He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled his mission, having designed great things and having accomplished them.

And the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy the Turk for half a century after his death could only harass the frontier of his native land; and his country, a few years after his death placed on the royal throne his son Matthias.

[Signature of the author.]



WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER

(1420-1471)

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, eldest son of Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montacute, was born November 22, 1428. The history of this mighty peer is that of the whole of the contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster. The house of Neville had been built up by a series of wealthy marriages, and Richard made no exception to the rule. While yet a boy he was married to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and through her, after the death of her brother and niece, he took his place at the age of twenty-one among the chief earls of the English realm. By this time the English rule in France had broken down, bringing the reigning house of Lancaster into great unpopularity, and throwing a correspondingly greater influence into the hands of the leader of the opposition, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was brother-in-law to the Earl of Salisbury, and so attached to his party the powerful influence of the Nevilles.



The Duke of York at first made no claim to the throne, demanding only that he should have his place in the councils of the king, and even when swords were drawn the Yorkists swore their allegiance to the king, Henry VI., while fighting against his advisers. Of these favorites of the king, the chief was the Earl of Somerset, whom many suspected of a design to establish himself as the successor to the throne. It was between these two factions of York and Somerset, that the white and red roses were first employed as distinguishing badges.

]

Plantagenet. Let him, that is a true born gentleman, And stands upon the honor of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

Somerset. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

Warwick. I love no colors; and, without all color Of base insinuating flattery, I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. —Shakespeare: I Henry VI.

The Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Albans (1455), in which Somerset was killed. The victory was gained to the Yorkists chiefly by the help of Warwick. By a sudden sally into the streets of the town he routed the royal forces, and gained for himself that character of daring and courage which he maintained to the end. He was rewarded with the post of Captain of Calais, which he retained throughout the changes of the parties. In this position he was practically independent, and scoured the Channel at his pleasure.

In 1458 he attacked some vessels which were under a treaty of peace with England, and being summoned to London to answer before the king, was violently attacked by the followers of Somerset and barely escaped with his life. In 1459 the civil war finally broke out. In the first campaign the Yorkists failed, owing to their inactivity. The leaders fled to the coast of Devon, where they hired five men to carry them to Bristol. As soon as they left land, Warwick, stripped to the doublet, took the helm, and steered straight for Calais, where he arrived in a few days. When Somerset, son of the earl slain at St. Albans, came to claim the keys of the stronghold, he had the mortification to find Warwick there before him.

Warwick was next in England on June 27, 1460, when he landed at Sandwich with fifteen hundred men. In four days he was before the walls of London, having marched in that time a distance of seventy miles. According to some accounts, the common people so flocked to his standard, that in those four days his force had swelled to forty thousand. The city threw open its gates and joyfully welcomed him, while Henry fled to the north. In the beginning of July the battle of Northampton was fought. The Yorkists gained a complete victory, and took Henry prisoner. Before the fight Warwick issued the command to spare the common people but to slay the nobles, judging the quarrel to be more especially theirs; and it is significant that throughout the Wars of the Roses the proportion of leaders slain far exceeds that in any other war.

Up to this time Warwick's conception of the war was merely the natural struggle of the one party with the other for power, using as their means the rude arguments of the time. He still maintained his loyalty to King Henry, and when the Duke of York, after the battle of Northampton, presented his claim to the throne Warwick opposed him, and prevailed upon him to waive it till the death of the king. But naturally such a state of things could not long endure. Warwick, while respecting the person of the king, was fighting against his orders, and so, while professing loyalty, was actually a rebel.

Soon the struggle blazed out anew, and in December, 1460, the Duke of York was defeated and slain at Wakefield. Early in 1461 Warwick was defeated in the second battle of St. Albans, but the royalists not taking advantage of their victory, Edward, son of the Duke of York, accompanied by Warwick, marched on London, and was proclaimed king as Edward IV. Soon after the Yorkists gained a complete victory at Towton (1461), the bloodiest field of the whole war. Nearly all the Lancastrian chiefs were slain, Henry's cause was lost, and ere long he was captured by Warwick and lodged in the Tower. The credit of the crowning victory of Towton does not rest with Warwick alone, for he had the help of young Edward, perhaps as great a military genius as himself. Little is known of the details of the fighting, but we are told that wherever the Earl of Warwick was, there the fight raged hottest.



The earl was now the greatest man in England. His extended connections and immense possessions were joined to the most distinguished personal qualities, intrepidity, decision, and all the military virtues, eloquence and general talent, an affability and frankness of bearing that captivated equally all classes, a boundless hospitality and magnificence that enthroned him in the hearts of the commons. Wherever he resided, we are told he kept open house, and the number of people daily fed at his various mansions, when he was at the height of his prosperity, exceeded thirty thousand. "When he came to London," says Stowe in his "Chronicle," "he held such an house that six oxen were eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat; for who that had any acquaintance in that house he should have had as much sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger."

But now, when Warwick might have expected to reap the reward of his labors, new troubles arose. King Edward began to feel jealous of his power, his unique influence, and vast popularity. It is said that Warwick was sent to France to arrange a treaty with Louis, and to propose a marriage between Edward and his wife's sister. On his return he found the king married to Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Lord Rivers, and an alliance made with the enemy of Louis, the Duke of Burgundy. Edward now lavished all his kindness on the Woodvilles, intending to use them as a counterfoil to the Nevilles, and for this purpose he deprived the Nevilles of some of their posts. By a series of deliberate insults Warwick was driven farther and farther away from the king, till he was forced into open revolt.

In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.

Two years later the king declared Warwick a rebel; and he was compelled to flee to France. Louis XI. used his influence in bringing Warwick and Margaret, wife of King Henry, together, and they agreed to forget their differences in the face of a common enemy. Clarence, the new king's brother, had previously married Warwick's daughter, and joined his party.

Once more the king-maker landed in England and advanced on London. Edward fled to Holland and Henry was again placed upon the throne. But ere long Edward secretly landed in England, raised an army, not without difficulty, and met Warwick at Barnet. The faithless Clarence had in the meantime deserted Warwick and joined his brother's army. The army of Warwick was composed of strangely different elements—old enemies fighting side by side as friends. The battle was lost mainly through a grievous blunder. In the heavy mist which hung around, the party of the Earl of Oxford were mistaken for the enemy and were attacked by their own friends. The cry of treachery was raised, and the whole army broke into utter rout. Warwick resisted till all hope was gone. He had fought on foot throughout the battle, and his heavy armor did not suffer him to escape. He was surrounded and slain, fighting manfully, April 14, 1471.

Thus fell on the field of battle Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the prime of his life, after sixteen years of deep intrigue and desperate fighting. Had he been born in a more peaceful time he would have been a great statesman, and have done much for the good of his country, for his talents were more political than military, and almost alone among the self-seeking rivals of the time, he shows something of the instincts of patriotism. Cast as he was in the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses, he stands out in character and genius above all those of his generation. He was the best beloved man in the kingdom. When he was away from England, says Hall, the common people thought the sun had gone out of the heavens. His personality cast a charm over even Louis XI. The heart of the Yorkist party, he was true to its cause till he found that his service was no longer desired. He was not the man to sit quietly under insult, and when it came from King Edward, who owed all that he was to him, it was more than he could endure. Yet it was only when he found his every project thwarted, and especially those that were dearest to his heart, that he was driven into open warfare with the king. His treason is capable of much justification: he cannot be accused of forsaking his master. He had in him the making of a great king, and how great and useful might have been his career had fortune placed him over the councils of a Charles VII. or a Henry VI.! As it is, he stands in worth and character far above any of his time, a figure that commands not merely admiration but affection.



HERNANDO CORTES[17]

By H. RIDER HAGGARD

(1485-1547)

[Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful seas of history. Caesar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.

Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being created alcade of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez, determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition. Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron, weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different, since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico, accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians. Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.

Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan, Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town. For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is described by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a goddess." It was this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country, who instructed her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and history of the Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited together with other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and confidante, whose business it was to gain information from the Indians, which he could use, and whose wit and devotion more than once saved him from disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes that it is doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in conquering Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of Malinche by which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward, when she had served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be given by him in marriage to another man.

Leaving Tabasco Cortes sailed along the coast till he reached the spot where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, whence he opened communications with Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. In due course envoys arrived from the monarch laden with magnificent gifts, who delivered a civil but none the less peremptory message requesting the Spaniards to return whence they came. By this time Cortes had learned that although the Aztecs were the greatest power in Anahuac, their supremacy was not acknowledged by all the tribes; notably was it contested by the Tlascalans and their allies the Otomies. The Tlascalans were republicans having their home in the mountains almost midway between Mexico and the coast. For fifty years or more they had been at bitter enmity with the Aztecs, who again and again had vainly attempted to subjugate them. To this people Cortes despatched an embassy asking for a safe passage through their territories on his road to Mexico, for his political insight told him that they might prove valuable allies. No answer was returned by the Tlascalans who when the Spaniards advanced attacked them furiously, only to be defeated by Cortes in several engagements, till, discouraged and believing the white men to be invincible, they sued for peace, and from enemies were converted into firm allies. From Tlascala the Spaniards proceeded to the neighboring city of Cholula where Marina discovered a plot to put them to death. For this offence Cortes took a terrible vengeance. Falling on the inhabitants of the city when they were unprepared he butchered vast numbers of them, giving their houses and temples to sack. Having thus established the terror of his name he marched on to Mexico accompanied by a body of about five thousand Tlascalan allies. Meanwhile the counsels of the Aztecs were darkened with doubt. The Spaniards might easily have been kept out of Mexico by force, but the arm of Montezuma was paralyzed by superstitious fears. Prophecy foretold that the children of the white god Quetzalcoatl should rise from the sea to possess the land, and in the Spaniards he beheld the fate fulfilled. To him they were not mortal but divine and when diplomacy had failed to keep them at a distance he feared to lift a sword against them. Thus it came about that without a blow being struck to drive them back Cortes and his little band of adventurers found themselves established at the heart of the strange and rich civilization that they had discovered, not as enemies, but as the guests of the king. They were not slow to avail themselves of the opportunities of their position in order to advance their ends which were, first plunder, secondly conquest, and, thirdly the extension of the authority of Spain and of the Christian religion. In pursuit of these ends upon some slight pretext Cortes seized the person of Montezuma, the great emperor, and imprisoned him in one of his own palaces whence, however, he was still allowed to direct the government and issue his commands.

Meanwhile reports of Cortes' doings and success had reached Velasquez the Governor of Cuba, who determined to despatch an expedition to conquer or capture him as a traitor. Accordingly eighteen vessels containing nearly a thousand white men were placed under the command of Panfilo de Narvaez, and reached Vera Cruz in April, 1520. When Cortes heard of the arrival of this armament and its object which was to punish him for his supposed rebellion, he marched from Mexico, leaving the little garrison and the person of Montezuma in charge of his comrade Alvarado. Although he had with him but two hundred and fifty men in all, he did not hesitate to hazard a night attack upon Narvaez who was strongly encamped at Cempoalla. It was completely successful; Narvaez was wounded, captured, and sent in chains to Vera Cruz, while the army that had come to conquer him swore allegiance to Cortes as Captain-General and marched with him back to Mexico. Here great events were in progress. Moved to the deed by fear or by the discovery of some real or fancied plot against the Spaniards, Alvarado, the deputy of Cortes, had fallen upon the unarmed Aztec nobles while they were celebrating a feast in the courtyard of the great temple, and butchered some six hundred of them with every circumstance of brutality. Then at last the patient Aztecs rose and until the womanly Montezuma begged them to desist, attacked the palace where the Spaniards were quartered, with fury. At the intervention of their monarch the attack was turned to a blockade and Cortes arrived from his victory over Narvaez to find his companions in desperate straits. Reinforced by fresh soldiers the Spaniards carried on the war with activity. They assaulted and captured the great pyramid, putting to the sword the priests of human sacrifice and burning the blood-stained temples of the gods. Also they made several sallies into the city and repelled onslaughts upon the palace. It was in the course of one of these attacks that Montezuma received the wound that brought about his death. Mounting the central tower of the palace he implored his subjects to cease from attacking his friends the Spaniards, whereupon in their fury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1, 1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress, and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.

The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody. First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the Queen of the Valley herself—attacked it again and again till at length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few thousand wretches reduced to skeletons by hunger, the capture of Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treatment to the fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent hanging of Guatimozin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so little treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories under the rule of Spain. Wearying of these comparatively peaceful occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and military commander of New Spain, and endowing him with vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he returned to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good family whom he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a course of expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which involved him in great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy Mendoza; and in 1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain redress from the emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he had been; his youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his prayers and remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly four years he pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him writing a letter to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of the Indies to come to a decision upon it. This letter in which pathetically enough, he speaks of himself as "old and poor and indebted," produced no result and once again, worn out and bitterly disappointed, its writer turned his face toward the land that he had won for Spain. But he was never to behold it more. At Seville he was seized with dysentery and passed away December 2, 1547, being then in his sixty-third year. His body was taken to Mexico for burial.

In Hernando Cortes died one of the great men of the world, though how much of his greatness was due to chance is difficult to determine. It is certain that again and again fortune stood his friend in a manner that was little short of miraculous, as in the instances of the unexpected victory over Narvaez and of the death of the general at the battle of Otampan. But if chance or fate gave him opportunities it was Cortes' own genius and unconquerable will that enabled him to avail himself of them. These qualities were the most striking characteristics of the man. He showed them when having determined on the conquest of Mexico he burnt his ships that there might be no escape from the decision; when he hit upon the expedient of using rival tribes to accomplish the overthrow of the Aztecs; when, driven from Mexico with the loss of the half of his army he returned to the attack; and in many another time and place. He had great good qualities, he was a true friend, and according to his lights, an honorable and even a religious man, and his faults were those of his time and training, or at worst such as are not inconsistent with a generous nature. His cruelties may be urged against him, but no Spaniard of his age thought it cruel to slaughter enemies of the Faith who practised human sacrifice; also having once embarked upon his colossal undertaking he and his companions must either slay or be slain. There is evidence to show that personally he was not a cruel man. Thus when called upon to sign the death-warrant of a soldier he lamented that he had ever been taught to write, and there are passages in his will which show his conscience to have been troubled by questions as to the right to enslave human beings. With a handful of followers Cortes overthrew the fabric of the Aztec Empire, broke the spirit of its people so effectually that to this day it has not recovered itself, and swept away its religion. Whether for good or evil this was a stupendous achievement and one that must make his name immortal.

[Signature of the author.]



FRANCISCO PIZARRO[18]

By J. T. TROWBRIDGE

(1471-1541)

[Footnote 18: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

The old Spanish province of Estremadura, though distant from the sea, shut in by mountain-chains, furnished numerous adventurers for the expeditions of discovery, conquest, and plunder that followed Columbus to the New World; two of whom achieved astonishing renown. One was the conqueror of Mexico; the other, the conqueror of Peru.

Of the early life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with certainty. He was born about the year 1471; but even that date is a matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The family from which he inherited his name must have been one of some note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a Pizarro on his mother's side.

Francisco was the second of four brothers, all of whom were men of ability and valor, and all of whom fought in the Peruvian wars. Their father was Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro, concerning whom little is known, save that he was a soldier of Spain, and that he served creditably in Italy and Navarre.

The mother of Francisco was Francisca Gonzales, a woman of low condition, from whom he seems to have received hardly more parental care than from his father, by whom he was utterly neglected. The story told by Gomara, and quoted by Prescott, that, abandoned as a foundling, he was nursed by a sow, though as mythical as that of Romulus and the wolf, which probably suggested it, indicates nevertheless the degradation of his childhood. He grew up in ignorance and vagabondage. Of what the world calls education he had not the first rudiments; to the day of his death he could neither read nor write. The only occupation in which we hear of his being engaged in his boyhood, was that of a swineherd.

At what age he escaped from this mean employment is not known. The claim set up for him by his descendants, that he served with his father in Italy, hardly deserves consideration. He was about twenty-one years old when all Spain began to ring with the discoveries of Columbus and his companions beyond the western seas. Pizarro left his employer and his pigs, ran away to Seville, and embarked in one of the early expeditions that sailed from that port to the New World.

Of his years of apprenticeship in the stern warfare of the times we have no trustworthy details, until at Hispaniola, in 1510, he joined, as second in command, Ojeda's disastrous expedition to Uraba, on the main coast. Sanguinary fights with swarms of savages armed with poisoned arrows, marked the fortunes of the adventurers. And when Ojeda returned to the islands for assistance, which he did not bring, Pizarro remained in command of the starving colony, amid hardships and horrors from which only his resolute daring brought off a remnant alive.

He was with Balboa in his famous march across the mountains to the Pacific, which no European eyes had hitherto beheld; and shared with him the joy of that discovery, which Keats wrongly ascribes to Cortes, when the hardy band, first beholding the unknown ocean outspread before them—

"Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

He remained with Balboa on the isthmus until the death of that valiant commander, when he united his fortunes with those of the governor, Pedrarias, and headed various expeditions along the Pacific coast and to the islands beyond, in quest of pearls and gold. He was occupied in this way, or in cultivating with the aid of Indian slaves a malarious tract of land he had acquired near Panama, when a new career invited him.

Rumors of a rich empire far to the south, where gold was as common with the natives as iron was with the Spaniards, had long inflamed the imaginations of the colonists; then news came of the prodigious exploits of Cortes in Mexico. Pizarro burned to emulate his kinsman. Having formed a partnership with Diego de Almagro, a soldier of experience, and Hernando de Luque, a priest supplied with worldly means, he secured an old vessel that had been designed by Balboa for a similar expedition, refitted it with Luque's money, and with a hundred adventurers sailed from the port of Panama in November, 1524; leaving Almagro to follow in a smaller vessel.

Pizarro was then more than fifty years old, but still in possession of all his masterful qualities. And he had need of all, amid the perils of sea and land, the tempests, swamps, battles, sickness, and famine, which rendered his first voyage down the coast a deplorable failure. Almagro met with no better success. Both returned to the isthmus buffeted, baffled, humiliated, but too stout of heart to be cast down. They brought back but little gold, but with that little they had gathered evidence of the indubitable existence of the opulent empire they sought.

The governor was hugely dissatisfied with the results of the expedition, of which he had expected to share some of the profits; and his consent to another could hardly have been obtained, but for the persuasive eloquence of the priest, backed by the offer of a sum in ready cash. For a thousand pesos de oro Pedrarias gave his consent, and signed away his right to the spoils of an empire.

A new contract was entered into by the three partners, and an elaborate and solemn document was drawn up, in sonorous Spanish, which is curious reading at this day. Father Luque signed it with his own hand, and the two soldiers by the hands of witnesses, since neither Pizarro nor Almagro could write his name. About one hundred and sixty men were enlisted, and again the two chiefs set sail from Panama in separate ships.

They made their first landing at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, where by the plunder of a small village, they secured some ornaments of gold and a few prisoners. Almagro hastened to carry the treasure back to Panama, as a bait to other followers, while Pizarro and his pilot Ruiz remained to explore the interior and the coast. Ruiz sailed as far south as the equator, and after a memorable voyage of some weeks, returned to his chief with a cheering report. He had fallen in with what seemed at first a ship at sea, where no European ship had ever been, and found it to be an Indian balsa, a huge raft across which was stretched a sail of cotton-cloth. It had a rudder and a keel. On board were men and women clad in a curious sort of woollen stuff, skilfully woven, and beautifully dyed and embroidered. They were making a voyage of traffic along the coast. They wore ornaments of gold, and had with them, besides vessels and mirrors of burnished silver, balances for weighing the precious metals, which by signs they assured Ruiz were common in their country.

Pizarro in the meanwhile vainly endeavored to pass the yawning gorges, bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches, ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,—amid such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine and death in the absence of Almagro and Ruiz.

Ruiz came opportunely with his good news, and Almagro returned with eighty recruits. The expedition re-embarked and proceeded southward. The aspect of the coast became more inviting as they advanced. There were signs of an extensive civilization; fields cultivated with maize, cacao, and potatoes; many villages; and at length a town of more than two thousand houses, laid out with streets, and thronging with inhabitants. Among the Spaniards wild enthusiasm prevailed. But it was quickly checked by the hostile demonstrations with which they were met, when they attempted to gain a foothold on the soil of the Incas. It was useless to make front against such numbers as opposed them. Divided counsels and a violent quarrel between the two captains ensued, and the expedition sailed back northward. Once more Almagro returned to Panama for more men, while Pizarro and his followers remained to starve on the barren isle of Gallo.



Instead of permitting any more of his people to depart on what seemed so foolhardy and fatal a business, Rios, the new governor of Panama, despatched to the island two vessels, under a commander named Tafur, with orders to bring away every Spaniard left alive there. Then occurred the famous episode that decided so dramatically the fortunes of Pizarro and the fate of Peru. Tafur had brought supplies of provisions to the famished and emaciated, but now jubilant soldiers; and all except Pizarro appeared eager to abandon their barren adventure and return in the ships. Pizarro alone refused obedience to the governor's agent. Drawing a line on the sand with his sword, he cried: "Comrades! on that side lie hunger and hardship; on this side, ease and safety. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and poverty. Choose, every man for himself, like brave Castilians. For me, I go to the south."

He stepped across the line. There was a minute of dismay and silence. Then Ruiz followed, and after him twelve others went over, an act of as desperate and resolute courage as ever inspired a forlorn band.

They saw the ships containing their comrades sail away without them; Ruiz also returned, pledged to bring assistance to his companions left behind; while Pizarro remained with his twelve Spaniards, and three or four Indian captives whom he had made friends, on the desolate island.

Not even a ship was left them, and they had to build a raft to convey them to a less inhospitable island, that of Gorgona, farther north. There they lived seven months, subsisting on small game brought down by their cross-bows, and shell-fish found on the shores, until Ruiz, after weary delays, returned in a small vessel, bringing supplies, but not the expected reinforcement of troops.

In this frail craft the dauntless rovers put to sea. Pizarro pursued his explorations southward, beyond the point where he afterward founded Truxillo, named after his native town; visited several Peruvian ports, and learned much of the country he proposed to subjugate. He then returned to Panama, which he reached after an absence of eighteen months. The reappearance of the little group of wanderers bringing news of their discoveries, was the cause of great astonishment in the colony, and of joyful enthusiasm among their friends, who had long given them up for dead.

The governor, however, resenting Pizarro's disobedience of his orders at the isle of Gallo, refused to sanction another expedition; and Pizarro resolved upon the bold course of returning to Spain and appealing to the Crown. This was in the spring of 1528.

Arriving at Seville, he was immediately thrown into prison for a debt incurred at Darien. But he was released by order of the emperor, Charles V., who received him graciously at Toledo, heard the wondrous story of his wanderings, which Pizarro knew how to tell, and saw the vessels of gold and silver, the fine fabrics, the llamas, and other evidences of the Peruvian civilization, which were displayed before his royal eyes. He was also, no doubt influenced by the recent achievements of Cortes, who was then at court, and who perhaps spoke for his kinsman a friendly word.

The monarch turned over Pizarro and his enterprise, with his recommendation, to the Council of the Indies. Yet a year passed, and nothing was done. Pizarro was fast sinking into obscurity, and he would likewise have sunk into despair, if he had been less stout of heart. Then, as Queen Isabella had aided Columbus, so the queen of Charles V. came to the assistance of Pizarro, and caused to be executed the extraordinary instrument which bestowed on him, with the rights of discovery and conquest, the titles of Governor and Captain-General of New Castile, as Peru was then called, and a salary of 725,000 maravedis, to be drawn however from the conquered country. Almagro and Luque were also provided for, but in a more modest way, which proved the beginning of a long, bitter, and deadly feud between Almagro and his chief. Nor did the instrument fail to make the usual provision for the conversion to Christianity of the nations to be subjugated and plundered.

In mustering his recruits Pizarro had the satisfaction of revisiting his native town of Truxillo, where he had lived in degradation, and to which he now returned a renowned discoverer and soldier, and a titled magnate. There he found his three brothers, the Pizarros, all poor and proud and eager for adventure; and a fourth brother, on his mother's side. With these and other followers, hardly exceeding one hundred, he sailed from Seville, in January, 1530; and a year later, namely, in January, 1531, after a solemn consecration of his enterprise in the cathedral of Panama, he put forth from that port with one hundred and eighty men and twenty-seven horses, on his fourth, last, and finally successful expedition, to overthrow a populous empire.

That empire lay in the bosom and on both sides of the mighty ranges of the Andes, occupying thirty-seven degrees of the coast south of the equator, and extending eastward far over the valleys of the Amazon and its numerous tributaries. It was under the rule of the Incas, a parental despotism, which spread an iron network of laws over millions of subjects of different races and languages. Its mountain slopes, table-lands, sea-coasts, and plains comprised every variety of climate and almost every diversity of physical features. Its capital was Cuzco, where dwelt the adored Incas; there also was the famous Temple of the Sun, with its gorgeous decorations of gold and gems. Canals, aqueducts, complete systems of irrigation for the rainless regions; magnificent mountain roads, built to endure for centuries; fine textile fabrics, utensils of clay and copper, vessels and ornaments of silver and gold; bridges, fortresses, and edifices of a rude but massy and symmetrical architecture, well adapted to the climate and the needs of the inhabitants; armies, magistrates, courts of justice,—such were some of the tokens of a wide semi-civilized prosperity, which less than two hundred Spanish adventurers were proceeding ruthlessly to destroy.

With incredible difficulties still to overcome, Pizarro had in his favor a circumstance of immense importance. The country was at that time distracted by civil war. Two brothers, Huascar and Atahualpa, sons of the last Inca, were engaged in a fratricidal strife for the imperial power, and their armies were turned against each other.

Pizarro resolved to strike his first blow at Tumbez; but was constrained by baffling winds to put into the Bay St. Matthew. There he landed his force, and soon fell upon a peaceful village, putting the inhabitants to flight and pillaging their dwellings. A considerable treasure thus obtained was sent back to Panama, where it had the desired effect of rallying new recruits for the conquest. A most welcome reinforcement was headed by Hernando de Soto, afterwards famed as the discoverer of the Mississippi, who sailed to join Pizarro with one hundred men and a number of horses.

De Soto arrived in time to aid in extricating him from a harassing situation on the island of Puna. Pizarro had been so indiscreet as to get into a quarrel with the inhabitants, whom he had defeated in battle and slaughtered in large numbers, and from whose incessant attacks he was suffering great annoyance.

He now felt himself strong enough to invade the interior. The story of that invasion is one of the most astonishing in history. It has been many times told, but nowhere else so effectively as in the full, flowing, and lucid narrative of Prescott. It can be but briefly sketched here.

Having established near the sea-coast a settlement which he named San Miguel, to serve as a key of communication between him and his ships, Pizarro set out boldly on his march, having with him but one hundred and seventy-seven men, nine of whom showing signs of sinking courage, were soon sent back to the settlement. By pretences of a friendly mission to their Inca, he won his way among such of the surprised inhabitants as were not frightened from their villages by his approach; and penetrated the wild defiles of the Cordilleras, behind which, near Caxamalca—now Caxamarca—the Inca Atahualpa, with an immense army lay encamped. He was fresh from a great and decisive victory over his elder brother, and was resting, and enjoying the warm baths near the city,—the "baths of the Incas," as they are called to this day.

Instead of disputing the passage of the strangers in the mountain fortresses, and hurling destruction upon them from a thousand crags, the monarch sent to exchange gifts with them, and assurances of friendship; and awaited them in his camp, the pavilions of which whitened the wide hillsides for miles.

On a dull afternoon in November, 1532, Pizarro entered Caxamalca, and undismayed by the innumerable host that confronted him, went to pay a visit of courtesy to the Inca. He was gloomily received by Atahualpa, who chanced to be observing a fast, but who promised to return his visit on the following day.

Pizarro felt that a crisis in his audacious business was close at hand; and endured the deepest anxiety until late the next afternoon, that of November 16th, when, after long delays and apparent waverings on the part of the Inca, which severely tried the patience of the Spaniards lying in wait with their heavy armor on, he at length appeared, borne in a gorgeous palanquin, and accompanied by an immense and magnificent procession.

With ferocious satisfaction Pizarro beheld his august victim advancing to his doom. The procession entered the grand plaza of Caxamalca, on three sides of which, under cover of low buildings opening into it, spearmen and horsemen stood to their arms. Not a Spaniard was to be seen, until a priest with interpreters advanced to meet the monarch, and to confuse him with an astonishing harangue concerning the true faith and the supremacy of Spain. Pizarro saw that his opportunity had come. He waved his scarf; from the fortress sounded a signal-gun; and with fierce battle-cries the Spaniards rushed from all sides upon the Peruvians.

The shouts, the blaze and smoke of fire-arms, the terrible detonations, the sight of plunging horses and their riders, with the sudden fury of the onset, paralyzed with terror the multitude of unarmed attendants, who fell the victims of a horrible massacre. The Inca was seized and borne off a captive. And yet the pursuit and slaughter did not cease until thousands of the panic-stricken and defenceless Peruvians had been slain, and more prisoners had been taken than were required to provide every Spaniard with a retinue of servants.

Pizarro treated his captive with the consideration due to a great but fallen potentate; he granted him ample apartments, and the society of his favorite wives and nobles. He at the same time endeavored to save his soul, by enforcing upon his mind the truths of the Catholic faith. Atahualpa accepted with dignity the fortunes of war; and as a ransom offered to fill a large room in which he one day was, with vessels of gold, as high as he could reach. Pizarro agreed to the proposal, and by the Inca's orders messengers were despatched to Cuzco and other important cities of the empire, for the required booty.

This arrangement reached the ears of Huascar, then a prisoner in the hands of his younger brother's adherents; he thereupon sent word to the Spaniards that he would pay a much larger reward if they would espouse his cause and set him free. Unfortunately for both him and Pizarro, the offer reached the ears of Atahualpa, who secretly caused Huascar to be put to death.

The golden treasure soon began to come in, borne on the backs of Indians,—goblets, vases, salvers, massy plates and tiles from the walls of palaces and temples, and images of plants and animals. Some of these objects weighed individually several pounds; and the art displayed in their manufacture was often admirable. But they were all ruthlessly melted down into ingots, to be divided among the conquerors. Gold to the value of more than seventeen million dollars, measured by our modern standard, was thus secured, besides a vast amount of silver. Certainly no prince in all the world's history had ever paid such a ransom.

The treasure was a long while coming in; and Pizarro had ample time to consider how he should keep his part of the contract. He could never have had any intention of giving the Inca his liberty; nor was he deep enough in his craft to perceive the immense advantage he might gain by holding him a captive. He resolved upon his death. The unhappy prince was tried by a military court of his enemies, charged with the usurpation of the empire, with the murder of his brother, and with attempts to incite an insurrection against the Spaniards. He was condemned, received as a convert to the Catholic faith, baptized, and executed. This event occurred August 29, 1533.

Meanwhile Almagro had arrived with a much-needed reinforcement; and adventurers of all sorts, from Spain and her western colonies, soon began to flock to the newly opened land of gold. Pizarro marched upon Cuzco, which he took after a fierce battle, and pillaged of what gold had not been already removed for Atahualpa's ransom. He caused Manco Capae, a young prince of the royal blood, to be proclaimed Inca; drove him by his oppressions to revolt; and was besieged by him in Cuzco. The Peruvians assaulted the city in countless numbers, set fire to the houses with flaming arrows and red-hot stones, and might have starved or destroyed the Spaniards, had not they themselves been forced by starvation to raise the siege.

In June, 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors of these wrongs reached Spain, and a commissioner was sent out to inquire into them; but before his arrival Pizarro died by violence in his own Ciudad de los Reyes, "City of the Kings,"—now Lima,—which he had founded in 1535.

His death was worthy of his life. Attacked in his own house by the avengers of Almagro, he fought furiously, and cut down three of his assailants; but fell, overcome by numbers, and pierced by as many blades as met in the body of Caesar. His last word was "Jesu!" and his last act, to stoop and kiss the symbol of a cross which he traced with his finger on the bloody floor.

Thus lived and died one of the most extraordinary men of his time, indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose; avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it would command. He founded settlements and cities, and was lavish in his expenditures upon public works; no doubt ambitious of building up a new empire on the ruins of the one he had destroyed. But he exhibited none of the great qualities of a born ruler and lawgiver; in the coarseness of his moral nature, a swineherd to the last. He never married, but by a daughter of Atahualpa he had a daughter, who survived him. In his native town of Truxillo her descendants are still to be found, with the mingled blood of the conqueror and of the last of the Incas in their veins.

[Signature of the author.]



GASPARD DE COLIGNI

By PROFESSOR CREASY

(1517-1572)

]

There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the war of 1562.

The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Conde, he was proof against the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the

"Atrocem animam Catonis;"

but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness by which the character of Cato was deformed.

The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house, and was the seigneur of Chatillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he left three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in French history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines, though trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is known as the Cardinal de Chatillon, was raised to that high ecclesiastical dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the influence which his younger brother exerted over him, he became a convert to the tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took part in the early scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which his party sustained at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England, where he died in 1571. The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of the three who became a Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant soldier, and signalized himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his inexhaustible resources, and undaunted spirit, as a commander of the Huguenot forces from the first outbreak of the religious wars until his death soon after the battle of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great Coligni, or the Admiral (as he is often termed, from having held the titular office of Admiral of France), was the middle one of the three brothers, and was born at Chatillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He served with distinction in the later wars of Francis I. against Spain; and with his brother Dandelot received knighthood on the field of battle at Cerisoles. He was afterward raised to the important post of colonel-general of the French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by Henry II. Admiral of France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by the Spaniards, and underwent a long captivity in Spain before he regained his liberty by payment of a heavy ransom.

During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots, confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion, and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful; and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his co-religionists.

No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty threats, but were carried into execution throughout the land with unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the English Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality, by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and man.

Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war, soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted, and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise (known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Conde is to be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January, 1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal proceedings on the ground of religion.

This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.

Two powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which consisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Marechal St. Andre had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent, but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and favor, was the party of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici. Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise; and was often glad to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a counterpoise against them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons against the Princes of Lorraine was great, their hatred of the Huguenots was greater; and their occasional simulation of friendship enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.

They had sided with Coligni and Conde and the other Protestant chiefs in enacting the Edict of Pacification, and had thereby given a check to the power of the Duke of Guise and his confederates. But when their temporary purpose was served, the wise provisions of that edict were set at naught; the Protestants were again exposed to outrage and slaughter at the hands of their foes, nor could any redress be obtained from the royal tribunals. At length occurred the massacre of Vassi, where the armed followers of the Duke of Guise attacked a defenceless body of Protestants, while engaged in the services of their church, and slaughtered several hundreds of them under the eye of Guise, if not by his orders. Reeking from this carnage, the bands of the Lorraines entered Paris, where they were enthusiastically received by the fanatic populace, which was devoted to the Catholic cause.

Conde now left the capital, and summoned the Protestant nobility and gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed. Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who looked up to him for guidance and protection. Coligni urged on her and on the friends who thronged round him, the fearful risks of the enterprise, and his earnest desire to wait in patience for better times, and rest upon the public faith rather than justify persecution by having recourse to violence. Unconvinced and undaunted, the heroine renewed her entreaties to the lingering hero. She told him that such prudence was not wisdom toward God. D'Aubigne professes to report this remarkable conversation from the lips of those who were present; and he states that she proceeded to urge on him these words:—

"God has bestowed on you the genius of a great captain—will you refuse the use of it to his children? You have confessed to the justice of their cause—is not the knightly sword you bear pledged to the defence of the oppressed? Sir, my heart bleeds for our slaughtered brethren—and their blood cries out to God and Heaven against you as the murderer of those whom you might have saved."

"Since," replied the Admiral, "the reasons which I have this evening alleged against an ineffectual resistance have made so little impression upon your mind, lay your hand upon your heart and answer me this question, Could you, without murmuring against Providence and the husband to whom Heaven has united you, receive the news of a general defeat? Are you prepared to endure the opprobrium of your enemies—the reproaches of your friends—the treachery of partisans—the curses of the people—confiscation, flight, exile—the insolence of the English, the quarrels of the Germans—shame, nakedness, hunger—and, what is worse, to suffer all this in your children? Are you prepared to see your husband branded as a rebel and dragged to a scaffold; while your children, disgraced and ruined, are begging their bread at the hands of their enemies? I give you eight days to reflect upon it, and when you shall be well prepared for such reverses, I will be ready to set forward, and perish with you and our mutual friends."

"The eight days are already expired!" she cried. "Go, sir, where your duty calls you. Heaven will not give the victory to our enemies. In the name of God, I call upon you to resist no longer, but to save our brethren, or die in the attempt."

On the next morning Coligni was on horseback, with all his retainers round him; and with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, he rode on his way to join Conde at Meaux, which was now, in the early spring of 1562, the head-quarters of the insurgent Huguenots.

The high rank of the Prince of Conde, as well as his brilliant abilities and chivalrous courage, caused him to be acknowledged as chief of the Protestant party; but Coligni was looked on by friends and foes as the main pillar of their cause; and it was he that gave organization to the volunteers who flocked around himself and the prince, first at Meaux, and afterward in greater numbers at Orleans, when toward the end of March they succeeded in occupying that important city, and making it a centre of operations for the Huguenot confederacy. Like Cromwell in after times, Coligni relied on the religious enthusiasm as well as the natural bravery of his troops. He exercised them by preaching and prayer as well as by drilling and manoeuvring. He inspired them with his own spirit of austere devotion to their cause; and the Huguenot army was in its first campaigns as conspicuous for good order and morality as for valor; though by degrees it became tainted with a tendency to marauding and to brutal violence.

The Roman Catholic party now sought support from Philip II. of Spain, from the Duke of Savoy, the emperor and other foreign princes of their creed, and the Huguenots, to the deep regret of Coligni, were compelled to strengthen themselves by similar negotiations. The English queen, Elizabeth, promised succors in men and money, on condition of Havre (which city, like most of the other strong places in Normandy, was devoted to the Protestant cause) being placed in her power as a security for repayment. The German Lutheran princes permitted a large auxiliary force of lansquenets and heavy-armed cavalry to be raised among their subjects in behalf of the French Protestants; and Dandelot was despatched into Germany to place himself at their head, and lead them across the Rhine; a difficult operation, which he accomplished with great skill, and joined his brothers and Conde at Pluviers, near Orleans, late in the year, and at a crisis when the fortunes of the Protestant party appeared reduced to a very low ebb, as in the interval which had elapsed since the commencement of the war, though there had been no engagement between the main armies, the Royalists had gained numerous advantages, and had captured many towns, both in the South and in Normandy, which had originally declared for the insurgents.

Coligni and Conde with their own troops and their German allies now (December, 1562) marched upon Paris; but finding it hopeless to attempt the storm or siege of the capital, they led their army toward Normandy, desiring to form a junction with the English troops at Havre. The Royal forces, commanded nominally by the Constable Montmorenci and the Marechal de St. Andre, but in which the Duke of Guise was also present, marched for some days on their flank, till the two armies came into collision on December 19th at Dreux, where the first battle of the civil wars was fought. In this action, after many vicissitudes of fortune, the Duke of Guise secured the victory for the Roman Catholics, and Conde was taken prisoner. Coligni led the remains of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the Duke of Guise, at the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by their recent victory, soon advanced, with the intention of crushing insurrection and Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold.

Coligni's situation now seemed desperate. His German mercenaries in arrear of pay, threatened to desert him; the funds which he had been able to collect for the conduct of the war were exhausted; and he was utterly unable to encounter the numerous and well-appointed forces of Guise. In this emergency he formed the bold plan of leaving his brother, Dandelot, with the bulk of the infantry to defend Orleans, while he himself led the cavalry and a few companies of foot again to Normandy, and again attempted to avail himself of the English supplies of money and troops. In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power. Meanwhile Orleans had been well defended by Dandelot; and the great chief of the Roman Catholics, the Duke of Guise, had died by the hand of an assassin. Some attempts were made to implicate Coligni in the guilt of this murder, but the Admiral indignantly denied the charge; nor is there any ground for believing him to have had the least cognizance of Poltrot's crime.

The death of Guise made a temporary pacification easy; and the edict of Amboise, on March 19, 1563, by which a narrow and restricted permission for the exercise of the Protestant religion was allowed, closed the first war.

This peace on the part of the Royalists was only a hollow and a treacherous truce. Fresh communications with Philip II. were opened; and an interview took place in 1564 at Bayonne, between Catherine, her son Charles IX., and the Duke of Alva. There is every reason to believe that at that meeting the destruction of the Protestants by craft or by force was concerted. The treaty of Amboise was now openly and repeatedly violated by the fanatic party of the French Roman Catholics; and the Huguenots were again driven to take up arms in self-defence. Conde and Coligni advanced upon Paris, and fought on November 10, 1567, the sanguinary battle of St. Denys against the Royalist forces. The Huguenots were beaten, but Coligni rallied them, and marching toward the Meuse, effected a junction with fresh bands of German auxiliaries. The war now raged with redoubled horror in every district of France. Alarmed at the strength of the Huguenot army, Catherine tried and successfully exerted her powers of persuasion and deceit over Conde, and a second faithless peace, called the treaty of Longjumeau, was concluded; but when the Huguenot forces were disbanded, and their German auxiliaries dismissed, the Royalists renewed the war.

In 1569, the indiscreet spirit of Conde brought the Protestants into action at Jarnac, under heavy disadvantages, against the flower of the Catholic army. Conde was killed in the battle, and a large part of his forces routed with heavy slaughter; but Coligni was again the Ajax of the cause, covered the retreat, and reorganized the fugitives for fresh exertions. But the waves of calamity were not yet spent. The hostile armies met again at Moncontour, and the Protestants sustained the most complete and murderous overthrow that had been dealt to them throughout the war. Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of the gallant army that he had lately led.

But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his soul was seen. Fearless himself of what man could do unto him, he calmed the panic of his followers, and inspired them with his own energy. He who has innate strength to stand amid the storm, will soon find others flock around and fortify him while they seek support for themselves. When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying, the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong tower in the midst of trouble. While the Royalists were exulting at the fancied annihilation of their foe, they suddenly learned that Coligni was approaching the capital, at the head of the largest army that the Huguenots had yet sent into the field. Again the device of a treacherous pacification was attempted, and again it prevailed. Coligni was warned of the personal danger that he incurred by trusting the faith of a Medici and a Guise; but he replied that he would rather lay down his life, than see France continue the victim of the woes of civil war.

The treaty of St. Germains was signed on August 8, 1570, and on August 24, 1572, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew attested with what worse than Punic faith the crowned conspirators of the French Court had planned it. In the interval, the most detestable and elaborate hypocrisy was employed to lull the suspicions of the Huguenot chiefs, and to bring them defenceless into the power of their enemies. At last, in the summer of 1572, they were collected in Paris, under the pretence of being the honored guests of the French king, at the nuptials of his sister with Henry of Navarre. An attempt was made on the life of Coligni by an assassin, in which the Admiral was severely wounded. The king and his courtiers affected the utmost indignation at this crime, and the warmest sympathy with the suffering veteran. But in the early dawn of the day appointed for the most unchristian carnage that ever defiled the earth, a party of murderers, headed by the young Duke of Guise himself, broke open the doors of the house where Coligni lay, and Besme, one of the duke's domestics, entered with a drawn sword, into the room where the Admiral was sitting in an arm-chair.

"Young man," said he, undisturbed, "you ought to respect my gray hairs; but do as you please, you can only shorten my life a few days."

Besme thrust him through in many places, and then threw his body, still breathing, out of the window into the court, where it fell at the feet of the Duke of Guise. The minions of the Louvre flocked around in hideous glee, to insult the lifeless form of him, before whom they had so long quailed and trembled. They gibbeted their own infamy in vainly seeking to dishonor the illustrious dead. His memory is at once the glory and the shame of France: and the very land of the St. Bartholomew is, to some extent, hallowed by having been the birthplace of Coligni, and the scene of his heroic career.

I do not pause to describe the tardy homage which his countrymen afterward paid to the name and relics of the fallen great. These obsequies and panegyrics may be looked on as some small expiation for the national guilt of France, but Coligni needed them not.



HENRY IV. OF FRANCE

(1553-1610)

]

Henry IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in spite of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at Pau, the capital of Bearn, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and in right of his wife, titular king of Navarre, and Jeanne d'Albert, the heiress of that kingdom. On the paternal side he traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son of Louis IX., and thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became heir to the crown of France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the Protestant faith, he was for many years the rallying point and leader of the Huguenots. In boyhood the prince of Bearn displayed sense and spirit above his years. Early inured to war, he was present and exhibited strong proofs of military talent at the battle of Jarnac, and that of Moncontour, both fought in 1569. In the same year he was declared chief of the Protestant League. The treaty of St. Germain, concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the Huguenots the civil rights for which they had been striving; and, in appearance, to cement the union of the two parties, a marriage was proposed between Henry, who, by the death of his mother, had just succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. This match brought Conde, Coligni, and all the leaders of their party, to Paris. The ceremony took place August 17, 1572, and a week later came the massacre of St. Bartholomew. For three years afterward Henry, who to save his life had conformed to the established religion, was kept as a kind of state-prisoner. He escaped in 1576, and put himself at the head of the Huguenot party. In the war which ensued, with the sagacity and fiery courage of the high-born general, he showed the indifference to hardships of the meanest soldier. Content with the worst fare and meanest lodging, in future times the magnificent monarch of France could recollect when his wardrobe could not furnish him with a change of linen. He shared all fortunes with his followers, and was rewarded by their unbounded devotion.

Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the rightful owner of the French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League was strong in force against him: he had few friends, few fortresses, no money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for the scantiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood the Duc de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand, and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This extraordinary result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than Mayenne lost at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth, but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. "You are right," said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I have always five hours' start of him." Henry got up at four in the morning, and Mayenne about ten.

The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the Leaguers commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers. On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before the battle: "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white plume; you will always find it in the path of honor and glory." Nor is his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: "Spare the French!"

Paris was soon blockaded, but the Parliament swore on the Gospels, in the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to refuse all proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such extremities, and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of human bones ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the capital, where two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was owing to his own lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than gain possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed his own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this paternal kindness he lost the fruit of his labors to himself; but he also prolonged the civil war, and the calamities of the kingdom at large.

The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the duke, satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement, and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succors from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen; but his prey was again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered and declined; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a bridge of boats; a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to be impossible. The duke once said of his adversary, that other generals made war like lions or wild boars; but that Henry hovered over it like an eagle.

During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The Catholics of the king's party began to complain of his perseverance in Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion, especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in the Roman Church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at St. Denis, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human tribunal; politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most beneficial steps ever taken toward the pacification and renewal of prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had just been received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the throat by John Chatel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore was banished by the Parliament.

For two years after his ostensible conversion, the king was obliged daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance; and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their submission; but the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people, and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, were the last to protract an unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of conscience to the former; a measure which was admitted to be necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road to Brittany, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely compromise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but to no purpose; the Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of the state and the prosperity of the Church must be inseparable. At the same time he endeavored to convince the bigots among the priesthood on both sides, that the love of country and the performance of civil and political duties may be completely reconciled with difference of worship.

But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry, without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny, best known as the Duke de Sully, who probably suggested many of his wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of pleasure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned temperament of Henry; it was love that most frequently prevailed over the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees became the absolute mistress of his heart; and he entertained hopes of obtaining permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Valois, from whom he had long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he contemplated the dangerous project of marrying the favorite; but her death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. The sentence of divorce, so long solicited, was at last granted, and the king married Mary de Medici, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match, however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.

While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against the king. Henriette d'Entragues, another favorite, not only exasperated the Queen's peevish humor against him, but was ungrateful enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. Spite of the many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was continually surrounded with traitors and assassins; almost every year produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon of a misguided enthusiast.

Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians to have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition, but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. Whatever may have been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army, provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation from his faithful minister. He was on his way to pay a visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angouleme. This calamitous event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe, were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his "History of Henry the Great," says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with the thought, history answers that she does not know; and that in so mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their shoulders."

The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight, discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The house of Austria, Mary de Medici his wife, Henriette d'Entragues his mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by personal influence.

Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medici. Of no prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and of easy access. Among them stands out prominently the tale of the Spanish ambassador who to his astonishment, found Henry on the floor playing hobby-horse for his children. "Are you a father?" asked Henry, looking up without any apparent embarrassment. "Yes, your majesty." "Then we will finish our game," said the king. And he did so, before taking up his business with the ambassador.

The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a lofty, generous, forgiving temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qualities, wins the affection of those who come within its sphere: it does not exhibit high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor, Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better man; yet we doubt whether in that case his memory would have been cherished with such enthusiastic attachment by his countrymen.



SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

(1540-1596)

]

Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted; with respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, the annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden, on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry bestowed his bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its color to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language of the biographer Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," "Mr. Drake was persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch."

In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies, apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board; so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the daring and success of the assailants.