A few hours elapsed, and the sound of a trumpet echoed through the plague-stricken and half-deserted camp. It was the note of Charles of Naples, whose fleet had just arrived off the coast. Meeting with no response, he rode rapidly toward the tent of the king, and on entering saw his body lying still warm upon the ashes. The rites of burial were not performed with the usual formalities, his remains being distributed among his relatives. The flesh was kept by Charles, who buried it, on his return to Sicily, in the great Abbey of Monreale, at Palermo. The bones and other parts were conveyed back to France. Those who have visited Paris will not forget the exquisite Gothic structure known as the "Sainte Chapelle," which is attached to the Palais de Justice, containing the courts of law. It was erected by Louis as a receptacle for certain supposed relics of Christ. The windows of the chapel are entirely composed of stained glass, and as the sunbeams strike upon them, their tints of crimson, blue, and orange blend into a rainbow-like harmony of glowing and lustrous color, which recalls the heart of Louis IX., enshrined within those walls, as its fitting human antitype. He was canonized about thirty years afterward, under the title of St. Louis.



MARCO POLO[7]

[Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By NOAH BROOKS

(1256-1324)



In the month of November, in the year 1295, there appeared in the beautiful city of Venice three strangers, who were clothed in an outlandish and shabby garb of a Tartar cut. They claimed to be of Venice, but, according to one of their biographers, one Ramusio, "through the many worries and anxieties they had undergone, they were quite changed in aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack of the Tartar both in air and accent, having, indeed, all but forgotten their Venetian tongue." They went to the house of the Polo family, demanding entrance and claiming to be Nicolo Polo, Maffeo, his brother, and Marco, son of the elder of the two brothers, Nicolo. They were laughed to scorn as pretenders and impostors; for the three missing members of the Polo family had been gone away from Venice some twenty-odd years; it was in 1271 that the Polos were last heard from, then at Acre, journeying into the Far East.

But the three somehow gained access to their own house, then in the possession of one of their relations. And the news of their home-coming was presently noised abroad throughout the city of Venice; so much so that the people for days talked of little else save the reappearance in the land of the living of the long-lost travellers. Many, however, doubted if these really were the brothers Polo and young Marco; this last was a mere lad of seventeen when he went away, and now was grown to be a portly man of forty-odd years. So incredulous were the townsfolk that the brothers hit upon a scheme to convince the doubting ones. They made a grand feast to which all the gentry were invited, for the Polo family were of noble birth and had held station in the state. The entertainment was served in great splendor with gold and silver dishes, and the three travellers, when they sat down, were dressed in robes of the richest crimson satin flowing down to the ground. After some of the courses had been eaten, they retired to their chamber and came forth again dressed in other robes of crimson silk damask, very rich, and the satin garments were cut up and divided among the servants. Again, later on in the repast, they retired, and when they came again to the table they wore other robes, of the richest crimson velvet, and the second garments were cut up and divided as the others had been. When the dinner was over they took off the velvet robes, and these were disposed of in like manner. "These proceedings," says the honest Ramusio, "caused much wonder and amazement among the guests," which we can well imagine.

Next, dismissing all the servants, the younger one of the three, Marco Polo, went to an inner chamber and brought forth to the table the coarse and shabby dresses in which the three had arrived in Venice. Then, taking sharp knives, the travellers ripped open the seams and welts of the garments, and shook from them a vast profusion of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, emeralds, and other precious stones. The guests were dumfounded and amazed. "And now," says Ramusio, "they recognized that in spite of all former doubts, these were in truth those honored and worthy gentlemen of the Casa Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest honor and reverence." Furthermore, we are told that when the story got wind in Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to embrace the three travellers, and to make much of them with every conceivable demonstration of affection and respect.

This was the wonderful home-coming of the three Polos, who for twenty-four years had been wandering in the East, and who, when they set out on their homeward journey, a journey beset with untold difficulties and dangers, took the precaution to conceal in their garments, as above told, the wealth which they had accumulated while they were at the court of the Great Khan of Tartary. It reads like a romance, a story out of "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments." But it is all true, and the archives of Venice corroborate pretty nearly all the details herein set forth. Indeed, as a prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his own kindred, it must be said that the later generation of Venetians found less difficulty in believing the tales of the three travellers than did those who first heard them. In telling these tales, they had frequent occasion to use the word "millions," a word not then common among the Venetians, as to say that the Great Khan had revenues amounting to ten or fifteen millions of gold, and so on. And the people gave Marco, who seems to have been the story-teller of the party, the nickname of Messer Marco Millioni. Curiously enough, this name appears in the public records of old Venice.

Of the final exit of the elders of the Polo family, Nicolo and Maffeo, we have no trustworthy account. As they were well stricken in years when they returned from their long sojourn in Cathay, we may suppose that they did not live long after their return to Venice. But the younger Marco had a busy and stirring life. At that time the republics of Venice and Genoa were rivals for the ruling of the seas and the monopoly of maritime trade everywhere. A Venetian galley could not meet one from Genoa without a fight, and the fleets of the two states were continually at war.

Marco, being one of the representatives of the noble Venetian families who were required to come to the support of the state with at least one galley, entered the naval service of Venice in command of a war galley, and was engaged in the great battle between Venice and Genoa near Curzola, off the Dalmatian coast, in 1298, three years after his return from Cathay. The Venetians were beaten ignominiously, and 7,000 of them were taken prisoners and carried to Genoa. It was a lucky thing for the world that Marco Polo was thus put into enforced idleness, and that he had for a companion in confinement an educated gentleman, one Rusticiano, of Pisa. Otherwise, most likely we never would have heard of the travels of Marco Polo, whom some of the later chroniclers have likened to Columbus, the discoverer of America.

To beguile the tedium of their imprisonment, Marco was wont to tell his traveller's tales to his companion, Rusticiano, and this worthy gentleman conceived the notion of writing out the marvellous adventures and observations of his fellow-prisoner. We must bear in mind that the Italian gentry of that time did not hold in high esteem the art of writing, and although Marco was not inferior to any man in daring or adventurousness, he was willing to leave to the scriveners the task of writing about such matters. But, in the end, the advice of Rusticiano prevailed, and the Pisan gentleman set down from the dictation of Marco "The Book of Ser Marco Polo Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East." This was, up to that time, the most important book of travels and voyages ever written. Indeed, it was the most important book of any kind written during the Middle Ages.

The book contributed more new facts toward a knowledge of the earth's surface, says one skilled authority, than any book that had been written before. The writer was the first to describe China, or Cathay, in its vastness of territory, its wonderfully rich and populous cities, and the first to tell of Tartary, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, Cochin-China, the Indian Archipelago, the Andaman Islands, of Java and Sumatra, of the fabled island of Cipangu, or Japan, of Hindustan, and that marvellous region which the world learned to know as Farther India. From far-voyaging sailors he brought home accounts of Zanzibar and Madagascar, and the semi-Christian country of Abyssinia, where some accounts located that mysterious potentate called Prester John. He had traversed Persia and had picked up a vast amount of information concerning the country of Siberia, with its polar snows and bears, its dog-sledges, and its almost everlasting winter. He traversed the entire length of Asia.

Surely, Europe might well be dazed when this account of regions, until then unknown, was unrolled before the scholars and explorers who could read the few precious books then in circulation. For it should be remembered that the art of printing was then unknown, and only in manuscript did any book make its appearance. Rusticiano wrote in a very poor sort of French; for then, as now, that language was commonest in all the cities of Europe. How much of the language of the book of Marco Polo's travels was Marco's, and how much was the worthy Rusticiano's, we are unable to decide. The facts in that famous book were duly vouched for by Marco. The opening chapter, or prologue, inflated and wordy, after the fashion of the times, was undoubtedly Rusticiano's. He began thus: "Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses! and People of all degree who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak, particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with his own eyes."

This portentous prologue ends with these great swelling words: "And I may tell you that in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the World good six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano, of Pisa, who was in the same Prison likewise, to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 from the birth of Jesus."

One year later, in the summer of 1299, Marco Polo was set at liberty and returned to Venice, where he died peacefully in 1324. His last will and testament, dated January 9, 1323, is preserved among the archives of Venice, and a marble statue in his honor was set up by the Venetians, in the seventeenth century, and may be seen unto this day in the Palazzo Morosini-Gattemburg, in the Campo S. Stefano of that city.

How came Marco Polo to be drawn so far into the vague and shadowy East? Somewhere about the middle of the thirteenth century, certain members of the Polo family had established a trading-house in Constantinople, then pretty near the end of the world from Europe. These adventurous Venetians, in 1260, sent the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo, still further to the eastward on a trading journey to the Crimea. Led on by one adventure and another, and lured by the hope of new and greater gains, they ascended the Volga northward and eastward, crossed Bokhara, and finally broke into one of the northwestern provinces of China, or Cathay, then faintly known in Europe by various names, the most classic of which was Seres.

Here they made their way to the capital city of the Great Mongol Empire, the seat of government where ruled the Great Khan, a very mighty potentate, Kublai Khan, grandson of the famous conqueror, Ghenghis Khan. Kublai Khan resided at the wonderful city of Cambuluc, which we now know as Pekin. North of the Great Wall, and some one hundred and eighty miles from Cambuluc, was the Great Khan's summer palace, one of the wonders of the world, reading of which in Purchas' account of Marco Polo's travels, it is said that Coleridge fell asleep and dreamed the famous poem beginning:

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea."

These Polo brothers were the first Europeans that the Great Khan had ever seen; but before this time, Friar Plano Carpini, in 1246, and Friar William Rubruquis, in 1253, had penetrated into Mongolia on some errand not now distinctly understood, but far enough to learn that a great and civilized country existed somewhere in the eastern extremity of Asia. They also learned that beyond this extremity of the continent there was a sea; people had until then believed that the eastern end of Asia disappeared in a vast and reedy bog, beyond which was deep and impenetrable darkness. More exact knowledge of that far eastern sea was subsequently acquired by the Venetian travellers. From these wandering friars the Great Khan had heard, at second-hand, doubtless, of European princes, potentates, and powers, and of the Pope of Rome.

He was mightily taken with the noble Venetians, and we are told that he treated them with every courtesy and consideration. He was anxious to secure through them the aid of the Sovereign Pontiff, of whose functions he entertained high respect, in the civilizing of the hordes that had lately been added to the Mongol Empire by wars of conquest. And he entreated the good offices of the polished and cultivated Venetians in securing for him the good offices of the Pope for that end. Accordingly, the two brothers, after satisfying to some degree their curiosity, set out for home, full of tales of their strange adventure, we doubt not; and they reached Venice in 1269, only to find that the Pope Clement IV. was dead, and that no successor had been chosen in his place.

There was a long interregnum, and the brothers, taking with them the son of Nicolo, the young Marco, then a stout lad, began to retrace their steps to Cathay, despairing of being able to enlist the one hundred priests which the Great Khan had asked them to borrow for missionary purposes from the Pope.

At Acre, then held by European powers that had been engaged in the crusades for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, they took counsel with one Tebaldo Visconti, an eminent prelate, who was Archdeacon of Liege and a person of great consequence in the Eastern church. At their request, he wrote letters to the Great Khan, authenticating the causes of their failure to fulfil the wishes of the Khan in the matter of obtaining the missionaries whom he desired. Then they pushed on toward the farther East, and while waiting for a vessel to sail from the port of Ayas, on the Gulf of Scanderoon, then the starting-point for the Asiatic trade, they were overtaken by the news that their friend the Archdeacon Tebaldo had been chosen Pope, under the title of Gregory X. They at once returned to Acre, and were able to present to the newly elected pontiff the request of the Great Khan and get a reply. But instead of one hundred teachers and preachers, they were furnished with only two Dominican friars; and these lost heart and drew back before the journey was fairly begun. It may be said here that the Great Khan, being disappointed by the Roman Church, subsequently applied to the Grand Llama of Thibet, and from that source secured the teachers whom he so greatly desired. The Great Khan appears to have been an enlightened and liberal sovereign, and, according to his lights, was willing to furnish to his people the best form of religion that was to be had. He preferred the religion of the elegant and polished Italians, but, failing to get this, he naturally turned his eyes in the direction of Thibet, then an unknown land to all Europeans, but regarded in Mongolia as a region of some considerable civilization.

The three members of the Polo family finally set out on their return to Cathay, leaving Acre in November, 1271. They proceeded by the way of Ayas and Sivas to Mardin, Mosul, and Bagdad to Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Here they met with some obstacle and turned from Hormuz, and traversed successively Kerman and Khorassan, Balkh, and Badakhshan, by the way of the upper Oxus, to the plateau of Pamir; thence crossing the steppes of Pamir, the three travellers descended upon Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand and Khotan to the vicinity of Lake Lob; and, crossing the desert of Gobi, they reached the province of Tangut in the extreme northwestern corner of China, or Cathay. Skirting the northern frontier, they finally reached the actual presence of the Great Khan, who was then at his summer palace of Kaipingfu, before spoken of, situated at the base of the Khingan Mountains, fifty miles north of the Great Wall. One may form some idea of the difficulties of Asiatic travel in those days, as well as the leisurely habits of the time, by considering that this journey occupied the three Venetians three years and a half. They arrived at the palace of the Khan about May, 1275.

The Polos were very cordially and gladly received by the potentate, then ruling over a territory so vast that it has been well said that, "In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia to the Amoor and the Yellow Sea." Kublai Khan regarded the young Marco with especial favor, and soon began to employ him in errands and commissions of importance. "The Young Bachelor," as he is called in his book, took pains to acquire at once an acquaintance with the Chinese alphabet, and to learn the languages and dialects of the countries in which he found profitable and interesting employment.

It appears that the Khan had been greatly annoyed by the stupidity of his own officials and agents. They attended only to the errands on which they were sent, and brought back absolutely no knowledge of the distant countries that they visited, except that which they were specially directed to fetch. Very different was the conduct of the young Venetian. He was shrewdly observant, of a lively disposition, and given to inquiring into the strange and wonderful things which he beheld in those remote parts of the world, hitherto secluded from the observation of Europeans. He made copious and minute notes of all that he saw and heard, for the benefit of his imperial master. These notes afterward served him a good purpose, as we shall see; for they were the basis of the book that has made the name of Marco Polo famous throughout the world. When he returned to the imperial court, we can imagine the satisfaction with which the picturesque and intelligent narrations of what he had seen and heard were received by the Great Khan.

In the records of the Mongol dynasty has been found a minute setting forth the fact that a certain Polo, undoubtedly young Marco, was nominated a second-class commissioner attached to the privy council of the Empire, in the year 1277. His first mission appears to have taken him on public business to the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, Sechuen and Yunnan, in the southern and southwestern part of China, and east of Thibet. Even now, those regions are comparatively unknown to the rest of the world; and one must needs admire the intrepidity of the young Venetian who penetrated their wild mountain fastnesses, traced their mighty rivers, and carried away for the delight of the Great Khan, much novel information concerning the peoples that so numerously flourished in that cradle of the human race.

In his book Marco Polo does not greatly magnify himself and his office, and it is only incidentally, as it were, that we know that he was for three years governor of the great city of Yangchau. Following the details laid down in his book, the accuracy of which we have no reason to doubt, we find him visiting the old capital of the Khans, in Mongolia, employed in Southern Cochin-China, and on a mission to the Indian Seas, when he visited some of the states of India, of which Europeans at that time had only dimly heard the most fabulous and vague accounts. That the Polos were all favorites of the Great Khan is sufficiently evident; but it does not appear that any but Marco was in the employment of the Khan. All three of them doubtless made hay while the sun shone, and gathered wealth as they could, trading with the people and making use of their Venetian shrewdness in dealing with the natives, who were no match for the cunning traders from the Rialto.

Naturally, they longed to carry their wealth and their aged heads—for the two elders were now well stricken in years—safely back to their beloved Venice on the Adriatic, so far away. But Kublai Khan would not listen to any of their suggestions, and turned a deaf ear to their hints. A happy chance intervened to bring them out of the wild, mysterious realm of the Great Khan. Arghun, Khan of Persia, a great-nephew of Kublai, had lost by death his favorite wife, who was of one of the Mongol tribes, and who, dying in 1286, laid a parting injunction on the Khan that he should wed none but a Mongol princess. Sorely mourning her, the Persian Khan sent an embassy to the court of Kublai Khan to solicit a suitable bride for him. The Lady Kuchachin, a damsel of seventeen, beautiful and virtuous, was selected by the Court and was made ready to be sent to Tabriz, then the capital of the Persian Empire. The overland journey was highly dangerous, as it lay through regions tenanted by hostile and warlike tribes, besides being portentously long to be undertaken by a delicate young princess. The Persian envoys, accordingly, entreated the Great Khan to send with them by sea the three foreigners, of whose seamanship they undoubtedly held high opinion, especially as the young Marco had just returned from his distant and venturous voyage to the Indian Seas. With much reluctance the Khan consented, and the argosy set forth.

Having given leave for the three Venetians to sail, the Great Khan fitted them out nobly and endowed them with handsome presents at parting. They sailed, so far as we can now make out, from the port of Zayton, better known as Chinchau, in Fokien, at the beginning of the year 1292, two hundred years before Columbus set forth upon his voyage across the Ocean Sea.

It was an ill-starred and unfortunate voyage for the three Polos and their precious charge, although all escaped with their lives and treasure. They were detained five months on the coast of Sumatra, and there were even longer detentions off the southern coast of India, so that more than two years had passed since their departure from Fokien, when they arrived at the camp of the then reigning prince of Persia. The Khan of Persia, they found, had died before they set sail from China, and his son, Ghazan Khan, reigned in his stead.

After the custom of the times and the people, however, the princess was married without ado to the successor of the royal person to whom she had been betrothed before leaving far-off Cathay. It is related that she took her leave of the three noble Venetians, to whom she had become like a daughter and sister, with many tears and protestations of affection; for they had been very choice in their care of her, and she lamented their departure with sincere sorrow and many tears.

Leaving the princess at the camp of the Khan (for he was now at war), the Venetians pushed on to Tabriz, where they made a long halt, resting and refreshing themselves after their long and wearisome journey. Then they again took up their line of march westward, and reached Venice, as we have seen, in November, 1295, only to find their identity denied and their stories disbelieved, until, by an artifice, they made themselves truly known to their fellow-townsmen, who had long since given them up for dead.

Marco Polo's book, dictated by him in prison, is remarkable for its reserve and its scantiness of all semblance of ornament in its literary style. Messer Marco evidently did not greatly affect the arts and graces of fine writing. Like most of the Italian gentlefolk of his day and generation, he held the business of writing in low esteem. Some of his chapters are very brief indeed, the text being no greater in bulk than the headings which his amanuensis put over them of his own motion. Of the original manuscript, written in French, copies were made for the use of the learned, the art of printing being as yet not invented. There are now in existence no less than eighty of these manuscripts, in various languages, more or less differing from each other in unimportant details; but all substantially verifying the facts of the wonderful history of Messer Marco Polo as here set forth. The most precious of these is known as the Geographical text, and is preserved in the great Paris Library; from it was printed, in 1824, one of the most valued of the texts now in existence. But the most useful and satisfactory of all the printed editions is that edited and annotated by Colonel Henry Yule, and printed in London in 1871. The first printed edition of Marco Polo's book was in the German text, and was published in 1477.

Many writers have dwelt long on the question, Did Columbus gather any information from the book of Marco Polo that aided him in forming his theory, that one could reach India and Cathay by sailing westward from Spain out into the Sea of Darkness? We cannot satisfactorily answer that question. But we do know that all Europe, at the time of Marco Polo's adventurous journey eastward, resolutely turned its back upon the Atlantic, and looked toward Cathay and the Far Orient for a road to the fabulous diamond mines and spice islands that were believed to exist somewhere in the vague and mysterious East. Many philosophers, among whom was Columbus himself, thought the globe much smaller than it really is; but it was Columbus who was apparently charged with a divine mission to teach the world that sailing due westward from the Pillars of Hercules would bring the voyager to the dominions of Prester John, the Indies, and Cipangu.

When Columbus set sail for his hazardous venture into the Sea of Darkness, he was armed with letters to Prester John, the traditional Christian prince of the Far East; and his first landfall, as we know now, was by him supposed to be an outlying portion of that vast region vaguely known to the explorers who followed Marco Polo, as Farther India. But centuries rolled away before the world saw the facts of geography as we know them, or learned to accept as true the marvellous stories of Marco Polo, whose priceless legacy was first dimly known to the few, and was dubbed the Romance of the Great Khan.

[Signature: Noah Brooks.]



SIR WILLIAM WALLACE

(1270-1305)

The life and exploits of this most popular national hero of the Scots have been principally preserved in a legendary form by poetry and tradition, and are only to a very small extent matter of contemporary record, or illustrated by authentic documents. There is no extant Scottish chronicler of the age of Wallace. Fordun, the earliest of his countrymen from whom we have any account of him, is his junior by nearly a century. Wyntoun, the next authority, is still half a century later. His chief celebrator is the metrical writer Blind Harry, or Harry the Minstrel, whose work confesses itself by its very form to be quite as much of a fiction as a history, and whose era, at any rate, is supposed to be nearly two centuries subsequent to that of his hero. Some few facts, however, may be got out of the English annalists Trivet and Hemingford, who were the contemporaries of Wallace.



There are contradictory statements of the year of his birth, but it is probable he was born about 1270. His family was one of some distinction, and he is said to have been the younger of the two sons of Sir Malcolm Wallace, of Elderslie and Auchinbothie, in the neighborhood of Paisley. His mother, who according to one account was Sir Malcolm's second wife, is stated by the genealogists to have been Margaret, daughter of Sir Raynald or Reginald (other authorities say Sir Hugh) Crawford, who held the office of Sheriff of Ayr.

The history of Wallace down to the year 1297 is entirely legendary, and only to be found in the rhymes of Harry the Minstrel; though many of the facts which Harry relates still live as popular traditions in the localities where the scenes of them are laid, whether handed down in that way from the time when they happened, or only derived from his poem, which long continued to be the literary favorite of the Scottish peasantry. Harry, who, it may be observed, professes to translate from a Latin account written by Wallace's intimate friend and chaplain, John Blair, makes him to have been carefully educated by his uncle, a wealthy churchman who resided at Dunipace, in Stirlingshire, and to have been afterward sent to the grammar-school of Dundee. Here his first memorable act is said to have been performed; his slaughter of the son of Selby, the English governor of the castle of Dundee, in chastisement of an insult offered him by the unwary young man; Wallace with his dagger struck him dead on the spot. This must have happened, if at all, in the year 1291, after Edward I. of England had obtained possession of all the places of strength throughout Scotland on his recognition as Lord Paramount by the various competitors for the crown, which had become vacant by the death of the infant Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, in September, 1290.

This bold deed committed by Wallace, who in making his escape is asserted to have laid several of young Selby's attendants as low as their master, was immediately followed by his outlawry. He now took to the woods, and gifted as he was with eloquence, sagacity, and other high mental powers and accomplishments (to this the testimony of Fordun is as express and explicit as that of his poetical biographer), not less than with strength and height of frame and all other personal advantages, he soon found himself at the head of a band of attached as well as determined followers, who under his guidance often harassed the English soldiery, both on their marches and at their stations, plundering and slaying, as it might chance, with equally little remorse. Particular spots in nearly every part of Scotland are still famous for some deed of Wallace and his fellow-outlaws, performed at this period of his life; but for these we must refer to the Blind Minstrel. The woods in the neighborhood of Ayr would seem to have been his chief haunt; and some of his most remarkable feats of valor were exhibited in that town, in the face and in defiance of the foreign garrison by which it was occupied. Both his father and his elder brother are said to have fallen in rencontres with the English during this interval. It was now also that he fell in love with the orphan daughter of Sir Hew de Bradfute, the heiress of Lamington, having, it is said, first seen her at a church in the neighborhood of Lanark. The Scotch writers affirm that this lady, whom he appears to have married, and who at any rate bore him a daughter, a year or two after forming her connection with Wallace fell into the hands of his enemies, and was barbarously executed by order of Hazelrig, the English Sheriff or Governor of Lanark, while her husband, or lover, was doomed to witness the spectacle from a place where he lay in concealment. Such private injuries were well fitted to raise his hatred to an unextinguishable flame.

How far the guerilla warfare maintained by Wallace and his associates contributed to excite and spread the spirit of resistance to the English government, we have scarcely the means of judging; but it seems probable that it aided materially in producing the general insurrection which broke out in the spring of 1297. The accounts we have of the commencement of that movement represent Wallace at its head, in command of a considerable force, and in association with some of the most distinguished persons in the kingdom, such as the Steward of Scotland and his brother, Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, Sir William Douglas, etc. Soon after this he was joined by the younger Robert Bruce (afterward King Robert I.) who had hitherto, as well as his father, who was still alive (the son of the original competitor for the crown), professed to adhere to the English king.

This, however, appears to have been but an ill-cemented confederacy. When the force despatched by Edward to quell the revolt presented itself before the Scottish army posted near Irvine, in Ayrshire, the leaders of the latter, throwing off the authority of their nominal chief, could no more agree what to do than whom to obey: and the result was that Bruce, the Steward, Douglas, and others of them, availing themselves of the diplomatic talents of the Bishop of Glasgow, concluded a treaty on July 9th, by which they agreed to acknowledge Edward as their sovereign lord. All the rest ultimately acceded to this arrangement, except only Wallace and his friend, Sir Andrew Moray, of Bothwell. The treaty of Irvine, which is printed by Rymer, is, we believe, the first of the few public documents in which mention is made of Wallace; to the instrument (which is in French) are subjoined the words, "Escrit a Sir Willaume," the meaning of which Lord Hailes conceives to be, "that the barons had notified Wallace that they had made terms of accommodation for themselves and their party." The words, moreover, on the supposition that they refer to Wallace, of which there seems to be little doubt, show that he had before this date obtained the honor of knighthood. It had probably been bestowed upon him (as was then customary) by some other knight, one of his companions in arms, since his elevation from being the captain of a band of outlaws to be the commander-in-chief of the national forces.

Wallace now retired to the north, carrying with him, however, a considerable body of adherents, to whom additional numbers rapidly gathered, so that he soon found himself in a condition to recommence aggressive operations. Directing his force to the northeastern coast, he surprised the castle of Dunottar, cleared Aberdeen, Forfar, Brechin, and other towns of their English garrisons, and then laid siege to the castle of Dundee. While he was engaged in this last attempt, news was brought that the English army was approaching Stirling; upon which, leaving the siege to be carried on by the citizens of Dundee, he hastened to meet the enemy in the field. The result was the complete defeat and rout of the English, at the battle of Stirling Bridge, fought on September 11, 1297—a battle which once more, for the moment, liberated Scotland. The English were immediately driven or fled from every place of strength in the country, including Berwick itself.

Availing himself of this panic and of the exhilaration of his countrymen, Wallace pursued the fugitives across the border; and putting himself at the head of a numerous force, he entered England on October 18th, and, remaining till November 11th, wasted the country with fire and sword from sea to sea, and as far south as to the walls of Newcastle. It was during this visitation that the prior and convent of Hexham obtained from him the protection preserved by Hemingford. It is dated at Hexildesham (Hexham), November 7th, and runs in the names of "Andreas de Moravia, et Wilhelmus Wallensis, duces exercitus Scotiae, nomine praeclari principis Joannis, Dei gratia, Regis Scotia illustris, de consensu communitatis regni ejusdem," that is, "Andrew Moray and William Wallace, commanders-in-chief of the army of Scotland, in the name of King John, and by consent of the community of the said kingdom." The John here acknowledged as King of Scotland was Baliol, now in the hands of Edward, and living in a sort of free custody in the Tower of London. Wallace's associate in the command was the young Sir Andrew Moray, son of his faithful friend of that name, who had retired with him from the capitulation of Irvine, and who had fallen at the battle of Stirling Bridge.

One of the most curious of the few public papers in which the name of Wallace occurs was a few years since discovered by Dr. Lappenburg, of Hamburg, in the archives of the ancient Hanseatic city of Luebeck. It is a letter, in Latin, addressed to the authorities of Luebeck and Hamburg, informing them that their merchants should now have free access to all ports of the kingdom of Scotland, seeing that the said kingdom, by the favor of God, had been recovered by war from the power of the English. The letter is dated "apud Badsing tonam" (the true word, it has been suggested, is probably Haddingtonam), October 11, 1297, that is, a few days before the invasion of Cumberland and Northumberland. It is in the name of "Andreas de Moravia et Willelmus Wallensis, duces exercitis regni Scotiae, et communitas, eiusdem regni"—like the Hexham protection—but without any mention of King John.

After his triumphal return from his incursion into England, Wallace assumed the title of Guardian of the Kingdom in the name of King John, whether formally invested with that dignity or only hailed as such by the gratitude of his countrymen. In a charter, printed in Anderson's "Diplomata," conferring the constabulary of Dundee on Alexander Skirmischur (Scrimgeour) and his heirs, and dated at Torphichen (in the county of Linlithgow) March 29, 1298, he styles himself, "Willelmus Walays miles, Custos Regni Scotiae, et ductor exercituum ejusdem, nomine praeclari principis Domini Johannis, Dei gratia Regis Scotiae illustris, de consensu communitatis ejusdem." The grant is stated to have been made with the consent and approbation of the nobility ("per consensum et assensum magnatum dicti regni.")

But this supreme elevation did not last long. Supported only by his own merits and the admiration and attachment of his humbler fellow-countrymen, Wallace, a new man, and without family connection, would probably have found it difficult or impossible to retain his high place, even if he had had nothing more to contend with than domestic jealousy and dissatisfaction. Fordun relates that many of the nobility were in the habit of saying, "We will not have this man to rule over us." Meanwhile the energetic English king, who had been abroad when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned home, and was already on his march toward the borders at the head of a powerful army. A body of English, which had landed in the north of Fife, led by Aymer de Vallois, Earl of Pembroke, is said by the Scottish authorities to have been attacked and routed by Wallace on June 12, 1298, in the forest of Blackironside, in that county; but when the two main armies met on July 22d, in the neighborhood of Falkirk—the Scots commanded by Wallace, the English by their king in person—the former, after a gallant and obstinate resistance, were at last forced to give way, and the battle ended in a universal rout accompanied with immense slaughter.

This defeat did not put an end to the war; but it was taken advantage of by the Scottish nobility to deprive Wallace of his office of guardian or chief governor of the kingdom. The Scottish accounts say that he voluntarily resigned the supreme power; it is certain, at any rate, that Bruce, his rival Comyn, and Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrew's, were now appointed joint guardians of Scotland, still in the name of Baliol. For some years after this our accounts of Wallace are slight and obscure; but he appears to have returned with a chosen band of followers to the practice of the desultory warfare in which he had originally distinguished himself. The legendary histories continue to detail his deeds of prowess performed in harassing the enemy both on their marches and in their camps and strongholds. And to fill up the story, they also make him to have paid two visits to France—the first in 1300, the second in 1302. The next well-ascertained fact regarding him is that when the Scottish leaders were at last obliged to submit to Edward at Strathorde, on February 9, 1304, Wallace was not included in the capitulation, one of the clauses of which (printed in the original French in Ryley's "Placeta Parliamentaria") is to the effect that as for Wallace (Monsieur Guillaume de Galeys), he might, if he pleased, give himself up to the king's mercy ("quil se mette en la volunte et en la grace nostre seigneur le Roy, si lui semble, que bon soit"). He was soon after summoned to appear before a parliament or convention of Scotch and English nobility, held at St. Andrew's; and upon their not presenting themselves, he and Sir Simon Frisel, or Fraser, were pronounced outlaws. For some time his retreat remained undiscovered, although his active hostility still continued occasionally to make itself felt. A principal person employed in the attempts to capture him appears to have been Ralph de Haliburton; but how he was actually taken is not known. Sir John Menteith (a son of Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith), to whose treachery his delivery to the English king is attributed by Blind Harry and popular tradition, appears to have really done nothing more than forward him to England after he was brought a prisoner to Dumbarton Castle, of which Menteith was governor under a commission from Edward.

On being brought to London, Wallace was lodged in the house of William Delect, a citizen, in Fenchurch Street; and on the next day, being the eve of St. Bartholomew, he was brought on horseback to Westminster, and in the hall there, "being placed on the south bench," says Stow, "crowned with laurel for that he had said in times past that he ought to bear a crown in that all," he was arraigned as a traitor, and on that charge found guilty, and condemned to death. After being dragged to the usual place of execution—the Elms, in West Smithfield—at the tails of his horses, he was there hanged on a high gallows, on August 23, 1305, after which he was "drawn and quartered." His right arm was set up at Newcastle, his left at Berwick; his right leg at Perth, his left at Aberdeen; his head on London Bridge. Wallace's daughter, by the heiress of Lamington, married Sir William Bailie, of Hoprig, whose descendants through her inherited the estate of Lamington.



ROBERT BRUCE

By Sir J. BERNARD BURKE, LL.D.

(1274-1329)

Robert Bruce was born in the year 1274, on the Feast of the translation of St. Benedict, being March 21st, and was undoubtedly of Norman origin. In an annual roll containing the names of those knights and barons who came over with William the Conqueror, we find that of Brueys; and from the Domesday Book it appears that a family of the same name were possessed of lands in Yorkshire. Coming down to a later period, 1138, when David I. of Scotland made his fatal attack upon England—fatal, that is, to himself and his people—the English barons, previous to the battle of Cutton Moor, near Northallerton, sent a message to the Scottish king, by Robert Bruce, of Cleveland, a Norman knight, who possessed estates in either country. Upon his death, this knight bequeathed his English lands to his eldest son, and those in Annandale to his younger, who received a confirmation of his title by a charter of William the Lion. From this root sprung Robert Bruce, the competitor for the crown with Baliol, whose grandson was the more celebrated Robert Bruce, the younger, Earl of Carrick in virtue of his mother's title, and afterward King of Scotland. He was the eldest of three brothers and seven sisters, whose marriages with some of the leading families of Scotland proved an important element of success to the future hero. His earliest years were passed at the castle of Turnberry, where his mother resided; but as he grew older, his father, who considered himself an English baron, thought proper that he should be removed to the English court. The friendship subsisting between Edward the First and the Earl of Carrick induced the former to adopt the earl's son; so that the confiding monarch trained up his mortal enemy in the use of those arts and weapons which were one day to be turned against himself.



The family of Bruce, as we have already noticed, were competitors for the Scottish throne with Baliol, in whose favor an award was pronounced by Edward, when called upon to arbitrate between them. At this time the elder Bruce was far advanced in years; his son, the Earl of Carrick, was still in the prime of life, and his grandson, Robert Bruce was eighteen years of age. Upon the old man being required to do homage for his lands in Scotland to the new monarch of that country, he indignantly refused, exclaiming, "I am Baliol's sovereign, not Baliol mine; and rather than consent to such a homage, I resign my lands in Annandale to my son, the Earl of Carrick." But Carrick was not less proud, or averse to anything that might call in question his claim to the crown of Scotland, and in like manner refused to hold any lands of Baliol. As, however, according to the feudal law, he must either divest himself of his estate, or do homage for it, he adopted the former alternative, and resigned the lands of Annandale in favor of his son, Robert. The young baron, less scrupulous than his relatives, did not hesitate to accept his father's gift, which, upon feudal principles, carried with it the title of Earl of Carrick, and did homage for the same to Baliol. By his father's death, in 1304, he became possessed of the family estates in England.

From this time Bruce played his part with skill, though in justice it must be allowed that his patriotism was not altogether without the alloy of a selfish ambition; and perhaps it would be expecting too much from human nature, even in its best and highest forms, to look for anything else. Neither can we free him from the charge of dissimulation in that he swore a fealty to Baliol, which it is plain he never intended to observe, and affected gratitude and attachment for the English monarch, while in secret he was preparing to undermine him. An excuse for this has been sought by his more partial admirers in the necessity of the case, arising from the well-known sagacity of Edward, who would otherwise have penetrated his purposes and crushed them in the bud without scruple. Nor was this the only obstacle in his path to empire. Upon the failure of Baliol and his only son, Edward, the ancient and powerful family of the Comyns were ready to dispute his title to the crown, which they claimed for themselves. John, commonly called the Red Comyn, who had been the determined opponent of Wallace, possessed, in the event of the monarch dying without issue, the same right to the throne which was vested in Bruce himself. He, too, had connected himself by marriage with the royal family of England, and was at this time one of the most powerful subjects in Scotland. When Baliol leagued with Comyn to throw off the supremacy of Edward, whose hand, whether justly or not, had raised him to the Scottish throne, the Bruces and their party, tempted by the promise of a crown, lent their best aid to the English monarch. Upon the termination of the campaign the elder Bruce demanded the fulfilment of Edward's promise, to which the latter indignantly replied that he had not come into Scotland to conquer a kingdom for him; so that Bruce reaped nothing else at the time from his service, than the satisfaction of seeing his rival, Baliol, dethroned, and the influence of the Comyns effectually diminished.

In 1296 Edward held a parliament at Berwick, compelling the Scotch barons to do him homage, and the young lord of Carrick concurred in the national submission. But notwithstanding this outward show of fealty, he became, in the time of Wallace's success, suspected of entertaining designs upon the crown. At first, indeed, he had joined against Wallace, and wasted the lands of his adherent, Douglas, with fire and sword; yet, soon after his return home, he summoned the Annandale men, who were the vassals of his father, then in the service of Edward, and thus addressed them: "You have already heard, without doubt, of that solemn oath, which I lately took at Carlisle, and I cannot deny the fact; but the oath was a foolish one, and exacted by fear; it was my body that took the oath, and not my mind; but its having been taken at all is now to me the cause of much remorse and sorrow; yet erelong I hope to be absolved from it by our Holy Father. In the meanwhile, I am resolved to go and join my fellow-countrymen, and assist them in their efforts to restore to its liberty the land of my nativity, for none, as you know, is an enemy of his own flesh, and as for me, I love my people. Let me beseech you, then, to adopt the same resolution, and you shall ever be esteemed my most dear friends and approved counsellors."

To this request the men of Annandale deferred giving any answer till the morning, and took advantage of the night to retire, so that Bruce could only join the insurgents with his own vassals of Carrick.

The first disappointment might have taught Bruce to desist from his design, for which the time was not yet ripe; but blinded by ambition, he entered into a strict alliance with Wishart, the Bishop of Glasgow, and the Steward of Scotland, the principal leaders of the insurrection. Upon joining his new associates, he found their purposes utterly incompatible with his views upon the crown. Wallace, the soul of the party, had ever supported the claims of Baliol, and his great supporter, Sir Andrew Moray, a near connection of the Comyns, had the same object. During the campaign, therefore, of 1298, which concluded with the battle of Falkirk, Bruce shut himself up in his castle of Ayr, maintaining a cautious neutrality, while his father continued to reside in England and to serve Edward in his wars. The king, however, did not admire this cold system of neutrality. He in consequence determined to attack the castle of Ayr, and Bruce, dreading the consequences, razed it to the ground, and sought an asylum in the mountain fastnesses of Carrick.

In the following year, when Wallace had resigned the regency, John Comyn, of Badenoch, and Sir John de Soulis, were chosen governors of the kingdom, and the party of Bruce availed themselves of the opportunity to advance his influence by opposition to those in power, and by defeating every measure taken for the public benefit. An attempt was made by those who really wished well to the national cause, or who dreaded that their disunion might be fatal to all alike, to reconcile the contending factions; with this view they elected Bruce, and Lamberton, Bishop of Glasgow, joint regents in the name of Baliol; but this ill-assorted coalition soon fell to pieces, as might have been expected, where the views which one party entertained in secret were so utterly opposed to the avowed purposes of all.

The policy which actuated Bruce on this occasion may be easily explained. It was clear that Edward would never consent to the restoration of Baliol, then in exile, and the Comyns had taken so decided a part against him, that it seemed most improbable he would ever consent to raise one of that family to the throne. Continuing, therefore, the same line of duplicity with which he had commenced, and which he had only abandoned for a single instant in the vain hope of persuading the party of Wallace to openly adopt his claims, he now endeavored by submission and affected attachment to win the favor of the English monarch. Edward, he well knew, had the power, could he be brought to entertain the inclination, to place him on the Scottish throne, and if this point were once attained, Bruce trusted that means would afterward occur of shaking off all dependence upon his benefactor. In these designs he to a certain extent succeeded, but not in his main object. If he was crafty, Edward was yet craftier. He had fallen into the same error that his father had, in 1296, and was outwitted by the superior political ability of him whom he had intended to deceive, and who, it must be confessed, was equally insincere. Edward cheated both father and son, by holding out to them the hope of a crown he never meant them to attain, his object being to unite the two countries; an excellent purpose in itself, if we could only bring ourselves to overlook the fraud and violence by which it was to be accomplished. When, therefore, the Comyns submitted, in 1304, and he proceeded to the settlement of his new dominions, the Earl of Carrick found that his only gain was the being employed among the commissioners in organizing a system of government. He had, however, reaped no little advantage from his dissimulation. While Baliol was an exile and Comyn in disgrace, he had preserved his estates, and won the king's confidence without losing, but rather augmenting, his influence with the Scotch. At the same time he saw that Comyn was still powerful; his claims to the throne were more generally admitted by the people, and without his concurrence nothing could be effected. Thus situated, Bruce submitted to his rival this alternative: "Give me your land, and I shall bind myself to support your title to the kingdom, and, when we have expelled our enemies, to place the crown upon your head; or, if thou dost not choose to assume the state of the kingdom, here am I ready to resign to you my estates, on condition that you second me in my efforts to regain the throne of my fathers." Comyn accepted the latter alternative, but immediately betrayed the design to Edward, and sent him the letter, or indenture, by which Bruce had bound himself. But the latter, when suddenly charged with it, denied his hand and seal with a coolness that could only belong to one long practised in the arts of dissimulation, and demanded time to prove his innocence. Arch-deceiver as the English king himself was, he yet allowed himself to be duped by this specious effrontery, and Bruce escaping into Scotland, murdered Comyn in the church of the Grey Friars, at Dumfries. Soon afterward he was crowned at Scone, and the revolution spread far and wide; upon hearing which, Edward sent an invading army into Scotland. Superiority of force and military skill soon compelled Bruce to retreat to the mountain fastnesses, that offered a better place of security than the strongest castle, for castles might be stormed; but here, if danger threatened him at one point, he had only to retreat to one more remote and more rugged, and thus at any time was enabled to baffle his pursuers when he found them too powerful to be resisted. A series of fights—battles they could hardly be called—and adventures now ensued which have all the coloring of romance, but which entailed so much of hardness and privation upon his followers, that after a while it became evident he would not be able much longer to keep them from abandoning a cause so desperate. Then, again, a spark of hope was kindled by the disaffection growing out of the severity which Edward exercised upon all who had been in arms to resist him. Numbers in consequence flocked to Bruce, and fresh adventures succeeded of a yet more romantic nature than those already mentioned; the fortunes of the wanderer seeming now to be at the lowest ebb, and then again rising into a prosperous flood, which as rapidly subsided, making it a matter of some difficulty for him to escape being stranded by the falling waters. It was during this season that Douglas disgraced himself and the Scottish name by barbarities that have never been surpassed, and rarely even equalled.

The death of the great Edward—for great he was, in spite of all his faults—and the accession of his son, the feeble Edward II., left an open field to Bruce, who was as much superior to those that now opposed him, as he had been overcrowned by the genius of his late adversary. He marched from victory to victory, and would, no doubt, have brought the contest to a happy termination, had he not been seized by an alarming sickness. At first, it threatened to be fatal; things were again beginning to look gloomy for Scotland; but in the moment of extreme peril, he shook off his disease by a strong effort, and once more led his followers through a series of triumphs, which were crowned by the great battle of Bannockburn. Though we cannot allow the ambition which seeks a crown to pass for patriotism, it is impossible to deny the highest praise to the courage, firmness, and ability displayed by Bruce through the whole of this trying period. None may deny that he deserved a crown, and when once obtained, it acquired a lustre from the talents of him who wore it.

Bruce soon found himself in a condition to assist his brother Edward in the attempt to drive the English out of Ireland. But here the usual good fortune of the Scotch abandoned them. After a hard-fought campaign, attended by many vicissitudes, his sagacity saw that the attempt was hopeless, and he returned to Scotland. Shortly afterward, the turbulent and aspiring Edward Bruce was slain in battle.

His wonted success attended Bruce in the field, in the midst of which, however, a plot was formed against his life and government. Fortunately it was revealed in time by the Countess of Strathearn, to whom the conspirators had the weakness to confide their intentions; and soon afterward, to crown his prosperity, Edward II. was compelled by a series of defeats to conclude a peace. But Bruce's health began to be impaired, and when war again broke out between the countries, upon the deposition of Edward II. and the succession of his son, Edward III., he was unable to lead his projected expedition against England. It ended in failure, if not in defeat.

A short interval of health and hope gleamed upon him after this attack, and peace was concluded between the two countries, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the English, who, justly enough, considered themselves sacrificed to the ambition of the queen-mother, Isabella, and of her favorite, Mortimer. But this momentary promise of health and vigor soon passed away, and it became plain to all that the life of this brave and sagacious monarch was drawing rapidly to a close. In expectation of the final event he had given orders to have a magnificent tomb made at Paris; which was brought to Bruges, thence through England into Scotland, and on its arrival erected in the church of the Benedictines at Dunfermline.

Bruce died in his fifty-fifth year, and was buried in the abbey-church of Dunfermline, as he had desired.

In the prime of his life Bruce was upward of six feet high; his shoulders were broad, his chest full and open; the cheek-bones strong and prominent, and the muscles of the back and neck of great size and thickness; his hair curled short over a broad forehead, and the general expression of his face was calm and cheerful; yet, when he pleased, he could assume a character of stern command. Such, at least, Bruce has been described by the old historian, and we may easily believe it, since the outward semblance agrees so well with what is recorded of his life and actions.



ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED

(DIED, 1386)



The incident with which this name is connected is, after the purely legendary feat of Tell, the best known and most popular in the early history of the Swiss Confederation. We are told how, at a critical moment in the great battle of Sempach, when the Swiss had failed to break the serried ranks of the Austrian knights, a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried by name, came to the rescue. Commending his wife and children to the care of his comrades, he rushed toward the Austrians, gathered a number of their spears together against his breast, and fell pierced through, having opened a way into the hostile ranks for his fellow-countrymen, though at the price of his own life. But the Tell and Winkelried stories stand in a very different position when looked at in the dry light of history; for, while in the former imaginary and impossible men (bearing now and then a real historical name) do imaginary and impossible deeds at a very uncertain period, in the latter we have some solid ground to rest on, and Winkelried's act might very well have been performed, though, as yet, the amount of genuine and early evidence in support of it is very far from being sufficient.

The Winkelrieds of Stanz were a knightly family when we first hear of them, though toward the end of the fourteenth century they seem to have been but simple men without the honors of knighthood, and not always using their prefix "von." Among its members we find an Erni Winkelried acting as a witness to a contract of sale on May 1, 1367; while the same man, or perhaps another member of the family, Erni von Winkelried, is plaintiff in a suit at Stanz, on September 29, 1389, and in 1417 is the landamman (or head-man) of Unterwalden, being then called Arnold Winkelriet. We have, therefore, a real man named Arnold Winkelried living at Stanz, about the time of the battle of Sempach. The question is thus narrowed to the points, was he present at the battle, and did he then perform the deed commonly attributed to him? The determination of this question requires a minute investigation of the history of that battle, to ascertain if there are any authentic traces of this incident, or any opportunity for it to have taken place.

1. EVIDENCE OF CHRONICLES.—The earliest known mention of the incident is found in a Zurich chronicle (discovered in 1862 by Herr G. von Wyss), which is a copy, made in 1476, of a chronicle written in, or at any rate not earlier than, 1438, though it is wanting in the sixteenth century transcript of another chronicle written in 1466, which up to 1389 closely agrees with the former. It appears in the well-known form, but the hero is stated to be "ein getruewer man under den Eidgenozen," no name being given, and it seems clear that his death did not take place at that time. No other mention has been found in any of the numerous Swiss or Austrian chronicles, till we come to the book "De Helvetiae Origine," written in 1538 by Rudolph Gwalther (Zwingli's son-in-law), when the hero is still nameless, being compared to Decius or Codrus, but is said to have been killed by his brave act. Finally we read the full story in the original draft of Giles Tschudi's chronicle, where the hero is described "as a man of Unterwalden, of the Winkelried family," this being expanded in the first rescension of the chronicle (1564) into "a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried by name, a brave knight;" while he is entered (in the same book, on the authority of the "Anniversary Book" of Stanz, now lost) on the list of those who fell at Sempach, at the head of the Nidwald (or Stanz) men, as "Herr Arnold von Winkelried, ritter," this being in the first draft "Arnold Winckelriet."

2. BALLADS.—There are several war songs on the battle of Sempach which have come down to us, but in one only is there mention of Winkelried and his deed. This is a long ballad of sixty-seven four-line stanzas, part of which (including the Winkelried section) is found in the additions made between 1531 and 1545 to Etterlin's chronicle by H. Berlinger of Basel, and the whole in Werner Steiner's chronicle (written 1532). It is agreed on all sides that the last stanza, attributing the authorship to Halbsuter, of Lucerne, "as he came back from the battle," is a very late addition. Many authorities regard it as made up of three distinct songs (one of which refers to the battle and Winkelried), possibly put together by the younger Halbsuter (citizen of Lucerne in 1435, died between 1470 and 1480); though others contend that the Sempach-Winkelried section bears clear traces of having been composed after the Reformation began, that is, about 1520 or 1530. Some recent discoveries have proved that certain statements in the song, usually regarded as anachronisms, are quite accurate; but no nearer approach has been made toward fixing its exact date, or that of any of the three bits into which it has been cut up. In this song the story appears in its full-blown shape, the name of Winckelriet being given.



JOAN OF ARC[8]

[Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

(1412-1431)



In the history of the world since the dawn of time, there is no other character so remarkable to me as that of Joan of Arc.

You have but to think of any young girl of your acquaintance, seventeen years old, and try to imagine her leading an army to battle, storming a fort, or planning a campaign, in order to realize in a measure the astounding qualities possessed by this wonderful being.

Not only did she do all this as wisely as the most astute general who ever lived, but she succeeded in liberating France from the hands of the English, where we have very good reason to think it might have otherwise remained to this day; for the English were gaining ground steadily, and the French dauphin was utterly discouraged, and had ceased to make an effort to maintain his rights, when Joan of Arc came to his rescue.

The English king, Henry V., had died in the midst of his triumphs. Two months later, imbecile Charles VI., of France, passed away also, and Henry VI., of England, was proclaimed king of both nations; while at the same time the dauphin was hailed King of France by his few followers. But his fortunes were at the lowest ebb, his small army, stationed at Orleans, was in need of food. Four thousand of his men went out to search for provisions, and encountered half that number of English soldiers. A battle ensued, and five hundred of the bravest French soldiers were left dead on the field of strife. Despite their bravery, hunger and fatigue had unfitted them to combat with their well-fed adversaries.

The dauphin had shut himself in the castle of Chinon, with fair women and gay comrades, while the siege was raging before the walls of Orleans. He was at that time a weak and vacillant youth, given over to the same pleasures and vices which drove his father mad and caused his brother's death. He had no pride in rescuing his crown from the English, and it must be confessed that the treatment he had received from his own mother and his own countrymen, who sold him to the enemy, was sufficient to dishearten a stronger nature than his. Added to this, he was doubtful of his legitimate right to the throne, owing to his mother's depraved career. But when, in the midst of his orgies, the news was brought to him, in the castle of Chinon, that his army was defeated before the walls of Orleans, what little hope or courage he had left seemed to desert him and he sank into a state of despair.

And far away on the frontier, in the little village of Domremy, a young girl watched her flocks, and wept over the fate of her beloved country; and weeping, prayed that God would save France from the oppressor. How earnestly she prayed, and how well God listened, history has recorded in a tale more wonderful than any story ever conceived by the imagination of man, and sadder than any other save the story of the Nazarene upon the Cross of Calvary.

The end of France as a nation seemed at hand. The nobility had been led into captivity and sold to an invading enemy; the clergy had seen its altars defamed by arrogant strangers. Industry had been ruined by civil wars during the long imbecility of Charles VI., and the succeeding ravages made by the English. Villages were depopulated, homes desolated, and look where they might, the people of France saw no hope of aid, save from on high.

Of this epoch Henry Martin says, "The people expected nothing from human sources; but a sentiment of indestructible nationality stirred in their hearts and told them that France could not die. Hoping nothing from earth, they lifted their souls to heaven; an ardent religious fervor seized upon them, which had no part with clergy or creed. It rose from the extremity of their need, and fixed its root in an old oracle of the Middle Ages, which had predicted that France should be 'lost through a woman and saved by a virgin.'"

France had certainly been lost through its wicked queen; that part of the old prophecy had been fearfully fulfilled; the remaining clause was yet to be verified. The people, excited to a religious frenzy by their desperate straits and their faith in the old superstition, prayed more fervently with each day; and their prayers rose like great white eagles and settled upon the heart of that strange divine child, who was weeping over the fate of France while she watched her sheep on the plains of Domremy.

A humbly born girl was Joan of Arc, unable to read or write; women who could do more than that were rare in those days, so she was not despised on account of her ignorance, but highly respected for her industry and piety. An enthusiastic Catholic, she added to her church duties by active benevolence and kindness to the sick and poor in her native town. Often she was seen to kneel in the fields and pray; and there was a chapel some miles from Domremy to which she used to make a pilgrimage every Sunday and offer prayers to the Virgin. There was, too, in the forest of Bois Chemin a famous beech-tree under which a stream of clear water flowed; and a superstition prevailed among the people of Domremy that fairies had blessed this tree and bestowed healing properties upon the waters of the stream. The priest and the villagers marched about the sacred tree once each year singing solemn chants, and the young people hung its boughs with garlands, and danced under its shading branches. Joan dearly loved this spot, and it became her favorite haunt. The echoes of war reverberated even to this quiet frontier hamlet, and in her hours of reverie she dwelt sadly upon the stories of bloodshed and suffering which she heard her elders repeat.

She was twelve years old when the dauphin was proclaimed king by his few followers; and in all his flight from province to province, fleeing before the usurpers of his throne, no heart in all France suffered more keenly than the heart beating in the breast of this humble shepherd girl. The misfortunes of the dauphin, the woes of her country, took complete possession of her expanding mind. Her pure young soul yearned toward the Infinite in one ceaseless prayer; and when any soul is so lifted up above all thought of self, praying for the good of others, a response never fails to come. It is only selfish prayers which remain unanswered. Joan's beautiful nature was like the sensitive plate prepared to receive the impression; and while she prayed the angels to save France, the angels prepared her to become the saviour.

One summer day, when she was in her fourteenth year, she was running in the fields with her companions, when, as she afterward declared, "she felt herself lifted as by an invisible force and carried along as if she possessed wings." Her companions gazed upon her with astonishment, seeing her fly beyond their reach. Then she heard a voice, which proceeded from a great light above her; and the voice said, "Joan, put your trust in God, and go and save France."

This strange experience filled her with terror; but ere many days she heard the voice again, and this time she saw the figure of a winged angel. "I am the Archangel Michael," the voice said, "and the messenger of God, who bids you to go to the aid of the dauphin and restore him to his throne."

Overcome with fear, she fell on her knees in tears; but the angel continued to appear to her, accompanied with two female forms, and always urging her to go to the aid of her country. Fear gave place to ecstacy, and in the heart of this divine child awoke the audacious idea whose climax astounded the whole world.

At first she reasoned with the voices, telling them "she was but a poor girl, who knew nothing of men or war." But the voices replied, "Go and save France; God will be with you, and you have nothing to fear."

During three years she listened to these voices, which made themselves heard by her two or three times each week. She seemed consumed by an inward fever, and strange words escaped her. One day she said to a laborer, that "midway between Coussi and Vaucouleurs there lived a maid who should bring the dauphin to his throne."

These words were repeated to her father and they alarmed him; and we cannot wonder that they did. How could he think otherwise than that his little girl was losing her senses? How could he dream of the divine and superhuman powers that had descended upon her from a higher world? He told her brother that if Joan should attempt to follow the army, as he feared she might, "he would rather drown her with his own hands." Her parents set a watch upon her movements, and decided to marry her to a young man who was secretly enamored of her. They connived with this admirer to swear before an officer of the law that Joan had promised him her heart; but she so strenuously denied the assertion before the judge that she gained her case.

Just at this epoch the people of Domremy were obliged to fly before an invading troop of soldiers. When they returned to their village they found their church burned and their homes pillaged. Joan regarded this as a direct punishment for her hesitation in heeding the "voices." She would hesitate no longer, and after repeated delays and disheartening rebuffs, she succeeded in winning her way, with a few believers in her mission, to the king's castle.

When Charles finally consented to an interview, he disguised one of his courtiers as king, and he was disguised as a courtier; but Joan was not deceived by clothing; she fell at his feet, clasped his knees, and exclaimed, "Gentle king, God has taken pity on you and your people; the angels are on their knees praying for you and them."

The king was impressed with her lofty enthusiasm, and plied her with questions. Her responses astonished him. One reliable authority tells us that she revealed to him something known only to himself—and answered a question which he had that day demanded of God in the privacy of prayer—the question of his legitimate right to the throne. Joan told him that he had asked this question of God, and that she was able to reply to it in the affirmative.

The king was so astonished and overjoyed at this proof of the maiden's powers, that he expressed belief in her divine mission; but he quickly relapsed into doubt again, and Joan was obliged to endure a very critical examination before a parliament, where she confused and confounded the learned doctors by her simple words: "I know not A or B, but I am commanded by my voices to raise the siege of Orleans and crown the dauphin at Rheims." When one aggressive doctor, with a bad accent, asked sarcastically; "what language her voices spoke," she replied, "Better than yours, sir," which brought the laughter of the whole parliament upon him. A messenger sent to Domremy, to ascertain the early conduct of the maid, returned with accounts of her piety and benevolence. All this worked in her favor, together with the strong faith which the masses reposed in her; for the people remembered the old prophecy and believed that the maiden had come to deliver France.

Even the doctors of theology were affected by this prophecy, and the result was the final equipment of Joan for battle. When arrayed in a knight's armor she refused to accept a sword. "The voices told me," she said, "that in the church vault at Fierbois there lies a sword marked with five crosses which I must carry, and no other."

A messenger was sent, who found the sword exactly as she had described it. This naturally swelled the faith of the people in her divine mission. She ordered a white banner made, covered with the lilies of France, and with the inscription, "Jesus Maria," emblazoned upon it. At the end of two months she entered the town of Blois, where the army was stationed, seated upon a fine horse, her head bare, her dark curls streaming in the wind, an air of triumph and joy on her face. Six thousand soldiers were drawn up to receive her. But the pleasure-loving young dauphin, be it said to his shame, was enjoying himself in his castle and was not there to meet her. Nothing had yet been decided about the position Joan was to occupy, but the wild enthusiasm of the army at once made her its leader.

The very first act of this pure being was an attempt to uplift the moral status of the army. Women of evil repute were sent away with good advice, and the men were called to battle by prayer and confession. Coarse soldiers followed her to mass, fascinated by her peculiar spell, and rough language was silenced in her presence. Remarkable as has seemed Joan's career up to this point, it was simple compared to the miracles which ensued. Modest as the simplest maiden in private life, gentle as a child in all matters pertaining to herself, utterly devoid of self-seeking interests, she was yet enabled to plan campaigns, direct attacks and lead armies with all the skill of any world-renowned general. In the dead of night, with a band of 200 men, she entered the beleaguered city of Orleans in the face of the English enemy. The inhabitants crowded about her, regarding her rightly with wonder and awe. Her first act was to hasten to a cathedral where the Te Deum was being chanted by torch-light. She then selected her home with a lady of spotless reputation, in order that all her hours of repose might be guarded from suspicions of evil. The following day she directed a letter of warning to be sent to the English, urging them to retreat before compelled to do so by the "fire of Heaven." She then reconnoitred the city, determining in her mind where to begin the attack; and as she saw no signs that the English had taken heed of her letter, she finally mounted the walls of the town, and in a loud voice warned the English to depart before overtaken with the shame and disaster in store for them. To this the English responded with insults and ribald words, and told her to "Go home and keep her cows." Joan wept at their insults to her modesty, and would have at once opened an attack, had she not been dissuaded by her generals, who begged her to await the arrival of her army.

Despite their bold words, the English were so influenced by Joan's peculiar power, that they allowed her army to enter Orleans with a convoy of provisions, and made no resistance. They seemed to be paralyzed with fear, and many of them expressed a belief that she was aided by the devil. Although the maid was immensely popular with the army, a lurking secret jealousy of her was already at work in the breasts of some of her officers; and these men chose an hour when she was taking a brief repose, to open an attack upon the English, hoping to take the glory of a conquest to themselves. But Joan's Voices awoke her, and told her the blood of France was being spilled; and seizing her white banner, she mounted her horse, and rushed into the strife, turning the tide of battle at once in favor of the French army, which had already suffered loss. Wherever the white flag was seen, a superhuman strength seemed to take possession of the men; and after a fierce battle of three hours, the bastile of St. Loup was won by the French.

The bastile des Augustins fell next, and here Joan was slightly wounded in the foot; but she resolved to attack the only remaining hold of the English the following day. Her officers counselled together and reported themselves unfavorable to this project, as the bastile des Tournelles was very strong, and filled with the bravest of the English army. But Joan replied, "I, too, have been at council with God, and we shall fight to-morrow."

They did fight, the English with fury, the French "as if they believed themselves immortal." After three hours of warfare Joan saw her men hesitate under the fierce attack of the enemy. She seized a ladder, planted it against a wall, and began to ascend it. At that moment an English arrow struck her between the neck and shoulder, and she fell to the ground. The disheartened soldiers bore her from the field, and dressed her wound, from which she extracted the arrow with her own hand, shedding womanly tears meanwhile. After the wound was dressed, a vision came to her, and with sudden strength she remounted her horse and rode back to battle.

The English, believing her nearly dead from her wound, were terrified to see her return, and lost courage from that moment; while the French, electrified by her unexpected presence, fought with such zeal that before nightfall the maid led her army into Orleans crowned with triumph. It was only seven days since she had entered the city, and Joan had already verified her assertion that she could and would "raise the siege of Orleans."

The indolent and unworthy dauphin, however, refused to go to Rheims and be crowned and so fulfil the second part of Joan's mission. He said there were ports along the Loire which needed to be taken first so the girl general laid out her campaign and added Beaugency and Jargeau to her other conquests. The English had become filled with superstitious fear of her power, attributing it to the devil. But the Dauphin of France still dallied with light women in his castle, and treated Joan with coldness and suspicion. The army now became so unanimous in the desire that the king should go to Rheims, that he finally, with reluctance, consented. On July 16th, after having taken Troyes and Chalons on the way, the French army entered Rheims; and there, on the following day, the dauphin was anointed with holy oil and received the crown of France.

Happy, but modest and humble in her happiness, rejoicing only in the prosperity of the king and the country, the sublime saviour of her land knelt before her sovereign after the ceremonies were concluded and said, "Gentle king, I wish now that I might return toward my father and my mother, to keep my flocks and my herds as heretofore." Alas for the happiness of the poor girl and the honor of two countries, that her request was not granted!

Joan's father was present on this occasion, and the inn where he lodged at the king's expense, and the cathedral where the dauphin was crowned, still exist in Rheims.



During all Joan's life as a soldier and general, she exhibited a most touching humanity toward the conquered enemy. She would spring from her horse to sooth the wounds of a suffering English soldier, and it is recorded of her that she carried a dying enemy in her arms to a confessor, and remained with him till his soul took flight. The people adored her, the soldiers of her army idolized her, and the king realized that she was of too great value to him to permit her to go in peace to her old humble home. So Joan remained, asking that the king would remove all impost from the village of Domremy, in place of bestowing a title upon her family as he offered to do. For three hundred years her request was obeyed. From this time to the tragic end, the story of Joan's life is a hard one to relate. Although we are nearing the fifth centennial of her birth, the recital of her sufferings and death must still wring tears from every heart which is not made of stone. The feeling of jealousy which great success, of even the most worthy and noble souls, arouses in meaner natures, had already sprung up against Joan. This feeling increased as the days passed by and she added more and more to her glory by the conquest of Laon, Soissons, Compiegne, and Beauvais. Paris was next besieged, and here Joan was seriously wounded, an event which depressed the king and the army.

Her wound disabled her from action, and she was left lying on the field until evening, neglected, and seemingly forgotten. Already conscious of the growing sentiment of jealousy among her officers, this final proof of their indifference to her fate must have been more painful to her pure and lofty mind than the physical agony she was enduring. But even lying there, wounded, she cheered on the men as they passed her in the combat, and revived their failing courage.

She was enabled to resume action the next day; her plans were all perfected, and judging from her past triumphs we can but suppose victory would have attended her, had not that most remarkable mandate arrived from the king, commanding the French army to retreat to Saint-Denis.

To the undying shame of his memory be it said that Charles VII. entered into a plot, with jealous enemies of Joan, to force failure upon her. The people and the soldiers had grown to believe her infallible; the king and his favorites determined that she should be proven fallible. They deemed the country sufficiently safe, the army sufficiently strong, to enable them to go on now and claim victories of their own, without having their divine deliverer share the glory.

Next to the crime of Isabel, who sold her son and her country to the enemy, this base act of Charles VII. stands unparalleled in infamy. So discouraged and heart-broken was Joan over the conduct of the king, although she did not understand the deep-laid plot against her, that she resolved to abandon the life of a soldier and enter the church of Saint-Denis. She hung up her armor and her sword, but when the king heard of this he sent for her to return to the army. He was not yet sure of himself, and he wanted her where he could call upon her if need be.

Joan returned with reluctance; "her Voices" counselled her to keep to her resolution; but she was so accustomed to obey the king, that for the first time she allowed an earthly voice to overrule the counsels of her heavenly guides. And from this hour her star set; from this hour her path led into darkness. Soon after her return to the army she broke the magic sword with which she had achieved so many conquests; the Voices, too, were silent, and all this troubled her. The king kept her away from all active warfare, and she grew restive and impatient with her life of inaction. The army, which under her influence had been reformed of half its vices, now separated from her by the king's orders and fell into the most wild excesses. Joan prayed and pleaded to be allowed to go again into combat, and finally the king allowed her to do so; but such success attended her, and such enthusiasm seized upon her soldiers, that the jealous favorites of the king were alarmed. They resolved to prevent any further triumphs for her, but to pretend great friendship and admiration meanwhile.