With a grunt of discomfiture and disgust, the Tartar riders turned their ponies' heads and galloped off along the road that skirted the yellow waters of the swift-flowing Hwang-ho. Then a little yellow face peeped out of a cave farther up the cliff, a black-haired, tightly braided head bobbed and twitched with delight, and the next moment the good priest was heartily thanking his small ally for so skilfully saving him from threatened capture.

It was a cool September morning in the days of the great Emperor Tai, twelve hundred and fifty years ago. And a great emperor was Tai-tsung, though few, if any, of my young readers ever heard his name. His splendid palace stood in the midst of lovely gardens in the great city of Chang-an,—that old, old city that for over two thousand years was the capital of China, and which you can now find in your geographies under its modern name of Singan-foo. And in the year 635, when our story opens, the name of Tai-tsung was great and powerful throughout the length and breadth of Chung Kwoh—the "Middle Kingdom," as the Chinese for nearly thirty centuries have called their vast country—while the stories of his fame and power had reached to the western courts of India and of Persia, of Constantinople, and even of distant Rome.

It was a time of darkness and strife in Europe. Already what historians have called the Dark Ages had settled upon the Christian world. And among all the races of men the only nation that was civilized, and learned, and cultivated, and refined in this seventh century of the Christian era, was this far eastern Empire of China, where schools and learning flourished, and arts and manufactures abounded, when America was as yet undiscovered and Europe was sunk in degradation.

And here, since the year 505, the Nestorians, a branch of the Christian Church, originating in Asia Minor in the fifth century, and often called "the Protestants of the East," had been spreading the story of the life and love of Christ. And here, in this year of grace 635, in the city of Chang-an, and in all the region about the Yellow River, the good priest Thomas the Nestorian, whom the Chinese called O-lo-pun—the nearest approach they could give to his strange Syriac name—had his Christian mission-house, and was zealously bringing to the knowledge of a great and enlightened people the still greater and more helpful light of Christianity.

"My daughter," said the Nestorian after his words of thanks were uttered; "this is a gracious deed done to me, and one that I may not easily repay. Yet would I gladly do so, if I might. Tell me what wouldst thou like above all other things?"

The answer of the girl was as ready as it was unexpected.

"To be a boy, O master!" she replied. "Let the great Shang-ti,(1) whose might thou teachest, make me a man that I may have revenge."

(1) Almighty Being.

The good priest had found strange things in his mission work in this far Eastern land, but this wrathful demand of an excited little maid was full as strange as any. For China is and ever has been a land in which the chief things taught the children are, "subordination, passive submission to the law, to parents, and to all superiors, and a peaceful demeanor."

"Revenge is not for men to trifle with, nor maids to talk of," he said. "Harbor no such desires, but rather come with me and I will show thee more attractive things. This very day doth the great emperor go forth from the City of Peace,(1) to the banks of the Yellow River. Come thou with me to witness the splendor of his train, and perchance even to see the great emperor himself and the young Prince Kaou, his son."

(1) The meaning of Chang-an, the ancient capital of China, is "the City of Continuous Peace."

"That I will not then," cried the girl, more hotly than before. "I hate this great emperor, as men do wrongfully call him, and I hate the young Prince Kaou. May Lung Wang, the god of the dragons, dash them both beneath the Yellow River ere yet they leave its banks this day."

At this terrible wish on the lips of a girl, the good master very nearly forgot even his most valuable precept—never to be surprised. He regarded his defiant young companion in sheer amazement.

"Have a care, have a care, my daughter!" he said at length. "The blessed Saint James telleth us that the tongue is a little member, but it can kindle a great fire. How mayst thou hope to say such direful words against the Son of Heaven(1) and live?"

(1) "The Son of Heaven" is one of the chief titles of the Chinese emperor.

"The Son of Heaven killed the emperor, my father," said the child.

"The emperor thy father!" Thomas the Nestorian almost gasped in this latest surprise. "Is the girl crazed or doth she sport with one who seeketh her good?" And amazement and perplexity settled upon his face.

"The Princess Woo is neither crazed nor doth she sport with the master," said the girl. "I do but speak the truth. Great is Tai-tsung. Whom he will he slayeth, and whom he will he keepeth alive." And then she told the astonished priest that the bannerman of the Dragon Gate was not her father at all. For, she said, as she had lain awake only the night before, she had heard enough in talk between the bannerman and his wife to learn her secret—how that she was the only daughter of the rightful emperor, the Prince Kung-ti, whose guardian and chief adviser the present emperor had been; how this trusted protector had made away with poor Kung-ti in order that he might usurp the throne; and how she, the Princess Woo, had been flung into the swift Hwang-ho, from the turbid waters of which she had been rescued by the bannerman of the Dragon Gate.

"This may or may not be so," Thomas the Nestorian said, uncertain whether or not to credit the girl's surprising story; "but even were it true, my daughter, how couldst thou right thyself? What can a girl hope to do?"

The young princess drew up her small form proudly. "Do?" she cried in brave tones; "I can do much, wise O-lo-pun, girl though I am! Did not a girl save the divine books of Confucius, when the great Emperor Chi-Hwang-ti did command the burning of all the books in the empire? Did not a girl—though but a soothsayer's daughter—raise the outlaw Liu Pang straight to the Yellow Throne? And shall I, who am the daughter of emperors, fail to be as able or as brave as they?"

The wise Nestorian was shrewd enough to see that here was a prize that might be worth the fostering. By the assumption of mystic knowledge, he learned from the bannerman of the Dragon Gate, the truth of the girl's story, and so worked upon the good bannerman's native superstition and awe of superior power as to secure the custody of the young princess, and to place her in his mission-house at Tung-Chow for teaching and guidance. Among the early Christians, the Nestorians held peculiarly helpful and elevating ideas of the worth and proper condition of woman. Their precepts were full of mutual help, courtesy, and fraternal love. All these the Princess Woo learned under her preceptor's guidance. She grew to be even more assertive and self-reliant, and became, also, expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, only boys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed the high bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways, the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city of Chang-an-the City of Continuous Peace.

But even before he had entered its northern gate, a little maid in loose silken robe, peaked cap, and embroidered shoes had passed through that very gateway, and slipping through the thronging streets of the great city, approached at last the group of picturesque and glittering buildings that composed the palace of the great Emperor Tai.

Just within the main gateway of the palace rose the walls of the Imperial Academy, where eight thousand Chinese boys received instruction under the patronage of the emperor, while, just beyond extended the long, low range of the archery school, in which even the emperor himself sometimes came to witness, or take part in, the exciting contests.

Drawing about her shoulders the yellow sash that denoted alliance with royalty, the Princess Woo, without a moment's hesitation, walked straight through the palace gateway, past the wondering guards, and into the boundaries of the archery court.

Here the young Prince Kaou, an indolent and lazy lad of about her own age, was cruelly goading on his trained crickets to a ferocious fight within their gilded bamboo cage, while, just at hand, the slaves were preparing his bow and arrows for his daily archery practice.

Now, among the rulers of China there are three classes of privileged targets—the skin of the bear for the emperor himself, the skin of the deer for the princes of the blood, and the skin of the tiger for the nobles of the court; and thus, side by side, in the Imperial Archery School at Chang-an, hung the three targets.

The girl with the royal sash and the determined face walked straight up to the Prince Kaou. The boy left off goading his fighting crickets, and looked in astonishment at this strange and highly audacious girl, who dared to enter a place from which all women were excluded. Before the guards could interfere, she spoke.

"Are the arrows of the great Prince Kaou so well fitted to the cord," she said, "that he dares to try his skill with one who, although a girl, hath yet the wit and right to test his skill?"

The guards laid hands upon the intruder to drag her away, but the prince, nettled at her tone, yet glad to welcome any thing that promised novelty or amusement, bade them hold off their hands.

"No girl speaketh thus to the Prince Kaou and liveth," he said insolently. "Give me instant test of thy boast, or the wooden collar(1) in the palace torture-house, shall be thy fate."

(1) The "wooden collar" was the "kia" or "cangue,"—a terrible instrument of torture used in China for the punishment of criminals.

"Give me the arrows, Prince," the girl said, bravely, "and I will make good my words."

At a sign, the slaves handed her a bow and arrows. But, as she tried the cord and glanced along the polished shaft, the prince said:

"Yet, stay, girl; here is no target set for thee. Let the slaves set up the people's target. These are not for such as thou."

"Nay, Prince, fret not thyself," the girl coolly replied. "My target is here!" and while all looked on in wonder, the undaunted girl deliberately toed the practice line, twanged her bow, and with a sudden whiz, sent her well-aimed shaft quivering straight into the small white centre of the great bearskin—the imperial target itself!

With a cry of horror and of rage at such sacrilege, the guards pounced upon the girl archer, and would have dragged her away. But with the same quick motion that had saved her from the Tartar robbers, she sprang from their grasp and, standing full before the royal target, she said commandingly:

"Hands off, slaves; nor dare to question my right to the bearskin target. I am the Empress!"

It needed but this to cap the climax. Prince, guards, and slaves looked at this extraordinary girl in open-mouthed wonder. But ere their speechless amazement could change to instant seizure, a loud laugh rang from the imperial doorway and a hearty voice exclaimed: "Braved, and by a girl! Who is thy Empress, Prince? Let me, too, salute the Tsih-tien!"(1) Then a portly figure, clad in yellow robes, strode down to the targets, while all within the archery lists prostrated themselves in homage before one of China's greatest monarchs—the Emperor Tai-tsung, Wun-woo-ti.(2)

(1) "The Sovereign Divine"—an imperial title.

(2) "Our Exalted Ancestor—the Literary-Martial Emperor."

But before even the emperor could reach the girl, the bamboo screen was swept hurriedly aside, and into the archery lists came the anxious priest, Thomas the Nestorian. He had traced his missing charge even to the imperial palace, and now found her in the very presence of those he deemed her mortal enemies. Prostrate at the emperor's feet, he told the young girl's story, and then pleaded for her life, promising to keep her safe and secluded in his mission-home at Tung-Chow.

The Emperor Tai laughed a mighty laugh, for the bold front of this only daughter of his former master and rival, suited his warlike humor. But he was a wise and clement monarch withal.

"Nay, wise O-lo-pun," he said. "Such rivals to our throne may not be at large, even though sheltered in the temples of the hung-mao.(1) The royal blood of the house of Sui(2) flows safely only within palace walls. Let the proper decree be registered, and let the gifts be exchanged; for to-morrow thy ward, the Princess Woo, becometh one of our most noble queens."

(1) The "light-haired ones"—an old Chinese term for the western Christians.

(2) The name of the former dynasty.

And so at fourteen, even as the records show, this strong-willed young girl of the Yellow River became one of the wives of the great Emperor Tai. She proved a very gracious and acceptable stepmother to young Prince Kaou, who, as the records also tell us, grew so fond of the girl queen that, within a year from the death of his great father, and when he himself had succeeded to the Yellow Throne, as Emperor Supreme, he recalled the Queen Woo from her retirement in the mission-house at Tung-Chow and made her one of his royal wives. Five years after, in the year 655, she was declared Empress, and during the reign of her lazy and indolent husband she was "the power behind the throne." And when, in the year 683, Kaou-tsung died, she boldly assumed the direction of the government, and, ascending the throne, declared herself Woo How Tsih-tien—Woo the Empress Supreme and Sovereign Divine.

History records that this Zenobia of China proved equal to the great task. She "governed the empire with discretion," extended its borders, and was acknowledged as empress from the shores of the Pacific to the borders of Persia, of India, and of the Caspian Sea.

Her reign was one of the longest and most successful in that period known in history as the Golden Age of China. Because of the relentless native prejudice against a successful woman, in a country where girl babies are ruthlessly drowned, as the quickest way of ridding the world of useless incumbrances, Chinese historians have endeavored to blacken her character and undervalue her services. But later scholars now see that she was a powerful and successful queen, who did great good to her native land, and strove to maintain its power and glory.

She never forgot her good friend and protector, Thomas the Nestorian. During her long reign of almost fifty years, Christianity strengthened in the kingdom, and obtained a footing that only the great Mahometan conquests of five centuries later entirely destroyed; and the Empress Woo, so the chronicles declare, herself "offered sacrifices to the great God of all." When, hundreds of years after, the Jesuit missionaries penetrated into this most exclusive of all the nations of the earth, they found near the palace at Chang-an the ruins of the Nestorian mission church, with the cross still standing, and, preserved through all the changes of dynasties, an abstract in Syriac characters of the Christian law, and with it the names of seventy-two attendant priests who had served the church established by O-lo-pun.

Thus, in a land in which, from the earliest ages, women have been regarded as little else but slaves, did a self-possessed and wise young girl triumph over all difficulties, and rule over her many millions of subjects "in a manner becoming a great prince." This, even her enemies admit. "Lessening the miseries of her subjects," so the historians declare, she governed the wide Empire of China wisely, discreetly, and peacefully; and she displayed upon the throne all the daring, wit, and wisdom that had marked her actions when, years before, she was nothing but a sprightly and determined little Chinese maiden, on the banks of the turbid Yellow River.



EDITH OF SCOTLAND.: THE GIRL OF THE NORMAN ABBEY.

(Afterward known as the "Good Queen Maud" of England.) A.D. 1093.

On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house at Gloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them, brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young fellow of sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all unmindful of the noise about them—the romp and riot of a throng of young folk, attendants, or followers of the knights and barons of King William's court.

For William Rufus, son of the Conqueror and second Norman king of England, held his Whitsuntide gemot, or summer council of his lords and lieges, in the curious old Roman-Saxon-Norman town of Gloucester, in the fair vale through which flows the noble Severn. The city is known to the young folk of to-day as the one in which good Robert Raikes started the first Sunday-school more than a hundred years ago. But the gemot of King William the Red, which was a far different gathering from good Mr. Raikes' Sunday-school, was held in the great chapter-house of the old Benedictine Abbey, while the court was lodged in the Abbey guest-houses, in the grim and fortress-like Gloucester Castle, and in the houses of the quaint old town itself.

The boy was shaking his head rather doubtfully as he stood, looking down upon the two girls on the broad window-seat.

"Nay, nay, beausire(1); shake not your head like that," exclaimed the younger of the girls. "We did escape that way, trust me we did; Edith here can tell you I do speak the truth—for sure, 't was her device."

(1) "Fair sir": an ancient style of address, used especially toward those high in rank in Norman times.

Thirteen-year-old Edith laughed merrily enough at her sister's perplexity, and said gayly as the lad turned questioningly to her:

"Sure, then, beausire, 't is plain to see that you are Southron-born and know not the complexion of a Scottish mist. Yet 't is even as Mary said. For, as we have told you, the Maiden's Castle standeth high-placed on the crag in Edwin's Burgh, and hath many and devious pathways to the lower gate, So when the Red Donald's men were swarming up the steep, my uncle, the Atheling, did guide us, by ways we knew well, and by twists and turnings that none knew better, straight through Red Donald's array, and all unseen and unnoted of them, because of the blessed thickness of the gathering mist."

"And this was YOUR device?" asked the boy, admiringly.

"Ay, but any one might have devised it too," replied young Edith, modestly. "Sure, 't was no great device to use a Scotch mist for our safety, and 't were wiser to chance it than stay and be stupidly murdered by Red Donald's men. And so it was, good Robert, even as Mary did say, that we came forth unharmed, from amidst them and fled here to King William's court, where we at last are safe."

"Safe, say you, safe?" exclaimed the lad, impulsively. "Ay, as safe as is a mouse's nest in a cat's ear—as safe as is a rabbit in a ferret's hutch. But that I know you to be a brave and dauntless maid, I should say to you——"

But, ere Edith could know what he would say, their conference was rudely broken in upon. For a royal page, dashing up to the three, with scant courtesy seized the arm of the elder girl, and said hurriedly:

"Haste ye, haste ye, my lady! Our lord king is even now calling for you to come before him in the banquet-hall."

Edith knew too well the rough manners of those dangerous days. She freed herself from the grasp of the page, and said:

"Nay, that may I not, master page. 'T is neither safe nor seemly for a maid to show herself in baron's hall or in king's banquet-room."

"Safe and seemly it may not be, but come you must," said the page, rudely. "The king demands it, and your nay is naught."

And so, hurried along whether she would or no, while her friend, Robert Fitz Godwine, accompanied her as far as he dared, the young Princess Edith was speedily brought into the presence of the king of England, William H., called, from the color of his hair and from his fiery temper, Rufus, or "the Red."

For Edith and Mary were both princesses of Scotland, with a history, even before they had reached their teens, as romantic as it was exciting. Their mother, an exiled Saxon princess, had, after the conquest of Saxon England by the stern Duke William the Norman, found refuge in Scotland, and had there married King Malcolm Canmore, the son of that King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain. But when King Malcolm had fallen beneath the walls of Alnwick Castle, a victim to English treachery, and when his fierce brother Donald Bane, or Donald the Red, had usurped the throne of Scotland, then the good Queen Margaret died in the gray castle on the rock of Edinburgh, and the five orphaned children were only saved from the vengeance of their bad uncle Donald by the shrewd and daring device of the young Princess Edith, who bade their good uncle Edgar, the Atheling, guide them, under cover of the mist, straight through the Red Donald's knights and spearmen to England and safety.

You would naturally suppose that the worst possible place for the fugitives to seek safety was in Norman England; for Edgar the Atheling, a Saxon prince, had twice been declared king of England by the Saxon enemies of the Norman conquerors, and the children of King Malcolm and Queen Margaret—half Scotch, half Saxon—were, by blood and birth, of the two races most hateful to the conquerors. But the Red King in his rough sort of way—hot to-day and cold to-morrow—had shown something almost like friendship, for this Saxon Atheling, or royal prince, who might have been king of England had he not wisely submitted to the greater power of Duke William the Conqueror and to the Red William, his son. More than this, it had been rumored that some two years before, when there was truce between the kings of England and of Scotland, this harsh and headstrong English king, who was as rough and repelling as a chestnut burr, had seen, noticed, and expressed a particular interest in the eleven-year-old Scottish girl—this very Princess Edith who now sought his protection.

So, when this wandering uncle boldly threw himself upon Norman courtesy, and came with his homeless nephews and nieces straight to the Norman court for safety, King William Rufus not only received these children of his hereditary foeman with favor and royal welcome, but gave them comfortable lodgment in quaint old Gloucester town, where he held his court.

But even when the royal fugitives deemed themselves safest were they in the greatest danger.

Among the attendant knights and nobles of King William's court was a Saxon knight known as Sir Ordgar, a "thegn,"(1) or baronet, of Oxfordshire; and because those who change their opinions—political or otherwise—often prove the most unrelenting enemies of their former associates, it came to pass that Sir Ordgar, the Saxon, conceived a strong dislike for these orphaned descendants of the Saxon kings, and convinced himself that the best way to secure himself in the good graces of the Norman King William was to slander and accuse the children of the Saxon Queen Margaret.

(1) Pronounced thane.

And so that very day, in the great hall, when wine was flowing and passions were strong, this false knight, raising his glass, bade them all drink: "Confusion to the enemies of our liege the king, from the base Philip of France to the baser Edgar the Atheling and his Scottish brats!"

This was an insult that even the heavy and peace-loving nature of Edgar the Atheling could not brook. He sprang to his feet and denounced the charge:

"None here is truer or more leal to you, lord king," he said, "than am I, Edgar the Atheling, and my charges, your guests."

But King William Rufus was of that changing, temper that goes with jealousy and suspicion. His flushed face grew still more red, and, turning away from the Saxon prince, he demanded:

"Why make you this charge, Sir Ordgar?

"Because of its truth, beausire," said the faithless knight. "For what other cause hath this false Atheling sought sanctuary here, save to use his own descent from the ancient kings of this realm to make head and force among your lieges? And, his eldest kinsgirl here, the Princess Edith, hath she not been spreading a trumpery story among the younger folk, of how some old wyrd-wif(1) hath said that she who is the daughter of kings shall be the wife and mother of kings? And is it not further true that when her aunt, the Abbess of Romsey, bade her wear the holy veil, she hath again and yet again torn it off, and affirmed that she, who was to be a queen, could never be made a nun? Children and fools, 't is said, do speak the truth, beausire; and in all this do I see the malice and device of this false Atheling, the friend of your rebellious brother, Duke Robert, as you do know him to be; and I do brand him here, in this presence, as traitor and recreant to you, his lord."

(1) Witch-wife or seeress.

The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar went on.

"Enough!" he cried. "Seize the traitor,——or, stay; children and fools, as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth. Have in the girl and let us hear the truth. 'Not seemly'? Sir Atheling," he broke out in reply to some protest of Edith's uncle. "Aught is seemly that the king doth wish. Holo! Raoul! Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, and seek the Princess Edith, and bring her here forthwith!"

And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest of all his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with the angry king, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after the Princess Edith.

"How now, mistress!" broke out the Red King, as the young girl was ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn with fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutal days. "How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of your own designs—you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wise to talk,—nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught from you,—to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to win the realm from me—from me, your only protector?"

The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the stories of her girlhood show. And this unexpected accusation, instead of frightening her, only served to embolden her. She looked the angry monarch full in the face.

"'T is a false and lying charge, lord king," she said, "from whomsoever it may come. Naught have I said but praise of you and your courtesy to us motherless folk. 'T is a false and lying charge; and I am ready to stand test of its proving, come what may."

"Even to the judgment of God, girl?" demanded the king.

And the brave girl made instant reply: "Even to the judgment of God, lord king." Then, skilled in all the curious customs of those warlike times, she drew off her glove. "Whosoever my accuser be, lord king," she said, "I do denounce him as foresworn and false, and thus do I throw myself upon God's good mercy, if it shall please him to raise me up a champion." And she flung her glove upon the floor of the hall, in face of the king and all his barons.

It was a bold thing for a girl to do, and a murmur of applause ran through even that unfriendly throng. For, to stand the test of a "wager of battle," or the "judgment of God," as the savage contest was called, was the last resort of any one accused of treason or of crime. It meant no less than a "duel to the death" between the accuser and the accused or their accepted champions, and, upon the result of the duel hung the lives of those in dispute. And the Princess Edith's glove lying on the floor of the Abbey hall was her assertion that she had spoken the truth and was willing to risk her life in proof of her innocence.

Edgar the Atheling, peace-lover, though he was, would gladly have accepted the post of champion for his niece, but, as one also involved in the charge of treason, such action was denied him.

For the moment, the Red King's former admiration for this brave young princess caused him to waver; but those were days when suspicion and jealousy rose above all nobler traits. His face grew stern again.

"Ordgar of Oxford," he said, "take up the glove!" and Edith knew who was her accuser. Then the King asked: "Who standeth as champion for Edgar the Atheling and this maid, his niece?"

Almost before the words were spoken young Robert Fitz Godwine had sprung to Edith's side.

"That would I, lord king, if a young squire might appear against a belted knight!"

"Ordgar of Oxford fights not with boys!" said the accuser contemptuously.

The king's savage humor broke out again.

"Face him with your own page, Sir Ordgar," he said, with a grim laugh. "Boy against boy would be a fitting wager for a young maid's life." But the Saxon knight was in no mood for sport.

"Nay, beausire; this is no child's play," he said. "I care naught for this girl. I stand as champion for the king against yon traitor Atheling, and if the maiden's cause is his, why then against her too. This is a man's quarrel."

Young Robert would have spoken yet again as his face flushed hot with anger at the knight's contemptuous words. But a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a strong voice said:

"Then is it mine, Sir Ordgar. If between man and man, then will I, with the gracious permission of our lord the king, stand as champion for this maiden here and for my good lord, the noble Atheling, whose liegeman and whose man am I, next to you, lord king." And, taking the mate to the glove which the Princess Edith had flung down in defiance, he thrust it into the guard of his cappe. line, or iron skull-cap, in token that he, Godwine of Winchester, the father of the boy Robert, was the young girl's champion.

Three days after, in the tilt-yard of Gloucester Castle, the wager of battle was fought. It was no gay tournament show with streaming banners, gorgeous lists, gayly dressed ladies, flower-bedecked balconies, and all the splendid display of a tourney of the knights, of which you read in the stories of romance and chivalry. It was a solemn and sombre gathering in which all the arrangements suggested only death and gloom, while the accused waited in suspense, knowing that halter and fagot were prepared for them should their champion fall. In quaint and crabbed Latin the old chronicler, John of Fordun, tells the story of the fight, for which there is neither need nor space here. The glove of each contestant was flung into the lists by the judge, and the dispute committed for settlement to the power of God and their own good swords. It is a stirring picture of those days of daring and of might, when force took the place of justice, and the deadliest blows were the only convincing arguments. But, though supported by the favor of the king and the display of splendid armor, Ordgar's treachery had its just reward. Virtue triumphed, and vice was punished. Even while treacherously endeavoring (after being once disarmed) to stab the brave Godwine with a knife which he had concealed in his boot, the false Sir Ordgar was overcome, confessed the falsehood of his charge against Edgar the Atheling and Edith his niece, and, as the quaint old record has it, "The strength of his grief and the multitude of his wounds drove out his impious soul."

So young Edith was saved; and, as is usually the case with men of his character, the Red King's humor changed completely. The victorious Godwine received the arms and lands of the dead Ordgar; Edgar the Atheling was raised high in trust and honor; the throne of Scotland, wrested from the Red Donald, was placed once more in the family of King Malcolm, and King William Rufus himself became the guardian and protector of the Princess Edith.

And when, one fatal August day, the Red King was found pierced by an arrow under the trees of the New Forest, his younger brother, Duke Henry, whom men called Beauclerc, "the good scholar," for his love of learning and of books, ascended the throne of England as King Henry I. And the very year of his accession, on the 11th of November, 1100, he married, in the Abbey of Westminster, the Princess Edith of Scotland, then a fair young lady of scarce twenty-one. At the request of her husband she took, upon her coronation day, the Norman name of Matilda, or Maud, and by this name she is known in history and among the queens of England.

So scarce four and thirty years after the Norman conquest, a Saxon princess sat upon the throne of Norman England, the loving wife of the son of the very man by whom Saxon England was conquered.

"Never, since the battle of Hastings," says Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian, "had there been such a joyous day as when Queen Maud was crowned." Victors and vanquished, Normans and Saxons, were united at last, and the name of "Good Queen Maud" was long an honored memory among the people of England.

And she was a good queen. In a time of bitter tyranny, when the common people were but the serfs and slaves of the haughty and cruel barons, this young queen labored to bring in kindlier manners and more gentle ways. Beautiful in face, she was still more lovely in heart and life. Her influence upon her husband, Henry the scholar, was seen in the wise laws he made, and the "Charter of King Henry" is said to have been gained by her intercession. This important paper was the first step toward popular liberty. It led the way to Magna Charta, and finally to our own Declaration of Independence. The boys and girls of America, therefore, in common with those of England, can look back with interest and affection upon the romantic story of "Good Queen Maud," the brave-hearted girl who showed herself wise and fearless both in the perilous mist at Edinburgh, and, later still, in the yet greater dangers of "the black lists of Gloucester."



JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS, A.D. 1414.

Count William of Hainault, of Zealand and Friesland, Duke of Bavaria and Sovereign Lord of Holland, held his court in the great, straggling castle which he called his "hunting lodge," near to the German Ocean, and since known by the name of "The Hague."(1)

(1) "The Hague" is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage—the haag, or "hunting lodge," of the Graf, or count.

Count William was a gallant and courtly knight, learned in all the ways of chivalry, the model of the younger cavaliers, handsome in person, noble in bearing, the surest lance in the tilting-yard, and the stoutest arm in the foray.

Like "Jephtha, Judge of Israel," of whom the mock-mad Hamlet sang to Polonius, Count William had

"One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well;"

and, truth to tell, this fair young Jacqueline, the little "Lady of Holland," as men called her,—but whom Count William, because of her fearless antics and boyish ways, called "Dame Jacob,"(1)—loved her knightly father with equal fervor.

(1) Jaqueline is the French rendering of the Dutch Jakobine—the feminine of Jakob, or James.

As she sat, that day, in the great Hall of the Knights in the massive castle at The Hague, she could see, among all the knights and nobles who came from far and near to join in the festivities at Count William's court, not one that approached her father in nobility of bearing or manly strength—not even her husband.

Her husband? Yes. For this little maid of thirteen had been for eight years the wife of the Dauphin of France, the young Prince John of Touraine, to whom she had been married when she was scarce five years old and he barely nine. Surrounded by all the pomp of an age of glitter and display, these royal children lived in their beautiful castle of Quesnoy, in Flanders,(1) when they were not, as at the time of our story, residents at the court of the powerful Count William of Holland.

(1) Now Northeastern France.

Other young people were there, too,—nobles and pages and little ladies-in-waiting; and there was much of the stately ceremonial and flowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike the fears of cowards and the desires of heroes. For there have always been heroes and cowards in the world.

And so, between all these young folk, there was much boastful talk and much harmless gossip how the little Lady of Courtrai had used the wrong corner of the towel yesterday; how the fat Duchess of Enkhuysen had violated the laws of all etiquette by placing the wrong number of finger-bowls upon her table on St. Jacob's Day; and how the stout young Hubert of Malsen had scattered the rascal merchants of Dort at their Shrovetide fair.

Then uprose the young Lord of Arkell.

"Hold, there!" he cried hotly. "This Hubert of Malsen is but a craven, sirs, if he doth say the merchants of Dort are rascal cowards. Had they been fairly mated, he had no more dared to put his nose within the gates of Dort than dare one of you here to go down yonder amid Count William's lions!"

"Have a care, friend Otto," said the little Lady of Holland, with warning finger; "there is one here, at least, who dareth to go amid the lions—my father, sir."

"I said nothing of him, madam," replied Count Otto. "I did mean these young red hats here, who do no more dare to bait your father's lions than to face the Cods of Dort in fair and equal fight."

At this bold speech there was instant commotion. For the nobles and merchants of Holland, four centuries and a half ago, were at open strife with one another. The nobles saw in the increasing prosperity of the merchants the end of their own feudal power and tyranny. The merchants recognized in the arrogant nobles the only bar to the growth of Holland's commercial enterprise. So each faction had its leaders, its partisans, its badges, and its followers. Many and bloody were the feuds and fights that raged through all those low-lying lands of Holland, as the nobles, or "Hooks," as they were called—distinguishable by their big red hats,—and the merchants, or "Cods," with their slouch hats of quiet gray, struggled for the lead in the state. And how they DID hate one another!

Certain of the younger nobles, however, who were opposed to the reigning house of Holland, of which Count William, young Jacqueline's father, was the head, had espoused the cause of the merchants, seeing in their success greater prosperity and wealth for Holland. Among these had been the young Lord of Arkell, now a sort of half prisoner at Count William's court because of certain bold attempts to favor the Cods in his own castle of Arkell. His defiant words therefore raised a storm of protests.

"Nay, then, Lord of Arkell," said the Dauphin John, "you, who prate so loudly, would better prove your words by some sign of your own valor. You may have dared fight your lady mother, who so roundly punished you therefor, but a lion hath not the tender ways of a woman. Face YOU the lions, lord count, and I will warrant me they will not prove as forbearing as did she."

It was common talk at Count William's court that the brave Lady of Arkell, mother of the Count Otto, had made her way, disguised, into we castle of her son, had herself lowered the drawbridge, admitted her armed retainers, overpowered and driven out her rebellious son; and that then, relenting, she had appealed to Count William to pardon the lad and to receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty. So this fling of the Dauphin's cut deep.

But before the young Otto could return an angry answer, Jacqueline had interfered.

"Nay, nay, my lord," she said to her husband, the Dauphin; "'t is not a knightly act thus to impeach the honor of a noble guest."

But now the Lord of Arkell had found his tongue.

"My lord prince," he said, bowing low with stately courtesy, "if, as my lady mother and good Count William would force me, I am to be loyal vassal to you, my lieges here, I should but follow where you dare to lead. Go YOU into the lions' den, lord prince, and I will follow you, though it were into old Hercules' very teeth."

It was a shrewd reply, and covered as good a "double-dare" as ever one boy made to another. Some of the manlier of the young courtiers indeed even dared to applaud. But the Dauphin John was stronger in tongue than in heart.

"Peste!" he cried contemptuously. "'T is a fool's answer and a fool's will. And well shall we see now how you will sneak out of it all. See, Lord of Arkell, you who can prate so loudly of Cods and lions: here before all, I dare you to face Count William's lions yourself!"

The young Lord of Arkell was in his rich court suit—a tight-fitting, great-sleeved silk jacket, rich, violet chausses, or tights, and pointed shoes. But without a word, with scarce a look toward his challenger, he turned to his nearest neighbor, a brave Zealand lad, afterward noted in Dutch history—Francis von Borselen.

"Lend me your gabardine, friend Franz, will you not?" he said.

The young von Borselen took from the back of the settle, over which it was flung, his gabardine—the long, loose gray cloak that was a sort of overcoat in those days of queer costume.

"It is here, my Otto," he said.

The Lord of Arkell drew the loose gray cloak over his rich silk suit, and turned toward the door.

"Otto von Arkell lets no one call him fool or coward, lord prince," he said. "What I have dared you all to do, I dare do, if you do not. See, now: I will face Count William's lions!"

The Princess Jacqueline sprang up in protest.

"No, no; you shall not!" she cried. "My lord prince did but jest, as did we all. John," she said, turning appealingly to her young husband, who sat sullen and unmoved, "tell him you meant no such murderous test. My father!" she cried, turning now toward Count William, whose attention had been drawn to the dispute, "the Lord of Arkell is pledged to face your lions!"

Count William of Holland dearly loved pluck and nerve.

"Well, daughter mine," he said, "then will he keep his pledge. Friend Otto is a brave young gallant, else had he never dared raised spear and banner, as he did, against his rightful liege."

"But, my father," persisted the gentle-hearted girl, "spear and banner are not lions' jaws. And surely you may not in honor permit the wilful murder of a hostage."

"Nay, madam, have no fear," the Lord of Arkell said, bending in courteous recognition of her interest; "that which I do of mine own free will is no murder, even should it fail."

And he hastened from the hall.

A raised gallery looked down into the spacious inclosure in which Count William kept the living specimens of his own princely badge of the lion. And here the company gathered to see the sport.

With the gray gabardine drawn but loosely over his silken suit, so that he might, if need be, easily slip from it, Otto von Arkell boldly entered the inclosure.

"Soho, Juno! up, Hercules; hollo, up, Ajax!" cried Count William, from the balcony. "Here cometh a right royal playfellow—up, up, my beauties!" and the great brutes, roused by the voice of their master, pulled themselves up, shook themselves awake, and stared at the intruder.

Boldly and without hesitation, while all the watchers had eyes but for him alone, the young Lord of Arkell walked straight up to Hercules, the largest of the three, and laid his hand caressingly upon the shaggy mane. Close to his side pressed Juno, the lioness, and, so says the record of the old Dutch chronicler, von Hildegaersberch, "the lions did him no harm; he played with them as if they had been dogs."

But Ajax, fiercest of the three, took no notice of the lad. Straight across his comrades he looked to where, scarce a rod behind the daring lad, came another figure, a light and graceful form in clinging robes of blue and undergown of cloth of gold—the Princess Jacqueline herself!

The watchers in the gallery followed the lion's stare, and saw, with horror, the advancing figure of this fair young girl. A cry of terror broke from every lip. The Dauphin John turned pale with fright, and Count William of Holland, calling out, "Down, Ajax! back, girl, back!" sprang to his feet as if he would have vaulted over the gallery rail.

But before he could act, Ajax himself had acted. With a bound he cleared the intervening space and crouched at the feet of the fair young Princess Jacqueline!

The lions must have been in remarkably good humor on that day, for, as the records tell us, they did no harm to their visitors. Ajax slowly rose and looked up into the girl's calm face. Then the voice of Jacqueline rang out fresh and clear as, standing with her hand buried in the lion's tawny mane, she raised her face to the startled galleries.

"You who could dare and yet dared not to do!" she cried, "it shall not be said that in all Count William's court none save the rebel Lord of Arkell dared to face Count William's lions!"

The Lord of Arkell sprang to his comrade's side. With a hurried word of praise he flung the gabardine about her, grasped her arm, and bade her keep her eyes firmly fixed upon the lions; then, step by step, those two foolhardy young persons backed slowly out of the danger into which they had so thoughtlessly and unnecessarily forced themselves.

The lions' gate closed behind them with a clang; the shouts of approval and of welcome sounded from the thronging gallery, and over all they heard the voice of the Lord of Holland mingling commendation and praise with censure for the rashness of their action.

And it WAS a rash and foolish act. But we must remember that those were days when such feats were esteemed as brave and valorous. For the Princess Jaqueline of Holland was reared in the school of so-called chivalry and romance, which in her time was fast approaching its end. She was, indeed, as one historian declares, the last heroine of knighthood. Her very titles suggest the days of chivalry. She was Daughter of Holland, Countess of Ponthieu, Duchess of Berry, Lady of Crevecoeur, of Montague and Arloeux. Brought up in the midst of tilts and tournaments, of banquets and feasting, and all the lavish display of the rich Bavarian court, she was, as we learn from her chroniclers, the leader of adoring knights and vassals, the idol of her parents, the ruler of her soft-hearted boy husband, an expert falconer, a daring horsewoman, and a fearless descendant of those woman warriors of her race, Margaret the Empress, and Philippa the Queen, and of a house that traced its descent through the warlike Hohenstaufens back to Charlemagne himself.

All girls admire bravery, even though not themselves personally courageous. It is not, therefore, surprising that this intrepid and romance-reared young princess, the wife of a lad for whom she never especially cared, and whose society had for political reasons been forced upon her, should have placed as the hero of her admiration, next to her own fearless father, not the Dauphin John of France, but this brave young rebel lad, Otto, the Lord of Arkell.

But the joyous days of fete and pleasure at Quesnoy, at Paris, and The Hague were fast drawing to a close. On the fourth of April, 1417, the Dauphin John died by poisoning, in his father's castle at Compiegne—the victim of those terrible and relentless feuds that were then disgracing and endangering the feeble throne of France.

The dream of future power and greatness as Queen of France, in which the girl wife of the Dauphin had often indulged, was thus rudely dispelled, and Jacqueline returned to her father's court in Holland, no longer crown princess and heiress to a throne, but simply "Lady of Holland."

But in Holland, too, sorrow was in store for her. Swiftly following the loss of her husband, the Dauphin, came the still heavier blow of her father's death. On the thirtieth of May, 1417, Count William died in his castle of Bouchain, in Hainault, and his sorrowing daughter Jacqueline, now a beautiful girl of sixteen, succeeded to his titles and lordship as Countess and Lady Supreme of Hainault, of Holland, and of Zealand.

For years, however, there had been throughout the Low Countries a strong objection to the rule of a woman. The death of Count William showed the Cods a way toward greater liberty. Rebellion followed rebellion, and the rule of the Countess Jacqueline was by no means a restful one.

And chief among the rebellious spirits, as leader and counsellor among the Cods, appeared the brave lad who had once been the companion of the princess in danger, the young Lord of Arkell.

It was he who lifted the standard of revolt against her regency. Placing the welfare of Holland above personal friendship, and sinking, in his desire for glory, even the chivalry of that day, which should have prompted him to aid rather than annoy this beautiful girl, he raised a considerable army among the knights of the Cods, or liberal party, and the warlike merchants of the cities, took possession of many strong positions in Holland, and occupied, among other places, the important town of Gorkum on the Maas. The stout citadel of the town, was, however, garrisoned with loyal troops. This the Lord of Arkell beseiged, and, demanding its surrender, sent also a haughty challenge to the young countess, who was hastening to the relief of her beleaguered town.

Jacqueline's answer was swift and unmistakable. With three hundred ships and six thousand knights and men-at-arms, she sailed from the old harbor of Rotterdam, and the lion-flag of her house soon floated above the loyal citadel of Gorkum.

Her doughty Dutch general, von Brederode, counselled immediate attack, but the girl countess, though full of enthusiasm and determination, hesitated.

From her station in the citadel she looked over the scene before her. Here, along the low bank of the river Maas, stretched the camp of her own followers, and the little gayly colored boats that had brought her army up the river from the red roofs of Rotterdam. There, stretching out into the flat country beyond the straggling streets of Gorkum, lay the tents of the rebels. And yet they were all her countrymen—rebels and retainers alike. Hollanders all, they were ever ready to combine for the defence of their homeland when threatened by foreign foes or by the destroying ocean floods.

Jacqueline's eye caught the flutter of the broad banner of the house of Arkell that waved over the rebel camp.

Again she saw the brave lad who alone of all her father's court, save she, had dared to face Count William's lions; again the remembrance of how his daring had made him one of her heroes, filled her heart, and a dream of what might be possessed her. Her boy husband, the French Dauphin, was dead, and she was pledged by her dying father's command to marry her cousin, whom she detested, Duke John of Brabant. But how much better, so she reasoned, that the name and might of her house as rulers of Holland should be upheld by a brave and fearless knight. On the impulse of this thought she summoned a loyal and trusted vassal to her aid.

"Von Leyenburg," she said, "go you in haste and in secret to the Lord of Arkell, and bear from me this message for his ear alone. Thus says the Lady of Holland: 'Were it not better, Otto of Arkell, that we join hands in marriage before the altar, than that we spill the blood of faithful followers and vassals in a cruel fight?'"

It was a singular, and perhaps, to our modern ears, a most unladylike proposal; but it shows how, even in the heart of a sovereign countess and a girl general, warlike desires may give place to gentler thoughts.

To the Lord Arkell, however, this unexpected proposition came as an indication of weakness.

"My lady countess fears to face my determined followers," he thought. "Let me but force this fight and the victory is mine. In that is greater glory and more of power than being husband to the Lady of Holland."

And so he returned a most ungracious answer:

"Tell the Countess Jacqueline," he said to the knight of Leyenburg, "that the honor of her hand I cannot accept. I am her foe, and would rather die than marry her."

All the hot blood of her ancestors flamed in wrath as young Jacqueline heard this reply of the rebel lord.

"Crush we these rebel curs, von Brederode," she cried, pointing to the banner of Arkell; "for by my father's memory, they shall have neither mercy nor life from me."

Fast upon the curt refusal of the Lord of Arkell came his message of defiance.

"Hear ye, Countess of Holland," rang out the challenge of the herald of Arkell, as his trumpet-blast sounded before the gate of the citadel, "the free Lord of Arkell here giveth you word and warning that he will fight against you on the morrow!"

And from the citadel came back this ringing reply, as the knight of Leyenburg made answer for his sovereign lady:

"Hear ye, sir Herald, and answer thus to the rebel Lord of Arkell: 'For the purpose of fighting him came we here, and fight him we will, until he and his rebels are beaten and dead.' Long live our Sovereign Lady of Holland!"

On the morrow, a murky December day, in the year 1417, the battle was joined, as announced. On the low plain beyond the city, knights and men-at-arms, archers and spearmen, closed in the shock of battle, and a stubborn and bloody fight it was.

Seven times did the knights of Jacqueline, glittering in their steel armor, clash into the rebel ranks; seven times were they driven back, until, at last, the Lord of Arkell, with a fiery charge, forced them against the very gates of the citadel. The brave von Brederode fell pierced with wounds, and the day seemed lost, indeed, to the Lady of Holland.

Then Jacqueline the Countess, seeing her cause in danger—like another Joan of Arc, though she was indeed a younger and much more beautiful girl general,—seized the lion-banner of her house, and, at the head of her reserve troops, charged through the open gate straight into the ranks of her victorious foes. There was neither mercy nor gentleness in her heart then. As when she had cowed with a look Ajax, the lion, so now, with defiance and wrath in her face, she dashed straight at the foe.

Her disheartened knights rallied around her, and, following the impetuous girl, they wielded axe and lance for the final struggle. The result came quickly. The ponderous battle-axe of the knight of Leyenburg crashed through the helmet of the Lord of Arkell, and as the brave young leader fell to the ground, his panic-stricken followers turned and fled. The troops of Jacqueline pursued them through the streets of Gorkum and out into the open country, and the vengeance of the countess was sharp and merciless.

But in the flush of victory wrath gave way to pity again, and the young conqueror is reported to have said, sadly and in tears:

"Ah! I have won, and yet how have I lost!"

But the knights and nobles who followed her banner loudly praised her valor and her fearlessness, and their highest and most knightly vow thereafter was to swear "By the courage of our Princess."

The brilliant victory of this girl of sixteen was not, however, to accomplish her desires. Peace never came to her. Harassed by rebellion at home, and persecuted by her relentless and perfidious uncles, Count John of Bavaria, rightly called "the Pitiless," and Duke Philip of Burgundy, falsely called "the Good," she, who had once been Crown Princess of France and Lady of Holland, died at the early age of thirty-six, stripped of all her titles and estates. It is, however, pleasant to think that she was happy in the love of her husband, the baron of the forests of the Duke of Burgundy, a plain Dutch gentleman, Francis von Borselen, the lad who, years before, had furnished the gray gabardine that had shielded Count William's daughter from her father's lions.

The story of Jacqueline of Holland is one of the most romantic that has come down to us from those romantic days of the knights. Happy only in her earliest and latest years, she is, nevertheless, a bright and attractive figure against the dark background of feudal tyranny and crime. The story of her womanhood should indeed be told, if we would study her life as a whole; but for us, who can in this paper deal only with her romantic girlhood, her young life is to be taken as a type of the stirring and extravagant days of chivalry.

And we cannot but think with sadness upon the power for good that she might have been in her land of fogs and floods if, instead of being made the tool of party hate and the ambitions of men, her frank and fearless girl nature had been trained to gentle ways and charitable deeds.

To be "the most picturesque figure in the history of Holland," as she has been called, is distinction indeed; but higher still must surely be that gentleness of character and nobility of soul that, in these days of ours, may be acquired by every girl and boy who reads this romantic story of the Countess Jacqueline, the fair young Lady of Holland.



CATARINA OF VENICE: THE GIRL OF THE GRAND CANAL.

(Afterward known as Queen of Cyprus and "Daughter of the Republic.") A.D. 1466.

"Who is he? Why do you not know, Catarina mia? 'T is his Most Puissant Excellency, the mighty Lord of Lusignan, the runaway Heir of Jerusalem, the beggar Prince of Cyprus, with more titles to his name—ho ho, ho!—than he hath jackets to his back; and with more dodging than ducats, so 't is said, when the time to pay for his lodging draweth nigh. Holo, Messer Principino! Give you good-day, Lord of Lusignan! Ho, below there here is tribute for you."

And down upon the head of a certain sad-faced, seedy-looking young fellow in the piazza, or square, beneath, descended a rattling shower of bonbons, thrown by the hand of the speaker, a brown-faced Venetian lad of sixteen.

But little Catarina Cornaro, just freed from the imprisonment of her convent-school at Padua, felt her heart go out in pity towards this homeless young prince, who just now seemed to be the butt for all the riot and teasing of the boys of the Great Republic.

"Nay, nay, my Giorgio," she said to her brother; "'t is neither fair nor wise so to beset one in dire distress. The good sisters of our school have often told us that 't is better to be a beggar than a dullard; and sure yon prince, as you do say he is, looketh to be no dolt. But ah, see there!" she cried, leaning far over the gayly draped balcony; "see, he can well use his fists, can he not! Nay, though, 't is a shame so to beset him, say I. Why should our lads so misuse a stranger and a prince?"

It was the Feast Day of St. Mark, one of the jolliest of the old-time holidays of Venice, that wonderful City of the Sea, whose patron and guardian St. Mark, the apostle, was supposed to be. Gondolas, rich with draperies of every hue that completely concealed their frames of sombre black, shot in and out, and up and down all the water-streets of the beautiful city; while towering palace and humbler dwelling alike were gay with gorgeous hangings and fluttering streamers.

In noticeable contrast with all the brilliant costumes and laughing faces around him was the lad who just now seemed in so dire a strait. He had paused to watch one of the passing pageants from the steps of the Palazzo Cornaro, quite near the spot where, a century later, the famous bridge known as the Rialto spanned the Street of the Nobles, or Grand Canal—one of the most notable spots in the history of Venice the Wonderful.

The lad was indeed a prince, the representative of a lordly house that for more than five hundred years had been strong and powerful, first as barons of France, and later as rulers of the Crusaders' kingdom of Jerusalem and the barbaric but wealthy island of Cyprus. But poor Giacomo, or James, of Lusignan, royal prince though he was, had been banished from his father's court in Cyprus. He had dared rebel against the authority of his step-mother, a cruel Greek princess from Constantinople, who ruled her feeble old husband and persecuted her spirited young step-son, the Prince Giacomo.

And so, with neither money nor friends to help him on, he had wandered to Venice. But Venice in 1466, a rich, proud, and prosperous city, was a very poor place for a lad who had neither friends nor money; for, of course, the royal prince of a little island in the Mediterranean could not so demean himself as to soil his hands with work!

So I imagine that young Prince Giacomo had any thing but a pleasant time in Venice. On this particular Feast Day of St. Mark, I am certain that he was having the most unpleasant of all his bitter experiences, as, backed up against one of the columns of the Cornaro Palace, he found himself surrounded by a crowd of thoughtless young Venetians, who were teasing and bullying him to the full content of their brutal young hearts.

The Italian temper is known to be both hot and hasty; but the temper of oriental Cyprus is even more fiery, and so it was not surprising that, in this most one-sided fray, the fun soon became fighting in earnest; for anger begets anger.

All about the young prince was a tossing throng of restless and angry boys, while the beleaguered lad, still standing at bay, flourished a wicked-looking stiletto above his head and answered taunt with taunt.

At this instant the door of the Cornaro Palace opened quickly, and the Prince Giacomo felt himself drawn bodily within; while a bright-faced young girl with flashing eye and defiant air confronted his greatly surprised tormentors.

"Shame, shame upon you, boys of Venice," she cried, "thus to ill-use a stranger in your town! Is a score of such as you against one poor lad the boasted chivalry of Venice? Eh via! the very fisher-lads of Mendicoli could teach you better ways!"

Taken quite aback by this sudden apparition and these stinging words, the boys dispersed with scarce an attempt to reply, and all the more hastily because they spied, coming up the Grand Canal, the gorgeous gondola of the Companions of the Stocking, an association of young men under whose charge and supervision all the pageants and displays of old Venice were given.

So the piazza was speedily cleared; and the Prince Giacomo, with many words of thanks to his young and unknown deliverers, hurried from the spot which had so nearly proved disastrous to him.

Changes came suddenly in those unsettled times. Within two years both the Greek step-mother and the feeble old king were dead, and Prince Giacomo, after a struggle for supremacy with his half-sister Carlotta, became King of Cyprus.

Now Cyprus, though scarcely as large as the State of Connecticut, was a very desirable possession, and one that Venice greatly coveted. Some of her citizens owned land there, and among these was Marco Cornaro, father of Catarina. And so it happened that, soon after the accession of King Giacomo, Messer Andrea Cornaro, the uncle of Catarina, came to Cyprus to inspect and improve the lands belonging to his brother Marco.

Venice, in those days was so great a power that the Venetian merchants were highly esteemed in all the courts of Europe. And Uncle Andrea, who had probably loaned the new king of Cyprus a goodly store of Venetian ducats, became quite, friendly with the young monarch, and gave him much sage advice.

One day—it seemed as if purely by accident, but those old Venetians were both shrewd and far-seeing—Uncle Andrea, talking of the glories of Venice, showed to King Giacomo a picture of his niece, Catarina Cornaro, then a beautiful girl of fourteen.

King Giacomo came of a house that was quick to form friendships and antipathies, loves and hates. He "fell violently in love with the picture,"—so the story goes,—and expressed to Andrea Cornaro his desire to see and know the original.

"That face seemeth strangely familiar, Messer Cornaro," he said.

He held the portrait in his hands, and seemed struggling with an uncertain memory. Suddenly his face lighted up, and he exclaimed joyfully:

"So; I have it! Messer Cornaro, I know your niece."

"You know her, sire?" echoed the surprised Uncle Andrea.

"Ay, that indeed I do," said the king. "This is the same fair and brave young maiden who delivered me from a rascal rout of boys on the Grand Canal at Venice, on St. Mark's Day, scarce two years ago." And King Giacomo smiled and bowed at the picture as if it were the living Catarina instead of her simple portrait.

Here now was news for Uncle Andrea. And you may be sure he was too good a Venetian and too loyal a Cornaro not to turn it to the best advantage. So he stimulated the young king's evident inclination as cunningly as he was able. His niece Catarina, he assured the king, was as good as she was beautiful, and as clever as she was both.

"But then," he declared, "Venice hath many fair daughters, sire, whom the king's choice would honor, and Catarina is but a young maid yet. Would it not be wiser, when you choose a queen, to select some older donzella for your bride? Though it will, I can aver, be hard to choose fairer."

It is just such half-way opposition that renders nature like that of this young monarch all the more determined. No! King Giacomo would have Catarina, and Catarina only, for his bride and queen. Messer Cornaro must secure her for him.

But shrewd Uncle Andrea still feared the jealousy of his fellow-Venetians. Why should the house of Cornaro, they would demand, be so openly preferred? And so, at his suggestion, an ambassador was despatched to Venice soliciting an alliance with the Great Republic, and asking from the senate the hand of some high-born maid of Venice in marriage for his highness, the King of Cyprus. But you may be very sure that the ambassador had special and secret instructions alike from King Giacomo and from Uncle Andrea just how and whom to choose.

The ambassador came to Venice, and soon the senate issued its commands that upon a certain day the noblest and fairest of the daughters of Venice—one from each of the patrician families—should appear in the great Council Hall of the Ducal Palace in order that the ambassador of the King of Cyprus might select a fitting bride for his royal master. It reads quite like one of the old fairy stories, does it not? Only in this case the dragon who was to take away the fairest maiden as his tribute was no monster, but the brave young king of a lovely island realm.

The Palace of the Doges—the Palazzo Ducale of old Venice—is familiar to all who have ever seen a picture of the Square of St. Mark's, the best known spot in that famous City of the Sea. It is the low, rectangular, richly decorated building with its long row of columns and arcades that stand out so prominently in photograph and engraving. It has seen many a splendid pageant, but it never witnessed a fairer sight than when on a certain bright day of the year 1468 seventy-two of the daughters of Venice, gorgeous in the rich costumes of that most lavish city of a lavish age, gathered in the great Consiglio, or Council Hall.

Up the Scala d'Oro, or Golden Staircase, built only for the use of the nobles, they came, escorted by the ducal guards, gleaming in their richest uniforms. The great Council Hall was one mass of color; the splendid dresses of the ladies, the scarlet robes of the senators and high officials of the Republic, the imposing vestments of the old doge, Cristofero Moro, as he sat in state upon his massive throne, and the bewildering array of the seventy-two candidates for a king's choice. Seventy-two, I say, but in all that company of puffed and powdered, coifed and combed young ladies, standing tall and uncomfortable on their ridiculously high-heeled shoes, one alone was simply dressed and apparently unaffected by the gorgeousness of her companions, the seventy-second and youngest of them all.

She was a girl of fourteen. Face and form were equally beautiful, and a mass of "dark gold hair" crowned her "queenly head." While the other girls appeared nervous or anxious, she seemed unconcerned, and her face wore even a peculiar little smile, as if she were contrasting the poor badgered young prince of St. Mark's Day with the present King of Cyprus hunting for a bride. "Eh via!" she said to herself, "'t is almost as if it were a revenge upon us for our former churlishness, that he thus now puts us to shame."

The ambassador of Cyprus, swarthy of face and stately in bearing, entered the great hall. With him came his attendant retinue of Cypriote nobles. Kneeling before the doge, the ambassador presented the petition of his master, the King of Cyprus, seeking alliance and friendship with Venice.

"And the better to secure this and the more firmly to cement it, Eccellenza," said the ambassador, "my lord and master the king doth crave from your puissant state the hand, of some high-born damsel of the Republic as that of his loving and acknowledged queen."

The old doge waved his hand toward the fair and anxious seventy-two.

"Behold, noble sir," he said, "the fairest and noblest of our maidens of Venice. Let your eye seek among these a fitting bride for your lord, the King of Cyprus, and it shall be our pleasure to give her to him in such a manner as shall suit the power and dignity of the State of Venice."

Courteous and stately still, but with a shrewd and critical eye, the ambassador of Cyprus slowly passed from candidate to candidate, with here a pleasant word and there a look of admiration; to this one a honeyed compliment upon her beauty, to that one a bit of praise for her elegance of dress.

How oddly this all sounds to us with our modern ideas of propriety and good taste! It seems a sort of Prize Girl Show, does it not? Or, it is like a competitive examination for a royal bride.

But, like too many such examinations, this one had already been settled beforehand. The King had decided to whom the prize of his crown should go, and so, at the proper time, the critical ambassador stopped before a slight girl of fourteen, dressed in a robe of simple white.

"Donzella mia," he said courteously, but in a low tone; "are not you the daughter of Messer. Marco Cornaro, the noble merchant of the Via Merceria?"

"I am, my lord," the girl replied.

"My royal master greets you through me," he said. "He recalls the day when you did give him shelter, and he invites you to share with him the throne of Cyprus. Shall this be as he wishes?"

And the girl, with a deep courtesy in acknowledgment of the stately obeisance of the ambassador, said simply, "That shall be, my lord, as my father and his Excellency shall say."

The ambassador of Cyprus took the young girl's hand, and, conducting her through all that splendid company, presented her before the doge's throne.

"Excellency," he said, "Cyprus hath made her choice. We present to you, if so it shall please your grace, our future queen, this fair young maid, Catarina, the daughter of the noble Marco Cornaro, merchant and senator of the Republic."

What the seventy-one disappointed young ladies thought of the King's choice, or what they said about it when they were safely at home once more, history does not record. But history does record the splendors and display of the ceremonial with which the gray-haired old doge, Cristofero Moro, in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by the senators of the Republic and all the rank and power of the State of Venice, formally adopted Catarina as a "daughter of the Republic." Thus to the dignity of her father's house was added the majesty of the great Republic. Her marriage portion was placed at one hundred thousand ducats, and Cyprus was granted, on behalf of this "daughter of the Republic," the alliance and protection of Venice.

The ambassador of Cyprus standing before the altar of St. Mark's as the personal representative of his master, King Giacomo was married "by proxy" to the young Venetian girl; while the doge, representing her new father, the republic, gave her away in marriage, and Catarina Cornaro, amid the blessings of the priests, the shouts of the people, and the demonstrations of clashing music and waving banners, was solemnly proclaimed Queen of Cyprus, of Jerusalem, and of Armenia.

But the gorgeous display, before which even the fabled wonders of the "Arabian Nights" were but poor affairs, did not conclude here. Following the splendors of the marriage ceremony and the wedding-feast, came the pageant of departure. The Grand Canal was ablaze with gorgeous colors and decorations. The broad water-steps of the Piazza of St. Mark was soft with carpets of tapestry, and at the foot of the stairs floated the most beautiful boat in the world, the Bucentaur or state gondola, of Venice. Its high, carved prow and framework were one mass of golden decorations. White statues of the saints, carved heads of the lion of St. Mark, the doge's cap, and the emblems of the Republic adorned it throughout. Silken streamers of blue and scarlet floated from its standards; and its sides were draped in velvet hangings of crimson and royal purple. The long oars were scarlet and gold, and the rowers were resplendent in suits of blue and silver. A great velvet-covered throne stood on the upper deck, and at its right was a chair of state, glistening with gold.

Down the tapestried stairway came the Doge of Venice, and, resting upon his arm, in a white bridal dress covered with pearls, walked the girl queen Catarina. Doge and daughter seated themselves upon their sumptuous thrones, their glittering retinue filled the beautiful boat, the scarlet oars dipped into the water; and then, with music playing, banners streaming, and a grand escort of boats of every conceivable shape, flashing in decoration and gorgeous in mingled colors, the bridal train floated down the Grand Canal, on past the outlying islands, and between the great fortresses to where, upon the broad Adriatic, the galleys were waiting to take the new Queen to her island kingdom off the shores of Greece. And there, in his queer old town of Famagusta, built with a curious commingling of Saracen, Grecian, and Norman ideas, King Giacomo met his bride.

So they were married, and for five happy years all went well with the young King and Queen. Then came troubles. King Giacomo died suddenly from a cold caught while hunting, so it was said; though some averred that he had been poisoned, either by his half-sister Carlotta, with whom he had contended for his throne, or by some mercenary of Venice, who desired his realm for that voracious Republic.

But if this latter was the case, the voracious Republic of Venice was not to find an easy prey. The young Queen Catarina proclaimed her baby boy King of Cyprus, and defied the Great Republic. Venice, surprised at this rebellion of its adopted "daughter," dispatched embassy after embassy to demand submission. But the young mother was brave and stood boldly up for the rights of her son.

But he, too, died. Then Catarina, true to the memory of her husband and her boy, strove to retain the throne intact. For years she ruled as Queen of Cyprus, despite the threatenings of her home Republic and the conspiracies of her enemies. Her one answer to the demands of Venice was:

"Tell the Republic I have determined never to remarry. When I am dead, the throne of Cyprus shall go to the State, my heir. But until that day I am Queen of Cyprus!"

Then her brother Giorgio, the same who in earlier days had looked down with her from the Cornaro Palace upon the outcast Prince of Cyprus, came to her as ambassador of the Republic. His entreaties and his assurance that, unless she complied with the senate's demand, the protection of Venice would be withdrawn, and the island kingdom left a prey to Saracen pirates and African robbers, at last carried the day. Worn out with long contending, fearful, not for herself but for her subjects of Cyprus,—she yielded to the demands of the senate, and abdicated in favor of the Republic.

Then she returned to Venice. The same wealth of display and ceremonial that had attended her departure welcomed the return of this obedient daughter of the Republic, now no longer a light-hearted young girl, but a dethroned queen, a widowed and childless woman.

She was allowed to retain her royal title of Queen of Cypus, and a noble domain was given her for a home in the town of Asola, up among the northern mountains. Here, in a massive castle, she held her court. It was a bright and happy company, the home of poetry and music, the arts, and all the culture and refinement of that age, when learning belonged to the few and the people were sunk in densest ignorance.

Here Titian, the great artist, painted the portrait of the exiled queen that has come down to us. Here she lived for years, sad in her memories of the past, but happy in her helpfulness of others until, on her way to visit her brother Giorgio in Venice, she was stricken with a sudden fever, and died in the palace in which she had played as a child.

With pomp and display, as was the wont of the Great Republic, with a city hung with emblems of mourning, and with the solemn strains of dirge and mass filling the air, out from the great hall of the Palazzo Cornaro, on, across the heavily draped bridge that spanned the Grand Canal from the water-gate of the palace, along the broad piazza crowded with a silent throng, and into the Church of the Holy Apostles, the funeral procession slowly passed. The service closed, and in the great Cornaro tomb in the family chapel, at last was laid to rest the body of one who had enjoyed much but suffered more—the sorrowful Queen of Cyprus, the once bright and beautiful Daughter of the Republic.

Venice to-day is mouldy and wasting. The palace in which Catarina Cornaro spent her girlhood is now a pawnbroker's shop. The last living representative of the haughty house of Lusignan—Kings, in their day, of Cyprus, of Jerusalem, and of Armenia—is said to be a waiter in a French cafe. So royalty withers and power fades. There is no title to nobility save character, and no family pride so unfading as a spotless name. But, though palace and family have both decayed, the beautiful girl who was once the glory of Venice and whom great artists loved to paint, sends us across the ages, in a flash of regal splendor, a lesson of loyalty and helpfulness. This, indeed, will outlive all their queenly titles, and shows her to us as the bright-hearted girl who, in spite of sorrow, of trouble, and of loss, developed into the strong and self-reliant woman.



THERESA OF AVILA: THE GIRL OF THE SPANISH SIERRAS.

(Afterward known as St. Theresa of Avila.) A.D. 1525.

It is a stern and gray old city that the sun looks down upon, when once he does show his jolly face above the saw-like ridges of the grim Guadarrama Mountains in Central Spain; a stern and gray old city as well it may be, for it is one of the very old towns of Western Europe—Avila, said by some to have been built by Albula, the mother of Hercules nearly four thousand years ago.

Whether or not it was the place in which that baby gymnast strangled the serpents who sought to kill him in his cradle, it is indeed ancient enough to suit any boy or girl who likes to dig among the relics of the past. For more than eight centuries the same granite walls that now surround it have lifted their gray ramparts out of the vast and granite-covered plains that make the country so wild and lonesome, while its eighty-six towers and gateways, still unbroken and complete, tell of its strength and importance in those far-off days, when the Cross was battling with the Crescent, and Christian Spain, step by step, was forcing Mohammedan Spain back to the blue Mediterranean and the arid wastes of Africa, from which, centuries before, the followers of the Arabian Prophet had come.

At the time of our story, in the year 1525, this forcing process was about over. Under the relentless measures of Ferdinand and Isabella, with whose story all American children, at least, should be familiar, the last Moorish stronghold had fallen, in the very year in which Columbus discovered America, and Spain, from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, acknowledged the mastership of its Christian sovereigns.

But the centuries of warfare that had made the Spaniards a fierce and warlike race, had also filled Spain with frowning castles and embattled towns. And such an embattled town was this same city of Avila, in which, in 1525, lived the stern and pious old grandee, Don Alphonso Sanchez de Cepeda, his sentimental and romance-loving wife, the Donna Beatrix, and their twelve sturdy and healthy children.

Religious warfare, as it is the most bitter and relentless of strifes, is also the most brutal. It turns the natures of men and women into quite a different channel from the one in which the truths they are fighting for would seek to lead them; and of all relentless and brutal religious wars, few have been more bitter than the one that for fully five hundred years had wasted the land of Spain.

To battle for the Cross, to gain renown in fights against the Infidels—as the Moors were then called,—to "obtain martyrdom" among the followers of Mohammed—these were reckoned by the Christians of crusading days as the highest honor that life could bring or death bestow. It is no wonder, therefore, that in a family, the father of which had been himself a fighter of Infidels, and the mother a reader and dreamer of all the romantic stories that such conflicts create, the children also should be full of that spirit of hatred toward a conquered foe that came from so bitter and long-continuing a warfare.

Don Alphonso's religion had little in it of cheerfulness and love. It was of the stern and pitiless kind that called for sacrifice and penance, and all those uncomfortable and unnecessary forms by which too many good people, even in this more enlightened day, think to ease their troubled consciences, or to satisfy the fancied demands of the Good Father, who really requires none of these foolish and most unpleasant self-punishments.

But such a belief was the rule in Don Alphonso's day, and when it could lay so strong a hold upon grown men and women, it would, of course, be likely to work in peculiar ways with thoughtful and conscientious children, who, understanding little of the real meaning of sacrifice and penance, felt it their duty to do something as proof of their belief.

So it came about that little ten-year-old Theresa, one of the numerous girls of the Cepeda family, thought as deeply of these things as her small mind was capable. She was of a peculiarly sympathetic, romantic, and conscientious nature, and she felt it her duty to do something to show her devotion to the faith for which her father had fought so valiantly, and which the nuns and priests, who were her teachers, so vigorously impressed upon her.

She had been taught that alike the punishment or the glory that must follow her life on earth were to last forever. Forever! this was a word that even a thoughtful little maiden like Theresa could not comprehend. So she sought her mother.

"Forever? how long is forever, mother mine?" she asked.

But the Donna Beatrix was just then too deeply interested in the tragic story of the two lovers, Calixto and Melibea, in the Senor Fernando de Rojas' tear-compelling story, to be able to enter into the discussion of so deep a question.

"Forever," she said, looking up from the thick and crabbed black-letter pages, "why forever is forever, child—always. Pray do not trouble me with such questions; just as I am in the midst of this beautiful death-scene too."

The little girl found she could gain no knowledge from this source, and she feared to question her stern and bigoted old father. So she sought her favorite brother Pedro—a bright little fellow of seven, who adored and thoroughly believed in his sister Theresa.

To Pedro, then, Theresa confided her belief that, if forever was so long a time as "always," it would be most unpleasant to suffer "always," if by any chance they should do any thing wrong. It would be far better, so argued this little logician, to die now and end the problem, than to live and run so great a risk. She told him, too, that, as they knew from their mother's tales, the most beautiful, the most glorious way to die was as a martyr among the infidel Moors. So she proposed to Pedro that she and he should not say a word to any one, but just start off at once as crusaders on their own accounts, and lose their lives but save their souls as martyrs among the Moors.

The suggestion had all the effect of novelty to the little Pedro, and while he did not altogether relish the idea of losing his life among the Moors, still the possibility of a change presented itself with all the attractions that the thought of trying something new always has for children. Besides, he had great respect for his sister's judgment.

"Well, let us be crusaders," he said, "and perhaps we need not be martyrs, sister. I don't think that would be so very pleasant, do you? Who knows; perhaps we may be victorious crusaders and conquer the Infidels just as did Ruy Diaz the Cid.(1) See here, Theresa; I have my sword and you can take your cross, and we can have such a nice crusade, and may be the infidel Moors will run away from us just as they did from the Cid and leave us their cities and their gold and treasure? Don't you remember what mother read us, how the Cid won Castelon, with its silver and its gold?"

(1) The Cid was the great hero of Spanish romance. The stories of his valor have been the joy of Spaniards, old and young, for centuries. Cid is a corruption of the Moorish word seyd or said, and means master.

And the little fellow spouted most valiantly this portion of the famous poem of the exploits of the Cid (the Poema del Cid), with the martial spirit of which stirring rhyme his romantic mother had filled her children:

"Smite, smite, my knights, for mercy's sake—on boldly to the war; I am Ruy Diaz of Bivar, the Cid Campeador! Three hundred lances then were couched, with pennons streaming gay; Three hundred shields were pierced through—no steel the shock might stay;— Three hundred hauberks were torn off in that encounter sore; Three hundred snow-white pennons were crimson-dyed in gore; Three hundred chargers wandered loose—their lords were overthrown; The Christians cry 'St. James for Spain!' the Moormen cry 'Mahoun!'"

Theresa applauded her little brother's eloquent recitation, and thought him a very smart boy; but she said rather sadly: "I fear me it will not be that way, my Pedro; for martyrdom means, as mother has told us, the giving up of our life rather than bow to the false faith of the Infidel, and thus to save our souls and have a crown of glory."

"The crown would be very nice, I suppose, sister," said practical young Pedro, "especially if it was all so fine as the one they say the young King Carlos(1) wears—Emperor, too, now, is he not? Could we be emperors, too, sister, if we were martyrs, and had each a crown? But we must be crusaders first, I suppose. Come, let us go at once."

(1) King Charles the Fifth was at this time King of Spain, and had just been elected Emperor of Germany.

The road from granite-walled Avila to the south is across a wild and desolate waste, frowned down upon on either hand by the savage crests of the grim sierras of the Guadarrama. It winds along gorges and ravines and rocky river-beds, and has always been, even in the days of Spanish power and glory, about as untamed and savagely picturesque a road as one could well imagine.

Along this hard and desolate road, only a few days after their determination had been reached, to start upon a crusade the brother and sister plodded. Theresa carried her crucifix, and Pedro his toy sword, while in a little wallet at his side were a few bits of food taken from the home larder. This stock of food had, of course, been taken without the knowledge of the mother, who knew nothing of their crusade, and this, therefore, furnished for Theresa another sin, for which she must do penance, and another reason for the desired martyrdom.

They had really only proceeded a few miles into the mountains beyond Avila, but already their sturdy little legs were tired, and their stout little backs were sore. Pedro thought crusading not such very great fun after all; he was always hungry and thirsty, and Theresa would only let him take a bite once in a while.

"Don't you suppose there is a Moorish castle somewhere around here that we could capture, and so get plenty to eat?" he inquired of his sister. "That is what the Cid was always finding. Don't you remember how nicely he got into Alcacer and slew eleven Infidel knights, and found ever so much gold and things to eat? This is what he said, you know:

"'On, on, my knights, and smite the foe! And falter not, I pray; For by the grace of God, I trow, The town is ours this day!'"

"O Pedro, dear, why will you think so much of things to eat," groaned Theresa. "Do you not know that to be hungry is one way to be a martyr. And besides, it is, I doubt not, our just punishment for having taken any thing to eat without letting mother know. We must suffer and be strong, little brother."

"That's just like a girl," cried Pedro, a trifle scornfully. "How can we be strong if we suffer? I can't, I know."

But before Theresa could enter upon an explanation of this most difficult problem—one that has troubled many older heads than little Pedro's,—both the children started in surprise, and then involuntarily shrunk closer to the dark gray rock in whose shadow they were resting. For there, not a hundred yards distant, coming around a turn in the road, was one of the very Infidels they had come out to meet and conquer, or be martyred by.

He was a rather imposing-looking but not a formidable old man. His cloak or mantle of brown stuff was worn and ragged, his turban was quite as dingy, but the long white beard that fell upon his breast made his swarthy face look even fiercer than it really was, and the stout staff, with which he helped himself over the uneven road, seemed to the little crusaders some terrible weapon of torture and of martyrdom.