
aides-de-camp and orderly officers, and yet when an expedition is
on foot, requiring intelligence no less than boldness, it is 1 whom
‘“T will go, sir,†I cried’
the Emperor and Marshal Lannes choose.’ ‘I will go, sir,’ I cried
without hesitation. ‘I will go; and if I perish, I leave my mother
to your Majesty’s care.’ The Emperor pulled my ear to mark his
satisfaction ; the marshal shook my hand, ‘I was quite right to tell
your Majesty that he would go. There’s what you may call a
brave soldier.’
R. N
178 HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
My expedition being thus. decided on, I had to think about the
means of executing it. The Emperor called General Bertrand, his
aide-de-camp, General Dorsenne, of the guard, and the commandant
of the imperial head-quarters, and ordered them to put at my dis-
posal whatever I might require. At my request an infantry picket
went into the town to find the burgomaster, the syndic of the boat-
men, and five of his best hands. A corporal and five grenadiers of
the old guard who could all speak German, and had still to earn
their decoration, were also summoned, and voluntarily agreed to go
with me. The Emperor had them brought in first, and promised
that on their return they should receive the Cross at once. The
brave men replied by a ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and went to get
ready. As for the five boatmen, on its being explained to them
through the interpreter that they had to take a boat across the
Danube, they fell on their knees and began to weep. The syndic
declared that they might just as well be shot at once, as sent to
certain death. The expedition was absolutely impossible, not only
from the strength of the current, but because the tributaries had
brought into the Danube a great quantity of fir trees recently cut
down in the mountains, which could not be avoided in the dark,
and would certainly come against the boat and sink it. Besides,
how could one land on the opposite bank among willows which
would scuttle the boat, and with.a flood of unknown extent? The
syndic concluded, then, that the operation was physically impos-.
sible. In vain did the Emperor tempt them with an offer of
6,000 franes per man; even this could not persuade them, though,
as they said, they were poor boatmen with families, and this sum
would be a fortune to them. But, as I have already said, some
lives must be sacrificed to save those of the greater number, and
the knowledge of this makes commanders sometimes pitiless. The
Emperor was inflexible, and the grenadiers received orders to take
the poor men, whether they would or not, and we went down to the
town. : ,
The corporal who had been assigned to me was an intelligent man.
Taking him for my interpreter, I charged him as we went along to
tell the syndic of the boatmen that as he had got to come along
with us, he had better in his own interest show us his best boat,
and point out everything that we should require for her fitting.
The poor man obeyed; so we got an excellent vessel, and we took
all that we wanted from the others. We had two anchors, but as
I did not think we should be able to make use of them, I had sewn
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE 179
to the end of each cable a piece of canvas with a large stone wrapped
in it. I had seen in the south of France the fishermen use an
apparatus of this kind to hold their boats by throwing the cord
over the willows at the water’s edge. I put ona cap, the grenadiers
took their forage caps, we had provisions, ropes, axes, saws, a
ladder,—everything, in short, which I could think of to take.
Our preparations ended, I was going to give the signal to start,
when the five boatmen implored me with tears to let the soldiers
escort them to their houses, to take perhaps the last farewell of
their wives and children; but, fearing that a tender scene of this
kind would further reduce their small stock of courage, I refused.
Then the syndic said, ‘ Well, as we have only a short time to live,
allow us five minutes to commend our souls to God, and do you do
the same, for you also are going to your death.’ They all fell on
their knees, the grenadiers and I following their example, which
seemed to please the worthy people much. When their prayer was
over, I gave each man a glass of the monks’ excellent wine, and we
pushed out into the stream.
I had bidden the grenadiers follow in silence all the orders of
the syndic who was steering; the current was too strong for us to
cross over straight from Mélk: we went up, therefore, along
the bank under sail for more than a league, and although the wind
and the waves made the boat jump, this part was accomplished
without accident. But when the time came to take to our oars
and row out from the land, the mast, on being lowered, fell over to
one side, and the sail, dragging in the water, offered a strong resis-
tance to the current and nearly capsized us. The master ordered
the ropes to be cut and the masts to be sent overboard: but the
boatmen, losing their heads, began to pray without stirring. Then
the corporal, drawing his sword, said, ‘You can pray and work
too; obey at once, or I will kill you.’ Compelled to choose between
possible and certain death, the poor fellows took up their hatchets,
and with the help of the grenadiers, the mast was promptly cut
away and sent floating. It was high time, for hardly were we free
from this dangerous burden when we felt a fearful shock. A pine-
stem borne down by the stream had struck the boat. We all shud-
dered, but luckily the planks were not driven in this time. Would
the boat, however, resist more shocks of this kind? We could not
see the stems, and only knew that they were near by the heavier
tumble of the waves. Several touched us, but no serious accident
resulted. Meantime the current bore us along, and as our oars
nN2
180 HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
could make very little way against it to give us the necessary slant,
I feared for a moment that it would sweep us below the enemy’s
camp, and that my expedition would fail. By dint of hard rowing,
however, we had got three-quarters of the way over, when I saw
an immense black mass looming over the water. Then a sharp
scratching was heard, branches caught us in the face, and the boat
stopped. To our questions the owner replied that we were on an
island covered with willows and poplars, of which the flood had
nearly reached the top. We had to grope about with our hatchets
to clear a passage through the branches, and when we had suc-
ceeded in passing the obstacle, we found the stream much less
furious than in the middle of the river, and finally reached the
left bank in front of the Austrian camp. This shore was bordered
with very thick trees, which, overhanging the bank like a dome,
made the approach difficult no doubt, but at the same time con-
cealed our boat from the camp. The whole shore was lighted up
by the bivouac fires, while we remained in the shadow thrown by
the branches of the willows. I let the boat float downwards, look-
ing for a suitable landing-place. Presently I perceived that a
sloping path had been made down the bank by the enemy to allow
the men and horses to get to the water. The corporal adroitly
threw into the willows one of the stones that I had made ready,
the eord caught in a tree, and the boat brought up against the land
a foot or two from the slope. It must have been just about mid-
night. The Austrians, having the swollen Danube between them
and the French, felt themselves so secure that except the sentry
the whole camp was asleep.
Tt is usual in war for the guns and the sentinels always to face
towards the enemy, however far off he may be.
advance of the camp was therefore turned towards the river, and
sentries were walking on the top of the bank. The trees prevented
them from seeing the extreme edge, while from the boat I could
see through the branches a great part of the bivouac. So far my
mission had been more successful than I had ventured to hop,
but in order to make the success complete I had to bring away a
prisoner, and to execute such an operation fifty paces away from
several thousand enemies, whom a single cry would rouse, seemed
very difficult. Still, I had to do something. I made the five
sailors lie down at the bottom of the boat under guard of two
grenadiers, another grenadier I posted at the bow of the boat which
was close to the bank, and myself disembarked, sword in hand,
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE 181
followed by the corporal and two grenadiers. The boat was a few
feet from dry land; we had to walk in the water, but at last we
were on the slope. We went up, and I was making ready to rush
on the nearest sentry, disarm him, gag him, and drag him off to
the boat, when the ring of metal and the sound of singing in a low
voice fell on my ears. A man, carrying a great tin pail, was coming
to draw water, humming a song as he went; we quickly went
down again to the river to hide under the branches, and as the
Austrian stooped to fill his pail my grenadiers seized him by the
throat, put a handkerchief full of wet sand over his mouth, and
placing their sword-points against his body threatened him with
death if he resisted or uttered. a sound. Utterly bewildered, the
man obeyed, and let us take him to the boat; we hoisted him into
the hands of the grenadiers posted there, who made him lie down
beside the sailors. While this Austrian was lying captured, I saw
by his clothes that he was not strictly speaking a soldier, but an
officer’s servant. I should have preferred to catch a combatant,
who could have given me more precise information; but I was
going to content myself with this capture for want of a better, when
I saw at top of the slope two soldiers carrying a cauldron between
them, on a pole. They were only a few paces off. It was impos-
sible for us to re-embark without being seen. I therefore signed
to my grenadiers to hide themselves again, and as soon as the two
Austrians stooped to fill their vessel, powerful arms seized them
from behind, and plunged their heads under water. We had to
stupefy them a little, since they had their swords, and I feared that
they might resist. Then they were picked up in turn, their mouths
covered with a handkerchief full of sand, and sword-points against
their breasts constrained them to follow us. They were shipped
as the servant had been, and my men and I got on board again.
So far all had gone well. I made the sailors get up and take
their oars, and ordered the corporal to cast loose the rope which
held us to the bank. It was, however, so wet, and the knot had
been drawn so tight by the force of the stream, that it was impos-
sible to unfasten. We had to saw the rope, which took us some
minutes. Meanwhile, the rope, shaking with our efforts, imparted
its movement to the branches of the willow round which it was
wrapped, and the rustling became loud enough to attract the notice
of the sentry. He drew near, unable to see the boat, but perceiy-
ing that’ the agitation of the branches increased, he called out,
‘Who goes there?’ No answer. Further challenge from the
182 HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
sentry. We held our tongues, and worked away. I was in deadly
fear; after facing so many dangers, it would have been too cruel if
we were wrecked in sight of port. At last, the rope was cut and
the boat pushed off. But hardly was it clear of the overhanging
willows than the light of the bivouac fires made it visible to the
sentry, who, shouting, ‘To arms,’ fired at us. No one was hit;
but at the sound the whole camp was astir in a moment, and the
gunners, whose pieces were ready loaded and trained on the river,
honoured my boat with some cannon-shots. At the report my
heart leapt for joy, for I knew thatthe Emperor and marshal would
hear it. I turned my eyes towards the convent, with its lighted
“We had to saw the rope’
windows, of which.I had, in spite of the distance, never lost sight.
Probably all were open at this moment, but in one only could I
perceive any increase of brilliancy; it was the great baleony win-
dow, which was as large as the doorway of a church, and sent from
afar a flood of light over the stream. Evidently it had just been
opened at the thunder of the cannon, and I said to myself, ‘The
Emperor and the marshals are doubtless on the balcony; they
know that I have reached the enemy’s camp, and are making vows
for my safe return.’ This thought raised my courage, and I
heeded the cannon-balls not a bit. Indeed, they were not very
dangerous, for the stream swept us along at such a pace that the
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE 183
gunners could not aim with any accuracy, and we must have been
very unlucky to get hit. One shot would have done for us, but all
fell harmless into the Danube. Soon I was out of range, and could
reckon a successful issue to my enterprise. Still, all danger was
not yet at an end. We had still to cross among the floating pine-
stems, and more than once we struck on submerged islands, and
were delayed by the branches of the poplars. At last we reached
the right bank, more than two leagues below Mélk, and a new
terror assailed me. I could see bivouac fires, and had no means
of learning whether they belonged to a French regiment. The
enemy had troops on both banks, and I knew that on the right
bank Marshal Lannes’ outposts were not far from Mlk, facing an
Austrian corps, posted at Saint-Pélten.
Our army would doubtless go forward at daybreak, but was it
already occupying this place? And were the fires that I saw those
of friends or enemies? I was afraid that the current had taken me
too far down, but the problem was solved by French cavalry’
trumpets sounding the reveillé. Our uncertainty being at an end,
we rowed with all our strength to the shore, where in the dawning
light we could see a village. As we drew near, the report of a
carbine was heard, and a bullet whistled by our ears. It was
evident that the French sentries took us for a hostile crew. I had
not foreseen this possibility, and hardly knew how we were to
succeed in getting recognised, till the happy thought struck me of
making my six grenadiers shout, ‘Vive l’Empereur Napoléon!’
This was, of course, no certain evidence that we were French, but
it would attract the attention of the officers, who would have no
fear of our small numbers, and would no doubt prevent the men
from firing on us before they knew whether we were French or
Austrians. A few moments later I came ashore, and I was received
by Colonel Gautrin and the 9th Hussars, forming part of Lannes’
division. If we had landed half a league lower down we should
have tumbled into the enemy’s pickets. The colonel lent me a
horse, and gave me several wagons, in which I placed the grenadiers,
the boatmen, and the prisoners, and the little cavalcade went off
towards Mélk. As we went along, the corporal, at my orders,
questioned the three Austrians, and T learnt with satisfaction that
the camp whence I had brought them away belonged to the very
division, General Hiller’s, the position of which the Emperor was
so anxious to learn. There was, therefore, no further doubt that
that general had joined the archduke on the other side of the
184 HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE
Danube. There was no longer any question of a battle on the road
which we held, and Napoleon, having only the enemy’s cavalry in
front of him, could in perfect safety push his troops forward towards
Vienna, from which we were but three easy marches distant. With
this information I galloped forward, in order to bring it to the
Emperor with the least possible delay.
When I reached the gate of the monastery, it was broad day. I
found the approach blocked by the whole population of the little
town of Molk, and heard among the crowd the cries of the wives,
children, and friends of the sailors whom I had carried off. In a
moment I was surrounded by them, and was able to calm their
anxiety by saying, in very bad German, ‘ Your friends are alive,
and you will see them in a few moments.’ A great cry of joy went
up from the crowd, bringing out the officer in command of the guard
at the gate. On seeing me he ran off in pursuance of orders to warn
the aides-de-camp to let the Emperor know of my return. In an
instant the whole palace was up. The good Marshal Lannes came
to me, embraced me cordially, and carried me straight off to the
Emperor, crying out, ‘ Here he is, sir; I knew he would come back.
He has brought three prisoners from General Hiller’s division.’
Napoleon received me warmly, and though I was wet and muddy
all over, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and did not forget to give
his greatest sign of satisfaction by pinching my ear. I leave you
to imagine how I was questioned! The Emperor wanted to know
every incident of the adventure in detail, and when I had finished
my story said, ‘I am very well pleased with you, “ Major†Marbot.’
These words were equivalent to a commission, and my joy was full.
At that moment, a chamberlain announced that breakfast was
served, and as I was calculating on having to wait in the gallery
until the Emperor had finished, he pointed with his finger towards
the dining-room, and said, ‘You will breakfast with me.’ As this
honour had never been paid to any officer of my rank, I was the
more flattered. During breakfast I learnt that the Emperor and
the marshal had not been to bed all night, and that when they
heard the cannon on the opposite bank they had all rushed on to
the balcony. The Emperor made me tell again the way in which
I had surprised the three prisoners, and laughed much at the fright
and surprise which they must have felt.
At last, the arrival of the wagons was announced, but they had
much difficulty in making their way through the crowd, so eager
were the people to see the boatmen. Napoleon, thinking this very
HOW MARBOT CROSSED THE DANUBE 185
natural, gave orders to open the gates, and let everybody come into
the’ court. Soon after, the grenadiers, the boatmen, and the
prisoners were led into the gallery. The Emperor, through his
interpreter, first questioned the three Austrian soldiers, and learning
with satisfaction that not only General Hiller’s corps, but the whole
of the archduke’s army, were on the other bank, he told Berthier to
give the order for the troops to march at once on Saint-Pélten.
Then, calling up the corporal and the five soldiers, he fastened the
Cross on their breast, appointed them knights of the Empire, and
gave them an annuity of 1,200 francs apiece. All the veterans wept
for joy. Next came the boatmen’s turn. The Emperor told them
that, as the danger they had run was a good deal more than he had
expected, it was only fair that he should increase their reward ; so,
instead of the 6,000 francs promised, 12,000 in gold were given to
them on the spot. Nothing could express their delight ; they kissed
the hands of the Emperor and all present, crying, ‘ Now we are
rich!’ Napoleon laughingly asked the syndic if he would go the
same journey for the same price the next night. But the man
answered that, having escaped by miracle what seemed certain
death, he would not undertake such a journey again even if his
lordship, the abbot of Mélk, would give him the monastery and all
its possessions. The boatmen withdrew, blessing the generosity of
the French Emperor, and the grenadiers, eager to show off their -
decoration before their comrades, were about to go off with their
three prisoners, when Napoleon perceived that the Austrian servant
was weeping bitterly. He reassured him as to his safety, but the
poor lad replied, sobbing, that he knew the French treated their
prisoners well, but that, as he had on him a belt, containing nearly
all his captain’s money, he was afraid that the officer would accuse
him of deserting in order to rob him, and he was heart-broken at
the thought. Touched by the worthy fellow’s distress, the Emperor
told him that he was free, and as soon as we were before Vienna, he
would be passed through the outposts, and be able to return to his
master. Then, taking a rouleau of 1,000 francs, he put it in the
man’s hand, saying, ‘One must honour goodness wherever it is
shown.’ Lastly, the Emperor gave some pieces of gold to each of
the other two prisoners, and ordered that they too should be sent
back to the Austrian outposts, so that they might forget the fright
which we had caused them, and that it might not be said that any
soldiers, even enemies, had spoken to the Emperor of the French
without receiving some benefit.
186
THE PITHOUS DHATH OF GASTON,
SON OF THE COUNT OF FOIX
M ORE than five hundred years ago, on St. Catherine’s Day,
1888, Master Jean Froissart, a priest of Hainault, rode into
the little town of Orthez. He was in search of information about
battles and tournaments, for he was writing his famous ‘ History
and Chronicle.’ To get news of all kinds he rode gaily about, with
a white greyhound in a leash, and carrying a novel which he had
begun for the entertainment of ladies and princes. Arriving at
Orthez (where, long afterwards, the Duke of Wellington fought the
French on the borders of Spain), Master Froissart alighted at the
hotel with the sign of the Moon. Meanwhile a knight who had
travelled with Froissart went up to the castle, and paid his court
to Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix. He found the Count in the -
gallery of the palace just after dinner, for this prince always went
to bed at midday and took supper at midnight. He was a great
and powerful noble, of stately and beautiful presence, though now
he was nearly sixty years old. A wise knight he was, bold in
enterprise, and of good counsel. Never did he suffer any unbeliever
in his company, and he was very pious, every day making many
and long prayers, and giving alms to the poor folk at his gate.
He took much delight in minstrelsy, and at his midnight supper
songs and virelays were chanted to him. ‘Till about three o'clock
in the morning he listened while Master Froissart read aloud his
poems, tales, or histories, while the courtiers yawned, no doubt,
and wished for bedtime. But it was the good Count’s manner to
turn night into day. He was sometimes melancholy, and, as: is
told in the story of Orthon, men believed that he saw and knew
events far distant, but in what manner none could tell. This
great prince dwelt at peace while the wars of France, England,
Portugal, and Spain raged outside his dominions. Rich, powerful,
handsome, and deeply religious, he seemed to have everything that
THE PITEOUS DEATH OF GASTON 187
could make him happy, but he had no son and heir; his lands, on
his death, would go to a distant cousin. Nor did the lady his
wife live with the Count of Foix. Concerning this, and the early
death of the Count’s one son, Gaston, Master Froissart was very
curious, but he found that people did not care to speak of the
matter. At length an old squire told him the story of the death of
Gaston.
The Countess of Foix was the sister of the King of Navarre,
and between the Count her husband, and the King her brother, a
quarrel arose on a question of money. The Count therefore sent
his wife to her brother at Pampeluna, that she might arrange the
matter; but the end of it was that she stayed in Navarre, and did
not return to her lord. Meanwhile her son Gaston grew up at
Orthez, and married a daughter of the Count of Armagnac, being
now a lad of sixteen, a good squire, and in all things very like his
father. He had a desire to see his mother, and so rode into
Navarre, hoping to bring home his mother, the Countess of Foix.
But she would not leave Navarre for all that he could say, and
the day came when he and the young squires of his company must
return. Then the King of Navarre led him apart into a secret
chamber, and there gave him a little purse. Now the purse was
full of a powder of such sort that no living creature could taste of it
and live, but must die without remedy.
‘Gaston, fair nephew,’ said the King, ‘ you see how your father,
the Count, holds your mother in bitter hate—a sore grief to me and
to you also. Now to change all this, and bring your father and
mother back to their ancient love, you must watch your chance
and sprinkle a little of this powder on any food that your father is
about to eat, taking good care that no man sees you. And the
powder is a charm so strong that your father, as soon as he has
tasted it, will desire nothing so much as to be friends with your
mother again, and never will they leave each other. But you
must take heed that no man knows of this purpose, or all is lost.’
The young Count, believing, in his innocence, what his uncle
said, made answer that ha would gladly do as he was bidden.
Then he rode back to Orthez, and showed his father all the
presents and jewels that had been given to him in Navarre, except
the little purse.
Now it was the custom of the young Count to be much in the
company of his brother by another mother, and, as they played
together one day, this boy, named Yvain, caught hold of the little
188 THE PITEOUS DEATH OF GASTON
purse which Gaston wore about his neck under his coat, and asked
him what it was. But Gaston made no answer. Three days later the
lads quarrelled over a stroke at tennis, and Gaston struck Yvain a
blow. Yvain ran weeping to his father, the Count, who asked
what ailed him.
‘The Count leaped up, a knife in his hand’
‘Gaston struck me,’ said he, ‘but it is Gaston, not I, who
deserves a blow.’
‘What has he done?’ asked the Count.
‘Fiver since he came from his mother’s in Navarre he carries
about his neck a little purse full of a powder. But I only know that
he says you and his mother will soon be good friends once more.’
‘Ha!’ cried the Count, ‘do you be silent.’
ea
THE PITHOUS DEATH OF GASTON 189
That day at dinner, as Gaston served the meats, for this was
his duty, the Count called to him, seized his coat, opened it, and,
with his knife, cut the purse from the boy’s neck. Gaston said no
word, but grew pale and trembled. The Count opened the purse,
spread the powder on a piece of bread, and threw it toa dog. No
sooner had the dog eaten the bread than his eyes turned round,
and he fell dead.
Gaston in prison
The Count leaped up, a knife in his hand, and would have slain
his son as a traitor, but the knights and esquires, kneeling, prayed
him to hold his hand.
‘Perchance,’ said they, ‘Gaston knew not the nature of that
which was in the purse, and is guiltless in this matter.’
“So be it,’ said the Count. ‘Hold him prisoner in-the tower at
your own peril.’
190 THE PITHOUS DEATH OF GASTON
Then he seized all the companions and friends of Gaston, for
they must have known, he said, that his son carried a purse secretly.
Fifteen of the fairest and noblest of the boys he.put to death with
horrible tortures, but they knew nothing and could tell nothing.
Then he called together all his nobles and bishops, and told them
that Gaston also must die. But they prayed for his life, because
they loved him dearly, and he was the heir of all the Count’s lands.
So the Count decided to keep Gaston in prison for some months,
and then send him to travel for two or three years. The Pope
sent a cardinal to the Count, bidding him spare Gaston, but, before
the Cardinal reached Orthez, Gaston was dead. .
One day the servant who took meat and drink into the boy’s
dark dungeon saw that he had not tasted food for many days. All
the dishes lay full of mouldering meat in a row along the wall.
Then the servant ran and warned the Count that Gaston was
starving himself to death. The Count was trimming his nails
with a little knife, and he sped in great anger to the dungeon.
‘Traitor, why dost thou not eat?’ he cried, dealt the boy a cuff,
and rushed out again, and so went to his chamber.
But the point of the little knife, which was in his hand, had cut
a vein in Gaston’s neck, and, being weak with hunger and grief,
Gaston died, for the vein could not be staunched. Then the Count
made great lament, and had his head shaven, and wore mourning
for many days. ;
Thus it chanced that the Count of Foix lived without an heir,
turning night into day, praying much, and listening to minstrels,
giving alms, and hearkening to strange messages of death and war
that were borne to him how no man knew. And his brother,
Pierre, was a good knight and wise by day, yet at night madness
fell on him, and he raved, beating the air with a naked sword.
And this had been his manner ever.since he fought with and slew
a huge bear on the hills. Now when his wife saw that bear
brought home dead she fainted, and in three days she fled with
her children, and came back no more. For her father had once
pursued that bear, which cried to him: ‘Thou huntest me who
wish thee no harm, but thou shalt die an ill death.’ He then left
off pursuing the bear; but the Count’s brother slew the beast on
another day, and thereafter he went mad in the night, though by
day he was wise enough.
These tales were told to Master Froissart by the old squire at
Orthez.
191
ROLF STAKE}
y ene was once a king in Denmark named Rolf Stake; right
famous is he among the kings of yore, foremost for liberality,
daring, and courtesy. Of his courtesy one proof celebrated in
story is this.
A poor little boy named Végg came into King Rolf’s hall: the
King was then young and slender of build.. Végg went near and
looked up at him. Then said the King: ‘ What wouldst thou say,
boy, that thou lookest at me so ?’
Voge answered: ‘When I was at home, I heard tell that King
Rolf at Hleidr was the tallest man in Northland; but now here sits
in the high seat a thin stake, and they call him their king.’
Then answered the King: ‘Thou, boy, hast given me a name to
be known by—Rolf Stake to wit. ’Tis custom to follow a naming
with a gift. But now I see that thou hast not with the naming
any gift to give me such as would beseem me to accept, wherefore
he of us who hath must give to the other.’ With that the King
drew a gold ring from his own hand and gave it to him.
Then said Végg: ‘Blessed above all kings be thou who givest !
And by this vow I bind me to be that man’s bane who shall be
thine.’
Then said the King with a laugh: ‘ With small gain is Voge
fain.’
Further, this proof is told of Rolf Stake’s daring.
There ruled over Upsala a king narned Adils, who had to, wife
Yrsa, Rolf Stake’s mother. He was at war with Ali, the king who
then ruled Norway. They appointed to meet in battle upon the
ice of the lake called Venir. King Adils sent a message to Rolf
Stake, his stepson, that he should come to help him, and promised
pay to all his force so long as they should be on the campaign, but
the King himself was to receive for his own three costly things
? From Snorri’s Ldda, cap, 44.
192 ROLF STAKE
from Sweden, whatsoever he should choose. King Rolf could not
go himself by reason of a war that he had against the Saxons; but
he sent to Adils his twelve Berserks, of whom were Bédvar Bjarki,
Hjalti Stoutheart, Whiteserk Bold, Vott, Vidseti, and the brothers
Svipdag and Beigud.
In the battle then fought fell King Ali and a great part of his
host. And King Adils took from the dead prince the helmet
Battleboar and his horse Raven. Then the Berserks of Rolf
‘But now here sits in the high seat a thin stake’
Stake asked for their wage, three pounds of gold apiece ; and further
they asked to carry to Rolf Stake those costly things which they in
his behalf should choose. These were the helmet Battleboar, and
the corslet Finnsleif, which no weapon could pierce, and the gold
ring called Sviagriss, an heirloom from Adils’ forefathers. But the
King denied them all the costly things, nor did he even pay their
wage.
The Berserks went away ill-content with their lot, and told Rolf
Stake what had been done.
ROLF STAKE 193
At once he started for Upsala, and when he came with his ships
into the river Fyri he then rode to Upsala, and with him his
twelve Berserks, without any truce guaranteed. Yvrsa, his mother,
welcomed him, and led him, not to the King’s hall, but to a lodging.
There fires were lighted for them and ale given them to drink
Then some men of King Adils came in and threw billets of
‘He fleeth not the flame
Who leapeth o’er the same ’
wood on the fire, and made such a blaze that it scorched the
clothes of Rolf’s company. And they said: ‘Is it true that Rolf
Stake and his Berserks flee neither fire nor iron?’ Then up leapt
Rolf and all his twelve, and he crying,
‘Heap we yet higher
Adils’ house-fire,’
194 ROLF STAKE
took his shield and cast it on the fire, and leapt theréover, crying
yet again, :
‘He fleeth not the flame
Who leapeth o’er the same.’
Likewise one after the other did all his men. Then they seized
those who had heaped up the fire, and cast them thereon.
And now came Yrsa and gave to Rolf Stake adeer’s horn filled
with gold, and therewith the ring Sviagriss, and bade them ride
away to their fleet. They leapt on their horses and rode down to
Fyris-field. Soon they saw that King Adils rode after them with
his force fully armed, purposing to slay them. Whereupon Rolf
Stake, plunging his right hand into the horn, took of the gold and
sowed it all over the path. But when the Swedes saw that, they
leapt from their saddles and gathered each what he could get ; but
King Adils bade them ride on, and himself rode at speed. Slungnir
his horse was named, of all-horses the fleetest.
Then Rolf Stake, when he saw that King Adils rode near him,
took the ring Sviagriss and threw it to him, and bade him accept
the gift. King Adils rode to the ring, and lifting it on his lowered
spear-point slid it up along the shaft. Then did Rolf Stake turn
him back, and, seeing how he louted low, cried: ‘ Now have I made
Sweden’s greatest grovel swine-wise.’
So they parted.
For this reason gold is by poets called ‘the seed of Stake’ or
‘of Fyris-field.’
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
‘Hi Honourable John Byron, grandfather of the poet, was a
celebrated British Admiral who in almost all his voyages fell
in with such rough weather that his sailors nicknamed him ‘ Foul-
weather Jack.’
When he was seventeen years old he served as midshipman in
the ‘ Wager,’ a vessel attached to the squadron under the command
of Commodore Anson which sailed out to the Spanish Settlements
in the Pacific in 1740.
From the set-out the expedition was unfortunate. Almost all
the ships were ill-fitted and ill-provisioned for so long a voyage.
Moreover they were delayed until long after the proper season for
their departure was past, which was regarded by the soldiers and
sailors as an evil omen. This neglect affected the ‘Wager’ more
than any other ship, as she was an old East Indiaman, and had
been bought into the service for the voyage, and fitted out for it as
a man-of-war.
Besides this, when under sail she listed to one side, as she was
top-laden with heavy military gear and stores for the use of the
other vessels, while the lower holds were filled with light merchan-
dise for bartering with the Indians. ;
Her crew were men who had been pressed on their return from
long voyages, and the marines a small troop of invalids from the
Chelsea Hospital, who were all alike very miserably depressed at
the prospect of the long voyage which lay before them.
Even Captain Kid, under whose command the ‘ Wager’ sailed
out of port, when on his death-bed shortly after, foretold her ill-
success.
Upon his death Captain Cheap took command, and was able to
keep with the squadron until they were about to enter the Straits
la Marie, where the wind shifted to the south, and with the turn
02
196 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
of the tide the ‘ Wager’ was separated from the other ships, and
very narrowly escaped being wrecked off Staten Island.
However, she regained her station with the rest of the fleet until
a few days later, when they were caught by a deep roll of a hollow
sea, and lost their mizzen mast, and all the windward chain plates
were broken.
They tried to rig up a substitute for the mizzen mast, but
failed, as hard westerly gales set in with a tremendous short
chopping swell, which raised the waves to a mountainous height,
while from time to time a heavy sea broke over the ship. The boats
on the davits were cast from their lashings, and filled with water,
and the ship in all parts was soon in a most shattered and crazy
state.
They had now lost sight of the squadron, and from the numbers
of birds, and the drifting seaweed in the waters, they found they
were being borne on to a lee shore. The heavy clouds that lowered
above them, or the blinding sleet and snow, hid the sun and
prevented the officers from taking sights ; and at night no moon or
stars by which they could steer their course were visible in the wild
gloom through which they tossed.
When the officers at last found they were out of their bearings,
they tried to persuade the captain to alter the course, but this he
refused to do, as he believed he was making directly for the Island
of Socoro, which was the place arranged for the squadron to meet,
and whence it was intended they should make their first attack
upon the Spaniards.
At this time, when all but twelve men on the ‘ Wager’ were
disabled by fatigue or sickness, there loomed against the dull
clouds a yet heavier cloud, which was that of mountainous
masses of land. Then Captain Cheap at last realised their danger,
and gave orders 10 wear ship to the southward, hoping that they
might crowd her off the land.
But the fury of the gale increased as night fell upon them, while
to add to their dismay, as each sail was set with infinite labour, it
was set only to be blown or rent immediately from the yard.
At four o’clock in the morning the ship struck, then again for
the second time more violently; and presently she lay helpless on
her beam ends—while the sea every now and then broke over her.
Everyone who could move rushed to the quarter-deck, but those
who were dying of scurvy and who could not leave their hammocks
were drowned in them.
D FLOURISHED A CUT-
» . STALKED ABOUT THE DECK AN
‘ONE MAN .
LASS ., . SHOUTING THAT HE WAS “ KING OF THE COUNTRY �?
2
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 199
In the uncertain light of dawn they could see nothing around
them but leaden breakers from whose foam-crested manes the wind
swept the blinding spray. The ship lay in this terrible plight for
some little time, while every soul on board counted each moment as
his last.
In this scene of wild disorder the men lost all reason and
restraint, some gave themselves up to death like logs, and were rolled
hither and thither with each jerk and roll of the shivering ship.
One man in the exaltation of his despair stalked about the
deck, and flourished a cutlass over his head, and struck at anyone
who came near him with it—meanwhile shouting that he was the
‘king of the country.’
Another, and a brave man, was so overcome by the fury of the
seething waters, that he tried to throw himself from the rails at the
quarter-deck, and to end in death a scene he felt too shocking to
look upon.
The man at the helm still kept his post, though both rudder
and tiller had been carried away; and applied himself to his duty
with the same respect and coolness as though the ship were in
the greatest safety.
Then Mr. Jones, the mate, spoke to the men, saying, ‘My
friends! have you never seen a ship amongst breakers before ?
Lend a hand, boys, and lay on to the sheets and braces. I have
no fear but that we shall stick her near enough to the land to save
our lives.’
Although he said these gallant words without hope of saving a
single soul, he gave courage to many of the men, and they set to
work in earnest.
They steered as best they could by the sheets and braces, and
presently ran her in between an opening in the breakers, and soon
found themselves wedged fast between two great rocks.
With the break of day the weather cleared sufficiently to give
them a glimpse of the land. They then set to work to get out the
boats. The first one that was launched was so overladen by those
anxious to save themselves, that they were almost swamped before
they reached the shore.
On the day before the ship was wrecked, the captain had had
his shoulder dislocated by a fall, and was lying in his berth when
John Byron, whose duty it was to keep him informed of all that
passed on deck, went to ask if he would not like to land. But the
captain refused to leave the ship until everyone else had gone.
200 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
Throughout the ship, the scene was now greatly changed, The
men who but a few moments before had been on their knees pray-
ing for mercy, when they found themselves not in immediate
danger, became very riotous, rushed to the cabins and stores,
and broke open every chest and box they could find, as well as
casks of wine and brandy. And by drinking it some of them were
rendered so helpless that they were drowned on board by the seas
that continually swept over them.
The boatswain and five other men refused to leave the ship
while there was any liquor to be got; then at last the captain con-
sented to be helped from his bed, and to be taken on shore.
Although they were thankful to escape from the wreck, when
they reached the land they found themselves in a scene desolate
enough to quell the bravest soul.
The bay in which they had been cast away was open to the
full force of the ocean, and was formed by rocky headlands and
cliffs with here and there a stretch of beach, while rising abruptly
from the sea a rock-bound steep frowned above them, which they
afterwards named Mount Misery. Stretching back from the beach
lay stagnant lagoons and dreary flats of morass and swamp, the
edges of which were drained by the roots of heavy forest trees
whose impenetrable gloom clothed the intervening country and
hillsides.
And out before them in the tempestuous waters the wreck lay,
from whose stores must come their only present chance of life.
With nightfall presently at hand, though they were cold and
wet and hungry, they had to try to find a shelter, and at last
chanced upon an Indian hut at a little distance from the beach.
Into this poor refuge the men packed themselves in a voluntary
imprisonment, while, to add to their distress, they were afraid
of being attacked by Indians.
One of the ofticers died in this miserable place during the night,
and of those left outside who were unable from want of room to
press in, two more perished from cold.
The next morning found them cramped with starvation and
cold, with no food but some fragments of biscuit, a solitary sea-
gull someone had killed, and the stalks of wild celery that grew
upon the beach. This they made into soup, and served as far as it
would go to the hundred and forty men who clamoured for food.
The men who had remained on the wreck were now anxious to
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 201
be brought on shore, and repeatedly made signals to that effect ;
but the sea was running high and it was not possible at once to
set out to their relief. In their rage at the delay they fired one of
the quarter-deck guns upon the camp, while on board they destroyed
everything they could lay hands on. In his brutality and greed for
spoil, a man named James Mitchell murdered one of their number.
‘When at last they were brought to land they came dressed in laced
clothes and officers’ suits which they had put on over their own
dirty clothes.
These men Captain Cheap instantly had stripped of their finery
and arms, and enforced the most strict discipline upon them and all
the crew.
In a few days they had a shelter made with boats turned keel
“upwards, and placed on props, while the sides were lined with
canvas and boughs.
Then followed five weary months, during which these hunger-
driven men roamed the wretched island rocks both night and day,
searching for shell-fish for food—men who were even thank-
ful at the times when they were able to kill and eat the carrion
crows that fed upon the flesh of their drowned comrades cast
up by the tide. Some Indians surprised them by a visit, and
stayed for several days, and with them they were able to barter
cloth and beads for some dogs, and these they killed and ate.
The Indians were very short and black, and had long coarse
hair that hung over their faces, and were almost without clothing
of any kind.
The shipwrecked men grew more and more discontented as the
months went by, and several of them threatened to take the life of
the captain, whose strict discipline and guard over the stores made
them very angry.
James Mitchell, who had murdered a man on the wreck, and had
since committed another murder on Mount Misery, where his victim
was found shockingly stabbed and mangled, was amongst this set.
They had determined to leave the others, and on the night before
their departure had placed a barrel of gunpowder close to the
captain’s hut, intending to blow it up, but were dissuaded from
doing this by one of their number. After wandering about the
island for some time they went up one of the lagoons on a punt
they had made, and were never heard of again.
Captain Cheap was very jealous of his authority, and hasty in
suspecting both officers and men of a desire to mutiny, and this
202 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
suspicion on his part led to the unfortunate shooting by him of a
midshipman named Mr. Cozens, whom he heard one day disputing
with the purser as to the disposal of some stores he was at the
time receiving from the wreck. The captain already hada personal
dislike to Mr. Cozens, and hearing high words immediately rushed
out of his hut and shot him. Mr. Cozens did not die until several
days after, but the captain would not allow him to be attended to
by the surgeon, or to have any care from the other men, though
The Captain shoots Mr. Cozens
they begged to be allowed to carry him to their tent, but ordered
that he should be left upon the ground, under a bit of canvas thrown
over some bushes, until he died. This inhumanity on the part of
Captain Cheap much embittered the men against him.
Their numbers were now lessened, chiefly by famine, to one
hundred souls; the weather was still tempestuous and rainy, and
the difficulty of finding food daily increased.
They had saved the long-boat from the wreck, and about this
time John Bulkely, who had been a gunner on the ‘Wager,’ formed
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 203
a plan of trying to make the voyage home through the Straits of
Magellan. ‘The plan was proposed to the captain, and though he
thought it wiser to pretend to fall in with it, he had no intention of
doing so. And when Bulkely and his followers suggested that there
should be some restrictions on his command, or that at least he
should do nothing without consulting his officers, the captain
refused to consent to this; whereupon they imprisoned him, in-
tending to take him to England on the charge of having murdered
_ Mr. Cozens.
But when the boats were ready for sailing they found there
would not be enough room for everybody. So the captain, Mr.
Hamilton, and the doctor were left on the island.
John Byron did not know they were going to do this until the
last moment. There were eighty-one men who left the island, who
were distributed in the long-boat, the cutter, and the barge.
After they had been out about two days it was thought neces-
sary to send back to the old station for some spare canvas. John
Byron was sent back with the barge on this errand. When he was
well away from the long-boat he told those with him he did not
mean to return, but to rejoin Captain Cheap; and they agreed to
do so too.
Although they were welcomed by those left on the island, there
was little food for so many mouths, as almost everything had been
carried off by the voyagers, and for a considerable time they were
forced to live upon a kind of seaweed called slaugh, which with the
stalks of wild celery they fried in the tallow of some candles they
had saved.
This poor food reduced them to a terrible condition of weakness.
At last a really fair day broke upon them, when they went out to
the remains of the wreck, and had the good fortune to hook up out
of the bottom, three casks of beef which they brought safely to
shore. The good food gave them renewed strength and energy,
and again they became very anxious to leave the island.
Accordingly they launched both boats on December 15. The
captain, Lieutenant Hamilton, and John Byron were in the barge
with nine men, and Mr. Campbell in the yaw] with six. And thus
they set out on their journey northward.
Then followed weary days, during which they rowed over high
seas, and weary nights of exposure and cold, when they landed on
some barren shore for rest and to wait for daylight.
On Christmas Eve they found themselves tossing on a wide bay,
204 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
and unable by the force of the currents to double the rocky head-
lands that lay in front of them. Unable, too, by the fury of the
breakers to make the land or to find harbour, they were forced to
lie outside all that night upon their oars.
They were so hungry then that they ate their shoes, which were
made of raw sealskin.
On Christmas Day some of them landed, and had the good
fortune to kill a seal. Though the two men who were left in each
boat to take care of it could see their companions on shore eating
seal, they were unable to have any themselves, as again when night
came on the wind blew very hard, and the mighty breakers beat
with pulse-like regularity on the shore.
John Byron, who had fallen into a comfortless sleep in the boat,
was suddenly awakened by a shriek, and saw the yawl turned
bottom upwards and go down.
One man was drowned, the other was thrown up by the
breakers on the beach and saved by the people there.
At this place Mr. Hamilton, who was with the shore party, shot —
at a large sea-lion, which he hit with two balls; and when the
brute presently charged at him with open mouth, he thrust his
bayonet down its throat, as well as a great part of the barrel of his
gun. But the sea-lion bit this in two with the greatest ease,.and
in spite of all its wounds, and all other efforts to kill it, got away.
As they had lost the yawl there was not enough of room to
take all the men away from this place, therefore four of the
marines agreed to remain and to try to make their way on foot to
a more habitable country.
The captain gave them guns and food, and as the boat put off,
they stood upon the beach and gave three cheers, and shouted
‘God bless the King.’
The others made another attempt to double the cape, but the
wind, the sea, and currents were too strong for them, and again
they failed. So disheartened were they now, that caring little for
life, they agreed to return to their original station on Wager's
Island, and to end their days in miserable existence there.
They went back to the place where they had left the four
marines in order to try to get some seal for their return passage
and to take these men back with them, but when they searched all
traces of them had gone.
It was here that the surgeon found in a curious cave the bodies
of several Indians that were stretched out on a kind of platform.
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 205
The flesh on the bodies had become perfectly dry and hard, and it
was thought that it must be the kind of burial given to the great
men or Caciques of the Indians.
After a terrible journey back to Wager’s Island they reached it
alive, though again worn out by hunger and fatigue.
The first thing they did on reaching their old station was to
bury the corpse of the man who had been murdered on Mount
Misery by James Mitchell, for the men thought that all their mis-
fortunes had arisen from the neglect of this proper duty to the .
Mr. Hamilton’s fight with the sea-lion
dead, and, they were sure that the restless spirit of this person
haunted the waters around them at night, as they heard strange
and unearthly cries from the sea. And one night, in bright moon-
light, they saw and heard something which looked like a human
being swimming near the shore.
Inconsistent as this may seem, they were soon so terribly driven
by hunger that the last dreadful suggestion for food was beginning
to be whispered amongst them, when fortunately some Indians
from the island of Chiloc appeared. It was supposed they had
heard of the wreck from those first Indians who had visited them,
206 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
and had come to collect old iron and nails, which they value very
much.
They were able to persuade the Cacique, who was a Christian
named Martini, to promise to show them the safest and best way to
some of the Spanish Settlements. Once more the barge was
launched, with the fifteen souls on board who now remained on
the island of the shipwrecked crew.
They followed their Indian guide by day for some time, during
which their sufferings were so terrible that it was no unusual thing
for one of their number to fall back dying from the oars, mean-
while beseeching his comrades for two or three mouthfuls of food
which they had not.
Captain Cheap, who was always well provided with seal by the
Indians, again showed how regardless he could be of the sufferings
of others, and often though he could have relieved his men by giving
up a small portion of his own food when he heard their heart-
rending appeals for it, let them die at their posts unheedful of their
want and misery.
They were rather taken in by their Christian Indian Martini.
He made them row the heavy barge a very long way up a river
and then deserted them for several days. They found he wished to
secure the barge here, which was to be a part of his reward, and
which was too heavy to be carried over the rocks of the headlands
inthe way they carried their own canoes—and by which they escaped
the heavy seas that ran round those places.
However, the Cacique returned again, and after a time he con-
sented to take the captain with John Byron to row his canoe on to
another part of the coast where there were more Indians.
They reached this camp late one evening, and while the captain
was at once taken by Martini to a wigwam, Byron was left outside
to shift for himself as best he could. He was so exhausted that all
he could do was to creep into the shelter of a wigwam, and chance
what fate might bring him.
These wigwams were built of branches of trees placed in a
circle, which are bound at the top by a kind of creeper called
supple-jack. The frame of the wigwam is covered with boughs
and bark. The fire is lit in the very centre, round which the
Indians lie, As there is no outlet for the smoke, it is not a very
comfortable place to sleep in.
There were only two Indian women in the wigwam into which
John Byron crept, who were very astonished to see him. However,
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 207
they were kind to him and made up a good fire, and presently,
when he made them understand that he was hungry, they gave
him some fish to eat. But when he had finished it he was still so
hungry that he made signs for more. Then they went out into the
night, taking their dogs with them, and came back in an hour or
two shivering and with water dripping from their hair. They had
caught two more fish, which after they had cooked slightly they
gave him to eat.
These people live only on what they can take from the sea, and
train their dogs to dive for fish and their women for sea-eggs.
While collecting these the women stay under water a wonderfully
long time; they have really the hardest work to do, as they have
to provide food for their husbands and children. They are not
allowed to touch any food themselves until the husband is satistied,
when he gives them a very small portion, generally that which he
does not care to eat himself.
Martini then told them that they would have to return in the
canoe by which they had come to their companions, and that the
Indians they were leaving would join them in a few days, after
which they would all set out together on the journey northwards.
They found Mr. Elliot, the surgeon, very ill, and Mr. Hamilton
and Mr. Campbell were almost starved, having had only a few
sea-eges to eat since they had left.
About the middle of March they re-embarked with the other
Indians, and soon afterwards Mr. Elliot died. He had been one
of the strongest of the party, and one of the most useful and self-
denying, and had never spared himself in trying to provide food
for the others. He was also one of the best shots of the party.
Most of them were now reduced to rags and without shoes, and
when they had to cross the stony headlands and swamps, and to
carry heavy burdens, their feet were often terribly torn.
The Cacique had now become a very hard master to all but the
captain, and forced them to row like galley slaves when they were
in the boats. Indeed, the captain seemed to encourage the Indian
in this conduct. He had become more selfish and cunning in keep-
ing all the food he could lay hands on for himself, and was accus-
tomed to sleep with his head pillowed on a dirty piece of canvas in
which he wrapped portions of seal or sea-eggs. Thorough cleanliness
had become an impossibility to them: they were now terribly
emaciated and covered by vermin. The captain particularly was
a most shocking sight. His legs had become tremendously swelled,
208 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
probably from the disease known as ‘beri-beri,’ while his body
was almost a skeleton, his beard had grown very long, and his face
was covered with train oil and dirt.
When at last they were within a few miles of the island of
Chiloc, they found they had to cross a most dangerous bay. After
waiting for two days for fair weather they started, although the
Cacique even then seemed terrified, and there was every reason
for it, as the sea ran so strong and their boat was.most crazy, the
The Cacique fires off the gun
bottom plank having opened, and ceaseless bailing had to be carried
on all the time. It was early in June when they reached this
place.
Directly the Cacique landed he buried all the things he had
brought from the wreck, for he knew that the Spaniards would
take everything from him.
That same evening, as they drew near to a settlement of Chiloc
Indians the Cacique asked them to load their one remaining gun
with the last charge of powder, and to show him how to fire it off.
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 209
Holding the gun as far away from his head as he could he fired,
and fell back into the bottom of the canoe.
When the Chiloc Indians found out who they were, they
brought fish and potatoes for them to eat, and this was the nicest
meal they had had for more than a year.
These Indians are very strong and nice-looking people; they
are extremely neat in their dress. The men wear what is called a
puncho, which is a square piece of cloth in stripes of different
colours, with a slit in the centre wide enough to put their heads
through, and it hangs from their shoulders.
After a little time the shipwrecked men were sent on by these
people to the Spaniards at Castro. There they were met by a
number of soldiers, with three or four officers, who surrounded
them fiercely as though they were a most formidable enemy instead
of the four poor helpless creatures left of the fifteen men that had
set out from Wager’s Island.
Though they had had much better food since they had been
with the kindly Indians, they were so weak that they could hardly
walk up the hill to the shed in which they were to be lodged.
Numbers of people came to look at them in this place, as
though they were wild beasts or curiosities; and when they heard
they had been starved for more than a year, they brought quan-
tities of chicken and all kinds of good things for them to eat.
John Byron then began to feel more comfortable. He was
always ready to make a meal, and used to carry food in his pockets
so that he need not wait a second for it if he felt hungry. Even
the captain owned that he ate so much that he felt quite ashamed
of himself. ,
In a little time an old Jesuit priest came to see them. He did
not come because he was sorry for them, but because he had heard
from the Indian Cacique that they had things of great value about
them. The priest began by producing a bottle of brandy, and gave
them all some to open their hearts.
Captain Cheap told him he had nothing, not remembering that
Martini had seen lis gold repeater watch; but at the same time he
said that Mr. Campbell had a silver watch, which he at once
ordered him to make a present of to the priest.
Soon after the Spanish governor sent for them to be brought to
Chaco, where they were very well treated by the people. Whilst
here John Byron was asked to marry the niece of a very rich old
priest.
R, ‘ P
210 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
The lady made the suggestion through her uncle, saying that
first she wished him to be converted, and then he might marry her.
When the old priest made the offer, he took John Byron into a
room where there were several large chests full of clothes. Taking
from one of them a large piece of linen, he told him it should be
made up into shirts for him at once if he would marry the lady.
The thought of new shirts was a great temptation to John Byron,
as he had only the one in which he had lived ever since he had
been wrecked.
However, he denied himself this luxury, and excused himself
for not being able to accept the honour of the lady’s hand.
On this occasion he managed to speak Spanish sufficiently well
to make himself understood.
In January 1742 they were sent on to Valparaiso as English
prisoners. Only Captain Cheap and Mr. Campbell were recognised
as officers, as they had saved their commissions, and they were sent
to St. Jago, while John Byron and Mr. Hamilton were kept in
prison. However, when they were released they were permitted
to rejoin the others at St. Jago, and found them living with a
Scotch physician named Don Patricio Gedd.
When Dr. Gedd heard of the four English prisoners, he had
begged the President to allow them to live at his house.
This was granted, and during the two years they lived there with
him, he treated them most hospitably, and would hear of no return
being made for his kindness.
Mr. Campbell changed his religion while they were at St. Jago,
and left his companions.
At the end of two years the President sent for them, and told
them that they were at liberty to leave the country in a French
ship bound for Spain.
Accordingly, in the end of December 1744, they sailed in the
frigate bound for Conception, where she was to join three more
French ships that were homeward bound.
On October 27 they reached Cape Ortegal, and after lying at
anchor there for several days they were taken to Landernan,
where they lived on parole for three months, until an order came
from the Court of Spain to allow them to return home by the first
ship that sailed. After arranging with the captain of a Dutch
lugger to land them at Dover they embarked in her and had a very
uncomfortable passage.
When they got well up Channel they found the Dutchman had
THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’ 211
no intention of landing them at Dover, as he was making his way
up off the coast of France. In the midst of their indignation at
this breach of faith, an English man-of-war appeared to windward,
a : me ZN ti £
WY. IDG Ay
i. S35
Ping
y Mg)
E37 Td
By. ft PT
iy iM Teil
g ay
ey
Uy
17
NN
x SA. Ken
KA |
ee
Byron rides past the turnpikes
and bore down upon them. This was the ‘ Squirrel,’ commanded
by Captain Masterton. He at once sent them off in one of his
cutters, and they arrived at Dover that afternoon,
P2
212 THE WRECK OF THE ‘WAGER’
They agreed to start for London the next morning. Captain
Cheap and Mr. Hamilton were to drive in a post-chaise, and John
Byron was to ride. But when they came to divide the little money
they had left, it was found there would be barely enough to pay for
horses. There was not a farthing left for John Byron to buy any
food he might want on the way, nothing even to pay for the turn-
pikes. However, he boldly cheated these by riding as hard as he
could through them all, and‘paid no attention to the shouts of the
men when they tried to stop him. The want of food he had to put
up with ‘
When he got to the Borough he took a coach and drove to
Marlborough Street, where his people had lived before he left
England. But when he came to the house he found it shut up.
He had been away for five years, and had not heard a word from
home all that time, therefore he was at a loss to know what to do
for a few minutes until he remembered a linen draper’s shop near
by which his family had used. He drove there, and told them who
he was. They paid his coachman for him, and told him that his
sister was married to Lord Carlisle, and was living in Soho Square.
He went at once to her-house; but the porter would not admit
him for along time. He was strangely dressed; half in Spanish,
and half in French clothing, and besides, he wore very large and
very mud-bespattered boots. The porter was about to shut the
door in his face when John Byron persuaded him to let him in.
Then at last his troubles were over. His sister was delighted
to see him, and at once gave him money with which to buy new
clothes. And untilhe looked like an Englishman again, he did not
feel he had come to the end of all the strange scenes and adventures
that he had experienced for more than five years.
PETER WILLIAMSON '!
WAS born in Hirulay, in the county of Aberdeen. My parents,
though not rich, were respectable, and so long as I was under
their care all went well with me. Unhappily, I was sent to stay
with an aunt at Aberdeen, where, at eight years old, when playing
on the quay, I was noticed as a strong, active little fellow by two
men belonging to a vessel in the harbour. Now this vessel was in
the employ of certain merchants of Aberdeen, who used her for the
villainous purpose of kidnapping—that is, stealing young children
from their parents, and selling them as slaves in the plantations
abroad.
These impious monsters, marking me out for ther prey, tempted
me on board the ship, which I had no sooner entered than they led
me between the decks to some other boys whom they had kid-
napped in like manner. Not understanding what a fate was in
store for me, I passed the. time in childish amusement with the
other lads in the steerage, for we were never allowed to go on deck
while the vessel stayed in the harbour, which it did till they had
imprisoned as many luckless boys as they neéded.
Then the ship set sail for America. I cannot remember much
of the voyage, being a mere child at the time, but I shall never
forget what happened when it was nearly ended. We had reached
the American coast when a hard gale of wind sprang up from the
south-east, and about midnight the ship struck on a sandbank off
Cape May, near Delaware. To the terror of all on board, it was
soon almost full of water. The boat was then hoisted out, and the
captain and his fellow-villains, the crew, got into it, leaving me
and my deluded companions, as they supposed, to perish. The
cries, shrieks, and tears of a throng of children had no effect on
these-merciless wretches.
But happily for us the wind abated, and the ship being on a
* Glasgow, 1758, Written by himself,
214 PETER WILLIAMSON
sandbank, which did not give way to let her deeper, we lay here till
morning, when the captain, unwilling to lose all his cargo, sent
some of the crew in a boat to the ship’s side to bring us ashore. A
sort of camp was made, and here we stayed till we were taken in
by a vessel bound to Philadelphia.
At Philadelphia people soon came to buy us. We were sold for
16/. apiece. Inever knew what became of my unhappy companions,
but I was sold for seven years to one of my countrymen, Hugh
Wilson, who in his youth had suffered the same fate as myself in
being kidnapped from his home.
Happy was my lot in falling into his power, for he was a
humane, worthy man. Having no children of his own, and pitying
my sad condition, he took great care of me till I was fit for busi-
ness, and at twelve years old set me about little things till I could
manage harder work. Meanwhile, seeing my fellow-servants
often reading and writing, I felt a strong desire to learn, and told
my master that I should be glad to serve a year longer than the
bond obliged me if he would let me go to school. To this he
readily agreed, and I went every winter for five years, also learning
as much as I could from my fellow-servants.
With this good master I stayed till I was seventeen years old,
when he died, leaving me a sum of money, about 1202. sterling, his
best horse, and all his wearing apparel.
I now maintained myself by working about the country, for
anyone who would employ me, for nearly seven years, when I
determined to settle down. I applied to the daughter of a prosperous
planter, and found my suit was acceptable both to her and her
father, so we married. My father-in-law wishing to establish us
comfortably, gave me a tract of land which lay, unhappily for me,
as it has since proved, on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. It
contained about two hundred acres, with a good house and barn.
I was now happy in my home with a good wife; but my peace
did not Jast long, for about 1754 the Indians in the French interest,
who had formerly been very troublesome in our province, began to
renew their old practices. Even many of the Indians whom we
supposed to be in the English interest joined the plundering bands;
it was no wonder, for the French did their utmost to win them over,
promising to pay 151. for every scalp of an Englishman !
Hardly a day passed but some unhappy family fell a victim to
French bribery and savage cruelty. As for me, though now in
comfortable circumstances, with an affectionate and amiable wife,
THE INDIAN THREATENS PETER WILLIAMSON
PETER WILLIAMSON 217
it was not long before I suddenly became the most pitiable of
mankind. I can never bear to think of the last time I saw my dear
wife, on the fatal 2nd of October, 1754. That day she had left home to
visit some of her relations, and, no one being in the house but myself,
I stayed up later than usual, expecting her return. How great was
my terror when, at eleven o’clock at night, I heard the dismal war-
whoop of the savages, and, flying to the window, saw a band of them
outside, about twelve in number.
_They made several attempts to get in, and I asked them what
they wanted. They paid no attention, but went on beating at the
door, trying to get it open. Then, having my gun loaded in my
hand, I threatened them with death if they would not go away.
But one of them, who could speak a little English, called out in
return that if I did not come out they would burn me alive in the
house. They told me further—what I had already found out—that
they were no friends to the English, but that if I would surrender
imyself prisoner they would not kill me. /
My horror was beyond all words. I could not depend on the
promises of such creatures, but I must either accept their offer or
be burnt alive. Accordingly I went out of my house with my gun
in my hand, not knowing what I did or that I still held it.
Immediately, like so many tigers, they rushed on me and disarmed
me. Having me now completely in their power, the merciless
villains bound me to a tree near the door, and then went into the
house and plundered what they could. Numbers of things which
they were unable to carry away were set fire to with the house and
consumed before my eyes. Then they set fire to my barn, stable,
and outhouses, where I had about two hundred bushels of wheat,
and cows, sheep, and horses. My agony as I watched all this havoc
it is impossible to describe.
When the terrible business was over, one of the monsters came
to me, a tomahawk in his hand, threatening me with a cruel death
if I would not consent to go with them. I was forced to agree,
promising to do all that was in my power for them, and trusting to
Providence to deliver me out of their hands. On this they untied
me, and gave me a great load to carry on my back, under which I
travelled all that night with them, full of the most terrible fear lest
my unhappy wife should likewise have fallen into their clutches.
At daybreak my master ordered me to lay down my load, when,
tying my hands round a tree with a small cord, they forced the
blood out of my finger ends. They then kindled a fire near the tree
218 PETER WILLIAMSON
to which I was bound, which redoubled my agony, for I thought
they were going to sacrifice me there.
When the fire was made, they danced round me after their
manner, with all kinds of antics, whooping and crying out in the
most horrible fashion. Then they took the burning coals and sticks,
flaming with fire at the ends; and held them near my face, head,
hands and feet, with fiendish delight, at the same time threatening
to burn me entirely if I called out or made the least noise. So,
tortured as I was, I could make no sign of distress but shedding
silent tears, which, when they saw, they took fresh coals, and held
them near my eyes, telling me my face was wet, and they would
dry itfor me. I have often wondered how I endured these tortures ;
but at last they were satisfied, and sat down round the fire and
roasted the meat which they had brought from my dwelling !
When they had prepared it they offered some to me, and though
it may be imagined that I had not much heart to eat, I was forced
to seem pleased, lest if I refused it they should again begin to
torture me. What I could not eat I contrived to get between the
bark and the tree—my foes having unbound my hands till they
supposed I had eaten all they gave me. But then they bound me
as before, and so I continued all day. When the sun was set they
put out the fire, and covered the ashes with leaves, as is their
custom, that the white people may find no signs of their having
been there.
Travelling thence, by the river, for about six miles, I being
loaded heavily, we reached a spot near the Blue Hills, where the
savages hid their plunder under logs of wood. Thence, shocking to
relate, they went to a neighbouring house, that of Jacob Snider, his
wife, five children, and a young man, a servant. ' They soon forced
their way into the unhappy man’s dwelling, slew the whole family,
and set fire to the house.
The servant’s life was spared for a time, since they thought he
might be of use to them, and forthwith loaded him with plunder.
But he could not bear the cruel treatment that we suffered; and
though I tried to console him with a hope of deliverance, he con-
tinued to sob and moan. One of the savages, seeing this, instantly
came up, struck him to the ground, and slew him.
The family of John Adams next suffered. All were here put to
death except Adams himself, a good old man, whom they loaded
with plunder, and day after day continued to treat with the most
shocking cruelty, painting him all over with various colours, plucking
ied
me
‘ANOTHER PARTY OF INDIANS ARRIVED, BRINGING TWENTY
SCALPS AND THREE PRISONERS ’
PETER WILLIAMSON 221
the white hairs from his beard, and telling him he was a fool for
living so long, and many other tortures which he bore with won-
derful composure, praying to God.
One night after he had been tortured, when he and I were sitting
together, pitying each other’s misfortunes, another party of Indians
arrived, bringing twenty scalps and three prisoners, who gave us
terrible accounts of what tragedies had passed in their parts, on
which I cannot bear to dwell.
These three prisoners contrived to escape, but unhappily, not
knowing the country, they were recaptured and brought back.
They were then all put to death, with terrible tortures.
A great snow now falling, the savages began to be afraid that
the white people would follow their tracks upon it and find out
their skulking retreats, and this caused them to make their way to
their winter quarters, about two hundred miles further from any
plantations or English inhabitants. There, after a long and tedious
journey, in which I was almost starved, I arrived with this villainous
crew. The place where we had to: stay, in their tongue, was
called Alamingo, and there I found a number of wigwams full of
Indian women and children. Dancing, singing, and shooting were
their general amusements, and they told what successes they had
had in their expeditions, in which I found myself part of their
theme. The severity of the cold increasing, they stripped me of
my own clothes and gave me what they usually wear themselves—
a blanket, a piece of coarse cloth, and a pair of shoes made of
deer-skin.
The better sort of Indians have shirts of the finest linen they
can get; and with these some wear ruffles, but they never put them
on till they have painted them different colours, and do not take
them off to wash, but wear them till they fall into pieces. They
are very proud, and delight in trinkets, such as silver plates round
their wrists and necks, with several strings of wampum, which is
made of cotton, interwoven with pebbles, cockle-shells, kc. From
their ears and noses they have rings and beads, which hang dang-
ling an inch or two.
The hair of their heads is managed in different ways: some
pluck out and destroy all except a lock hanging from the crown of
the head, which they interweave with wampum and feathers. Fut
the women wear it very long, twisted down their backs, with beads,
feathers, and wampum, and on their heads they carry little coronets
of brass or copper.
222 PETER WILLIAMSON
No people have a greater love of liberty or affection for their
relations, yet they are the most revengeful race on earth, and in-
humanly cruel.. They generally avoid open fighting in war, yet
they are brave when taken, enduring death or torture with
wonderful courage. Nor would they at any time commit such
outrages as they do, if they were not tempted by drink and money
by those who call themselves civilised.
At Alamingo I was kept nearly two months, till the snow was
off the ground—a long time to be among such creatures! I
was too far from any plantations or white people to try to escape ;
besides, the bitter cold made my limbs quite benumbed. But I
contrived to defend myself more or less against the weather by
building a little wigwam with the bark of the trees, covering it with
earth, which made it resemble a cave, and keeping a good fire
always near the door.
Seeing me outwardly submissive, the savages sometimes gave
me a little meat, but my chief food was Indian corn. Having
liberty to go about was, indeed, more than I had expected ; but they
knew well it.was impossible for me to escape.
At length they prepared for another expedition against the
planters and white people, but before they set out they were
joined by many other Indians from Fort Duquesne, well stored with
powder and ball that they had received from the French.
As soon as the snow was quite gone, so that no trace of their
footsteps could be found, they set out on their journey towards
Pennsylvania, to the number of nearly a hundred and fifty. Their
wives and children were left behind in the wigwams. My duty
was to carry whatever they entrusted to me; but they never gave
meagun. For several days we were almost famished for want of
proper provisions: I had nothing but a few stalks of Indian corn,
which I was glad to eat dry, and the Indians themselves did not
fare much better.
When we again reached the Blue Hills, a council of war was
held, and we agreed to divide into companies of about twenty men
each, after which every captain marched with his party where he
thought proper. I still belonged to my old masters, but was left
behind on the mountains with ten Indians, to stay till the rest
returned, as they did not think it safe to carry me nearer to the
plantations.
Here being left, I began to meditate on my escape, for I knew
the country round very well, having often hunted there. The third
PETER WILLIAMSON 22:3
day after the great body of the Indians quitted us my keepers
visited the mountains in search of game, leaving me bound in such
a way that I could not get free. When they returned at night
they unbound me, and we all sat down to supper together, feasting
on two polecats which they had killed. Then, being greatly tired
with their day’s excursion, they lay down to rest as usual.
Seeing them apparently fast asleep, I tried different ways of
finding out whether it was a pretence to see what I should do.
But after making a noise and walking about, sometimes touching
them with my feet, I found that they really slept. My heart
exulted at the hope of freedom, but it sank again when I thought
how easily I might be recaptured. I resolved, if possible, to get
one of their guns, and if discovered to die in self-defence rather
than be taken; and I tried several times to take one from under
their heads, where they always secure them. But in vain; I could
not have done so without rousing them.
So, trusting myself to the divine protection, I set out defence-
less. Such was my terror, however, that at first I halted every four
or five yards, looking fearfully towards the spot where I had left
the Indians, lest they should wake and miss me. But when I wes
about two hundred yards off I mended my pace, and made all the
haste I could to the foot of the mountains.
Suddenly I was struck with the greatest terror and dismay,
hearing behind me the fearful cries and howlings of the savages,
far worse than the roaring of lions or the shrieking of hyenas ; and
I knew that they had missed me. The more my dread increased
the faster I hurried, scarce knowing where I trod, sometimes
falling and bruising myself, cutting my feet against the stones, yet,
faint and maimed as I was, rushing on through the woods. I fled
till daybreak, then crept into a hollow tree, where I lay concealed,
thanking God for so far having favoured my escape. I had
nothing to eat but a little corn.
But my repose did not last long, for in a few hours I heard the
voices of the savages near the tree in which I was hid threatening
me with what they would do if they caught me, which I already
guessed too well. However, at last they left the spot where I
heard them, and I stayed in my shelter the rest of that day without
any fresh alarms.
At night I ventured out again, trembling at every bush I passed,
and thinking each twig that touched me a savage. The next
day I concealed myself in the same manner, and at night travelled
224 PETER WILLIAMSON
forward, keeping off the main road, used by the Indians, as much
as possible, which made my journey far longer, and more painful
than I can express.
But how shall I describe my terror when, on the fourth night,
a party of Indians lying round a small fire which I had not seen,
hearing the rustling I made among the leaves, started from the
ground, seizing their arms, and ran out into the wood? I did not
know in my agony of fear whether to stand still or rush on. -I
expected nothing but a terrible death; but at that very moment a
troop of swine made towards the place where the savages were.
They, seeing the hogs, guessed that their alarm had been caused by
them, and returned merrily to their fire and lay down to sleep
again. As soon as this happened I pursued my way more
cautiously and silently, but in a cold perspiration with terror at
the peril I had just escaped. Bruised, cut, and shaken, I still held
on my path till break of day, when I lay down under a huge log,
and slept undisturbed till noon. Then, getting up, I climbed a
great hill, and, scanning the country round, I saw, to my unspeak-
able joy, some habitations of white people, about ten miles
distant.
My pleasure was somewhat damped by not being able to get
among them that night. But they were too far off; therefore,
when evening fell, I again commended myself to Heaven, and lay
down, utterly exhausted. In the morning, as soon as I woke, I
made towards the nearest of the cleared lands which I had seen the
day before; and that afternoon I reached the house of John Bull,
an old acquaintance. I knocked at the door, and his wife, who
opened it, seeing me in such a frightful condition, flew from me
like lightning, screaming, into the house.
This alarmed the whole family, who immediately seized their
arms, and I was soon greeted by the master with his gun in his
hand. But when I made myself known—for at first he took me
for an Indian—he and all his family welcomed me with great joy
at finding me alive; since they had been told I was murdered by
the savages some months ago.
No longer able to bear up, I fainted and fell to the ground.
When they had recovered me, seeing my weak and famished state,
they gave me some food, but let me at first partake of it very
sparingly. Then for two days and nights they made me welcome,
and did their utmost to bring back my strength, with the kindest
hospitality. Finding myself once more able to ride, I borrowed a
PETER WILLIAMSON 225
horse and some clothes of these good people, and set, out for my
father-in-law’s house in Chester county, about a hundred and forty
miles away. I reached it on January 4, 1755; but none of the
family could believe their eyes when they saw me, having lost all
hope on hearing that I had fallen a prey to the Indians.
They received me with great joy; but when I asked for my
dear wife I found she had been dead two months, and this fatal
news greatly lessened the delight I felt at my deliverance.
226
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE
HIS is a story of a man who, when in command of his ships and
when everything went prosperously with him, was so overbear-
ing and cruel that some of his men, in desperation at the treatment
they received, mutinied against him. But the story shows another
side of his character in adversity which it is impossible not to admire.
In 1787 Captain Bligh was sent from England to Otaheite
in charge of the ‘ Bounty,’ a ship which had been specially fitted
out to carry young plants of the breadfruit tree, for transplantation
to the West Indies. ;
‘The breadfruit grows on a spreading tree, about the size of a
large apple tree; the fruit is round, and has-a thick tough rind. It
is gathered when it is full-grown, and while it is still green and
hard; it is then baked in an oven until the rind is black and
scorched. ‘This is scraped off, and the inside is soft and white like
the crumb of a penny loaf.’
The Otaheitans use no other bread but the fruit kind. It is,
therefore, little wonder that the West Indian planters were anxious
to grow this valuable fruit in their own islands, as, if it flourished ©
there, food would be provided with little trouble for their servants
and slaves.
In the passage to Otaheite, Captain Bligh had several distur-
bances with his men. He had an extremely irritable temper, and
would often fly into a passion and make most terrible accusations,
and use most terrible language to his officers and sailors.
On one occasion he ordered the crew to eat some decayed
pumpkins, instead of their allowance of cheese, which he said they
had stolen from the ship’s stores.
The pumpkin was to be given to the men at the rate of one
pound of pumpkin to two pounds of biscuits.
The men did not like accepting the substitute on these terms.
When the captain heard this, he was infuriated, and ordered the
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE 227
first man of each mess. to be called by name, at the same time say-
ing to them, ‘I'll see who will dare refuse the pumpkin or anything
else I may order to beserved out.’ Then, afterswearing at them in
a shocking way, he ended by saying, ‘I’ll make you eat grass, or
anything else you can catch before I have done with you,’ and
threatened to flog the first man who dared to complain again.
While they were at Otaheite several of the sailors were flogged
for small offences, or without reason, and on the other hand, during
the seven months they stayed at the island, both officers and men
were allowed to spend a great deal of time on shore, and were given
the greatest possible liberty.
Therefore, when the breadfruit plants were collected, and they
weighed anchor on April 4 in 1787, it is not unlikely they were loth
to return to the strict discipline ofthe ship, and to leave an island so
lovely, and where it was possible to live in the greatest luxury
without any kind of labour.
From the time they sailed until April 27, Christian, the third
officer, had been in constant hot water with Captain Bligh. On the
afternoon of that day, when the captain came on deck, he missed
some cocoanuts that had been heaped up between the guns.
He said at once that they had been stolen, and that it could not
have happened without the officers knowing of it. When they told
him they had not seen any of the crew touch them, he cried, ‘ Then
you must have taken them yourselves!’ After this he questioned
them separately ; when he came to Christian, he answered, ‘I do
not know, sir, but I hope you do not think me so mean as to be
guilty of stealing yours.’
The captain swore terribly, and said, ‘You must have stolen
them from me, or you would be able to give a better account of
them!’ He turned to the others with much more abuse, and saying,
‘D—n you! you scoundrels, you are all thieves alike, and combine
with the men to rob me. I suppose you'll steal my yams next, but
I'll sweat you for it, you rascals! I’ll make half of you jump over-
board before you get through Endeavour Straits!’
Then he turned to the clerk, giving the order to ‘stop the vil-
lains’ grog, and to give them but half a pound of yams to-morrow :
ifthey steal them, I'll reduce them to a quarter.’
That night Christian, who was hardly less passionate and
resentful than the captain, told two of the midshipmen, Stewart
and Hayward, that he intended to leave the ship on a raft, as he
could no longer endure the captain’s suspicion and insults. He was
Q2
228 A WONDERFUL VOYAGE
very angry and excited, and made some preparations for carrying
out his plan, though these had to be done with the greatest secrecy
and care.
It was his duty to take the morning watch, which is from four
to eight o’clock, and this time he thought would be a good opportu-
nity to make his escape. He had only just fallen into a restless
slumber when he was called to take his turn.
He got up with his brain still alert with the sense of injury and
The captain guarded by the mutineers
wrong, and most curiously alive to seize any opportunity which
might lead to an escape from so galling a service.
On reaching the deck, he found the mate of the watch had fallen
asleep, and that the other midshipman was not to be seen.
Then he made a sudden determination to seize the ship, and
rushing down the gangway ladder, whispered his intention to
Matthew Quintal and Isaac Martin, seamen, both of whom had been
flogged. They readily agreed to join him, and several others of the
watch were found to be quite as willing.
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE 299
Someone went to the armourer for the keys of the arm chest,
telling him they wanted to fire at a shark alongside.
Christian then armed those men whom he thought he could trust,
and putting a guard at the officers’ cabins, went himself with three
other men to the captain’s cabin.
It was just before sunrise when they dragged him from his bed,
and tying his hands behind his back, threatened him with instant
death if he should call for help or offer any kind of resistance. He
was taken up to the quarter deck in his nightclothes, and made to
stand against the mizzen mast with four men to guard him.
Christian then gave orders to lower the boat in which he intended
to cast them adrift, and one by one the men were allowed to come
up the hatchways, and made to go over the side of the ship into it.
Meanwhile no heed was given to the remonstrances, reasoning, and
prayers of the captain, saving threats of death unless he was quiet.
Some twine, canvas, sails, a small cask of water, and a quadrant
and compass were put into the boat, also some bread and a small
quantity of rum and wines. When this was done the officers were
brought up one by one and forced over the side. There was a great
deal of rough joking at the captain’s expense, who was still made to
stand by the mizzen-mast, and much bad language was used by
everybody.
When all the officers were out of the ship, Christian said, ‘Come,
Captain Bligh, your officers and men are now in the boat, and you
must go with them; if you make the least resistance you will be
instantly put to death.’
He was lowered over the side with his hands still fastened behind
his back, and directly after the boat was veered astern with a rope.
Someone with a little pity for them threw in some pieces of pork
and some clothes, as well as two or three cutlasses; these were the
only arms given.
There were altogether nineteen men in this pitiful strait. Al-
though much of the conduct of the mutineers is easily understood
with regard to the captain, the wholesale crime of thrusting so
many innocent persons out on to the mercy of the winds and waves,
or out to the death from hunger and thirst which they must have
believed would inevitably overtake them, is incomprehensible.
As the ‘ Bounty ’ sailed away, leaving them to their fate, those in
the boat cast anxious looks to the captain as wondering what should
then be done. Ata time when his mind must have been full of the
injury he had received, and the loss of his ship at a moment when his
230 A WONDERFUL VOYAGE
plans were so flourishing and he had every reason to congratulate
himself as to the ultimate success of the undertaking, it is much in
his favour that he seems to have realised their unfortunate position
and to have been determined to make the best of it.
His first care was to see how much food they had. On ex-
amining it they found there was a hundred and fifty pounds of
bread, thirty-two pounds of pork, six quarts of rum, six bottles of
wine, and twenty-eight gallons of water.
As they were so near Tofoa they determined to put in there for
a supply of breadfruit and water, so that they might keep their
other provisions. But after rowing along the coast for some time,
they only discovered some cocoanut trees on the top of a stony
cliff, against which the sea beat furiously. After several attempts
they succeeded in getting about twenty nuts. The second day
they failed to get anything at all.
However, some natives came down to the boat and made inquiries
about the ship; but the captain unfortunately told the men to
say she had been lost, and that only they were saved.
This proved most disastrous; for the treacherous natives,
finding they were defenceless, at first brought them presents of
breadfruit, plantains and cocoanuts, rendering them all more
hopeful and cheerful by their kindness. But towards night their
numbers increased in a most alarming manner, and soon the whole
beach was lined by them.
Presently they began knocking stones together, by which the
men knew they intended to make an attack upon them. They
made haste to get all the things into the boat, and all but one, named
John Norton, succeeded in reaching it. The natives rushed upon
this poor man and stoned him to death.
Those in the boat put to sea with all haste, but were again
terribly alarmed to find themselves followed by natives in canoes
from which they renewed the attack.
Many of the sailors were a good deal hurt by stones, and they had
no means at all with which to protect themselves. At last they threw
some clothes overboard; these tempted the enemy to stop to pick
them up, and as soon as night came on they gave up the chase and
returned to the shore.
All the men now begged Captain Bligh to take them towards
England; but he told them there could be no hope of relief until
they reached Timor, a distance of full twelve hundred leagues; and
that, if they wished to reach it, they would have to content them-
egre— f —
Zoo Len,
wa =
Henry Fork
THE SAVAGES ATTACK THE BOAT
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE 233
selves with one ounce of bread and a quarter of a pint of water a
day. They all readily agreed to this allowance of food, and made
a most solemn oath not to depart from their promise to be satis-
fied with the small quantity. This was about May 2. After the
compact was made, the boat was put in order, the men divided
into watches, and they bore away under a reefed lug-foresail.
A fiery sun rose on the 8rd, which is commonly a sign of rough
weather, and filled the almost hopeless derelicts with a new
terror.
In an hour or two it blew very hard, and the sea ran so high
that their sail was becalmed between the waves ; they did not dare
to set it when on the top of the sea, for the water rushed in over
the stern of the boat, and they were obliged to bale with all their
might.
The bread was in bags, and in the greatest danger of being
spoiled by the wet. They were obliged to throw some rope and
the spare sails overboard, as well as all the clothes but what they
wore, to lighten the boat, then the car pene s tool-chest was cleared
and the bread put into it.
. They were all very wet and cold, and a teaspoonful of rum was
served to each man, with a quarter of a breadfruit which was so
bad that it could hardly be eaten; but the captain was determined
at all risks to keep to the compact they had entered into, and to make
their provisions last eight weeks.
In the afternoon the sea ran even higher, and at night it became
very cold; but still they did not dare to leave off baling for an in-
stant, though their legs and arms were numb with fatigue and wet.
In the morning a teaspoonful of rum was served to all, and five
small cocoanuts divided for their dinner, and everyone was satis-
fied.
When the gale had subsided they examined the bread, and found
a great deal of it had become mouldy and rotten; but even this was
carefully kept and used. The boat was now near some islands, but
they were afraid to go on shore, as the natives might attack them ;
while being in sight of land, where they might replenish their poor
stock of provisions and rest themselves, added to their misery.
One morning they hooked a fish, and were overjoyed at their good
fortune ; but in trying to get it into the boat it was lost, and again
they had to content themselves with the damaged bread and small
allowance of water for their supper.
They were dreadfully cramped for room, and were obliged to
234 A WONDERFUL VOYAGE
manage so that half their number should lie down in the bottom of
the boat or upon a chest, while the others sat up and kept watch:
their limbs became so stiff from being constantly wet, and from
want of space to stretch them in, that after a few hours’ sleep they
were hardly able to move.
About May 7 they passed what the captain supposed mist be
the Fiji Islands, and two large canoes put off and followed them
for some time, but in the afternoon they gave up the chase. It
rained heavily that day, and everyone in the boat did his best to
catch some water, and they succeeded in increasing their stock to
thirty-four gallons, besides having had enough to drink for the first
time since they had been cast adrift; but the rain made them very
cold and miserable, and as they had no dry things their shiverings
were terrible.
The next morning they had an ougice and a half of pork, a tea-
spoonful of rum, half a pint of cocoanut milk, and an ounce of bread
for breakfast, which was quite a large meal for them. The rum,
though (or because) in such small quantities, is said to have been of
the greatest service to them.
Through fifteen weary days and nights of ceaseless rain they
toiled, sometimes through fierce storms of thunder and lightning,
and before terrific seas lashed into foam and fury by swift and
sudden squalls, with only their miserable pittance of bread and
water to keep body and soul together. Now and then a little rum
was given after any extra fatigue of baling, but only at the times set
apart for meals.
In this rain and storm the little sleep they got only added to
their discomfort, save for the brief forgetfulness it brought ; for they
had to lie down in water in the bottom of the boat, and with no
covering but the streaming clouds above them.
The captain then advised them to wring their clothes through sea-
water, which they found made them feel much warmer for a time.
On May 17 everyone was ill and complaining of great pain, and
begging for more food; but the captain refused to increase their
allowance, though he gave them alla small quantity of rum.
Until the 24th they flew before the wild seas that swept over
stem and stern of their boat, and kept them constantly baling.
Some of them now looked more than half dead from starvation,
but no one suffered from thirst, as they had absorbed so much water
through the skin.
A fine morning dawned on the 25th, when they saw the sun for
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE 235
the first time for fifteen days, and were able to eat their scanty
allowance in more comfort and warmth. In the afternoon there
were numbers of birds called boobies and noddies near, which are
never seen far from land.
The captain took this opportunity to baie at the state of their
bread, and found if they did not exceed their allowance there was
enough to last for twenty-nine days, when they hoped to reach Timor.
' That afternoon some noddies came so near the boat that one
was caught. These birds are about the size of a small pigeon; it
was divided into eighteen parts and given by lot. The men were
much amused when they saw the beak and claws fall to the lot of
the captain. The bird was eaten, bones and all, with bread and
water, for dinner.
Now they were in calmer seas they were overtaken by a new
trouble. The heat of the sun became so great that many of them
were overcome by faintness, and lay in the bottom of the boat in
an apathetic state all day, only rousing themselves towards evening,
when the catching of birds was attempted.
On the morning of the 28th the sound of breakers could be heard
plainly; they had reached the Great Barrier Reef, which runs up:
much of the east coast of Australia.
After some little time a passage nearly a quarter of a mile in
width was discovered through the reef, and they were carried by a
strong current into the peaceful waters which lie within the Barrier.
For a little time they were so overjoyed that their past troubles
were forgotten. The dull blue-grey lines of the mainland, with its
white patches of glaring sandhills, could be seen in the distance,
and that afternoon they landed on an island.
They found the rocks around it were covered with oysters and
huge clams, which could easily be got at low tide. Some of their
party sent out to reconnoitre returned greatly pleased at having
found plenty of fresh water.
A fire was made by help of a small magnifying-glass. Among
the things thrown into the boat from the ship was a small copper
pot; and thus with a mixture of oysters, bread, and pork a stew
was made, and everyone had plenty to eat.
The day after they landed was the 29th of May, the anniversary
of the restoration of King Charles II., and as the captain thought
it applied to their own renewed health and strength, he named it
Restoration Island.
After a few days’ rest, which did much to revive the men, and
236 A WONDERFUL VOYAGE
when they had filled all their vessels with water and had gathered
a large supply of oysters, they were ready to go on again.
As they were about to start everybody was ordered to attend
prayers, and as they were embarking about twenty naked savages
came running and shouting towards them, each carrying a long
barbed spear, but the English made all haste to put to sea.
For several days they sailed over the lake-like stillness of the
Barrier reef-bound waters, and past the bold desolations of the
Queensland coast, every headland and bay there bearing the names
Cook gave them only a few years before, and which still tell us by
that nomenclature each its own story of disappointment and
hope.
Still making way to the north, they passed many more islands
and keys, the onward passage growing hot and hotter, until on
June 8, when they doubled Cape York, the peninsula which is
all but unique in its northward bend, they were again in the open
sea.
By this time many of them were ill with malaria, then for
the first time some of the wine which they had with them was
used.
But the little boat still bravely made its way with its crew, whose
faces were so hollow and ghastly that they looked like a crew
of spectres, sailing beneath the scorching sun that beat down
from the pale blue of the cloudless sky upon a sea hardly less blue
in its greater depths. Only the hope that they would soon reach
Timor seemed to rouse them from a state of babbling delirium or
fitful slumber.
On the 11th the captain told them they had passed the meridian
of the eastof Timor; and at three o’clock on the next morning
they sighted the land.
Tt was on Sunday, June 14, when they arrived at Company Bay,
and were received with every kindness by the people.
Thus ended one of the most remarkable voyages that has ever
been made. They had been sent out with provisions only sufficient
for their number for five days, and Captain Bligh had, by his care-
ful calculation, and determination to give each man only that equal
portion they had agreed to accept, made it last for fifty days, during
which time they had come three thousand six hundred and eighteen
nautical miles.
There had been days when the men were so hunger-driven that
they had besought him with pitiful prayers for more to eat, and
A WONDERFUL VOYAGE 237
when it was his painful duty to refuse it; and times, as they passed
those islands where plentiful food could be got, when he had to
turn a deaf ear to their longings to land. He had to endure the
need of food, the cramped position, the uneasy slumber, as did his
men; as well as the more perfect knowledge of their dangers.
There had been days and nights while he worked out their bearings
when he had to be propped up as he took the stars or sun.
It was, therefore, Captain Bligh’s good seamanship, his strict
discipline and fair.ess in the method of giving food and wine
to those who were sick, that enabled them to land at Timor with
the whole of their number alive, with the exception of the one man
who was stoned to death by the savages at Tofoa:
238
THH PITCAIRN ISLANDERS
i will be remembered that nothing had been heard of the ‘ Bounty ’
since she was seen off Point Venus on the morning of Septem-
ber 22, 1789.
In 1809, just twenty years after, when Captain Folger, of the
American ship ‘ Topaz,’ landed at Pitcairn Island, one of the most
remote of the islands in the Pacific, he found there a solitary
Englishman and five Otaheitan women and nineteen children.
The man, who gave his name as Alexander Smith, said he was the
only remaining person of the nine who had escaped in the ‘ Bounty.’
Although this information was given to the Admiralty shortly
after, it was not until the year 1814, when the ‘Briton,’ under
the command of Sir Thomas Staines, and the ‘ Tagus,’ under that
of Captain Pipon, were cruising in the Pacific, that one day on
which the ships were sailing in the same direction about six leagues
apart, both commanders were greatly surprised to see an island in
lat. 24° 40’ and long. 180° 24’ W.
They were puzzled to know what it could be, as Pitcairn Island
(named after a son of Major Pitcairn who was lost in the ‘ Aurora’),
the only one known in the neighbourhood, was marked on their
charts as in long. 183° 24’ W., more than three degrees out.
They thought they had made a new discovery, and as they ran
in for the land they were astonished to see some neatly-built aut
surrounded by gardens and plantations.
Some people were seen coming down the cliff with canoes on
their shoulders. Presently one was launched and made off through
the heavy surf towards the ships. They were more surprised than
ever when one of the young men in it cried out in English as they
came alongside, ‘Won't you heave us a rope, now?’
He sprang up the side of the ship swiftly. When on deck he told
Sir Thomas Staines and Captain Pipon, when they asked him who
he was, that his name was Thursday October Christian, and that he
THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS 2389
was the son of the late Fletcher Christian by an Otaheitan mother;
that he was the first born on the island, and his name was given him
as he had been born on a Thursday in October. He was now
twenty-four years of age, and had a fine muscular figure, dark hair,
and a brownish complexion, and ‘in his good-natured and benevo-
lent countenance he had all the features of an honest English face.’
He wore no clothing except a small piece of cloth about his loins
; y Doh . a) /
pest Hes Sh of Wook
Y o d f yTords)
SP of oR of Foal fof 4
The Pitcairn islanders on board the English frigate
and a straw hat trimmed with cock’s feathers. He spoke English
correctly and pleasantly both as to grammar and pronunciation.
He also told them he was married to a woman much older than
himself, one of those who had come with his father from Otaheite.
His companion was a fine boy of about seventeen or eighteen
years, named George Young, son of Young the midshipman.
The islanders were much surprised at the many things new to
240 THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS
them in the ship, at the guns, and everything around them. They
were greatly entertained at the sight of a little dog. ‘Oh, what a
' pretty little thing it is!’ exclaimed Young. ‘I know it is a dog,
for I have heard of such an animal.’
The young men told the captains of many of the events that had
happened among the first settlers; but said that John Adams, now
an old man, could tell them much more. He was the only surviving
Englishman that came away in the ‘ Bounty,’ and at that time he
was called Alexander Smith.
The captains determined to go on shore to see Adams, and to
hear from him the true story of Christian’s fate, and of that of his
companions.
Adams, who had been concealed since the arrival of the ships,
when he found that the two captains had landed and were not
armed, and that they did not intend to take him prisoner, came to
the beach to meet them, and brought his wife with him, who wasa
very old woman and nearly blind.
After so many years the sight of the King’s uniform no doubt
brought back the scene of the ‘Bounty’ to Adams, for at first he
was very nervous and ill at ease.
However, when Sir Thomas Staines assured him they were not
there with any intention of taking him away, that they were not
even aware that such a person as himself existed, he regained
confidence, and then told them he had taken the name of John
Adams since the sole care of the women and children on the island
had fallen upon him. He pretended he had not taken any great
share in the mutiny, that he was sick in bed when it took place,
and that he had been roused up and compelled to take a musket
in his hand. He said he was now ready and willing to go back to
England in one of the ships.
When the islanders heard him say this, all the women and
children wept bitterly, and the young men stood motionless and
absorbed in grief. When the officers again assured them that he
should on no account be molested, the people were overcome with
joy and gratitude. Adams then told them of the fate of the
‘Bounty’ and of the rest of the mutineers.
It is easy to suppose that when Christian sailed for the last
time from Otaheite his mind was full of misgiving; that he bitterly
repented the rash act by which the ship had fallen into his hands
and by which in all probability nineteen men had lost their lives,
THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS 241
and also the wrecked and criminal lives of his followers. The
picture of the derelict crew in their little boat was ever in his mind
as he had last seen them watching with despairing eyes their ship
sail away; and again as distance blurred all form, and it lay a
blot on the sunny waters, immediately before it was hidden by the
horizon line. :
That blot became ever blacker and heavier to his mental vision
as one by one his projects failed. A sullen and morose outcast for
ever from civilisation, he sailed out into the unknown seas with his
little band of desperate followers, to find if possible some solitary
island, some unknown spot, where they might be lost for ever from -
the world.
Curiously, the place lat he pictured, the object for which he
sought, was soon after given to him to find.
Its steep cliffs rise from the sea precipitously, and beyond and
above them a ridge of rocky hills runs from north to south, from ’
which, again, two mountainous peaks of a thousand feet and more in
height stand up like sentinels.
At a little distance from the coast-line a white wall of surf
lashes itself into fury, and breaks everlastingly over the hidden reefs
that raise so formidable a guard around the island as to render
safe landing impossible save only at particular places and times.
Encouraged by this forbidding coast-line, after they had sailed
all round the island they effected a landing, aud finding it unin-
habited, they decided to make it their home. The ‘Bounty’ was
run into an inlet between the cliffs, and after she had been dis-
mantled and her materials used for building houses, in 1790 they
burnt her, as they feared she might attract the notice of any ship
that should chance to pass.
The first thing they did after their arrival was to divide the
land into nine equal parts, giving none to the Otaheitan men, who
it is said had been carried off fyom their own island by force: At
first they were kindly treated by the white men; but afterwards
they made them their slaves.
When they had been on the island a few weeks Christian
became more gloomy and taciturn, and his conduct to the others
grew more overbearing and unreasonable day by day.
Fear entered into his soul, and he looked with dislike and
suspicion upon all around him, shunned their companionship and ‘
sought a place where he could be alone -with his -dark thoughts. ’
Up at the extreme end of the ridge of hills that runs across the‘
R. R
242 THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS
island the almost inaccessible cave may still be seen to which he
carried a store of provisions and ammunition, and thus shut himself
off from the others, and with only the sound of the roaring breakers
as they beat on the shore below to disturb his solitude, the madman
dwelt alone with his terrible history of the past.
One story is that in a fit of maniacal insanity he flung himself
over the rocks into the sea. Another that he was shot by one of
the mutineers whilst digging in a plantation.
The accounts are contradictory. But whether from suicide or
murder, his death happened within a year after he landed at
Pitcairn Island. :
For about two years, while they all worked at the building of the
houses and at cultivating the ground, the Otaheitan men toiled
without a murmur. But when Williams, who had lost his wife,
insisted that he would take one of theirs or leave the island in one
of the ‘Bounty’s’ boats, the other Englishmen, who did not want
to part with him, compelled one of the Otaheitans to give his wife
to him.
From this time the Otaheitans became discontented, until the
man whose wife had been taken away was murdered in the woods ;
then things went on more quietly for a year or two longer, when
two of the most desperate and cruel of the mutineers, Quintal and
M‘Koy, at last drove them to form a plot to destroy their oppressors.
A day was fixed by them to attack and put to death all the
Englishmen when they were at work in the yam plots.
They killed Martin and Brown, one with a maul, the other with
a musket, while Adams made his escape, though he was wounded
in the shoulder by a bullet.
Young, who was a great favourite with the women, was hidden
by them during the attack, while M‘Koy and Quintal fled to the
woods.
That night all the native men were murdered by the widows of
the Europeans. This happened in 1793. From that time till 1798
the colonists went on quietly, until M‘Koy, who had once been
employed in a Scotch distillery, and had for some time been making
experiments on the ¢ root, succeeded in extracting from it an
intoxicating liquor.
After this Quintal also gave his whole time to making the spirit,
and in consequence the two men were constantly drunk, and in
one of his fits of delirium M‘Koy threw himself from a cliff, and was
instantly killed. Quintal became more and more unmanageable,
\
SS
AS
\
"
\
i
fy
i
mie
he
‘THE MADMAN DWELT ALONE’
R2
THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS 245
and frequently threatened to destroy Adams and Youne—who.
knowing that he would carry out his threat, determined to kill him.
This they did by felling him with an axe as they would an ox.
Thus it was that at last only two men were left on the island,
Adams and Young. The latter, who was of a quiet and studious
nature, resolved to have prayers every morning and evening, and
regular services on Sunday, and to teach the children, of whom
there were nineteen, several of them then being between the ages
of seven and nine years. Young, however, did not live long, but
died of asthma about a year after the murder of Quintal.
she a
soil i
Se ay
Fi I Hi
Old John Adams teaches the children
In their beautiful island of the sea, where the lordly banyans
grow, and where the feathery cocoanut palms stand boldly along
the cliffs, or here and there fringe the rocky beach—for in this
temperate climate just without the tropics there are but few trees
and vegetables that will not grow—there, unknown for many years
to the world, and far away from its busy jar and fret, the simple
and kindly natures that these children of Pitcairn Island must
have inherited from their Otaheitan mothers were trained to an
almost perfect sense of duty and piety by old John Adams.
With a Bible and Prayer-book to aid him he persevered with
his self-imposed task. It was a task that must often have cost him
much labour and patient study, for though he could read he was
not able to write until he was a very old man.
246 THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS
_ Though in the eyes ofthe law his crime can never be wiped out,
_in the eyes of humanity, his sincere repentance and long and
tender devotion to his charge—a charge that ended only on the day.
of his death—will for ever render the last of the mutineers a
character to be remembered with admiration and respect.
247
A RELATION OF THREE YEARS’ SUFFERING
OF ROBERT EVERARD UPON THE ISLAND
OF ASSADA, NAR MADAGASCAR, IN A
VOYAGE TO INDIA, IN THE YEAR 1686!
HEN I was a boy, my father, Mr. William Everard, appren-
ticed me to the captain of a ship bound for Bombay in
India, and thence to Madagascar, for blacks. I left London on
August 5, 1686, and after different adventures on the voyage, of
which I need not here speak, our ship reached Madagascar.
The King of Madagascar received us kindly enough, and
promised in about a month to furnish the captain with as many
negroes as he desired. This satisfied us very well, and, mooring
the ship, we stayed some days, trading with the negroes for rice and
hens and bananas.
Now one day the supercargo and six of the men and myself
went ashore, taking guns and powder, and knives and scissors to
trade with, and the ship’s dog went with us. And, carrying our
chest of goods to the house of one of the natives, we traded, and
the negroes brought us such things as they had in exchange.
But presently we heard a great noise, and a crowd began to
gather, so that we thought the King was coming. But, alas! we
soon found that the people of the town had risen against us, and ten
or twelve broke in with their lances, and killed five of the boat’s
crew and the man who took care of the boat! The supercargo,
running. out of the house to get to the King, was thrust through by
one of these murderous natives, and died immediately. I myself,
being knocked down by the fall of the others, lay among the dead
like one dead.
When the blacks took them up, however, they saw I was alive,
and did not kill me in cold blood, but carried me to the King’s
house, which was just by the house where they had killed our men,
? Taken from the Churchill Collection, 1732. Written by himself.
248 ROBERT EVERARD
whose bodies I saw them carrying down to fling into the sea as
I looked out at the King’s door.
He bade me sit down, and ordered the women to bring me some
boiled rice on a plantain leaf, but in my terrible condition I could
not eat. At night the King’s men showed me my lodging ina
small hut among the slaves, where I remained till the morning.
Death of-the supercargo
That morning our ship sailed. All the night as she lay there she
had kept firing her great guns, and one shot came into the middle
of the King’s house, and went through it.
But when she had sailed I saw some of the blacks with bottles
of wine taken out of the great cabin, which I myself had filled the
morning I went ashore. They had also the captain’s sword and
the ship’s compass, and some great pieces of the flag tied round
their waists. So I asked those negroes who understood a little
ROBERT EVERARD 249
English if they had killed any on board. They said ‘ Yes,’ and told me
-that the blacks in a canoe that went to our ship to trade had lances
‘hidden, and fell upon the captain and the mate, who suspected
nothing, and killed them and some others of our men, but the rest
had time to arm themselves, and so drove the blacks away.
I asked them also why they killed our men, and they told the
King, who answered that an English ship had been before, and
played the rogue with them, and killed some of the natives, and
they had therefore taken revenge.
‘ After this the King went to visit his towns, and bid me go along
with him; and I went first to one place and then another, to be
shown to the people. But the women when they saw me shrieked
and ran away in a fright—never having seen a white man, and
thinking I was a spirit.
Then the King and his army went to the other side of the
island, and carried me with them and our dog, and there he began
mustering together a greater army, taking more men out of every
town he visited. As soon asthe women saw the King and his army
coming, they got their sticks and came dancing for joy. And when
he came into a town a mat was laid on the ground for him to sit
on. When he sat down the wife of the chief of the town came out
with some white stuff upon a stone, and dipped her finger in it, and
put one spot on the King’s forehead, and one on each cheek, and
one on his chin; and so they did to his four wives who went with
him. ' Then, when the women had done spotting them, the captain
of the town and all his men came before the King, some with great
calabashes full of liquor, and he bid the captain get his men ready
to go along with the army, which was done in a day’s time. Thus
he went from town to town.
The dog belonging to our ship went too, and when he saw any
hogs, he ran and barked at them till the negroes came and killed
them with their lances. And sometimes he would fetch a young
pig and bring it to me.
It was six or seven weeks before they reached the town of the
enemy, and rushed into it, firing and striking with their lances,
and killing or taking prisoners all who did not run away. Then
marching further up the country they met with the enemy’s whole
army; and for about a month they fought with them day after
day, our side nearly always getting the better of it.
When as many prisoners had been taken as the King needed
for slaves, we marched back again through the towns, and the
250 ROBERT EVERARD
people brought great parcels of rice made up in plantain leaves, and
pots of boiled fish for the King and his men to eat with their rice.
They used to sit four, and six, or eight together; they also gave
me some by myself, on a plantain leaf. This they did at every
town where the King came. But as I was coming back with them
I was taken lightheaded, so that sometimes I fell down, and could
not stir without extreme pain.
About a week after we reached our own town the King asked
me if I could make powder. I told him ‘No;â€â€™ he then asked if I
could make shot. I said ‘ Yes ;’ and he told his men to fetch some
lead, and clay for the moulds, and as well as I could I made three
or four hundred shot. The King was pleased with these, and while
I was making them I had victuals given me, and some of their
best drink.
But afterwards the King bid me go about the island with some
of his men to find flint stones ; and when I could find none he took
no more notice of me, but turned me out of his house, and would
not let me come into it any more. Then I had to seek for my own
food to save myself from being starved, and it pleased God that I
found such food as the natives eat—yams and potatoes, which I
dug out of the earth with a piece of sharp stone, having neither
knife nor any other tool. And I made fire as the natives did,
rubbing together two pieces of stick, and roasted my yams, and
gathered bananas and oranges and other fruit. Then sometimes I
caught fish with a small, sharp-pointed stick, and crabs, and. now
and then a turtle. I also found turtles’ eggs. I used to keep
yams and potatoes by me to serve five or six days, and when they
were gone I hunted for more.
My lodging was under a tree on the hard ground, where I
slept for two years and nine months, and sometimes in the year it
would rain for three months together, or only become fine for an
hour or so—yet for all that I lay under the tree still. I always
had a fire on each side of me to keep me warm, because I had no
covering but the branches and leaves of the tree. Sometimes in
the night I crept outside the cottage of one of the natives for
shelter, but I was forced to be gone before they were up for fear
they would do me harm.
When I wanted water I went almost a mile for a drink, and
had nothing to bring back a little water in to keep by me and drink
whenever I was thirsty. Also, I had to see that there were no
blacks near the water, lest they should set upon me.
es
ROBERT -EVERARD 251
Two years after I had come to the country I suffered terrible
pain with sores that broke out upon me, but finding some honey
in a rock by the seaside, I made a kind of salve which gave me a
little ease. But now the time of my worst distress was drawing to
an end.
For when I had been three years in the island there came Arabs
to buy negroes, and I pleaded with them to take me away, telling
them how it was that I, an English boy, was left in this condition.
Then the chief merchant of the Arabs said he could not carry me
away without the King’s leave, for it would spoil their trade; but
he would try to get me clear, and as long as the Arabian vessel lay
there I might come to his house and get food and drink.
About six weeks after the merchant sent for me, and told me
he had bought me of the King for twenty dollars, and that he
would carry me to my own country people again.
The ship lay there about ten weeks, and when they had got all
their negroes we sailed from Madagascar. But all the history of
my voyaging with the Arabs, who treated me with much kindness,
and sold me at last to Englishmen, would be too long to relate.
When first saw my own countrymen I had forgotten English, so that
I could only speak to them in the language of Madagascar ; but by
the time I had been among them six or seven days my English
came back, and I could tell them my story.
At last I was taken on board an English ship called the ‘ Diana,’
and, sailing in this, I reached Yarmouth and afterwards Blackwall,
where I met my father, to the great joy of us both. Thus I con-
elude my narrative, with humble thanks to God for His wonder-
ful preservation of me through so many hardships and dangers.
THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND
(A.D. 1000)
LAF TRYGGVASON, King of Norway, had sailed with a large
fleet eastwards to Wendland, passing through the Danish
king’s dominion without his goodwill, and was now returning
thence. He sailed with a light breeze and fair weather for
Denmark, the smaller ships going before, and the larger ships
following behind because they needed more wind.
At an island off Wendland were gathered many great chiefs:
the island is called Svolder. In this fleet was Sweyn, King of the
Danes, who had many charges against King Olaf—one being that
Olaf had taken to wife Sweyn’s sister without his leave; another
that he had established himself in Norway, a land tributary to
Sweyn and subdued by King Harold his father. Earl Sigvaldi
was there with the Danish king because he was his earl. And in
this combined fleet was a mighty chief, Olaf the Swede, King of
the Swedes, who deemed he had to avenge on King Olaf of Norway
great dishonour ; for he had broken betrothals with, and smitten
with his glove, Olaf the Swede’s mother. This same woman
Sigridr Sweyn, the Danish king, had now to wife, and she was
strongly urging on Sweyn to do King Olaf hurt or dishonour.
With this fleet, too, was Earl Eric, Hacon’s son, who deemed he
had very great charges against King Olaf and his men, because
they had been present at the slaying of his father, Earl Hacon, and
had driven out of the land all his sons; and Olaf had established
himself in the kingdom afterwards.
These chiefs had an overwhelming host, and lay in a harbour
on the inner side of the island; but King Olaf's ships were sailing
past outside, and the chiefs were on the high ground of the island,
and saw where the fleet was sailing from the east. They saw that
the small craft sailed in front.
Soon they saw a ship large and splendid. Then said King
THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND 253
Sweyn: ‘Get we to our ships with all speed; there sails Long
Snake from the east.’
Answered Earl Eric: ‘Bide we awhile, sire; they have more
big ships than Long Snake alone.’
And so it was. This ship belonged to Styrkar of Gimsa.
Now saw they yet another ship, large and well-equipped, a ship
with a figure-head.
Said King Sweyn : ‘ Now here will be sailing Long Snake ; and
‘take we heed that we be not too late in meeting them.’
Then answered Earl Eric: ‘That will not be Long Snake ;
few of their big ships have passed as yet; there are many more to
come.’
And it was even as the Earl said.
Now sailed a ship with striped sails, a long-ship built for speed,
and much larger than the others that had gone by. And when
King Sweyn saw that this ship had no figure-head on her, then
stood he up and said, laughing the while: ‘ Olaf Tryggvason is
afraid now; he dares not to sail with his dragon’s head; go we
and attack him.’
Answered then Earl Eric: ‘That is not Olaf Tryggvason. I
Inow the ship, for I have often seen it; it belongs to Erling
Skjalgsson. And ’tis better that we go astern of him to this battle.
Brave wights are on board there, as we shall surely know if we
meet Olaf Tryggvason. Better isa gap in the King’s fleet than a
ship thus well-manned.’ .
Then said Olaf, the Swedish king, to the Earl: ‘ We ought not
to fear joining battle with Olaf, though he have many ships. And
it is great shame and disgrace for men to hear in other lands, if we
lie by with an overwhelming host while he sails the high road of
the seas outside.’
Earl Eric answered : ‘Sire, let this swift long-ship pass if she
will. Ican tell you good tidings: that Olaf Tryggvason has not
sailed by us, and this day you will have the chance of fighting
with him. There are here now many chiefs, and I expect of this
bout that we shall all have plenty of work.’
Still they said, when this long-ship and many craft had gone
by: ‘That must have been Long Snake. And Earl Eric,’ said
the Danes, ‘ will never fight to avenge his father if he do not so
now.
The Earl answered much in wrath, and said that the Danes
would not be found less loath to fight than himself and his men.
254 THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND
They waited not long ere three ships came sailing, whereof
one, by far the largest, bore a golden dragon’s head. Then all said
that the Earl had spoken truth, and there now was Long Snake.
Earl Eric answered: ‘That is not Long Snake.’ But he bade
them attack if they would.
And at once Sigvaldi took his long-ship and rowed out to the
ships, holding up a white shield; they, on the other hand, lowered
their sails and waited. But that large ship was the Crane, steered
by Thorkell Dydvrill, the King’s kinsman. They asked of Sigvaldi
what tidings he had to tell them. He declared he could tell them
tidings of Sweyn, the Danish king, which it were right Olaf
Tryggvason should know—he was setting a snare for him if he
were not on his guard. Then Thorkell and his men let their ship
float, and waited for the King.
Then saw King Sweyn four ships of great size sailing, and one
by far the largest, and on it a dragon’s head conspicuous, all of .
gold. And they all at once said: ‘A wondrous big ship and a
beautiful one is the Long Snake. There will be no long-ship in
the world to match her for beauty, and much glory is there in
causing to be made such a treasure.’-
Then said Sweyn, the Danish king, out loud: ‘The Long
Snake shall bear me; I shall steer it this evening before set of
sun.’
Whereat Earl Eric said, but so that few men heard: ‘Though
Olaf Tryggvason had no more ships than may now be seen, never
will Danish king steer this ship if they two and their forces have
dealings together.’
Sigvaldi, when he saw where the ships were sailing, bade
Thorkell Dydrill draw his ship under the island ; but Thorkell said
the wind sat better for them to sail out at sea than to keep under
the land with large ships and light breeze. But they gathered
them under the island, these last four, because they saw some of
their ships rowing under the island, and suspected that there might
be some new tidings; so they tacked and stood in close to the
island, and lowered their sails and took to their oars. The large
ship of this group was named Short Snake. :
And now the chiefs saw three very large ships sailing, and a
fourth last of all. Then said Earl Evic-to King Sweyn and to Olaf,
the Swedish king: ‘Now stand ye up and to your ships; none
will now deny that Long Snake sails by, and there ye may meet
Olaf Tryggvason.’
THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND 255
Whereat silence fell on the chiefs, and none spake; and great
fear was on the crews, and many a one there dreaded his bane.
Olaf Tryggvason saw where his men had laid them under the
island, and, feeling sure that they must have heard some tidings,
he also turned these ships inwards to the island, and they lowered
sail. Earl Sigvaldi steered his ship inwards along the island to
meet the fleet of the other kings that was coming out from the
‘None will now deny that “ ong Snake â€â€™ sails by’
harbour inside. Therefore sang Stefnir about Sigvaldi, the foul
traitor who drew Tryggvason into a trap.
Sweyn, the Danish king, and Olaf, the Swedish king, and Earl
Eric had made this agreement between them, that, if they slew
Olaf Tryggvason, he of them who should be nearest at the time
should own the ship and all the share of booty taken in the battle;
but of the realm of the Norse king they should each have a third.
Then saw Olaf Tryggvason and all his men that they were he-
trayed, for lo the whole sea about them was covered with ships;
but Olaf had a small force, as his fleet had sailed on before him.
256 THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND
And now lay in his place each one of those three chiefs, Sweyn,
King of Danes, with his force ; Olaf, King of Swedes, with his host ;
while in the third place Earl Eric set his men in array.
Then talked with King Olaf a wise man, ‘'horkell Dydrill, and
said; ‘Here are overwhelming odds to fight against. Hoist we our
sails, and sail we after our fleet out to sea; for in no man is it
cowardice to know his own measure.’ ts
King Olaf answered with loud voice: ‘Bind we our ships to-
gether with ropes, and let men don their war apparel and draw.
their swords; my men must not think of flight.’
And Olaf Tryggvason asked his men: ‘ Who is chief over this |
force that lies here nearest to us ?’
They answered :
‘We think it be Sweyn, King of Danes.’
Then said King Olaf: ‘We need not fear that force; never did
Danes win victory in battle when fighting on shipboard against
Norsemen.’ ;
Again asked King Olaf: ‘Who lies there out beyond with so
many ships ?’
He was told that it was Olaf Ericsson, King of Swedes.
Then answered King Olaf: ‘We need not fear Swedish horse-
eaters;! they will be more eager to lick up what is in their sacrificial
bowls than to board Long ‘Snake under our weapons.’
And yet again asked King Olaf Tryggvason: ‘Who owns those
large ships that lie out beyond the other squadrons ?’
He was told that it was Earl Eric, Hacon’s son, with the Iron
Ram, of all ships the largest.
Then said King Olaf: ‘Many high-born men are arrayed
against us in that host, and with that force we may expect a stub-
born battle: they are Norsemen as are we, and have often seen
bloody swords and exchange of blows, and they will think they
meet their match in us, as in truth they do.’
So these four chiefs, two kings and two earls, joined battle with
Olaf Tryggvason. Sigvaldi indeed took little part in the fight,
bvt Skuli Thorsteinsson in his short poem says that Sigvaldi was
there. Very sharp and bloody was this contest, and the Danes fell
most because they were nearest the Norsemen. Soon they did not
hold their ground, but withdrew out of shot range; and this fleet,
as Olaf had said, came off with no glory. But none the less the
battle raged fierce and long, and numbers fell on either side—of the
‘2 The Swedes were still heathens, and ate horses, meat then forbidden to Christians.
|, ae Zz
Hengy 3 Tord
KING OLAF LEAPS OVERBOARD
THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND 259
Swedes, however, most—till it came about that Olaf the Swede saw
this to be the best counsel for himself and his fleet, to make as if
they shunned the fight. And so he bade his ships drop away stern-
wards; and then Earl Eric lay broadside on.
King Olaf Tryggvason had laid the Long Snake between Short
Snake and the Crane, and the smallest ships outside them. But
Earl Eric, as each of these was disabled, caused it to be cut away,
and pressed on to those that were behind. Now, when the small
ships of King Olaf were cleared, the men leapt from them and wentup
on the larger ships. There was in this bout much loss of life in either
party ; but ever, as men fell in Earl Eriec’s ships, others took their
place, Swedes and Danes ; whereas none took the place of the men
who fell on Olaf’s side. All his ships were cleared presently except
Long Snake; this held out because it was highest in board and best
manned. And while there were men to do so, they had gone
thither aboard, and though some of the crew had perished, the ship
had maintained its full numbers. But when Short Snake and
Crane were disabled, then Earl Eric had them cut away, and there-
after Iron Ram lay broadside to broadside with Long Snake.
This battle was so stubborn as to stir wonder, first for the
brave attack, but still more for the defence. When ships made at
the Snake from all sides yet the defenders so hasted to meet them —
that they even stepped over the bulwarks into the sea and sank
with their weapons, heedless of all else save, as in a land fight, to
press ever forwards.
The men fell there first in the ship’s waist, where the board was
lowest, while forward about the prow and aft in the space next the
poop they held out longest. And when Earl Erie saw that the
Snake was defenceless amidships he boarded it with fifteen men.
But when Wolf the Red and other forecastlemen saw that, then
they advanced from the forecastle and charged so fiercely on where
the Earl was that he had to fall back to his ship. And when he
came on board the Ram the Earl roused his men to attack
bravely ; and they boarded the Snake a second time with a large
force.
By this time Wolf and all the forecastlemen had come to the
poop, and all the foreship was disabled, Earl Eric’s force attacking
King Olaf’s on every side. Earl Erie with his men then charged
aft on the space next the poop, anda stubborn resistance was there.
King Olaf had been all that day on the poop of the Snake ; he bare
a golden shield and helm, heavy ring-mail, strong so that nought
s2
260 THE FIGHT AT SVOLDER ISLAND
could pierce it, though ’tis said that there was no stint of missiles
showered on the poop, for all men knew the King, as his armour
was easily recognised and he stood high on the stern-castle. And by
him stood Kolbjorn, his marshal, clad in armour like to the King’s.
Now, this battle went as might be looked for when brave men on
both sides met: those lost who were fewerin numbers. And when
all King Olaf’s force had fallen, then leapt he overboard himself,
holding his shield above his head ; and so did Kolbjorn, his marshal,
but his shield was under him on the sea, and he could not manage to
dive, wherefore the men who were in the small ships took him, but he
received quarter from the Earl. And after this all leapt overboard
who yet lived; but most of these were wounded, and those who
received quarter were taken as they swam: these were Thorkell
Netja, Karlshead, Thorstein, and Einar Bowstring-shaker.
But after the battle was ended Earl Eric took for his own Long
Snake and the other ships of King Olaf, and the weapons of many
men who had wielded them manfully to the death.
Most famous has been this battle in Northland; first by reason
of the brave defence, next for the attack and victory, wherein that
ship was overcome on the deep sea which all had deemed invincible,
but chiefly because there fell a chief famous beyond any of the
Danish tongue. So greatly did men admire King Olaf and seek
his friendship, that many would not hear of his being dead, but
declared that he was yet alive in Wendland or in the south region.
And about that many stories have been made.
261
THH DEATH OF HACON- THE GOOD
(A.D. 961)
[Eric Bloodaxe, Harold Fairhair’s favourite son, ruled Norway for a
year or so after his father’s death. Then he and his queen Gunnhilda
became so hated by the people that they welcomed as king his brother
Hacon, who returned from England, where he had been brought up.
Eric was forced to flee. For some time he was in Northumberland; he
fell in the west while freebooting, about a.p. 950. Gunnhilda and her
sons went to Denmark ; they made many attempts to recover Norway ;
the issue of the last is here told.]
ING HACON, Athelstan’s foster-son, long ruled over Norway;
but in the latter part of his life Hric’s sons came to Norway,
and strove with him for the kingdom. They had battles together,
wherein Hacon ever won the victory. The last battle was fought
in Hordaland, on Stord Island, at Fitjar: there Hacon won the
victory, but also got his death-wound.
And this battle came about in this wise. Gunnhilda’s sons
sailed northward from Denmark, taking the outer way, nor came
they to land oftener than for men to get knowledge of their goings,
while they also got knowledge of the public banquets given to King
Hacon. They had ships well-found in men and weapons; and in
their company was a mighty viking named Eyvind Skreyja; he was
a brother of Queen Gunnhilda.
Hacon was at a banquet at Fitjar on Stord Island when they
came thither; but he andall his men were unaware of their coming
till the ships were sailing up from the south and had now gotten
close to the island. King Hacon was even then sitting at table.
Now came a rumour to the King’s guard that ships were seen
sailing ; wherefore some who were keenest of sight went out to look.
And each said to his fellows that this would be an enemy, and each
bade other to tell the King; but for this task none was found save
Eyvind Finnsson, who was nicknamed Skald-spoiler.
262 THE DEATH OF HACON THE GOOD
He went in before the King, and spake thus: ‘ Fleeting hour is
short, sire, but meal-time long.’
Said the King: ‘ Skald, what news ?’
Eyvind answered :
‘ Vengers (‘tis said) of Bloodaxe crave
The battle-shock of belted glaive ;
Our sitting-time is done.
Hard task, but ’tis thine honour, King,
I seek, who here war tidings bring.
Arm swiftly, every one!’
Then answered the King: ‘ Eyvind, thou art a brave wight and
a wise; thou wouldst not tell war tidings unless they were true.’
Whereupon all said that this was true, that ships were sailing that
way, and within short space of the island. And at once the tables
were taken up, and the King went out to see the fleet.
But when he had seen it he called to him his counsellors, and
asked what should be done.
‘Here be sailing many ships from the south: we have a force
small but goodly. Now, I wish not to lead my best friends into
overwhelming danger; but surely would be willing to flee, if wise
men should not deem that this were great shame or folly.’
Then made answer each to other that everyone would rather
fall dead across his fellow than flee before Danes.
Whereat the King said: ‘ Well spoken for heroes as ye are!
And let each take his weapons, nor care how many Danes there be
to one Norseman.’
Thereafter the King took his shield, and donned his coat of ring-
mail, and girded him with the sword Millstone-biter, and set a
golden helm on his head. Then did he marshal his force, putting
together his bodyguard and the guests of the feast.
Gunnhilda’s sons now came up on land, and they likewise
marshalled their force, and it was by far the larger. The day was
hot and sunny ; so King Hacon slipped off his mail coat and raised
lis helm, and egged on his men to the onset laughing, and thus
cheered his warriors by his blithe bearing. Then the fight began,
and it was most stubborn. When the missiles were all thrown,
King Hacon drew sword and stood in front under the banner, and
hewed right and left ; never did he miss, or, if he missed his man,
the sword bit another.
Eyvind Skreyja went fiercely forward in the battle, challenging
the Norsemen’s courage. And chiefly pressed he on where Hacon’s
THE DEATH OF HACON THE GOOD ~ 68
banner was, crying, ‘ Where is the Norsemen’s king? Why doth
he hide him? Why dares he not come forth and show himself?
‘Who can point me to him ?’
Hacon casts his shield away
Then answered King Hacon: ‘Hold thou on forward, if thou
wilt find the Norsemen’s king.’
And Hacon cast his shield by his side, and gripped his sword’s
mid-hilt with both hands, and ran forth from under the banner,
264. THE DEATH OF HACON THE GOOD
But Thoralf Skumsson said, ‘Suffer me, sire, to go against
Eyvind.’
The King answered: ‘Me he wished to find; wherefore me he
shall first meet.’ But when the King came where Eyvind was, he
hewed on either side of him, and then, with Millstone-biter in both
hands, hewed at Eyvind’s head, and clove him through helm and
head right down to the shoulders.
This battle was not good for men weak in strength, weapons, or
courage. Nor was it long after the fall of Eyvind Skreyja ere the
whole Danish force turned and fled to their ships. Great numbers
fell on the side of Eric’s sons; but they themselves escaped.
King Hacon’s men followed them far that day, and slew all
whom they might; but the King bade his swift ship be launched,
and rowed northwards along the coast, meaning to seek his house
at Alrekstead, for he had gotten a wound by an arrow that pierced
his arm while he drove before him the flying foe. And he lost so
much blood that he swooned away. And when he came to the
place called Hacon’s Stone (it was where he was born), there he
stayed for the night, bidding his land tent be set up and himself be
carried ashore.
And as soon as King Hacon knew that his wound was mortal,
he called to him his counsellors, and talked at large with his friends
about those things that had been done in his days. And of this he
then repented, that he had done much against God and Christian
men’s laws during his rule.
His friends offered to convey his body westwards to England,
and bury it there in Church ground.
But the King answered: ‘ Of this I am not worthy; I lived as
heathen men live, so, too, shall ye bury me.’
He bewailed the quarrels of himself and his kin ; and having but
one daughter, a child, and no son, he sent a letter to Gunnhilda’s
sons, wherein it was written that he gave to his kinsman Harold
Grayfell his guard and his kingdom.
After this King Hacon died: he had ruled Norway for twenty-
six years. He was mourned both by friends and foes. As Eyvind
Skald-spoiler says :
‘The King is born in blessed day
Such love who gains:
Of his fair age ever and aye
Good fame remains.’
His men carried his body to . Peplennis in North Hordaland, and
raised 2 mound over it.
iN)
o>
Or
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
I
THE BOYHOOD OF PRINCE CHARLIE
N 1784 the city of Gaeta, in the kingdom of Naples, was held by
‘an Austrian force, and was besieged by a mixed army of
French, Walloons, Spaniards, and Italians, commanded by the
Duke of Liria. Don Carlos, a Spanish-prince, was doing his best, by
their aid, to conquer the kingdom of Naples for himself. There is
now no kingdom of Naples: there are no Austrian forces in Ttaly,
and there is certainly, in all the armies of Europe, no such ofticer
as was fighting under the Duke of Liria. This officer, in the uni-
form of a general of artillery, was a slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy
of thirteen. Heseemed to take a pleasure in the sound of the balls
that rained about the trenches. When the Duke of Liria’s quarters
had been destroyed by five cannon shots, this very young officer
was seen to enter the house, and the duke entreated, but scarcely
commanded, him to leave. The boy might be heard shouting to
the men of his very mixed force in all their various languages.
He was the darling of the camp, and the fayourite of the men, for
his courage and pleasant manners.
This pretty boy with a taste for danger, Charles Edward Stuart,
was called by his friends ‘the Prince of Wales.’ He was, indeed,
the eldest son of James VIII. of Scotland and Third of England,
known to his enemies as ‘the Pretender.’ James, again, was the
son of James IT., and was a mere baby when, in 1688, his father
fled from England before the Prince of Orange.
The child (the son of James II.) grew up in France: he charged
the English armies in Flanders, and fought not without distinction.
He invaded Scotland in 1715, where he failed, and now, for many
years, he had lived in Rome, a pensioner of the Pope. James was
an unfortunate prince, but is so far to be praised that he would not
266 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
change his creed to win a crown. He was a devout Catholic—his
enemies said ‘a bigoted Papist ’—he was the child of bad luck from
his cradle; he had borne many disappointments, and he was never
the man to win back a kingdom by the sword. He had maried a
Polish princess, of the gallant House of Sobicski, and at Gaeta his
eldest son, though only a boy, showed that he had the courage of
the Sobieskis and the charm of the Stuarts. The spies of the
English Government confessed that the boy was more dangerous
than the man, Prince Charles than King James.
While Charles, at Gaeta, was learning the art of war, and
causing his cousin, the Duke of Liria, to pass some of the uneasiest
moments of his life, at home in Rome his younger brother Henry,
Duke of York, aged nine, was so indignant with his parents for not
allowing him to go to the war with his brother, that he flung -away
his little sword in a temper. From their cradle these boys‘ had
thought and heard of little else but the past glories of their race; it
was the dream of their lives to be restored to their own country.
In all he did, the thought was always uppermost with Charles. On
the way from Gaeta to Naples, leaning over the ship's side, the
young Prince lost his hat; immediately a boat was lowered in the
hope of saving it, but Charles stopped the sailors, saying with a
peculiar smile, ‘I shall be obliged before long to go and fetch myself
a hat in England.’
Every thought, every study, every sport that occupied the next
few years of Charles’ life in Rome, had the same end, namely,
preparing himself in every way for the task of regaining his king-
dom. Long days of rowing on the lake of Albano, and boar-hunting
at Cisterna, made him strong and active. He would often make
marches in shoes without stockings, hardening his feet for the part
he played afterwards on many a long tramp in the Highlands. In-
stead of enjoying the ordinary effeminate pleasures of the Roman
nobility, he shot and hunted ; and in the Borghese Gardens practised
that royal game of golf, which his ancestors had played long before
on the links at St. Andrews and the North Inch of Perth. His more
serious studies were, perhaps, less ardently pursued. Though no
prince ever used a sword more gallantly and to more purpose, it
cannot be denied that he habitually spelled it ‘sord,’ and though
no son ever wrote more dutiful and affectionate letters to a father,
he seldom got nearer the correct spelling of his parent’s name than
‘Gems. In lonely parts of Rome the handsome lad and his
melancholy father might often have been seen talking eagerly and
‘IN THE BORGHESE GARDENS PRACTISED THAT ROYAL GAME OF GOLF?
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 269 -
confidentially, planning, and for ever planning, that long-talked-of
descent upon their lost kingdom.
If his thoughts turned constantly to Britain, many hearts in
that country were thinking of him with anxious prayers and hopes.
In England, in out-of-the-way manor-houses and parsonages, old-
fashioned, high-church squires and clergymen still secretly toasted
- the exiled family. But in the fifty years that had passed since the
Revolution, men had got used to peace and the blessings of a settled
government. Jacobitism in England was a sentiment, hereditary in
certain Tory families ; it was not a passion to stir the hearts of the
people and engage them in civil strife. It was very different with
the Scots. The Stuarts were, after all, their old race of kings ; once
they were removed and unfortunate, their tyranny was forgotten,
and the old national feeling centred round them. The pride of the
people had suffered at the Union (1707) ; the old Scots nobility felt
that they had lost in importance ; the people resented the enforce-
ment of new taxes. The Presbyterians of the trading classes were
Whigs ; but the persecuted Episcopalians and Catholics, with the
mob of Edinburgh, were for ‘the auld Stuarts back again.’ This
feeling against the present Government and attachment to the exiled
family were especially strong among the fierce and faithful people of
the Highlands. Among families of distinction, like the Camerons
of Lochiel, the Oliphants of Gask, and many others, Jacobitism
formed part of the religion of gallant, simple-minded gentlemen and
of high-spirited, devoted women. In many a sheiling and farmhouse
old broadswords and muskets, well-hidden from the keen eye of the
Government soldiers, were carefully cherished against the brave day
when ‘the king should have his own again.’
In 1744 that day seemed to have dawned to which Charles had
all his life been looking forward. France, at war with England,
Was preparing an invasion of that country, and was glad enough to
use the claims of ‘the Stuarts for her own purposes. A fleet was
actually on the point of starting, and Charles, in the highest spirits,
was already on shipboard, but the English admiral was alert. A
storm worked havoc among the French ships, and it suited the
French Government to give up the expedition. Desperate with
disappointment, Charles proposed to his father’s friend, the exiled
Lord Marischall, to sail for Scotland by himself in a herring-boat,
and was hurt and indignant when the old soldier refused to sanction
such an audacious plan.
Charles had seen enough of hanging about foreign courts and
270 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
depending on their wavoring policy ; he was determined to strike a
blow for himself. In Paris he was surrounded by restless spirits
like his own; Scots and Irish officers in the French service, and
heart-broken exiles like old Tullibardine, eager for any chance that
would restore them to their own country. Jiven prudent men of
business lent themselves to Charles’s plans. His bankers in Paris
advanced him 180,000 livres for the purchase of arms, and of two .
Scottish merchants at Nantes, Walsh and Routledge, one undertook
to convey him to Scotland in a brig of eighteen guns, the ‘ Doutelle,’
while the other chartered a French man-of-war, the ‘ Elizabeth,’ to
be the convoy, and to carry arms and ammunition. To provide
these Charles had pawned his jewels, jewels which ‘on this side I
could only wear with a very sad heart,’ he wrote to his father; for
the same purpose he would gladly have pawned his shirt. On June 22
he started from the mouth of the Loire in all haste and secrecy,
only writing for his father’s. blessing and sanction when he knew
it would be too late for any attempt to be made to stop him. The
companions of his voyage were the old Marquis of Tullibardine,
who had been deprived of his dukedom of Athol in the ’15; the
Prince’s tutor and cousin, Sir Thomas Sheridan, a rather injudicious
Irishman ; two other Irishmen in the French and Spanish services ;
Kelly, a young English divine ; and Ai‘neas Macdonald, a banker in
Paris, and younger brother of the chieftain Macdonald of Kinloch-
moidart, a prudent young man, who saw himself involved in the
Prince’s cause very much against his will and better judgment.
II
PRINCE CHARLIE’S LANDING
Eneuanp and France being at war at this time, the Channel was
constantly swept by English men-of-war. The ‘ Doutelle’ and her
convoy were hardly four days out before the ‘ Elizabeth’ was attacked
by an English frigate, the ‘Lion.’ Knowing who it was he had on
board, Walsh, the prudent master of the ‘ Doutelle,’ would by no
means consent to join in the fray, and sheered off to the north in
spite of the commands and remonstrances of the Prince. The un-
fortunate ‘Elizabeth ’ was so much disabled that she had to return
to Brest, taking with her most of the arms and ammunition for the
expedition. At night the‘ Doutelle’ sailed without a light and kept
well out to sea, and so escaped further molestation. The first land
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR : 271
they sighted was the south end of the Long Island. Gazing with
eager eyes on the Promised Land, old Lord Tullibardine was
the first to notice a large Hebridean eagle which flew above the ship
as they approached. ‘Sir,’ he said,‘ it is a good omen; the king of
birds has come to welcome your royal highness to Scotland.’
Charles had need of all happy auguries, for on his arrival in
Scotland things did not seem very hopeful. With his usual rash
confidence he had very much exaggerated the eagerness of his
friends and supporters to welcome him in whatever guise he might
come. Never had fallen kings more faithful and unselfish friends
than had the exiled Stuarts in the Highland chiefs and Jacobite
lairds of Scotland, but even they were hardly prepared to risk life and
property with a certainty of failure and defeat. Let the Prince
appear with 5,000 French soldiers and French money and arms, and
they would gather round him with alacrity, but they were prudent
men and knew too well the strength of the existing Government to
think that they could overturn it unaided.
The first man to tell the Prince this unwelcome truth was Mac-
donald of Boisdale, to whom he sent a message as soon as he landed
in Uist. This Boisdale was brother of the old Clanranald, chief of
the loyal clan Macdonald of Clanranald. If these, his stoutest
friends, hesitated to join his expedition Charles should have felt that
his cause was desperate indeed. But his mind was made up with all
the daring of his five-and-twenty years, and all the ill-fated obstinacy
of his race. For hours he argued with the old Highlander as the
ship glided over the waters of the Minch. He enumerated the
friends he could count on, among them the two most powerful chiefs
of the North, Macdonald of Sleat, and the Macleod. ‘They have
both declared for the existing Government,’ was the sad reply.
Before taking leave of the Prince, Boisdale again urged his returning
‘home.’ ‘I am come home,’ replied Charles passionately, ‘and
can entertain no notion of returning. Iam persuaded that my faith-
ful Highlanders will stand by me.’
On July 19 the ‘ Doutelle ’ cast anchor in Loch na-Nuagh, in the
country of the loyal Macdonalds. The first thing Charles did was
to send a letter to the young Clanranald to beg his immediate
presence. The next day four of the chief men of the clan waited on
Charles, Clanranald, Kinloch Moidart, Glenaladale, and another who
has left us a lively picture of the meeting. For three hours, ina
private interview, Clanranald tried in vain to dissuade the Prince.
Then Charles—still preserving his incognito—appeared among the
272 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
assembled gentlemen on deck. ‘ At his first appearance I found my
heart swell to my very throat ’ writes the honest gentleman who
uarrates the story. His emotion was fully shared by a younger
brother of Kinloch Moidart’s who stood on deck silent from youth
and modesty, but with his whole heart looking out of his eyes. His
brother and the other chiefs walked up and down the deck arguing
and remonstrating with Charles, proving the hopelessness of the
undertaking. As he listened to their talk the boy’s colour came and
went, his hand involuntarily tightened on his sword. ‘Charles
caught sight of the eager young face, and, turning suddenly towards
him cried, ‘ Will yow not assist me?’ ‘I will, I will; though not
another man in the Highlands should draw a sword, I will die for
you.’ Indeed, years after all had failed, young Clanranald prepared
a new rising, and had 9,000 stand of arms concealed in thee aves of
Moidart.
The boy’s words were like flint to tinder. Before they left the
ship the hesitating chieftains had pledged themselves to risk property,
influence, freedom, and life itself in the Prince’s cause. These
gallant Macdonalds were now willing to run all risks in receiving
the Prince even before a single other clan had declared for him. Old
Macdonald of Boisdale entertained Charles as an honoured guest in
his bare but hospitable Highland house. All the people of the
district crowded to see him as he sat at dinner. The young Prince
delighted all present by his geniality and the interest he showed in
everything Highland, and when he insisted on learning enough
Gaelic to propose the king’s health in their native language, the
hearts of the simple and affectionate people were completely gained.
Meanwhile young Clanranald had gone to Skye to try and per-
suade Macleod and Sir Alexander Macdonald to join the Prince.
It was allin vain ; these two powerful chiefs were too deeply com-
mitted to the Government. Next to these two, the most influential
man in the Highlands was Cameron of Locheil. Indeed, such was
the respect felt by all his neighbours for his gentle and chivalrous
character, that there was no one whose example would carry such
weight. It was all-important to gain him to the cause. No one
saw more clearly than Locheil the hopelessness of the undertaking,
no one was more unwilling to lead his clansmen to what he knew
was certain destruction. He would see the Prince, he said, and
warn him of the danger and entreat him to return. ‘Write to
him,’ urged Locheil’s brother, ‘but do not see him. I know you
better than you know yourself. If this Prince once sets eyes on
‘I WILL, THOUGH NOT ANOTHER MAN IN THE HIGHLANDS SHOULD
DRAW A SWORD’
R. ‘ T
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 275
you he will make you do whatever he pleases.’ It was but too true
a prophecy. When all argument had failed to move Locheil’s
prudent resolution, Charles exclaimed passionately, ‘In a few days,
with a few friends, I will raise the Royal Standard and proclaim
to the people of Britain that Charles Stuart is come over to claim
the crown of his ancestors, to win it or perish in the attempt.
Locheil, who, my father has often told me, was our firmest friend,
may stay at home and learn frcm the newspapers the fate of his
Prince.’ It was more than the proud, warm heart of the chief
could stand. ‘No,’ he cried with emotion, ‘I will share the fate
of my Prince, and so shall every man over whom nature and fortune
has given me any power.’
Even before the Royal Standard was raised an unexpected
success crowned the rebel arms. The Government had troops
stationed both at Fort Augustus and Fort William. The latter
being in the heart of the disaffected district, the commanding officer
at Fort Augustus despatched two companies of newly-raised men to
its assistance. This body, under a Captain Scott, was approaching
the narrow bridge which crossed the Spean some seven miles from
Fort William ; all at once a body of Highlanders appeared, occupy-
ing the bridge and barring further passage. Had the troops plucked
up courage enough to advance they would have found only some
dozen Macdonalds; but the wild sound of the pipes, the yells of the
Highlanders, and their constant movement which gave the effect
of a large body, struck terror into the hearts of the recruits: they
wavered and fell back, and their officer, though himself a brave
man, had to order a retreat. But the sound of firing had attracted
other bodies of Macdonalds and Camerons in the neighbourhood.
All at once the steep, rough hillside seemed alive with armed
Highlanders; from rock and bush they sprung up, startling the
echoes by their wild shouts. In vain the disordered troops hurried
along the road and rushed across the isthmus to the further side of
the lakes; there a new party of Macdonalds, led by Keppoch, met
them in front, and the whole body surrendered with hardly a blow
struck. They were carried prisoners to Locheil’s house, Achnacarry.
In default of medical aid, the wounded captain was sent to Fort
William, in that spirit of generous courtesy which characterised all
Charles’s behaviour to his defeated enemies.
On August 19 the Royal Standard was raised at Glenfinnan, a
deep rocky valley between Loch Hil and Loch Sheil, where the
Prince’s monument now stands. Charles, with a small body of
T2
276 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
Macdonalds, was the first to arrive, early in the morning. He and
his men rowed up the long narrow Loch Sheil. The valley was
solitary—not a far-off bagpipe broke the silence, not a figure appeared
against the skyline of the hills. With sickening anxiety the small
party waited, while the minutes dragged out their weary length. At
OOK i,
thos,
woe &
ve a
tl Forel Ve 7
ae
?
‘Go, sir, to your general; tell him what you have seen. . .
last, when suspense was strained to the utmost, about two in the
afternoon, a sound of pipes was heard, and a body of Camerons
under Lochiel appeared over the hill, bringing with them the
prisoners made at the Bridge of Spean. Others followed: Stewarts
of Appin, Macdonalds of Glencoe and Keppoch, till at least 1,500
were present. Then the honoured veteran of the party, old Tulli-
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 277
bardine, advanced in solemn silence and unfurled the royal banner,
with the motto Tandem Triuwmphans. As its folds of white, blue,
and red silk blew out on the hill breeze, huzzas rent the air, and
the sky was darkened by the bonnets that were flung up. An
English officer, a prisoner taken at Spean, stood by, an unwilling
spectator of the scene. - ‘ Go, sir, cried the Prince in exultation,
‘go to your general; tell him what you have seen, and say that I
am coming to give him battle.’
lil
THE MARCH SOUTH
For a full month Prince Charles had been in Scotland. During
that time a body of men, amounting to a small army, had collected
round him; his manifestoes had been scattered all over the country
(some were even printed in Edinburgh), and yet the Government
had taken no steps to oppose him. News travelled slowly from the
Highlands; it was August 9 before any certain account of the
Prince’s landing was received in Edinburgh. One bad fruit of the
Union was that Scotch questions had to be settled in London, and
London was three days further away. Moreover, at that greater
distance, men had more difficulty in realising the gravity of the
situation. Conflicting rumours distracted the authorities in Edin-
burgh ; now it was declared that the Prince had landed with 10,000
French soldiers, at another time men ridiculed the idea of his getting
a single man to rise for him. Those who knew the country best
took the matter most seriously. The question of defence was not
an easy one. At that time almost all the available British troops
were in Tlanders, fighting the French ; the soldiers that were left
in Scotland were either old veterans, fit only for garrison duty,
newly raised companies whose mettle was untried, or local militias
which were not to be trusted in all cases. If the great lords who
had raised and who commanded them chose to declare for the
Stuarts, they would carry their men with them.
The commander-in-chief, Sir John Cope, was not the man to
meet so sudden and so peculiar a crisis. He had nothing of a real
general’s love of responsibility and power of decision. To escape
blame and to conduct a campaign according to the laws of war was
all the old campaigner cared for. When it was decided that he was
278 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
to march with all the available forces in Scotland into the Highlands
he willingly obeyed, little guessing what a campaign in the High-
lands meant. Almost at once it was found that it would be impos-
sible to provide food for horses as well as men. So the dragoons
under Colonel Gardiner were left at Stirling. We shall hear of
them again. But his 1,500 infantry were weighted heavily enough ;
a small herd of black cattle followed the army to provide them with
food, and more than 100 horses carried bread and biscuit. Confident
that the loyal clans would come in hundreds to join his standard,
Cope carried 700 stand of arms. By the time he reached Crieff,
however, not a single volunteer had come in, and the stand of
arms was sent back. Cope followed one of the great military roads
which led straight to Fort Augustus, and had been made thirty years
before by General Wade. Now across that read, some ten miles short
of the fort, lies a high precipitous hill, called Corryarack. Up this
mountain wall the road is carried in seventeen sharp zigzags; so
steep is it that the country people call-it the ‘ Devil’s Staircase.’
Any army holding the top of the pass would have an ascending
enemy at its mercy, let alone an army of Highlanders, accustomed
to skulk behind rock and shrub, and skilled to rush down the most
rugged hillsides with the swiftness and surefootedness of deer.
While still some miles distant, Cope learned that the High-
landers were already in possession of Corryarack. The rumour
was premature, but it thoroughly alarmed the English general.
He dared not attempt the ascent; to return south was against his
orders. A council of war, hastily summoned, gave him the advice
he wished for, and on the 28th the army had turned aside and was
in full retreat on Inverness.
Meanwhile, the Prince’s army was pressing forward to meet
Cope. The swiftest-footed soldiers that ever took the field, the
Highlanders were also the least heavily-weighted. A bag of oat-
meal on his back supplied each man’s need, Charles himself burned
his baggage and marched at the head of his men as light of foot
and as stout of heart as the best of them. On the morning of the
27th they were to ascend Corryarack. The Prince was in the
highest spirits. As he laced his Highland brogues he cried, ‘ Before
I take these off I shall have fought with Mr. Cope!’ Breathless
the Highland army reached the top of the hill; they had gained
that point of vantage. Tagerly they looked down the zigzags
on the further side ; to their amazement not a man was to be seen,
their road lay open before them! When they learned from
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 279
deserters the course Cope’s army had taken, they were as much dis-
appointed as triumphant.
A body of Highlanders was despatched to try and take the
barracks at Ruthven, where twelve soldiers, under a certain Sergeant
Molloy, held the fort for the Government. This man showed a
spirit very different from that of his superior officer’s. This is his
own straightforward account of the attack and repulse:
‘Noble General,—They summoned me to surrender, but I told
him I was too old a soldier to part with so strong a place without
bloody noses. They offered me honourable terms of marching out
bag and baggage, which I refused. They threatened to hang me
and my party. I said I would take my chance. They set fire to
the sally-port which T extinguished; and failing therein, went off
asking leave to take their dead man, which I granted’
Honour to Molloy, whatever the colour of his cockade!
Though unsuccessful at Ruthven, some members of this party,
before rejoining the Prince’s army at Dalwhinnie, made an important
capture. Macpherson of Cluny was one of the most distinguished
chiefs in the Highlands, ruling his clan with a firm hand, and
repressing all thieving amongst them. As captain ofan independent
company, he held King George’s commission ; his honour kept him
faithful to the Government, but his whole heart was on the other
side. He was taken prisoner in his own house by a party ‘ hardly big
enough to take a cow,’ and once a prisoner in the Highland army, it
was no difficult task to persuade him to take service with the Prince.
The army now descended into the district of Athol. With
curious emotion old Tullibardine approached his own house of
Blair from which he had been banished thirty years before. The
brother who held his titles and properties fled before the Highland
army, and the noble old exile had the joy of entertaining his Prince
in his own halls. The Perthshire lairds were almost all Jacobites.
Here at Blair, and later at Perth, gentlemen and their ane
flocked to join the Prince.
One of the most important of these was Tullibardine’s brothas,
Lord George Murray, an old soldier who had been ‘ out in the ’15.’
He had real genius for generalship, and moreover understood the
Highlanders and their peculiar mode of warfare. He was no
courtier, and unfortunately his blunt, hot-tempered, plain speaking
sometimes ruftled the Prince, too much accustomed to the com-
placency of his Irish followers. But all that was to come later.
280 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
On the march south there were no signs of divided counsels. The
command of the army was gladly confided to Lord George.
Another important adherent who joined at this time was the
Duke of Perth, a far less able man than Lord George, but endeared
to all his friends by his gentleness and courage and modesty.
Brought up in France by a Catholic mother, he was an ardent
Jacobite, and the first man to be suspected by the authorities. As
soon as the news spread that the Prince had landed in the West, the
Government sent an officer to arrest the young duke. There was a
peculiar treachery in the way this was attempted. The officer, a
Mr. Campbell of Inverawe, invited himself to dinner at Drummond
Castle, and, after being hospitably entertained, produced his warrant.
The duke retained his presence of mind, appeared to acquiesce, and,
with habitual courtesy, bowed his guest first out of the room; then
suddenly shut the door, turned the key and made his escape through
an ante-room, a backstairs, and a window, out into the grounds.
Creeping from tree to tree he made his way to a paddock where he
found a horse, without a saddle but with a halter. He mounted,
and the animal galloped off. In this fashion he reached the house
of a friend, where he lay hid till the time he joined the Prince.
No Jacobite family had a nobler record of services rendered to
the Stuarts than the Oliphants of Gask. The laird had been ‘out
in the ’15,’ and had suffered accordingly, but he did not hesitate a
moment to run the same risks in the °45. He brought with him
to Blair his high-spirited boy, young Lawrence, who records his
loyal enthusiasm in a journal full of fine feeling and bad spelling |
Indeed, one may say that bad spelling was, like the ‘ white rose,’ a
badge of the Jacobite party. Mistress Margaret Oliphant, who with
her mother and sisters donned the white cockade and waited
on their beloved Prince at her aunt’s, Lady Nairne’s, house, also
kept a journal wherein she regrets in ill-spelt, fervent words that
being ‘ only a woman’ she cannot carry the Prince’s banner. This
amiable and honourable family were much loved among their own
people. ‘Oliphant is king to us’ was a by-word among retainers
who had lived on their land for generations. But at this crisis
the shrewd, prosperous Perthshire farmers refused to follow their
landlord on such a desperate expedition. Deeply mortified and
indignant, the generous, hot-tempered old laird forbade his tenants
to gather in the harvest which that year was early and abundant.
As Charles rode through the Gask fields he noticed the corn hanging
over-ripe and asked the cause. As soon as he was told, he jumped
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 281
from his horse, cut a few blades with his sword and, in his gracious
princely way, exclaimed ‘ There, J have broken the inhibition! Now
every man may gather
in his own.’ It was acts
like this that gained the
hearts of gentle and
simple alike, and explain
that passionate affection
for Charles that remained
with many to the end of
their days as part of their
religion. The strength
of this feeling _ still
touches our hearts in
many a Jacobite song.
‘I pw’ed my bonnet ower
my eyne, For weel I
loued Prince Chazrlie,’
and the yearning refrain,
‘Better loued ye canna
be, Wull ye no come back
again?’ On the. 3rd
Charles entered Perth, at
the head of a body of
troops, in a handsome
suit of tartan, but with
his last guinea in his
pocket ! However, re-
quisitions levied on Perth
and the neighbouring
towns did much to supply
his exchequer, and it
was with an army in-
creased in numbers and
importance, as well as
far better organised—
thanks to Lord G. Mur-
ray—that Charles a week
later continued his route
to Edinburgh. Having
Escape of the Duke of Perth
no artillery the Highland army avoided Stirling, crossed the Forth
282 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
at the Fords of Frew entirely unopposed, and marched to Lin-
lithgow, where they expected to fight with Gardiner’s dragoons.
That body however did not await their arrival, but withdrew to
Corstorphine, a village two miles from Edinburgh.
The next halt of the Prince’s army was at Kirkliston. In the
neighbourhood lay the house of New Liston, the seat of Lord Stair,
whose father was so deeply and disgracefully implicated in the
massacre of Glencoe. It was remembered that a grandson of the
murdered Macdonald was in the army with the men of his clan.
Fearing that they would seize this opportunity of avenging their cruel
wrong, the general proposed placing a guard round the house. Mac-
donald hearing this proposal, went at once to the Prince. ‘It is right,’
he said, ‘that a guard should be placed round the house of New
Liston, but that guard must be furnished by the Macdonalds of
Glencoe. If they are not thought worthy of this trust they are
not fit to bear arms in your Royal Highness’ cause, and I must
withdraw them from your standard.’ The passion for revenge
may be strong in the heart of the Highlander, but the love of
honour and the sense of loyalty are stronger still. The Macdonalds,
as we shall see, carried theit habit of taking their own way to a
fatal extent.
IV
EDINBURGH
MEANWHILE nothing could exceed the panic that had taken posses-
sion of the town of Edinburgh. The question of the hour was,
could the city be defended at all, and if so, could it, in case of siege,
hold out till Cope might be expected with his troops? That dila-
tory general, finding nothing to do in the North, was returning to
Edinburgh by sea, and might be looked for any day. There could
be no question of the strength of the Castle. It was armed and
garrisoned, and no army without large guns need attempt to attack
it. But with the town it was different. The old town of Edinburgh,
as everybcdy knows, is built along the narrow ridge of a hill
running from the hollow of Holyrood, in constant ascent, up to the
Castle rock. On-each side narrow wynds and lanes descend down
steep slopes, on the south side to the Grassmarket and the Cowgate,
on the north—at the time of which we write—the sides of the city
sloped down to a lake called the Norloch, a strong position, had
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 283
the city been properly fortified. More than two hundred years
before, in the desolate and anxious days that followed Flodden, the
magistrates of the city, hourly expecting to be invaded, had hastily
built a high wall round the whole city as it then was. For the time
the defence was suflicient. But the wall had been built without
reference to artillery, it had neither towers nor embrasures for
mounting cannons. It was simply a very high, solid, park wall, as
may be seen to this day by the curious who care to visit the last
remnants of it, in an out-of-the-way corner near the Grassmarket.
If the material defences were weak, the human defenders were
weaker still, The regular soldiers were needed for the Castle;
Hamilton’s dragoons, stationed at Leith, were of no use in the
defence of a city, the town guard was merely a body of rather in-
efficient policemen, the trained bands mere ornamental volunteers
who shut their eyes if they had to let off a firearm in honour of the
king’s birthday. As soon as it seemed certain that the Highland
army was approaching Edinburgh, preparations, frantic but spas-
modic, were made to put the city in a state of defence.
The patriotic and spirited Maclaurin, professor of mathematics,
alone and unaided, tried to mount cannons on the wall, but not
with much success. The city determined to raise a regiment of
volunteers ; funds were not lacking; it was more difficult to find
the men. Even when companies were formed, their ardour was
not very great. Rumour and ignorance had exaggerated the
‘numbers and fierceness of the Highland army ; quiet citizens, drawn
from desk or shop, might well shrink from encountering them in
the field. Parties were divided in the town; the Prince had many
secret friends among the citizens. In back parlours of taverns
“douce writers,’ and advocates of Jacobite sympathies, discussed
the situation with secret triumph; in many a panelled parlour high
up in those wonderful old closes, spirited old Jacobite ladies recalled
the adventures of the ’15, and bright-eyed young ‘ones busied them-
selves making knots of white satin. ‘One-third of the men are
Jacobite,’ writes a Whig citizen, ‘and two-thirds of the ladies.’
On Saturday, 14th, the news reached Edinburgh that the Prince
had arrived at Linlithgow, and that Gardiner had retired on Cor-
storphine, a village two miles from Edinburgh. Consternation was
general; advice was sought from the law officers of the Crown, and
it was found that they had all retired to Dunbar. The Provost was
not above suspicion. His surname was Stuart; no Scotsman
could believe that he really meant to oppose the chief of his name.
284 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
On Sunday, as the townsfolk were at church about eleven o'clock,
the firebell rang out its note of alarm, scattering the congregation
into the streets. It was the signal for the mustering of the
volunteers. The ofticer in command at the Castle was sending the
‘In many a panelled parlour ’
dragoons from Leith to reinforce Gardiner at Corstorphine, and the
volunteers were ordered to accompany them. They were standing
in rank in the High Street, when the dragoons rattled up the
Canongate at a hard trot; as they passed they saluted their
brothers in arms with drawn swords and loud huzzas, then swept
down the West Bow and out at the West Port. For a moment
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 285
military ardour seized the volunteers, but the lamentations and
tears of their wives and children soon softened their mood again.
A group of Jacobite ladies in a baleony mocked and.derided the
civic warriors, but had finally to close their windows to prevent
stones being hurled at them.
One of the volunteer companies was composed of University
students. Among them was, doubtless, more than one stout young
heart, eager for fame and fighting, but most were more at home
with their books than their. broadswords. ‘Oh, Mr. Hew, Mr.
Hew,’ whispered one youth to his comrade, ‘does not this remind
_ you of the passage in Livy where the Gens of the Fabii marched
out of the city, and the matrons and maids of Rome were weeping
and wringing their hands?’ ‘Hold your tongue,’ said Mr. Hew,
affecting a braver spirit, ‘ you'll discourage the men.’ ‘ Recollect
the end, Mr. Hew,’ persisted his trembling comrade; ‘ they all
perished toa man!’ This was not destined to be the fate of the
‘Edinburgh volunteers. On the march down the West Bow, one by
one they stole off, up the narrow wynds and doorways, till by the
time they reached the West Port, only the student corps remained,
and even its ranks were sadly thinned. The remnant were easily
persuaded that their lives were too precious to their country to be
rashly thrown away, and quietly marched back to the college
yards.
There was no alarm that night. At one o’clock the Provost, ac-
companied by a few of the city guard, carrying a lantern before
him, visited the outposts and found all at their places. In the
narrow streets of Edinburgh the people were accustomed to trans-
act all their business out of doors. Next morning (Monday, 16th),
the streets were already crowded at an early hour with an anxious,
vociferous crowd. At 10 o’clock a man arrived with a message
from the Prince, which he incautiously proclaimed in the street.
If the town would surrender it should be favourably treated ; if it
resisted it must expect to be dealt with according to the usages of
war. Greatly alarmed, the people clamoured for a meeting, but the
Provost refused ; he trusted to the dragoons to defend the city. A
little after noon, the citizens looking across from the Castle and the
northern windows of their houses, saw the dragoons in retreat from
Coltbridge As they watched the moving figures, the pace
quickened and became a regular flight; by the time the dragoons
were opposite the city on the other side of the Norloch, they were
running like harés. They made at first for their barracks at Leith,
‘286 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
but tbe distance still seemed too short between them and the
terrifying Highlanders; they never drew rein till they had reached
Prestonpans, nor did they rest there longer than an hour or two,
but galloped on, and were at Dunbar before nightfall. And yet
they had not exchanged a blow with their foes! At the first sight
of a reconnoitring party of horsemen, panic had seized them and
they had fled. This was the celebrated ‘ Canter of Coltbridge.’
The effect on the city was disturbing in the extreme. A
tumultuous meeting was held in the council chamber, the
volunteers were drawn up in the streets. As they stood uncertain
what to do a man 'on horseback—it was never known who he was
—galloped up the Bow, and as he passed along the ranks, shouted
‘The Highlanders are coming, sixteen thousand strong.’
It was too much for the volunteers, they marched up to the
Castle and gave in their arms! Meanwhile, a packet was handed
into the council chamber signed C. P., and offering the same terms
as in the morning, only adding that the town must open its gates
by two o’clock next morning. The cry was unanimous to
surrender, but to gain time deputies were sent to the Prince at
Gray’s Mill, two miles from Edinburgh, to ask for further delay.
Hardly had the deputies gone when, in through the opposite gate
galloped a messenger from Dunbar, to say that Cope had landed
there with his troops. Opinion now swung round the other way,
and men’s courage rose to the point of speaking about resistance.
The deputies returned at ten at night; Charles, they said, was in-
exorable and stuck to his conditions. To cause a delay, a new set
of deputies were sent forth at a very late hour, and went out by the
West Bow in a hackney coach.
To gain time, and then steal another march- on Cope, was even
more important to the Prince than to his enemies. There were
weak points in the wall that might be attacked, The chief gate of
the city, the Netherbow, lay midway up the High Street, dividing
the real borough of Edinburgh from the Canongate ; on each side
of this gate the wall descended sharply down hill, running along
Leith Wynd on the north side and St. Mary’s Wynd on the south.
The houses of the latter—-Edinburgh houses numbering their ten or
twelve stories—were actually built on to the wall. By entering
one of these, active and determined men might clear the wall by a
fire of musketry from the upper windows, and then make an
escalade. Another weak point was at the foot of Leith Wynd, where
the wall met the Norloch. About midnight *Locheil and five
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 287
hundred of his men started to make a night attack. They were
guided by Mr. Murray of Broughton (the Prince’s secretary, after-
wards a traitor), who had been a student in Edinburgh and knew
the town well.- To avoid chance shots from the guns of the Castle,
they made a wide circle round the town, but so still was the night
that across the city they could hear the watches calledin the distant
fortress. Swift and silent as Red Indians, the Highlanders marched
in the shadow cast by the high, dark houses of the suburbs without
arousing the sleeping inmates. They could see cannons on the walls,
‘Och no! she be relieved’
but no sentinels were visible. They determined to try fraud before
resorting to force. Twenty Camerons placed themselves in hiding
on each side of the gate, sixty stood in the dark recess of the
Wynd, the rest were at the bottom of the slope. One of the
number, disguised as the servant of an English officer of dragoons,
-knocked loudly at the gate, demanding admission. The watch
refused to open and threatened to fire. So this stratagem was not
successful. Already the dawn was beginning to break, and a
council was held among the leaders of the band in low hurried
whispers. They were deliberating whether they should not retreat,
288 ’ PRINCE CHARLIE'’S WAR
when all at once a heavy rumbling noise from within the city broke
the silence of the night. The hackney coach before mentioned had
deposited its load of deputies at the council chamber and was
returning to its stable-yard in the Canongate. A word to the
watchmen within and the gates swung on their heavy hinges. In
rushed the body of Camerons, secured the bewildered watchmen,
and in a few minutes had seized the city guard-house and disarmed
the soldiers. Then they struck up the wild pibroch ‘ We'll awa’ to
Sheriffmuir to haud the Whigs in order,’ and startled citizens
rushing to their windows saw in the dim twilight the streets filled
with plaids and bonnets. The conquerors visited all the outposts
as quietly as if they were troops relieving guard.. A citizen strolling
along by the wall early next morning found a Highland soldier
astride on one of the cannons, ‘Surely you are not the same
soldiers who were here yesterday?’ ‘Och no!’ was the answer
with a grave twinkle, ‘ she be relieved.’
At noon Prince Charles rode to Holyrood by way of Arthur’s
Seat and Salisbury Crags. He was on foot as he approached the
ancient home of his race, but the large and enthusiastic crowd
which came out to meet him pressed so closely upon him in their
eagerness to kiss his hand, that he had to mount a horse, and rode
the last half mile between the Duke of Perth and Lord Elcho. A
gallant young figure he must have appeared at that moment—tall
and straight.and fresh-coloured, in a tartan coat and blue bonnet,
with the cross of St. Andrew on his breast. As he was about to
enter the old palace of Holyrood, out of the crowd stepped the
noble and venerable figure of Mr. Hepburn of Keith. He drew his
sword, and, holding it aloft, with grave enthusiasm marshalled the
Prince up the stairs. It was surely a good omen; no man in Scot-
land bore a higher character for learning, goodness, and patriotism
than Mr. Hepburn; he was hardly less respected by the Whigs than
the Jacobites. ;
That same afternoon, at the old Cross in the High Street, with
pomp of heralds and men-at-arms, James VIII. was proclaimed
king, and his son’s commission as regent was read aloud to the
listening crowd. Loud huzzas almost drowned the wild music of
the bagpipes, the Highlanders in triumph let off their pieces in the
air, and from every window in the high houses on each side ladies
fluttered their white handkerchiefs. Beside the Cross, beautiful
Mrs. Murray of Broughton sat on horseback, a drawn sword in one
hand, while with the other she distributed white cockades to the
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 289
crowd. Even grave Whig statesmen like the Lord President
Forbes were disturbed by the enthusiastic Jacobitism that possessed
all the Scotch ladies. More than one followed the example of the
high-spirited Miss Lumsden, who let her lover clearly understand
that she would have nothing more to say to him unless he took up
arms for the Prince, and doubtless more young gallants than Robert
Strange joined the rebels for no better reason than their ladies’
command.
Ay Feri
Mrs. Murray of Broughton distributes cockades to the crowd
A ball was given at Holyrood that same evening, and surrounded
by all that was bravest and most beautiful and brilliant in Scottish
society, is was no wonder that Charles felt that this was but the
beginning of a larger and more complete triumph.
Vv
PRESTONPANS
In less than a month Prince Charles had marched through a king-
dom, and gained a capital, but he felt his triumph insecure till he
had met his enemies in fair fight. Nor were his followers less
eager for battle. In a council of war held at Holyrood, Charles
R. U
290 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
declared his intention of leading the army against Cope, and of
charging in person at its head. That, however, the chiefs would
not hear of; the Prince’s life was all-important to their cause, and
. must not be rashly exposed to danger. The arms that the Edin-
burgh trained bands had used to so little purpose--about a thousand
muskets—had fallen into the hands of their enemies; but even with
this addition, the Highland soldiers were insufficiently accoutred.
The gentlemen, who marched in the front ranks, were, it is true,
completely armed with broadsword, musket, pistol, and dirk,'but
in the rank and file many an unkempt, half-clothed, ill-fed cateran
carried merely a bill-hook or scytheblade fixed into a long pole.
It was the swiftness and splendid daring of their onset that made
these ill-armed, untrained clansmen the equals or more than the
equals of the regular army that opposed them.
In the meantime Cope, with his army of 2,000 foot, reinforced
by the fugitive dragoons, some 600 men under Gardiner, were
marching from Dunbar. Gardiner, as brave a soldier as he was a
good and devout Christian, was full of foreboding. The ‘ canter of
Coltbridge ’ had broken his heart; a ‘most foul flight,’ he called it,
and added, to a friend who tried to comfort him, that there were not
ten men in his troop whom he could trust not to run away at the
first fire. No such misgiving seems to have disturbed Sir John
Cope. On Friday the 20th the Hanoverian army reached Preston-
pans, and formed its ranks on a plain between the sea on the
north and the ridge of Carberry Hill on the south. The road from
Edinburgh to Haddington passed through this plain, and the simple
old general argued that the advancing army would be sure to take
the easiest road. Fortunately Lord George Murray knew better
where the peculiar strength of the Highlanders lay.
Early on Friday morning the Prince’s army broke up from their
camp at Duddingstone. Charles himself was the first man on the
field. As the troops began their march, he drew his sword and
cried: ‘Gentlemen, I have thrown away the scabbard;’ high-spirited
words which found an echo in the hearts of all the brave men
present.
The army marched in column, three abreast, the various clans
holding together under their own chiefs. Two miles short of
Prestonpans Lord George learned the position of Cope’s army, and
at once led his light-footed soldiers up the slopes that commanded
the plain. The English general was hourly expecting to see his
enemies approach from the west by the road, and he was fully pre-
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 291
pared to meet them at that point... At.two in the afternoon, to his
amazement, they suddenly appeared from the south, marching over
the ridge of the hill.
The Hanoverian soldiers had enough spirit to receive them
with cheers, to which the Highlanders responded by wild yells.
They longed ardently to sweep down the slope and give instant
battle, but the nature of the ground made this impossible even
to a Highland army. Intersecting the hillside were high stone
walls, which wculd have to be scaled under a hot fire from below,
and at the bottom was a swamp, a wide ditch, and a high hedge. A
certain gentleman in the Prince’s army—Mr. Ker of Gordon—rodo
over the ground on his pony to examine its possibilities. He went
to work as coolly as if he were on the hunting-field, making breaches
in the wall and leading his pony through, in spite of a dropping fire
from the Hanoverians. He reported that to charge over such
ground was impossible. The Highlanders were bitterly disappointed ;
their one fear was that Cope should again slip away under cover of
darkness. To prevent this Lord Nairne and 600 Perthshire men
were sent to guard the road to Edinburgh. Seeing that nothing
move could be done that night, both armies settled down to rest ;
General Cope lay in comfort at Cockenzie, Prince Charles on the
field; a bundle of peastraw served for his pillow; a long white
cloak thrown over his plaid for a covering.
Among the volunteers who had recently joined the Prince was
an East Lothian laird called Anderson. He had often shot over the
fields about Prestonpans. During the night he suddenly remem-
bered a path which led from the heights, down through the morass
on to the plain, slightly to the east of Cope’s army. He sought out
Lord George and told him of this path, and he, struck with the
possibility of making immediate use of the information, took him
without delay to the Prince. Charles was alert on the instant,
entered into the plan proposed, and the next moment the word of
command was passed along the sleeping lines. A few moments
later the whole army was moving along the ridge in the dim star-
light. But here a difficulty occurred. At Bannockburn, and in all
great battles afterwards, except Killiekrankie, the Macdonalds had
held the place of honour on the right wing of the army. They
claimed that position now with haughty tenacity. The other clans,
equally brave and equally proud, disputed the claim. It was decided
to draw lots to settle the question. Lots were drawn, and the place
of honour fell to the Camerons and Stewarts. An ominous cloud
u2
292 PRINCE CHARLIN’S WAR
gathered on the brows of the Macdonald chiefs, but Locheil, as
sagacious as he was courteous, induced the other chiefs to waive
their right, and; well content, the clan Macdonald marched on in
the van.
Up on the hill the sky was clear, but a thick white mist covered
the plain. Under cover of this the Highlanders passed the morass
in the one fordable place. In the darkness the Prince missed a
stepping-stone and slipped into the bog, but recovered so quickly
that no one had time to draw a bad omen from the accident. A
Hanoverian dragoon, standing sentinel near this point, heard the
march of the soldiers while they were still invisible m the dusk, and
galloped off to give the alarm, but not before the Highland army
was free from the swamp and had formed in two lines on the plain.
Macdonalds and Camerons and Stewarts were in the first line;
behind, at a distance of fifty yards, the Perthshiremen and other
regiments led by Charles himself.
Learning that the enemy was now approaching from the east
side of the plain, Cope drew up his men to face their approach. In
the centre was the infantry—the steadiest body in his army—on
his left, near the sea and opposite the Macdonalds, Hamilton’s
dragoons, on the right, the other dragoons under Gardiner, and in
front of these the battery of six cannon. This should have been a
formidable weapon against the Highlanders, who, unfamiliar with
artillery, had an almost superstitious fear of the big guns, but they
were merely manned by half-a-dozen feeble old sailors. There was a
brief pause as the two armies stood opposite each other in the sea
of mist. The Highlanders muttered a short prayer, drew their
bonnets down on their eyes, and moved forward at a smart pace.
At that moment a wind rose from the sea and rolled away the
curtain of mist from between the two armies. In front of them
the Highlanders saw their enemy drawn up like a hedge of steel.
With wild yells they came on, their march quickening to a run,
each clan charging in a close compact body headed by its own chief.
Even while they rushed on, as resistless as a torrent, each man
fired his musket deliberately and with deadly aim, then flung it
away and swept on, brandishing his broadsword. A body of
Stewarts and Camerons actually stormed the battery, rushing
straight on the muzzles of the guns. The old men who had them
in charge had fled at the first sight of the Highlanders; even the
brave Colonel Whiteford, who alone and unassisted stood to his
guns, had to yield to their furious onset. Gardiner’s dragoons
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 298
standing behind the battery were next seized by the panic; they
made one miserable attempt to advance, halted, and then wheeling
round, dashed wildly in every direction. Nor could Hamilton’s
dragoons on the other wing stand the heavy rolling fire of the
advancing Macdonalds. Mad with terror, man and horse fled in
blind confusion, some backwards, confounding their own ranks,
some along the shore, some actually through the ranks of the
enemy.
James More wounded at Prestonpans
Only the infantry in the centre stood firm and received the onset
of the Highlanders with a steady fire. A small band of Macgregors,
armed only with scytheblades, charged against this hedge of
musketry. This curious weapon was invented by James More, a
son of Rob Roy Macgregor. He was the leader of this party, and
fell, pierced by five bullets. With undaunted courage he raised
himself on his elbow, and shouted, ‘ Look ye, my lads, I’m not dead ;
by Heaven J shall.see if any of you does not do his duty.’ In
294 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
that wild charge, none of the clansmen failed to ‘do his duty.’
Heedless of the rain of bullets, they rushed to close quarters with
the Hanoverian infantry, who, deserted by the dragoons, were now
attacked on both sides as well as in front. A few stood firm, and
the gallant Colonel Gardiner put himself at their head. A blow
from a scytheblade in the hands of a gigantic Macgregor ended his
life, and spared him the shame and sorrow of another defeat. The
Park walls at their back prevented the infantry from seeking ig-
noble security in flight, after the fashion of the dragoons, and they
were forced to lay down their weapons and beg for quarter. Some
400 of them fell, struck down by the broadswords and dirks of their
enemy, more than 700 were taken prisoners, and only a few
hundreds escaped.
The battle was won in less than five minutes. Charles himself
commanded the second column, which was only fifty yards behind
the first, but, by the time he arrived on the scene of action, there
was nothing left to be done. Nothing, that is, in securing the
victory, but Charles at once occupied himself in stopping the carnage
and protecting the wounded and prisoners. ‘Sir,’ cried one of his
staff, riding up to him, ‘ there are your enemies at your feet.’ ‘ They
are my father’s subjects,’ answered Charles sadly, turning away.
In vain did Sir John Cope and the Earl of Home try to rally
the dragoons. Holding pistols to the men’s heads, they succeeded
in collecting a body in a field near Clement’s Wells, and tried to
form a squadron ; but the sound of a pistol-shot renewed the panic
and off they started again at the gallop. There was nothing for it
but for the officers to put themselves at the head of as many fugi-
tives as they could collect, and conduct the flight. Hardly did they
draw rein till they were safe at Berwick. There the unfortunate
general was received by Lord Mark Ker with the well-known sar-
casm—‘ Sir, I believe you are the first general in Europe who has
brought the first news of his own defeat.’ 1
In the meantime, the wounded they had left on the field were
being kindly cared for by the victorious army. Charles despatched
a messenger to bring medical aid—an errand not without danger
to a single horseman on roads covered with straggling bodies of
dragoons. But the adventure just suited the gallant spirit of young
Lawrence Oliphant. At Tranent the sight of him and his servant
at their heels sent off a body of dragoons at the gallop. Single
fugitives he disarmed and dismounted, sending the horses back to
! Others were Frederick the Great, and Dayid Leslie !
‘HE GALLOPED UP THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH SHOUTING,
“vigrory ! victory !’’?
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 297
the Prince by the hands of country lads. Once he had to discharge
his pistol after a servant and pony, but for the most part the terrified
soldiers yielded at a word.
Entering the Netherbow, he galloped up the streets of Edinburgh
shouting, ‘ Victory! victory!’ From every window in the High
Street and Luckenbows white caps looked out, while the streets were
crowded with eager citizens, and joyful hurrahs were heard on every
side. At Lucky Wilson’s, in the Lawn Market, the young gentle-
man alighted, called for breakfast, and sent for the magistrates
to deliver his orders that the gates were to be closed against any
fugitive dragoons. Hat in hand, the magistrates waited on the
Prince’s aide-de-camp, but at that moment the cry arose that
dragoons and soldiers were coming up the street. Up jumps Mr.
Oliphant and out into the street, faces eight or nine dragoons, and
commands them to dismount in the Prince’s name. This the
craven Hanoverians were quite prepared todo. Only one presented
his piece at the young officer. Mr. Oliphant snapped his pistol at
him, forgetting that it was empty. Immediately half a dozen shots
were fired at him, but so wildly that none did him any harm beyond
shattering his buckle, and he retreated hastily up one of the dark
steep lanes that led into a close.
The commander of the Castle refused to admit the fugitives,
threatened even to fire on them as deserters, and they had to gallop
out at the West Port and on to Stirling. Another of the Prince’s
officers, Colquhoun Grant, drove a party of dragoons before him
all the way into Edinburgh, and stuck his bloody dirk into the
Castle gates as a defiance.
Sadder was the fate of another Perthshire gentleman, as young
and as daring as Lawrence Oliphant. David Thriepland, with a
couple of servants, had followed the dragoons for two miles from -
the field; they had fled before him, but, coming to a halt, they
discovered that their pursuers numbered no more than three. They
turned on them and cut them down with their swords. Many
years afterwards, when the grass was rank and green on Mr. Thriep-
land’s grave, a child named Walter Scott, sitting on it, heard the
story from an old lady who had herself seen the death of the young
soldier.
The next day (Sunday) the Prince held his triumphant entry
up the High Street of Edinburgh. Clan after clan marched past,
with waving plaids and brandished weapons ; the wild music of the
pipes sounded as full of menace as of triumph. , From every window
298 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
in the dark, high houses on each side, fair faces looked down, each
adorned with the white cockade. In their excitement the High-
landers let off their pieces into the air. By an unfortunate accident
one musket thus fired happened to be loaded, and the bullet grazed
the temple of a Jacobite lady, Miss Nairne, inflicting a slight wound.
‘Thank God that this happened to me, whose opinions are so well
known,’ cried the high-spirited girl. ‘Had a Whig lady been
wounded, it might have been thought that the deed had been inten-
tional.’ !
VI
THE MARCH TO DERBY
A sucCESSFUL army, especially an insurgent army, should never
pause in its onward march. If Prince Charles could have followed
the flying dragoons over the Border into England he would have
found no preparations made to resist him in the Northern counties.
Even after the King and Government were alarmed by the news of
the battle of Preston, a full month was allowed to pass before an
army under General Wade arrived at Newcastle on the 2°th of Oc-
tober. Dutch, Hessian, and Engtish troops were ordered home from
Flanders and regiments were raised in the country, though at first
no one seems to have seriously believed in anything so daring as
an invasion of England by Prince Charles and his Highlanders.
So far there had come no word of encouragement from the
English Jacobites. Still, Charles never doubted but that they
would hasten to join him as soon as he crossed the Border. On the
very morrow of Prestonpans he sent messengers to those whom he
considered his friends in England, telling of his success and bidding
them be ready to join him. In the meantime he waited in Edin-
burgh till his army should be large and formidable enough to
undertake the march South. After the battle numbers of his
soldiers had deserted. According to their custom, as soon as any
clansman had secured:as much booty as he could conveniently
carry, he started off home to his mountains to deposit his spoil.
A stalwart Highlander was seen staggering along the streets of
Edinburgh with a pier glass on his back, and ragged boys belonging
to the army adorned themselves with gold-laced hats, or any odd
finery they could pick up.
Many new adherents flocked to join the Prince. Among these
1 In Waverley this generous speech is attributed to Flora Macivor,
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 299
was the simple-minded old Lord Pitsligo. He commanded a body
of horse, though at his age he could hardly bear the fatigues of a
campaign. In Aberdeenshire—always Jacobite and Episcopalian—
Lord Lewis Gordon collected a large force; in Perthshire Lord
Ogilvy raised his clan, though neither of these arrived in time to
join the march South. Even a Highland army could not start in
mid-winter to march through a hostile country without any pre-
parations. Tents and shoes were provided by the city of Edinburgh,
and all the horses in the neighbourhood were pressed for the Prince’s
service.
On the first day of November the army, numbering, 6,000 men,
started for the Border. Lord George led one division, carrying the
supplies by Moffat and Annandale to the West Border. Charles him-
self commanded the other division. They pretended to be moving
on Newcastle, marched down Tweedside and then turned suddenly
westward and reached England through Liddesdale.
On the 8th they crossed the Border. The men unsheathed
their swords and raised a great shout. Unfortunately, as he drew
his claymore, Locheil wounded his hand, and his men, seeing the
blood flow, declared it to be a bad omen.
But fortune still seemed to follow the arms of the Adventurer.
Carlisle was the first strong town on the English Border, and thongh
insufficiently garrisoned, was both walled and defended by a
Castle. The mayor, a vain-glorious fellow, was ambitious of being
the first man to stay the victorious army, and published a proclama-
tion saying that he was not ‘ Patterson, a Scotchman, but Pattieson,
a true-hearted Englishman, who would defend his town against all
comers.’
A false report that Wade was advancing from the West made
Charles turn aside and advance to Brampton in the hope of meeting
him, but the roads were rough, the weather was wild and cold,
the Hanoverian general was old, and again, as at Corryarack, Charles
prepared to meet an enemy that never appeared.
In the meantime a division of the army had returned to Carlisie
and was laying siege to it with great vigour. Lord George Murray
and the Duke of Perth worked in the trenches in their shirt sleeves.
The sound of bullets in their ears, the sight of formidable prepara-
tions for an assault, were too much for the mayor and his citizens ; on
the 13th, the ‘ true-hearted Englishmen’ hung out a white flag, and
the Prince’s army marched in and took possession. It was another
success, as sudden and complete as any of the former ones. But
300 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
there were ominous signs even at this happy moment. The command
of the siege of Carlisle had been given to the Duke of Perth, and
Lord George Murray, the older and abler general, resented the slight.
He sent in his resignation of the command of the forces, but with
proud magnanimity offered to serve as a volunteer. Charles accepted
the resignation, but the idea of losing the one general of any ex-
perience they had, created consternation among the chiefs. The
crisis would have become serious but for the generous good sense
and modesty of the Duke of Perth, who sent in his resignation also
to the Prince. A more ominous fact was that they had been
almost a week in England and no one had declared for them.
Charles refused to let anything damp his hopefulness. Lancashire
was the stronghold of Jacobitism. Once in Lancashire, gentlemen
and their following would flock to join him.
The road between Carlisle and Preston lies over bare, stony
heights, an inhospitable country in the short, bleak days and long
nights of November. Charles shared every hardship with his
soldiers. He hada carriage but he never used it, and it was chiefly
occupied by Lord Pitsligo. With his target on his shoulder he
marched alongside of the soldiers, keeping up with their rapid pace,
and talking to them in his scanty Gaelic. He seldom dined, had
one good meal at night, lay down with his clothes on, and was up
again at four next morning. No wonder that the Highlanders were
proud of ‘a Prince who could eat a dry crust, sleep on pease-straw,
dine in four minutes, and win a battle in five.’ Once going over
Shap Fell he was so overcome by drowsiness and cold that he
had to keep hold of one of the Ogilvies by the shoulderbelt and
walked some miles half asleep. Another time the sole of his boot
was quite worn out, and at the next village he got the blacksmith
to nail a thin iron plate to the boot. ‘I think you are the first that
ever shod the son of a king,’ he said, laughing as he paid the man.
Still entire silence on the part of the English Jacobites. The
people in the villages and towns through which they passed looked
on the uncouth strangers with ill-concealed aversion and fear.
Once going to his quarters in some small town the ‘ gentle Locheil’
found that the good woman of the house had hidden her children
in a cupboard, having heard that the Highlanders were cannibals
and ate children !
The town of Preston was a place of ill omen to the superstitious
Highlanders. There, thirty years before, their countrymen had been
disastrously defeated. They had a presentiment that they too
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 301
would never get beyond that point. To destroy this fear, Lord
George Murray marched half his army across the river and en-
camped on the further side.
Manchester was the next halting-place, and there the prospects
were rather brighter. An enterprising Sergeant Dickson hurried
on in front of the army with a girl and a drummer boy at his
side. He marched about the streets recruiting, and managed
to raise some score of recruits. In Manchester society there
Crossing Shap Fell
was a certain Jacobite element; on Sunday the church showed
a crowd of ladies in tartan cloaks and white cockades, and a non-
juring clergyman preached in favour of the Prince’s cause. Among
the officers who commanded the handful of men calling itself the
Manchester Regiment, were three brothers of the name of Deacon,
whose father, a nonjuring clergyman, devoted them all gladly to
the cause. Another, Syddel, a wig-maker, had as a lad of eleven
seen his father executed as a Jacobite in the °15, and had vowed
undying vengeance against the house of Hanover. Manchester
802 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
was thé only place in England that had shown any zeal in the
Prince’s cause, and it only contributed some few hundred men
and 38,0007. of money. .
The situation seemed grave to the leaders of the Prince’ s army.
He himself refused to recognise any other fact than that every day
_brought him nearer to London. On October, 31 the army left
Manchester. At Stockport they crossed the Mersey, the Prince
wading up to the middle. Here occurred a very touching incident.
A few Cheshire gentlemen met Charles at this point, and with
them came an aged lady, Mrs. Skyring. Asa child she remembered
her mother lifting her up to see. Charles II: land at Dover. Her
parents were devoted Cavaliers, and despite the ingratitude of the
royal family, loyalty was an hereditary passion with their daughter.
For years she had laid aside half her income and had sent it to the
exiled family, only concealing the name of the donor as being of
no interest to them. Now, she had sold all her jewels and plate,
and brought the money in a purse as an offering to Charles. With
dim eyes, feeble hands, and feelings too strong:for her frail body,
she clasped Charles's hand, and gazing at his face said, ‘ Lord, now
lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’
The Highland forces were in the very centre of England and
had not yet encountered an enemy, but now they were menaced
on two sides. General Wade—‘ Grandmother Wade’ the Jacobite
soldiers. called him—by slow marches through Yorkshire had
arrived within three days’ march of them on one side, while, far
more formidable, in front of them at Stafford lay the Duke of
Cumberland with 10,000 men. He was a brave leader, and the
troops under him were seasoned and experienced. At last the
English Government had wakened up to the seriousness of the
danger which they had made light of as long as it only affected
Scotland. When news came that the Scots had got beyond
Manchester, a most unmanly panic prevailed in London. Shops
were shut, there was a run on the Bank, it has even been asserted
that George II. himself had many of his valuables removed on
to yachts in the Thames, and held himself in readiness to fly at
any moment.
The Duke of Cumberland and his forces were the only obstacle
between the Prince’s army and London. Lord George Murray, with
his usual sagacity, determined to slip past this enemy also, as he
had already slipped past Wade. While the Prince, with one
division of the army, marched straight for Derby, he himself led
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 303
the remaining troops apparently to meet the Duke of Cumberland.
That able.general fell into the snare and marched up his men to
meet the Highlanders at Congleton. ‘Lhen Lord George broke
up his camp at. midnight (of December 2), and, marching across
country in the darkness, joined the Prince at Leek, a day’s journey
short of Derby. By this clever stratagem the Highland army
got a start of at least a day’s march on their way to London.
On the 4th, the Highland army entered Derby, marching in all
day in detachments. Here Charles learned the good news from
Scotland that Lord John Drummond had landed at Montrose with
1,000 French ‘soldiers and supplies of money and arms. Never had
fortune seemed to shine more brightly on the young Prince. He
was sure now of French assistance, he shut his eyes to the fact
that the English people were either hostile or indifferent; if it
came to a battle he was confident that hundreds of the enemy
would desert to his standard. The road to London and to a throne
lay open before him! That night at mess he seriously discussed
how he should enter London in triumph. Should it bein Highland
or English dress? On horseback or on foot? Did he notice, one
wonders, that his gay anticipations were received in ominous
silence by the chiefs? At least the private soldiers of his army
shared his hopes. On the afternoon of the 5th many had their
broadswords and dirks sharpened, and some partook of the Sacra-
ment in the churches. They all felt that a battle was imminent.
Next morning a council of war was held. Charles was eager to
arrange for an immediate advance on London. Success seemed to
lie within his grasp. Lord George Murray rose as spokesman for
the rest. He urged immediate retreat to Scotland! Two armies
lay one on either hand, a third was being collected to defend London.
Against 80,000 men what could 5,000 avail? He had no faith in
a French invasion, he was convinced that nothing was to be looked
for from the English Jacobites. ‘Rather than go back, I would I
were twenty feet underground,’ Charles cried in passionate disap-
pointment. He argued, he commanded, he implored; the chiefs
were inexorable, and it was decided that the retreat should begin
next morning before daybreak. This decision broke the Prince’s
heart and quenched his spirit; never again did his buoyant courage
put life into his whole army. Next morning he rose sullen and
enraged, and marched in gloomy silence in the rear.
All the private soldiers and many of the officers believed that
they were being led against the Duke of Cumberland. When return-
804 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
ing daylight showed that they were retreating by the same road on
which they had marched so hopefully two days before, they were
filled with grief and rage. ‘Would God,’ writes a certain brave
Macdonald, ‘we had pushed on though we had all been cut to
‘Many had their broadswords and dirks sharpened ’
pieces, when we were in a condition for fighting and doing honour
to our noble Prince and the glorious cause we had taken in hand.’
The distrust caused in the Prince’s mind by Lord George’s action
had, later, the most fatal effect.
VII
THE RETREAT
Never, perhaps, in any history was there a march more mournful
than that of the Highland army from Derby. These soldiers had
never known defeat, and yet there they were, in full retreat through
a hostile country. So secret and rapid were their movements that
they had gained two full days’ march before the Duke of Cumber-
land had any certain news of their retreat. Though he started at
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 805
once in pursuit, mounting a body of infantry on horses that they
might keep up with the cavalry, and though all were fresh and in
good condition, it was not till the 18th that he overtook the Prince’s
army in the wilds of Cumberland. Lord George Murray, looking
upon himself as responsible for the safety of the army, had sent on
the first division under the Prince, and himself brought up the rear
with the baggage and artillery. In the hilly country of the North
of England, it was no light task to travel with heavy baggage.
The big wagons could not be dragged up the steep ill-made roads,
and the country people were sullenly unwilling to lend their carts.
The general was reduced to paying sixpence for every cannon ball
that could be carried up the hills. The Prince was already at
Penrith on the 17th, but Lord George had been obliged to stop six
miles short of that point. Marching before daybreak on the 18th,
he reached a village called Clifton as the sun rose. A body of
horsemen stood guarding the village; the Highlanders, exhilarated
at meeting a foe again, cast their plaids and rushed forward. On
this the Hanoverians—a mere body of local yeomanry—fled.
Among a few stragglers who were taken prisoner was a footman
of the Duke of Cumberland, who told his captors that his master
with 4,000 cavalry was following close behind them. Lord George
resolved to make a stand, knowing that nothing would be more
fatal than allowing the dragoons to fall suddenly on his troops when.
they had their backs turned. He had a body of Macdonalds and
another of Stuarts with him; he found also some two hundred
Macphersons, under their brave commander Cluny, guarding a
bridge close to the village. The high road here ran between a wall
on one side, and fields enclosed by high hedges and ditches on the
cther. On either side he could thus place his soldiers under cover.
As evening fell he learned that the Hanoverian soldiers were drawn
up on the moor, about a mile distant. He sent some of his men
to a point where they should be partly visible to the enemy over a
hedge ; these he caused to pass and repass, so as to give a delusive
idea of numbers. When the night fell the Highland soldiers were
drawn up along the wall on the road, and in the enclosures behind
the hedges; Lord George and Cluny stood with drawn swords on
the highway. Every man stood at his post on the alert, in the
breathless silence. Though the moon was up, the night was cloudy
and dark, but in a fitful gleam the watchful general saw dark forms
approaching in a mass behind a hedge. In a rapid whisper he
asked Cluny what was to be done, ‘I will charge sword in hand
R. x
806 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
if you order me,’ came the reply, prompt and cheery. A volley from
the advancing troops decided the question. ‘There is no time to be
lost ; we must charge,’ cried Lord George, and raising the Highland
war cry, ‘Claymore, Claymore,’ he was the first to dash through the
hedge (he lost his hat and wig among the thorns, and fought the rest
of the night bareheaded !). The dragoons were forced back on to the
moor, while another body of horse was similarly driven back along
the high road by the Stuarts and Macdonells of Glengarry. About
a dozen Highlanders, following too eagerly in pursuit, were killed
on this moor, but the loss on the other side was far greater. Nor
did the Duke of Cumberland again attack the retreating enemy;
he had learned, like the other generals before him, the meaning of
a Highland onset.'
A small garrison of Highlanders had been left in Carlisle, bui
these rejoined the main army as it passed through the town. There
was an unwillingness among the soldiers to hold a fort that was
bound to be taken by the enemy. Finally the Manchester regiment
consented to remain, probably arguing, in the words of one of the
English volunteers, that they ‘ might as well be hanged in England
as starved in Scotland.’
The Esk was at this time in flood, running turbid and swift.
But the Highlanders have a peculiar way of crossing deep rivers.
They stand shoulder to shoulder, with their arms linked, and so
pass ina continuous chain across. As Charles was fording the
stream on horseback, one man was swept away from the rest and
was being rapidly carried down. The Prince caught him by the
hair, shouting in Gaelic, ‘Cohear, cohear !’ ‘ Help, help!’
They were now again on Scottish ground, and the question was,
whither were they to go next? Edinburgh, immediately after the
Prince’s departure, had gladly reverted to her Whig allegiance.
She was garrisoned and defended ; any return thither was practically
out of the question. It was resolved that the army should retire to
the Highlands through the West country.
Dumfries, in the centre of the Covenanting district, had always
been hostile to the Stuarts. Two months before, when the High-
land army marched south, some of her citizens had despoiled them
of tents and baggage. To revenge this injury, Charles marched to
Dumfries and levied a large fine on the town. The Provost, Mr.
Carson, was noted for his hostility to the Jacobites. He was warned
1 Readers of Waverley will remember that in this fight Fergus Macivor
was taken prisoner.
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 807
tnat his house was to be burned, though the threat was not carried
out. He had a little daughter of six years old at the time; when
she was quite an old lady she told Sir Walter Scott that she re-
membered being carried out of the house in the arms of a Highland
officer. She begged him to point out the Pretender to her. This
he consented to do, after the little girl had solemnly promised
always to call him the Prince in future.
‘The Prince caught him by the hair’
An army which had been on the road continuously for more
than two winter months, generally presents a sufficiently dilapidated
appearance; still more must this have been the case with the
Highland army, ill-clad and ill-shod to begin with. The soldiers—
hardly more than 4,000 now—who on Christmas day marched into
Glasgow, had scarcely a whole pair of boots or a complete suit of
tartans among them. This rich and important town was even
more hostile than Dumfries to the Jacobites, but it was necessity
more than revenge that forced the Prince to levy a heavy sum on
x2
308 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
the citizens, and exact besides 12,000 shirts, 6,000 pairs of stockings,
and 6,000 pairs of shoes.
At Stirling, whither the Prince next led his army, the prospects
were much brighter. Here he was joined by the men raised in
Aberdeenshire under Lord Lewis Gordon, Lord Strathallan’s Perth-
shire regiment, and the French troops under Lord John Drummond.
The whole number of his army must have amounted to not much
less than 9,000 men.
The Duke of Cumberland had given up the pursuit of the High-
land army after Carlisle ; an alarm of a French invasion having sent
him hurrying back to London. In his stead General Hawley had
been sent down to Scotland and was now in Edinburgh at the head
of 8,000 men. He was an officer trained in the Duke of Cumber-
land’s school, severe to his soldiers and relentlessly cruel to his
enemies. A vain and boastful man, he looked with contempt on
the Highland army, in spite of the experience of General Cope.
On the 16th he marched out of Edinburgh with all his men, antici-
pating an easy victory. Lord George Murray was at Linlithgow,
and slowly retreated before the enemy, but not before he had
obtained full information of their numbers and movements. On
the nights of January 15 and 16, the two armies lay only seven miles
apart, the Prince’s at Bannockburn and General Hawley’s at Falkirk.
From the one camp the lights of the other were visible. The High-
land army kept on the alert, expecting every hour to be attacked.
All the day of the 16th they waited, but there was no movement
on the part of the English forces. On the 17th the Prince’s horse
reconnoitred and reported perfect inactivity in Hawley’s camp.
The infatuated general thought so lightly of the enemy that he
was giving himself up to amusement.
The fair and witty Lady Kilmarnock lived in the neighbourhood
at Callender House. Her husband was with the Prince, and she
secretly favoured the same cause. By skilful flattery and hospi-
tality, she so fascinated the English general that he recklessly
spent his days in her company, forgetful of the enemy and entirely
neglectful of his soldiers.
Charles knew that the strength of his army lay in its power of
attack, and so resolved to take the offensive. The high road
between Bannockburn and Falkirk runs in a straight line in front
of an old and decaying forest called Torwood. Along this road, in
the face of the English camp, marched Lord John Drummond, dis-
playing all the colours in the army, and making a brave show with
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 809
the cavalry and two regiments. Their advance was only a feint.
The main body of the army skirted round to the south of the wood,
then marched across broken country—hidden at first by the trees
and later by the inequalities of the ground—till they got to the
back of a ridge called Falkirk Muir, which overlooked the English
camp. Their object was to gain the top of this ridge before the
enemy, and then to repeat the manceuvres of Prestonpans.
Meanwhile, the English soldiers were all unconscious, and their
general was enjoying himself at Callender House. At eleven
o’clock General Huske, the second in command, saw Lord John
Drummond’s advance, and sent an urgent message to his superior
officer. He, however, refused to take alarm, sent a message that
the men might put on their accoutrements, and sat down to dinner
with his fascinating hostess. At two o’clock, General Huske, look-
ing anxiously through his spy-glass, saw the bulk of the Highland
army sweeping round to the back of the ridge.
A messenger was instantly despatched to Callender House. At
last Hawley was aroused to the imminence of the danger. Leaving
the dinner table, he ieaped on his horse and arrived in the camp at a
gallop, breathless and bare-headed. He trusted to the rapidity of
his cavalry to redeem the day. He placed himself at the head of
the dragoons, and up the ridge they rode at a smart wot. It was a
race for the top. The dragoons on their horses were the first to
arrive, and stood in their ranks on the edge of the hill. From the
opposite side came the Highlanders in three lines; first the clans
(the Macdonalds, of course, on the right), then the Aberdeenshire
and Perthshire regiments, lastly cavalry and Lord John Drum-
mond’s Frenchmen. Undismayed, nay, rather exhilarated by the
sight of the three regiments of dragoons drawn up to receive them,
they advanced at a rapid pace. The dragoons, drawing their sabres,
rode on at full trot to charge the Highlanders. With the steadi-
ness of old soldiers, the clans came on in their ranks, till within
ten yards of the enemy. Then Lord George gave the signal by
presenting his own piece, and at once a withering volley broke the
ranks of the dragoons. About 400 fell under this deadly fire and
the rest fled, fled as wildly and ingloriously as their fellows had
done at Coltbridge or Prestonpans. A wild storm of rain dashing
straight in their faces during the attack added to the confusion and
helplessness of the dragoons. The right and centre of Hawley’s
infantry were at the same instant driven back by the other clans.
Camerons and Stewarts and Macphersons. ‘The victory would
810 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
have been complete but for the good behaviour of three regiments
at the right of Hawley’s army, Price’s, Ligonier’s, and Barrel’s.
From a point of vantage on the edge of a ravine they poured such
a steady fire on the left wing of the Highlanders, that they drove
them back and forced them to fly in confusion. Had the victorious
Macdonalds only attacked these three steady regiments, the High-
land army would have been victorious all along the line. Unfortu-
nately they had followed their natural instinct instead of the word
of command, and flinging away their guns, were pursuing the
fugitive dragoons down the ridge. The flight of the Hanoverians
was so sudden that it caused suspicion of an ambush. The Prince
was lost in the darkness and rain. The pipers had thrown their
pipes to their boys, had gone in with the claymore, and could not
sound the rally. It was not a complete victory for Charles, but it
was a sufficiently complete defeat for General Hawley, who lost his
guns. The camp at Falkirk was abandoned after the tents had
been set on fire, and the general with his dismayed and confused
followers retired first to Linlithgow and then to Edinburgh.
Hawley tried to make light of his defeat and to explain it away,
though to Cumberland he said that his heart was broken; but the
news of the battle spread consternation all over England, and it
was felt that no one but the Duke of Cumberland was fit to deal
with such a stubborn and daring enemy.
The Prince’s army did not reap so much advantage from their
victory as might have been expected; their forces were in too great
confusion to pursue the English general, and on the morrow of the
battle many deserted to their own homes, carrying off their booty.
A more serious loss was the defection of the clan Glengarry. The
day after the battle a young Macdonald, a private soldier of
Clanranald’s company, was withdrawing the charge from a gun he
had taken on the field. He had abstracted the bullet, and, to
clean the barrel, fired off the piece. Unfortunately it had been
double loaded, and the remaining bullet struck Glengarry’s
second son, Auneas, who was in the street at the time. The
poor boy fell, mortally wounded, in the arms of his comrades,
begging with his last breath that no vengeance should be ex-
acted for what was purely accidental. It was asking too much
from the feelings of the clansmen. They indignantly demanded
that blood should atone for blood. Clanranald would gladly
have saved his clansman, but dared not risk a feud which would
have weakened the Prince’s cause. So another young life as
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 311
innocent as the first was sacrificed to clan jealousy. The young
man’s own father was the first to fire on his son, to make sure that
death should be instantaneous. Young Glengarry was buried with
The poor boy fell, mortally wounded
all military honours, Charles himself being chief mourner; but
nothing could appease the angry pride of the clan, and the greater
part of them returned to their mountains without taking any leave.
VIII
IN THE HIGHLANDS
On January 80 the Duke of Cumberland arrived in Edinburgh.
His reception was a curious parody of Charles’s brilliant entry four
months before. The fickle mob cheered the one as well as the other;
the Duke occupied the very room at Holyrood that had been Charles’s;
512 PRINCHK CHARLIE’S WAR
where the one had danced with Jacobite beauties, the other held a
reception of Whig ladies. Both were fighting their father’s battle ;
both were young men of five-and-twenty. But here likeness gives
way to contrast; Charles was graceful in person, and of dignified
and attractive presence; his cousin, Cumberland, was already stout
and unwieldy, and his coarse and cruel nature had traced unpleasant
lines on his face. He was a poor general but a man of undoubted
courage. Yet he had none of that high sense of personal honour
that we associate with a good soldier. In Edinburgh he found
many of the English officers who had been taken prisoner at Preston-
pans. They had been left at large on giving their word not to bear
arms against the Prince. Cumberland declared that this ‘parole’
or promise was not binding, and ordered them to return to their
regiments. A small number—it is right that we should know and
honour their names—Sir Peter Halket, Mr. Ross, Captain Lucy
Scott, and Lieutenants Farquharson and Cumming, thereupon sent
in their resignations, saying that the Duke was master of their
commissions but not of their honour.
On the 80th the Duke and his soldiers were at Linlithgow, and
hoped to engage the Highland army next day near Falkirk. But on
the next day’s march they learned from straggling Highlanders that
the enemy had already retired beyond the Forth. They had been
engaged in a futile siege of Stirling Castle. The distant sound of
an explosion which was heard about midday on the Ist, proved to
be the blowing up of the powder magazine, the last act of the
Highlanders before withdrawing from Stirling. This second, sudden
retreat was as bitter to the Prince as the return from Derby. After
the battle at Falkirk he looked forward eagerly and confidently to
fighting Cumberland on the same ground. But there was discon-
tent and dissension in the camp. Since Derby the Prince had held
no councils, and consulted with no one but Secretary Murray and
his Irish officers. The chiefs were dispirited and deeply hurt, and,
as usual, the numbers dwindled daily from desertion. In the
midst of his plans for the coming battle, Charles was overwhelmed
by a resolution on the part of the chiefs to break up the camp and
to retire without delay to the Highlands. Again he saw his hopes
suddenly destroyed, again he had to yield with silent rage and
bitter disappointment.
The plan of the chiefs was to withdraw on Inverness, there to
attack Lord Loudon (who held the fort for King George) ; to rest
and recruit, each clan in its own country, till in the spring they
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 313
could take the field again with a fresher and larger army. Lord
George Murray led one division by the east coast and Aberdeen,
to the rendezvous near Inverness, Charles led the other by General
Wade’s road through Badenoch and Athol. Cumberland with his
heavy troops and baggage could not overtake the light-footed
Highlanders ; by the time he reached Perth he was six days’ march
behind them. Hesent old Sir Andrew Agnew to garrison the house
of Blair, and other small companies to occupy all the chief houses
in Athol. He himself retired with the main body to Aberdeen, and
there waited for milder weather.
In the neighbourhood of Inverness lies the country of the
Mackintoshes. The laird of that ilk was a poor-spirited, stupid man.
It was his simple political creed that that king was the right one
who was willing and able ‘to give a half-guinea to-day and another
to-morrow.’ That was probably the pay he drew as officer in one
of King George’s Highland companies. Of a very different spirit
was his wife. Lady Mackintosh was a Farquharson of Invercauld ;
in her husband’s absence she raised a body of mixed Farquharsons
and Mackintoshes, several hundred strong, for the Prince. These
she commanded herself, riding at their head in a tartan habit with
pistols at her saddle. Her soldiers called her ‘ Colonel Anne.’ Once
in a fray between her irregular troops and the militia, her husband
was taken prisoner and brought before his own wife. She received
him with a military salute, ‘Your servant, captain ;’ to which he
replied equally shortly, ‘ Your servant, colonel.’
This high-spirited woman received Charles as her guest on
February 16 at the castle of Moy, twelve miles from Inverness.
Having learnt that Charles was staying there with asmall guard,
Lord Loudon conceived the bold plan of capturing the Prince, and
so putting an end to the war once for all. On Sunday the 16th, at
nightfall, he started with 1,500 men with all secrecy and despatch.
Still the secret had oozed out, and the dowager Lady Mackintosh
sent a boy to warn her daughter-in-law and the Prince. The boy
was both faithful and sagacious. Finding the high road already
full of soldiers, he skulked in a ditch till they were past, then, by
secret ways, over moor and moss, running at the top of his pace, he
sped on, till, faint and exhausted, he reached the house at five
o’clock in the morning, and panted out the news that Loudon’s men
were not a mile away! The Prince was instantly aroused, and in
a few minutes was out of the house and off to join Lochiel not more
than a mile distant. As it happened, Lord Loudon’s troops had
314 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
already been foiled and driven back by a bold manceuvre of some of
‘Colonel Anne’s’ men. A blacksmith with some half-dozen men—
two pipers amongst them—were patrolling the woods near the high
road, when in the dim morning twilight they saw a large body of
the enemy approaching. They separated, planted themselves at
intervals under cover, fired rapidly and simultaneously, shouted
the war cries of the various clans, Lochiel, Keppoch, Glengarry,
while the pipers blew up their pipes furiously behind. The advan-
cing soldiers were seized with panic, and flying wildly back, upset
the ranks of the rear and filled them with the same consternation.
The ‘Rout of Moy’ was hardly more creditable to the Hanoverian
arms than the ‘ Canter of Coltbridge.’ In this affair only one man
all, MacRimmon, the hereditary piper of the Macleods. Before
leaving Skye he had prophesied his own death in the lament,
‘Macleod shall return, but MacRimmon shall never.’
The next day, February 18, Charles, at the head of a body of
troops, marched out to besiege Inverness. He found that town
already evacuated: Lord Loudon had too little faith in his men to
venture another meeting with the enemy. Two days later Fort
George also fell into the Prince’s hands.
During the next six weeks the Highland army was employed in
detachments against the enemies who surrounded them on all sides.
Lord John Drummond took Fort Augustus, Lochiel and others
besieged—but in vain—the more strongly defended Fort William.
Lord Cromarty pursued Lord Loudon into Sutherland. But the
most notable and gallant feat of arms was performed by Lord George
Murray. He marched a body ofhis own Athol men, and another of
Macphersons under Cluny—700 men in all—down into his native
district of Athol. At nightfall they started from Dalwhinnie, before
midnight they were at Dalnaspidal, no one but the two leaders having
any idea of the object of the expedition. It was the middle of March ;
at that season they might count on five hours of darkness before day-
break. It was then explained to the men that they were to break upinto
some thirty small companies, and each was to march to attack one
of the English garrisons placed in all the considerable houses in the
neighbourhood, It was necessary that each place should be attacked
at the same time, that the alarm might not spread. By daybreak
all were to reassemble at the Falls of Bruar, within a mile or two of
Castle Blair. One after the other the small parties moved off swiftly
and silently in the darkness, one marching some ten miles off to
the house of Faskally, others attacking Lude, Kinnachin, Blairfettic,
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 815
and many other houses where the English garrisons were sleeping in
security. Meanwhile Lord George and Cluny, with five-and-twenty
men and a few elderly gentlemen, went straight to the Falls of Bruar.
In the grey of the morning a man from the village of Blair came
up hastily with the news that Sir Andrew Agnew had got the alarm,
The ‘ Rout of Moy’
and with several hundred men was scouring the neighbourhood and
Was now advancing towards the Falls! Lord George might easily
have escaped up the pass, but if he failed to be at the rendezvous,
each small body as it came in would be surrounded and overpowered
by the enemy. The skilful general employed precisely the same
ruse as had been so successful at the Rout of Moy.
316 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
He put his followers behind a turf wall at distant intervals,
displayed the colours in a conspicuous place, and placed his pipers
to advantage. As Sir Andrew came in sight, the sun rose, and was
flashed back by brandished broadswords behind the turf wall. All
along the line plaids seemed to be waving, ana heads appeared and
disappeared as if a large body of men were behind; while the pipes
blew up a clamorous pibroch, and thirty men shouted for three
hundred. Sir Andrew fell into the snare, and promptly marched
his men back again. One by one the other parties came in: some
thirty houses had yielded to them, and they brought three hundred
prisoners with them.
After this success Lord George actually attempted. 6 take the
House of Blair. It was a hopeless enterprise; the walls of the
house were seven feet thick, and Lord George had only two: small
cannons. ‘I daresay the man’s mad, knocking down his own
brother’s house,’ said the stout old commander, Sir Andrew, watch-
ing how little effect the shot had on the walls. Lord George sent
to Charles for reinforcements when it began to seem probable that
he could reduce the garrison by famine, but Charles, embittered
and resentful, and full of unjust suspicion against his general,
refused any help, and on March 31 Lord George had to abandon
the siege and withdraw his men. The Prince’s suspicions, though
unjust, were not unnatural. Lord George had twice advised
retreat, where audacity was the only way to success.
IX
CULLODEN
In the meantime the weeks were rolling on. The grey April of the
North, if it brought little warmth, was at least lengthening the
daylight, and melting the snow from the hills, and lowering the
floods that had made the rivers impassable. Since the middle of
February the Duke of Cumberland and his army of at least eight
thousand men—horse and infantry—had been living at free quarters
in Aberdeen. He bullied the inhabitants, but he made careful pro-
vision for his army. English ships keeping along the coast were
ready to supply both stores and ammunition as soon as the forces
should move. With the savage content of a wild animal that
knows that his prey cannot escape, the duke was in no hurry to
force on an engagement till the weather should be more favourable.
PRINCH CHARLIE’S WAR 317
To the Highland army every week’s delay was aloss. Many
of the clansmen had scattered to their homes in search of subsis-
tence, for funds were falling lower and lower at Inverness. Fortune
was treating Charles harshly at this time. Supplies had been
sent once and again from France, but the ships that had brought
them had either fallen into the enemy’s hands, or had been obliged
to return with their errand unaccomplished. His soldiers had now
to be paid in meal, and that in insufficient quantities. There was
thus discontent in the ranks, and among the chiefs there was a
growing feeling of discouragement. Charles treated with reserve
and suspicion the men who were risking property and life for his
cause, and consulted only with Secretary Murray and his Irish
officers.
On April 8 the Duke of Cumberland began his march from
Aberdeen. Between the two armies lay the river Spey, always deep
and rapid, almost impassable when the floods were out. A vigilant
body of men commanding the fords from either bank would have
any army at its mercy that might try to cross the stream under
fire. Along the west bank Lord John Drummond and his men
had built a long, low barrack of turf and stone. From this point of
vantage they had hoped to pour their fire on the Hanoverian
soldiers in mid-stream, but the vigilant Duke of Cumberland had
powerful cannons in reserve on the opposite bank, and Lord John-
and his soldiers drew off before the enemy got across.
On Monday the 15th this retreating party arrived at Inverness,
bringing the news that the Duke was already at Nairne, and would
probably next day approach to give battle. Prince Charles was in
the highest spirits at the news. In the streets of Inverness the
pipers blew the gatherings of the various clans, the drums beat,
and with colours flying the whole army marched out of the town
and encamped on the plain of Culloden.
The Prince expected to be attacked next morning, Tuesday
the 16th, and at six o’clock the soldiers were drawn up in order of
battle. There was an ominous falling away in numbers. The Mac-
phersons with Cluny had scattered to their homes in distant
Badenoch ; the Frasers were also absent. [Neither of these brave
and faithful clans was present at the battle the next day.] The
Keppoch Macdonalds and some other detachments only came in
next morning.
By the most fatal mismanagement no provision had been
made for fecding the soldiers that day, though there was meal and
318 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
to spare at Inverness. A small loaf of the driest and coarsest bread
was served out toeachman. By the afterncon, the starving soldiers
had broken their ranks and were scattering in search of food. Lord
Elcho had reconnoitred in the direction of Nairne, twelve miles off,
and reported that the English army would not move that day;
they were resting in their camp and celebrating their commandeyr’s
birthday. Charles called a council of war at three in the afternoon.
Lord George Murray gave the daring counsel that instead of waiting
to be attacked they should march through the night to Nairne, and
while it was still dark surprise and overwhelm the sleeping
enemy. By dividing the Highland forces before reaching Nairne
they might attack the camp in front and rear at the same moment;
no gun was to be fired which might spread the alarm; the High-
landers were to fall on with dirk and broadsword. The Prince had
meant to propose this very plan: he leaped up and embraced Lord
George. It was a dangerous scheme; but with daring, swiftfooted,
enterprising men it did not seem impossible. Yes! but with men
faint and dispirited by hunger? At the review that morning the
army had numbered about 7,000 men, but hardly more than half
that number assembled in the evening on the field, the rest were still
scattered in search of food. By eight o’clock it was dark enough
to start. The attack on the enemy’s camp was timed for two in
the morning, six hours was thus allowed for covering the twelve
miles. The army was to march in three columns, the clans
first in two divisions, Lochiel and Lord George at the head with
30 of the Mackintoshes as guides. The Prince himself commanded
the third column, the Lowland troops, and the French and Irish
regiments. The utmost secrecy was necessary; the men marched
in dead silence. Not only did they avoid the high roads, but wher-
ever a light showed the presence of a house or sheiling they had to
make a wide circuit round it. The ground they had to go over
was rough and uneven; every now and then the men splashed
into unexpected bogs or stumbled over hidden stones. Add to
this that the night was unusually dark. Instead of marching in
three clear divisions, the columns got mixed in the darkness and
mutually kept each other back. Soon the light-footed clansmen got
ahead of the Lowland and French and Irish regiments unused to
such heavy walking. Every few minutes messengers from the rear
harassed the leaders of the van by begging them to march more
slowly. It was a cruel task to restrain the pace while the
precious hours of darkness were slipping past. At Kilravock House
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 319
the van halted. This was the point where it was arranged that
the army was to divide, one part marching straight on the English
camp, the other crossing the river so as to fall on the enemy from
the opposite side. The rear had fallen far behind, and there was
more than one wide gap between the various troops. The Duke of
Perth galloped up from behind and told Lord George that it was
necessary that the van should wait till the others came up; other
officers reported that the men were dropping out of their ranks,
and falling asleep by the roadside. Watches were now consulted.
It was already two o’clock and there were still four miles to be
covered. Some of the officers begged that, at all risks, the march
might be continued. As they stood consulting an aide-de-camp
rode up from the rear saying that the Prince desired to go forward,
but was prepared to yield to Lord George’s judgment. Just then
through the darkness there came from the distance the rolling of
drums! All chance of surprising the English camp was at an end.
‘With a heavy heart Lord George gave the order to march back.
This affair increased the Prince’s suspicions of Lord George, which
were fostered by his Irishry.
In the growing light the retreat was far more rapid than the
advance had been. It was shortly after five that the army found
themselves in their old quarters at Culloden. Many fell down
where they stood, overpowered with sleep; others dispersed in
search of food. Charles himself and his chief officers found nothing
to eat and drink at Culloden House but a little dry bread and
whisky. Instead of holding a council of war, each man lay down
to sleep where he could, on table or floor.
But the sleep they were able to snatch was but short. At about
eight a patrol coming in declared that the Duke of Cumberland
was already advancing, his main body was within four miles, his
horse even nearer.
In the utmost haste the chiefs and officers of the Highland army
sried to collect their men. Many had straggled off as far as Inver-
ness, many were still overpowered with sleep; all were faint for
lack of food. When the ranks were arrayed in order of battle,
their numbers only amounted to 5,000 men. They were drawn up
on the open plain; on the right, high turf walls, enclosing a narrow
field, protected their flank (though, as it ‘proved, quite ineffectually),
on their left lay Culloden House. In spite of hunger and fatigue,
the old fighting instinct was so strong in the clans that they took
up their positions in the first. line with all their old fire and enthu-
820. PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
siasm, all but the Macdonalds. By extraordinary mismanagement
the clans Glengarry, Keppoch, and Clanranald—they who had so
nobly led the right wing at Prestonpans and Falkirk—were placed
on the left. It was a slight that bitterly hurt their pride; it was
also, to their superstitious minds, a fatal omen. ‘Who was the cause
of the blunder? ‘This does not seem to be certainly known. On
the right, where the Macdonalds should have been, were the Athol
men, the Camerons, the Stewarts of Appin, Macleaus, Mackintoshes,
and other smaller clans, each led by their own chiefs, and all com-
manded by Lord George. At the extremities of the two wings the
guns were placed, four on each side, the only artillery on the Prince’s
side. The second line consisted of the French, Irish, and Lowland
regiments. The Prince and his guards occupied a knoll at the rear,
from which the whole action of the fight was visible. His horse was
later covered with mud from the cannon balls striking the wet moor,
and a man was killed behind him. By one o’clock the Hanoverian
army was drawn up within five hundred paces of their enemies. The
fifteen regiments of foot were placed in three lines, so arranged that
the gaps in the first line were covered by the centres of the regiments
in the second line. Between each regiment in the first line two
powerful cannons were placed, and the three bodies of horse were
drawn up, flanking either wing. The men were fresh, well fed,
confident in their general, and eager to retrieve the dishonour of
Prestonpans and Falkirk. .
A little after one, the day clouded over, and a strong north-
easterly wind drove sudden showers of sleet in the faces of the
Highland army. They were the first to open fire, but their guns
were small, and the firing ill-directed; the balls went over the
heads of the enemy and did little harm. Then the great guns on
the other side poured out the return fire, raking the ranks of the
Highlanders, clearing great gaps, and carrying destruction even into
the second line. For half an hour the Highlanders stood exposed
to this fire while comrade after comrade fell at their side. It was
all they could do to keep their ranks ; their white, drawn faces and
kindling eyes spoke of the hunger for revenge that possessed their
hearts. Lord George was about to give the word to charge, when
the Mackintoshes impatiently rushed forward, and the whole of
the centre and left wing followed them. On they dashed blindly,
through the smoke and snow and rattling bullets. So irresistible
was the onset that they actually swept through two regiments in
the first line, though almost all the chiefs and front rank men had
PRINCH CHARLIE’S WAR 321
fallen in the charge. The regiment in the second rank—Sempill’s—
was drawn up three deep—the first rank kneeling, the third upright
—all with bayonets fixed. They received the onrushing Highlanders
with a sharp fire. This brought the clansmen to a halt, a few were
forced back, more perished, flinging themselves against the bayonets.
Their bodies were afterwards found in heaps three or four deep.
While the right and centre perished in this wild charge, the
Macdonalds on the left remained sullenly in their ranks, rage and
angry pride in their souls. In vain the Duke of Perth urged them
to charge. ‘Your courage,’ he cried, ‘will turn the left into the
right, and I will henceforth call myself Macdonald.’
In vain Keppoch, with some of his kin, charged alone. ‘My
God! have the children of my tribe forsaken me ?’ he cried, looking
back to where his clansmen stood stubborn and motionless. The
stout old heart was broken by this dishonour. A few minutes
later he fell pierced by many bullets.
In the meantime the second line had been thrown into confusion.
A detachment of the Hanoverians—the Campbells, in fact—had
broken down the turf walls on the Prince’s right. Through the
gaps thus made, there rode a body of dragoons, who fell on the
rear and flanks of the Lowland and French regiments, and scat-
tered them in flight. Gillie MacBane held a breach with the
claymore, and slew fourteen men before he fell. But the day was
lost. All that courage, and pride, and devotion, and fierce hate
could do had been done, and in vain. .
Charles had, up to the last, looked for victory. He offered to
lead on the second. line in person; but his officers told him that
Highlanders would never return to such a charge. Two Irish
officers dragged at his reins; his army was a flying mob, and so he
left his latest field, unless, as was said, he fought at Laffen as a
volunteer, when the Scots Brigade nearly captured Cumberland.
He had been eager to give up Holyrood to the wounded of Preston-
pans; his wounded were left to die, or were stabbed on the field.
He had refused to punish fanatics who tried to murder him; his
faithful followers were tortured to extract information which
they never gave. He lost a throne, but he won hearts, and,
while poetry lives and romance endures, the Prince Charles of the
Forty-Five has a crown more imperishable than gold. This was
the ending of that Jacobite cause, for which men had fought and
died, for which women had been content to lose homes and hus-
bands and sons.
R. X
322 PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR
Tt was the end of that gifted race of Stuart kings who, for three
centuries and more of varying fortunes, had worn the crown of
Scotland. .
The end of Culloden
But it was not the end of the romance of the Highland clans.
Crushed down, scattered, and cruelly treated as these were in the
PRINCE CHARLIE’S WAR 823
years that followed Culloden, nothing could break their fiery spirit
nor kill their native aptitude for war. In the service of that very
government which had dealt so harshly with them, they were to
play a part in the world’s history, wider, nobler, and not less
romantic than that of fiercely faithful adherents to a dying cause.
The pages of that history have been written in impcrishable deeds
on the hot plains of India, in the mountain passes of Afghanistan,
in Egypt, in the Peninsula, on the fields of Waterloo and ‘Quatre
Bras, and among the snows of the Crimea. And there may be
other pages of this heroic history of the Highland regiments that
our children and our children's children shall read with proud emo-
tion in days that are to be.
824 THE BURKE AND WILLS
THE BURKE AND WILLS EXPLORING
HXPEDITION
Q* August 21,1860, in the most lovely season of the year—that of
early spring—the citizens of Melbourne crowded to the Royal
Park to witness the departure of the most liberally equipped
exploring party that had yet set out to penetrate the unknown
regions of Australia. Their object was to cross the land from the
South to the Northern Seas, a task which had never before been
accomplished, as well as to add to the scientific knowledge of the
interior.
The expedition started under the leadership of Robert O’Hara
Burke, who began his career as a cadet at Woolwich, but left
at an early age to enter a regiment of Hussars in the Austrian
service, in which he subsequently held a captaincy.
When this regiment was disbanded, in 1848, he obtained an
appointment in the Irish Constabulary, which he exchanged for the
Police Force of Victoria in 1858, and in this he was at once made
an inspector. .
A Mr. Landells, in charge of the camels, went as second in
command, and William John Wills, an astronomer and surveyor, as
third.
Wills was the son of Dr. William Wills, and was born at Totnes,
in Devonshire, in 1834; he was cousin to Lieutenant Le Viscomte,
who perished with Sir John Franklin in the ‘ Erebus.’
In 1852 the news of the wonderful gold discoveries induced him
to try his fortune in Victoria; but he soon became attached to the
staff of the Melbourne Observatory, where he remained until selected
for the post of observer and surveyor to the exploring expedition.
From the time that the expedition first took shape the names
of these leaders were associated in the minds of the people with
those of other brave men who had toiled to solve the mystery that
lay out in the great thirsty wilderness of the‘interior. Some of
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 825
them had tried, and, failing, had returned broken in health by the
terrible privations they had met with. Others, having failed, had-
tried again ; but the seasons and years had rolled on since, and had
brought back no story of their fate.
Therefore, as late in the afternoon Burke, mounted on a pretty
grey, rode forth at the head of the caravan, cheer after cheer rang
out from either side of the long lane formed by the thousands of
sympatheti¢ colonists who were eager to get a last glimpse of the
adventurers.
Immediately following the leader came a number of pack horses
led by the European servants on foot; then Landells and Dr.
Beckler mounted on camels; and in their train sepoys, leading two
by two twenty-four camels, each heavily burdened with forage and
provisions, and a mounted sepoy brought up the reav.
At intervals after these several wagons rolled past, and finally
when nearly dusk, Wills and Fergusson, the foreman, rode out to
their first camping-ground at the village of Essendon, about seven
miles distant.
Before the evening star, following close the crescent moon, had
dropped below the dark and distant hill range, the green near the
church was crowded by the picturesque confusion of the camp.
Above the fires of piled gum-tree bark and sticks rose soft
plumes of white smoke that scented the air fragrantly, and the red
light of the flames showed, as they would show many times again,
the explorers’ tents in vivid relief against the coming night.
The horses and camels were unloaded and picketed, and the
men sat at the openings of their tents eating their supper, or stood
in groups talking to those anxious friends who had come out from
Melbourne to say the last good speed, or to repeat fears, to which
imagination often lent the wildest colouring, of perils that awaited
the adventurers in the great unknown land.
The wet weather which set in soon after their start made
travelling very slow as they crossed Victoria, though at that time
all seemed to go well with the party.
On fine days Wills found he was able to write his journal and
do much of his work whilst riding his camel; he sat behind the
hump, and had his instruments packed in front of it; thus he only
needed to stop when the bearings had to be carefully taken.
They halted for several days at Swan Hill, which was their last
resting-place before leaving the Colony. They were very hospitably
entertained there by the people.
826 THE BURKE AND WILLS
This may have had something to do with the ill-conteut of some
of the party when on the march again, as at Balranald, beyond the
Murray, Burke found himself obliged to discharge the foreman,
Fergusson. ;
The plan of their route had to be changed here, as they were
told that all along the Lower Darling, where they intended to travel,
there was absolutely no food for their horses, but a plant called the
Darling Pea, which made the animals that ate it mad.
Burke was at this time constantly irritated by Landells refusing
to allow the camels to travel the distance of a day’s march, or to
carry their proper burden; he was naturally full of anxiety to push
on while the season was favourable, and impatient and hasty when
anything occurred to hinder their progress.
Landells insisted upon taking a quantity of rum for the use of
the camels, as he had heard of an officer who took two camels
through a two years’ campaign in Cabul, the Punjab, and Scind by
allowing them arrack. He had also been sowing dissension in the
camp for some time; and, in short, the camels and the officer in
charge of them seemed likely to disorganise the whole of the
enterprise.
Complaints were now continually reaching Burke from the
managers of the sheep stations through which they passed, that
their shearers had got drunk on some of the camels’ rum, which
had been obtained from the wagons. He therefore, at last,
determined to leave the rum behind. Landells, of course, would
not agree to this, and in the end sent in his resignation.
In the course of the same day Dr. Beckler followed his example,
giving as his reason that he did nct like the manner in which Burke
spoke to Landells, and that he did not consider the party safe
without him to manage the camels. Burke did not, however, accept
the Doctor’s resignation.
This happened shortly before they left Menindie, the last station
of the settled districts, and it was impossible to find anyone to take
Landells’ place. Wills was, however, at once promoted to be second
in charge.
Burke now divided the expedition into two parts—one to act
with him as an exploring party to test the safety of the route to
Cooper’s Creek, which was about four hundred miles farther on ;
the other to remain at Menindie with the heavy stores, under the
care of Dr. Beckler, until arrangements were made to establish a
permanent depdt in the interior.
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 827
The advance party of eight started on October 29, under the
guidance of aman named Wright, who was said to have practical
knowledge of the * back country.’
vt
ans
‘The advance party of eight started on October 29’
They were Burke, Wills, Brahé, Patten, M‘Donough, King, Gray,
and Dost Mahomet, with fifteen horses and sixteen camels.
When this journey was made it was immediately after one of
those wonderful seasons that transform these parts of Central Aus-
828 THE BURKE AND WILLS
tralia from a treeless and grassless desert to a land where the
swelling plains that stretch from bound to bound of the horizon are
as vast fields of ripening corn in their yellow summertide.
Riding girth high through the lovely natural grass, from which
the ripe seed scattered as they passed, or camping at night sur-
rounded by it, the horses and camels improved in condition each
day, and were never at a loss for water. Sometimes they found a
sufficiency in a natural well or claypan; or again they struck for
some creek towards the west or north, whose irregular curves were
outlined on the plain by the gum-trees growing closely on its
banks.
Nowhere did they experience great difficulty or serious obstacle
on their northward way, though sometimes, as they crossed the
rough ironstone ranges which crop up now and then on this great
and ever rising table-land, there was little feed, and the sharp stones
cut the feet of the animals as they trod with faltering footsteps
down the precipitous gulleys, out of which the floods had for ages
torn a path. As they followed the dry bed of such a path leading
to rich flats, they would come upon quiet pools deeply shaded by
gums and marsh mallow, that had every appearance of being per-
manent.
After they had been out ten days and had travelled over two
hundred miles, Burke had formed so good an opinion of Wright
that he made him third in charge, and sent him back to Menindie
to replace Dr. Beckler—whose resignation was now accepted—in
command of the portion of the expedition at that place. Wright took
with him despatches to forward to Melbourne, and his instructions
were to follow up the advance party with the heavy stores imme-
diately.
Burke now pushed on to Cooper’s Creek ; and though the last part
of their journey led them over many of those tracts of country
peculiar to Australia where red sandy ridges rise and fall for many
miles in rigid uniformity, and are clothed for the most part in the
monotonous grey of salt and cotton-bush leafage, yet they saw
before them what has since proved to be one of the finest grazing
lands in the world.
Still, as they went on, though the creeks and watercourses were
more frequent, everywhere they showed signs of rapid drying up.
The party reached the Cooper on November J1, and after resting
for a day, they set about preparing the depot. For about a fortnight
from this point Burke or Wills made frequent short journeys to the
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 329
north or north-east, to feel their way before starting for the northern
coast.
On one occasion Wills went out taking with him M‘Donough and
three camels, and when about ninety miles from the head camp he
walked to arising ground at some distance from where they intended
to stop to make some observations, leaving M‘Donough in charge of
the camels and to prepare tea.
On his return he found that the man had fallen asleep, and
that the camels had gone. Night closing in almost directly pre-
vented any search for the missing animals.
Next morning nothing could be seen of them, though their
tracks were followed for many miles, and though Wills went to some
distant hills and searched the landscape on all sides with his field-
glasses.
With a temperature of 112° in the shade, and the dazzling sun-
rays beating from a pallid and cloudless sky, they started on their
homeward walk of eighty miles, with only a little bread and a few
johnny cakes to eat, each carrying as much water as he could.
They feared to light a fire even at night, as it might have
attracted the blacks; therefore they took it in turn to sleep and
watch when the others rested; while the dingoes sneaked from
their cover in the belts of scrub, and howled dismally around
them.
They reached the depét in three days, having found only one
pool of stagnant water, from which they drank a great deal and
refilled the goatskin bag.
Wills was obliged to return afterwards with King to recover the
saddles and things that were left when the camels strayed.
For some time Wright had been expected to arrive with the
caravan from Menindie; yet a whole month passed and he did not
come.
Burke who had now become very impatient at the loss of oppor-
tunity and time, determined to make a dash across the continent
to the sea.
He therefore left Brahé, a man who could travel by compass
and observation, in charge at Cooper’s Creek depédt until Wright
should arrive, giving him positive instructions to remain there until
the return of the exploring party from the Gulf of Carpentaria,
which he thought would be in about three or four months.
Burke started northwards on December 16, in company with
Wills, King, and Gray, taking with them six camels, one horse, and
330 THE BURKE AND WILLS
provisions for three months, while Brahé, three men, and a native
wore left at the Creek with the rest of the horses and camels.
The expedition was now in three parts, and Wright, who perhaps
knew more about the uncertainty of the seasons and the terrible
consequences of drought than any of the party, still delayed leaving
Menindie with his contingent, though he well knew that as the
summer advanced the greater would be the difficulty to travel.
He had become faint-hearted, and every day invented some new
excuse for not leaving. One day it was that there were not enough
camels and horses to carry the necessary provision; the next, that
the country through which they must pass was infested by blacks ;
the next, that he waited for his appointment to be confirmed by the
authorities at Melbourne; and all this time he knew that Burke
depended solely upon him to keep up communication with the
depét from the Darling.
Finally he started at the end of January (summer in Australia),
more than a month after his appointment was officially confirmed,
and more than two months after his return from Menindie.
For the first few days after Burke and Wills set off they followed
up the creek, and though the banks were rugged and stony, there
was plenty of grass and soft bush near. They soon fell in with a
large tribe of blacks, the first they had seen, who followed them for
some time, and constantly tried to entice them to their camp to
dance. When they refused to go the natives became very trouble-
some, until they threatened to shoot them.
They were fine-looking men, but easily frightened, and only
carried as a means of defence a shield and a large kind of
boomerang.
The channel of the Creek was often quite dry for a great dis-
tance; then a chain of magnificent water-holes followed, from
whose shady pools pelicans, black swans, and many specics of duck
flew up in flocks at the approach of the travellers.
After a few days they reached what seemed to be the end of
Cooper’s Creek, and, steering a more north-easterly course, they
journeyed for some time over great plains covered by dry grass-
stalks or barren sandy ridges, on the steep sides of which grew
scant tufts of poreupine grass ; sometimes following the lines of a
creek, or, again, travelling along the edge of a splendid lagoon that
stretched its placid waters for miles over the monotonous land-
scape.
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 331
Even the stony desert they found far from bad travelling
ground, and but little different from much of what they had already
crossed.
Yet ever before them there, from the sunrise to its setting, the
spectral illusive shapes of the mirage floated like restless spirit
betwixt heaven and earth on the quivering heat-haze.
On January 7 they crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and their
way beyond it soon began to improve.
In the excitement of exploring fine country Burke rushed on
with almost headlong feverishness, travelling in every available hour
of the day, and often by night, even grudging the necessary time
for food and rest. He walked with Wills in front, taking it in
turn with him to steer by a pocket compass.
Before they left each camp its number was cut deeply into the
bark of some prominent tree. Wills kept the little record there is
of their journey, and as they went it was the duty of King or Gray
to blaze a tree to mark their route.
They passed now over many miles of the richly grassed slopes
of a beautiful open forest, intersected by frequent watercourses where
the land trended gradually upward to the distant mountain-range.
Sometimes they had to go out of their course in order to avoid the
tangle of tropic jungle; but onward north by east they went,
beneath the shade of heavy-fruited palms, their road again made
difficult by the large and numerous anthills that give these northern
latitudes so strange a solemnity and appearance of desolation.
After leaving Cooper’s Creek they often crossed the paths the
blacks made for themselves, but had hitherto seen nothing of the
natives. One day Golah, one of the camels (who were all now begin-
ning to show great signs of fatigue), had gone down into the bed of
a creek to drink, and could not be made to climb its steep sides
again.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get him up, they deter-
mined to try bringing him down until an easier ascent could be
found. King thereupon went on alone with him, and had great
difficulty in getting him through some of the deeper water-holes.
But after going in this way for two or three miles they were
forced to leave him behind, as it separated King from the rest of
the party, and they found that a number of blacks were hiding in
the box-trees on the banks, watching, and following them with
stealthy footsteps.
It now became a very difficult matter for the camels to travel
332 THE BURKE AND WILLS
as the heavy rains that had fallen made the land so wet and bogg
that with every footstep they sank several inches into it.
At Camp 119 Burke left them in charge of Gray and King, and
walked on to the shores of
Carpentaria with Wills, and
took only the horse Billy to
carry their provisions.
They followed the banks
of a river which Burke named
the Cloncurry. A few hundred
yards below the camp Billy
got bogged in a quicksand
bank so deeply as to be un-
able to stir, and they had
to undermine him on the
creek side and pull him into
the water. About five miles
fs Moe
7} 4c) Yor
; ha ‘)
Vf Tre Came abandon
Golah is abandoned
EXPLORING HXPEDITION 333
farther on he bogged again, and afterwards was so weak that he
could hardly crawl.
After floundering along in this way for some time they came
upon a native path which led through a forest; following it, they
reached a large patch of sandy ground where the blacks had been
digging yams and had left numbers lying on the surface ; and these
the explorers were glad enough to eat.
A little farther on they saw a black lying coiled round his camp
fire, and by him squatted his lubra and piccaninny yabbering at a
great rate. They stopped to take out their pistols in case of need
before disturbing them; almost immediately the black got up to
stretch his limbs, and presently saw the intruders.
He stared at them for some time, as if he thought he must be
dreaming, then, signing to the others, they all dropped on their
haunches, and shuffled off in the quietest manner.
Near their fire was a worley (native hut) large enough to shelter
a dozen blacks ; it was on the northern outskirt of the forest, and
looked out across a marsh which is sometimes flooded by sea-water.
Upon this were hundreds of wild geese, plover, and pelicans. After
they crossed it they reached a channel through which the sea-water
enters, and there passed three blacks, who silently and unasked
pointed out the best way to go.
Next day, Billy being completely tired, they short-hobbled and
left him, going forward again at daybreak in the hope of at last
reaching the open sea. After following the Flinders (this country
had already been explored by Gregory) for about fifteen miles, and
finding that the tide ebbed and flowed regularly, and that the water
was quite salt, they decided to go back, having successfully accom-
plished one great object of their mission, by crossing the Australian
continent from south to north.
After rejoining Gray and King on February 18, the whole party
began the return march. The incessant and heavy rains that had
set in rendered travelling very difficult; but the provisions were
running short, and it was necessary to try to get back to the depdt
without delay.
The damp and suffocating heat that brooded in the air over-
powered both man and beast, who were weak and weary from want
of rest; and to breast the heavy rains and to swim the rapid
creeks in flood well-nigh exhausted all their strength.
Day after day they stumbled listlessly onward; while the poor
camels, sweating, bleeding, and groaning from fear, had their feet at
334 THE BURKE AND WILLS
almost every step entangled by the climbing plants that clung to
the rank grasses, which had rushed in magical growth to a height
of eight or ten feet.
If for a moment they went to‘windward of their camp fires they
were maddened by swarms of mosquitoes, and everywhere were
pestered by ants.
Wonderful green and scarlet ants dropped upon them from the
trees as they passed ; from every log or stick gathered for the fires
a new species crept; inch-long black or brown ‘ bulldogs ’ showed
fight at them underfoot: midgets lurked in the cups of flowers ;
while the giant white ant ate its stealthy way in swarms through
the sap of the forest trees from root to crown.
Every night fierce storms of thunder crashed and crackled over-
head, and the vivid lightning flaring across the heavens over-
powered the moonlight.
Gray, who had been ailing for some time, grew worse, though
probably, as they were all in such evil plight, they did not think
him really ill.
One night Wills, returning to a camp to bring back some things
that had been left, found him hiding behind a tree eating skilligolee.
He explained he was suffering from dysentery, and had taken the
flour without leave.
It had already been noticed that the provisions disappeared in
an unaccountable way ; therefore Wills ordered him back to report
himself to Burke. But Gray was afraid to tell, and got King to do
so for him. When Burke heard of it, he was very angry, and
flogged him.
On March 20 they overhauled the packs, and left all they could
do without behind, as the camels were so exhausted.
Soon after this they were again beyond the line of rainfall, and
once more toiling over the vast plains and endless stony rises of the
interior.
At the camp called Boocha’s Rest they killed the camel Boocha,
and spent the whole day cutting up and jerking the flesh—that
is, removing all bone and fat and drying the lean parts in the
sun; they also now made use of a plant called portulac as a
vegetable, and found it very good, and a great addition to their
food.
For more than a week it had become very troublesome to get
Gray to walk at all; he was still in such bad odour from his thieving
that the rest of the party thought he pretended illness, and as they
HXPLORING EXPEDITION 835
had to halt continually to wait for him when marching, he was
always in mischief.
The faithful Billy had to be sacrificed in the Stony Desert, as he
was so reduced and knocked up that there seemed little chance of
his reaching the other side; and another day was taken to cut up
and jerk his flesh.
At dawn on the fourth day before they reached the depét, when
they were preparing to start they were shocked to find poor Gray
was dying.
His companiois, full of remorse for bygone harshness, their better
natures stirred to the depths of humanity by his pitiful case, knelt
around to support him in those-last moments as he lay stretched
speechless on his desolate sand bed. Thus comforted, his fading
eyes closed for ever as the red sun rose above the level plain.
The party remained in camp that day to bury him, though they
were so weak that they were hardly able to dig a grave in the
sand sufficiently deep for the purpose.
They had lived on the flesh of the worn-out horse for fifteen
days, and once or twice were forced to camp without water.
Though the sun was always hot, at night a gusty wind blew from
the south with an edge like a razor, which made their fire so
irregular as to be of little use to them. The sudden and cruel
extremes of heat and cold racked the exhausted frames of the
explorers with pain, and Burke and King were hardly able to walk.
They pushed on, only sustained by the thought that but afew hours,
a few miles, now separated them from the main party, where the
first felicitations on the success of their exploit awaited them, and,
what was of greater importance to men shattered by hardships and
privation, wholesome food, fresh clothing, and the comfort of a
properly organised camp.
On the morning of April 21, with every impatient nerve strung
to its utmost tension, and full of hope, they urged their two remain-
ing camels forward for the last thirty miles; and Burke, who rode
a little in advance of the others, shouted for joy when they struck
Cooper’s Creek at the exact spot where Brahé had been left in
charge of the depot. -
‘I think I see their tents,’ he cried, and putting his weary
camel to its best speed, he called out the names of the men he had
left there.
‘There they are! There they are!’ he shouted eagerly, and
with a last spurt left the others far behind.
336 THE BURKE AND WILLS
When Wills and King reached the depét they saw Burke stand-
ing by the side of his camel in a deserted camp, alone.
He was standing, lost in amazement, staring vacantly around.
Signs of recent departure, of a final packing-up, everywhere met the
eye: odd nails and horseshoes lay about, with other useful things
that would not have been left had the occupants merely decamped
to some other spot. Then, as one struck by some terrible blow,
Burke reeled and fell to the ground, overcome by the revulsion of
feeling from exultant hope to sudden despair.
Wills, who had ever the greater control of himself, now walked
in all directions to make a careful examination, followed at a little
distance by King.
Presently he stopped, and pointing to a tree, into the bark of
which had been newly cut the words—
‘ Die.
‘ April 21, 1861’
he said :—
‘King, they are gone! They have only gone to-day—there are
the things they have left!’
The two men immediately set to work to uncover the earth, and
found a few inches below the surface a box containing provisions
and a bottle.
In the bottle was a note, which was taken to Burke at once, who
read it aloud :—
‘Depot, Cooper’s Creek,
‘April 21, 1861.
‘The depdt party of the Victorian Exploring Expedition leaves
this camp to-day to return to the Darling.
‘T intend to go 8.E. from Camp 60, to get into onr old track near
Bulloo. Two of my companions and myselfare quite well; the third
—Patten—has been unable to walk for the last eighteen days,
as his leg has been severely hurt when thrown by one of the horses.
‘No person has been up here from the Darling.
‘We have six camels and twelve horses in good working con-
dition.
‘Wittiam Braut.’
When the leader had finished reading it, he turned to the others
and asked if they would start next day to try to overtake Brahé’s
party.
They replied that they could not. With the slightest exertion
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 337
all felt the indescribable languor and terrible aching in back and legs
that had proved fatal to poor Gray. And, indeed, it was as much
as any one of them could do to crawl to the side of the creek for a
billy. of water.
They were not long in getting out the stores Brahé had left, and
in making themselves a good supper of oatmeal porridge and
sugar.
7
‘King, they are gone!’
This and the excitement of their unexpected position did much
to revive them. Burke presently decided to make for a station on
the South Australian side which he believed was only one hundred
and twenty miles from the Cooper. Both Wills and King wanted
to follow down their old track to the Darling, but afterwards gave
in to Burke’s idea. Therefore it was arranged that after they had
rested they would proceed by gentle stages towards the Mount
Hopeless sheeprun.
R. a
338 THE BURKE AND WILLS
Accordingly, on the next day Burke wrote and deposited in the
cache a letter giving a sketch of the exploration, and added the
following postscript :
‘The camels cannot travel, and we cannot walk, or we should
follow the other party. We shall move very slowly down the
Creek.’
The cache was again covered with earth, and left as they had
found it, though nothing was added to the word‘ Dig,’ or to the
date on the tree; which curious carelessness on the part of men
accustomed to note every camping-ground in this way seems un-
accountable.
A few days after their return they started with the month’s
supply of provisions that had been left.
They had every reason to hope, with the help of the camels,
they might easily reach Mount Hopeless in time to preserve their
lives and to reap the reward of their successful exertions.
Tt will be remembered that when Burke formally appointed
Brahé as officer in command of the depdt until Wright should
arrive, he was told to await his leader’s return to Cooper’s Creek,
or not to leave it wntil obliged by absolute necessity. Day after
day, week after week passed, and Wright, with the rest of the
stores from Menindie, never came. It was more than four months
since Burke’s party went north, and every day for the last six weeks
Brahé had looked out anxiously for their return.
On one hand he was worried by Patten, who was dying, sicial who
wanted to go back to the Darling for advice; on the other, by
M‘Donough’s continually pouring into his ears fli assurance that
Burke would not return that way, but had doubtless by this time
made for some port onthe Queensland coast, and had returned to Mel-
bourne by sea; and that if they stayed at the depot they would
all get scurvy, and in the end die of starvation. Though they
had sufficient provisions to keep them for another month, they
decided to start on the morning of April 21, leaving the box of
stores and the note hidden in the earth which the explorers found
on their return.
Following their former route towards the Darling, they fell in
with Wright’s party at Bulloo, where they had been stationary for
several weeks, and where three of the men had died of scurvy.
Brahé at once put himself under Wright’s orders ; but he did not
rest until Wright consented to go to Cooper’s Creek with him, so that
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 839
before abandoning the expedition he might feel assured that the
explorers had not returned.
Wright and Brahé reached the depét on May 8, a fortnight after
the others had left, and Brahé seeing nothing above ground in the
camp to lead him to think anyone had been there, did not trouble
to disturb the box which he had originally planted—as Wright
suggested the blacks would be more likely to find it; therefore, run-
ning their horses several times over the spot, they completed by
their thoughtless stupidity the most terrible blunder the explorers
had begun.
Wright and Brahé then rejoined the camp at' Bulloo, when all
moved back to Menindie, and reached that place on June 18.
Brahé at once set off for Melbourne, and by this time everyone
there seemed to be alive to the necessity of sending out to look for
the explorers.
Two steamers were despatched to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and
a relief party, in charge of Alfred Howitt, up to the Cooper.
From South Australia an organised expedition of twenty-six
men, with McKinlay as leader, was already engaged in the search,
as well as several smaller parties from the neighbouring colonies.
Burke, Wills, and King, much revived with the rest of a few days
and the food they had found at the depdt, left for Mount Hopeless,
with the intention of following as nearly as possible the route taken
by Gregory many years before.
Shortly after their departure Landa, one of the camels, bogged at
the side of a water-hole and sank rapidly, as the ground beneath
was a bottomless quicksand; all their efforts to dig him out were
useless, and they had to shoot him where he lay, and cut off what
flesh they could get at to jerk.
They made a fresh start next day with the last camel, Rajah,
only loaded with the most useful and necessary articles; and
each of the men now carried his own swag of bed and clothing.
In addition to these misfortunes they had now to contend with
the blast of drought that lay over the land; with the fiery sun, that
streamed from cloudless skies, beneath which the very earth shrunk
from itself in gaping fissures; with the wild night wind, that
shrieked and skirled with devastating breath over the wilderness
beneath the cold light of the crowding stars.
For a few days they followed the Creek, but found that it split
up into sandy channels which became rapidly smaller as they
Z2
340 THE BURKE AND WILLS
advanced, and sent off large billabongs (or backwaters) to the south,
slightly changing the course of the Creek each time, until it dis-
appeared altogether in a north-westerly direction. Burke and Wills
went forward alone to reconnoitre, and found that the land as far
as they could see stretched away in great earthy plains intersected
by lines of trees and empty watercourses.
Next day they retraced their steps to the last camp, and realised
that their rations were rapidly diminishing and their boots and
clothing falling to pieces.
Rajah was very ill and on the point of dying, when Burke
ordered him to be shot, his flesh being afterwards dried in the usual
manner.
Some friendly blacks, whom they amused by lighting fires with
matches, gave them some fish and a kind of bread called nardoo.
At various times they had tried to learn from the blacks how to
procure the nardoo grain, which is the seed of a small clover-like
plant, but had failed to make them understand what they wanted.
Then Wills went out alone to look for it; but as he expected to
find it growing on a tree, was of course unsuccessful, and the blacks
had again moved off to some other branch of the Creek.
The terrible fate of death from starvation awaited them if they
could not obtain this knowledge, and for several days they all per-
severed with the search, until quite by chance King at last caught
sight of some seeds which proved to be nardoo lying at the foot of
a sandhill, and they soon found the plain beyond was black with it.
With the reassurance that they could now support themselves
they made another attempt to reach Mount Hopeless. Burke and
King each carried a billy of water, and the last of the provisions
was packed up in their swags; but after travelling for three days
they found no water, and were forced to turn back to the Creek, at a
point where—though they knew it not—scarce fifty miles remained
to be accomplished, and just as Mount Hopeless would have
appeared above the horizon had they continued their route for even
another day.
Wearily they retraced their footsteps to the water and to the
prospect of existence. They at once set about collecting nardoo;
two of them were employed in gathering it, while one stayed in
camp to clean and crush it.
In a few days Burke sent Wills back to the depét to bury the
field-books of their journey north in the cache, and another letter
to tell of their present condition.
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 341
When Wills reached the spot he could see no trace of anyono
having been there but natives, and that the hiding-place had noi
been touched.
Having deposited the field-books and a note, with an account of
their sufferings and a pitiful and useless appeal for food and cloth-
ing, he started back to rejoin Burke, terribly fatigued and weak
from his long walk.
It had taken him eleven days to cover the seventy miles to and
fro, and he had had very little to eat.
However, to his surprise, one morning, on his way back ho
heard a cooee from the opposite bank of the Creek, and saw
Pitchery, the chief of the friendly blacks, beckoning to him to come
to their camp. Pitchery made him sit down by a fire, upon
which a large pile of fish was cooking.
This he thought was to provide a breakfast for the half-dozen
natives who sat around; but to his astonishment they made him
eat the whole lot, while they sat by extracting the bones.
Afterwards a supply of nardoo was given him; at which he ate
until he could eatno more. The blacks then asked him to stay the
night with them; but as he was anxious to rejoin Burke and King,
he went on.
In his absence Burke, while frying some fish thatthe natives had
given him, had set fire to the mia-mia (a shelter made by the
blacks of bushes and trees).
It burnt so quickly that every remnant of their clothing was
destroyed, and nothing saved but a gun.
In a few days they all started back towards the depét, in
the hope that they could live with the blacks ; but they found they
had again disappeared.
On again next morning to. another of the native camps; but,
finding it empty, the wanderers took possession of the best mia-
mia, and Wills and King were sent ont to collect nardoo.
This was now absolutely their only food, with the exception
of two crows which King shot; he alone seemed to be uninjured
by the nardoo. Wills had at last suddenly collapsed, and could
only lie in the mia-mia, and philosophically contemplate the
situation.
He strongly advised Burke and King to leave him, as the
only chance for the salvation of any one of them now was to find
the blacks.
Very reluctantly at last Burke consented to go; and after
842 - THE BURKE AND WILLS
placing a large supply of nardoo, wood, and water within easy
reach, Burke suid again :
‘I will not leave you, Wills, under any other circumstance
than that of your own wish.’
And Wills, again repeating ‘It is our only chance,’ gave him a
letter and his watch for his father.
King had already buried the rest of the field-books near the
mia-mia.
The first day after they left Wills Burke was very weak, and
complained sadly of great pain in his back and legs. Next day
Death of Burke
he was a little better, and walked for about two miles, then lay
down and said he could go no farther.
King managed to get him up, but as he went he dropped his
swag and threw away everything he had to carry.
When they halted he said he felt much worse, and could
not last many hours longer, and he gave his pocket-book to King,
saying :—
‘T hope you will remain with mé till Iam quite dead—it is a
comfort to know someone is by; but when I am dying, it is my
EXPLORING EXPEDITION 343
wish that you should place the pistol in my right hand, and
that you leave me unburied as I lie.’
Doubtless he thought of King’s weak state, and wished -to
spare him the labour of digging a grave.
The last of the misfortunes that had followed the enterprise
from the outset, misfortunes in many cases caused by the impatient
zeal ofits leader, was drawing to its close.
Tortured by disappointment and despair, racked by starvation
and disease, he lay in the desert dying.
Flinging aside the last poor chance of succour, renouncing all hope
that he might yet live to reap the reward of his brilliant dash across
the continent, he met death
‘With the pistol clenched in his failing hand,
With the death mist spread o’er his fading eyes
He saw the sun go down on the sand,
And he slept—and never saw it rise.’
King lingered near the spot for a few hours; but at last, feeling it
to be useless, he went on up the Creek to look for the natives.
In one of their deserted mia-mias he found a large store of the
nardoo seed, and, carrying it with him, returned to Wills.
On his way back he shot three crows. This addition to their
food would, he felt, give them a chance of tiding over their difficul-
ties until the blacks could again be found. But as he drew near
the mia-mia where he and poor Burke had left Wills a few days
before, and saw his lonely figure in the distance lying much as
they had left him, a sudden fear came upon him.
Hitherto the awful quiet of these desolate scenes had little im-
pressed him, and now it came upon him heavily. The shrilling of
a solitary locust somewhere in the gums, the brisk crackle of dry
bark and twigs as he trod, the melancholy sighing of the wind-
stirred leafage, offered him those inexplicable contrasts that give
stress to silence.
Anxious to escape thoughts so little comprehended, King hurried
on, and essayed a feeble ‘ cooee’ when afew yards from the sleeper.
No answering sound or gesture greeted him.
Wills had fallen peacefully asleep for ever.
Footprints on the sand showed that the blacks had already been
there, and after King had buried the corpse with sand and rushes
as well as he was able, he started to follow their tracks.
Feeling desperately lonely and ill, he went on. and as he went
844 THE BURKE AND WILLS
he shot some more crows. The blacks, hearing the report of the
gun, came to meet him, and taking him to their camp gave him food.
The next day they talked to him by signs, putting one finger in
the ground and covering it with sand, at the same time pointing up
the Creek, saying ‘ White fellow.’
By this they meant that one white man was dead.
King, by putting two fingers in the sand and covering them, made
them understand that his second companion was also dead.
Finding he was now quite alone, they seemed very sorry for him,
and gave him plenty to eat. However, in a few days they became
tired of him, and by signs told him they meant to go up the Creek,
pointing in the opposite direction to show that that must be his way.
But when he shot some more crows for them they were very pleased.
One woman to whom he gave a part of a crow gave him a ball of
nardoo, and, showing him a wound on her arm, intimated that she
would give him more, but she was unable to poundit. When King
saw the wound he boiled some water in his billy and bathed it.
While the whole tribe sat round, watching and yabbering excitedly,
he touched it with some lunar caustic; she shrieked and ran off,
crying ‘mokow! mokow!†(fire! fire!) She was, however, very
grateful for his kindness, and from that time she and her husband
provided him with food.
About two months later the relief party reached the depét, where
they found the letters and journals the explorers had placed in the
cache. They at once set off down the Creek, in the hope still of
finding Burke and Wills. They met a black who directed them to
the native camp. Here they found King sitting alone in the mia-mia
the natives had made for him, wasted and worn to a shadow, almost
imbecile from the terrible hardships he had suffered.
He. turned his hopeless face upon the new-comers, staring
vacantly at them, muttering indistinctly words which his lips
refused to articulate. Only the remnants of his clothing marked
him as a civilised being. The blacks who had fed him sat round
to watch the meeting with most gratified and delighted expressions.
Howitt waited for a few days to give King an opportunity of
recovering his strength, that he might show them where the bodies
of his unfortunate leaders lay, that the last sad duty to the dead
might be performed before they left the place.
Burke's body had been dragged a short distance from where it
originally lay, and was partly eaten by the dingoes (wild dogs). The
EXPLORING EXPEDITION . 345
remains were carefully collected, wrapped in a Union Jack, and
placed in a grave dug close to the spot.
A few weeks later the citizens of Melbourne, once again aroused
to extravagant enthusiasm, lined the streets through which the only
survivor of the only Victorian. Exploration Expedition was to pass.
‘Here he comes! Here he comes!’ rang throughout the crowd
as King was driven to the, Town Hall to tell his narrative to the
company assembled there.
‘There is a man!’ shouted one—‘ There is a man who has lived
in hell.’
A few months later Howitt was again sent to Cooper’s Creek to
exhume the bodies of Burke and Wills and bring them to Melbourne.
They were honoured by a public funeral, and a monument was
erected to their memory— :
‘A statue tall, on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story to great and small
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone.’
346
THE STORY OF HMUND
(A.D. 1020)
HERE was a man named Fimund of Skara; lawman in
Western Gautland, and very wise and eloquent. Of high
birth he was, had a numerous kin, and was very wealthy. Men
deemed him cunning, and not very trusty. ‘He passed for the
man of most weight in West Gautland now that the Earl was gone
away.
At the time when Earl Rognvald left Gautland the Gauts held
assemblies, and often murmured among themselves about what the
Swedish king was intending. They heard that he was wroth with
them for having made a friendship with Olaf, King of Norway,
rather than quarrel. He also charged with crime those men who
had accompanied his daughter Astridr to Norway’s king. And
some said that they should seek protection of the Norse king and
offer him their service; while others were against this, and said
that the West Gauts had no strength to maintain a quarrel against
the Swedes, ‘and the Norse king is far from us,’ they said,
‘because the main power of his land is far: and this is the first
thing we must do, send men to the Swedish king and try to make
agreement with him; but if that cannot be done, then take we the
other choice of seeking the protection of the Norse king.’
So the landowners asked Emund to go on this mission, to
which he assented, and went his way with thirty men, and came
to East Gautland. There he had many kinsmen and friends, and
was well received. He had there some talk with the wisest men
about this difficulty, and they were quite agreed in thinking that
what, the King was doing with them was against use and law. Then
Emund went on to Sweden, and there talked with many great
men; and there too all were of the same mind. He then held on
his way till he came on the evening of a day to Upsala. There
THE STORY OF EMUND 347
they found them good lodging and passed the night. The next day
Emund went before the King as he sat in council with many
around him. Emund went up to the King, and bowed down before
him, and greeted him. The King looked at him, returned his
greeting, and asked him what tidings he brought.
Emund answered: ‘Little tidings are there with us Gauts.
But this we deem a novelty: Atti the Silly in Vermaland went in
the winter up to the forest with his snowshoes.and bow; we call
him a mighty hunter. On the fell he got such store of grey fur
that he had filled his sledge with as much as he could manage to
draw after him. He turned him homeward from the forest; but then
he saw a squirrel in the wood,.and shot at him and missed. Then
was he wroth, and, loosing from him his sledge, he ran after the
squirrel. But the squirrel went ever where the wood was thickest,
sometimes near the tree roots, sometimes high among the
boughs, and passed among the boughs from tree to tree. But
when Atti shot at him, the drrow always flew above or below him,
while the squirrel never went so that Atti could not see him. So
eager was he in this chase that he crept after him for the whole
day, but never could he get this squirrel. And when darkness
came on, he lay down in the snow, as he was wont, and so passed
the night; ’twas drifting weather. Next day Atti went to seek his
sledge, but he never found it again; and so he went home. Such
are my tidings, sire.’
Said the King: ‘ Little tidings these, if there be no more to
say.’ ;
Emund answered: ‘Yet further a while ago happened this,
which one may call tidings. Gauti Tofason went out with five
warships by the river Gaut Elbe; but when he lay by the Hikr
Isles, some Danes came there with five large merchant ships.
Gauti and his company soon captured four of the merchant ships
without losing a man, and took great store of wealth ; but the fifth
ship escaped out to sea by sailing. Gauti went after that one ship,
and at first gained on it; but soon, as the wind freshened, the
merchant ship went faster. They had got far out to sea, and Gauti
wished to turn back; but a storm came on, and his ship was wrecked
on an island, and all the wealth lost and the more part of the men.
Meanwhile his comrades had had to stay at the Eikr Isles. Then
attacked them fifteen Danish merchant ships, and slew them all,
and took all the wealth which they had before gotten. Such was
the end of this covetousness,’
348 THE STORY OF EMUND
The King answered: ‘Great tidings these, and worth telling ;
but what is thy errand hither ?’
Emund answered: ‘I come, sire, to seek a solution in a
difficulty where our law and Upsala law differ.’
The King asked: ‘ What is it of which thou wouldst complain ?’
Emund answered: ‘There were two men, nobly born, equal in
family, but unequal in possessions and disposition. They quarrelled
about lands, and each wrought harm on the other, and he wrought
the more who was the more powerful, till their dispute was settled
and judged at the general assembly. He who. was the more
powerful was condemned to pay; but at the first repayment he
paid wildgoose for goose, little pig for old swine, and for a mark of
gold he put down half a mark of gold, the other half-mark of clay
and mould, and yet further threatened with rough treatment the
man to whom he was paying this debt. What is thy judgment
herein, sire ?’
The King answered: ‘Let him pay in full what was adjudged,
and to his King thrice that amount. And if it be not paid within
the year, then Jet him go an outlaw from all his possessions, let half
his wealth come into the King’s treasury, and half to the man to
whom he owed redress.’
Emund appealed to all the greatest men there, and to the laws
valid at Upsala Thing in witness of this decision. Then he saluted
the King and went out. Other men brought their complaints
before the King, and he sat long time over men’s suits.
But when the King came to table he asked where was lawman
Emund.
He was told that he was at home in his lodging.
Then said the King : ‘Go after him, he shall be my guest to-day.’
Just then came in the viands, and afterwards players with harps
and fiddles and other music, and then drink was served. The King
was very merry, and had many great men as his guests, and thought
no more of Emund. He drank for the rest of the day, and slept
that night.
But in the morning, when the King waked, then he bethought
him of what Emund had talked of the day before. And so soon as
he was dressed he had his wise men summoned to him. King Olaf
had ever about him twelve of the wisest men; they sate with him
over judgments and counselled him in difficulties; and that was no
easy task, for while the King liked it ill if judgment was perverted,
he yet would not hear any contradiction of himself. When they
THE STORY OF H