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"Affairs of Men," Heath Cranton, Ltd., London, ca. 1921
"Affairs of Men," Heath Cranton, Ltd., London, ca. 1921
THE following extracts from a number of historical novels, published, with one exception, by Messrs Methuen, and by their courteous permission here reprinted, have been collected in the hope that they may prove of some interest to those more attracted by the colour and movement of the past, than by the plain outline of historical fact. Although each episode is from a work of fiction, no liberties have been taken with the known facts of history, no fanciful motives imputed to an historical character, and the basis of each attempt at descripting reconstruction of an actual scene is accurate in the main outline and as far as possible in the details.
—Marjorie Bowen.
ACCORDING to legend lore the spirits of the departed return to the earth on the Eve of All-Hallows, and for a short spell endow those born at the time with extraordinary talents and faculties.
"Marjorie Bowen," the gifted writer of these following scenes of history, born a Hallow-e'en child, certainly was heralded into this world by many great spirits of the past. The variety of her talents and capacities, and the results of her works, would suggest the presence of a few of the great forces of her art. The characters and scenes she so vividly depicts undoubtedly show some remarkable insight into the past, which seems almost inexplicable.
Her works glow with portraiture and fine detailed description of men and their actions, their manners and behaviour, the scenes in which they played their part in the world's history. All this is rich in colour, as if painted by a master hand.
Being an artist of no mean talent, as well as a born writer, together with the faculties of a soldier and tactician, she combines pen, brush and sword, which explains the secret of her magisterial literary creations.
She leads her sea-fights as an expert admiral. Her battles prove her to be a skilful general.
The record of the sea-battle of Lepanto (Navpaktos) on the 7th of October, 1671, is particularly striking, being the last encounter on a large scale between great fleets of galleys—two hundred and seventy-seven Turkish, manned with one hundred and twenty thousand troops, against two hundred and eight Spanish-Italian galleys with one hundred and eighty thousand troops. The blow, given by Don Juan of Austria and the Italian Republics to the naval power of Pasha Ali and Mahomet Scirocco, successfully combined to avert the ruin of Christendom.
Solebay on the 7th of June, 1672, is remarkably described. The narrator seems to be standing near Admiral de Ruyter, or by the chair from which Ruard Cornelius de Witt directed the bloody fight: she records as an absolute eye-witness the fight between the Duke of York's Fleet and the three squadrons of the Dutch Armament.
At Mooker Heyde on the Maas in the Low Countries, 1574, where Don Sancho d'Avila fought against Count Louis of Nassau and his younger brother Henry, she proves her tactical value by giving a "précis ordre de bataille" of both forces.
At St Denis, 14th of August, 1678, she gives yet another proof of strategic conception, describing amidst the smoke of cannon and musket the positions of Monsieur de Luxembourg and of the Dutch troops, following up the engagements even till dark, when the discouraged French withdrew, closely pursued by the allied troops under Prince William III. of Orange.
She depicts with exactness the capture of Namur in 1695 by the same Prince (since 1688 King of Great Britain), being leader of the allied armies against Louis XIV. of France, who had endeavoured to make impregnable the ancient hill of the citadel, once destroyed by Julius Caesar.
We witness Peter the Great's victory over Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava (June 27th, 1709) with keen interest, and follow the campaign with eagerness.
With plastic realism the author describes during the wars of the Austrian succession in December, 1742, Marshal Belle-Isle's retreat from Prague in Bohemia to Eger in Silesia. "The Quest of Glory," from which this is taken, is a book written with such intensity of feeling and such beauty of conception that it will prove to be one of England's classics.
Myself being a cavalry-officer seem to ride on the battle-fields of Naseby and Preston, with Oliver Cromwell in command of his Ironsides, as prompt as King Gustavus Adolphus, as ardent as Condé, and as precise as Turenne. A great leader of horse, he shares with Frederick the Great the credit of having laid the foundations of modern cavalry tactics.
The description of Monongahela and the storming of Trenton in the United States of North America inspire us with equal interest and enthusiasm.
Never since Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic" has any author written about the Golden Age of the House of Orange-Nassau like "Marjorie Bowen." Her two volumes on William the Silent and the trilogy dealing with Prince William III. of Orange, King of Great Britain, have raised an enthusiastic admiration for the author throughout the whole of the Netherlands and its colonies. These works are of great educational value and are used in the various Dutch institutions and public schools.
Real beauty is inspiring, and these vivid descriptions of sea and land-fights are only part of "Marjorie Bowen's" remarkable books; but we wish to especially point them out as having inspired Holland's greatest modern painter of military subjects, Hoynck van Papendrecht, to illustrate them in his masterful way. Being the great "Detaille" of the Netherlands, he is the very artist to respond to the atmosphere of Mooker Heyde, Naseby, St Denis, Namur and others. His great talent will prove equal to the one that conceived the "Dernières Cartouches."
I need hardly say how great is the measure of my own country's appreciation of this author's work, both dealing with our own history and that of the other nations of Europe.
The romances from her pen are of great beauty, and, in contrast to the historical works, are indeed remarkable.
England is favoured with so fine a writer and is fortunate to have such an adornment to its already splendid literature.
"SUAVITER IN MODO, FORTITER IN RE."
F. de Bas.
The Hague,
23rd November, 1921.
The Siege of Namur.
THE attack by Louis XIV. (1630-1717) on the liberties of Holland in 1672 led to the two long wars which overthrew the predominant power of France in Europe. The English Revolution of 1688 and the formation of the Grand Alliance by William of Orange, King of England and Stadtholder of the Central Provinces (1650-1702), were the most important incidents of the terrific struggle. The retaking of the fortress of Namur was the first decisive victory gained by the allies, and was rapidly followed by the Peace of Ryswick (1697), by which Louis was forced to renounce his dreams of aggrandisement at the expense of Europe. Boileau and Matthew Prior alike celebrated the two falls of Namur in rival odes that are still famous.
"Ceux qui estiment plus l'avantage d'avoir acquis un roiaume sans aucun droit de la nature de s'y être maintenu sans être aimé, d'avoir gouverné despotiquement la Hollande sans la subjuguer, d'avoir été l'âme et le chef de la moitié de l'Europe, d'avoir eu les ressources d'un général et la valeur d'un soldat, de n'avoir jamais persécuté personne pour la religion, d'avoir méprisé toutes les superstitions des hommes; d'avoir été simple et modeste dans ses moeurs, ceux là, sans doute donneront le nom de grand à Guillaume sitôt qu'à Louis."
—Le Siècle de Louis XIV.
IT was the commencement of the campaign of 1695; as yet nothing had been done either side. The men at Versailles who managed the war had concentrated their forces in Flanders, and there the allies had gathered to meet them; the Elector of Bavaria and other princes of the Empire were encamped with the Germans guarding Brussels; the Brandenburghers and Spanish lay at Huy; the Dutch and British, under the command of the King of England, at Ghent.
The French waited. Villeroy was not Luxembourg; he had no genius for command, and he was hampered by the presence of the Duc de Maine, his pupil and his superior, who showed no aptitude for war, not even common courage. Boufflers watched the King of England, the meaning of whose marches he could not fathom; his oblique moves might cover a design on either Ypres or Dunkirk. For a month they continued, and neither Villeroy nor Boufflers suspected an attempt on Namur.
But on June 28th, the King, the Elector, and the Brandenburghers advanced with a swift concerted movement straight on Namur with such suddenness and rapidity that M. de Boufflers had scarcely time to throw himself into the fortress before the three divisions of the allied army closed round the walls of the town.
The Prince de Vaudemont had been left in Flanders to watch Villeroy. That general believed he could wipe out this force and then drive the allies from Namur—he said as much in his dispatches to Versailles; but M. de Vaudemont effected a masterly retreat into Ghent, and the easiness of the French Court was disturbed, especially as it was whispered that an action had been avoided owing to the poltroonery of M. de Maine.
M. de Kohorn, the principal engineer of the allies, had set his heart on the capture of the fortress that he had seen taken by his great master and rival, M. de Vauban. The Frenchman had since added considerably to the fortifications, and rendered Namur the strongest fortress in the world, and M. de Kohorn was spurred by professional pride into a desperate attempt to make good his failure of three years ago.
A week after the trenches were opened the English foot guards gained the outworks on the Brussels side; on the seventeenth the first counterscarp of the town was captured; on the twentieth the Germans gained Vauban's line of fortifications cut in the rock from the Sambre to the Meuse and the great sluice or waterworks; on the twenty-third the Dutch and English made conquest of the second counterscarp, and the town capitulated, Boufflers and the garrison retiring into the citadel, leaving behind them about fifteen hundred wounded men to be cared for by the allies.
On the 6th of August the allies, led by the King of England, marched into Namur by the St Nicholas Gate, and prepared for the last and terrible assault on the garrison.
Villeroy, who had meantime taken the petty towns of Dixmuyde and Deynse, endeavoured to induce the King to raise the siege of Namur by menacing Brussels, which he shelled and greatly damaged; but in vain, for William was not to be lured into relinquishing his prey, and Villeroy, after two days, marched on to Enghien, and, having collected the greater number of the French troops in the Netherlands, amounting in all to over eighty thousand men, advanced to the relief of Namur.
But the Prince de Vaudemont having now joined the allied forces it was considered that they were strong enough to face Villeroy, and at the same time continue the siege of the castle and hold the town.
On the fifteenth the French host fired a salute of ninety guns as a haughty promise of relief to Boufflers; from then to the nineteenth the two mighty armies faced each other, neither making any movement. Europe held its breath, Paris and London.
The Hague and Vienna, Brussels, still half prostrate from French fires, Borne and Madrid, waited in almost unbearable suspense for the result of the promised and, it seemed, inevitable combat between the two finest and largest armies that had ever met on European soil.
Boufflers burnt fire signals every night on his watch-towers, which urged haste to Villeroy, who still lay beyond the mighty ring of the confederate army who incessantly stormed the citadel.
On the nineteenth the King rose at dawn, got his forces under arms, and rode from post to post surveying his troops and watching the enemy; he was in the saddle from four in the morning till nightfall, and tired out three horses. When he returned to his tent, that had been pitched in the encampment on the west of the town near the Abbey of Salsines, there was no portion of his vast army that he had not personally inspected.
He dined alone; the Elector of Bavaria and the other German princes being in immediate command of the troops that were actually storming Namur.
He expected that Villeroy would attack him as soon as it was light, and his preparations were complete.
He had an interview with M. Dyckfelt, who was with the army as representative of the States-General, and was then alone, it being about ten of the clock and a hot summer night.
All the light in the tent came from a silver lamp suspended from the cross-poles, which gave an uncertain and wavering illumination. The King sat in the shadows; on the little table beside him was his sword, his pistols, and a map of Namur.
He was thinking of twenty-three years ago when, in his early youth, he had first led an army against France; his entire force then had numbered little more than the servants, footmen, and attendants in his retinue now. All Europe had been against him, half his country in the hands of the enemy, the home government in the control of the opposing factions. The man of forty-four looked back at the achievements of the youth of twenty-one with an extraordinary sense—almost of wonder.
He recalled with painful vividness how Bucking-bam and Arlington had come to offer him the shameful terms of France and England, their scorn at his rejection of the bitter bargain, and how even William Bentinck, gay and thoughtless then, had despaired. Hopeless, indeed, it had seemed; there had not been one to believe in him; but he had never doubted his own destiny.
And now he was justified in what he had undertaken, at least that, whatever Borrows, humiliations, and disappointments had darkened his way, the outward semblance was of great and steady success.
The Prince, who had been little better than a State prisoner, and a pawn in the politics of Europe, heir to a ruined family and leader of a despairing nation, was now a King, directing half Europe, with one of the mightiest armies the world had seen behind him. Of the monarchs who had offered to silence his despised defiance with dishonourable terms, one was now dead, and he held his kingdoms; and the other, who then had threatened to overrun the world, was now with difficulty holding his own against a coalition that included all the principal countries of Europe.
Not without concession, infinite patience, endless trouble and long waiting had William got these allies together. For the support and the millions of England he was paying a price none but himself could gauge the bitterness of. To Scandinavia he had had to sacrifice some of his cherished maritime privileges; Spain, the most provoking of the confederates, had been kept by much expenditure of art and money; the German princes had been held together by a title, a garter, a subsidy, an honour, a promise of a prospective dignity. Now, before the walls of Namur, the man whose genius and indomitable courage had, during twenty years, toiled towards this end, might feel that he was beginning to taste his reward.
He was facing France, equal to equal; he was feared and respected throughout the world. The Protestant faith, threatened with extinction by Louis, he had placed on a basis from which, as long as any faith lasted, it could never be displaced. His country was free, and prosperous, and foremost among nations again; the power of France was already too crippled for there to be longer any fear of her upsetting the balance of power.
The English fleet, useless since Elizabeth, again was mistress of the seas. Russell passed unmolested between Spain and Italy, defied the remnant of the French fleet imprisoned in Toulon port, and dared the whole of the Mediterranean seaboard. Berkeley passed unmolested along the French coast, burnt Granville, shelled Calais and Dunkirk, and kept the English flag high and undisputed above the Channel.
The man who had been the boy who had once passionately resolved to do these things found the realisation of them different indeed to those bright imaginings. Attainment of fame, honour, power, success, could not give more than a faint remembrance of the throb of exultation the youthful Prince had felt when he, penniless, unsupported, hampered in every possible way, had first flung his challenge to overwhelming odds. Then there bad been everything to do; but ardent courage and unspoilt faith had gilded difficulties, and the heroic pride of youth had smiled at obstacles; now the loss of a love the boy had never dreamt of had made all things else appear small to the man.
Twenty years of toil, of acquaintance with treachery, deceit, smallness, weakness; twenty years of misunderstood endeavour, of constant strain, of constant fatigue had done their work. The fine spirit did not shrink from its task, but never again could it recapture the early glow of hope, the early ecstasy of labour, the early pride of achievement.
What was his achievement after all. He might well think that the God he had served so patiently had mocked him. He had loved but to lose his love; he had bartered his personal ease, almost his liberty, almost his pride, for bitter honours held in exile; his health was utterly worn out; his days were a continual weariness and pain; he was again as lonely as he had been when he was the prisoner of the States; he had no heir, and the main branch of his family died with him; if he could not finish himself his task he must entrust it to strangers to complete. Surely all was utter vanity and vexation. The cold consolations of a sombre faith only supported him. He clung to those beliefs in which Mary had died, and faced the few years that at best remained to him with the same high courage with which she had met her fate.
He rose presently, in the perfect stillness, and went to the entrance of his tent, lifted the flap, and looked out.
The French red flares on the towers of Namur were visible across the plain of the Sambre and Meuse; the starlight showed the huge encampment stretching out of sight under the clear sky; near by a sentry paced with his musket over his shoulder; it was very not and not a blade of grass stirred in the absolute stillness.
Presently a surgeon passed through the tents carrying a lantern and followed by a servant leading a mule laden with his chest. The light flickered a while amid the canvas, then disappeared; a dog barked and a man whistled to it; the silence fell again as intense as before.
The King went back and flung himself on his couch; he could not come near sleep, but lay watching the long pale beams of light the lamp cast over the worn grass that formed the floor of the hastily constructed tent.
His mind kept dwelling on his first campaign, his miserable army, his own ignorance of all but book tactics, his lack of money, of authority—yet that had been the first spark of that fire that now lit Europe. He had formed and trained his own armies —Dutch, Bran den burghers, Swedes, Germans, and lately the English—until they were equal to those consummate French troops who had laughed at him in '72; but they fought with no more devotion and courage than the handful of Hollanders who had rallied round him then, now incorporated into the famous Dutch Guards, the most beloved of all his beloved army.
He thought of these Guards marching against Villeroy now, feared and honoured, and his heart fluttered faintly with a fleeting pleasure that they should ever face the French on these terms.
He closed his eyes, and instantly there spread before him a vision of the great banqueting hall at Whitehall, hung with black and the banners and armours of his family, while in the centre was a mighty catafalque of black velvet, which bore an open coffin, at the foot of which lay a royal crown and sceptre. She who rested there was covered to the chin in gold stuff, and round her head was twisted her dark, curling, auburn hair.
The King sprang up and walked up and down the uneven ground; he drew from under his shirt and cravat a long, black ribbon, to which was attached a gold wedding-ring and a long lock of that same rich hair that he had seen in his vision.
He paused under the lamp and gazed at it; in that moment he prayed that he might find his death in to-morrow's battle, with as much passion as any poor wretch ever prayed for hope of life. He was still standing so, forgetful of time and place, when he heard voices without, and hastily put the ribbon back over his heart.
The flap was raised and the figure of a young officer showed against the paling sky.
"Is it M. van Keppel?" asked the King quietly.
"Yes, sire." The speaker entered. He had been sent with the King's commands to the Elector of Bavaria.
"M. de Bavaria understands everything?" inquired William.
"He is quite ready, sire."
"So are we," said the King. "I should think M. de Villeroy would make the attack in an hour or so—the dawn is breaking, is it not?"
"The sun was just rising, sire, above the river as I rode from the camp of His Highness."
"Yet the light is very faint here. Will you, Mynheer, light the other lamp?" The King spoke gently, but he had quite regained that command of himself which rendered his demeanour so steely and impressive.
M. van Keppel obeyed, and was then retiring, but William, who was seated by the table, asked him to stay.
"I may have another message for you," he added. The officer bowed.
William rang the little hand-bell near him, and a valet instantly appeared from the curtained inner portion of the tent. The King lived very simply when at the camp. He now asked for wine, and when it was brought made M. van Keppel drink with him, which honour caused the young soldier to redden with pleasure.
"I hear," said William, "that the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse have been sent prisoners to France. That breaketh the treaty we made for the exchange of captives—treachery and insolence, it seemeth, are the only methods of France."
"Treachery and insolence will not for ever prevail," answered Joost van Eeppel, in his sweet ardent voice. "The fortunes of Your Majesty begin to overleap the arrogance of France."
"There will be a great battle to-day," remarked the King quietly and irrelevantly.
The powerful summer dawn, strengthening with every moment, penetrated the tent and mingled with the beams of the two lamps. The King sat in the crossed lights; his gentleman knelt before him, fastening the great gilt spurs to his close riding-boots. He looked at Joost van Eeppel gravely and kindly; his face, pale in its proper complexion, was tanned darkly by the Lowland sun; his eyes were extraordinarily bright and flashing, but languid lidded and heavily shadowed beneath; his large mobile mouth was set firmly; his long thick curls hung over his black coat, across which showed the blue ribbon and star that he had not removed since he had reviewed his forces yesterday.
"Mynheer," he said to M. van Eeppel, "lift the flap and look out—"
The young Dutchman obeyed, and a full sunbeam struck across the dim artificial light.
"A fine day," remarked William; ne was ever fond of sun and warmth.
As M. van Eeppel stood so, holding back the canvas and gazing over the tents that spread across the plain of the Meuse, a gentleman, armed on back and breast with a gold inlaid cuirass, wrapped in a black silk mantle and carrying a hat covered with white plumes, rode up, dismounted, and entered the King's tent without a word of ceremony.
M. van Keppel bowed very respectfully; it was the Earl of Portland.
On seeing the King alone with the young officer his face darkened; he answered the King's greeting of unconscious affection with stern brusqueness.
"There are letters from England—I met the messenger," he said, and laid the packet on the table by the wine glasses.
Joost van Keppel was quick to see the instant shock that William quivered under, and to perceive the cause of it. When last the King had been at the war not a post had arrived from London without a letter from the Queen. The young man thought Portland had acted with some harshness; he came forward and said impulsively:
"Letters from England, my lord, are not of such importance that they cannot wait until after the battle."
This was to Portland incredible impertinence; he stared at the flushed, generous face with bitterly angry eyes; but William seemed relieved.
"Yes, let the news wait," he said, and rose.
"If this was known in London what would they say?" broke out Portland.
"How can it be known in London when I have none here but friends?" answered the King.
"I thank Your Majesty for including me with M. van Keppel as your friend," flashed Portland.
The King looked at him sharply, then from one man to another.
"Mynheer van Keppel," he said, "you will return to M. de Bavaria and tell him to be in readiness for a message from us."
The officer bowed with great deference and sweetness to his master and the Earl, and instantly retired.
"Will you not read those letters?" asked Portland, in no way appeased.
William gave him a glance between reproach and wonder, broke the seals, and looked over the letters.
"Nothing," he said, when he laid them down, "save that some sugar ships from Barbadoes have been taken by the French, that there is great uneasiness on the Stock Exchange."
"Nothing of M. de Leeds?" asked Portland.
"No," said the King; he was standing up, and his gentleman buckled him into his light cuirass: "but I will not have him touched—he is punished enough." He added, with some contempt, "Is Leeds so much worse than the herd that he should be hunted from it?"
"A corrupt man," answered Portland gloomily: "but you were always tender with him."
William was silent. His obligation to Leeds consisted entirely of that nobleman's devotion to the Queen. He thought that Portland knew this and despised him for such sentiment in politics. Neither spoke any more on the subject.
"M. Montague is a clever man," remarked the King, after a little: "another pensioner of my Lord Dorset. How goeth the other, your secretary?"
"Ah, Prior," replied the Earl, "well enough, but I think him an atheist. His poetry is full of heathen gods, and when I probed him on the subject he was not satisfactory in his answers, but well enough."
"Put my Lord Sarum on to converting him," said William dryly: "but I should not take much account of his poetry."
The King's gentleman went into the back part of the tent, and Portland instantly addressed his master with great heat.
"Sir, I must tell you that it is a source of great wonder to all that you should so encourage, favour, and caress a worthless young rake like M. van Keppel—a mere hanger-on to court favour; your dignity suffers by it—"
The King interrupted.
"Are you jealous—you—of him?" he asked mournfully.
"I have enough to make me jealous," was the hot answer, "when I see the creature of such as my Lord Sunderland creep into your affections."
The King answered in gentle, dignified tones, without a touch of anger or resentment:
"You are indeed wrong. I like M. van Keppel for himself—I find him sweet and intelligent, a willing servant—and I have not too many. But you know, even while you speak, that nothing could come between me and you."
"I think he hath come between us," said Portland sternly: "during the whole campaign ha hath hardly left your side. I believe you even consult him as to your actions—he!—why, the whole camp knoweth his reputation. I could tell some tales—"
The King broke in.
"I'll hear no scandals. You know that of me. If we are to listen to tale-bearing there is not one of us safe. If I favoured any man do you not think there would be tales against him? But I did not think to find you leaning on gossip."
He still spoke with an utter calm; but Portland took his words heavily.
"If you choose to reprimand me—" he began.
"Forgive me," said the King instantly. "I thought you would understand. Indeed, forgive me. I would do anything in the world not to vex you."
The return of the gentleman with William's gloves and cloak cut short the conversation. The King fastened his sword-belt over his shoulder and adjusted the weapon; as he took up his hat with the long black feathers a magnificent Brandenburgher officer entered, followed by M. Uyckfelt.
"Your Majesty," said the Dutchman, quietly, "M. de Villeroy hath retreated in the night-leaving M. de Boufflers to his fate."
The Brandenburgher went on one knee and handed William a dispatch from the commander of the scouts, who had seen the last vanishing rearguard of the French.
The King showed no emotion of any kind.
"Count," he said to the officer, "you will go to M. de Bavaria and request him to make an immediate assault on Namur."
When the officer had withdrawn, with profound obeisance, William turned to Portland.
"I will ask you to go to M. de Boufflers and demand a surrender. Tell him that there is no further hope for him from M. de Villeroy, and that if he wisheth to spare his garrison he must capitulate to-day."
Portland bowed gravely and turned away. William looked after him keenly, then took up his perspective glass, his gloves, and his baton, and left the tent.
M. DE BOUFFLERS refused to surrender; he was a Maréchal de France, he had still many thousand men, including M. Megrigny, the engineer esteemed second only to M. de Vauban, and the castle was deemed impregnable.
The assault was fixed for one in the afternoon. The King of England, the Elector of Bavaria, the Landgrave of Hesse, other German potentates, and the officers of their staff gathered on the rocky promontory immediately below the ramparts of the citadel; before them rose the castle, ringed with walls, batteries, palisades, fosses, dykes, and traverses, and set back two miles or more in elaborate ramparts and outworks.
The allies had formed a complete circumvallation round the huge fortress, and had opened their trenches at the very foot of the rock which M. de Vauban had fortified with such deadly skill.
The day was extraordinarily hot and cloudless; the sun, being now just overhead, blazed with equal light on the ruined town, the lofty castle, on counterscarp, glacis, and half-moon, on the trenches, the defences of wattled sticks lined with sandbags, on the distant spreading encampment of the allies, on the still more distant sparkle of the Meuse, which glittered across the great plain and on the walls of the Abbey of Salsines.
It shone, too, on a thousand flags, a thousand squads of men moving with bayonets and matchlocks set to the attack, and gleamed in the armour of the little group of gentlemen who were directing the operations, and sometimes sent a long ray of burning light from their perspective glasses as they turned them on the castle or the approaching regiments of their own troop as they defiled through the town.
It had been arranged that the assault was to be made in four places at once, by the Dutch, Brandenburghers, Bavarians, and English severally; the first three were tried and veteran troops, the fourth, however, consisted of recruits who were seeing their first campaign and had never been under fire before; the best English troops had marched to encounter Villeroy, and had not been summoned to the attack.
The King turned his glasses on the trenches where these regiments waited; they were under the command of John Cutts, as brave and gallant an officer as ever breathed.
William put down his glasses and looked up at the grim citadel.
"This is a severe test for them," he remarked.
The Electoral Prince was taking a bet from the exultant Kohorn that they would enter Namur by the 31st of August. William laughed.
"I am sorry that Your Highness should put money on our failure," he said. "I hear that the betting in London is greatly in our favour."
"This is a matter of dates, Your Majesty," answered M. de Bavaria. "I say 'No' only to August the 31st."
"I am glad M. de Kohorn is so confident," said William graciously to the great engineer.
M. de Hesse, who wore on his finger a watch in a great ring of brilliants, remarked that the time was near ten minutes to one; M. de Bavaria bowed profoundly and galloped off to direct his own men in person; the King looked keenly round to see that none of his servants were lurking in the line of fire. Interference was almost as unendurable to him as cowardice; more than once during the siege he had been exasperated into horsewhipping some daring footmen or valet out of the trenches. During the assault of the 27th July he had been considerably vexed to see M. Godfrey, one of the directors of the new Bank of England, among his officers, and had severely reprimanded him for his presence in so dangerous a position.
"But I run no more risk than you, sire," M. Godfrey had protested.
The King's answer and the sequel were long remembered.
"I, sir," he replied, "may safely trust to God, since I am doing my duty in being here, while you—"
The sentence remained unfinished, for a French cannon-shot laid M. Godfrey dead at the King's side. William had hoped that this would prove a lesson to useless meddlers, but even since he had been provoked by various people who had business at the camp, and who strayed into the trenches to get a view of real fighting, often with no conception of the danger of the slow dropping bombs and bullets.
But this afternoon the King's eagle eyes were satisfied that the works were clear of sightseers; it had been fairly well spread abroad that this assault would be, beyond experience, terrible, and those whose duty did not take them to the front were well in the rear.
M. de Hesse and the other Germans having galloped off to their posts, the King remained alone with his staff, midway between the ramparts that were to be attacked and the English trenches, full in the cross-line of fire, and motionless and conspicuous on the target on the little jutting shelf of rock; his officers were a little way behind, and his figure was completely outlined against the blue gap of sun-filled air behind the rock slope.
He rode a huge grey Flemish horse, dark as basalt and as smooth—very lightly trapped with red leather linked with silver gilt—that he managed as well as a man can. He had always been renowned for his consummate horsemanship, and this great beast, that had taken two footmen to hold in before he mounted, he held delicately with one hand on the reins, with such perfect control that the creature was utterly motionless on the narrow ledge of slippery rock.
The hot air was full of distant and subdued sounds—the rattle of the guns, the clink of the matchlocks striking the cobbles of the town below, the tramp of feet, the neighing of horses, and occasionally, the crowing of a cock on some farm outside Namur.
The King sat with his reins loose, holding in his right hand his baton that he rested against his hip. He was intently watching the English trenches.
The clocks of the churches in Namur struck one; instantly a loud report and a jet of flame came from the trenches below; two barrels of gunpowder had been blown up as a signal for the attack.
Before the smoke had cleared, all the minor sounds were silenced by the steady beat of drums and kettledrums, and the King perceived the Grenadiers marching from behind their defences and earthworks, steadily towards the ramparts of Namur—these were the men of Cutt's own regiment. They were immediately followed by the four new battalions. They came on steadily, in good order, with their bright unspoilt colours in their midst, their colonels riding before them. The King could discern the slender figure of John Cutts marching on foot before the Grenadiers, with his drawn sword in his hand.
There was no sign from the castle. The English leapt, man after man, the last deep trench of their own earthworks, and suddenly, at a word from their leader, whose voice came faintly to the King's ears, broke into a run, and dashed up the slope at the foot of the rock, and full at the first wall of the French fortifications.
Instantly the batteries of the garrison opened a terrible fire, and a confused echo to their thunder told that the other three divisions of the confederates were meeting a like reception.
The English kept on; the little body of the Grenadiers, with the four battalions supporting them, and at the head of all John Cutts, climbed the face of the rock with no sign of disorder.
The King wheeled his horse round to face them, and his brilliant eyes never left their ranks.
The French commenced fire from the guns behind their first palisade, which swept the ranks of the advancing English with deadly effect.
Almost every officer of the Grenadiers fell on the hot, bare rock. The drums began to give a disconnected sound, the colours wavered, but the men pressed on, with Cutts still running before them, and the recruits doggedly behind them.
The King sent one of his officers with orders for the English batteries to open fire as soon as the breach had been made.
There was, in the space of a few seconds, hardly an officer left among the English; the colonels, captains and lieutenants, who had dashed forward to encourage their men, were lying scattered about the hill-side—patches of scarlet and steel—with their riderless horses running frantically back towards the camp.
Still Cutts came on. The smoke was thick about him, but the King could see him clearly as he came every moment nearer. The Grenadiers had gained a firm footing on the ledge of rock beneath the palisade, and were about to hurl themselves against it. The cannonade was now supplemented by a storm of bullets. Cutts gave a shout, raised his sword, and pitched to the ground, shot through the head, while the thinned ranks of the Grenadiers rolled backwards down the rock.
The King uttered a passionate exclamation; a bomb, cast from the castle, burst near him, and his horse reared frantically at the explosion. When he had quieted the animal and the smoke had cleared, he saw two of the Grenadiers coming towards him supporting John Cutts between them. As they reached a deep natural gully that cleft the rock, one fell and rolled down the precipice; the other caught his officer by the arm and swung him across the chasm. The King galloped up to them.
"Is my lord slain?" he asked.
The wounded man lifted his brown eyes and laughed. Blood blotched the left side of his face and ran through the bright brown English locks.
"Why, no, sir," he answered.
"I am glad of that," said the King. "But your men are being repulsed—"
"God help me—not for long!" cried my lord, and dashed the blood out of his eyes, and with that movement fainted.
"Call up my surgeon," commanded William to one of his officers.
Lord Cutts was carried out of the firing line, and the King again directed his attention to the English, who, leaderless, were nevertheless dashing forward, though without order or method, sheer against the French fire.
"It is too much for them," muttered William.
This wild charge was suddenly checked by a deep precipice blown in the rock by underground powder magazines; the raw soldiers stood helpless, baffled. The air was of a continuous redness; the half-naked French gunners could be seen, running in and out of their vaulted galleries and crouching behind the black shape of the guns; flying fragments of shell, masonry, and rock fell among the leaderless English, who hesitated, gave way, and retreated down the bloody slope they had gained, each rank falling back on the other in confusion, while a shout of triumph rose from the fiery ramparts of Namur.
The King urged his beautiful horse up the zigzag path. The bullets flattened themselves on the rocks about him with a dull pattering sound; the horse laid back its ears and showed the scarlet of its nostrils; the King, with infinite skill and gentleness, brought it to a higher ridge where he could better survey the heights. The English, rolling back beneath him, looked up and saw him through the smoke, the sun darting broken rays off the star on his breast. He took off his hat, covered with black plumes, and waved it to them to encourage them to come on. A ragged cheer broke from them; they plunged forward again, but a terrific fire swept them back with half their number fallen. At this moment the King saw Lord Cutts, hatless, and with a bandaged head, running up towards the glacis.
William rode up to him. The red fire was about them as if it had been the colour of the atmosphere.
"My lord," said the King, reining up his horse, "they cannot do it."
A young man in a splendid uniform came riding through the strong smelling smoke.
"Sire," he said, saluting, "the Bavarians are giving way—their general hath fallen—"
William spoke swiftly to the Englishman.
"Can you rally your men to the assistance of the Bavarians, my lord? 'Tis hopeless to attempt to make a breach here."
John Cutts smiled up at his master; he had to shout to make his voice heard through the rattle of the cannonade:
"'Tis done, Your Majesty!"
His gallant figure slipped, like a hound from the leash, into the smoke, towards where the English Footguards were retreating, and William, pointing with his baton to where he rode that his office-re might follow him, swept round the ramparts to where the Bavarians wavered before the fire of the French. Regiment after regiment had hurled in vain against the palisades, the ditches and clefts were choked with corpses, and in every squad of men a great lane was torn every time the French gunners fired their pieces, while the Dragoons stood on the glacis, sword in hand, ready to cut down whoever should touch the palisade.
"They are very determined," remarked William calmly, glancing up at the red-hot line of fire bursting from the French batteries: "but so am I."
As he spoke a bullet passed through his hair, so close to his cheek that he felt the warm whiz of it; and another, almost simultaneously, tore through the ends of his scarf.
"For God's sake, sire," cried the officer near him, "this is certain death."
But the King took no heed of him; his sparkling eyes were fastened on the faltering ranks of Bavaria, who were being borne steadily, but surely, down the slopes, leaving dead behind them, their commander, and most of their officers.
At the very moment when it seemed that they had hopelessly lost ground, John Cutts came running up with the colours of the Grenadiers in one hand and his sword in the other, behind him two hundred of the English recruits whom he had rallied from the retreat.
The Bavarians, encouraged by this help, took heart and came forward again and began climbing up the rock; but Cutts and h is English dashed ahead of them right into the cannon fire, forced their way through the palisade, and engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the gunners and Dragoons, who were driven back from their defences and hurled over their own ramparts on to the bayonets of the Bavarians below. In a few moments the English had captured the battery, swung the guns round and directed them at the castle. With a shout the Bavarians dashed through the breach in the wall and, climbing over corpses of men and horses, poured into the enemy's lines.
The King watched them as they scaled ditches and trenches and palisade, then made a detour round the fire-swept face of the rock to the point the Dutch had been ordered to attack. Splendid soldiers, splendidly commanded, they had already gained the position and with very little loss; the French gunners lay in torn and mangled heaps behind their pieces, which the Dutch were engaged in turning on the garrison.
William now gave orders that his batteries were to be brought in play from every available position, both on the ramparts gained and from every rock and outwork in the possession of the allies. He himself rode through the broken wall and took up his position inside the French palisades, where his horses could scarcely find a foothold for the dead and dying. The air was so full of powder smoke that the walls and turrets of the castle appeared to hang as in a great fog, with no visible foundations; the crack of musketry was incessant, and little threads of flame ran across the dark heavy vapour; fragments of rock and wall rolled continually down the slope—dislodged by bombs bursting or the explosion of barrels of gunpowder. But this was as nothing to the cannonade. When the combined batteries of the allies opened on Namur, the oldest soldier could remember no such fire—it was a bombardment as had never been known in war. The French gunners dropped one after another before they could put their fuses to their pieces, and were obliged to take refuge in their underground galleries; the roar was unceasing, and the continual flames lit up the rocks, the chasms, the bastions with as steady and awful a glare as if the world was on fire.
A body of Dragoons made a gallant sally out on to the glacis, but were swept down to a man before they had advanced a hundred yards. The Dutch, under cover of the French palisades, picked off with musket shot every Frenchman who appeared within range, portions of the walls and curtains began to fall in, the sacking and wattles, put up to catch the bullets, caught fire and flared up through the smoke.
The King could scarcely see his own staff-officers for the glare and harsh blinding vapour. His ears were filled with the lamentations of the mangled and delirious wretches who lay scattered about the glacis, and the sharp screams of the wounded, riderless horses who galloped in their death agony across the ramparts and hurled themselves from the precipices beneath. The King caressed his own animal; the insensibility of his profession had not overcome his love of horses. He never could look with ease at the sufferings of these gallant creatures; for the rest, he was utterly unmoved. He turned his face towards the fires that made many a veteran wince, and there was not the slightest change in his composure, save that he was more than ordinarily cheerful, and showed, perhaps, more animation than he had done since the death of his wife. Having satisfied himself that the Dutch had silenced all the French batteries at this point, he rode to the demi-bastion where the Brandenburghers fought the Dragoons in a terrible battle which was resulting in the French being driven back on to the fire of their own guns. Here he drew up his horse on the edge of a fosse that had a cuvette in the middle of it with a covered way along it, from which the French were still firing from platoons and muskets.
The King thrust his baton through the folds of his scarf and laid his hand on the tasselled pistol in his holster; he guided his horse commonly and by choice with his left hand, for his right arm had been shot through twice—at St Neff and the Boyne, and was less easily fatigued with the sword than the reins. He now looked about him and perceived that his way to the Brandenburghers was completely barred by some traverses to intercept fire, besides by the fosse from the gazons of which the soldiers were tiring, and, on the glacis which slopes before it, several gunners were hauling a battery into place; not far behind them a fierce fire was being maintained from a projecting javelin.
The French, lurking in the cuvette, saw the King, and, recognising him by his great star, proceeded to take deliberate aim. He looked round for his staff, whom his impetuous advance had completely outdistanced, then galloped his horse right along the counterscarp in full range of the enemy's fire. A dozen muskets were aimed at him; he seemed not to notice them, but set his horse at a little fosse that crossed his path, and leapt over the dead French and bloody gazons that filled it. The ground on the other side was so cut, dissected, and strewn with boulders and fragments of rock, that the quivering horse paused, frightened by the shower of bullets, and, not perceiving a foothold, the King slipped out of the saddle without leaving go of the reins, ran along by the horse's head, guiding him through the debris, and mounted again without touching the saddle—a well-known feat of the riding-school. He was now almost up to the Brandenburghers, who raised a great shout as they saw him galloping up through the smoke. He rode along in front of their ranks and glanced up at the French crouching on their earthworks waiting for the assault.
The King drew his sword.
"We must get nearer than this," he said to the officer in command. He set spurs to his horse, and, wheeling round, charged straight at the lines of France, the Brandenburghers after him with an irresistible rush.
An officer of Dragoons rose up from his comrades and struck up with his sword at the figure on the huge grey charger. The King leant out of the saddle, parried the thrust with his weapon. The Frenchman, hit by a bullet in the lungs, rolled over with his face towards the citadel; the last thing he saw on earth was the King of England high on the distant heights of Namur with the column of Brandenburghers behind him and before him, through the glare the tattered banner of the Bourbons waving from the keep.
WHEN the late evening fell it was obvious that nothing could save Namur, the allies had advanced a mile on the outworks of the castle. M. de Boufflers sent to request a two days' truce that he might bury the dead who filled fosse and ditch. The King granted it. Before the time expired the Maréchal offered to surrender if he was not relieved in ten days. William at once refused. His terms were instant surrender or instant attack. M. de Boufflers capitulated, terms were speedily agreed upon, the garrison was to go free, the citadel, stores, and arms to be left in possession of the allies.
On the 6th September, under a blazing sun, a Maréchal de France, for the first time since France had been a kingdom, delivered up a powerful castle to the enemy. It was the first obvious sign of that tide of fortune that had been steadily setting against France since '88. It meant more even than the conquest of the strongest fortress in the world—it meant that the arms of Louis were no longer invincible.
The garrison, reduced to five thousand, less than half their original number, marched out through the breach made by the guns of the confederate army, which was drawn up in lines of foot and horse that reached to the banks of the glittering Meuse.
The French came with full honours, with the beat of drums and the ensigns erect, but their spirits were heavy with a bitter humiliation. Their reverse was as unexpected as it was tremendous.
M. de Boufflers and his staff came last of the garrison, the Maréchal decked with all the pomp of war, gold encrusted cuirass, silk scarf, orders, a splendid white horse trapped in gilt and crimson, and a blue saddle-cloth seme with lilies.
He held his bare sword erect, and his face was set sternly. He was exceedingly troubled by the ceremony in which he was about to take part. He would not, and could not, as a subject of King Louis, acknowledge the Prince of Orange as King of England, but it was difficult to treat a victorious general (and certainly a King de facto) with less than respect and retain his own dignity, especially as the astute Frenchman was perfectly well aware that William was King of England, and would never be shaken from his throne now in favour of the old man who was wearing Louis' patience thin with his complaints and demands. Moreover, Portland had insinuated that the allies would take any slight to William very ill indeed; so, between mortification at his position, his duty to his master, his desire to avoid the ridiculous and not offend the conventions of martial courtesy, the Maréchal was in a perturbed temper indeed. But as he neared the spot where the allied sovereign awaited him, even his dilemma was forgotten in his curiosity to see the man who filled so tremendous a part in the world, who for twenty years had withstood France, who had risen to absolute power in his own country, who had gained two kingdoms by diplomacy and a third by conquest, who was the soul of a huge coalition and one of the greatest soldiers in Europe, the man who was always spoken of in Paris with hatred and some fear, as an upstart, a usurper, a heretic, one who had broken through sacred family ties for the sake of personal ambition, and stirred Europe into a turmoil to obtain a crown.
This feeling was shared by every officer behind him. They were all eager to see the Prince whom they had learnt from King James to regard as a pitiless, cold self-seeker, and from Louis as a royal adventurer, unscrupulous and impudent.
Not far from the castle the commanders of the allied forces were drawn up, the German Princes, the representatives of Spain and the Northern States and the United Provinces on horseback, and near them, in a calash, or light open travelling coach, the King of England.
M. de Boufflers reined up his horse a few paces away; a handsome young gentleman with a very proud carriage, wearing a scarlet cloak, was the foremost of the group. M. de Boufflers knew him for Maximilian of Bavaria.
The garrison came on slowly past the four black coach-horses held by footmen wearing the livery of England, until the Maréchal found himself face to face with the occupant of the coach and the Elector, who sat his horse immediately beside the door.
There was a pause of silence; M. de Boufflers went pale under the eyes, and looked with the irresistible attraction of great curiosity at the man in the coach, who was surrounded by these brilliant and immovable escorts of princely horsemen.
He had heard the person of this Prince often described, and common report had drawn a picture of him familiar to the minds of men, but he found the original totally different, though there were the salient characteristics, the frail stature, the strongly marked features, the brilliant eyes, so well known throughout Europe.
But the swift and general impression he made was entirely other to what the Frenchman had expected. He saw a gentleman with an extraordinary air of stillness and repose, dressed richly and rather heavily in black and gold, wearing the George and the Ribbon of the Garter, but no other decoration, and a hat with black feathers cocked back from his face; he wore a long neckcloth of Flanders lace, the ends of which were drawn through the buttonholes of his brocade waistcoat, after the English fashion. He sat leaning a little towards M. de Bavaria, and held in his right hand a cane with a gold top.
There was something in his expression, his bearing, wholly unlooked for by M. de Boufflers, who could put no name to it, but thought in a confused way that he had never seen a man whose principal occupation was war appear less of a soldier.
The King, without moving, fixed his dark flashing eyes on the Frenchman, and smiled, almost imperceptibly.
M. de Boufflers performed the salute of the sword; he lowered his weapon, not directly at the King, but it was too high an honour for the Elector, and William alone bent his head in acknowledgement.
The silence was profound as the gleaming weapon was returned to its sheath. M. de Boufflers drew his breath unsteadily. He would go no further; he spoke to the Prince to avoid the royal terms of address.
"Your Highness, I must congratulate you upon our good fortune, though it is my own ill-luck—but I must console myself that I have held even Namur three months against such an army and such generals."
AFFAIRS OF MEN
The Elector uncovered and, turning to the King, repeated with profound respect what the Maréchal had said.
William touched his hat in a formal salute, silently. M. de Boufflers coloured with vexation. The deference of the Elector, so much his-own superior, made his own attitude, he thought, appear ridiculous, but he haughtily maintained it.
"I surrender to Your Highness the keys of the Castle of Namur," he said, and handed them with a bow to the Elector, who at once presented them to the King.
"Sire," said M. de Bavaria, very lowly, "M. de Boufflers has the honour to request me to present to Your Majesty the keys of Namur."
William took them and again saluted.
"I, with Your Majesty's permission, will inform M. de Boufflers that Your Majesty is satisfied that the terms of the capitulation are fulfilled?"
"Yes, Highness," answered William gravely, but still (as M. de Boufflers was supremely conscious) with that slight smile.
"His Majesty," said the Elector, "is pleased to compliment you, monsieur, upon your gallant defence of the citadel."
"I thank Your Highness," answered the Maréchal, colouring deeply. Neither he nor his officers could altogether conceal their astonishment and vexation at seeing the proudest Princes of Germany treat William of Orange with as great a deference as his meanest courtiers used to their own master.
"We need not detain you, monsieur," said the Electoral Prince.
M. de Boufflers bowed over his saddle and passed on, his staff officers behind him, all riding at the salute as they passed the allied sovereigns.
When the last had gone, William, who had never taken his eyes from the cavalcade, spoke to M. Dyckfelt, who rode close to the carriage.
"Mynheer," he said, "you will inform M. de Boufflers that he is our prisoner until the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deynse are released."
M. Dyckfelt departed with a body of Dutch cavalry, and, as the King drove off, he could hear the indignant exclamations of the French officers as the Maréchal was asked to deliver up his sword. The King drove to his tent across the town of Namur, which was like a barracks and a battlefield for soldiers and wounded. His bodyguard of princes raised a fine cloud of white dust from the dry roads, the air was still foul with the smell of powder and burning buildings, the sun burnt in the acrid heavens with a sneer cloudless heat that seemed to draw all freshness and moisture out of the earth, even the two great rivers had a hard, molten look in the glare as if they were lead, not water.
The Commanders of the Confederacy dined with the King; the tent was hot, but shaded from the intolerable glare by three poor scorched chestnut trees that cast a meagre shadow over the canvas.
The Electoral Prince sat at the King's right, the Earl of Portland at his left, and, for tie first time, Joost van Keppel was at the King's table, an honour that was not grudged by any of the potentates, for the young soldier was exceedingly popular, being amiable, generous, sweet-tempered, and deferential, but Portland marked it with a bitter heart.
William, seated in a vermeil armchair, wearing his hat, and treated by the others as if they were no more than his subjects gave the toast—"The allied army "—in a whisper to the Elector, who passed it round the table. It was drunk in silence, and the long meal, served on gold and crystal, began.
The King spoke hardly at all, save to utter a few sentences to Portland, who received them coldly, and the others were, out of deference, silent, all being, indeed, too elated with their recent great success (the greatest they had achieved during the war), and too occupied in their own thoughts, with what this would mean to their several interests, to care for speech.
When the meal was nearly over, M. Dyckfelt came to say that M. de Boufflers, after protesting violently, had delivered up his sword and returned to Namur as a prisoner of the allies.
"We will send him to Huy until we receive the two garrisons," said William languidly, "though I doubt that we put too high a price on M. de Boufflers."
"His master," remarked M. de Vaudemont, "must redeem him at even a higher rate."
"Ah, cousin," answered the King, "His Majesty will return the men for pride's sake."
"And there is the English post in," said M. Dyckfelt, "all in a reek from skirting Villeroy's forces."
"Why must you remind me of England?" asked William.
Portland interposed quickly:
"Surely you will return almost immediately? Is this not a good juncture to call a Parliament?"
"This is not a good season to discuss politics." The King administered his reproof in the gentlest manner, but Portland, with a curt bow, instantly set down his glass, rose, and left the tent.
William flushed, and a kind of tremor ran through the company. They thought that the King would not take this even from Portland.
But, after a second, he turned to the Prince de Vaudemont.
"My cousin," he said quietly, "will you go after my lord and persuade him that he is unreasonable?"
The princes glanced at each other covertly as M. de Vaudemont obeyed. M. van Keppel coloured violently; he knew perfectly well who Portland's wrath was directed against, but his anger was not personal but for his master thus openly slighted.
The King sat silent, drinking slowly and looking down at the damask cloth. In a few moments M. de Vaudemont returned alone.
It seemed almost incredible that Portland should refuse to return when sent for by the King, and by such a messenger. William looked up.
"Sire," said M. de Vaudemont, "M. de Portland asks Your Majesty to excuse his attendance."
The King made no answer; he was outwardly composed, but the Elector, glancing at his face, guessed that his triumph was as nothing to him compared to the coldness of his friend.
M. de Hesse broke the silence.
"M. de Kohorn lost his bet after all!" he remarked: "until this moment I had forgotten it."
"I am a hundred pistoles the richer," answered the Elector, glad of the discussion, "and yet I thought to lose—it was the victory of a few hours."
William suddenly laughed.
"Gentlemen," he said, slightly raising his glass, "I give you the loser of that wager and the man who took Namur—Baron Menno Kohorn."
The extraordinary character of Charles XII. of Sweden (1682—1718), reinforced by his brilliant qualities, embroiled North Europe in nearly twenty years war.
Successful as an Alexander in his campaigns against Denmark and Poland, and crowned with the reputation of an invincible conqueror, he flung himself against the Czar Peter, who was endeavouring to make a great nation out of the barbaric kingdoms of Russia. These two remarkable opponents met on the road to Moscow, 1708, and Peter the Great won his first victory on the occasion of Charles' first defeat at Poltava.
"Que craignez vous encore? Dieu et moi, nous sommes toujours vivants."
—Medal of Charles XII. of Sweden.
LADEN with the plunder of Poland and Saxony, the spoils of their brilliant feats of arms, the Swedes, amid the January ice, marched on Grodno, the several parties of Muscovites in the neighbourhood, flying at the mere rumour of their approach.
Peter, surprised at Grodno, fled with two thousand men, while Karl with six hundred entered the city.
When Peter learned that the bulk of the Swedish army was still five leagues distant he returned and tried to retake the town.
He was, however, fiercely beaten back, and the Swedes pursued the Russians through Lithuania and Minsk, towards the frontiers of Russia.
Karl, after clearing Lithuania of the forces of the Czar, intended to march towards the north and on to Moscow, by way of Pskof.
The difficulties in his way were terrible; huge stretches of virgin forest, of desolate marsh, of barren deserts, lay between him and his objective. The only food that could be found was the winter stores of the peasant in the small tracks of cultivated land, which were buried underground; many of these had already been ravaged by the Muscovites, and in any case were insufficient for the Swedish army.
Karl, who was to be deterred neither by prudence, reason, nor fear of any kind, had provided bread for his men, which they carried with them, and on this they had to support the ghastly hardships of the forced marches.
The heavy rains kept back even the indefatigable Swede. A road had to be made through the forest of Minsk, and it was early summer before Karl found himself once more face to face with Peter at Borissov.
The Czar waited with the main body of his forces to defend the river Berezina; Karl, however, brought his troops across this river and marched on the Russians, who once more retreated, falling back on the Dnieper.
At Halowczin he defeated twenty thousand Muscovites by traversing a marsh believed to be impassable, the King himself leading, with the water at times up his shoulders.
After this decisive victory he pursued the Russians to Mohilew, on the frontiers of Poland; by the autumn he was chasing the Czar from Smolensk, on the Moscow road.
At Smolensk, narrowly escaping death in a hand-to-hand fight with the Kalmucks, Karl inflicted another defeat on the Muscovites, and proceeded another stage on the way to the capital, from which city he was now distant only a hundred leagues.
At this moment Peter sent to Karl suggesting the opening of peace negotiations.
But Earl replied as he had replied to Augustus: "Peace in Moscow."
And even Count Piper wrote to the Duke of Marlborough, whom he was keeping informed of the progress of the campaign, that the dethronement of the Czar was inevitable.
But Peter, still unshaken after the defeats of eight years, again gathered together his scattered and disheartened armies.
"The King of Sweden thinks to be a second Alexander," ne remarked, when Earl's haughty answer was brought to him, "but I have no mind to be Darius."
The second winter of the Russian campaign was now setting in; it promised to be of unusual severity even for these bitter regions.
Even the Spartan endurance of the Swedes began to blench at the thought of the almost unendurable hardships of the long Russian winter, with neither sufficient food, firing, nor clothing.
But there was no murmuring, for the King supported all privations equally with the poorest foot soldier.
The scouts brought in news that Peter had torn up the roads, flooded them from the marsh lands, cut down huge trees and flung them across the way, and burnt the villages on the route to Moscow.
There was barely a fortnight's provisions in the Swedish army, and not the least prospect of obtaining any more in the ravaged, frozen wastes.
Earl called a council of war in his rough tent amid the giant pines.
There was no fire, and, as the tent flap swayed on its cords in the icy wind, a few flakes of snow drifted in and melted on the frozen earthen floor.
Earl sat in a folding camp-chair, a mantle of rough blue cloth over his usual uniform, his hands, covered by the long elbow gloves, employed in turning over a few notes and maps on a plain pine table.
The arduous labours and unceasing fatigues of this last campaign had told even on his superb physique.
He was thinner and pale, under the brown of exposure, his blue eyes seemed slightly tired, but had lost nothing of their calm, courageous stare.
Near him sat Count Piper, looking ill and old, wrapped in a heavy cloak of marten skin, lined with scarlet and gold brocade, the spoil of war of some flying Russian prince.
Only a few of Earl's generals, such as Rehnskold, Gyllenburg, and Wurtemburg, were present; it was his habit to confide his designs to as few as possible.
Piper, whose forebodings had been silenced by the splendid success of the Swedish advance into Russia, had now begun to feel uneasy, and to rediscover all his objections to the campaign. He thought that Earl should have accepted Peter's offer to treat for peace; the barbarous country and the arctic climate told severely on his spirits; he was in poor health and homesick. Whatever sentiment he may have had left for his master had vanished when the cruel sentence on General Patkul was carried out, and he was broken on the wheel, suffering a death of frightful torture.
Piper had heard that Helene D'Einsiedel had not lived to hear this news.
She had died in the Russian camp soon after her arrival there, and the messages Patkul had sent to her by the chaplain who attended him on the scaffold had been sent to one beyond the reach of comfort.
Piper never spoke of these things, but he often thought of them now that misfortune seemed at last to be overtaking his master.
He considered now that Earl was in the most dangerous position he had yet found himself in, and he did not hesitate to say so, unpalatable and unacceptable as he knew his advice must be.
"Your Majesty, in common prudence," he remarked, shivering a little into his furs, "can do nothing but await the arrival of Lewenhaupt."
This general, who was coming to Earl's assistance with fifteen thousand men and a quantity of provisions, was believed to be within a few days' march of the present Swedish camp.
He had, indeed, been some time expected, and his retarded arrival had been a matter of vexation to the stern King.
"I most strongly beseech Your Majesty to consider this advice," added General Gyllenburg, with an earnest glance at the King.
Earl turned over the maps and papers without looking up.
His full mouth was set in an obstinate curve; to this arrogant conqueror, now faced with his first check, any council of moderation was displeasing.
"We cannot, sire," urged Gyllenburg, "advance on Moscow with barely fifteen days' food." For he, in common with the entire army, believed this mad project to be the one Earl had really at heart.
"There is nothing we cannot do," replied Earl, who had indeed often achieved what had seemed to others the impossible.
But Piper was vexed.
"If Your Majesty advances on Moscow, you advance on disaster!" he exclaimed.
The King gave him a cold stare.
"Are you not yet convinced that I never take advice?"
His bitter rebuke caused the minister's worn cheeks to flush.
It was long since he had given Earl any cause to silence him, so utterly had he refrained from counsels that were useless.
Earl took his face in his right gloved hand, with his elbow on the table, and looked up and round his little council.
"I propose," he said,'in a manner that left no loophole for argument or suggestion, "to neither march on Moscow nor wait for Lewenhaupt." What third alternative there could be no one knew.
"I intend," added the King dryly, "to advance into the Ukraine, to pass the winter there, and continue the route to Moscow in the spring."
The haughtiness with which he made this announcement covered an inner mortification; he had thought to dethrone the Czar in a year; he had never meant to turn back once on the road to Moscow.
But having reviewed his army and taken stock of his provisions, even his daring could not advance to what was certain destruction. To his listeners the present project seemed as mad as an advance on the Russian capital, but they did not venture on any comment.
With the fewest and barest words Karl proceeded to explain that he had made an alliance with Mazeppa, Prince of Ukraine, the country of the Cossacks, who was in revolt against the Czar, and hoped to profit by the alliance of the Swede to defeat Peter.
This man, who dreamed to do for the Ukraine what Patkul had dreamed to do for Livonia, was a Polish nobleman of considerable parts; cast out of his own country by the vengeance of a compatriot, he had taken refuge amid the Cossacks, grown to be their ruler, and now in his old age essayed to play some important part in this momentous war.
"Is he to be trusted?" asked General Rehnskold, who did not dislike the project as it was unfolded to him.
"As for that I do not know," replied the King coldly, "but his interests lie with me, and not with the Czar, for if Peter discovered his secret plans of revolt he would certainly impale him as he has threatened before. Mazeppa knows what to expect from the mercy and justice of the Czar."
Piper, thinking of Patkul, was silent, but Gyllenburg, thinking of nothing but the present crisis, ventured to remonstrate with the imperious King.
"Whether or no the Cossacks can be relied upon, were it not well to wait Lewenhaupt and his reinforcements—above all, his provisions?"
But Karl was, as always, obstinate; he had, he said, a rendezvous with Mazeppa on the banks of the Desna, whither that Prince had promised to come with thirty thousand men, treasure, an provisions.
Rehnskold was prepared to credit that this was better either than pressing on towards Moscow or waiting for Lewenhaupt.
Piper and Gyllenburg were for remaining at Smolensk in expectation of reinforcements; Karl listened coldly to all arguments, and remained fixed in his original plans.
The next day the army, to its intense surprise, received orders to march into the Ukraine. Messengers were sent to Lewenhaupt to tell him to join the main army on the banks of the Desna, and the painful progress commenced.
It was yet autumn, but the cold had set in early, and the troops had to suffer the rigours of extreme cold.
Nature seemed bent on throwing obstacles in the way of the Swedes.
The forests, deserts, and marches were nearly impenetrable; Lagercrona, in charge of the advance guard, went thirty leagues astray, and only after four days of wandering was able to find the route.
Nearly all his artillery and heavy baggage he had been obliged to abandon in the marshes or among the rocks.
When, after unheard-of troubles and privation, Karl reached the banks of the Desna that the Prince of the Cossacks had appointed for a meeting-place, the ground was found to be occupied by a party of Muscovites.
The Swedes, though fatigued by twelve days' travel, gave battle, vanquished the Russians, and continued to advance into this desolate and unknown country.
Now even Karl himself began to be doubtful of the fidelity of Mazeppa, and uncertain as to his route.
Perhaps feelings of doubt and apprehension were beginning to touch him for the first time in his life, when Mazeppa finally joined the Swedish army.
He had, however, the worst of news to tell; Peter had discovered the plot in progress in the Ukraine, had fallen upon and scattered the Cossacks, capturing all the gold and grain and thirty Cossack nobles whom he had broken on the wheel.
Towns and villages had been burned, treasures carried off, and the old Prince had with difficulty escaped with six thousand men and a small quantity of gold and silver, of little use in a country where there was no one to be bribed with gold and no commodity to buy.
Karl would have found a few wagon-loads of grain more to his liking. However, the Cossacks were useful if only from their knowledge of this wild country, though Karl despised them as soldiers and waited impatiently for the arrival of Lewenhaupt. But when this general finally made his way to the Swedish encampment, he had a tale to tell as disastrous as that of Mazeppa, and far more mortifying to the pride of the King of Sweden.
At Liesna he had been met by the Czar, and, after a fierce battle of three days, severely defeated.
He had continued to effect a magnificent retreat, but he had lost eight thousand men, seventeen cannon, and forty-four flags, together with the entire convoy he was bringing to Karl, consisting of eight thousand wagons of food, and the silver raised in Lithuania by way of tribute.
He had the satisfaction of knowing that Peter had lost ten thousand men, and that he had held him at bay for three days, but this could not balance the fact that he arrived at Karl's encampment with his army depleted and without either provisions, ammunition, or treasure.
Karl received this reverse with his usual cold gravity; he neither blamed Lewenhaupt nor took anyone into his confidence.
His situation, so lately that of an all-powerful conqueror, was now indeed dangerous, if not desperate.
He was cut off from Poland, and an attempt on the part of Stanislaus to reach him failed utterly.
No news came through from Sweden, and it seemed as if this army, lately all-powerful, was isolated from the rest of the world; they could neither communicate with, nor receive help nor advice from, any part of the globe.
But the worst of their distresses was the weather; this winter of 1709, long to be remembered, even in Western Europe, as one of the most terrible on record, was almost insupportable in these arctic regions.
Karl, who ignored human needs and human weaknesses, forced his men to march and work as if it had been midsummer and they well fed.
Two thousand of them dropped dead of cold in their tracks.
The rest were soon reduced to a state bordering on misery.
There was no replenishing their clothes, half were without coats, half without boots or shoes; they had to clothe themselves in skins as beet as they might, and suffer and die as best as they might, for the mad King tolerated no murmur, and such was his authority and the awe and respect that his very name inspired that his troops endured what perhaps no other general had induced men to endure before. Such food as kept them alive was provided by Mazeppa, who alone prevented them from perishing miserably.
The old Prince of the Cossacks had remained faithful to Earl despite the offers Peter made to him to induce him to return to his allegiance. The Czar, not wishing to appear inferior to his enemy in spirit or daring, advanced into the Ukraine, regardless of the frozen country and tempests of snow.
He did not, however, attack the King of Sweden, but merely harassed him by small raids on his camp, thinking that hardships and cold would have reduced them to extremity before succour could reach them.
News from Stockholm finally came to the isolated army.
Earl learnt that his sister, the Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp, was dead of the smallpox. This gentlewoman was but a faint memory to the King; it was eight years since this terrible and bloody war had been undertaken to replace her husband on his throne.
Earl had almost forgotten Stockholm; almost forgotten the cause of the war; the young Duke was dead, and had but a small place in the stern King's mind, compared to the vast designs that had grown out of his quarrel.
Not till the first day of February did the snow permit the Swedes to move, and then it was amid terrible weather that Earl advanced on Poltava, a fort full of supplies that Peter held across the Moscow route.
The taking of this place was a necessity to Earl pending the arrival of his reinforcements, as his army was deprived of everything, and the resources of Mazeppa almost at an end.
The Swedish army was now reduced to eighteen thousand men, but besides these Earl commanded the Cossacks of Mazeppa, and several thousand Kalmucks and Moldavians, free lances attached to his standard by the love of booty and of glory.
With his force Earl advanced on Poltava; he had the mortification of finding that Mentchikoff had outmanoeuvred him, and flung five thousand men into the town.
The King pressed the siege and had taken several of the outworks when he learnt of the approach of the Czar with seventy thousand men.
"Nous n'avons de propre que l'honneur; y renouncer, c'est cesser d'être monarque."
—Peter the Great.
FOR the second time the horses drawing the King's litter were killed—only three were left of the four-and-twenty guards who accompanied him. Other soldiers hurried up, and began fastening fresh horses to the litter.
"Make haste," commanded Karl, "make haste." It was the thick of the battle; the beginning of the second attack which had begun at nine in the morning.
The first battle had been successful for the Swedes, with a fierce onslaught of their famous cavalry; they had scattered the Muscovite horsemen, and taken the outposts of the Russian camp; General Greutz, however, who had been sent to reinforce the victors, lost his way, and the Czar, having time to rally, drove back the Swedish cavalry and captured Slippenbach, their general.
Karl was then about to send for his reserves that had been left with the camp and baggage when, with a brilliant movement, Prince Mentchikoff threw himself between the Swedes and Poltava, thus isolating the King's forces, and at the same time cutting to pieces a detachment that was coming to his assistance.
Meanwhile the Muscovite infantry were advancing on the main body of the Swedish army. When Karl heard of Mentchikoff's exploit he could not refrain from a bitter exclamation.
"Too well has he learnt from me the art of war!"
Quickly regaining his habitual composure he gave orders for a general battle, arranging, as best he might, his diminished forces.
He had now only four pieces of cannon, and was beginning to lack ammunition; Peter had at least a hundred and twenty guns.
It was one of the first volleys from these that had killed the King's horses and guards.
Karl shivered with rage as his glance swept over the battle, and he thought of the artillery that he had been obliged to abandon in the marshes and forests of the Ukraine, either through the weather or because the horses had perished, and he remembered with a pang the men who had dropped from cold and hunger on those terrible marches.
It was burning hot as the sun rose higher into the pale cloudless sky; the air was foul with dust and smoke, and full of curses, shouts, and orders, and the irregular booming of the Russian guns.
Before the horses could be harnessed to the King's litter, another cannon-ball fell near; again several of the guards were killed and the litter this time reversed, shattered to pieces, and flung on top of the King, who was cast on the trampled ground.
Four of his officers dragged him from the ruins; he was covered with dust and blood, and almost speechless.
The first line of the Swedes was beginning to fall back.
The swooning King perceived this, but he was almost past speech. The Muscovite cannonade was so continuous and fierce that those about the King thought of retreating also, to get their master to a place of safety in the rear.
A stretcher was hastily constructed of pikes, and the King was raised shoulder high.
He raised himself on his elbow and cried out for his sword which he had dropped; they gave him this, and a pistol which he grasped in his left hand.
His blue eyes, inflamed with rage and pain, shot a desperate glance over the battle-field. On every side the Swedes were giving way, each line falling back on the other, and the cavalry breaking at either wing.
"Swedes! Swedes!" cried the King.
Rallying his strength with a mighty effort he directed his bearers to take him to the head of several regiments, mentioning these by name. But it was too late; already everything was in irredeemable confusion; General Poniatowski forced his way through the melee to the King, and ordered the soldiers to take him to the rear.
Karl made a sign with his head that he would not go, but he could not speak.
"Sire," said Poniatowski, "the day is lost;—Wurtemburg, Rehnskold, Hamilton and Stackelberg are prisoners."
It was doubtful if the King heard; he lay like one insensible, though his blue eyes were open wide and staring through the battle-smoke.
They were now being hotly pursued by a charge with bayonets, pikes, and swords; the intrepid Pole, though he held no rank in the Swedish army, rallied some of the Swedish horse round the person of the King.
Some of those supporting him had fallen, and he lay on the ground.
Poniatowski dismounted and shouted to the King's valet whom he saw pressing close; the little band of horsemen, guards, officers, and troopers, who did not number in all five hundred, but who were all that were left to Earl of his hitherto invincible army, kept off the fierce attacks of the Muscovites, while Poniatowski and the valet, with the help of a horse soldier, got the King up and on to Poniatowski's horse, a noble dark arab.
Karl did not speak a word; he had tried to mount a horse at the beginning of the engagement, but had been unable to do so, and now the agony of his wound, the shock of his fall, the passion of rage and grief he was in, had so weakened him that he fainted twice while they were getting him on to the charger.
At last it was accomplished, and the valet, mounting behind his master, clasped him round the waist.
The anguish caused to his shattered foot by the movement of the horse brought Earl to his senses; but he was incapable of anything; he had dropped both his sword and pistol, and his head sank on to the breast of the young man behind him.
In this manner did the Swedish cavaliers, fighting off the fierce Muscovite attack every inch of the way, escort their unhappy master.
They had not reached their objective, the baggage camp (the other Swedish camps being already in the hands of the Muscovites), when Earl's horse was killed under him. One of the officers with him, Colonel Giertz, though sorely wounded himself, gave the King his mount, and again with infinite difficulty Earl was helped into the saddle.
The little troop, fighting through ten Muscovite regiments, at length brought the King to the baggage of the Swedish army.
The Russians were hotly pursuing them, and Poniatowski saw that a moment's delay might be fatal.
Among the baggage was the only carriage in the Swedish army, that of Count Piper.
The King was helped into this, and the Pole, who by tacit consent had taken command of this band of fugitives, ordered a retreat with all haste towards the Dnieper.
He and the valet, Frederic, entered the carriage with the King, and supported him, as best they could, against the jolting on the rough roads.
Earl had not spoken a word since Poniatowski had conducted him from the field of battle; he now sat up, drew out his handkerchief, and wiped the sweat and dirt from his face, at the same time glancing at the blood that was soaking from his re-opened wound on to the cushions and floor of the carriage.
"Where is Count Piper?" he asked.
His voice and face were calm, but the ghastly hue of his usually fresh and glowing face told of his intense suffering.
"Sire," replied Poniatowski, "Count Piper is taken with all the ministers. He came out to look for Your Majesty, and wandered into the counterscarp of Poltava, where they were taken prisoners by the garrison."
Earl gave not the least sign of emotion.
"Ana the Prince of Wurtemburg and General Rehnskold?" he asked.
"They also are prisoners," said Poniatowski mournfully.
The King shrugged his shoulders.
"Prisoners of the Russians!" he exclaimed. "Let us rather be prisoners of the Turks!"
He said no more, and the flight towards the Dnieper was continued.
Another misfortune overtook the unhappy King; a wheel of the carriage was wrenched off on the barbarous road, and there was no time to stop and repair it; he was therefore obliged to continue his journey on horseback.
The day was insufferably hot; they could find neither food nor water, nor was there any prospect of obtaining any in this desolate country, arid and uninhabited; several of the men were lost on the way or had dropped with fatigue; only a small number remained with the King.
These, towards evening, lost themselves in a vast trackless wood that was believed to stretch to the banks of the Dnieper.
Here, while they wandered about in the endeavour to find some road, the King's horse fell under him with fatigue, and no efforts could get Earl any farther.
Blood-stained and soiled with dust and powder, without food, drink or repose, maddened by the pain of his wound, which increased with his fatigue, his spirit tortured equally with his body by the agony of defeat at the hands of the man he most hated, even the courage and endurance of Earl could support him no longer, and though he was told that the Muscovites were searching for him in this very wood, he made no effort to move but crept under a great tree and lay there motionless.
Poniatowski put a horse blanket under his head and sat beside him to watch, together with the few horsemen who now comprised the royal bodyguard.
As soon as the moon was up another body of fugitives, by rare good luck, came up with them.
These were Cossacks, headed by their hetman, General Mazeppa.
From them the Swedes learnt some further particulars of the battle.
The Muscovites had taken everything; baggage, guns, stores, such as there were, and the treasure consisting of six million crowns in specie, the remains of the spoils of Poland and Saxony, together with many thousand men taken prisoners and many more slain.
Lewenhaupt, Mazeppa added, was flying towards the Dnieper with the remainder of the army; and he himself, added the old Cossack chief, had managed to bring away some mules laden with provisions, and a number of carts laden with silver and gold.
Karl did not hear this news, either good or bad; he lay in a swoon of fatigue and pain, the moonbeams striking through the thick summer foliage on to his low fair head and blood-stained uniform.
Mazeppa glanced at him; their mutual disaster was so complete that any lamentation or even comment seemed grotesque.
The Prince said nothing, therefore, but with the fortitude that belonged to his character and his mode of life, directed that the food and water that he had brought with him should be distributed among the Swedes, then lay down on the grass and slept.
The next day the painful march was continued, and a juncture effected with Lewenhaupt on the banks of the Dnieper almost at the same moment as news was received of the approach of the Muscovites.
Lewenhaupt's men had not eaten for two days; they lacked powder, provision—everything; they had no means of crossing the river.
But their spirit did not fail them; they had been the victors in a hundred fights that even Poltava could not efface from their remembrance, and there was not a man among them but who did not believe that, now their King had rejoined them, they would once more conquer, or else completely perish, selling their lives dearly. But the man on whom they relied was no longer the man who had led them to victory; Earl, whose wound was become poisoned and who was in a violent fever, unconscious of his actions, was hurried into a small boat that the army had with it, and taken across the Dnieper with Mazeppa and his treasure, which was afterwards obliged to be cast overboard to lighten the boat.
A few other craft having been found a certain number of officers managed to cross the river, but the desperate Cossacks who endeavoured to swim on horseback or on foot were all overwhelmed and drowned.
While the army was in this pass, Prince Mentchikoff, having found his way by the broken bodies of the Swedes along the route, arrived and called upon Lewenhaupt to surrender.
One colonel of this army that had been so long glorious hurled himself with his troop at the ranks of the enemy, but Lewenhaupt bade him cease his vain defiance.
It was all over now; everything was lost, even the chance of a glorious and splendid death; several officers shot themselves, others leapt into the waters of the Dnieper.
Lewenhaupt surrendered.
The remnant of that triumphant army that had so confidently marched out of Saxony was now in the hands of the Russians; slaves henceforth who might come to envy their compatriots who had perished of misery in the forests of the Ukraine.
The news of the end of his nine years' war was brought to Karl by the last fugitives who were able to cross the Dnieper.
He seemed incapable of understanding what was taking place, but lay silent in the poor carriage which was all that had been able to be procured for him. Without food, save of the scantiest, and almost entirely without water, the little party travelled for five days across a desert country until they arrived at Oczakow, the frontier town of the Ottoman Empire.
The bureaucratic delays of the local officials hindered the progress of the fugitives into Turkey.
All the able negotiations of Poniatowski were unavailing, and pending the permission that was to come from the Pasha at Bender, the Swedes were forced to take what boats they could lay their hands on, and cross the river Bug that lay between them and safety. The King and his immediate suite reached the opposite shore, but five hundred men, the bulk of his little army, were captured by the pursuing Muscovites, whose cries of triumph echoed in the ears of the flying King.
So, sick, penniless, without hope or resource, his glory shattered in a day, his prestige gone for ever, Earl XII. entered Turkey, to throw himself on the mercy of the infidel.
The Battle of Naseby.
Charles XII. returned home, after spending his entire reign in war, to plunge his bankrupt kingdom into further embroilments, and ended his wild life when besieging Frederikshald in Norway, 1718, leaving a country exhausted and:
"The name that made the world turn
pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale."
—Dr Johnson.
"Voilà la pièce finie, allons souper."
—Megret at Frederikshald.
THE King of Sweden was in his camp before Frederiksten, the fortress that protected Frederikshald, the town that was considered the Key of Norway.
This was the second expedition against Norway that the King had undertaken since his return from Turkey, both in the dead of winter, to the astonishment of Europe; it seemed that it would have been more reasonable for him to remain and defend his bankrupt kingdom, menaced on all sides, in a state of siege, and reduced to using leather money; but Karl never did the reasonable thing nor what other men expected of him.
None of his ancient success had attended him in his fresh campaigns against his enemies; Stralsund, after a long siege and desperate battles, in which the King fought hand-to-hand with his foes, had been taken by assault, and Karl had escaped across the half-frozen Baltic to Karlskrona, leaving among the dead in the burning town Grothusen, During, and Dahldorf, three faithful friends of his exile.
His enemies now included the King of Prussia, who had bought Stettin and a part of Pomerania from the King of Denmark, and the Czar and the living King of England who had purchased the rest of Sweden's spoils, Breme and Verden, from the astute Frederic, who was not slow to turn his conquests into ready cash.
Peter retained his own booty; this consisted of Biga, Livonia, Ingria, Carelia Yasa, Finland, the Isles in the Baltic, some of which were not twelve leagues from Stockholm.
By his victory of Aland he had demolished the Swedish fleet, and led captive to his new fort of Kronstadt the flagship of Ehrenskold, the Swedish Admiral.
But more bitter to the peculiar temperament of Earl than these successes of his great rival, was the ruin of Holstein-Gottorp, which he had taken under his protection since the beginning of the war, and the reinstatement of Augustus in Poland, with the consent of all the guarantees of the treaty of Altranstädt.
He forbade Stanislaus to conclude the advantageous treaty the good-natured Elector offered, and give the Pole, who had to thus forfeit his ancient estates and position, for the empty title of King, the Duchy of Deux-Ponts which was in his gift. To replace Stanislaus on the Polish throne, and to rescue the estates of his nephew, whom he also intended to make his heir, was now the chief end of the King's policy.
Of the state of his people he cared little; he had put on enormous taxes, debased the coinage, called up all the fit men, strained every resource to continue his ruinous wars; during two winter campaigns he had watched his soldiers die of cold among the snows of Norway, with the same insensibility as he had seen them die amid the ice of the Ukraine.
Baron Gortz, the only one of his ancient friends left to him, was now his Prime Minister, and pursued a fantastic foreign policy, but too attractive to the strange spirit of the King.
The Swede, by means of deep and complicated intrigues, and with the help of Cardinal Alberoni, Primate of Spain, sought to put the Stuart Pretender on the throne of England, in place of that Elector of Hanover who had outraged Karl by his bargain with Denmark.
These dangerous intrigues had been discovered in England and the Swedish ambassador arrested, but Baron Gortz still persisted in his scheme, and Earl continued to support him; his design was now to draw Peter into a secret alliance with Karl, that should place Europe at the feet of Russia and Sweden.
The Czar, ever eager for material advantage, and indifferent to mere glory, was disposed to listen to a plan that would silence his most obstinate foe, and Karl, no politician, and interested in nothing but war, was ready to forgo, at least for the moment, his design to dethrone Peter, if he could secure vengeance against those foes whom he despised and hated more than he did Peter—the Kings of Poland, Denmark, and England.
To besiege Norway in winter, and wrest this prize from the Danes, was more pleasing to his character than to attack in Germany, or to remain on the defensive at home; and Baron Gortz had assured him that Peter would not attack in his absence.
The Czar indeed was glutted with conquest, and was always wise enough not to undertake more than he could with safety perform.
Karl had with him the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, who had lately married his sister; this professional soldier had lately been serving the States-General, and was regarded by the King as a good general, but he gave him little confidence and no affection.
This Prince was with the King when the Swedish camp was being laid down before the heights of Frederiksten, and Earl, in high spirits at the thought of the approaching struggle, spoke with him in a more friendly spirit than was his wont:
"Ah, Prince," he said, "when we have taken Frederikshald, Norway will be ours."
"How long does Your Majesty think to take in subduing Norway?" asked the German courteously.
"I should have taken it last year," replied the King, "but for the provisions."
He had made the mistake then he had made in the Ukraine—that of moving his army too far from his base, and had had to return to Sweden with starving troops.
"Six months," he added: "then, at last, I shall see Stockholm again—a pity Count Piper is not here to hear me say that," he smiled.
It was eighteen years since he had seen his capital, to which he did not intend to return till he was triumphant.
"Let us go and look at the trenches—these engineers are very slow," continued Earl. He called an officer and bade him fetch M. Megret, the French engineer who was conducting the siege.
It was a bitter night but cloudless; there was no moon; the stars glimmered hard and clear as if cut from crystal in the dark sky.
Everyone but the King was muffled in mantles and furs; Earl wore his plain uniform with black cravat and top-boots.
He had now completely recovered from his sickness—the sickness engendered by a soft life—and was at the height of his great strength and perfect hardihood; he had filled out to the proportions of a Viking, could live on bread and water, go without food for days, sleep on the ground in midwinter with no covering but his cloak, and no pillow save one of straw.
It was this strength of body, this fortitude of soul, this stern, austere life, that made him so respected and feared, that neither in court nor camp did anyone dare to murmur at the misfortune he had brought on Sweden.
M. Hesse-Cassel took his leave to return to his own quarters, and Karl awaited the coming of M. Megret.
He was impatient to take Frederiksten and to proceed into Norway, and he thought that the works were not as advanced as they should be.
He walked up and down the little tent, his step ringing on the frozen ground, his breath clear before him in the frosty air.
As M. Megret entered he raised his head: the Frenchman looked at him and thought, "If the Czar could see you now he would not be too secure," so redoubtable did Karl appear with his magnificent make, his noble, inflexible face, his cold air of power.
"M. Megret," he said, "I should like to see your works."
The engineer bowed and followed the King out of the tent.
The soldiers were desperately labouring in the starlight.
"They work slowly, sire, because the ground is so frozen and rocky," remarked M. Megret, "but the place will be taken in eight days."
"We shall see," replied Karl.
He entered the trenches accompanied by the aide-de-camp, Siquier, and the engineer; they had no lights, but now and then there was a dull glow from a bomb cast by the enemy; mingled in the sound of the cannon was the rattle of pick and spade on the hard ground.
The King continually complained, as he advanced from trench to trench, of the backwardness of the work.
"You would make me take as long to gain Frederiksten," he said, "as I mean to use for the whole of Norway."
So splendid was his quiet presence that these words did not sound boastful from the lips of a king of broken fortunes; looking at him the officers forgot the lost provinces, the brass money, the starving populace, and remembered only Narva and Elissow.
The King continued to move rapidly from one portion of the works to another; he was now joined by the captains of the trenches.
An intermittent firing came from the fortress, the red light of the cannon showing now and then in the cold night.
Occasionally there was the whistle of a musket-ball as the Norwegian sentries fired at the Swedes working in the dark.
The King reached an angle of a boyau in the finished portion of the entrenchment; he paused, wishing to observe how far the parallel was advanced, and mounting the fire-step rested his elbows on the parapet and watched his soldiers moving, crouching, running, digging among the dislodged fragments of rock and the heaps of frozen earth; here and there the starlight showed dully a patch of snow; the noise of the hurried labour was continuous; despite the random cannonade from Frederiksten the Swedes were carrying their works up to the very glacis of the fort, and they occupied the entire terre-plein. Above the northern sky showed clear as water agleam with cold stars that palpitated in the pale colourless night; a bitter wind swept these frozen heights, and nature's stillness reigned above the horrid sounds of war.
Earl looked across the bent figures of his soldiers to the great fort on the summit of the rocks.
M. Siquier, who was close behind him, called out to him not to expose himself, for his head and shoulders showed above the earthworks which were directly opposite to one of the cannon on the advanced fortification of Frederiksten; the Norwegians could be observed moving round this battery. Karl looked over his shoulder and smiled; without speaking he returned to his observation; his silence conveyed extraordinary arrogance, vitality, and power.
Suddenly he put his hand to his sword and gave a great sigh.
"Sire!" cried M. Siquier.
Karl remained motionless, standing like a sentinel with his sword half drawn from the scabbard, facing the dark heights.
As the aide-de-camp mounted beside him he fell forward on the frozen earth, his haughty head suddenly bowed face downwards on the parapet. A stray musket ball had entered his left temple; when M. Siquier touched him he was already dead.
CHARLES I. of England (1600—1649) brought the long struggle with his parliaments, which had occupied his entire reign, to a climax by setting up the Royal Standard at Nottingham, August, 1642.
The first battle was at Edge hill—this was followed by Marston Moor and Newbury, both unfavourable to the Royalists. Charles' third defeat, Naseby (1645), was his last battle—with broken fortunes he threw himself on the mercy of the Scotch, who sold him to the English Parliament:
"His ashes in a peaceful urn shall
rest. His name to future ages show
How strange great
endeavours may be blest,
When piety and valour jointly
go."
—Verses on Oliver Cromwell.
THAT evening, while the King was reviewing his troops at Harborough and giving them the word for to-morrow —"Mary"—while General Sir Thomas Fairfax was holding a council at Naseby, Lieutenant-General Cromwell was hastening over the borders of Northamptonshire with six hundred men towards the headquarters of the parliamentary army, which he reached about five in the morning under the light of a cloudless dawn.
At the entrance to the village he halted for an instant and surveyed with a keen eye the undulating open space of ground which rolled towards Guilsborough and Daventry: unfenced ground, full of rabbit holes and covered with short, sweet grass and flowers, above which the larks were singing.
The pure summer morning was full of gentle airs blowing from orchards and gardens and the scents of all fresh green things opening with the opening day.
Silent lay the hamlet of Naseby, the white thatched cottages, the two straggling streets, the old church with a copper ball glittering on the spire, all clearly outlined in the first fair unstained light of the sun.
Beyond lay the parliamentary army: a sober force with their pennons, flags, and colours already displayed among them, and the gold fire gleaming along their brass cannon.
Cromwell and his six hundred, dusty from the night's ride, swept, like a flash of steel on leather, a tramp of hoofs, a cloud of dust, through Naseby, where the villagers crowded at windows and doors, not knowing whether to curse them or bless them, and so to the headquarters of General Sir Thomas Fairfax.
As the newcomers passed through the army and were recognised for Lieutenant-General Cromwell and his men, whom Rupert had, after Marston Moor, nicknamed "Ironsides," the soldiers turned and shouted as with one voice, for it had lately been very commonly observed that where Cromwell went there was the blessing of God.
Sir Thomas Fairfax was already on horseback, and the two generals met and saluted without dismounting.
Oliver Cromwell looked pale, and when he lifted his beaver the grey strands showed in his thick hair: the war had told on him. He had lost his second son and a nephew. His natural melancholy had been increased by this and by the bloody waste he had daily to witness, by the continual bitterness and horror of the struggle; but the exaltation of his stern faith still showed in his expression, and he sat erect in the saddle, a massive figure solid as carved oak, in his buff and steel corselet.
General Fairfax was a different type of man, patriotic and honourable as his lieutenant-general, but cultured, fond of letters, lukewarm in religion, and not given to extremes. Cromwell, however, found him more acceptable than Manchester or Essex.
"Sir," cried the general, "you are as welcome to me as water in a drought. Sir, I give to you the command of all the horse, and may you do the good service you did at Long Marston Moor."
"We are but a company of poor ignorant men, General Fairfax," replied Oliver Cromwell, "and the malignants, I hear, make great scorn of us as a rabble that are to be taught a lesson. Yet I do smile out to God in praises, in assurance of victory, for He will, by things that are not, bring to naught things that are!"
"We have to-day a great task," said Sir Thomas Fairfax, "for if tie King gaineth the victory he will press on to London—and once there he may regain his old standing; whereas if he faileth, he will never more, I think, be able to bring an army into the field."
"Make no pause and have no misgiving, sir," replied Cromwell. "God hath put the sword into the hands of the Parliament for the punishment of evil-doers and the confusion of His enemies, and He will not forsake us. Sir, I will about the marshalling of the horse, for I do perceive that we are as yet not all gotten in order."
The army indeed, though armed and mounted, was not yet arranged in any order of battle, and at this moment there came a message from one of the outposts that the King's forces, in good order, were marching from Harborough.
Fairfax with his staff galloped to a little eminence beyond some apple orchards that fenced in the broad graveyard of the church. By the aid of perspective glasses they could very clearly see the army of the King—the flower of the loyal gentlemen of England, the final effort and hope of Majesty (for this force was Charles' utmost, and all men knew it)—marching in good array and with a gallant show, foot and horse, from Harborough. The Royal Standard was borne before, and, they being not much over a mile away, Cromwell, through the glasses, could discern a figure in a red montero, such as Fairfax wore, riding at the head of the cavalry.
"'Tis Rupert, that son of Baal," he muttered sternly. "The false Arminian fighteth well—yet what availeth his prowess, when his end shall be that outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth?"
Near by, higher than the old copper ball of the church, a tiny lark sang; the bees hovered in the thyme at their feet; the stainless blue of the heavens deepened with the strengthening day. A sudden sense of the peace and loveliness of the scene touched the sensitive heart of Sir Thomas Fairfax.
"English against English, on English land!" he cried. "The pity of it! God grant that we do right!"
Cromwell turned in his saddle, his heavy brows drawn together.
"Dost thou doubt it?" he demanded. "Art thou like the Laodicean, neither hot nor cold?"
"I think of England," replied the general, "and of what we destroy herein—fairness and tranquillity vanisheth from the land like breath from off a glass!"
Cromwell pointed his rough gauntletted hand towards the approaching royal forces.
"Dost thou believe,'" he asked, "that by leaving those in power we secure tranquillity and repose? I tell thee, every drop of blood shed to-day will be more potent to buy us peace than years of gentle argument."
"Thou," said Sir Thomas Fairfax, "art a man of determined nature—but I am something slow-footed. To our work now, sir, and may this bloody business come to a speedy issue!"
Cromwell rode with his own troop down the little hillside to take up his position at the head of the cavalry on the right, the left wing being under Ireton, the infantry in the centre being under the command of Skippon, the Scotsman, the whole under the supervision of Fairfax. This deposition of the army was hastily come to, for there was not an instant to lose; indeed, the Parliamentarians had scarcely gained the top of the low ridge which ran between the hedges, dividing Naseby from Sulby and Clipston, when the King's army came into view across Broadmoor, Rupert opposite Ireton, Langdale and his horse facing Cromwell and the Ironsides, Lord Astley in the centre, with the infantry and the King himself in armour riding in front.
Fairfax posted Okey's dragoons behind the bridges running to Sulby, and flung forward his foot to meet the advancing line of the Royalist attack. The infantry discharged their pieces, the first horrid sound of firing and thick stench of gunpowder disturbed the serene morning.
Then began the bloody and awful fight. Up and down the undulating ground English struggled with English, the colours rocked and dipped above the swaying lines of men, the demi-culverins and demi-sakers roared and smoked, the horse charged and wheeled, and wheeled and charged again. The mounting sun shone on a confusion of steel and scarlet, sword and musket, spurt of fire and splash of blood, on many a grim face distorted with battle fury, on many a fair, youthful face sinking on to the trampled earth to rise no more, on many fair locks of loyal gentlemen, combed and dressed last night, and now fallen in the bloody mire never to be tended or caressed again, on many a stern peasant or yeoman going fiercely out into eternity with his word of "God with us!" on his stiffening lips.
Lord Astley swept back Skippon's first line on to the reserve. Rupert, hurling his horse through the sharp fire of Okey's dragoons, broke up Ireton's cavalry, and for all their stubborn fighting bore them back towards Naseby village. Uplifted swords, maddened horses, slipping, falling, staggering up again, the shouting, flushed Cavaliers, the bitter, silent Roundheads struggled together towards the hamlet and church. In the midst was always Rupert, hatless now, and notable for his black hair flying, and his red cloak, and his sword red up to the hilt.
Fairfax looked and saw his left wing shattered, his infantry overpressed and in confusion, the ignorant recruits giving ground, the officers in vain endeavouring to rally them, and his heart gave a sick swerve'; he dashed to the right, where Cromwell was fighting Langdale, whose northern horsemen were scattered right and left before the terrible onslaught of the Ironsides.
As Cromwell, completely victorious, thundered back from his charge, he met his general. He did not need, however, Sir Thomas Fairfax to tell him how matters went; his keen eye saw through the battle smoke the colours of the infantry being beaten back into the reserve, and he rose up in his stirrups and waved on his men.
"God with us!" broke from the lips of the Puritans as their commander re-formed them.
"God with us!" shouted Cromwell.
One regiment he sent to pursue Langdale'e flying host; the rest he wheeled round to the support of the foot.
Rupert had left the field in pursuit of Ireton; there was no one to withstand the charge of the Ironsides as they hurled themselves, sword in hand, into the centre of the battle.
A great cheer and shout arose from the almost overborne ranks of Fairfax and Skippon when they saw the cavalry dashing to their rescue, and a groan broke from Charles when he beheld his foot being cut down before the charge of the Parliamentarians.
He rode up and down like a man demented, crying through the storm and smoke:
"Where is Rupert? Is he not here to protect my loyal foot?"
But the Prince was plundering Fairfax's baggage at Naseby, and the infantry were left alone to face the Ironsides.
They faced about for their death with incredible courage, being now outnumbered one to two, forming again and again under the enemy's fire, closing up their ranks with silent resolution, one falling, another taking his place, mown down beneath the horses till their dead became more than the living, yet never faltering in their stubborn resolution. One after another these English gentlemen, pike-men, and shotmen went down, slain by English hands, watering English earth with their blood, gasping out their lives on the rabbit holes and torn grass, swords, pikes, and muskets sinking from their hands, hideously wounded, defiled with blood and dirt, distorted with agony, dying without complaint for the truth, as they saw truth, and loyalty, as they saw loyalty. One little phalanx resisted even the charge of the Ironsides though attacked front and flank; they did not break. As long as they had a shot they fired; when the ammunition was finished they waited the charge of Fairfax with clubbed muskets. Their leader was a youth in his early summer, with fair, uncovered head, and a rich dress. He fell three times; when he rose no more his troop continued their resistance until the last man was slain. Then the Ironsides swept across their bodies and charged the last remnant of the King's infantry.
Charles Stuart, watching with agony and dismay the loss of his foot and guns, rode from point to point of the bitter battle, vainly endeavouring to rally his broken forces.
Such as was left of Langdale's horse gathered round him, and at this point up came Rupert, flushed and breathless, his men exhausted from the pursuit and loaded with plunder.
"Thou art too late," said the King sternly, pointing to the awful smoke-hung field. "Hadst thou come sooner some loyal blood might have been saved."
It was the sole reproach he made; he was past anger as he was past nope.
"God damn and the devil roast them!" cried Rupert, in a fury. "But we will withstand them yet!"
With swiftness and skill he seconded the King's courageous efforts to rally the remnant of the horse, and these drew up for a final stand in front of the baggage wagons and carriages, where the camp-followers shrieked and cowered.
For the third time Oliver Cromwell formed his cavalry, being now joined by Ireton, who, though wounded, had rallied the survivors of Rupert's pursuit, and now, in good order, and accompanied by the shotmen and dragoons, advanced towards the remnants of the Royal Horse.
The King seemed like one heedless of his fate; his face was colourless and distorted, the drying tears stained his cheek. He looked over the hillocks scattered with the dead and dying who had fallen for him, and he muttered twice, through twitching lips:
"Broken, broken! Lost, lost!"
The Parliamentary dragoons commencing fire, Rupert headed his line for his usual reckless charge, and Charles, galloping to the front, was about to press straight on the enemy's fire, when a group of Cavaliers rode up to him, and one of them, Lord Carnwath, swore fiercely and cried out:
"Will you go upon your death in an instant?"
The King turned his head and gave him a dazed look, whereon, in a trice, the Scots lord seized the King's foam-flecked bridle, and turned about his horse.
"This was a fight for all in all, and it is lost!" cried Charles.
Seeing the King turn from the battlefield, his cavalry turned about too, as one man, and galloped after him on the spur, without waiting for the third charge of Cromwell's Ironsides, who chased them through Harborough, from whence the Queen, on news of how the day was going, had an hour before fled, and along the Leicester road.
The regiments that remained took possession of the King's baggage, his guns and wagons, his standards and colours, his carriages, including the royal coach, and made prisoner every man alive on the field.
In the carriages were many ladies of quality, sickened and maddened, shrieking and desperate, who were seized and hurried away in their fine embroidered clothes and fallen hair—calling on the God who had deserted them—carried across the field strewn with their slain kinsmen to what rude place of safety might be devised.
Nor was any roughness exercised against them, for they were English and defenceless.
The Irish camp-followers were neither English nor defenceless, even the most wretched tattered woman of them had a skean knife at her belt, and used it with yelling violence.
What mercy for such as these, accursed of God and man—the same breed as those who rose and murdered the English in Ulster?
"What of these vermin?" asked an officer of Cromwell, when he galloped past in pursuit of the Royalists.
"Is there not an ordinance against Papists?" was the answer, hurled harsh and rough through the turmoil. "To the sword with the enemies of God!"
It was done.
Midday had not yet been reached; the whole awful fight had hardly occupied three hours, and now the King had fled with his broken troops, and from among the baggage wagons, the stuffs, the clothes, the food, the hasty tents, the Puritans drove into the open the wretched Irish women, wild creatures, full of a shrieking defiance and foul cursing, pitiful too in their rage and dirty finery, their impotence, their despair.
Some were young enough and fair enough, but smooth cheeks and bright eyes and white arms worked no enchantment here; sword and bullet made short shrift of them and their knives and curses.
"In the name of Christ!" cried one, clinging half-naked to an Ironside Captain.
"In the name of Christ!" he repeated fiercely, and dispatched her with his own hand.
Then that too was over; the last woman's voice shrieking to saint and Madonna was quieted; the last huddled form had quivered into stillness on the profaned earth, the carbines were shouldered, the swords sheathed, and the Puritans turned back with their captured colours and standards, such plunder as could be met with, and the King's secret cabinet, recklessly left in his carriage, and full, as the first glance showed, of secret and fatal papers.
The dial on the church front at Naseby hamlet did not yet point to twelve; across the graves lay Ireton's men and Rupert's Cavaliers, their blood mingling in the daisied grass; the copper ball which had overlooked a day of another such sights beyond the sea, still gleamed against a cloudless sky, and above it, in the purer, upper air, the lark still poured forth his immutable song, which the living were as deaf to as the dead.
The siege and fall of Basing House, known as Loyalty House, the residence of the noble Marquis of Winchester, a Roman Catholic cavalier, was one of the most romantic incidents of the great Civil War.
"War is honourable
In those who do
their native rights maintain."
—Johanna Baillie.
SOON after Bristol surrendered, Winchester, that other loyal city, fell. Leicester, so lately taken from the Parliament, was by them recaptured soon after Naseby. Nearly twenty fortified houses had been taken this year. Goring's troopers were dispersed. Rupert and his brother had, in spite of all denials, followed the King to Newark; Rupert in high disgrace, deprived of his commissions, and ordered abroad, yet staying and endeavouring to justify himself to his outraged kinsman, succeeding somewhat, yet still in the unhappy King's deep displeasure, and hardly any longer to be considered as His Majesty's Commander of Horse, whether or no he held a commission, since His Majesty had no longer an army for anyone to general.
In Scotland Montrose had fled to the Orkneys. Argyll and the Conventiclers were triumphant, and biding their chance to make a bargain, either with King or Independents, according as circumstances might shape themselves, or as either party might be ready to take the covenant.
What, indeed, could the King hope for now but for some division among his enemies, or that the shadowy army of Dutch, Lorrainers, or Frenchmen should at last materialise and descend upon the coasts of Britain.
Ireland, in a welter of bloody confusion, was a broken reed to lean upon. Ormonde, working loyally there, had too many odds against him, and was no more to be relied on than Montrose, who had paid a bitter price for his loyalty and his gallant daring.
It was in the October of this year, which had meant such bitter ruin to the King's party, that the Lieutenant-General of the Parliamentary party, returning from the capture of Winchester, set his face towards Hampshire, where, at Basingstoke, stood Basing House, the mansion of the King's friend, the Marquess of Winchester, which had stood siege for four years, and was standing defiance and menace to the Parliamentarians, and a great hindrance to the trade of London with the west, for the Cavaliers would make sorties on all who came or went, and capture all provisions which were taken past.
Cromwell had at first intended to storm Dennington Castle at Newbury, another fortified residence which had long annoyed the Puritans; but Fairfax decided otherwise, believing that nothing could so hearten and encourage the Parliament as the capture of that redoubtable stronghold, Basing House.
Accordingly Cromwell, gathering together all the available artillery, turned in good earnest towards Basing, from whence so many had fallen back discomfited.
"But now the Lord is with us," said General Cromwell. "We have smitten the Amalekite at Bristol and Winchester, and shall he continue to defy us at Basing? Rather shall they and theirs be offered up as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to the Lord."
It was in the middle of the night of 13th October that the Parliamentarians surrounded Basing House.
Then, while the batteries were being placed, and Dalbier, the Dutchman from whom Cromwell had first learnt the rudiments of the art of war, Colonel Pickering, Sir Hardress Waller, and Colonel Montague were taking up their positions, the Lieutenant-General, who had already been in prayer for much of the night, gave out to his brigade that he rested on the 115th Psalm, considering that those they were about to fight were of the old serpent brood, to be fallen upon and slain, even as Cosbi and Timri were slain by Phineas—to be put to the sword, even as Samuel put Agag to the sword.
All night the great lordly house, which had so long stood unscathed, had been silent among its courts, lights showing in its windows, and above the Stuart standard floating lazily in the night breeze. There were two buildings—the old house, which had stood, the seat of the Romanist Paulets, for three hundred years, a fine and splendid mansion, turreted and towered after the manner of the Middle Ages, and before that the new house, built by later descendants of this magnificent family in the modern style of princely show and comfort, both surrounded by fortifications and works a mile in circumference, and well armed with pieces of cannon.
As the sun strengthened above the autumn landscape, the steel of morion and breastplate could be discerned on the ramparts, and the colour of an officer's cloak as he went from post to post giving orders; these were the only signs that the besieged were aware of the great number and near approach of the Parliamentarians.
Soon after six, the dawn-light now being steady, and the attacking parties being set in order—Dalbier near the Grange, next him Sir Hardress Waller and Montague, and on his left Colonel Pickerings—the agreed-upon signal, the firing of four of the cannon, being given, the Lieutenant-General and his regiments stormed Basing House.
A quick fire was instantly returned, and the steel morions and coloured cloaks might be seen hastening hither and thither upon the walls and works, and a certain shout of defiance arose from them (it was known that they made a boast of so often having foiled the rebels, as they termed them, and that they believed that this bit of ground would defy them even when great cities fell), which the Puritans replied to not at all, but directed a full and incessant fire, as much as two hundred shots at a time, at a given point in the wall, which, unable to withstand so fierce an attack, fell in, and allowed Sir Hardress Waller to lead his men through the breach and right on the great culverins of the Cavaliers, which were set about their court guard. They, however, with extraordinary courage and resolution beat back the invader, and recovered their cannon; but Colonel Montague, coming up, they were overpowered again by sheer numbers, and the Puritans flowed across the works to the new house, bringing with them their scaling ladders. There was another bitter and desperate struggle, the Cavaliers sallying out and only yielding the bloodstained ground inch by inch as they were driven back by the point of the pike on the nozzle of the musket.
Dalbier and Cromwell, in person, had now stormed at another point; the air was horrid with fire-balls, the whiz of bullets, the rank smoke of the cannon, the shrieks and cries that began to issue from the now house, at the very walls of which the fight was now expending its force, like waves of the sea dashed against a great rock.
Not once, nor twice, but again and again did the stout-hearted defenders, in all their pomp of velvet and silk, plume and steel, repulse their foes; again and again the colours of my Lord Marquess, bearing his own motto, "Aymez loyaulté," and a Latin one taken from King Charles' coronation money, "Donec pax redeat terris," surged forth into the thickest of the combat, tattered and stained with smoke.
But the hour of Loyalty House had come; the proud and dauntless Cavalier, whose loyalty had endured foul as well as fair weather, had now come to the end of his resistance to his master's enemies.
Nothing human could long withstand the rush forward of the Ironsides.
Colonel Pickering passed through the new house and got to the very gate of the old house.
Seeing his defences so utterly broken down and his first rampart and mansion gone, the desperate Marquess was wishful to summon a parley, and sent an officer to wave a white cravat from one of the turrets with that purpose.
But the Puritans would listen to no parley. "No dealings with this nest of Popery!" cried Colonel Pickering, whose zeal was further inflamed by the sight of a popish priest who was admonishing and encouraging the besieged.
After this the Cavaliers fell to it again with the sword, keeping up an incredible resistance, and all the works and the courtyards, the fair gardens, walks, orchards, and enclosed lands, the pleasances and alleys laid out by my lord with great taste after the French model were one bloody waste of destruction; sword smiting sword, gun replying to gun, men pressing forward, being borne back, calling on their God, sinking to their death, trampled under foot; the air all murky with smoke, the lovely garden torn up and in part burning from fire-balls, the wall of the noble house pierced by cannon-shot, the shrieks of women and the curses of men uprising, the colours of my lord ever bravely aloft until he who held them sank down in the press with a sigh, while his life ran out from many wounds, and the banner of loyalty was snatched by a trooper of Pickering's and flaunted in triumph above the advancing Parliamentarians.
At this sight a deep moan burst from the house, and dolorous cries issued from every window, as if the great mansion was alive and lamented its fate pressing so near.
Lieutenant-General Cromwell was now at the very gates of the inner house, and these were, without much ado, burst open. The Cavaliers, pressed upon by multitudes and broken at the sword's point, fell back, mostly dying men, in the great hall; and on the great staircase were some, notably my Lord Marquess himself, who still made a hot resistance, as men who had nothing but death before them, and meant to spend the little while left them in action.
From the upper floors might be heard the running to and fro of women and servants, the calling of directions, and the gasping of prayers, while from without the cannon still rattled, and smoke and fire belched through the broken walls.
At last, my lord being driven up into his own chambers, and those about him slain, Major Harrison sprang to the first landing and called upon all to surrender; upon which eight or nine gentlewomen, wives of the officers, came running forth together, and were made prisoners.
Major Harrison pushed into the nearest chamber, which was most magnificently hung with tapestries and furnished in oak and Spanish leather—a great spacious room with candlesticks of gold and lamps of crystal, brocaded cushions, and Eastern carpets—and there stood three people, one Major Cuffe, a notable papist, one Robinson, a player of my lord's, and a gentlewoman, the daughter of Doctor Griffiths, who was in attendance on the garrison.
These three stood together warily, watching the door, and when the godly Harrison and his troopers burst in they drew a little together, the soldier before the others. Harrison called on him curtly to surrender, and named him popish dog, at which the Cavalier came at him with a tuck sword that was broken in the blade, and with this poor weapon defended those who were weaponless.
But Harrison gave him sundry sore cuts that disarmed him, and, his blood running out on the waxed floor, he slipped in it and so fell, and was slain by Harrison's own sword through the point of his cuirass at the armpit.
Thereupon they called on the play-actor and the lady to surrender. She made no reply at all, but stared at the mangled corpse of Major Cuffe, twisting her hands in her flowered laycock apron.
And the player put a chair in front of him and turned a mocking eye upon the Puritans.
"I have had my jest of you many a time," he said, "and if I had lived I had jested still—but I choose rather to die with those who maintained—"
Here Harrison interrupted.
"This is no gentleman, but a lewd fellow of Drury Lane."
He was dragged from behind the chair.
"I have been in many a comedy," he cried, "but now I play my own tragedy!"
Him they dispatched with a double-edged sword, and cast him down; he fell without a groan, yet stagely murmured, "Amen."
Major Harrison, with his bloody weapon in his hand, swept across the chamber through the farther entrance into the next, and his soldiers after him.
Mrs Griffiths now woke from her stupor of dismay and rushed from one body to another as they lay yet warm at her feet.
And when she found that they who had lately been speaking to her were hideously dead, and her hands all blooded with the touching of them, she turned and cursed the soldiery in her agony.
"Silence! thou railing woman!" one of them cried.
She seized one of the empty pistols from the window-seat and struck at the man.
"God's Mother avenge us!" she shrieked.
The fellow, still in the heat of slaughter, hurled her down.
"Spawn of the scarlet woman!" he exclaimed.
She got up to her knees, her head-dress fallen and her face deformed.
"Thrice damned heretic!" she cried. "Thou shalt be thrust into the deepest pit—"
"Stop her mouth!" cried another, coming up; he gave her an ugly name, and hit her with his arquebus.
She fell down again, but continued her reproaches and Tailing, till they made an end, one firing a pistol at her at close range, the ball thereof mercifully killing her, so that she lay prone with her two companions.
After this the soldiers joined Major Harrison, whom they found with Lieutenant-General Cromwell at the end of this noble suite of apartments, having there at last brought to bay the indomitable lord of this famous and wealthy mansion, the puissant Prince, John Pawlet, Marquess of Winchester.
The place where this gentleman faced his enemies was the chapel of his faith, pompous and glorious with every circumstance of art and wealth.
In front of the altar lay a dead priest; the violet glow from the east window stained his old shrunken features, and beside him on the topmost step stood the Marquess; above the altar and the Virgin hung a beautiful picture brought from Italy at great expense by my lord, and showing a saint singing between some others—all most richly done; and this and the statue was the background for my lord.
He had his sword in his hand—a French rapier— water-waved in gold—and he wore a buff coat embroidered in silk and silver, and Spanish breeches with a fringe, and soft boots, but no manner of armour. He was bareheaded; his hair, carefully trained into curls after the manner of the court, framed a face white as a wall; one lock fell, in the fashion so abhorred by the Puritans, longer than the rest over his breast, and was tied with a small gold ribbon.
"Truly," said Major Harrison exultingly, "the Lord of Israel has given strength and power to His people! As for the transgressors, they shall perish together; and the end of the ungodly is, they shall be rooted out at the last!"
Then Lieutenant Cromwell demanded my lord's sword.
"The King did give me this blade, and to him alone will I return it," replied the Marquess.
"Proud man!" cried Cromwell. "Dost thou still vaunt thyself when God has delivered thee, by His great mercy, into our hands?"
He turned to the soldiers.
"Take this malignant prisoner and cast down these idolatrous shows and images—for what I told ye this morning? 'They that make them are like unto them, so is every one who trusteth in them'—the which saying is now accomplished."
When the Marquess saw the soldiers advancing upon him he broke his light, small sword across his knee and cast it down beside the dead priest.
"Though my faith and my sword lie low," he said, "yet in a better day they will arise."
"Cherish not vain hopes, Papist," cried Harrison, "but recant thine errors that have led thee to this disaster."
At this, Mr Hugh Peters, the teacher, who had newly entered the chapel, spoke.
"Dost thou still so flourish? When the Lord has been pleased in a few hours to show thee what mortal seed earthly glory groweth upon?—and how He, taking sinners in their own snares, lifteth up the heads of His despised people?"
The Marquess turned his back on Mr Peters, and when the soldiers took hold of him and led him before the Lieutenant-General, he came unresisting, but in a silence more bitter than speech.
Cromwell spoke to him with a courtesy which seemed gentleness compared to the harshness of the others.
"My lord," he said, "for your obstinate adherence to a mistaken cause, I must send you to London, a prisoner to the Parliament. God soften your heart and teach you the great peril your soul doth stand in."
Lord Winchester smiled at him in utter disdain, and turned his head away, still silent.
Now Colonel Pickering came in and told Cromwell that above three hundred prisoners had been taken, and that Basing was wholly theirs, including the Grange or farm, where they had found sufficient provisions to last for a year or more and great store of ammunition and guns.
"The Lord grant," said the Lieutenant-General, "that these mercies be acknowledged with exceeding thankfulness."
And thereupon he gave orders for the chapel to be destroyed.
"And I will see it utterly slighted and cast down," he said, "even as Moses saw the golden calf cast down and broken."
The soldiers needed little encouragement, being already inflamed with zeal and the sight of the exceeding rich plunder, for never since the war began had they made booty of a place as splendid as Basing.
Major Harrison with his musket hurled over the image of the Virgin on the altar, and his followers made spoil of the golden vessels, the embroidered copes, stoles, and cloths, the cushions and carpets.
The altar painting was ripped from end to end by a halbert slashed across, and torn until it hung in a few ribbons of canvas; the gorgeous glass in the windows was smashed; the leading, as the only thing of value, dragged away; the marble carvings were chipped and broken; the mosaic walls defaced by blows from muskets and pikes.
After five minutes of this fury the chapel was a hideous havoc, and the Marquess could not restrain a passionate exclamation.
Cromwell turned to him.
"We destroy wood and stone and the articles of a licentious worship," he said, "but you have destroyed flesh and blood. To-day you shall see many Popish books burnt—but at Smithfield it was human bodies."
The Marquess made no reply, nor would he look at the speaker, and they led him away through his desolated house.
Wild scenes of plunder were now taking place; clothes, hangings, plate, jewels were seized upon, the iron was being wrenched from the windows, the lead from the roof; what the soldiers could not remove, they destroyed; one wing of the house was alight with fierce fire, and into these flames was flung all that flavoured of Popery; from the Grange, wheat, bacon, cheese, beef, pork and oatmeal were being carried away in huge quantities; amid all the din and confusion came the cries for quarter from some of the baser sort who had taken refuge in cellars, and divers groans from those of the wounded who lay unnoticed under fallen rubbish and in obscure corners.
Cromwell gave orders to stop the fire as much as might be, for, he said, these chairs, stools, and this household stuff will sell for a good price.
The pay of his soldiers was greatly in arrears, and he was glad to have this pillage to give them.
"It will be," he remarked, "a good encouragement,—for the labourer is worthy of his hire, and who goeth to warfare at his own cost?"
He and his officers, together with the Marquess and several other prisoners, now came (in the course of their leaving the house) on the bedchamber of my lord, which caused the Puritans to gape with amaze, so rich beyond imaginings was this room, especially the bed, with great coverings of embroidered silk and velvet and a mighty canopy bearing my lord's arms, all sparkling with bullion as was the tapestry on the walls.
Some soldiers were busy here, plundering my lord's clothes, and others were fighting over bags of silver, and the crown pieces were scattered all over the silk rugs.
Then Mr Peters, who had been arguing with my lord on his sinful idolatrous ways, pressed home his advantage and pointed to the disaster about him and asked the Marquess if he did not plainly see the hand of God was against him?
Lord Winchester, who had hitherto been silent, now broke out.
"If the King had had no more ground in England than Basing House, I would have adventured as I did and maintained it to the uttermost!"
"Art so stubborn," cried Mr Peters, "when all is taken from thee?"
"Aye," said the Marquess, "Loyalty House this was called, and in that I take comfort, hoping His Majesty may have his day again. As for me I have done what I could; and though this hour be as death, yet I would sooner be as I am than as thou art!"
And he said this with such sharp scorn and with an air so princely (as became his noble breeding) that Hugh Peters was for a while silenced.
But Oliver Cromwell said, "Thou must say thy say at Westminster."
And so fell Basing in full pride.
When Charles I. was a prisoner at Carisbrooke, the Duke of Hamilton (1606—1648) marched on England with a Scotch army which was met and defeated by Cromwell at Preston. August, 1648.
Hamilton, who had raised the army to clear his suspected loyalty, was taken prisoner, tried before Bradshaw, and immediately beheaded. His brother William, Duke of Hamilton, was slain at Worcester, September, 1651, fighting for the second Charles.
"Loyalty well held to fools does make
Our faith mere folly: yet he that can endure
To folly
with allegiance a fall'n lord
Does conquer him that did
his master conquer."
—Shakespeare.
CHARLES was a prisoner at Carisbrooke, more strictly guarded than ever before, but not any less dangerous to Parliament or the disrupting forces which stood for Parliament. In spite of everything they still tried to come to an agreement with him, for the confusion of the kingdom was beyond words, beyond any one man's brain to grasp and cope with, and all turned to the King and the tradition behind the King as the one stable thing in a whirl of chaos.
Charles thought that they, traitors and rebels as they were, were speeding to their own doom. Outwardly he played with them as he had done before; he referred himself, he said, wholly to them. Meanwhile he was sowing the seeds of another Civil War.
He had come to an agreement with the Scots whereby they were to unite with the English Royalists against the Parliament, and he on his side was to suppress Sectaries and Independents and to establish presbytery for three years, himself retaining the Anglican form of worship. This agreement was signed secretly, wrapped in lead, and buried in the garden of Carisbrooke Castle.
Royalist risings broke out all over the country, particularly in Wales; mutinies were frequent in the still undisbanded, unpaid army; the struggle between Presbyterian and Independent was as sharp as it had ever been. Hamilton triumphed over the Argyll faction in the Scottish Parliament, raised an army forty thousand strong, and prepared to march across the Border "to deliver the Ring from Sectaries." Part of the fleet had revolted, gone to Holland, fetched the young Prince of Wales and Rupert, and was buccaneering round Yarmouth Roads. In Ireland the Marquess of Ormonde and the papal Nuncio were coming to some pact to unite against the austere rule of the Puritan and coming again to the old known and tried idea of Kingship.
"Why not," they asked, "a good peace with His Majesty?"
Cromwell and a few others knew why not; because the King was utterly impossible to deal with; because he did not admit that he, the King, could be dealt with, made party to a bargain or an agreement, like an ordinary man.
But in the minds of the common people Charles did not get the blame nor they the credit of this attitude of his. Cromwell in particular had lost much of his prestige; the zealots blamed him for his conferences with the King, the moderates because they had not succeeded. He brought about meetings between the leaders of the two factions, Presbyterians and Independents, but quite uselessly—neither would yield a jot. Then the extreme men of the Parliament and the extreme men of the army were gotten together by his care to discuss the desperate state of affairs.
This conference resolved itself into a bitter and academic dispute on the various forms of government, each man backing himself by manifold quotations from Scripture.
"Wherefore," cried Cromwell, starting up impatiently, "do you argue which is best-monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy—when you are come here to find a remedy for the present evils?"
Thereat they began to reply together, tediously and idly, and Cromwell picked up the cushion from the chair on which he sat and hurled it at Ludlow's head, and before it could be flung back to him he ran down the stairs, thus ending the conference.
Soon after, the army came together at Windsor and, with prayers and tears and exhortations, besought God to tell them for what misreading or fault all these turmoils and distresses had come upon them.
And the conclusion of these three days of mystic exaltation was that God was punishing them for their dealings with Charles Stuart, who was henceforth to be no more considered or dealt with, but treated as a delinquent and man of blood who would be in good time made to answer for his sins to men before he went to answer for them to God.
The situation was a paradox. The Scots were invading the kingdom to restore Charles and to force the Covenant on England; these two matters were no less the object of the Parliamentary majority, yet they were bound to withstand Hamilton, for his victory would mean their own utter overthrow.
To further complicate the situation, Langdale and the English Cavaliers, joined with Hamilton, abhorred the Covenant, and were fighting not merely for the re-establishment of the Church of England.
It was obvious, even to the most hopeful, that only the sword could cut out these tangles; it was obvious, even to the most hesitating, that the Scots must be driven back over their own Border.
Cromwell who had been on the edge of impeachment, who had many eager foes now in Parliament and army, was called forth again at the supreme moment.
He was sent to South Wales, crushed the rebellion there, took Pembroke Castle, heard Hamilton had crossed the Border, turned northwards, and by July was in Leicestershire. By the middle of August he had joined General Lambert between Leeds and York.
There his scouts brought him news that Hamilton and Langdale had effected a juncture and were marching for London.
"If," said Cromwell, "they reach London, then good night to us, for the King will be master for all in all, and all the blood and bitterness will have been for naught."
There was nothing but him and his force to stay them. He had, perhaps, eight thousand men; they twenty-one thousand, or near it. The weather was tumultuous, stormy; torrents of rain fell, the upland fells were almost impassable from mud and bog. Cromwell had brought his army by long and arduous marches from Wales; many of them were barefoot, many in rags. None of them had yet received the months of arrears of pay which had been so long in dispute. Plunder was forbidden them; they were there like the hosts of Joshua to fight for the Lord, and for nothing else.
My Lord Duke, with his great straggling army, came over the open heaths as far as Preston and Wigan, no colours displayed because of the wind; no tents nor fires at night because of the wind and the rain; so they marched, a weary troop, neither well-disciplined nor well-generalled, and soon to face those troops which Oliver had made the best in the world. But there was with them neither hesitation nor dismay, for half of them were Scots, and Langdale's men were of the same breed as Cromwell's and would fight as well and endure as stubbornly.
Cromwell came to Clitheroe and lay in the house of a Mr Sherburn, a Papist, at Stonyhurst. The next day was Wednesday, and still raining; the weather, the soldiers said, "was as fearful a marvel as the hideous sight of English fighting English on English earth "; the sky was one colour with earth, heavy dun; the beaten heath, the broken bushes dripped with moisture, the water ran in rivulets through the soaked earth. As the rain ceased for a while the wind would rise, sweeping strongly across the open spaces.
Ashton marched to Whalley, other troops of dragoons to Clitheroe, Cromwell advanced towards Preston. On the other side my Lord Duke advanced, also hardly knowing where, in the rain and wind; on the undulating ground of hillocks and hollows his army lay, or how and where it was available.
Sir Marmaduke Langdale was near Langdridge Chapel, on Preston Moor, the other side the Ribble. Four miles away my Lord the Duke, who was at Darwen, the south side of the river too, where there should have been a ford, but was not, so swollen was the tide with the mighty rains. My Lord Duke passed the bridge with most of his brigades and sent Lord Middleton with a large portion of the cavalry to Wigan.
Meanwhile, through the rain and the confusion, stumbling over the incredibly rough ground, a forlorn of horse and foot, commanded by Major Hodgson and Major Rounal, came upon Sir Marmaduke and his three thousand English.
The Scots, themselves confused, thinking it only an attack of Lancaster Presbyterians, did not support Langdale, who complained that he had not even enough powder; but he fought, he and his men, like heroes, against forces more than double their number—against the Ironsides, for four hours always in the wind and wet, on the rough ground. Then such as was left of them gave way and fell back on Preston; some of the infantry surrendered, some of the horse escaped north to join Munro.
Meanwhile, Cromwell had swept Hamilton and Baillie back across the Darwen, back across the Ribble, had captured both bridges and driven my lord towards Preston town. Three times in his retreat my lord turned round to face his enemies, crying out for "King Charles!" Three times he repulsed the troops pursuing him, and the third time he drove them far back, and, escaping from them, swam the river and joined Lieutenant-General Baillie where he had enclosed himself on the top of a hill.
Night fell, and the battle was stayed; all were wet, weary, hungry, haggled; the Parliamentarians, the victors, not the less exhausted, but with fire in their hearts and hymns of praise on their lips. Cromwell wrote to the "Committee of Lancashire sitting at Manchester" his account of the day's fight, dispatched it, prayed, and got into the saddle again.
It was still foul weather, wind, rain, miles of muddy heath, hillocks, hollows, now stained with blood and scattered with bodies, men and horses, dead and dying.
The Duke of Hamilton's forces fought all that day and the next, routed again and again, rallied again and again; always the rain and the wind, the muddy heath, the low clouds; always the soldiers growing fainter and wearier. Beaten from the bridge of Ribble, falling back, a drumless march on Wigan Moor, leaving the ammunition to the enemy, falling farther back on to Wigan town, where they thought to make some stand, but decided not to, with skirmishes of detachments at Redbank, where the Scots nearly worsted Colonel Pride at Ribble Bridge, and where Middleton (the weather, always foul, bringing confusion and fatigue) missed his chief, coming too late. And so it went for three days on the wet Yorkshire heaths, till finally it was over; the fate of King, Church, Constitution and Covenant was decided. Hamilton and vanguard of horse rode wearily and aimlessly towards Uttoxeter; Munro and the rear-guard struggled back to their own country; a thousand of them were left dead under the rain, trodden into the bloody heath; three thousand of them were made prisoners. And the second Civil War, which had flamed up so suddenly and so fiercely, was ended.
The Puritans—the patriots—had passed through their darkest hour triumphantly; their ragged, hungry, unpaid soldiers, fighting truly for God and not for pay, had again saved England from the return of the tyrant and his manifold oppressions and confusions.
After the three days' fight was over, Cromwell eat down at Warrington to write to the Speaker of the House of Commons a long account of the rout.
"The Duke," he wrote, "is marching with his remaining horse towards Namptwich ... If I had a thousand horse that could but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them."
But whether or no the Puritans were too wearied to pursue their enemies mattered little; the day was decided.
The Duke of Hamilton, wandering vaguely, with fewer and fewer men after him, was finally taken at Uttoxeter, where he surrendered, a sick and broken man.
Cromwell cleared the border of the remnants of the Scots, retook Berwick and Carlisle, engaged the Argyll faction, now the head of the Government of Scotland, to exclude all Royalists from power, and turned back towards England, the foremost man of the movement again, and in the eyes of at least half England, the saviour of the country from the invader.
But if the country was grateful, the Parliament was not Denzil Holies, fiercest of Presbyterians, rose up at Westminster to lead a party against his enemy, Cromwell. The Lords, who had all become Royalists, considered whether they should impeach the victorious general; it was noticeable how much bolder they all were when the Independents and their leader were absent, and how, as the return of the army, strengthened in renown and prestige, drew nearer, they began to cast round for some means of escape from the fact facing them, that when Cromwell reappeared at Westminster he would be absolute master of the political situation, for he had behind him the entire army, and they had nothing but the mere unsupported weight of the law.
So sharp was the division and so fierce had party hatred become, that the Presbyterians at Westminster hated the Independents with the army as no Roundhead or Cavalier had ever hated in the first broad division of the war.
Toleration was the watchword of Cromwell and his followers, and no word was more detestable to the Parliament. To mark their loathing of it they passed an ordinance punishing Atheism, Arianism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Armenianism, and Baptists with death.
Meanwhile, Cromwell, looming ever larger in the imagination of men, was returning triumphant to London. If his fame had been at the lowest when he left for Wales, it was at the highest now. Denzil Holies conceived the idea of meeting material force by moral force; as they had nothing else to oppose the King. Charles still remained, in many ways, the hub of the political wheel.
The Parliament must yield either to him or to the army; they thought that they saw their chance with Charles. If terms could be come to with him, and he be installed in London before the army returned, Cromwell would be faced with a situation with which he would probably not be able to cope. He had denounced the King solemnly at the Windsor meeting, therefore Charles, once again in power, could not treat him otherwise than as an enemy.
The vote against further addresses to the King, which Cromwell's eloquence had hurried through the House, was repealed, and Parliamentary commissions were sent to the Isle of Wight to open a new treaty with the King.
But they were not prepared to make concessions; the propositions of Uxbridge, of Newcastle, of Oxford, of Hampton Court were offered again and again, fought inch by inch. Charles, too, was still as intractable as ever; the coalition between Royalists and Presbyterian seemed doomed to failure; the negotiations were continually ruptured on the subject of Church government. Charles would not forgo his bishops, and the Parliament would not endure them; though each side was desperate, on this point they were firm.
Meanwhile, Cromwell and his Ironsides were coming nearer.
The Prince of Orange at St Denis.
The first phases of the struggle between Louis XIV. and William of Orange came to a conclusion with the Peace of Nijmegen, 1678.
To William this was but a truce, and one that he would have avoided; his protest was the battle of St Denis, in which his desperate heroism exhorted the admiration of Europe.
"A prince who joined to the great qualities of his royal blood the popular virtues of his country."
—Sir William Temple on William of Orange.
MONSIEUR DE LUXEMBOURG and his officers were celebrating the peace that they waited official confirmation of, in the village of St Denis, close to the great fortress of Mons, which they blockaded.
They amused themselves by picturing the extreme discomfiture of the Prince of Orange at the miserable ending of his strenuous opposition to a conclusion of the War; the uselessness of the marriage that had been considered such a stroke at the time of its accomplishment; his failure to secure the English alliance, and the general triumph of the arms and arts of his most Christian Majesty, who was now great indeed, in the eyes of his subjects of an almost superhuman dazzle.
The rejoicing at the peace was the greater because William of Orange was the one man in Europe whom King Louis feared lesser opponents, such as my Lord Danby, now in the Tower of London, the power of France soon swept aside, and under the scorn expressed for the servant of a republic who had dared to set himself against the might of the greatest nation in the world was the secret vexation that this young man alone had prevented the United Provinces being added to the conquests of France; and brilliant as the peace might be for them, of the country they had undertaken so light-heartedly to conquer they had not succeeded in retaining a single acre; so, though they magnified their triumph after the manner of their nation, the wisest of them admitted to themselves that the greatest glory lay on the side, not of the Victorious Louis, but the defeated Prince of Orange.
Monsieur de Luxembourg had burnt the village of St Denis and put the inhabitants to the sword some months before; his gorgeous camp was spread among the ruins of orchards and corn-fields, farmhouses and humbler dwellings, and strangely in the midst of it rose the dumb, stark church with blank windows and broken doors.
The moon was now high in the heavens, and of a great, luminous brightness. The officers who had been at the supper given by Monsieur de Luxembourg had returned to their quarters, save one young captain of cavalry, the Marquis de Croissy, a relation of the general.
The tent of Monsieur de Luxembourg was large and splendid; the canvas hung with velvet and stamped leather, the floor spread with carpets from Persia and the new factories at Aubusson, lamps of silver, crystal, gilt and bronze were skilfully hung to the polished tent-poles, and cast a soft, shaded lustre.
At the back was a rich, violet satin cushion, before which was a couch covered with a fine tiger-akin, and a scarf of Eastern embroidery.
On a low carved chest were guns, swords, gauntlets and all the appointments of the war; on a long table covered with a lace cloth, painted glasses, gold plate, agate-handled forks, silver-gilt knives, baskets of fruit, bottles of wine, and bowls of white and yellow roses.
A great Venetian mirror, with a frame of pale-hued glass flowers, hung by scarlet silk cords from the roof-pole, and reflected dimly the glittering table.
A box of books stood by the entrance, where the flap was lifted up to court the hesitating breeze, and "Terence" in gilt and leather, a volume of French comedies, and a bundle of the latest pamphlets from Amsterdam lay scattered on the carpet.
By a small table near this entrance sat a man on a folding chair of pierced steel work with a leather seat; on a table was a glass of iced sherbet, a table watch in rock crystal, and a tiny monkey asleep on a white satin cushion.
The man wore a flowing dressing-gown of red damask, black silk breeches, scarlet stockings and slippers of white watered silk, laced with silver.
He was hunchbacked, but this was largely concealed, as he Bat, by the heavy curls of his peruke. His face was nearly colourless, his eyes pale and very steady, his hands white, small, and fine; in his lone lace cravat was a large brooch of jewels. He held a book in his hand and alternately read a sentence and sipped his sherbet, which he was proud of securing in this barbarous wilderness, as he considered the Low Countries.
He was François Henri de Montmorency, Duc de Luxembourg, peer and marshal of France.
By the looped-back entrance-flap stood Monsieur de Croissy gazing out at the encampment, the dark steeple of the desecrated church and the wonderful moon.
He sang softly a little song by Lambert, fashionable when he had left Paris:
"Voici les charmants où mon âme ravie
Passait à son temple Sylvie,
Ces tranquilles moments
si doucement perdus.
Que je l'aimais alors! que je
la trouvais belle!
Mon coeur, vous soupirez, au nom
de l'infidèle.
Avez-vous oublié que vous ne l'aimez
plus?"
Monsieur de Luxembourg looked up.
"You are very doleful to-night," he remarked.
"Doleful, monsieur!"
The young man turned quickly as if he was startled. The moonlight was full over his habit of ale lemon-coloured silk and his black hair; it gave him a ghostly look.
"Yes, I thought so."
De Croissy smiled, though faintly.
"On the contrary, I should feel very joyful tonight since the war is at an end at last," he answered.
Monsieur de Luxembourg laid down his book.
"Are you so glad of that?" he asked.
"Well, you know, monsieur, that I am, for one thing, tired of being exiled from Paris."
"Yet one soon becometh weary of Paris," remarked the Duke dryly.
"And besides," added De Croissy lightly, "there was the prediction of the wise woman—
"Your wise woman!" smiled Monsieur de Luxembourg, stroking the monkey.
"I hear she is more the mode than ever," returned the young man.
"No doubt she will continue to be the fashion, even when she is being burnt on the Place de la Grève. What did she tell you P—that you would be slain in this war, was it not?"
"Yes," said De Croissy, "and that would be very unpleasant."
"Well, you cannot be slain in this war," answered the Duke, "because, as you know, the peace was signed three days ago."
"Which is the reason, monsieur, why I am so light-hearted."
Monsieur de Luxembourg glanced at him curiously.
"What is the matter with you, De Croissy?" he asked abruptly.
Again the Marquis gave him that startled look.
"What do you mean, Monsieur le Duc?" he asked unsteadily.
The general sipped his sherbet and surveyed him over the glass.
"You seem to me," he said quietly, "to look very strange."
Monsieur de Croissy laughed.
"I will spare you my company—I am dull tonight"
He crossed over to the table, poured out some wine and drank it. The light eyes of Monsieur de Luxembourg watched the noble, slender figure in the rich setting.
He stood leaning against the table, the wineglass in his hand, singing under his breath:
"C'est ici que souvent, errant dans les
prairies
Ma main des fleurs les plus cheries
Lui
faisait des presents si tendrement recus ..."
He broke off suddenly, looked slowly round, and the glass slipped from his fingers.
"You are not well, De Croissy," said the Duke, leaning forward.
The Marquis made an effort.
"It is nothing—" He filled up the glass again.
"Que je l'aimais alors! que je la
trouvais belle!
Mon coeur, vous soupirez aupres de
l'infidele
Avez-vous oublié que vous ne l'aimez
plus?"
As his words ended he came a step forward into the tent, and again looked round with an air of startled suspension, as of a sensitive creature alarmed by some distant and ominous sound.
"Get to your quarters, De Croissy," said Monsieur de Luxembourg. "I have a great mind to sleep if you have not.—ring for my gentlemen."
But the young officer seemed reluctant to depart; he laughed uneasily and sank down on the tiger-skin couch.
"I am glad the peace is signed," he said. The Duke answered grimly:
"I am not—for if it had not been I should have taken Mons."
"Ah, Duke, you think of nothing but glory—I think—"
He broke off and looked sharply round.
"Mother of Heaven!" cried Monsieur de Luxembourg impatiently, "what is the matter?"
The Marquis rose, trembling violently.
"My God," he muttered, "I do not know—it must be the moon. I never saw the moon so bright—it is shining behind that church like an evil dream."
"You have the fever," said the Duke quietly. "You had really better, my friend, go to bed."
He touched the bell beside him and a black page with a bronze collar appeared from behind the violet curtain.
"Fetch my chirurgeon," said Monsieur de Luxembourg.
The boy slipped away noiselessly.
Monsieur de Croissy appeared not to hear; he stood in an expectant attitude.
"What is going to happen?" he murmured. "I feel—"
Monsieur de Luxembourg closed his book. "What?" he asked.
"As if someone was coming for me—"
"My faith, De Croissy," said the Duke anxiously, "you are certainly ill with the cursed Dutch fever." He rose slowly from his chair, and at that moment the chirurgeon and the page entered from behind the curtain.
They saw a curious scene; the soft shaded light of the rich lamps falling on the glittering table; the fluttering wine-coloured shadows concealed the roof and corners of the tent, the looped-up entrance showing the vivid moonlight, and the stark outline of the ruined church without; the dwarfish, hunched figure of Monsieur de Luxembourg in his flowing dressing-gown, and the tall young man gleaming in pale satin, powdered with gold, holding his hand to his heart and gazing before him as if he saw some disembodied terror, the black hair about his brow and shoulders intensifying the unnatural whiteness of his face.
Monsieur de Luxembourg laid his hand on the arm of the Marquis.
He turned slowly at the touch.
"My dear De Croissy, let my chirurgeon cup you—"
On the soft and utter silence broke a fierce sound that caused the Duke to stop in his speech and swing round with a violent ejaculation.
It was repeated, threatening, louder; the crystal lamps shook and the glasses on the table danced.
"Cannon!" cried M. de Croissy on a deep breath. "I knew it—"
He pulled a crucifix out of his breast and kissed it violently.
"Cannon!" exclaimed Monsieur de Luxembourg. He seized the frightened page by the ear and cast him against the curtain. "Get my clothes—armour—"
A breathless officer of the Black Musketeers burst in with a drawn sword.
"Monsieur le Duc," he gasped, "the Prince of Orange is attacking us—his artillery is on the heights—by the woods."
Monsieur de Luxembourg flew into a violent passion.
"Fools! Dolts!" he cried as he snatched off his dressing-gown and kicked his slippers across the tent. "Is this the first you knew of it? Where were the outposts? I'll have some of you broken for this. Mother of heaven! Are you all blind and deaf?" He stamped passionately. "To arms, I say—get all these sluggards to arms—get to your troop, De Croissy!"
That young man, now perfectly calm, stooped and kissed the Duke's hand.
"Good-bye, monsieur," he said.
Monsieur de Luxembourg did not notice the words.
"No delays!" he shouted. His gentlemen were busy about him, and as he spoke he struggled into his coat and was buckled into his cuirass. "This is a trick! He would fall on us while we rest under faith of a treaty, this little Prince—which is a move I was not prepared for!"
His tent was filling up with the officers of his staff, and he nodded to them curtly as he sat down to draw on his boots.
The cannon sounded again and again. The Duke, booted, sprang up and snook his fist in the direction of the sound.
"Ton think you have me this time," he said, "but that remaineth to be seen."
Strapping on his sword he turned to his officers, who were loud in anger against the Prince of Orange, who must know, they said, that the peace was signed.
"By heaven, gentlemen!" cried the Duke. "I admire him for it—and if this move of his breaketh off this same paltry peace I shall not be sorry."
His horse was at the door of his tent and he mounted and was riding along his hastily summoned ranks a few moments after the first alarm.
It was said afterwards that no man but the Prince of Orange would have dared the attack and no man but the Duc de Luxembourg would have rallied so soon to meet it. The French battalions had to form in face of the Dutch shots, cannon-balls, and bombs that dropped into their midst from the shelter of the slightly rising woods where the Prince had his artillery, and many a man dropped as he rode up to take his place.
But the ranks of France were not easily discomposed, and before the moon had paled before the hot August dawn Monsieur de Luxembourg had recovered from the surprise and disposed his infantry in order of battle about the hastily constructed earthwork round the encampment; the cavalry rode up the incline, and succeeded, in spite of many losses, in spiking several of the Dutch guns; upon which the Prince sent out a regiment of Spanish horse which, skirting St Denis, fell on the right flank of the French.
The infantry were ready to receive them; the first rank knelt, the second leant over their shoulders, and the third stood erect. All being armed with pikes, fusees and bayonets they represented a front impossible to break, as the fire of the fusees maddened the horses and sent them charging backwards into the ranks behind them and so broke the advance into confusion.
The Prince, coming up to the scene with the Dutch regiments, perceived the disorder occasioned by the firm array of the French foot and dismounted his cavalry, who, advancing to the attack with pike and musket, succeeded in breaking the French line.
Monsieur de Luxembourg, having his attention drawn to this, rode up from the centre of the battle, where a confused fight was raging round the French entrenchments, and made a fierce effort to rally his men, who were being rapidly driven off the battle-field under the onslaught of the Spanish and Dutch.
Thus it happened that in the very first hours of the battle these two commanders came near enough to distinguish each other through the smoke of cannon and musket, the pale glare of fire, the flare of the rising sun reflected from cuirass, sword and bayonet.
Monsieur de Luxembourg had withdrawn his men a little within the shelter of their entrenchments and was riding along the front of them with his sword unsheathed, when, in a slow clearing of the smoke, he perceived an officer galloping before the Dutch lines and pausing to give commands to his troops. They were but divided by a few trenches and palisades and it needed not his perspective glass to tell Monsieur de Luxembourg that he beheld the Prince of Orange. He knew him by his blue ribbon and more certainly by that instinct the great have for one another.
At the same moment the Prince saw him and instantly lifted his hat, smiling. Monsieur de Luxembourg uncovered and bowed with an answering laugh. The two bodies of troops rallied and fell upon each other in a fierce disordered combat. The French, who had not sufficient time to form in order of battle, fell back before the impetuous charge of the Dutch, which threw them into confusion; they gave way and were pursued into their own entrenchments.
Meanwhile, in the centre and right of the battle they had not broken their ranks, and it was the allied army that was being repulsed. On news being brought of this, the Prince flew to encourage his troops, but though he again and again led them to the charge the Frenchmen held their ground.
By now Monsieur de Luxembourg had brought up his artillery, disposed it to advantage and turned it on the enemy. The sun was high and swooningly hot; the metal belfry of the church shone like molten gold above the dun smoke. There was no breeze to stir the leaves of the beeches in the little wood where the Dutch gunners worked. Here and there a trail of fire licked along the parched grass or caught the roof of some dismantled cottage on the outskirts of the fighting.
With undaunted persistency and energy each side maintained their own without obtaining any advantage. It was the most bloody, obstinate and furious battle of the war.
Time after time the cuirassiers and musketeers of France charged the ranks of the allies; time after time the shock was met without flinching and a steady fire of shot emptied saddles and thinned ranks. The Prince led now this regiment and now that, dismounted to encourage the infantry and exposed himself with a reckless ardour that called forth the protests of his officers. He gave his usual answer that he did not risk his life needlessly out of mere foolhardiness, but on due consideration to encourage his comparatively unpractised troops against the veteran arms of France.
By midday he had had two horses killed under him, and mounted on a third steed led a detachment of the Spanish cavalry right against the now slightly wavering centre of the enemy.
The violent shock of their onslaught brought them into the midst of the French ranks, which fell to right and left before them; and the Prince brought his men into the centre of Monsieur de Luxembourg's body-guard.
He rose in his stirrups to shout to those behind when a French officer clapped a pistol to the forehead of his horse, and at the same instant another knocked him out of the saddle with the butt-end of his musket. The Prince sank to the ground, the horse reared and fell; the Spanish troops broke into disorder. A hand-to-hand fight followed round the Prince, who was actually under the hoofs of the maddened horses and in danger of being bruised to death. Two of his men dismounted and dragged him with difficulty out of the press. He was borne backwards, hatless, with a broken sword, the fire of the French so hot upon him that the balls struck down those about him and carried away the end of the pistol at his waist, even passing through the skirts of his coat.
It was believed by all near that he was doomed; but he stopped the first riderless horse that passed him, flung himself into the saddle, grasped one of the swords offered him, waved it aloft, his arm streaming with blood, and again led his men against the French, who this time organ to reel back and stagger under the vigorous onslaught; routed squadrons pressed back on those behind them and the invincible Luxembourg cursed heartily, after his fashion when enraged.
He began to be in want of powder; he was losing men heavily and had just been told that a reserve of a thousand that were coming up from the outskirts of the fight had been met and put to confusion by the Dutch.
Engagement followed engagement throughout the stifling August day; neither would give way and neither could gain a definite advantage. Monsieur de Luxembourg was the better general as the Prince was the finer man, and he put the whole force of his genius into resisting the attack as the Prince put the whole strength of his courage and resolve into leading it. There was a generation between them in years and experience. The French general had served under Condé and Turenne; the Dutch commander had been his own master, but the ardour of youth and high aims supplied the deficiency.
Luxembourg made no headway against the dauntless young Stadtholder, whose troops had never been heartened by a victory and had none of the glory of prestige which was such a power to the French.
In clouds of dust and smoke the contest raged on the plains of Hainault. As the sun reached the meridian, declined, sank, France and her enemies still swayed to and fro amid the discharge of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the shouts of command, the last words of the fallen and wounded.
As the purple evening, fiery and easeless as the day, drew on, a little company of Dutch, being broken from the main ranks, were pursued by some of the French cavalry out of the general mêlée of the dreadful and doubtful combat.
They crossed a little stream and gained a mill grown about with meadowsweet, alders, willows and wild roses yet pure from the evil smoke, and there turned at bay.
The Frenchmen forded the water and attacked the mill.
The fight continued till darkness, when the French became discouraged and drew off to the centre of the fighting, and the Dutch, breaking from their cover, dashed after them, in their turn the pursuers.
They left behind them many dead and one living—a young man wounded, sick and shuddering, who sat by the wooden door and stared vacantly before him.
The distant roar of the cannon was incessant, but there was no nearer sound. About the ruined mill was a ghastly peace. The young man could see the dark shape of the water-wheel, the fluttering tendrils of the eglantine, the masses of blue forget-me-nots crushed near the stream on which still floated great calm water-lilies.
The dark shapes of dead men broke the sward, and weapons showed scattered on the powder-charred grass. Even through the smell of blood and smoke was a perfume of summer sweetness from the meadowsweet, which grew waist-high beyond the mill to the edge of a young coppice of beech.
The Hollander rose stiffly. He felt lifeless with fatigue and loss of blood, as if he was under water, floating, a mere weed among the wreckage of the ocean, but he heard the confused sound of battle and fumbled in the twilight for his sword that he might return to the fight.
As he came to the edge of the stream a man raised himself on his elbow from beneath a willow-stump and held out his hand silently. He wore a light and gold glimmering dress which rendered his figure noticeable in the dusk.
By reason of this habit the Dutchman knew him for the leader of the French cavalry and stood hesitating, with his hand instinctively closing round his sword.
"Monsieur," said the French officer mournfully, "will you help me to my feet?"
In the twilight and with dimmed eyes he possibly thought that he spoke to one of his own nation. The other, who was no soldier, but a gentleman volunteer, threw down his weapon and raised him in his arms.
The cannonade was becoming more intermittent and the stars brighter overhead.
"Shall I take you into the house?"
The Frenchman pressed his hand.
"It is no matter," he said faintly and courteously. "Where are my troop?"
"Returned to the battle."
"And you?"
"I am Dutch."
"My enemy, then—"
"You are wounded.... I think the battle is nearly over."
He helped the officer into the lofty bare room of the mill long since emptied, and arranged for him a bed of straw and sacks still white with flour, near the open window.
"I am dying," smiled the Frenchman. "Will you bring me a little water? My name is Louis Anne de Croissy—yours?"
The other answered with bent head:
"Cornelius de Witt."
"Ah!" The Marquess strove to rise. "Monsieur de Witt, I am indeed honoured—"
He gasped and swooned.
Cornelius fetched the water though he had nothing better to bring it in than an empty powder-flask he washed in the stream. With unaccustomed fingers he sought for the hurts of the wounded man, and was bending over him when the bright and painful light of a lantern streamed across the obscurity, and he looked up to see the figure of Father Constant, in jack-boots, buff and cloak, standing on the threshold with the lantern held up. He beheld him without surprise or emotion.
"Cornelius!" exclaimed the priest.
"Yes—I—here is a dying man. Can you do anything?"
The Englishman stepped into the room and flashed the light over the slim, unconscious figure.
"Monsieur de Croissy," he said. "Monsieur de Luxembourg will be sorry—but you," he turned his piercing eyes on Cornelius, "what of you?"
Cornelius smiled.
"Does it matter?"
"You were arrested—yesterday?"
"Yes."
"And taken before the Prince of Orange at St Ghislain?" "Yes."
Father Constant coloured darkly.
"What does it mean—what do you here?" he asked haughtily.
Cornelius lifted his haggard face and eyed the priest steadily across the lantern beams.
"It means that I fought to-day for Holland."
"You—a renegade and a traitor!"
"Neither the one nor the other."
"You fought for William of Orange!"
"For my country. Look to this dying man."
The priest knelt the other side of De Croissy and opened his bloodstained coat and shirt. Cornelius had already removed the rich gorget.
"What do you here?" asked Cornelius.
"My duty—I look to the souls of men."
Cornelius fixed his bloodshot blue eyes on the white face of the Frenchman.
"You blame me. I said I believed in nothing, it was not so—I believed in my country and the God of my country," he said in a low voice. "Yesterday I knew ... I could not take my father his heart into French ranks... my country and liberty. .. I am Dutch and his son, there was nothing else to do—you should understand."
"I understand," answered the priest stubbornly, "that you have forsworn and failed us."
He was busy with M. de Croissy and did not look up as he spoke.
"No," said Cornelius earnestly, "for that was all false. When I put it to the touchstone I found it so. Did he die that I might serve France?"
"A man of nothing, turning with the weathercock. I should have known better than to trust you."
Cornelius rose from his knee. He looked beyond the prone figure and the stooping one to the loveliness of evening wood and field, dark beneath the last saffron glow of the cold sky.
"If it had been England, would you have stood to France?"
"To God," answered the priest.
"God!" repeated Cornelius sadly. "If a man find his God is not in his country where shall he find Him?"
Father Constant took the dark head of M. de Croissy on to his knee.
"Maybe I should prove it so," he said. "But France and England are one. I am not like to be put to the test."
A swallow darted past the gaunt window; the scent of the wild rose and meadowsweet was of an aching pungency, like the memory of ancient pleasures.
"Are you wounded?" asked the Englishman.
"No—but wearied. I am no soldier."
The priest looked at him over his shoulder.
"Yet you fought to-day for the man you vowed to kill."
"For my country," said Cornelius, "and my father his God."
M. de Croissy stirred and half sat up; he put his fingers to his lips and seemed to be listening to the random distant shots of the cannon.
"Monsieur le Marquis," said Father Constant, "it is I—"
The black eyes turned on him and lit with a flash of returning light.
"A priest!" he gasped. "Absolve me, my father—the Cross!"
Father Constant held the crucifix he took from his bosom to the mouth of the dying man, who clutched it convulsively and passionately.
"Christ!" he cried, "and France! France!"
His last breath was spent oh the word, he fell back smiling, and his face was as calm as that of a child in the long beams of the lantern.
The priest whispered a prayer and Cornelius fell to his knees again and looked wistfully into the fair, fearless countenance of the dead.
"What was there for him," he murmured, "but his God and his country—which are one?"
The Romanist looked at him.
"Go," he said commandingly, "and unblamed by me. No man can accomplish save if he believe in what he sets his hand to. We have made that mistake. Return to your heritage and farewell."
Cornelius picked up his sword.
"Farewell," he answered, and went slowly, without looking back, into the wonder of the night and made his way through the dead men about the stream and so back to the Dutch lines.
His mood was sad but calm; he had touched the truth of his own soul. Each man where he is set, let him stand for his own things, and so he shall serve the highest he knoweth, which is God.
The Battle of Mooker Heyde.
William, Prince of Orange Nassau (1533—1584). wrenched the liberties of the Dutch people from the tyranny of Philip II. of Spain (1527—1598) after the agony of a long desolating war embittered by many defeats, of which one of the most tragic was the Battle of Mooker Heyde, at which his brother Louis of Nassau was slain, together with his younger brother Henry and the Elector's son, April 15th.
"Life makes the soul dependant on
the dust;
Death gives her wings to mount above the
spheres."
—Young.
BY the middle of April, Louis of Nassau was encamped at the village of Mook, on the Meuse*, near Cleves.
* Dutch: Maas
Don Sancho D'Avila, the Spanish general, had outmarched him and now was facing him on the same side of the river which he had crossed by means of a bridge of boats.
The position of Louis was not favourable; behind he was hemmed in by a chain of hills, so that his superiority in cavalry was greatly discounted by the limited space in which he could move; he had with difficulty quelled a mutiny which had broken out on the eve of battle among the mercenaries, who had demanded their pay as was their custom to do at the moment when they considered their services most valuable; and he had received the news that De Hierges and Yaldez were on their way with reinforcements for the Spaniards to the number of five or six thousand. More desperate than ever seemed his chances of success as that success became more needful and more precious in his sight.
Passionately did he long to effect the promised meeting with the Prince; it seemed to him that could he but clasp his brother's hand in his all would be well.
But before that could be accomplished he had to fight his way through the flower of the Spanish forces.
He had not wished for this battle, least of all under these circumstances, and he was acutely conscious that misfortune had followed his expedition from the first, but it was now obviously impossible to make the passage of the river without giving battle to the enemy, and there was nothing in the heart or mind of Louis of Nassau that bade him flinch from the inevitable conflict.
Nor, though filled with gloomy forebodings, which had been his ever since he had gazed on that sinister blood-streaked dawn from the windows of the Castle of Fauquemont, was he outwardly downcast or discouraged.
His cheerful and gallant demeanour had even persuaded the mercenaries to fight without further ado; Louis had pledged his honour for their pay, and neither he nor his brother had ever failed in that—those who fought for them had always been paid to the full extent of their engagement, even if Louis went without camp furniture and William had not the wherewithal to make a present to one who had done him a service; moreover, something, in even the lowest of the French and German adventurers, had responded to the figure of fortitude and honour represented by the young Count.
The day of battle dawned dull and stormy; low black clouds filled the sky and were reflected in the dark waters of the Meuse; the few alders and poplars that grew about the banks and edged the fields that, this year, there had been no one to till or sow, shivered in a light, cold wind.
The spring was late this year and in the minds of all men the winter seemed interminable and the summer very far away.
Count Louis armed in the bedroom of the farmhouse that he had made his headquarters. A lantern hung on the whitewashed walls, and through the small unshuttered window filtered the pallid glow of the yet unrisen sun.
Between these two lights stood the young commander; his squire had just left him and he was himself knotting the scarf of orange silk across his breast.
On the rush chair near the low bed where he had spent a few hours of rest, but not of sleep, were his casque with black plumes, his baton and his sword attached to the baldric of embroidered leather given him by some French ladies.
Louis recalled the gentle donors when he came to fasten on his weapon; but there was no particular woman in his mind.
He was sorry for that; he had been victorious and fortunate in his loves; but he had never attached himself to the one woman who would have been alone in his thoughts at such a moment as this.
Though rumour had persistently coupled his name with that of the Abbess of Jouane, she was nothing to him but a gracious figure among many gracious figures of women; his mind dwelt on her a little, then his thoughts wandered away again among all the fair faces which had ever smiled on him.
Smiled, yes, smiles were easy, but were there any who would weep should they know of his defeat and overthrow? anyone who would stain her beauty with tears for the sake of his memory should he fall as Adolphus had fallen?
Nay, there was no one who would do more than heave a sigh—he had no lover.
With a little laugh he shrugged his shoulders—why should he think of these things now. He turned to the window and gazed at the black and grey land and river and wide pale sky, every moment brightening.
The nearer prospect was filled by his troops of foot and horse, now beginning to move into the prearranged order of battle, some of the cavalry reaching as far as the hills that formed the horizon. As the Count looked his brother came behind him, and touched his arm.
"The day is cold—a late spring," Louis said.
"The merrier when it comes," answered Henry with a certain wistful gaiety.
"I think it will come too late for you and me," returned the brother. "The flowers of this year will not be for our gathering."
"I have never known you gloomy," said Count Henry. "What presentiment is this?"
"No presentiment—the conviction of my heart. Our task finishes to-day. What we have done, good or ill, stands to our names and we have no more time to efface it. Look well upon this sun—I think we shall not see another earthly dawn."
"God's will be done," said Count Henry.
"I would first have taken the Prince's hand again—but he will understand."
"That we did our utmost," added Henry simply. He leant slightly from the window and gazed to where lay the gathering forces of Spain. "But why should you talk of defeat—we had such high hopes."
"My hopes have failed me," answered Louis—"for me this battle ends all." Taking his baton of command in his hand he left the humble room and stepped through the adjoining kitchen into the open air.
Henry followed him; the two mounted their great Flemish steeds and turned towards the centre of the patriot troops.
They had scarcely started before they were joined by Duke Christopher, who rode a white horse of remarkable size and beauty trapped with fine scarlet leather and golden bosses.
The young knight was not so sternly melancholy as usual, and wore in his casque, beneath the white plumes, a bunch of spring Mowers, cuckoo pint and primroses fading against the polished steel.
"Will they give battle before the reinforcements arrive?" he asked, gazing in the direction of the enemy.
"Remembering Heilger Lee they may wait, yet I do not think so," returned Louis. "D'Avila is both bold and prudent and will not risk our slipping past him."
The sun rose above the hills, casting long rays of light on armour and lances, harness and cannon, muskets and pikes and the tiled roofs of the little village of Mook.
Duke Christopher looked towards this rising light which fell full on his grave and comely face and raised his hand as if in salute.
"You also!" said Count Louis. "Do you say farewell?"
The Elector's son smiled at him.
"My auguries are even as thine—of gloomy speech—this day we are not destined to conquer, Count."
"Then it is foolish to do battle," said Count Henry lightly.
"But it is too late to turn back," answered Louis quietly. "Too late! The sun has already risen—the armies are ready—our fate hangs upon the next few hours."
"When the sun sets this battle must be lost or won," said Duke Christopher.
"When this sun sets I at least shall be beyond the darkness," smiled Count Louis.
The three embraced and separated, each to take command of his own division.
The Spaniards still showed no sign of advancing, and Louis began to be impatient for the battle to commence.
He rode from one part of the field to the other visiting his forces, which were now drawn up in full battle array; ten companies of infantry arranged between the river and brook—the bulk of the infantry massed together in the centre and four squadrons of cavalry reaching as far as the low hills which circumscribed the field.
The forces of the enemy could be plainly discerned; the pikemen and musketeers to the right, the cavalry and sharpshooters to the left with the carbineers in front and the Spanish lancers behind.
At the first hour of light the Spaniards had made an attack on the deep trench with which Count Louis had surrounded himself, and an intermittent skirmishing was taking place at this point without bringing on a general engagement.
The Spaniards, who had already received reinforcements to the number of a thousand men, were, in truth, debating the expediency of deferring the combat until the arrival of Valdez with about five thousand more troops which might be looked for by the following morning; at present the Royalists were outnumbered by about three thousand men.
While the Spaniards were holding a hurried council of war, Louis was forcing them to a combat; his trumpets sounded a defiance and his army stood ready.
This challenge was soon answered by the shrill notes of the Spanish bugles, for D'Avila decided not to wait the reinforcements, lest during the oncoming night Louis should contrive to effect the passage of the river and join his brother.
Therefore another assault was ordered on the trench, which was slowly carried, the Royalists charging on the village from which, however, they were soon expelled by the patriots, Louis having sent a large number of men to strengthen this point.
In a short time (it was now not much past ten of the clock) the battle involved almost the whole of the troops either side, the army of Louis and the army of D'Avila swaying to and fro in serried masses either side of the disputed trench and village.
Louis sat motionless at the head of his cavalry, watching the struggle.
The sun had been soon obscured by light rising clouds and had disappeared behind their watery vapour to be seen no more that day; the first brightness of the morning had passed and the weather was dull and grey, cold too, with a fine thin wind blowing above the river and the wet marshes.
The clouds seemed to press low and heavily on the heads of the gathered armies, and lances and armour, swords and muskets, helmets and carbines gleamed here and there with a sinister brightness amid the dark confusion of the battle.
Count Louis glanced once up into the higher spaces of the clouds that were yet undefiled by flame and smoke, then, raising his baton, gave the order to charge.
His keen and practised eye had discerned that his infantry was beginning to break, and indeed almost before his cavalry was in motion they had given way and were flying from their posts, completely routed, leaving the enemy in possession of the trench and the village.
Louis set his teeth as he saw his men going down like cornstalks before the tempest and hurled himself with fury upon the ranks of the Spanish horse.
The men who followed him in that desperate charge were not German mercenaries or any soldiers who fought for hire, but noble gentlemen of the Netherlands, stern patriots of Holland and Brabant and French Huguenots who had served under Coligny.
The hired cavalry was behind them, but these, pressing close behind their leader, bore the brunt of the battle as befitted the flower of the army.
With the first fury of their charge they bore down before them the carbineers who formed the vanguard of the Royalist cavalry and who broke at once and fled in panic towards the river.
Rising in his stirrups and waving to his men Count Louis followed in pursuit; in the marshes and on the river bank the Royalists went down, horse and man; the patriots only paused in their pursuit when the sullen waters of the river lapped at their horses' feet and they saw the fugitives either sinking beneath the sullied ripples or desperately swimming to the opposite bank; then Louis turned to see the issue of the general battle.
A confused action was now taking place on all parts of the field; the Spanish lances and the German Black Horse, who had withstood Louis's onslaught, had fallen on the remainder of his cavalry when they had retired to reload their weapons, and a fierce and desperate conflict ensued.
Spaniard and Netherlander, German and Frenchman struggled together amid the report of musketry, the smoke, the spurting flame, the flash of uplifted weapon; nodding plumes were struck to the ground, men fell from their horses to be trodden into the mud by frenzied hoofs, foot and cavalry were intermingled in one maddened mass; shouts and oaths of men rose with cries of wounded animals and pierced with rage and terror the hoarse clamour of the encounter.
While Louis gazed he saw that the fight was going against him—even as his heart had predicted.
Galloping to the head of those who had followed him in his pursuit to the river hank, he dashed back to the centre of the conflict, where his forces, horse and foot, were being borne down before the Spanish spears and the German lances.
Louis, galloping from one part of the field to another in the effort to rally his remaining men, saw that the day was lost before well begun.
Black clouds were rising from the horizon and closing over the grey vault of heaven; a low thunder rolled in the west and heavy drops of rain began to fall.
A Spanish captain, recognising the Nassau chieftain by his orange scarf, rode at him full tilt; Louis drew his sword and struck the enemy down, then, controlling his plunging horse, turned to where the last nucleus of his cavalry were drawn together by the entrance to the village of Mook; at the head of them was Count Henry, taut as a bow in his saddle, keen as a hawk in his eager glance, waiting to see how best he could fall on the enemy and meet his own inevitable fate.
Louis rode to his side.
"The day is lost," he said, pointing to the black and bloody field above which the storm clouds hung low, "the fight is over, it is now but a carnage and a massacre."
The youngest Nassau looked towards the battle where so many fair and high hopes were being for ever shattered.
"Let us," he answered, "make haste to die."
As he spoke they were joined by the Elector's son; his surtout hung in tatters over his dirtied armour and he held a broken sword in his hand.
"It is over, it is over!" he said, breathing heavily. "It is over and I have said farewell to life."
Louis of Nassau took the casque from his head and threw it away; his fair face and bright hair showed radiant above his soiled armour; the little body of cavalry gathered about him; the thunder rolled louder; in the pause were the groans and shrieks of the dying and the fierce Spanish shouts of murderous revenge and triumph.
The three young princes clasped hands; their figures were illumined by the glare from some farmhouses near by which the Spaniards had fired; the rain fell on their uncovered heads.
Gathering their men about them with words of encouragement they charged with the fury of despair into the midst of the dark and hideous fight.
And as they went a wild and miserable figure sprang from the shelter of some ruined cottages and hurled himself upon the bridle of Count Louis's rearing steed, finding at the side of the man who had been kind to him his own death in the midst of that battle he had predicted at Prince William's marriage feast.
For Dubois, the charlatan, the two Nassau princes, and Duke Christopher, the Elector's son, went down together on that day of woe and terror, and never, alive or dead, did any again behold them.
THE Dutch Wars that distracted the reign of Charles II. (1630—1685) are remarkable for the battles in which the naval power of England for the first time suffered defeat—the fight of Solebay (1672), however, was glorious to both combatants.
"Death is a port whereby we pass to
joy;
Life is a lake that drowneth all in payn."
—Anon.
THE night was fine, but cold, the stars had a hard brilliance and flashed like facets of steel in the cloudless sky.
A man was thoughtfully pacing the deck of a great ship.
Now and again he looked shrewdly up at these stars. A strong but moderate wind was filling the sails and the ship was steering rapidly through the darkness towards the east coast of England.
There was a pleasant whistling in the cordage, and a pleasant, steady swish of the water to right and left as the bows cut through the darkened sea.
When the man turned his back to them he could see great lights dotted irregularly over the black surface of the ocean.
These were the lanterns hanging at the masts of the fleet, silently and closely following its leader.
When he turned again and came under the sparse rays of one of his own lamps, that was fastened a man's height on the mast, he was shown to be a stout, short gentleman with a ruddy face and thick brown hair, very splendidly dressed in scarlet velvet trimmed with gold braid, and wearing a heavy sword in his fringed baldric and a handsome pistol in his belt.
His wide boots were turned over with crimson leather flaps, and on his right shoulder was a bunch of black ribbons.
He carried his red plumed hat under his arm and walked with a slightly swaggering gait.
Pausing for a moment under the lantern he drew out his watch.
Two o'clock.
As he was passing on again a sailor came noiselessly across the deck.
"Mynheer the Admiral, Mynheer Cornelius de Witt would like to speak to you."
"Very well," said De Ruyter, with a little nod, "very well."
The man disappeared into the darkness of the ship.
Michael de Ruyter looked again at the stars, at the lights of his ships, and then went below humming a song in a hoarse, guttural voice.
He found Cornelius de Witt alone in his cabin, seated before a table scattered with papers.
A silver oil-lamp hung by a chair from the ceiling and showed the plain furnishings, which served as a background to the splendid figure of the Ruard.
His strong and handsome features were stern and frowning; tie full under-lip and prominent chin, that gave his face its great likeness to his brother's more delicate countenance, were set grimly in his effort to control the pain of the rheumatism that tortured him. Dressed with the magnificence that befitted the dignity of the States, whose sole representative he was with the Fleet, he wore a grey velvet suit embroidered in silver, and a cravat of Mechlin lace tied with a flame-coloured ribbon.
On the wall beside him hung his sword, that swung with the swaying of the ship; on a chest beneath were a couple of richly mounted pistols and a few books and maps.
Admiral de Ruyter paused inside the door, standing with his feet far apart after the fashion of a man accustomed to pitching seas.
"Ah!" said the Ruard, looking up. "Is the wind still favourable?"
"It is," answered Michael de Ruyter. "And unless it falls we shall make the coast of England before the morning."
"You do not think they will escape this time?"
"By God's help, no."
The Admiral seated himself on the chest inside the door and looked down at the great crimson rosettes on his boots.
The lamp threw his shadow behind him, bringing into relief his deep-coloured, seamed, and blunt-featured face, that was rendered attractive by the composed, lofty expression and the bright, intelligent black eyes.
"I think we shall meet them at last," he added, with an air of satisfaction.
A week ago Cornelius de Witt had obtained the consent of the States-General to his earnest desire for an engagement, and since then the Dutch Fleet had been cruising in search of the combined fleets of France and England, whose junction at Portsmouth they had been unable to prevent.
A bold fishing-boat had brought them news that the enemy was at anchor on the east coast between Harwich and Yarmouth, and silently through the June night the ships of the United Provinces, crowding all canvas, bore forward to battle.
Cornelius de Witt put up his letters, one to his brother and one to his wife.
"I hope to add good news to them—to-morrow," he said, smiling at De Ruyter.
The Admiral pulled at his moustache.
"I have to ask your permission before I attack, you know, Mynheer," he said affectionately. "You nave the authority—and the responsibility."
"You know my opinion," was the answer: "nothing but an engagement can save us—I would we were at work on it now—John agrees with me."
"I would like to know how things go on land," said De Ruyter.
A shade passed over the face of Cornelius de "Witt.
"Almost I fear to know—with everything trusted to that boy."
Michael de Ruyter nodded sombrely.
"At twenty-one!"
"His years are the least I have against him."
"You do not trust him?"
"No."
"Nor I."
A stern silence fell.
The Ruard was the first to speak.
"We have our own affairs to think of... very much lies with us."
The swinging sword made a soft sound against the smooth wall, and the lamp swayed on its chain as the great vessel pitched.
"I mean to try a surprise," said Michael de Ruyter.
"That is what I wanted to see you about,—you think we can?"
"If the wind does not forsake us."
"They will be unprepared."
"'Tis likely."
"Ay—they can scarce be expecting an attack."
The Ruard's brown eyes flashed.
"To-morrow is King Charles' birthday," answered the Admiral. "The English at least will be engaged in celebrating it.. .. We have every chance."
Cornelius de Witt clasped his hands on the table before him.
"If one life could secure the victory—"
Michael de Ruyter looked up.
"I should be very glad to die to-morrow could I see the English sails scatter as I saw them once scatter before us—at Chatham. .. and I think I shall.. .. God have mercy on me if I boast."
"We must have victory," said Cornelius de Witt passionately: "there is no 'if,' De Ruyter, we must have victory to-morrow."
"It is quite certain," said De Ruyter simply, "that if we do not make a descent on England they will make a descent on the coast of Zeeland."
He put his hands squarely on his knees and fixed his bright eyes on the representative of the States.
"How many sail do you make them?" asked the Ruard.
Michael de Ruyter checked them off on his stout fingers.
"The English, sixty-five ships of war, sixteen fire-ships, three or four thousand guns, and twenty-two or so thousand men... the French not more than sixty-seven sail, all included, not more than ten thousand men... that is the uttermost they can be if their entire force has combined."
Cornelius de Witt was silent. The Fleet of the United Provinces was a hundred and thirty-three sail, including the galiots; they did not carry quite five thousand guns; the men, including five thousand marines, did not exceed twenty-five thousand.
The Ruard cast up these odds. The Admiral seemed to detect some anxiety in his thoughtful face.
"We are in God's hands, Mynheer de Witt, and I cannot think it is His will to forsake us utterly."
Cornelius de Witt made a movement as if to get on his feet. But he could not rise for his crippled limbs, and the momentary effort brought the drops of anguish to his forehead.
"You battle with a sharper foe than the English," said Admiral de Ruyter, with a little frown of sympathy. "Madame de Witt would say you should be in bed."
The Ruard leant forward, supporting himself on the table.
"I am not so ill," he answered, forcing a smile to his pale lips, "that I cannot go on deck to-morrow—"
"Nay, you cannot walk."
"Well, I can be carried—"
"A deputy can take your orders—"
"The representative of the States-General cannot remain in his cabin when the Fleet is in action," replied Cornelius de Witt proudly. "I will go on deck at daybreak."
Michael de Ruyter said no more. Each in silence, and after his own fashion, had dedicated his life to his country.
The light of the swinging lamp shone in the bravery of velvets, gold buttons and braid, the trappings of swords and pistols, and on the calm, resolute faces of the two men who were being borne swiftly on to battle.
De Ruyter rose and opened the porthole.
The expanse of water, almost on a level with his eye, was beginning to glimmer with a greyish tinge.
As the ship dipped to her side the heavy spray splashed in on to the cabin floor.
De Ruyter shut it out.
"The dawn," he said.
He shook hands with Cornelius. They looked into each other's eyes, and without a word from either De Ruyter went up on the deck.
The sea was changing to a silver colour beneath the clear sky of a June dawn, the stars were faintly sparkling through a veil of fast rising mist, the colour of lilac flowers, that lay over the horizon.
Before the flagship lay the stretch of rippling waters and the indefinite, distant lune of land; behind her, and to right and left, was the Fleet of the United Provinces, crowding all sail under a pressure of wind and blocking the sky with the straining canvas, the dark masts, and the flags bearing the lions of the Republic.
At many of the bulkheads the lamps still burnt with a pale and useless glare; but as the day strengthened these were extinguished silently like the last stars in the brightening heavens.
The Seven Provinces continued to lead. At four o'clock she sighted the enemy, lying at anchor off the coast of England.
By the maps it appeared that they were nearing Solebay, midway between Yarmouth and Harwich.
De Ruyter sent off boats to summon the principal officers of the Fleet on board his ship, and went himself to tell Cornelius de Witt that the enemy was in view.
Thereupon the Ruard was carried on deck in a chair bearing the arms of the Republic, and placed by the mast in the position of honour and danger.
Out of the hundred men appointed by the States-General to attend him, twelve halberdiers were selected now to form a guard.
Armed on back and breast, they took their places about his chair, and the early sun glittered in their steel appointments.
The Ruard was bareheaded; his bandaged legs rested on a velvet footstool; his sword lay across his knee, and his pistols were in his belt.
In his right hand he held a Bible with gold clasps.
The strong, fresh wind blew his hair across his brow and fluttered the scarlet ribbon that fastened hit cravat.
Shielding his eyes with his hand from the glare of sun and water, he fixed his narrowed gaze on the barely visible line of the enemy.
De Ruyter was pacing to and fro with his straddling gait, his hands clasped behind him, and his keen eyes following the movements of the barefooted sailors who were clearing the decks.
At five o'clock, when the water, under the slackening wind, had subsided to faint ripples that the sun, freed from the obscuring mist, gilded with dazzling light, the captains and principal officers of the Fleet came aboard The Seven Provinces.
Among them were many noble volunteers of the finest families of the kingdom, who had placed their services and their fortunes at the disposal of the country.
Michael de Ruyter, the son of the Zeeland brewer's man, received them with simple courtesy.
They shook hands with him, and then the Ruard, near whose chair he stood.
Every detail of the beautiful ship, and of the magnificently dressed men who stood gathered about her mast, shining gold and silver, velvets, satin, sword-hilts and pistols, eager faces, and bare yellow or brown heads (for they were all uncovered out of respect to Mynheer Cornelius de Witt), was sparkling visibly in the gay sunshine.
Admiral de Ruyter set his feet far apart, and again clasped his gauntletted hands behind him.
"Gentlemen of my Fleet," he said, and his quick eyes roved along the line of faces, "we are in the presence of the enemy. It is my intention to give battle. I feel that your courage and your devotion are equal to the difficulty and importance of your task.
"We have to face greater numbers, but on our side is justice, and with God's help we shall not fail. The safety of the country, the liberty of the United Provinces, the fortunes and the lives of their inhabitants depend upon this battle, and only your valour can secure the Republic against the unjust violence of the two kings who attack her."
His pointed moustache seemed to bristle, and there was a fierce, steel-like gleam in his narrowed eyes.
"Well," he added, with a little nod, "get to your work... and ask the Lord God, in His mercy, to help us ... if such be His will."
Cornelius de Witt lifted his noble face.
"What can I add?—your own good courage will direct you—God have you in His keeping, gentlemen."
They bent their heads.
Captain Engel de Ruyter spoke:
"If the enemy were twice as strong, we should have faith, Mynheer, in the justice of our cause, since we fight for liberty and they for glory."
The Ruard and the Admiral shook hands with them all a second time, and they returned to their ships; silent and seemingly unmoved, as was the habit of their nation.
With all speed possible the Fleet of the United Provinces was beating to windwards, but the strong breeze had dropped and De Ruyter no longer hoped for a surprise.
The enemy had already seen them, and were hastily arranging themselves for battle. So utterly unprepared were they that in the confusion many of the English ships had to cut their cables to place themselves in line.
De Ruyter, on the forecastle, saw this, and his lips stiffened. The superiority of the enemy sent a thrill of pleasurable excitement through his veins.
He was a just and honourable man, well fitted to serve under John de Witt, and all his indomitable energies were roused by the wanton aggression of the King of England. Had he not commenced attack like a pirate by attempting to capture the Indian fleet before war was declared, and, in violation of the treaty between England and the United Provinces, by seizing all the Dutch merchant-ships in English ports.
John de Witt had disdained to revenge himself for this perfidy, as he had disdained to answer Charles' frivolous pretexts for war, and every English vessel had gone free according to the agreement the United Provinces were too proud to break.
It was an example of the different spirit animating the two Governments. The Dutch were upheld by every noble feeling patriotism may call forth; they fought for the finest of motives, for the most glorious of ends: the English, ashamed of their leaders, hating the alliance with the French, whose cats'-paws they suspected themselves to be, sullen at the unworthy part they felt themselves to be filling, had no notice to acquit themselves well save mere desire for reprisals on a country that had already once beaten them off the sea.
Michael de Ruyter was alive to this difference of spirit in the two forces about to meet.
Calling his men on to the quarter-deck, he pressed their advantage, warmly exhorting every one to do his best in a noble cause, and assuring them, out of the depth of his own strong, simple faith, of God's help in their utmost endeavours.
The men, devoted to their Admiral and the finest seamen in the world, responded with a cheerful enthusiasm that was the outward expression of undaunted purpose and courage.
Each went to his place; the swivel guns on the top of the forecastle and quarter-deck bulwarks were swung to front the enemy; the eager, half-nude gunners knelt before the long guns on the main and quarter-decks and below the smooth muzzles pointed from the portholes.
The standard of the Republic floated stiffly out from the mainmast of The Seven Provinces, vivid in the sunshine.
Cornelius de Witt raised his eyes to it and murmured a prayer.
The hammocks were lashed to the nettings, and behind them the marines, with their muskets in their hands, took up their position.
By now the wanton English breeze had changed again and a high sea was running. De Ruyter gave the order to reef in topsails.
They were almost within range of the Allied Fleet, who had now drawn themselves up into line of battle, divided into three squadrons: two English, the first of the Red, commanded by the Lord High Admiral of England, James of York, the King's brother; the second, called the Blue, by Vice-Admiral the Earl of Sandwich.
The third squadron, the White, comprised the French ships under the Count D'Estrées, Vice-Admiral of France; his second in command, Lieutenant Admiral Duquesne.
De Ruyter also arranged his forces into three; Lieutenant Admiral Banckert advanced towards the French ships on the left, and Lieutenant Admiral van Ghent was opposed to the Earl of Sandwich on the right wing.
De Ruyter, seconded by Lieutenant Admiral van Nee, took the central position facing the Duke of York's division, commanded by James himself on his flagship The Royal Prince.
The Dutch Fleet shortened sail; the useless canvas was furled. De Ruyter gave the signal for battle, and the colours of the United Provinces ran up on every yard-arm. From the Duke's flagship floated the royal red standard of England and from the great vessel that had D'Estrées on board the Bourbon blue with the yet unconquered lilies seme on the azure ground.
Michael de Ruyter walked up to his pilot, Zegen.
It was then nearly eight o'clock of a beautiful June day; nob a cloud visible, and the deep green water curling into foam about the bows of the advancing vessels.
Above the cordage flew circling sea-birds, the sunlight on their wings and breasts.
De Ruyter pointed out The Royal Prince to the pilot.
"Zegen," he said in his quiet voice, "that is our man."
The pilot lifted his cap.
"Admiral," he said calmly, "you shall have him."
And he steered The Seven Provinces straight for the Duke of York's flagship.
There was a moment's pause, of heightened calm it seemed, during which was no sound save the harsh scream of a seagull and the splash of the waves curling over one another.
Then the guns leapt into a roar.
A furious broadside came from the eighteen-pounders of The Seven Provinces; the shots tore the water into foam and buried themselves in the side of The Royal Prince, who returned an instant cannonade.
A thick smoke, a heavy dun in colour, at once wrapped both vessels; to the right rang a second roar as Van Ghent engaged Lord Sandwich, and to the left the answering boom of the French cannon.
The two flagships were now close-hauled, and the Dutch opened a hot fire of musketry from behind their hammocks. Theirs being the higher vessel, they were able to inflict on the English a galling volley of small shot that raked their exposed decks.
Aware of this disadvantage, The Royal Prince tried to get out of her opponent's reach, but the light wind would not serve her, and De Ruyter brought about a collision, driving the port bow of The Seven Provinces into the enemy's starboard side.
The English marines on the poop commenced a steady fire of musketry, but the Dutch thirty-six-pounders tore a hole in their enemy's close pressed side and the deck guns crippled her masts.
The smoke was already so thick that the sky was entirely obscured; the stifling vapour was rent across by the flashes of fire from the guns and the fresh spurts of white smoke that followed each shot.
The roar of the great cannon below was incessant; splinters flew from each ship, and the planks of the Dutch ship became so heated with her own cannonade that seamen had to stand ready with buckets of water to extinguish the flames.
As the enemy was so close in their embrace the Dutch from the nettings kept up a continuous fire that picked off numbers of the English crew, while the swivel guns on the forecastle heavily raked the enemy's masts and rigging.
Michael de Ruyter, walking up and down the upper deck giving his orders, stopped beside the chair of Cornelius de Witt.
The air was foul with the smell of gunpowder, and they could hardly hear each other for the thunder of the guns.
"How long will she hold out, Admiral?" asked the Ruard.
"I think she will be badly beaten in a very little while," answered De Ruyter, with his thumbs in his embroidered sash.
The musketry fire was playing round Cornelius de Witt, but he did not even seem to notice it. A ball had buried itself in the deck a few inches from the stool where his bandaged feet rested; two of his guards had already fallen, been carried to the rails by the silent survivors and flung overboard.
Blood began to appear everywhere; on the smooth planks, on the gay clothes of the officers, on the naked glistening bodies of the gunners.
Several of the marines lay heavily over useless muskets in the nettings, their bodies jerking helplessly with the swaying of the ship. On the lower deck others remained where they had fallen, mostly on their faces, with the red stain spreading underneath them.
A gentle breeze rose and drove off The Royal Prince after nearly an hour of furious firing.
The English ship had suffered severely; her spare had gone; her sides were driven in, her foremast and fore-topmast had been shot away, and many of her guns were dismounted.
De Ruyter had lost only his mizzen-topmast and one of the lower yards, and of his crew, comparatively few; but the dead could be seen piled high on the English ship.
Encouraged by the sight of the enemy, the Dutch turned on Her another fierce cannonade that swept off her mizzen-mast and battered her hulls.
This time the English guns did not answer, and a low murmur of triumph went up from The Seven Provinces.
Her cannon impeded by her own falling spars, half the gunners down—dead and dying entangled in the rigging that lay along the deck, The Royal Prince was utterly unmanageable; her pilot could do nothing with her, she lay helpless, a battered shape looming through the heavy smoke.
Her mainmast still stood, and there the red standard of England, riddled with shot, floated above the battle.
It was now nine o'clock. De Ruyter gave orders for another broadside.
It was replied to by a feeble volley from the English ship, now pitching uselessly; the mainmast swayed, then crashed down, dragging the cordage and remaining canvas with it. Smoke began to belch through her portholes, and to complete her distress one of the twelve-pounders blew up, killing several of the crew and firing the side.
"She is finished," said De Ruyter, standing behind his pilot; and as the Royal Standard fell the hoarse shouts of victory rose from the decks of The Seven Provinces.
The Royal Prince tried now to withdraw, but was prevented by the other vessels of De Ruyter's squadrons; they closed round her and sent out fire-ships to complete her destruction.
The sea was scattered with wreckage, and stained with trails of blood and flecks of foam; the curtain of smoke concealed the rest of the battle, but the continuous sound of the guns and the splashes of flame in the darkness testified to its fierceness.
Michael de Ruyter, on the forecastle, saw a boat put out from The Royal Prince and struggle through the dipping bullets that lashed the water into spray; it lay-to at one of the portholes, and a man in a blue coat stepped out and took his place in the stern sheet.
He carried the standard which had just been disentangled from the bloody deck.
"It is the Duke of York," said Admiral de Ruyter, narrowing his keen eyes. "Steer away from The Royal Prince, Zegen, for they have abandoned the flagship."
The little Dutch galiots ran out, crowding all canvas, and trying to reach the cock-boat in which the Lord High Admiral of England was conveying his flag across the firing line.
They could see the English sailors straining at the oars, and the Prince himself ducking under the bullets, one of which flattened itself against the bows of his boat.
The utter calm delayed the fire-ships; the English boat escaped into the smoke, and about half-past nine, with a blare of trumpets, the English flag was rehoisted aboard The Saint Michael.
The Royal Prince, on fire in three places, an abandoned and drifting wreck, collided with one of her own galiots, and instant flames involved them both in a common doom. Such as remained of her crew threw themselves into the sea, clinging desperately to broken spars and planks, while the pale fire leapt, hissing, to the height of her fallen masts, and stained the sombre smoke with sparks and flying fragments as gun after gun, and cask after cask of gunpowder exploded at the touch of the flames.
The Seven Provinces steered off from the floating mischief, and silencing with a sweep of the guns the circle of English fire-ships that surrounded her, went for The Saint Michael.
An officer came on board from Captain Engel de Buyter's ship to say that the captain was disabled by a dangerous wound, and the vessel sinking with six holes in her side; being beset with the enemy's fire-ships.
"Keep the flag flying," said De Ruyter, and turned his course to his son's assistance.
Van Nes having, after a fierce fight, lost one of his ships, and being forced to retreat with his hull cut to pieces and nothing standing but the mainmast and the shattered remains of the bowsprit, had patched his vessel together, and returning to the fight seconded De Ruyter in an attack on The Royal Catherine, a ship of eighty guns that was menacing Engel de Ruyter. A Dutch fire-ship was dispatched and a broadside fired full into the hulls of The Royal Catherine, whose jib-boom and wheel were at the same time shot away by a discharge from The Seven Provinces.
Her deck guns were now abandoned, a fierce fusillade from the starboard guns was directed into the bows of the English vessel, and the two ships crashed together, starboard to starboard.
The Dutch attempted to board, and a desperate hand-to-hand fight between the two decks ensued; Van Nes leading his men with cutlass and pistol, and Captain John Chicheley, of The Royal Catherine, fiercely urging his crew forward.
The Seven Provinces, holding off a little, sent a volley into the English ship that blew the bottom out of her, and ended the struggle.
Engel de Ruyter's rescued ship withdrew from the firing line for repairs, and The Royal Catherine, fast sinking, surrendered to Van Nes, who received her crew as prisoners, and took possession.
De Ruyter again turned his attention to The Saint Michael, she the while keeping up a murderous cannonade on the frigates opposed by the Dutch.
The sharp, short rattle of musketry was heard above the steady roar of the great guns, and little threads of flame and puffs of white smoke sprang out and vanished against the curtain of yellow fog as the marines on board The Seven Provinces, under cover of the nets, picked off the sailors in the rigging of The Saint Michael.
Two other high Dutch vessels, looming up out of the noise and darkness of battle, silenced the starboard guns of the English flagship with a close-range volley; her poop was swept bare with a cannonade from De Ruyter, and her disabled rigging and rent canvas swayed through the smoke that belched on her from all sides.
For the second time the English standard fell.
De Ruyter strove to press his advantage, and sent out two frigates to sink or burn The Saint Michael; but her pilot and captain brilliantly managed the wounded vessel, and, wreck as she was, steered her out of the line of battle.
Again the Duke of York was forced to abandon his ship; again he was rowed through the wreckage, the seething, stained sea, and the ragged flag was hoisted on The London.
De Ruyter, having vanquished those ships immediately in duel with him, turned his attention to the other parts of the battle.
The French Fleet, beaten in a first engagement, and wishing to leave the brunt of the battle to their allies, had withdrawn towards the south, hotly pursued by Yan Banckert, whose distant guns could be heard in the lulls of the nearer firing.
Van Ghent had begun the fight on the left wing with a fury that had brought the Squadron of the Blue to retreat in confusion and terror; but as De Ruyter was fighting his way through a ring of fire-ships to second him, a young lieutenant came up in a little galiot and announced to Cornelius de Witt that Admiral van Ghent was dead. In the midst of his victorious onset, he had been killed by a cannon-ball.
A captain of marines was with the lieutenant; he had his arm in a sling, and mark of blood across his face.
"Conceal Van Ghent's death," said the Ruard. "Keep his flag flying, and return to the fight,—the day goes well for us."
A ball had carried away one arm of his chair; three more of his guards had fallen, and the deck-was smeared with blood and burnt with powder to his very feet; behind him, leaning against the mast, a dying boy sat staring at a fingerless hand he held across his drawn-up knees.
The sea was rising and the ship began to toss, pitching the dead to and fro on the slippery decks. De Ruyter stood beside the Ruard's chair, his feet far apart, and gave directions in a firm voice.
The captain, advancing for instructions, had his arm shattered by a shot that splintered the mast; he went below to the dark cabin where the surgeon was at work, and returned to take his orders with an empty sleeve pinned across his breast.
The London opened an obstinate fire, and De Ruyter answered, leaving the left wing to manage the Squadron of the Blue.
They, not receiving the expected signal from Van Ghent's ship, had given the English time to recover from the first shock of the onslaught; the Earl of Sandwich, on board The Royal James, his flagship, rallied his force, and advanced in order of battle.
It was now past midday, and though the advantage had been so far with the Dutch the English gave no signs of yielding.
De Ruyter signalled to Vice-Admiral Sweers to take over the command of the left division, and make a decisive attack on the Blue.
But there was one Dutchman who waited for no signal; Captain van Brakel of The City of Groningen, the hero of the victory of Chatham. Ardently desirous further to distinguish himself, he conceived the boldly audacious scheme of capturing or destroying The Royal James himself.
Defying all discipline, he left, without orders, De Ruyter's squadron, to which he belonged, and advanced to The Royal James across the black pool of waters the battle enclosed. The exploit was daring to recklessness, for the English ship carried a hundred and two guns and nine hundred men, while his little vessel was only armed with seventy guns and three hundred men.
An angry broadside from the great ship met her rash foe; Captain van Brakel approached without replying.
The Royal James, alarmed at this manoeuvre, spread her topsails and tried to sheer off; but Van Brakel was too quick. He hauled his wind, drew up alongside the English, threw out his grappling irons and seized her, while his quarter-deck guns blew away her cordage and rigging.
Despite The Royal James' desperate efforts the two ships remained locked together. There was a rush of Dutch to the sides, an answering charge on the part of the English, and the crews mingled in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with muskets, pistols, swords, and even sticks and fragments of iron.
Van Brakel, regardless of a broken collar-bone and a cut on his forehead that blinded him, led his men himself.
The sheer Anglo-Saxon genius for fighting rose in the English; let their cause be good or bad, they could not have fought more fiercely.
The Earl of Sandwich, with a broken sword in his hand, and panting a little by reason of his stoutness, ran up with his officers.
"Don't let the damned Dutchmen board," he shouted, and a yell of fury rose to answer him.
The Netherlanders, silent but equally in earnest, pressed over the bodies of their comrades, and closed with the English on the deck of their own ship, clinging to the rails, the grappling irons, even to the guns, some of which many succeeded in ramming under the very eyes of the gunners.
Meanwhile their own cannon kept up a steady fire; the Dutch gunners remaining at their places in face of a cruel discharge from the deck guns of The Royal James.
Man after man fell as he was putting the match to the powder, and lay silently gasping his life out; but there was never lack of another to take his place.
The dwindling crew moved forward as the gaps occurred, and The City of Groningen's guns were never silent.
The Royal James was suffering severely; her masts were tottering, her sails hanging in ribbons. All Lord Sandwich's efforts were directed to a frantic attempt to disengage her; but still the little Dutch vessel clung to her side, still the guns poured their fire into her with unabated vigour.
At half-past one, after the duel had lasted an hour and a half, the English masts went overboard on the disengaged side, dragging the Admiral's flag into the sea. The guns on the forecastle and quarterdeck were put out of action by the fallen canvas, the mizzen-topsail going over the portholes and becoming involved with the Dutch grappling irons.
The City of Groningen had done enough; battered, half her crew dead, and all her officers wounded, she changed her tactics and withdrew, cutting her chains and signalled up her tire-ships.
The Royal James was in no condition to resist another onslaught; not a mast standing, her jib-boom and wheel shot away, her decks piled with dead and wreckage, many of her guns silenced, she lay a huge useless hulk.
But the Earl of Sandwich was still aboard her, and from her bows still floated the English flag.
Vice-Admiral Sweers hastened up to the aid of the heroic Van Brakel, under the cover of whose guns the fire-ships were advancing.
But Lord Sandwich opened a last desperate cannonade; one flagship was sunk, the other driven back on The City of Groningen. Van Brakel wounded three times, but with his rash valour utterly unquenched, again brought his disabled ship forward, urging on the fire-ship, which was commanded by Van Ryan, the captain who had burnt The Rochester at Chatham.
Lord Sandwich could no longer save himself. Protected by the Dutch guns, Van Ryan advanced right under the bows of The Royal James, and succeeded in firing the canvas that hung over her portholes, retreating uninjured.
The flames seemed to crouch and hesitate for a moment, then leapt fiercely on the piled-up wreckage of rigging and cordage.
The City of Groningen steered off her dangerous foe, and the gallant little fire-ship hastened from the reach of the ruin she had caused.
There was no hope for The Royal James.
Cries of angry despair rose from the English as they saw themselves abandoned in flaming isolation, and they might be seen rushing to the boats and endeavouring, under the captain's orders, to flood the powder magazine. The flames twisted over the quarter-deck, feeding greedily on the broken masts, the tattered canvas, and the oaken planks.
"Lord Sandwich's flagship is burning!"
As the news spread the very battle seemed hushed to watch the death agony of the great vessel.
Van Brakel, lying wounded on his deck, gave orders for the firing to cease, and bade his crew save such of the English as they could. But their boats had been shot to splinters; they could do nothing.
Vice-Admiral Sweers sent a pinnace to the rescue, but it made slow progress through the clogged and swelling sea.
Meanwhile the fire was encroaching over every portion of The Royal James. The soldiers and sailors began to hurl themselves into the sea. It was but a choice of deaths; most were instantly drowned in the waves their flaming ship stained with a crimson reflection.
One after another the red-hot guns exploded with a blaze of white flame, and from every porthole issued dark, slow smoke from the wet powder.
The Dutch threw out ropes and broken spars to the few desperate survivors who swam towards them. The captain, bitterly wounded, and a young lieutenant, were hauled on board The City of Groningen; the first fainted as he reached the enemy's deck, and the other, flinging back his wet hair, gazed at his burning ship.
"Where is my lord?" he asked. "Where is the Admiral?"
A crowded boat put out from The Royal James, and the Dutch pinnace tried to reach it; but numbers of drowning wretches striving frantically to cling to its sides, it became waterlogged and sank under the rescuers' gaze.
Then those who watched with straining eyes saw the Vice-Admiral of England, in his courtier's dress, advance out of the smoke and mount up to the untouched portion of the ship where the flag still floated; Lord Montague, his son, was with him. The English knew him by his gold coat and scarlet sash; he had his useless sword in his hand, and set his back against the flagstaff, facing the advancing flames.
A heavy swell troubled the sea; The Royal James swung about as if she writhed, and the flames swept windward, blowing over the battle like an enormous banner of a vivid, transparent whiteness, edged with leaping tongues of crimson that licked into the smoky background.
The crew of The City of Groningen could see the Earl of Sandwich calmly placed beside his flag; could see his son drop his sword and put his hand over his eyes.
The fire darted on with a sinister roar; it was the last seen of my Lord Sandwich.. .. The ship was burning to the water's edge; the hull dipped as if the tortured vessel strove to quench her agony in the blood-stained waves; the English flag fluttered a moment, then disappeared in fire.
The powder being wet there was no explosion; she burnt slowly, pitilessly, to ashes, till at length the flames rose sheet from the sea and sank reluctantly to nothingness above their annihilated prey.
At the end of an hour the waves had closed over the fragments of The Royal James, and the fire hissed sullenly along floating planks and overturned boats.
"I would I could have saved my Lord Admiral," said Captain van Brakel.
"He did not choose to be saved," answered the lieutenant fiercely.
It was now seven o'clock and all heart had left the English; the terrific end of the Earl of Sandwich had utterly daunted the Squadron of the Blue.
The Duke of York alone still kept up an obstinate fight, and, aided by a veering wind, strove to drive his fire-ships against The Seven Provinces.
De Ruyter, abandoned by the daring Van Brakel, and separated from his second in command, Van Nes, having no vessels with him but a yacht and a frigate, was for a while hard pressed by the obstinate fire kept up by The London and the advance of the English fire-ships. His own boats having been sunk ne had nothing with which to ward off their approach.
Michael de Ruyter saw himself in an ugly situation. For a moment it seemed as if he was doomed to the same fate as Admiral the Earl of Sandwich, and Cornelius de Witt was about to order the pumps to be turned on the powder magazine when the little frigate, under the command of the intrepid Captain Philip d'Almonde, resolved to sacrifice herself to save the flagship.
Followed closely by the yacht, she advanced on the fire-ships. The first ran into her bows and fired her; but the heroic efforts of Captain D'Almonde extinguished the flames and a sharp volley from his guns set light to the powder the enemy carried, and she was borne off helpless before the wind and pitched against The London, that had to retreat before her.
The other fire-ship, seeing the fate of its companion, lost heart and turned aside, held at bay by the yacht, whose crew raked it with a fire of musketry.
The Seven Provinces was saved. In the time gained by the action of the frigate, Van Nes had forced his way through the Squadrons of the Red; and the ships surrounding De Ruyter, placed between two fires, beat a hasty retreat.
Van Nes, having rescued the flagship, went to the aid of his brother, Rear-Admiral John van Nes, who was engaged with the remaining ships of the Blue division.
The Duke of York, loath to give in, hastened to the assistance of the English, and courageously continued to fight from his third battered flagship.
But the English was dispirited and weary, and after three broadsides from the advancing Dutch they dispersed in sullen confusion; falling back, with tattered canvas and disabled rigging, on to their own coast.
Banckert, returning from his pursuit of the French, came up with his Fleet as evening fell, and his appearance changed the retreat of the English into a flight; nightfall alone saved them from utter destruction.
After twelve hours of fierce and desperate fighting the States-General had achieved a glorious victory.
They had destroyed five of the enemy's finest vessels, including the two flagships, disabled many others, and were themselves the worse only by two frigates and some fire-ships.
The English had lost three thousand men, and a large number had been taken prisoner.
"It is God's will," was all Michael de Ruyter said.
He stood beside the heroic Ruard's chair, his hands clasped behind him, his lips compressed under his pointed moustache.
Cornelius de Witt was very pale; he leant against the back of his chair, and now and then wiped his lips and his brow. But though fatigue and pain drove the colour from his face, nothing could subdue the fire of his eye or the undaunted carriage of his head.
He had seen six of his guard fall beside him, and been all day exposed to the hottest fire of the enemy. The Admiral's ship had been always in the fiercest part of the battle.
For twelve hours Cornelius de Witt had listened to the thunder of the cannon and watched the smoke and flame arising from the struggle.
Now, in the hour of victory, he simply thanked God, and slipped his sword into its scabbard.
The sailors were carrying the wounded below, throwing the dead overboard, and washing the decks.
The stars came out, pale gold and luminous, and a gentle wind played with the drooping canvas.
On a hundred ships the lanterns gleamed at mast and prow, and from a hundred decks arose a service of thanksgiving.
"The Lord be praised!" said Cornelius de Witt.
The lieutenant who had escaped from The Royal James, and who had been brought on board the flagship as a prisoner, was amazed at all that he saw: at the discipline among the large, silent sailors, at the dexterous fashion in which they cleaned the ship that had started that morning fresh as a lady's chamber, at their care of the wounded and their respect to M. de Witt and De Ruyter, and, most of all, at their gathering on the quarter-deck, where every man, even to the pilot behind his shining brass rails, joined in a strong and lusty singing of psalms that Michael de Ruyter selected from his leathern prayer-book.
"They are an extraordinary people," the Englishman wrote home. "M. de Ruyter is everything in one—admiral, captain, pilot, sailor, soldier, ana preacher, too, it seems.. .."
Now that the last shot had been fired, and the song of thanksgiving sent up by all, no matter to which of the seven sects he belonged, and the blue-eyed sailors were mending the sails and tarring the holes in the boats, Cornelius de Witt was carried below, and before touching food or drink added to the letter to his brother the news of the victory.
He wrote briefly and modestly, and concluded with these words, written with a hand shaking with sickness and fatigue:
"I am of opinion that we should begin again as soon as possible; I hope God will grant us the strength necessary for continuing to the death to do service to my dear country."
DON JUAN of Austria (1546—1577). son of the Emperor Charles V. and brother of Philip II. of Spain, the great military hero of his age, achieved his most resplendent success in the victory over the Turks in the Gulf of Lepanto (1571), which was followed by the conquest of Tunis and the African coast.
"I'll make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword."
—Montrose.
IT was Sunday morning in early October when the fleet of the Holy League, sailing, by the Isle of Oxia and Cape Stropha, into the long gulf of Lepanto, came face to face with the crescent-shaped armament of the Infidel.
The first of the Turkish lateen sails had been espied some hours before by the sharp-eyed Genoese on their look-out towers, and the forces of Christendom were in full battle array by the time the whole of the enemy was in sight. But a few spans of water separated the flagship of the young Christian Commander from that of Pasha Ah, who was at the head of the Turkish fleet; in a few moments Christian and Infidel would meet in the great conflict for which Pope and Kings had so long laboured.
Over all the great ships, galleasses, galleys, brigantines, and frigates of Spain, Genoa and Venice, Savoy and Borne, was perfect silence save for the steady uprise of one voice from each vessel.
The voice of a priest!
In every ship a crucifix was raised high for all men to see, ana before each of these awful symbols stood a Jesuit, a Dominican, or a Franciscan, beseeching God's blessing on the just and holy fight that was to be undertaken in His name.
On the forecastle of the Commander's ship knelt Don Juan, surrounded by the flower of Venetian, Spanish, and Genoese chivalry. Behind him the deck was covered with men in mail, some on their knees, some prostrate; beside them the gentlemen volunteers who had been appointed to guard different portions of the ship; such famous knights as Pietro d'Oria Gil de Andrade, Don Lope de Figueroa, Don Juan de Guzman, Don Buy Diaz de Mendoza, the Castellan of Palermo, and many others, all noble knights of Spain and Italy eager to shed their blood for God.
Above the peak of the vessel floated a square green flag that was the signal for immediate battle, and from the maintop the blue banner of the Pope that Cardinal Granvelle had presented to Juan in the great church of Santa Chiara waved its folds against a blue sky.
The Commander of the armies of Christendom—the Prince of Spain, the darling of the Pope, the hope of knighthood—knelt a little in advance of his companions, bareheaded, his hands folded on his breast, his eyes fixed on the dark-robed figure of the Jesuit who stood before the crucifix.
He wore close chain mail, over it a cuirass of Milan workmanship, ribbed with black and gold, and fastened by straps of scarlet leather to his heavily engraved cuirasses, beneath which were padded purple breeches; steel jambes and sollerets encased his legs and feet; above his hausse-col rose a high, stiff ruff of lawn, and in his left ear hung a great pearl.
On the deck beside him was his burgonet, adorned with a huge panache of blue plumes cut into the shape of the prow of a ship, and having a long white feather over all.
The Toison d'or and a chain of rubies sparkled over his corselet, across which was fastened a crimson scarf; the triple truncheon of his command lay beside him, as did his breviary.
Bound his right arm was tied a great knot of orange velvet, the ends of which fell to his waist.
Close behind him knelt the captain of his ship, Don Vasquez Coronado, and behind the captain the other gentlemen of his retinue. With hand upraised the Jesuit blessed them, and as he made the holy sign of benediction every head was bowed; the soldiers laid down their firelocks, the gunners flung themselves beside the long thick guns, and an absolute silence fell on the ship, through which could be heard the frenzied yells, shouts, songs, and insults of the Turks who were advancing to the encounter with all the noise they were able to command. As the Jesuit finished sprinkling holy water and pronouncing absolution, Juan picked up his helmet and placed it on, firmly tightening the strap under his chin.
He then took up his truncheon and, turning so as to face the great body of the ship, addressed his men:
"Spaniards," he said, "it is in Almighty God's hands whether we conquer or perish, and either fate is glorious."
His fresh young voice rang clearly over the hushed ship and silenced the distant noise of the Infidel's screams, cymbals, and volleys of musketry.
"If you live there is absolution for you in this world, as the holy father has told you, and if you die—in heaven there is full pardon for your sins.
"Do not let these dogs of heathen ask 'Where is your God?'
"Fight in His holy name and show that He guides our vessels and directs our shot.
"Fight, and in life and death win immortality."
With a deep shout the nobles, knights, soldiers, and sailors sprang to their feet and embraced each other as they made their vows to die or conquer in the mighty cause of Christ.
And Don Juan looked about him on the fleet he commanded.
It was a gorgeous day, and each ship seemed to float in a haze of gold, while the guns and men-at-arms with their steel weapons caused the decks to gleam as if they flamed in silver fire. In front was the vanguard of Cordona's Sicilian galleys; to the right the ships of Giovanni Andrea d'Oria, the Genoese, the vessel of His Holiness, and the galleasses contributed by the Duke of Savoy; on the left lay the great fleet of Venice and a few South-Italian ships, while the bulk of the squadron was composed of the Spanish vessels, and immediately behind the Commander came the ships bearing Marc Antonio Colonna, the leader of the Papal forces; Veniero, in the flagship of the Republic of St Marc; and Ettore Espinola, who had in charge the galleys provided by the great Republic of Genoa.
Yellow and blue, white and scarlet banderoles fluttered from the riggings of many of these vessels that were moving slowly forward with long strokes of the double line of oars or with skilful handling of the slackened canvas.
Don Juan had already inspected this fleet, seen that all was in order, and encouraged his men, who indeed wanted but little urging, especially the men of Venice, who hated the Turks as if they had indeed been devils, having lately heard of the fall of Famagosta, where their countrymen had been miserably slain and other hideous cruelties of the heathen in Cyprus, Corfu, and the Adriatic.
And the Genoese thirsting to outdo the Venetians, and the Spanish being kindled with the fervour of religion, the Savoyards and Sicilians with the thought of fighting, the knights of St Juan having many insults to avenge, all this huge force that consisted of no less than twenty-four ships, six galleasses and two hundred and eight galleys, was impatient to be at the Turks who came hastening in three divisions, their oars staining and splashing through the deep blue water, in the centre being the Pasha Ali, from whose main mast flew the green standard of the prophet, on the right the Pasha of Alexandria, Mahomet Scirocco, and on the left the Barbary galliots under command of the Algerine, Aluch Ah.
Don Juan looked at all this array of heathendom that came on shouting and beating cymbals and firing volleys into the air till they were wrapped in smoke, and he smiled at the chance that had been given him to fight for God, His Holiness, and Don Felipe against these accursed hordes.
And he commanded the gunners to have their guns ready, the soldiers to prime their matchlocks, the officers to look to their men that they might give the Turk a hot challenge when he came within range (for he had no mind to follow the enemy's example and fire before the shots could do any harm). He also ordered the Captain, Don Vasquez Coronado, to bid the helmsman make directly for the flagship of Pasha Ali where the green flag of the false prophet was displayed.
All these things being seen to and every man ready and impatient at his post, Juan clapped his hands and commanded the fifes and drums and trumpets to strike up.
"Surely," said he, smiling at the howling of the
Turks that every minute grew nearer, "we may have our music as well as those dogs."
Thereupon the bugles sounded, and at this signal the bands on all the Christian ships began to play.
The Turkish cannon had opened fire though they were not yet near within range, and the crash of the artillery coming across the water mingled with the Christian music.
Don Juan slipped his truncheon into the folds of his scarf, and taking by the hand the Castellan of Palermo and Don Miguel de Moncada he drew them into the open space of the gun-deck, in front of the crucifix that watched over the vessel.
"Come," said he, "let us celebrate the glorious day that is before us. These fifes play a good dance measure."
At this the three youths, all in complete armour that flashed in the noonday sun, wearing crested plumes many feet high, and carrying sword, dagger, and their great gauntlets in their hands, began to dance a galliard to the war music of the soldiers.
Juan was a famous dancer, and never at any feast or merry-making when lightly clad in satin had he held himself more gracefully and easily than now when he carried plate armour and moved in steel shoes.
The ardour of his youth made it light to him; he danced on the gun platform as he had danced in the Ducal Hall at Venice to the admiration of the splendid nobility of the Republic.
The Turkish fleet drew nearer, the space of the sea between them and the Christians fast becoming a narrow strip of darkening blue.
And Juan and Miguel de Moncada and Andres de Salanar danced on the gun-deck before the crucifix ringed round with artillery and waiting gunners. The heathen armament blazed in colour; every vessel was hung with pennons from stem to stern; from every peak and point floated banderoles and flags, while the janissaries and archers crowded on the decks were brilliant in fanciful armour, mighty plumes, and gorgeous crested helms among which the uncovered sun rioted, striking long rays of light from gold and silver and steel.
As they came on, from the confusion of their angry cries might be distinguished the contemptuous shouts of some Christian renegades who in Spanish and Italian challenged their countrymen to return the heathen fire or to be slaughtered like hens or frogs.
Juan caught some of these words which rose from the nearest galliot that was firing at Don Juan de Cordona's Sicilian scouts.
"Those are damned souls," he said, and continued dancing.
"No, Excellency," answered the Castellan, "they are Genoese."
As Juan moved in the galliard he saw that a Turkish shot had at last taken effect, and that the pennon flying from Cordona's swift little sentinel galley has been shot away.
At that he stayed his dancing, and, going to his rightful place of command on the quarter-deck, he ordered his foremost great gun to fire.
Instantly, it being then about the hour of noon, the first Christian shot broke through the din of the Infidel, and, passing between the rigging of Pasha Ali's ship, carried away part of the topmost of the three lateens which were placed as a symbol of command on the high stern, thereby doing a great mischief, as was noticed by the Pasha, who looked up and said, "God grant that we may be able to give a good answer to this."
Now four of the six Christian galleasses opened fire and silenced the Turks, who could make no headway against these great vessels; two, indeed, were soon sunk, and many others would have followed them into the sea if the Algerine had not out-manoeuvred the two remaining galleasses so that they could not support the others, as Don Juan had intended.
Nevertheless these great ships carried terror before them, and the jeering cries of the Turks were soon changed to yells of fear and dismay as they perceived themselves being struck down by a fire against which theirs was of little avail.
Now, the Pasha Ali steered for Don Juan even as the Spanish flagship steered for him, and presently, with a huge shock, the two mighty ships meet amid the tumult of the battle and gripped bold of each other, as it were with hands of steel, for the peak of the Pasha's galley thrust through the rigging of Don Juan's ship until it was over the fourth rowing bench, and the Turkish prow rose above the Christian forecastle. Behind the Pasha were two galliots and ten galleys, to which he was linked by ladders, and which fed him with men as his ranks were diminished, while Don Juan was supported by his Vice-Admiral Resquesens, who led two galleys filled with reinforcements.
And there commenced on the decks of the two ships, locked in this fierce embrace, the most decisive action of the day.
On either side of Don Juan the ships of Veniero and Colonna each engaged a Turk, while behind, Ettore Espinola and his Genoese struggled with those galleys of the enemy who had managed to force their way between the great Christian galleasses.
But bloody and desperate as these several combats were, on the deck of the two flagships waged a fight more deadly, for here Don Juan himself led the Christian arquebusiers against the Turkish janissaries under the command of the Pasha.
With a fury beyond words, the flower of Christendom and heathendom met and struggled for the mastery; the air was thick with Turkish arrows and foul with the smoke of Don Juan's guns; cries and screams rose up with the clashing of the Infidel's cymbals, the shrieks of their trumpets and the music played by the Spanish soldiers.
The Christian artillery was the more effectual, for Don Juan had ordered the sharp prows of his vessels to be cut off so that they were able to get a closer range of the enemy. Also, his ships being lower, their shots lodged in the body of the enemy's craft, while the Turkish fire often passed over the heads of the allies; the Christians were also protected by nettings in which the soldiers lay, and by great hooks and many such devices that prevented the Turks from easily boarding them.
Nevertheless, the Pasha had more men, and those of an unequalled valour and fierceness, so that for a while the combat was equal, and for every Turk that fell a Christian also dropped.
On the prow of the Spanish ship stood Don Juan, his great blue plume and the glitter of the jewels on his corselet a target for the arrows with which the beautifully carved black walnut lantern of the ship bristled, and on the prow of the Turk stood Pasha Ali in great scarlet trousers, pure gold armour, a green turban with a steel peak, and chains of pearl round his neck and wrists.
With one foot advanced before him he held his great and gorgeous bow, and sent arrow after arrow into the Christian ranks; and his aim was marvellous, and those he struck fell in agony, for the shafts that were handed him by a black boy that crouched at his side were poisoned at the tip.
Now, Don Bernardino de Cardenas, leading a party to the rescue of Don Lope de Figueroa, who commanded on the poop and had lost nearly all his men, was slain by a spent ball, and his men fell into confusion beneath the Turkish fire. Don Juan, seeing-this, called up his arquebusiers and his gentlemen volunteers and rushed across the scaling ladders on board the Pasha's ship, sweeping back the janissaries as far as the mainmast.
Yet here they got a check, for the Pasha led his men against them so valiantly that they were forced to retreat, though in orderly fashion and fighting every inch, to their own ship.
Nothing dismayed, Don Juan, without pausing, again rallied them to the charge, and with his great sword in his hand led them again on to the Turkish decks that were now sticky with blood and honey and oil cast down by the heathen, and cumbered with the dying. And again Pasha Ali repulsed them, though not all the janissaries that climbed up from his attendant galley could replace the gaps in his shattered ranks.
Don Juan leant breathless on his truncheon; he was bright with the blood of those slain about him, and he plucked from the joints of his mail the broken arrows.
"By Almighty God!" he exclaimed, "this bass a fights right manfully!"
Then he bid the trumpets sound again, and once more the ranks of Christendom swarmed in among the forces of the Turk.
And this time the Pasha came to meet them with despair in his heart, for all his best soldiers were dead; he took a box containing his most precious jewels and hurled it into the sea, and commended his soul to the Prophet, whose bright green banner was now riddled with shot.
Yet he pressed forward boldly and reached the gangway between the two ships, urging on his bright coloured ranks.
But an arquebus struck him on the forehead and lie fell, and a Christian from Magdala had him by the throat.
Then he said in Italian:
"Spare my life that I may fight some more," and he took the chain from his neck and offered it to the soldier.
And he said, "Go below where there is money."
Upon this the soldier would have compounded with him, but a Christian galley slave who had got loose came running up through the press and saw the Pasha in the power of the Spaniard and cried out:
"Soldier, that is the Pasha Ali, and I beseech you do him no hurt, for he was ever gentle with his slaves were they heathen or Christian!"
"Is this bassa indeed Ali?" cried the soldier. "Then I desire to try my sword on him!"
The Pasha looked up at the Christian rower and spoke.
"Did I not tell you and your fellows this morning," he said, "that you would this day be free, either by my wish as a reward for your service in my victory, or as the result of God's will in my defeat?"
By now the soldier had made his sword ready; he struck off the head of the Pasha, whose blood ran out and over the feet of his own galley slave.
"Now I shall get a great reward from Don Juan!" said the soldier.
But the slave was so wrath at his pitilessness that he attacked him, and the soldier leapt into the sea, still holding the head of Pasha Ali by the long black hair, for the turban had fallen off and rolled away along the deck.
Don Lope de Figueroa was now on the poop, hauling down the Turkish flag, and to his support went Don Juan, all imbrued with blood, and as the crossed standard was run up for the whole battle to see, the soldier who had swum round the vessel and climbed again on deck, came and flung himself before his commander and offered him the head of Pasha Ali. Don Juan looked at him with displeasure and said:
"What would you have me do with that head? Cast it into the sea. Had you been any but a raw soldier you would have spared him, for he was a noble bassa and kind to his slaves."
But Don Lope took the head and put it in a high pike and raised it on the poop to be a terror and a sign to the other Infidels.
So was the flagship of the Pasha captured, and soon after the rest of the heathen fleet, excepting the ships of Ali Aluch, the Algerine, who had destroyed the galleys of the knights of Malta and sailed away from the disaster.
But the green standard of the Prophet was hauled down and lay under the feet of Don Juan, and the blue banner of the Pope waved in triumphant glitter over the bloody gulf of Lepanto when night veiled the waters that heaved with carnage.
THE war declared between England and France (1754) was carried into the colonies of America and Canada.
General Braddock, with British and Virginian troops, marched for the Ohio in June, 1755, and sustained a severe defeat during which he was slain, at the junction of the Monongahela and Youghiougany, July, 1755.
George Washington, then a volunteer colonel, distinguished himself at this battle.
"Who best
Can suffer, best can do:
best reign who first
Well hath obeyed."
—Milton.
THE campaign which the enthusiasm of Dinwiddie and Shirley had conceived as likely to end the war was from the first unfortunate.
The sloth of Pennsylvania put delays in the way; the assembly would do no more than vote twenty thousand pounds, though this colony was the most defenceless and the most tempting prize; nor would they show any energy in providing the necessary stores for the troops, nor take any steps to raise men. Their lack of zeal had an ill effect in another way; General Braddock could have marched to the Ohio either through Virginia or Pennsylvania; both routes looked the same on the map, and the British general chose the one through the loyal colony, ignorant of the fact that, whereas Pennsylvania was full of good roads with abundant facilities for transport and plentiful supplies of food, Virginia was an untracked wilderness.
His choice was encouraged by the members of the Ohio Company, who hoped their trade would benefit by the military road he would be obliged to make, and so the campaign commenced with insufficient men and money and an initial mistake, and also not before the French had got a thousand men on the Ohio and their Indian allies well advanced and stoutly encamped on British territory.
The plan of campaign itself, though sound in the main, became absurd when worked out with such a handful of men; the niggardly policy of the Home Government and the indifference and carelessness of some of the colonies alike tied General Braddock's hands; his own ignorance of the country and obstinacy added to his difficulties; he refused to listen to the advice given him by many of the Virginian gentlemen against the route he had chosen and the equipments he was preparing to take with him into the wilderness, and toward the end of June he left Alexandria for the Ohio, taking with him the thousand British troops, the four hundred Virginians, several heavy guns and a great quantity of baggage.
They left with drums beating and flags flying, every soldier neat and smart in his scarlet coat and shako, his white belt and straps and his well polished musket, all with a jaunty air and some laughing in the confidence of an easy victory and a quick return from what promised to be a pleasurable adventure.
Mr Washington (then a volunteer colonel) watched them depart.
He had yet to transact some business in Virginia and was to join the general in Maryland.
From his first sight of these well-drilled, well-uniformed, stalwart soldiers, most of them from regiments that had seen hard service in Europe from the days of King William, he had been enthusiastic in his admiration, and inclined to agree with General Braddock that the mere sight of their even ranks, their glittering bayonets, the mere sound of their powerful cannon would serve to dismay and discomfort the Indians, and that the French themselves would not long be able to resist such a veteran force.
The two mistakes, the route and the huge quantity of baggage, he thought serious, but not fatal; he had a considerable trust in Braddock, who had given the brilliant young colonel his full friendship and confidence.
But when Colonel Washington joined the army in Maryland he found matters already in a bad pass; Braddock was floundering through the untracked woods like a blind man in the surf, cursing the route he had taken, the French, the Indians, and the colonists.
The guides had lost their way, and several days had been spent in circling round the same spot; considerable delay was also involved through the troops having to make their own roads, to fell trees and bridge rivers, none of which, Braddock hotly declared, were on the map.
The young Virginian colonel, ardent and full of enthusiasm, longed to get the direction of affairs into his own hands, but curbed himself, and gently suggested to the general that it would be quite impossible to drag the baggage wagons and cumbersome artillery over the mountains that would presently have to be traversed. This was the signal for Braddock to lose his temper; he cursed the whole country and declared that he had never carried less baggage in Europe and had always found roads prepared for him, adding that the colonists were doing their best to hinder him, and that such a country as this was not worth fighting for.
The Virginian could not reply to such a line of argument, and the army toiled on, painfully dragging through the virgin forests the heavy tents, the elaborate camp furniture, the silver services, the costly wines of the officers, the ponderous belongings of the men, a huge supply of ammunition, sufficient bombs to shell a town, palisades, engines, sacks of sand to line trenches, fodder for horses, and all the elaboration of the complicated wars of Europe.
The strenuous and able mind of George Washington began to fret terribly.
To him, who was used to carrying no more than he could put in his saddle bags, who had forded the streams and climbed the mountains and done his fifty miles a day, this ponderous progress would have been absurd if it had not promised to be tragic. They halted to erect bridges over every brook and to level every molehill.
General Braddock prided himself on the thoroughness of his tactics; he neglected no precaution of continental warfare, with the result that soon his army was doing three miles a day, and sickness had broken out among the troops owing to exhaustion of the fresh food supply.
Colonel Washington himself fell ill more from fret of mind than weakness of body, and had to be left behind for several weeks. Persuading the surgeon to allow him to start before he was completely recovered, he travelled in a wagon to the Monongahela, where he rejoined Braddock, who had now been forced to abandon some of his baggage through the sheer inability of horses or men to drag it up and down the mountains, but enough had been kept (with almost superhuman difficulty) to sufficiently hamper the army.
Washington, still sick, allowed his passionate temper vent, and spoke warmly to the general on the folly of the course he was pursuing. Braddock retorted with equal heat; he, too, had his grievances, genuine enough: the colonists had supplied horses of so poor a quality that half were already ill from the exertions of the march, and his stocks of good mounts had been seriously depleted by the horse-stealers who followed in the wake of his army.
Add to this fact that guides and maps were alike unreliable, and there seemed other reasons besides military pedantry and obstinacy for Braddock's delays.
But his refusal to take any advice from the colonists, his unyielding adherence to the most formal detail of all the traditions of European military tactics, were, at least to Colonel Washington, inexcusable.
A coolness sprang up between the two men who had been on the way to a close friendship; Braddock left some of the heavier baggage behind with General Dunbar, and divided his men into two portions, but he would make no further concession to the advice of Washington, who was the only colonial officer he would even listen to.
The army under command of Braddock, consisting of about twelve hundred troops, was now at the junction of the Monongahela and Youghiougany; the first stream was fordable at a point eight miles from Fort Duquesne, which Braddock rightly regarded as the key to the valley of the Ohio.
His plan (and here Washington was with him) was to carry the fort by assault and from there to conduct his operations on the enemy's side of the frontier.
This formidable point of the river was reached early on the morning of July 10th, and Colonel Washington, who had received information from an Indian that Contrecoeur, the commander of Fort Duquesne, had been informed of the approach of the British as early as July 3rd, sunk his differences with the general and hastened to give him this news.
Braddock treated it as of no importance; Contrecoeur might know, but what could he do?
Only fortify himself against attack, and probably he had done that in any case.
The young Virginian tingled with impatience; he felt all the needful capacity, energy and knowledge at his finger tips. He knew this country; Fort Duquesne was built on the site selected for a British fort last year, and had been surrendered to an overwhelming force of French while Washington was fortifying W ills Creek and the trading house there.
That had been before the first shot had been fired, and now when the war had dragged a year the thought of regaining and renaming this fort, of hauling the lilies down and running the Union flag up, was inspiration and spur to Washington. But how was this to be accomplished if Braddock so persistently refused to adopt the tactics of the country he was invading—tactics in which the French and their savage allies were such adepts?
The young aide-de-camp had parted from his general the night before with a hot heart, but a restless vigil in the close dark (he was yet under the effect of fever) showed him that no pride or temper on his part must be allowed to stand in the way of his final warnings.
Lately, in his opinion, the general had committed several errors; he had neglected to encourage or reward the friendly Indians; he had refused the help of a band of settlers, who, painted and dyed like savages, had appeared at his camp mad from the loss of their families from the Indian tomahawk, and now he was proposing to ford the Monongahela as if it had been the Rhine; i.e., to march his men in review order across the stream and up to the fort with all their artillery, scaling-ladders, etc., and the baggage, with the sick and stores.
This baggage was a nightmare to Colonel Washington. He had visions of it lumbering through the water and the troops waiting for it on the opposite bank that nearly drove him mad.
What he feared was an Indian ambuscade—he had not lived all his life in the wild without learning the ways of it; he could not believe that the Indians would permit the British to cross the river and gain firing distance of the fort without an attempt to divert them, and that attempt on unprepared troops with a commander like Braddock might spell disaster.
The young Virginian mounted his horse and reported himself at the general's headquarters. He found that the troops were already ranged in order of battle and preparing to ford the stream. General Braddock was in a good humour; he was surrounded by his officers; all had been drinking heavily the night before, and some were not yet sober; they were making comments on the French and Indians and disparaging remarks on both; they were all pleased at the prospect of taking Fort Duquesne and at some respite there from pushing through the wild forest.
Still pale and a little feeble in his saddle, Washington rode up to the general, who greeted him amiably, as if he had forgotten the argument of the last night, as indeed he had, having washed away his ill-temper with several bottles of port.
At the sight of the ardent young face of his favourite aide-de-camp he unbent from his usual formal haughtiness and asked with the excitement, controlled but ardent, of a man going into battle, if the men did not look well.
The Virginian replaced his hat, disregarded the general's question and beseeched him to send skirmishers out to discover if there be not some ambush the other side of the river. General Braddock replied to the effect that he was not afraid of savages, and declined to take Washington's advice.
The army had now re-formed on the opposite bank and in perfect order swept forward across the natural clearing where they had landed, with their flags fluttering gaily, their polished weapons glittering, their drummers beating a tattoo, as if they had been on review in Hyde Park.
The even ranks, the showy uniform, the mounted officers, the standards and the drums combined to make it a spectacle as brilliant as it was incongruous with the surroundings of unbroken wild forest-clad hills.
Colonel Washington was impressed; he felt his confidence return. Surely these veterans would face anything, he thought, as drawn up beside General Braddock and the other members of his staff, he watched them file past. And it seemed as if there was to be no ambush.
Then suddenly from the forest a shot rang out.
The shot was followed by another and another, mingled with loud, fierce yells; threads of flame and puffs of white smoke broke from the wooded heights.
The front ranks of the British had already fallen, and those behind them, utterly at a loss in circumstances entirely new in the experiences of war, were slowly falling back in confusion and bewilderment. On the other hand the Virginians, who knew exactly what had happened, and the deadliness of the peril, instantly divided their ranks and took cover, after the method of the enemy, behind the large trees that edged the open space where the British were gathered. General Braddock sat his horse taut and pale; his bare sword was in his hand and his eyes gleamed as he saw his men falling back from the fusillade of their invisible foes. George Washington turned to him in a passion of appeal, and urged that the troops should take shelter. But Braddock refused and dashed full into the deadly bullet-swept space where the huddled masses of the bewildered infantry were being rapidly mowed down.
Many of them had followed the example of the colonists and were lurking in the shelter of the trees and the thick July undergrowth of creeper and plant Washington instinctively followed his commander into the danger of the open, wondering what he was going to do.
What Braddock did was the incredible. Biding up to where many of his men were sheltered, he drove them forth with the flat of his sword, and, bidding the standard bearers advance the colours, and raise them as rallying points in the full open, he re-formed his troops under the steady and murderous fire of the ambuscade, who were taking full advantage of their unbelievable luck, and keeping up a steady volley of musketry at the lines of red coats that were clear and steady as a target before them.
As if they had been on the moors of Scotland or on the banks of the Rhine, the British loaded and fired; fired in vain at every puff of smoke that issued from the trees, and as often as not brought down a Virginian.
Colonel Washington could hardly credit his senses; he saw Braddock's figure on the white horse in the middle of the fast diminishing red square, and the officers with drawn, useless swords rallying and encouraging their men, and he saw that it was too late for argument.
With a quick and thorough grasp of the situation, he saw that the only possible hope lay in the artillery which had just been brought across the river.
Wild and desperate to save the day, he dashed to where the gunners were laboriously mounting the heavy pieces on the carriages, and flung himself from his horse, and in his eagerness and fury helped to serve one of the guns himself and to drag it into action.
The whistle of bullets was continuous and the smoke had blotted out the sky; he heard the thud on the cannon, on the grass, the rip and whistle through his own clothes. One even passed through his hair and grazed his cheek. His bright blue coat with the scarlet facings, his great stature and unusual action in serving the gun himself, made him a mark for the hidden French and Indians, and more than one bullet was destined for his heart or head; he gave no thought at all to this; he got his gun into range and was directing the firing of it when he saw the gunners drop, one after another, until he stood alone by the cannon.
At that he flung himself into the saddle of the first riderless horse and galloped back into the melee, where General Braddock was still endeavouring to rally his broken ranks around that piteous, proud standard of England, that, riddled by a dozen bullets still fluttered through the smoke.
But the thing was fast becoming impossible; sixty officers had fallen in a few moments; the wine-flushed gentlemen who had laughed so good-humouredly at the young Virginian's fears an hour before had one after another fallen in their attempt to encourage their men; Braddock was surrounded by a carnage, and now the ranks began to break. One man had caught sight of a hideous painted face peering from behind the nearest trees. He was fresh from an English village and he threw his musket down.
It was the signal.
The ranks wavered, fell into hopeless confusion, and the men began to run; many thought that the forces of hell were, indeed, let loose on them, for the Indians, no longer to be restrained by the French officers, began to rush into the open with horrid yells, and to men who had never Been a savage before their sudden appearance at such a moment made them appear like devils incarnate.
Such as were mounted galloped away; many cut the traces of the artillery horses and, springing on their backs, fled across the river; in vain the remaining officers tried to rally them. They would not stop nor listen, and soon there were few save General Braddock himself beside the rallying point of the English flag.
Colonel Washington rode up to him through the rain of bullets and looked at him; his face was inhuman in its livid tint and horrible expression.
The general's lace cravat and white waistcoat were stained with blood, and he held his left hand to his heart, while the other hung down against his saddle, gripping his sword.
The blood rose to his lips and prevented him speaking. Washington seized his bridle and turned his horse's head toward the river. The wounded man's head sank forward on his breast, the sword clattered out of his hand, but his knees still gripped the saddle and his body was erect.
Followed by a fusillade of shots, Washington guided him through the mass of the dead and the stampede of the living. As they neared the river another bullet struck the general between the shoulders. He shuddered into an upright position and flung out his right arm.
"English soldiers," he muttered. "English soldiers!"
Then he fell sideways out of his saddle against Colonel Washington, staining him with his blood; the Virginian flung his arm around him and, holding him so on his saddle, spurred his horse and led that of the general out of the carnage to where some officers were endeavouring to turn their fugitive men back to the slaughter. "Who is in command?" one cried.
Washington knew him.
"I am, Captain Gates," he answered. He pointed his free hand at the huddled figure he was with difficulty maintaining on his horse. "The general is struck to the death—help me get him across the river."
To his tone of authority, to his presence of mind, to his obvious knowledge of the only remedy possible in his desperate strait, the Englishmen submitted, though all were older men. They were subdued too, and horrified by the spectacle of their general wounded to the death.
One took his horse's head upon the other side and helped guide him to the river. Before they reached it, however, they were set upon suddenly by a band of Indians.
Washington turned fiercely at bay, recognised in the leader of the troop, who was mounted on a powerful white horse and painted and befeathered like a savage, the Frenchman Beaujeu, whom he had seen at Fort le Boeuf. The Frenchman recognised him also, and waved his hand in mocking salute, while he cried to his followers to take aim at the blue coat. A dozen muskets fired and all missed, though the officer next to Washington dropped, shot through the head.
The Virginian laughed with excitement. He lashed at Braddock's frightened horse, and dragged man and animal with him to the ford-There, clear for the moment of the musketry, he and the Englishmen lifted the general into a wagon, and in this way Braddock, who was now speechless, was conveyed from the battle, while Washington dashed back to gather the remnant of the forces.
The young Virginian's desperate efforts succeeded in gathering the survivors together and in bringing them out of the line of fire.
But even his promptitude and courage could not have saved them all from being cut to pieces if the Indians, who had already disobeyed their French leaders by breaking cover too soon, had not again proved capricious and, refusing to join in an organised pursuit, stayed to scalp the dead and dying and plundering the wagons, while the French themselves could not resist the opportunity to capture English flags and English guns. This delay proved the salvation of the English remnant; Washington, assuming sole command, drew them off in a masterly fashion and proceeded at a headlong pace back to the camp, where the heavy baggage and artillery had been left under command of General Dunbar.
On the way Braddock died. He never spoke, but those about him thought that his awful eyes showed that he retained his senses.
By dint of hard riding Washington and the vanguard reached Dunbar and brought him up to the assistance of the fugitives.
The Virginian's counsels were for still pursuing the advance on Fort Duquesne and not at any cost to abandon the campaign, which would make them a laughing stock before the world.
It was clear, he argued, that the French force was small, that they owed their victory entirely to their ambush, that they had never hoped to do more than delay the English, and that to retreat now would give them a very easy triumph.
But Dunbar took another view. He saw the best troops in Europe decimated and thrown into a state of panic; his general, his officers were gone; he was under conditions entirely new to him. He could not trust his unnerved men, and he decided to fall back on Fort Cumberland, sixty miles away.
Colonel Washington saw that his arguments were useless. He left Dunbar with these words, "Some day 7 shall come back to Fort Duquesne."
And with that he consoled himself; some day he would come back and meet French and Indians on their own terms; the Union flag would yet fly above Fort Duquesne.
Before the army departed for Fort Cumberland there was one duty to be performed. The unfortunate commander had to be left in the wilderness that he had hated and that had snared him.
"We will not leave Braddock's scalp to the Indians," said Washington. He had a curious tenderness for the dead man; his incredible action seemed to him to have something more in it than the sheer obstinate stupidity it would be named.
There would be no pity for Braddock either in the colonies or in Europe. The young Virginian knew that, but in his heart he felt a thrill of admiration for that very obstinacy that had elected death in the ancient methods of the old country instead of safety in those new tactics that were barbarous in the eyes of a European. Had Braddock lived, Washington might have blamed him; but he was dead from four hideous wounds, and he had been a man who had loved life. He was taken in silence from the wagon and lain on his spread blue cloak beneath the tall pines, walnuts ana maples.
George Washington knelt beside him and covered his face with his handkerchief.
Four English gunners dug a grave among the lilies and wild, untouched leaves and blossoms.
The army chaplain was among the slain; but George Washington, standing erect and bare-headed by the grave, read in a solemn voice the burial service from his own prayer book, which he always carried in his pocket.
The soldiers took off their hats as their general was laid in the fresh virgin soil that quickly covered him.
Then Washington closed the prayer book and stepped back from the new grave, which, in order to efface all traces of it from the enemy, the entire army, artillery and baggage, marched across, with dipping colours and muffled drums.
THE surprise of Trenton held by Colonel Rail and his German troops was one of the most daring exploits of George Washington (1732—1799) during the War of Independence (1774—1783).
"My soul's in arms and eager for the fray."
—Colley Cibber.
GENERAL WASHINGTON and his regiments arrived at Eight Mile Ferry, where the Marblehead fishermen had assembled their boats.
A thick coating of ice, not sufficient to bear a man, but more than enough to impede a boat, covered the river.
The wind, too, was blowing fiercely from the Jersey shore, and the current was against them; added to this the black, threatening sky presaged a violent storm at any minute.
Mounted on his horse, Washington kept his station on the Jersey bank through the long, cold hours of waiting, as boat after boat was filled with men, horses, guns, pushed from the shore and forced through the rapidly forming ice.
With wind and tide against them, with the ice to break and the overloaded boats to row, the fishermen's task was almost too much for them.
But they remained at their oars and not a single boat was upset in the perilous passage, though the short winter day came to a close without seeing more than a quarter of the army landed on the Jersey shore. And Washington had planned the attack to take place at dawn.
As he sat motionless in his scarlet cloak, watching his silent army his past, clamber into the boats and disappear across the Delaware among the floating ice, wild impatience clutched at his heart, though his countenance was serene and cheerful.
Supposing they should be too late? Supposing the English should be warned? Supposing the weather should become impossible and the men only cross to drop dead of cold and fatigue on the frozen banks opposite?
These doubts were as whips to his soul; he caught passionately at the reins as he marched his horse up and down to keep it warm, and prayed to God to help him.
For the stakes were heavy; he must either gain now or lose for ever; and if he lost, the new nation that had just sprung into being would be lost too, slain at birth.
It was a tremendous chance, a tremendous risk, and the suspense was wellnigh unbearable.
When the daylight failed the embarkation was carried out by the light of lanterns and torches.
The flare of these leaped up and died away as the men tramped past their commander, cast a red light over the tall figure on the chestnut horse, then passed on to throw a red reflection over the disturbed black waters and broken ice of the Delaware, where the boats struggled against wind and tide.
Hour after hour Washington watched this, the upflare of the lights from the darkness, the following blackness, another light, darkness again, and then again torches or lanterns. Hour after hour he heard the same sounds; the steady tramp of the men splashing through the mud, the jolting rattle of the cannon, the voices of the drivers encouraging their horses, an occasional command from an officer, the dip of the oars, the grind of the keels as the boats touched the shore. The men were silent.
In the long red flashes of light that fell for a second over the rows of soldiers, their general saw their faces.
All resolute faces, composed, strong faces above the worn uniforms and beneath the ragged hats.
Near midnight the dreaded storm broke; a wild descent of hail fell beating in the faces of the half-frozen fishermen at their oars, extinguishing the torches, and in a few moments soaking the men with chill wet.
And only half the troops were as yet across.
Dawn had been the time arranged for the concerted movement against the enemy, but Washington began to abandon all hope of a night surprise, so fierce and persistent was the storm and so tedious the passage of the river.
He himself had to keep his horse moving to and fro up and down the muddy bank that was fast becoming frozen, for his cloak hung wet upon him, the sleet was dashed into his face, his hair was drenched, his hat laden with ice.
At last the final boatload embarked and pushed off into the blackness, and Washington galloped down to the trampled landing place and, bidding Benedict Arnold hold up his lantern, drew out his watch.
It was nearly four o'clock.
"Eight miles to Trenton," he said: "with a halt for food we should be there by seven."
No further word was spoken; a fishing skiff struggled to the shore; the general and his officers dismounted and stepped on board, leading their horses, and in silence the fishers of Marblehead strained at their oars close to the unseen waters, and the boat ground and pushed through the floating ice. Sleet and wind were in their faces, and the tide still ran strong against them, but the lights that showed the waiting army were at last gained, and Washington stepped on land on the Jersey shore the moment the boat was beached.
He at once mounted and sent off messengers to ascertain if the expeditions were safely across and prepared to start in conjunction with his.
It was now well past four; the crossing of the Delaware having taken nine hours, and all the troops having during that time been exposed to pitiless cold, and since then to an increasing storm of sleet and hail.
But neither horse nor man nor gun had been lost, and Washington's eyes gleamed as he thought of the Hessians at Trenton, only eight miles away. As he rode in and out of the troops, reviewing as best he could by the spluttering torches and swinging lanterns their condition and spirit, his messengers returned. Not a man of either of the other expeditions had succeeded in crossing the river; there was no trace nor sign of them, and it was evident that the ice and the foul weather had completely checkmated them.
The general took the news in silence, but his eyes narrowed and his nostrils distended.
He was now with only a third of his army at his command, and it was hopelessly late for a night attack or surprise.
But to give up was impossible; to the far-seeing mind of the general even hesitation spelled disaster; in a few moments he had rearranged his plans, and decided on them unalterably. He would himself fall on the Hessians at Trenton and make a retreat back into camp before the other divisions of the British were roused. He at once gave orders to march, and the men, exhausted as they were, responded immediately.
Wrapping their muskets round with their blankets to protect them from the wet, pulling their hats down and turning their collars up, the troops plunged forward through the deep mud, in the face of the bitter storm, following the bits of white paper that showed in the hate of their officers. They were divided into two columns; one following the river, the other the upper road that ran above.
About six o'clock, when no more than four miles had been covered, Washington ordered a halt for breakfast. It was still completely dark, and the storm had in no way abated; the general did not dismount during this interval, nor consult with his officers; the two hours' ride through the dark and the wet had not in any way brought reflections that altered his plan. Nor did he show any signs of disappointment or vexation, though as he rode in and out of the lines he saw man after man, too exhausted to get the food from his knapsack, lying on the frozen ground, unconscious with fatigue, and horse after horse that had stumbled in the traces of the gun carriages and could not rise again.
It seemed as if the utmost had been got out of all of them; yet somehow, when the order came, the little army staggered to its feet; the sleeping men were roused and dragged up by their companions; the horses were encouraged to the last effort, the officers went round covering up the ammunition from the wet, the men shouldered their blanket-wrapped rifles, and again they stumbled forward toward Trenton, the frozen ground breaking beneath their feet and the mingled hail and snow in their faces.
Their progress was slow, but their plodding steps were steady, and when the miserable dawn had begun to stain the black heavens they were within sight of Trenton town, and by eight o'clock in the morning upon the British outposts.
The Hessians were all soundly sleeping in their quarters after Christmas festivities that had lasted well into the night. Colonel Ball, their commander, had been drinking and gambling with his officers until four in the morning, and now lay asleep across the settee in the dining-room of the house in the main street of Trenton that he had made his headquarters. The shutters were closed, the curtains drawn, and a huge fire blazed on the hearth and sent a red light up the dark panelling of the room and across the figure of the officer in his gay uniform, who slept with his head turned towards the wall.
There was a sound of hurrying feet, shouted sentences, opening and closing doors, but still Colonel Rail did not move; nor did he even rouse when his own door was violently opened and a young officer entered, shouting:
"Colonel Rail! Colonel Rail! In the name of the King, wake up, Colonel Rail!"
Receiving no response from his commander, the young Hessian dashed to the window, unlatched the shutters and opened the casements, letting in a blast of the bitter morning air. Then returning to the still figure on the settee, he shook him by the shoulders.
The colonel opened his eyes, and would have fallen back if the other had not yelled in his ear:
"The Americans are upon us!"
The commander straightened.
"The outposts," gasped the young man, "were surprised, and are flying into the town pursued by Washington's men."
"It is not possible," stammered Colonel Rail, "Washington is on the other side of the Delaware."
"Mein Gott, colonel, he is in the streets of Trenton!"
The other put his hand to his head and gazed round him in a stupid way.
"That letter," he murmured; he looked at the young man.
Last night a frantic Loyalist living near the Delaware had ridden to Trenton and entreated to see the commander; upon meeting with a refusal, he had written a note that he had said contained a Warning, and sent it in; that note lay unopened in Colonel Ball's pocket now.
For a moment fear shook him; then his natural bold confidence returned; he reached out for his sword, buckled it on, and dismissed the young officer with orders to send a company to drive back the Americans while be prepared to arrange the rest of the army in order of battle.
But he had scarcely given this order, and was still fumbling in his pocket for the letter of last night, when another officer entered with the news that the greater part of Trenton had already been seized by the vanguard of the American army; and even as he spoke the boom of Hamilton's guns could be heard thundering without. Colonel Ball took his fingers from the pocket where they were fumbling for the letter.
"Washington has got the town?" he cried.
"Sir, the Americans are firing from the houses, and our men flying from the house, and our men flying this way and that!"
Colonel Ball tugged his sword from his scabbard and, whirling it in his hand, ran out into the grey wet streets of Trenton.
The air was already full of the smoke of Knox and Hamilton's hastily uncovered guns that had been swiftly dragged into a position that commanded the whole town; the houses had been seized and entered by the Americans, who were picking off from windows and doors all who appeared in the streets where the Hessian officers were endeavouring to form their startled men into line of battle.
Cursing and shouting for his horse, Colonel Ball ran up the main street, followed by some of his officers, only to find himself in a net and completely surrounded by the enemy, who were advancing down every ingress to the town.
Taken by utter surprise as they were, however, the Hessians, half dressed, half asleep, and wholly bewildered, made at first a stand.
Colonel Rail rushed to the head of his own regiment and, with his coat unbuttoned and his hair streaming, led them against the encircling advance of the Americans.
Two wild volleys were fired by the Hessians, but in vain; their own ranks were thinned every second by the incessant fire of rifle and cannon, and presently broke and fled in a desperate uproar of confusion and terror.
One company succeeded in escaping across Assanpink Creek bridge. Washington, perceiving this, flung his troops right round the town, and when the next body of Hessians rushed forward they found their way blocked and themselves faced by a hideous fire.
At this moment Colonel Rail, running frantically before his huddled troops, fell, shot through the head, at the feet of General Washington, as he rode up on his horse.
And with that, Trenton fight was over.
The men cast their guns down, and the officers raised their hats aloft on their swords.
So a thousand of them were taken prisoners and many guns and horses.
Leaving a garrison in Trenton, General Washington swept back across the Delaware before the other British regiments were aware of the disaster that had overtaken them.
The Retreat from Prague.
THE War of the Austrian Succession, caused by the disputed rights of Marie Teresa (1717—1780) and Charles, Elector of Bavaria, to the thrones of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, distracted half Europe from 1740 to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.
The retreat from Prague was only one of many disasters that overtook the French in their attempt to support the Elector of Bavaria.
"Princes are privileged
To kill, and
numbers sanctify the crime."
—Beilby Porteous.
THE French quitted Prague on the evening of 16th December, leaving only a small garrison in the Hradcany; by the 18th the vanguard had reached Purgitz at the crossing of the rivers, and then the snow, that had paused for two days, commenced towards evening and the cold began to increase almost beyond human endurance.
At first their retreat had been hurried by Austrian guns and charges of the Hungarian Pandours, but the enemy did not follow them far. The cannon was no longer in their ears; for twenty-four hours they marched through the silence of a barren, deserted country.
The road was now so impassable, the darkness so impenetrable, the storm so severe, the troops so exhausted, that M. de Belleisle ordered a halt, though all they had for camping-ground was a ragged ravine, a strip of valley by the river, and, for the generals, a few broken houses in the devastated village of Purgitz.
The officers of the régiment du roi received orders to halt as they were painfully making their way through the steep mountain paths; they shrugged and laughed and proceeded without comment to make their camp.
It was impossible to put up the tents, both by reason of the heavy storm of snow and the rocky ground; the best they could do was to fix some of the canvas over the piled gun carriages and baggage wagons and so get men and horses into some kind of shelter.
No food was sent them, and it was too dark for any search to be made. It was impossible to find a spot dry enough to light a fire on. The men huddled together under the rocks and rested with their heads on their saddles within the feeble protection of the guns and carts.
The officers sat beneath a projecting point of rock, over which a canvas had been nastily dragged, and muffled themselves in their cloaks and every scrap of clothing they could find; behind them their horses were fastened, patient and silent.
"I am sorry," said M. de Vauvenargues, "that there are so many women and feeble folk with us."
"Another of M. de Belleisle's blunders," answered the Colonel calmly. "He should have forced them to remain in Prague."
"There never was a Protestant," remarked Lieutenant d'Espagnac, "who would remain in Prague at the mercy of the Hungarians."
The other officers were silent; it seemed to them vexatious that this already difficult retreat should be further hampered by the presence of some hundred refugees—men, women, and children, French travellers, foreign inhabitants of Prague, Bavarians who wished to return to their own country, Hussites who were afraid of being massacred by the Pandours.
M. de Vauvenargues had it particularly in his mind; he had seen more than one dead child on the route since they left Prague. Eger was still many leagues off and both the weather and road increasing in severity and difficulty.
"I wonder if Belleisle knew what he was doing," he remarked thoughtfully.
M. d'Espagnac laughed; his soaring spirits were not in the least cast down. He had just managed, with considerable difficulty, to light a lantern, which he hung from a dry point of rock. Its sickly ray illuminated the group and showed features a little white and pinched above the close wrapped cloaks. There was no trace of fatigue on his ardent countenance; he leant back against the cold grey rock under the lantern and began to hum an aria of Gluck's that had been fashionable when he last saw Paris.
"There will be no moving till dawn," said M. de Biron with an air of disgust. The snow was beginning to invade their temporary shelter.
"There must be food—many of our men have not eaten since they started. How many men does M. de Belleisle hope to get to Eger in this manner?"
There was no answer: the blast of heavy snow chilled speech. Some faint distant shouting and cries were heard, the neighing of a horse, the rumble of a cart, then silence.
Georges d'Espagnac continued his song; he seemed in a happy dream. Presently he fell asleep, resting his head against the shoulder of the other lieutenant. M. de Biron and the second captain either slept also or made a good feint of it. The Marquis arose and took the lantern from the wall; it was unbearable to him to sit there in the darkness, amid this silent company, while there was so much to do outside. The thought of his hungry men pricked him. The food wagons must have overlooked them. It was surely possible to find some member of the commissariat department. The army could not have reached already such a pitch of confusion.
He stepped softly from under the canvas. To his great relief he found that the snow had almost ceased, but the air was glacial. As he paused, endeavouring to see his way by means of the poor rays of the lantern, his horse gave a low whinny after him. The Marquis felt another pang—the poor brutes must be hungry too. He began to descend the rocky path; he was cold even through his heavy fur mantle, and his hands were stiff despite his fur gloves. The path was wet and slippery, half frozen already, though the snow had only lain a moment.
In every crevice and hole in the rocks the soldiers were lying or sitting; many of them were wrapped in the tent canvases and horses' blankets; here and there was a dead mule with a man lying close for warmth, or a wounded trooper dying helplessly in his stiffening blood. The Marquis saw these sights intermittently and imperfectly by the wavering light of his lantern. He set his teeth; after nine years' service he was still sensitive to sights of horror.
When he reached the level ground by the river that was the principal camping ground, he stopped bewildered amidst utter confusion.
There were neither tents, nor sentries, nor outposts, merely thousands of men, lying abandoned to cold and hunger, amidst useless wagons of furniture; and as the Marquis moved slowly across the field he saw no other sight than this.
What might lie beyond the range of his lantern he could not tell, but all he could see seemed abandoned to despair.
A man leading a mule knocked up against him; he also held a feeble lantern; his dress and the chests the mule carried showed him to be a surgeon.
"This is a pitiful sight, Monsieur," he said. "Most of the wagons were lost in that storm yesterday, and how am I to work with nothing?"
"Is there no food?" asked the Marquis.
"In Purgitz, yes—but who is to distribute it on such a night?"
"We are like to have worse nights. Is M. de Belleisle in Purgitz P"
"And some regiments. They are in luck, Monsieur."
M. de Vauvenargues stood thoughtfully, and the surgeon passed on. Two officers rode up on horseback, attended by a soldier with a torch; the Marquis accosted them.
"Messieurs, I am Vauvenargues of the régiment du roi," he said. "We are encamped up the ravine and there is no provision for men or horses—"
By the light of the torch he recognised in the foremost officer M. de Broglie.
"Maréchal," he added, "I do not know how many will be alive by the morning."
"M. de Vauvenargues!" exclaimed the General, with a faint smile. "I am helpless—absolutely helpless. The food wagons have not come up—some, I believe, are lost."
The Marquis looked at him keenly; M. de Broglie was usually so careless in manner that the young officer suspected he was, in truth, deeply troubled.
"Very well, Monsieur," he answered. "I suppose we may look for some relief with the dawn?"
"I think the orders will be to march at daybreak," answered De Broglie. He touched his beaver and rode on, first adding gravely, "Pray God it does not snow again."
The Marquis remaining holding the lantern and looking at the huddled shape of men and horses. A vast pity for the waste of war gripped his heart; none of these men complained, the horses dropped silently, the very mules died patiently—and what was the use of it? The war was wanton, unprovoked, and, so far, a failure; it had nothing heroic in its object, which was principally to satisfy the ambitious vanity of M. de Belleisle and the vague schemes of poor old well-meaning Cardinal Fleury who had never seen a battle-field in his life.
The end seemed so inadequate to the sacrifice asked. The Marquis had seen the soldiers suffer and die in Prague, but this seemed a sheer devastation. It was impossible to stand still long in that cold; it was obvious that nothing could be done till the dawn. He pulled out his watch, but it had stopped.
Slowly he moved through the camp. Now the snow had ceased, several pitiful little fixes were springing up in sheltered spots; and the men were moving about in their heavy wraps, and the surgeons coming in and out the groups of wounded and sick.
A dog howled; there was not a star visible. A Hussite pastor came within range of the Marquis's lantern; he was carrying a limp child, and murmuring, in the strange Bohemian, what seemed a prayer.
Soon the flickering light fell on a Catholic priest kneeling beside a dying man. He too prayed, but the familiar Latin supplications were as outside the Marquis's sympathy as the Hussite's appeal; he was tolerant to both, but his thoughts just touched them, no more. A strange sadness came over him, he felt disdainful of humanity that could be so weak, so cruel, so patient.
His lantern had evidently been near empty of oil, for it began to flicker and flare, and finally sank out.
He put it from him and felt his way over a pile of rocks that rose up suddenly.
Nothing could be done till the dawn; it was doubtful even if he could find his way back to his own regiment. He seated himself on the rock, wrapped his cloak tightly about him, and waited.
He thought that he must be in some kind of shelter, for he did not feel the wind, and here the cold was certainly less severe.
His sombre mood did not long endure; he ceased to see the darkness filled with weary, dispirited, wounded men; he thought of the aspirations of these poor tired soldiers.
Obedience, courage, endurance were rich in the hearts of the feeblest of these sons of France.
He had not eaten since early the previous day; he wondered if he was beginning to grow lightheaded, as he had done once before in Italy when he had been without food and several hours in the sun.
A drowsiness overcame him; his head sank, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke it was with a sense of physical pain and the sensation that light was falling about him; his clearing senses told him that this was the dawn, and that he was giddy. He sat up, to find himself in a natural alcove of rock overgrown with a grey dry moss frozen and glittering; a jutting point partially shut off his vision, but he could see enough of dead men and horses and painfully moving troops in the strip of ravine immediately below him. He unfolded his cloak from his stiff limbs, and rose to his feet.
The cold clouds had closed over the feeble sun and the wind blew more icy; all the sounds of a moving camp came with a sharp clearness through the pure, glacial air.
Then the snow began; suddenly a few flakes, then a dense storm that blended heaven and earth in one whirl of white and cold.
The snow fell without a break for three days; on the morning of the fourth it ceased a little, and by the time M. de Belleisle had reached Chiesch, stopped.
The army had now been a week on the road, and the Maréchal hoped by a forced march to reach Eger, on the borders of Bavaria, with those who remained of the thirty thousand men who had marched out of Prague.
The famous régiment du roi, reduced to half their number, had fallen out of the vanguard, and stumbled along as best they might through the rocky ravines and high mounting roads. There was no longer any order in the army; the retreat had been one horror of death; men fell every moment, and were quickly buried in the silent snow; the wretched refugees died by the hundred. The waste of life was appalling. M de Vauvenargues felt sick from the constant spectacle of this helpless agony; men dropped to right and left of him, he passed them at every step on the route. Two of his fellow-officers had died the same night; it was like a nightmare to the Marquis to have to leave them, carrion in the snow; and now the strength of young Georges d'Espagnac began to fail; both had long ago lost their horses; M. de Biron himself was walking; there was indeed scarcely an animal left in the army; gun carriages and wagons had been abandoned all along the route as the mules died.
As the sombre evening obscured the awful eights along the line of march, the thing that the Marquis had been dreading for the last two days happened: Georges d'Espagnac lurched and fell insensible by his side.
M. de Biron looked over his shoulder.
"Poor fellow," he murmured; then to the Marquis, "It is death to stop; you can do no good. Come on."
But M. de Vauvenargues shook his head and drew the wasted young figure out of the ghastly march.
A wagon with a broken wheel rested close by with two dead mules still in the traces and the corpse of a woman flung across them, just as she had crawled out of the way. The Marquis wondered vaguely why they should have dragged this woman so far; the covering at the back was open, and the heavy canvas flaps rose and fell sluggishly in the bitter wind, while from the interior had fallen a silver dessert service that glittered curiously on the thick snow and some rolls of straw-coloured silk that the Marquis had once seen hanging on the walls of M. de Belleisle's room in the Hradcany Castle.
He winced at the bitter irony of it; yet the rolls of silk, when shaken out, were some covering for the young lieutenant, and the wagon was some protection from the wind.
Beyond this he could do nothing; he knelt and took D'Espagnac's head on his knee for greater warmth, and waited.
The Marquis felt his heart, and it was beating wearily.
There was no hope he knew; at any moment the snow might begin again, and this life must go out as the other lives were going out, unnoticed, unsweetened by any care, regret, or tenderness.
But it never occurred to M. de Vauvenargues to leave him, though he knew that his own best, perhaps his only chance of life lay in pressing on.
The darkness fell slowly and with a certain dreadful heaviness; the sound of the distant howls of wolves completed the speechless horror of the-Marquis's mood.
Still the army was trailing past him, bent supporting each other, a few generals still on horseback, a few wounded and women in sledges or carts.
From an officer in the Black Musketeers he begged a little wine that brought a tinge of colour into D'Espagnac's cheeks and proved how pitifully easy it would have been to save him by warmth and care.
And still the army went past like a procession in a dream of hell, and every moment it became darker.
Later, the Marquis held a feather before D'Espagnac's lips and slipped his hand inside the fine shirt.
He discovered that he was dead.
It was horrible and incredible to the Marquis in those first minutes; why should he, never robust, and Georges d'Espagnac, so young, strong, and full of vitality, die as easily as the ailing child.
He unfastened the lantern from the wagon and followed in the blood-stained track of the army towards Eger.
IN the middle of the fourteenth century Southern Italy was convulsed with intensive warfare that centred round the figure of Giovanna of Naples, suspected of murdering her husband and cousin, Andreas of Hungary and Ludovic of Hungary his avenger. The fights between the rival factions surged up and down the very streets of Naples.
"Of all hearts the man-heart is the
most.
To others and himself, the cruellest foe."
—Richard Baxter.
THE great engines of war, dragged by straining men and horses, the companies of heavy cavalry, blocked the streets about the Castel del Nuovo. The drawbridge was up, and above the high outer wall the gleam of the armed warders and the fine line of their spears might be seen as they moved to and fro. At the side rose the high bastions that enclosed the palace gardens, and over them waved the poplar trees, reflected in the moat below.
All was crowned by the standard of Anjou, floating against the cloudless blue from the highest watch-tower in a flutter of gold and white.
Ludovic of Hungary, pressing forward, raised his visor and eagerly scanned the enemy's ramparts. He had not brought his men as far as this unopposed; the populace had striven, with the rude weapons of a mob, to drive them back, and some of the nobles had made sorties upon them as they passed; but, overwhelmingly strong in numbers and arms, the Hungarians had fought their way to the heart of the city with little loss.
Ludovic gazed at the castle where he had spent those mon the of pleasant idleness, Giovanna's fool and Maria's scorn, the suitor of a tirewoman and the dupe of a court of knaves. His blood was up; he vowed to bring it level with the ground, stone by stone, and hang Luigi of Taranto over the ruins.
There was nothing now to become Naples and his wrath—he would lay it waste from end to end, sparing none. That great, mysterious darkness which the astrologers had declared a portent of disaster had passed from his mind; with the show of battle round him, it was not possible for him to be anything but elated. Splendid with weapons and horse, his swift victories over the Turks had won him the name of "The Triumphant" even in his early youth. The thought of those days came to him now, and nothing was good in his sight but the clangour of arms and the unfaltering decision of the sword.
With the company of Knights, he rode up to the great gates that guarded the moat, and, turning in his saddle, looked at his host gathered in the Grand Palazzo.
As some relief from the insupportable heat of the sun on the plate armour, the gentlemen wore surcoats, mantles, and labriquins of cloth, silk, and even fur; while their followers, the footmen, carried on their breasts the badge of their masters. So the whole army was a mass of colour like a vast mosaic, upon which the sun glittered from a cloudless sky, snowing crests, banners, the smooth shapes of horses, white, brown, and black, between their studded harness, the rude carriages and monstrous shapes of the catapults and mortars, the bright tufts of the arrow-heads in their quivers on the backs of the bowmen; a bewildering array of scarlet and silver, embroidery and feathers, learnt by Hungary from the East, and at once fierce and splendid.
The drawbridge gates were unguarded, and the castle made no sign when the Hungarian cavalry took them at a gallop, and the engineers, under the shouted commands of the King, began to span the moat with scaling ladders, while some of the horsemen urged their steeds to swim the dark water.
Without any opposition the ladders Were grappled to the masonry of the bastions and the footmen swarmed across, a chain of eager figures. Then from the quiet ramparts descended a stream of living fire, boiling water and hot stones, while from every loophole flew an arrow.
Men and ladders fell into the moat; shrieks and groans arose from the invaders, and from the warders on the battlements cries of triumph. A great movement swept through the gathered army; the mortars, belching flame, were turned full on the stubborn walls; fresh ladders were thrown across; regardless of those writhing in the water, others flung themselves against the castle, hurling fuses of gunpowder into the interstices of the stone. Arrows and missiles came in a second volley; the moat began to be full of struggling men and horses; they could not get the battering-rams near enough to use them. Konrad of Kottif yelled with rage to see his men hurled like flies off the walls; among the seething confusion, he next to the King was noticeable, spurring his horse to and fro.
Then there arose a great shout from the rear; a party of horsemen, bearing the lilies of Anjou as their device, had rushed up one of the narrow streets and were attacking the Hungarians.
At that the castle was abandoned, and Ludovic flung himself on the new enemy; they were too near to use the arrows, so it became a hand-to-hand fight between the knights and the lancers.
The leader of the Italians, calling on "Santa Maria," came at Ludovic and his band of knights; spears shivered against the uplifted shields, crests were lopped off, mantles and surtouts rent; more than one man fell swooning from his horse, vanquished by the weight of his armour and the heat beating on his helm.
Many, too, were unhorsed in attempting to wheel round their cumbersome chargers to meet the unlooked-for attack, and Hungarians trampled their fellows down as they fell on the enemy.
From the ramparts the garrison of the castle watched, standing by the fires where water and stones were heated in readiness for the next attack. For an hour the lilies strove with the eagles, and neither side gave way, though the dead became numerous and the living faint.
It was now full noon and the heat intolerable. Ludovic struggled in a great press of knights, and the leader of the Italians strove to get at him through the enclosing spears.
Henryk of Belgrade dropped from his horse with a spear thrust between the rivets of his armour; a companion of the King, unlacing his helmet for air, had his head swept off at the throat and his blood scattered over Ludovic's white horse.
TEe King ground his teeth and swung up his sword.
"At the King!" shouted the Italian to his men, and he pointed his gold gauntlet to Ludovic, conspicuous by the crown studded with gems on his helmet and the peacock feathers rising high above it.
The Hungarians again rallied, again fell back, yet stubbornly, and Ludovic's clear voice, strained by a very fury of fighting, urged them on.
Then there was a quick sound of grinding chains, the new thunder of hoofs, a fresh battle-cry.
"St Luigi for Anjou!"
And Luigi of Taranto, at the head of his men, made a rally over the lowered drawbridge into the heart of the melee.
Wild cries of joy rose from the Italians; the Hungarians, hemmed in on each side, turned at bay, intrepid, without a sound.
Like the huge waves, foaming with the glitter of metal, they met, retreated with the sheer shock of the encounter, met again and grappled.
At last Ludovic found himself face to face with the knight who had brought up the Italians. He did not know who he was: his inlaid armour was dented, his crest gone, his surtout torn to rags. Through the slit of his helmet his eyes flashed wrath, and Ludovic struck at him, hating him exceedingly. The weapon caught the shield, and sparks flew; the King's horse backed. The other swung his battle-axe; Ludovic caught it on his vambrance and winced with pain. His opponent shouted, came at him with the sword and cut the silken eagles from his breast; the King, transported with rage, brought down his weapon on the other's helm.
The knight swayed for a moment, then gave a great groan; Ludovic, rising in his stirrups, felled him with his battle-axe.
"Who are you?" he shouted, and, leaning forward, he caught the falling man by his throat and forced up his visor.
The smooth features, stained and pallid now, of Carlo di Durazzo were revealed.
"You!" cried Ludovic. "You bought your last follies dear!"
And with that he gave him the coup de grace with his studded mace and sent him with a split head backwards into the moat, where the gold armour glittered for a moment in the dark water, before the waves, thick with blood, closed over what had been Carlo di Durazzo, Duke of Duras, Prince of the blood of Anjou, cousin to the Queen, light cavalier, shallow idler, and, for a week, husband of Maria d'Anjou, and a courageous knight, showing something of the Charles Martel blood in him, for all his softness.
Ludovic, swinging the wet mace, galloped among his men.
"The Duke of Duras is dead!" he shouted. "Up, Hungary! serve his cousin of Taranto so!"
A groan rose from the Italians. Some had seen the Duke slain, and rushed to Louis of Taranto with the news; and even that Prince could not suppress a sound of wrath and sorrow. More than a young knight had fallen; the man who held Maria's lands had committed his greatest folly; he had died heirless, leaving confusion.
The personal followers of Carlo now fell back disheartened, nor could the Prince of Taranto urge them on. The Hungarians, seeing their advantage, pressed it; the Italians began to yield. Luigi, fearful for the castle, tried to make for the drawbridge, which he had commanded to be left down in case of retreat; but the enemy intercepted him with shouts of "Seize the bridge!"
A wild struggle ensued on the edge of the moat; the few men left in the castle and the women rushed on to the ramparts and hurled down stones and steaming water; but their missives fell on friends as well as enemies, and Luigi of Taranto, his arm half broken by a paving stone flung by one of his own masons, shouted to them to desist. Above the sounds of battle his voice was not heard, and arrows, fire, and boiling water continued to fall on the struggling mass below.
The Prince of Taranto, holding back his curses to save his breath, but white with passion to think that he had ever left the castle, gripping his reins in his maimed right arm and wielding his sword with his left, strove, as valiantly as a man may, to hold the bridge against the rush of the Hungarians.
But Ludovic, exalted by the death of Carlo and the breaking of his ranks which followed, cheered on his men to gigantic exertions. Horse and foot went down before the Hungarian cavalry; the bowmen slipped in the blood of the knights; many were flung backwards into the moat; one company of lancers broke and fled.
Luigi of Taranto shouted to those within the castle to raise the drawbridge; but they did not understand, nor did it occur to them to cut off the sole retreat of the Italians. But Luigi was thinking of the Queen and the treasure; if he could save them, he would gladly lose any man he possessed. Now the spirit of fury, of revenge, rose higher in the ranks of Hungary; Konrad of Kottif had whispered "Andreas!" and the name shuddered from knight to knight.
Imprecations on the witch, the devil, who had slain their Prince, mingled with their war cries: "Andreas! Andreas!"
And Luigi of Taranto was beaten back. Konrad of Kottif struck his horse down; on foot among the slain, he tried to rally his men, shouting out that the Queen was within, unprotected. But her name had no power to stir them; one even fled, saying, "I fight no more for the devil!"
With thunderous yells of triumph, the Hungarians swept up to the drawbridge. The King, spurring the white horse over the dead, was galloping through, when the Prince of Taranto, still surrounded by a circle of faithful swords, leapt forward and seized the blood-stained bridle.
"Not while I live!" he said.
Ludovic looked down at him.
"Ah, cousin!" he said—his visor was up, and his hazel eyes danced evilly—"you play the losing game!"
But Luigi of Taranto, with all his great strength, was holding back the horse; he began to speak, when Konrad of Kottif struck at him with his battle-axe. A shriek rose from both Italian and Hungarian as the Prince of Taranto fell back fainting among his little knot of men, and the white charger plunged across the drawbridge, while a great wail rose from the women on the ramparts when they saw the peacock plumes glitter under the archway of the courtyard.
The mere handful who opposed them were struck down at once in their furious onslaught. In the courtyard the knights flung themselves from their horses and came running into the palace, sword in hand; the desperate last bow-shots wounded a few but could not stop them. The pages and grooms in the outer chambers were quickly overcome; headlong, with Ludovic before them, they rushed into the banqueting-hall.
And there they paused and ceased from their shouting for the Queen.
For she stood under the dais at the far wall, facing them.
Her hands were out against the woodwork either side of her, her head raised so that they could clearly see the hollow lines of her cheeks and the sweep of her long throat. Her ermine cote-hardie was all unbuttoned over the yellow silk as if she had stifled in the heat or torn it in fright; her lips were strained, her eyes shadowed underneath. But she looked at them dauntlessly, and they saw she had a great sword fastened to her side.
"Ah!" she said, "Hungary! Ludovic of Hungary! Come ye this time in love too?"
The light flickered down moving swords.
Ludovic made a step forward. "Make her prisoner," he said. Then he reeled back. "I am sick from the sun."
[These foregoing extracts have been taken from the following of Miss Bowen's works published by Messrs Methuen & Co., 36 Essex St, Strand, London, W.C., at 7s. 6d. net: "I Will Maintain," "Mr Washington," "The Governor of England," "Kings-at-Arms," "The Quest of Glory," "A Knight of Spain," "Defender of the Faith," "God and the King," "Prince and Heretic"]
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