Class J d- I Book,^,^ 13 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT III! VCISE KNOIVLEI L1BRJRT HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL TIME TO THE YEAR i The Concise Knowledge Library. A series of volumes on great subjects, containing in an abridged form a wealth of exact information which can be thoroughly relied upon by the student, and yet of such a popular character as to meet the needs of the general reader. The wide range of subjects covered insures a very complete and reliable reference library especially valu- able for school and home use. Each, small 8vo, half leather, $2.00. The History of the World, from the Earliest Historical Time to the Year 1898. By Edgar Sanderson, M. A., some- time Scholar of Clare College. Cambridge, author of " A His- tory of the British Empire," " The British Empire in the Nine- teenth Century," " Outlines of the World's History," etc. The thoroughness and compactness of this well-digested and comprehensive work render it invaluable as a convenient book of reference. The Ameiican edition has brought the history of our own country down to the close of the war with Spain. The Historical Reference = Book. Comprising a Chrono- logical Table of Universal History, a Chronological Dictionary of Universal History, a Biographical Dictionary. With Geo- graphical Notes. For the use of Students, Teachers, and Readers. By Louis Heilprin. Fifth edition, revised to 1898. "Quite the most compact, convenient, accurate, and authoritative work of the kind in the language. It is a happy combination of history, biography, and geography, and should find a place in eve ry family library, as well as at the elbow of every scholar and writer. . . . The typography remains ideally good for such a manual."— New York Evening Post. Astronomy. By Agnes M. Clerke, A. Fowler, A. R. C. S., and J. Ellard Gore, M. R. I. A. " This is an excellent work, which is not only of a high standard throughout, but remarkably free from casual slips. T he illustrations which accompany the present volume are fully up to date in their standard of excellence; and we may confidently predict for 'The Concise Knowledge Astronomy' a long career of usefulness and popularity. " — London Athenaum. Natural History. By R. Lydekker, B. A., W. F. Kirby, F. L. S., B. B. Woodward, F. R. S., R. Kirkpatrick, R. I. Pocock, R. Bowdler Sharpe, LL. D., W. Garstang, M. A., F. A. Bather, F. G. S., and H. M. Bernard, M. A. " The book is scientific as well as popular, and is as complete and full in its descriptions of common animals as of those tha* are less known. It is a work which can heartily be commended either for the library or for the book-shelf of the student. It is the handiest compilation of zoological science that has come before the reading public in a long while." — Brooklyn Eagle. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. I I II O >NCIS1 KM iwi.l- DGE LIBR \KV HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE I ARLIEST HISTORICAL TIM] TO THE YEAR 1898 BY I DG \K SANDERS( >N. M. A. 1 1 . HOB "l ! THt UK II I SH KM Ilk I I\ 1 UK NINETEENTH CENTUEY, I III. WOl WITH M Ms M W N ( >RK I> \ I ' I • I . I . I ( >N \ND COMPANY KK l 19679 Copyright, 1898, Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. :u° CONTENTS. Sction I. VNCIENT HISTORY, •I THE BEGINNING OF HISTORICAL INFORMATION I<> THE . 01 fHE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE AD . •-3 Booft I. THE GRBA1 EMPIRES: EASTERN NATIONS. I Eci PI AND mi I '.vii I \n 3 II. Thai i i o-Bab Empiri i ill Thi Assyrian Empiri IV Thi Jr.' ... V. I HI I'll' VI. I in : VII. 'I in " d Pi rsi ■ . vm Thi Parthiai vi Contents Bool? II. THE WESTERN NATIONS: GREECE. CHAP. PAGES I. Introductory : The Aryan Immigration into Europe 69, 70 II. Greece. First Period : From the Dorian Migration to the Persian Wars (iico — 500 b.c.) . . . 70-87 III. Second Period : The Persian Wars, and Struggles AMONG THE GREEK STATES FOR SUPREMACY (50O — 338 B.C.) 88-IIO IV. Third Period: Gr.eco- Macedonian Age, down to Roman Conquest (338 — 146 b.c.) .... 110-117 V. The Greatness of Athens 1 17-122 ISoob III. ROME (? 753 B.C.— A.D. 476). I. Mythical Period of Kings to Beginning of Punic Wars (? 753 — 264 b.c.) 122-138 II. From the Beginning of the Punic Wars to the Conquest of Carthage and Greece (264 — 146 b.c.) 138-146 III. The Decline and Fall of the Republic (146 — 27 b.c.) 146-158 IV. Imperial Rome to Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c. — a.d. 476) 158-178 Section II. MEDIEVAL HISTORY, FROM END OF WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA (A.D. 476—1492). 1$0Q\\ I. FROM PARTITION OF WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE TO TREATY OF VERDUN (A.D. 476—843). I. Italy ; the Papacy ; the (Greek) Byzantine Empire ; Spain ; Frank Kingdoms ; Feudalism ; Britain and England . 179-203 Contents VII 111 K \ki mr GrI \i ; iiik MPIRE Booh II. TR1 .'■' VERDUN TO CRUSADE PER: (A.D 17ROPI \' N I 5T 215-230 I! 1 III! I' A !IK mi Byzanti Empire; ihk I wt Italian Republics BOOft III. THE CRUSADE PERIOD (A.D I. The I'i udai ism , 1 he Agi 01 ihk British '.' \ > . I f AMI I . SP UN; 1 111: III. G Italy 5 BOOft IV. D 1 v iii Contents CHAP. PAGES III. Southern Europe: Italy— the Papacy, Naples and Sicily, Venice, Genoa ; the Moors in Spain ; the Turks; Downfall of Greek (Eastern or Byzantine) Empire 337-362 IV. Medleval Civilisation: Rise of Towns; the Hansa League ; Decay of Feudalism ; Art ; Invention ; the Renaissance or Revival of Learning . . . 362-376 Section III. MODERN HISTORY. (A.D. 1492—1898.) Bool? I. THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA (1492— 1648). I. Discovery of America ; Conquest of Mexico ; Con- quest of Peru ; the Cape Route to India . . 377-389 II. Europe before the Reformation ..... 389-396 III. The Reformation ; Wars of Charles V. . . . 397-408 IV. The Reformation (continued) ; the Catholic Reaction 408-432 V. Spain and the Netherlands ; the Armada . . . 432-450 VI. The Thirty Years' War; the First Stuarts . . 450-461 VII. France; Southern and Eastern Europe . . . 461-474 Book II. PEACE OF WESTPHALIA TO FRENCH REVOLUTION (1648— 1789). I. The British Isles 474-482 II. The Wars of Louis XIV 482-498 Contents i\ III. Ci M R \l , N< tRl III RN, AND E \-i : Russia ; nu Si \ i n Yi vrs' War , Russia and Turkey; mi Par n "i Poi \m> . .: I\'. The Trans-Atlantic Problem: Greai Britain, I'k Spain 314523 \". France; Southern Europe; mi Pre-revolutionary ?■ VI. liu- American Revolutionary War .... 533 Booh III. .!/ THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE VGRESS OF VIENNA I Thi French Revolution u*d Napoi eai D 1 1 -: II AND ' . . . . II. I in N u War (ift .... 55 3 I II III. IV. VI VII VIII Boor I v. EUROPE FROM i- 1 HI ' ' I \\'< >K K ...... I MP1 RIAL 1 i I : i . . . . i | - x Contents Section IV. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY OF ASIA. CHAP. PAGES I. China and Japan 644-653 II. India 654-677 III. Persia, Arabia, Medieval and Modern; Siam . . 677-682 IV. Asiatic Possessions of Great Britain and other European Nations, apart from India, Burma, and Central Asia 682-6S6 Section V. AFRICA, MEDI/EVAL AND MODERN. I. Northern Africa 687-694 II. Soudan ; Abyssinia . 694-699 III. British and other European Possessions in Africa. 699-719 Section VI. AMERICA ; AUSTRALASIA. I. North America : British Possessions .... 720-727 II. United States (1783—1898) 7^7-747 III. Mexico; West Indies; Central and South America. 747-760 IV. Australasia ". 760-764 INDEX 765 A HISTORY OF THK WORLD. Section I. ANCIENT HISTORY, ••I Till KM. in. HISTORICAL INFORMATION I<> llll IWNPALL <»l Mil WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE, ( ? B.( . 476 A.I». ) IN I RODUCT< >RY. A HISTORY of th< lay well be prefaced bj some account by whon irld ia peopled. The human types or families; of mankind arc the 1 ■ . 1 11 M mgolian, and the Ethiopian. I I mainly r I rope and America; the Mongolians ilasia ; the 1 Ethiopians in Al members <>f the human round th re between them. >n and classification i families i I in the I rhich . the M 11 the ' the M ition is based upon ■ omp iri : which tl bin, the hair, the the tern; and ' ami mainly oval prisii 2 A History of the World provided with creeds founded on revelations, and having a priesthood of a mediatorial character, or else by the form of religion called Brahmanism. The Mongolians have a skin rough in texture and yellowish in hue ; hair dull black in colour, coarse and lank ; large cheek-bones, narrow, almond-shaped, rather oblique eyes, small nose, and features broad and flat ; and a sluggish, passive temperament, marked by much endurance, and mind fairly proficient in art and letters, but poor in science. Their religion is either polytheistic, or one in- volving spirit-worship (animism), and with a belief in visions and dreams, or else is Buddhistic. The Ethiopic races are blackish or quite black in colour, with a cool, velvety skin, having a distinct odour; they have jet-black, short, woolly or frizzly hair ; high cheek-bones, broad, flat nose, and thick lips. Their temperament is sensuous, cheerful, unintel- lectual, and fitful in its changes from gaiety to ferocity. They have no science, art, or literature worthy of the name. Their religion is non-theistic, but consists of nature-worship, with witchcraft and fetichism strongly marked. The Ethiopic races are found, firstly, in Africa, southwards from the Sahara ; the northern or Soudanese branch, down to about 5° north latitude, being negroes in the full sense, while the southern or Bantu family is composed of more or less mixed negro and negroid peoples. The Soudanese show, to a large extent, physical unity and linguistic diversity ; the Bantus are remarkable for linguistic unity and physical diversity. To the Soudanese group belong the Mandingans, Haussas, Yorubas, Fantis, Bagirmis, Masais, and many more ; the Bantus include the Zulu-Kaffirs, the Swahilis of the eastern coast, the Basutos, the Bechuanas, Barotses, Mashonas, and many more tribes of the Congo basin, the western coast, and South Africa. Secondly, an Oceanic division of the Ethiopics includes four branches : the Tasmanians, now extinct ; the Australian aborigines, least like the other negro or negroid peoples, and now nearly extinct; the Papuans of New Guinea and the Eastern Archi- pelago ; and the closely allied Melanesians of the New Hebrides, the Solomon Isles, Fiji, and New Caledonia. Both regions of the Ethiopic race contain dwarfish groups, Negritos or Negrillos (little negroes), such as the Akkas, Batwas, and Bushmen, in Africa, and the Simangs of Malacca and the Mincopies of the Andaman Isles. The Mongolians include, firstly, the Mongolo-Tartars of Central and Northern Asia, parts of Russia, the Balkan Peninsula, and Asia I he ( Race Min ■ ndly, the people of China proper, Japan, Indo-China, and Tibet ; thirdly, the hulk of the inhabitants of Finland, Lapland ce of Russia), the Ural Mountains, the middle course of the Vi N thern Siberia, and Hungary; fourthly, the M Jynesians of the '■ ninsula, the Sunda groups, the Philippines, Formosa, Mad a Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, and i I groups of islands in Eastern Polynesia; fifthly, the American Indians and the Eskim i The ' ins arc the inhabitants, in the main, of Southern and tern Asia, l rope, and North Africa, and of the whole rid and Australasia. This great, by far the greatest, historical of mankind, .is comprising the most highly civilised peoples, 1 achievements are the subjects of history in the . has three main branches. These are the Aryan or n ; the Semitic; and the Hamitic The Ar prise Hindus, Persians, Afghans, Beluchis, Armenian , I ;cnt and modern), Latin races (ancient), Teutons or Germans, thuanians, a rtians. The 3 - are represented historically by the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Assyrians, 1 .1 occupy in the modern ia, Syria, Arabia, much of North Africa, and The Hamites or Hamitic branch of t I ide many dwellers in North and East Africa, as the Berbers of te Tuaregs of the W - hara, th I 1 peoples of < lalla land and Somali land. resented, ire shall see, by th< the only gr< it Hai ti< nation. 1 properl) r tin- mountain-region whence the nan n their mission t>) fill, to and [•> civilise the Western world. I rms they and in their new region beca of tl 1 the Italians, the Greeks, the Teutoi . and at a later tun inant <>f the primitive • ie I [imalayas and the 1 Imdu . Mount 1 the Punjab, to become the dominant in t ; lley, while others became settlers in Persia, on the plateau whose modern name h Iran <>r Elan, a word akin Turn the earliest history based on records wi or painted on stone <>r brick, uc find cnt history, ethnogi , in two divisions. The first stern peoples known I lamitic) ; ins. Hel ■ enii ians, all Semitii II ndus perhaps the Phrygians, and and Persians, all Aryan : and the Parthians, . and Jap ' sian. In this order, taking the PI with the I the Hin rate later treatment, we deal with empires. The second division, that <>f the the Cell Italians), ire have seen, of Aryan ra< BOOK I. THE GREAT EMPIRES: EASTERN NATIONS. Chapter I. — The Egyptians. In the north-east of Africa, at a time so uncertain that the date for the first king, assigned by learned men, varies between 5700 and 2440 B.C., arose a wonderful Hamitic people, who became great in arts and arms, and left behind them architectural and sculptural monuments which have been objects of amazement and admira- tion to all beholders. A true conception of Ancient Egypt requires us to disregard the modern map, and to view the territory as comprising nothing but the narrow valley of the Nile, extending for about 700 miles from the First Cataract to a point below (north of) Cairo, and the outspreading Delta, fan- shaped, lying between that point and the sandy shores of the Mediterranean. The original seven mouths of the mighty river have now been reduced, by silting-up, to two, the Rosetta and Damietta outlets. The valley, a ravine cut out, in the course of ages, in the sandy and rocky soil, nowhere exceeds ten miles in breadth, and is sometimes narrowed to one, the basin being bounded to east and west by hills generally but 300 feet above sea-level. The whole area of this famous country was less than that of Belgium, and was, in its most flourishing days, at least as densely peopled, with a multitude of towns and villages, large and small, forming one great hive of human beings. The valley is known as Upper Egypt or the Said, the Delta as Lower Egypt. The country was, in a peculiar sense, the region of the Nile. That great, and till very recent days, mysterious river, was at once the creator of Lower Egypt by its deposit of mud, and the supporter of all life in Upper and Lower Egypt alike by its annual overflow. In the words of the Greek historian, Egypt was " the gift of the Nile," and so dependent were the inhabitants for sub- 6 THE ANCIENT The Egyptians 7 sistence on the due rise of the river, varying from an average of 36 feet in Upper Egypt to 25 at Cairo, that a " bad Nile," or deficient overflow, meant scarcity of food, and a great lack of increase, happily rare, brought absolute famine. The almost utter absence of rain, storm, fog, frost, and snow is the peculiarity of the climate, which has really but two seasons — spring from October into May, with the fruit-trees blossoming in February and crops reaped before the end of April, and summer for the rest of the year. The great lake, studded with islands in the form of towns and villages, into which the Nile spread itself out in its yearly time of flood, left behind, on its retirement, an expanse of rich soil which made the country the most productive in the world, bearing a triple harvest in the ancient days, a crop of grain followed by two crops of grasses or of vegetables fit for the food of mankind. The wheat of Egypt, the most valuable product, supplied all neighbouring peoples in time of dearth, and the city of Rome, in all her later time, was almost wholly fed from the same bountiful source. Doora (a species of millet) and flax were also largely grown. The monuments show us the pressing of the grapes of Egypt, and the date-palm was ever at hand with its delicious fruit. The country possessed great advan- tages, beyond its wonderful fertility, for the progress of a nation to prosperity and power. The river supplied a highway for rapid communication from end to end, and the situation for commerce was most favourable in the ready access northwards to the Medi- terranean, and eastwards, by the Red Sea, to the Indian Ocean or Eastern Sea. In timber the country was not rich, but serviceable woods were easily imported. The tall smooth reed called papyrus supplied long-lasting paper from its pith, and the lovely white water- lily, the lotus, was the favourite flower — an offering to the gods, an ornament worn by guests at the banquet, a model for architectural forms. Fish and water-fowl abounded, and the sport-loving Egyptians had "big game " in the hippopotamus and the crocodile. The early days of Egypt are shrouded in night. Whence came the Egyptian people of olden time ? We cannot say. The nation was, beyond all reasonable doubt, of Hamitic race, allied to the negro- peoples in physical and mental character, and in language, though it became, before the most flourishing period of its history, largely mingled with foreign elements from the Semitic peoples to the north-east, in Asia, from the Ethiopians to the south, and the Libyans to the west. Upon the whole, the Egyptians are remarkable for the independent, almost isolated, development of their civilisation. 8 A. History of the World The history of the country, in its long duration, its wars and con- quests, its 30 dynasties, as arranged in the 3rd century B.C. by the priest Manetho, in a work of which only chronological epitomes remain, can only be dealt with briefly in a few salient points. M'na or Menes, a king variously placed at about 5000, 4500, and 3900 years B.C., is represented as the monarch who instituted laws and divine worship, and founded the city of Memphis on a site close to that of the modern Cairo. Two empires are usually recognised, the old empire, lasting from the time of Menes till 1670 B.C., and the new empire, from that date till the Persian conquest. Monumental history begins with a king named Seneferu, who conquered the Sinaitic peninsula, for the sake of its mines of copper and of turquoise. An incised tablet in that region records his person and exploit. Other monuments of his time show the first-known hiero- glyphical writing, and there are pyramids belonging to the same early age. The monarchs named Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, respectively called Cheops, Cephrenes, and Mycerinus by Herodotus, were the builders of the three largest pyramids, those of Gizeh, near Cairo. The stupendous size of these works is well known. The largest, well styled by the great French archaeologist Lenormant, in respect of its mass, " the most prodigious of all human con- structions," had originally a base of which each side was 764 feet in length, and a perpendicular height of 480 feet. Its area was above 13 acres, and its materials would have built a city of 22,000 solid stone houses, with walls afoot thick, 20 feet of frontage, and 30 feet of depth from front to back, the walls being 30 feet in height from the bottom of the foundation, and the party-walls having one-third the material of the main walls. Modern builders fully accept the statement of Herodotus that the construction of the " Great Pyramid" employed the continuous labour of 100,000 men for 20 years. The basement stones are in many cases 30 feet long, 5 feet high, and 4 or 5 feet wide, and weigh each from 46 to 57 tons, and the interior contains an elaborate system of chambers, galleries, and ventilation-shafts. The work displays marvellous mechanical skill in the fact of immense blocks of granite being brought from Syene, 500 miles away, polished like glass, and fitted together so accurately that it is very difficult to detect the joints. About 2400 b.c. the seat of government of the old empire seems to have been removed to Thebes, about 400 miles up the Nile from Memphis. The place had long been a provincial city of note, with a special style of manners, speech, religion, and mode of I I . tiana f this pei I Is and i l this line (Manet I I from the 1 III, • item branch <>f the ri . into .1 natural d He th • rid without th I ham, with his ■ rule within the Delta, the valley of tl f ti in .ill I ■ i ■ I I io A History of the World and a period of conquest commenced under Thothmes I., grandson of Aahmes, and a monarch whose grandmother was of Ethiopian or Kushite race. He carried his arms far into Nubia on the south, extending the frontier to Tombos, beyond Dongola, and. through Syria as far as the Euphrates. Egypt thus entered on a new career, coming boldly to the front as a great nation aiming at wide dominion abroad. His daughter Hatasu reigned as queen along with her brother Thothmes II., and with sole power after his death, assuming male attire, with the style and title of " King," and playing a manly part in her regal office. Galleys for oars and sails were built on the western shore of the Red Sea, and commerce arose with southern Arabia for spices and incense. A glorious time for Egypt came in the reign of her brother and successor Thothmes III., a very able and ambitious man, who had been for many years under her control as his co-ruler. He marched into Syria, won a great victory over the Palestinian nations at Megiddo, and became master of the whole of Syria and part of Mesopotamia. For many years he was almost constantly engaged in expeditions into the East, making the monarchs of Babylon and Assyria tremble on their thrones. He also exacted from the Ethiopians to the south vast tributes of gold, ivory, ebony, and other valuables. He was both the greatest of Egyptian conquerors and one of the chief builders and patrons of art, erecting numerous temples and other monuments at the chief towns. One of his obelisks is now at Rome, another in Constantinople, a third in London, a fourth at New York. We may note that in this monarch's reign, in the part of the Delta called in Scripture " the land of Goshen," the children of Israel were rapidly growing in numbers and prosperity. His grandson, Amenhotep III. or Amenophis, is famous for the erection of the two seated colossi at Thebes, the greatest ever seen in the world, formed of a single solid block of sandstone, still more than 60 feet in height, after being subject for over 3,000 years to the corroding effect of weather. Nothing more striking can be conceived in art than these sublimely tranquil figures, sitting alone amid a verdant expanse, with islands of ruins in their rear. One of this Amenhotep's palace-temples was at Luxor, on the eastern bank of the Nile, a superb construction 800 feet long, and from 100 to 200 feet broad, with two obelisks, of which one is now in the centre of the Place de la Concorde at Paris. Early in the 14th century B.C. we find Egyptian forces of Seti I. or Sethos in garrison at Tyre and Aradus in Canaan, and The Egypti 1 1 •his time that new conflicts arose b rful people called Khit.i or 11 had capita d Karkhemish on the l had fought with the I under Thothmes III., and m pow< r. The n ms< ripti prived the Hittites i .«>r Rami ■ ■ 11, styled " th< the battles were fought ; but the I II"' : and the m.irr to a Hittite princess. From this lime forward Egyptian influence and dominion in south-western ! of the pyramids became again simply i her former boundarii I. and R II exhibit the culminating point of tian .irt, as regards the number, variety, and beauty of ai I he pillared hall of > feet in th and 1 70 in br< »j [64 m . n circumference. I he . and that, with the walls and pillars, was with .:nted hieroglyphics and 1. parable 1 by m whole buildii -I man's the ino^t 111 I of all those wondrous works, which were really ■ :.d pillared halls, embellished with par 1 with the u:: I finish. 1 wot, 1 in< hide < olossal il ■ mi the • tern] I . that th' I I in a reign I withal ' and ' 1 irly in In by ii • il <.f the < ountrj 12 A History of the World Memphis, and it was behind its walls that the Egyptian king, from lack of courage, remained secure, while his forces, after a desperate battle of six hours' duration, inflicted a severe defeat on the con- federates, and compelled them to quit the land. The monarch, on the monuments, took to himself the whole credit of the victory. Menephthah, the " Pharaoh " of the Exodus, was soon afterwards involved in the quarrel with Moses which led to results so direful for his people in the plagues and in the destruction of the pursuing force of chariots and horsemen in the waters of the Red Sea. Ramessu or Ramesses III. (i 269-1 244 B.C.), coming to the throne after a period of civil war and anarchy, had a reign made glorious by successes against the Bedouins on the north-east, the Libyans to the north-west, and a vast confederacy of foes from Italy and Greece who came against Egypt with naval and military forces by way of Syria and Palestine. Ramesses met them near the eastern mouths of the Nile, and defeated them utterly in several actions by land and water. He followed up this by an invasion of Syria, and then returned, after asserting his power, to build, to plant the country with trees, and to extend trade with Arabia and Ethiopia by way of the Red Sea. A long period of material, moral, and artistic decline followed under the Ramessids, ten sovereigns of the name of Ramesses. In the year 1091 a new dynasty came to the throne in the person of Her-hor, high-priest of Amnion at Thebes. The seat of government was placed at Tanis, in the Delta, whence they are called the " Tanite kings." During part of this period David and Solomon were reigning in Palestine and Syria, and we find the wise king's subjects trading with Egypt for chariots and horses, and hjmself marrying an Egyptian princess. The plan of Solomon's Temple, with the two pillars "Jachin" and "Boaz" in place of obelisks, was inspired by Egyptian models. In 961 an official of Semitic race gained royal power. This was Sheshonk, the " Shishak " of Scripture, who gave a friendly reception at his court to Jeroboam, afterwards king of Israel, and in his interest invaded Judah with a force of chariots, horse, and foot. His advance to Jerusalem was a mere triumphal march, and he retired after plunder- ing the Temple and the palace, leaving Rehoboam on the throne as a prince tributary to Egyptian monarchs. In another campaign he captured for Jeroboam certain Levitical cities hostile to the king of Israel, and was virtually master as far as Galilee, and from the Mediterranean to the Syrian Desert. There was, in later days, The Egyptians 13 further warfare between the Jews and Egypt. Asa, the grandson of Rehoboam, defeated an Egyptian army with great slaughter, and re-established the independence of Judah, putting an end for three centuries to Egyptian hopes of Asiatic dominion. Disintegration of the monarchy began, and Egypt was divided into a number ot principalities, with rival dynasties at Tanis, Memphis, Thebes, and other cities. Conquest by the Ethiopians followed in due course. In 730 B.C. Shabak or Sabaco subdued the country, and the Ethio- pians, adopting the old religion of the land and repairing the temples, were in possession for about 60 years. During this time Egyptian and Assyrian armies met in Philistia, and the defeat of the African forces, in 720 and in 701, left Egypt exposed to Assyrian attacks. In 672 Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria who had warred with Hezekiah, invaded Egypt with a great host, completely defeated the forces of Tehrak or Tirhaka, and ended the rule of the Ethiopian kings by overrunning the country from the Mediterranean to the First Cataract. The Assyrian conqueror divided the land into 20 districts, each with its governor and an Assyrian garrison in the capital town. Several attempts to re-establish Ethiopian power failed, and the end of olden Egypt seemed to have arrived. A revival, however, was to come. Psamatik or Psammitichus I., a man of Libyan race, ruler of one of the principalities, obtained from Gyges, king of Lydia, a strong force of Ionians and Carians, proclaimed himself king of all Egypt, crushed in battle the other petty princes, and met with no opposition from Assyria, then fully engaged with Asiatic foes. This energetic rebel thus became sole and absolute monarch of the country, from the mouths of the Nile to Elephantine, in 'B.C. 653, and held sway for over 40 years. His capital was fixed at Sais, in the Delta, and the new ruler strengthened his position by forming permanent camps of the foreign mercenaries, and by marrying a princess of one of the former dynasties. He then set to work to raise the country from its ruined condition, repairing canals and roads, encouraging tillage, reviving the arts, and throwing open Egypt, for the first time in her history, to the ability and enterprise of foreigners. Greeks came in and settled in the Delta, and commerce between Egypt and Greece arose. The son of Psamatik, Neco or Neku, beginning his reign in 610, showed his nautical enterprise by an endeavour, foiled by excessive loss of life among the labourers, to reopen the canal, then silted-up by Nile mud and desert sand, which had been made by 14 A History of the World Seti I. and Ramesses II. between the Nile and the Red Sea. His object was to afford communication between the two fleets of triremes which, by the aid of Greek workmen, he had built on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Under his auspices, Phoenician mariners sailed round Africa from the Red Sea, by the " Cape of Storms," as it was afterwards called, and the Straits of Gibraltar (" Pillars of Hercules ") to the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, which they reached in the third year, after the most remarkable and daring maritime exploit of ancient times. This energetic monarch next turned his attention to Syria and adjacent countries, and, defeating Josiah, king of Judah, at Megiddo, conquered Palestine, carrying off Josiah's second son, Jehoahaz, as a hostage, and leaving the eldest son, Jehoiakim, at Jerusalem as a tributary ruler. Three years later, in 605 B.C. the Egyptian army was utterly defeated at Karkhemish, on the Euphrates, by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; and thus for ever ended Egyptian hopes of empire in Asia. His successors, Psamatik II. and Apries or Hophra, warred with the Ethiopians and with Nebuchadnezzar, and from 570 to 526 we find Aahmes or Amasis ruling Egypt as a tributary king under Babylon. Material prosperity was great in this time of political decline. Agriculture prospered through the regularity of the over- flow of the bountiful river, and sculptors, painters, and builders of every class flourished under a ruler who was a lavish patron of Egyptian art in every form. The country of conservatism and isolation now came under the powerful influence of the Greek progressive spirit, and Ancient Egypt's dissolution was hastened by the introduction of foreign elements. Amasis, at the close of his reign, rashly provoked the new great empire of Persia by an attack on Cyprus, and his son, Psamatik III., was totally defeated at Pelusium by the troops of Cambyses. This event, in 525 B.C., made Egypt nominally a Persian province, whose history was chequered by desperate revolts against Persian monarchs. It was about 450 B.C. that Herodotus visited Egypt to obtain the information embodied in the Second Book of his immortal work. As Persia declined in power, Egypt, whose tributary kings had armies of Greek mercenaries, was for long periods practically free from control, and in 375 B.C. Artaxerxes Mnemon of Persia, having hired a large force of Greeks under the Athenian general Iphicrates, wholly failed in an effort to re-establish Persian power. The successful Egyptian ruler, Nectanebo, was regarded by his subjects as a hero and a demigod, and his reign The Egyptians 15 was marked by an artistic revival of which the British Museum contains proofs in two small obelisks of black granite exquisitely finished, and in the very beautiful sarcophagus prepared for Nectanebo himself. Under his successors the country was troubled by civil war and by unsuccessful revolt against Persia, ending in 340 B.C. with absolute subjugation. An account of Ancient Egyptian civilisation must be sought elsewhere. The history has shown the marvellous precocity of this Hamite people in working out for themselves a full development of civil and military organisation, accompanied by artistic excellence of the highest order in several departments. Their religion consisted in the worship of personified forces of nature — the rising sun, the overflow of the Nile, Isis the earth, wife of Osiris the creative power — and of many other members of a Pantheon largely made up of deities derived from local cults. At Memphis, great reverence was shown to Ptah, the first creator, chief of the gods. There was kept the sacred bull Hapi or Apis, believed to be an incarnation of the deity. At Thebes, we find the worship of Amnion (Amun), the god of heaven ; and Ra, reverenced at Heliopolis or On', represented the power of deity embodied in the sun. The religious regard paid to animals is well known. The priests and educated people were believers in one God, whom the sacred books, known only to the hierarchy and to certain initiated persons, describe in terms worthy of the Being revered by the most enlightened monotheists of all times. The universal belief included the tenets of immortality of the soul; judgment after death; transmigrations; the final annihilat'ion of the hopelessly wicked, and the ultimate absorption of the good into the eternal Deity. The government was that of a despotic monarch, much influenced by the priests, regarded by the people as a god incarnate, to be approached and addressed with abject reverence. There were strongly marked social divisions, but no castes in the Hindu sense, as has been wrongly supposed. The large class of nobles were chiefly great landowners living on their estates, with a vast body of dependents, servants, artisans, and labourers of various kinds. The priests, richly endowed with land, were very powerful. A numerous official class held posts at court and throughout the land, commanding also, as occasion needed, in aimies and fleets. A favourable feature of the social system is shown in the fact that a lad of the lowest class, the son of a labourer on the soil or of an artisan, sat on the same bench at the public school with the son of the noble landowner, and might, by adopting 1 6 A History of the World the literary life, arrive at official employment, and advance by merit to the highest post in the empire. Nothing in Ancient Egypt more warmly commends itself to the most enlightened modern feeling than the high position assigned to woman. Women were never secluded from the world, as in some Oriental countries. They shared in the festivities of social life ; they had their place in religious processions and the ritual of the temple-worship. The Egyptian wife was the associate of her husband, under his rule, but never a mere toy or drudge. She was the manager of the household, the guardian of the children in their early years, and the confidential friend of her " lord and master."' Chapter II. — Chaldeo-Babylonian Empire. The discoveries of monuments and deciphering of inscriptions in recent years have revealed to the world the fact that the country called Chaldea or Babylonia possessed a civilisation at least as old as that of Egypt. The seat of this civilisation was the low alluvial region lying between the Tigris and the Euphrates in their lower course, extending from about 550 miles above the mouth to the shore of the Persian Gulf. The Assyrian inscriptions call Babylonia " Babilu " ; in the Hebrew Scriptures the country is Shinar, Babel, and " the land of the Chaldees." The territory is also known as " Lower Mesopotamia," a perfectly flat country which is now but a vast pestilential swamp, covered in ancient times, through efficient drainage, with rich pastures and fields of wheat. The earliest known inhabitants of the region were of Turanian or non-Caucasian race, people with a Tartar type of features, who came from the mountains to the north-east, whence the name of one part of this population, Accadai or "mountaineers." Along with the "people of Accad " we have also the " people of Shumir," of the same stock, Shumir being southern or lower Chaldea, towards and around the Persian Gulf, the "land of Shinar" in Genesis, and Accad being northern or upper Chaldea. These Shumiro-Accadians brought with them from their original home the arts of writing and of working metals, and probably were the first to dig the canals needed in the northern parts for irrigation, and in the south for drainage, and to make bricks and construct buildings. Their religion, as revealed to us by a very large collection of prayers, invocations, and other sacred writings, may be fairly regarded as the most primitive in the world. Babylonian Empi i - in I Mi ■ late I the universe with icr in rank an ■ . . ral harm to m.inkii. the neth 1. Thei inishment her ry and magic, for ■ hiel . and the Spirit of lirit, Mil.- n his midda) of truth and : Gibil, the god of fire, i an »tant in i thou who mixest tin hymn expi • thou who p an mil r< n to bronze, the the I of the dutj urdon. - .ni' tion and me of the hymns • Shumiro ■ H and a - 1 8 A History of the World of nature, and Bel-Merodach became the great national god. The religion was one common to most Semitic races, a worship of the heavenly bodies, and the priesthood were a very powerful and im- portant body, professors of the superstition called astrology, in which the Chaldeans devoutly believed. In every great city there was a temple with its priests, its observatory, and its library. The college of priests held sway over the city and its district, until the monarchy of a priest-king arose, limited in power by his priestly colleagues, in a theocratic form of government. With a tendency towards monotheism, in the dim perception of one supreme ruler of the universe, the practical polytheism of the country had its gods and goddesses, often related as husband and wife, representing Heaven, Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the planet Venus, and other powers, each great city having its favourite deity. Thus Eridhu, the most southern city of Shumir, worshipped Ea, the Divine creative Intelligence ; Ur, the city whence Abram came forth, reverenced the Moon-god ; Larsam or Larsa, the " Ellasar " of Genesis, paid special homage to the Sun ; Erech honoured, in conjunction, Heaven and Earth ; the Sun and Moon had rival temples at Sippar, on the " Royal Canal," nearly parallel to the Euphrates, and at Agade, the " Accad " of Genesis, on the opposite bank of the canal. We may note that when the name of Agade died out, the two towns were regarded as virtually one, and formed the Biblical " Sepharvaim," or " the two Sippars." Babylon, meaning, in its Semitic name Babilu, " the Gate of God," was at first without a special deity, but afterwards worshipped its own chosen protector in Meridug, the mediator, or Maruduk (in Hebrew, Merodach), god of the planet Jupiter. We observe, lastly, that in the mixture of religion and so-called " science " practised by the Chaldeans, astrology was accompanied by the art of divination of future events from signs and omens, and by conjuring and sorcery or incantation. It was the existence of these three classes of " wise men," all belonging, in different degrees, to the priesthood — the star-gazers, the magicians, and the soothsayers or fortune-tellers — and their practice of these arts after the downfall, of the empire, that caused the name "Chaldean" to become the equivalent of wizard or magician, and handed down the belief in witchcraft, astrology, and fortune-telling to the peoples of modern days. On the other hand, we owe to the Chaldeo-Babylonians, in the way of astronomical and mathematical discovery and invention, certain useful matters still in full vogue. Among these we place the I Empire mil of the - liai ; • division of the day into h minutes, Th • iry month of I k«.-|>t holy a> dij and the very nam the H< 3 mite brethren of Am < i first - • • ' political history i> thi MiN or hi • Li at tli rgul, the "Calneh" <>f Genesis, and iut 2700 of .1 powerful empire. 400 mthem < un and 1 ! I>v in the land, turies m conl rally hostile, with ria, had I pita] at S I n) stock, coi nitea who ltd ame the rulii I .in 1 .in ambitious and . Khudui r, the ted with three allied k ert into i Ian and the It was the n prompt heroism in pursuing the nd Ins j 111. in who proved to II I mpire. His 1 ill th.ir \ ■ 1 1 I 20 A History of the World risen to power, captured the city of Babylon, and then, for hundreds of years more, the Chaldeo-Babylonian empire was sometimes tributary to, sometimes independent of, the Assyrian monarchs. In 747 d.c. Nabonassar became king and waged war with the Assyrians, and in 729, under one of his successors, placed on the throne by a popular revolt, Babylonia was conquered by Tiglath-pileser III. of Assyria. A few years later revolt made the country again independent under king Merodach-baladan II., a very popular ruler, but in 704 he was driven out by Sennacherib, and the country was for many years in charge of Assyrian viceroys. In 625, on the breaking-up of the Assyrian power, a new Babylonian empire arose under Nabopolassar, a successful general. In 604 Babylonia came under the rule of his son Nebuchadnezzar, one of the greatest sovereigns of all Chaldean history, who ruled for 43 years, during which he recovered lost territory, enlarged and adorned Babylon, restored temples and other chief buildings throughout the land ; warred victoriously, as we have seen, with Necho of Egypt ; and captured and, finally, destroyed Jerusalem and carried off the Jews as prisoners to Chaldea. This last event occurred in 588. The exploits of Nebuchadnezzar also include the conquest of Syria and the capture of Tyre, the construction of a bridge over the Euphrates, and the creation of the famous " hanging gardens " at Babylon, which were terraced pleasure-grounds, wrongly ascribed to the half-fabulous Semiramis. His period of rule was a last long blaze of glory for the empire Nebuchadnezzar, whose name appears on nearly all the inscribed bricks, cylinders, and tablets found by explorers in the Babylonian mounds, had no great successor. In 556 the throne was usurped by an energetic prince, son of a " chief seer," named Nabu-naid or Nabonidus, who caused a general revolt, in the 17th year of his reign, by neglect of regal and religious duties, which he left to his son and co-ruler, the dissolute Belshazzar. The advancing army of Cyrus, king of Persia, could not be resisted, and in 538 Babylonia became a province of the great new empire. We have little space for any further notice of Chaldeo-Babylonian civilisation, largely revealed in recent years by the discovery, in the great mounds, of many thousands of inscribed tablets relating to every phase of the private daily life of a luxurious and artistic people, and containing most varied literary matter. The brick-books include works on magic, " spells concerning diseases of the head," epic and other poems, history, mythology, religious works, treatises The Assyrian Empire 21 on law, geography, astronomy, and astrology ; proverbs, fables, and curious legendary lore. The spread of education is proved by the directions given in tablets, showing students how to apply for the "bricks" they might require at the temple-schools and libraries- There was a regular judicial system, administered by judges sitting either in lha gates of the temple or at the great city -gate, basing decisions on carefully kept precedents. A considerable trade was carried on by caravans with surrounding countries, and by sea with Arabia. The country was famous for dyed cloth and embroidery, and specially for rich carpets inwoven with figures of strange animals and arabesques such as are seen on the Nineveh sculptures. The early Babylonian art includes good statuary, excellent in its anatomy, carved in very hard green and red stone ; bronze-work in plates and statuettes ; and gem-engraving of a high order on jasper, cornelian, chalcedony, crystal, onyx, and other valuable stones. Music is represented by the harp, pipe, and cymbals, as used at feasts and in religious ceremonies. The city of Babylon, so vast in area, according to the ancient authorities, was built, with streets at right angles, in the form of a square, on both sides of the Euphrates, connected by a roofed bridge of hewn stones clamped with iron. Its walls included fields, gardens, and woods, with space affording shelter to the country-folk during invasions. Chapter III. — The Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians, or "people of Asshur," of Semitic race, migrated at an early period from their homes in Accad, and about 1500 b.c. formed an independent power in northern Mesopotamia, in a region bounded on the north by the highlands of Armenia, on the east by Media, on the south by Babylonia and Susiana, and on the west by the Euphrates. The territory, in its greatest extent, was 350 miles in length, and from 170 to 300 miles broad, being somewhat larger than modern Prussia. The wonderful fertility of the country was well suited for the support of a great population, and the new empire soon became one formidable to neighbouring nations. The earliest brick- inscriptions found at Asshur, the ancient capital, give the rulers the Accadian title of Patesi, or " high-priest." With a perception of the Divine Unity, the Assyrians placed above all gods " Asshur," the supreme head, of the same name as their first great city and the whole land, while they adopted, in a large degree, the creed 3 22 A History of the World and religious ceremonies of the Babylonia whence they sprang. The Sun-god was a great object of reverence, and the morning and evening hymns in his honour are among the finest, specimens of Assyrian sacred literature. Marduk or Merodach, the " mediator between gods and men," " the protector of mankind," " the raiser of the dead," was an important deity, and to Nebo, the god of learning, all the libraries were dedicated, as " the wise god," " the enlarger of the mind." Nergal, the god of war and of death, " the great devourer," is represented by the famous winged lions, with stately turbaned and bearded human head, placed at the temple or palace gates, the huge figures to be seen in the British Museum. The literature and civilisation were almost identical with those of Babylonia, and need no further description. We may mention the discovery, in 1872, by the late George Smith of the British Museum, of a tablet containing an account of the Deluge closely resembling that in the book of Genesis, and the finding of cosmo- gonic legends almost identical in substance with the Hebrew story of the creation. Among the earliest fads of Assyrian history we find, about 1450 B.C., the conclusion of a boundary treaty between Assyria and Babylonia. Shortly before 1300, Shalmaneser I. founded the great city Kalah as one of the capitals; this place was uncovered in modern days by Layard at Nimrud. The two older capitals, Asshur and Nineveh, were only a few miles away, to south and north, on or near to the same river Tigris. The rising nation seems to have first drawn the sword against the powerful Hittites, the people whom we have seen in conflict wiih the Egyptians, and one whose extent of power and empire has only lately been revealed by the ingenuity, industry, and zeal of Professor Sayce in deciphering their monuments. Their territory, at its greatest extent, reached from the frontiers of Egypt to the shores of the Bosphorus, and their empire, before it perished about 700 B.C., had endured for nearly 3,000 years. About 1280 an Assyrian king took Babylon, and had a signet-ring engraved with his name, Tukutti-nineb, and title, with an inscription noting the victory. He seems, however, to have been soon forced to relinquish his conquest, leaving behind him the ring, which the Babylonians kept in the royal treasury, whence it was carried off 600 years later, by a more effectual invader, Sennacherib, who recorded the fact and the ring's history in his annals. The old Assyrian empire reached its height of glory under Tiglath-pileser I., who The Assyrian Empire 23 reigned from 11 20 to n 00. The cylinder recording some of his warlike exploits tells of conquests among the highlands around the upper Tigris and Euphrates, of vast slaughter, crowds of captives, and cities burned. The empire was, in fact, extended over all western Asia, to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from the Armenian mountains to the Persian Gulf. Chaldea was made a tributary state. The Hittites were defeated, with the capture of their stronghold Karkhemish, on the Euphrates, and the cities of northern Phoenicia paid homage to the great Assyrian monarch. This energetic ruler also zealously promoted works of peace in restoring ruined castles, rebuilding temples, assisting tillage, storing the royal granaries with corn, adorning the chief cities, and planting trees and vines. He was a " mighty hunter before the Lord," slaying lions and wild bulls with his own hand, as boastfully recorded on his cylinder. Then for nearly 200 years the history becomes, from lack of records, almost a blank, and it seems that Assyria sank into comparative weakness, even paying tribute to certain Armenian kings, at the time when the Hebrew kingdom was in its full splendour under David and Solomon. About 930 B.C. the veil is lifted, and we find a line of great warrior-kings beginning a career of fresh conquest. Asshurnazirpal, reigning from 884 to 860, records his brutal cruelty to conquered foes in campaigns to the north, south, and west, by which the old territory was recovered. It was in this period that the capital was removed from Asshur to Kalah, the modern Nimrud, about 20 miles below Nineveh, but on the other (western) bank of the Tigris. His son Shalmaneser II. (860-824), whose annals are recorded on the famous Black Obelisk in the British Museum and on the slabs and bulls from his palace at Kalah, warred yearly for above 30 years against allied Syrian kings and Ahab of Israel ; he received tribute from Tyre and Sidon, and from Jehu, king of Israel. The last years of his life were spent in building, repairing, and religious services. One of his architectural works was the completion of the great Ziggurat of the temple of Nineb (Nineveh), a stone pyramid j 00 feet in width and 200 in height. The word "Ziggurat" means " mountain peak," and is descriptive of the peculiar con- struction so called, made of several platforms piled one on the other, each square in shape and somewhat smaller than the one below. The topmost supported a small temple, and the pile was used as an observatory by the Chaldean sages. In the 8th century we have accounts of revolt at home and abroad, and then 24 A History of the World in 745 B.C. the throne was usurped by a Babylonian who took the Assyrian title of Tiglath-pileser II., and was both a reviver of the empire in establishing a new form of administration and a great conqueror. He built up a great political system of rule, in becoming an organiser as well as a subduer, and in consolidating conquests to which his predecessors had given a mereiytributary character. This was a new phase in the history of western Asia. Campaigns were no longermere raids on a large scale, for plunder in the shape of captured men, women, children, animals, and other property in various forms, but they were undertaken and carried out with a definite political aim, and what was acquired in territory was firmly held. Annexation and annual revenue were now the objects, instead of the gloryof victory in battle and the consequent spoil. A strong centralised form of government arose. Conquered peoples became now the inhabitants of subject provinces, governed by Assyrian satraps or viceroys, and compelled to pay a fixed yearly revenue to the home-government. Turbulent leaders of the people in subjugated territory were deported to a safe place of detention, and bodies of colonists were planted in the new provinces. Commercial objects were kept well in view under this new system. The monarch aimed at gathering up into the hands of the Assyrians the control of commerce in western Asia, and the capture of Karkhemish, Arpad, Hamath, Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, and Samaria secured the trade- route through Syria and brought in large regular sums to the national treasury. This energetic and enlightened monarch seems to have aimed at effecting a general fusion of races in his dominions by carrying away large numbers of women from conquered territory into the middle of Assyria, for the purpose of there marrying and settling them, with a view to a new generation of mixed origin which could be patriotically attached to Assyria alone. The sculptures show processions of these deported people, with flocks, herds, and house- hold goods, escorted by Assyrian soldiers. The places of the expatriated were taken, in the new territory, by colonists of Assyrian birth, or people of kindred race to the conquerors and loyal to the Assyrian crown. After making himself master of the west, Tiglath- pileser received the submission of Babylonia, and in 729 proclaimed himself " King of Shumir and Accad." His successor, Shalmaneser IV., had to deal with revolts, and, dying during a long siege of Tyre, was succeeded by an usurper in the person of Sargon, the "Tartan" or commander-in-chief of the army. This was the king (722-705) who captured Samaria and put The Assyrian Empire 25 an end to the kingdom of Israel, and was constantly employed in wars of repression of revolted provinces. Merodach-baladan III., of Chaldea, was the chief foe of Assyria at this time, causing revolts by his intrigues in Syria and adjacent countries. After successful campaigns in the west and north and east, against Syrians, Hittites, Medians and Armenians, Sargon turned fiercely against the dangerous plotter, Merodach of Babylon. That prince fled to his capital by the sea, Dur Yakin, but he was followed thither by his foe, and Sargon's soldiers took the place at the first assault. Merodach's palace was despoiled, and he made a humble sub- mission. The city was "made a heap of," in the language of the inscriptions, and Sargon was proclaimed king of Babylon in 710 b.c. The splendid palace built for himself at his new capital city, Dur- Sharrukin ("city of Sargon"), about 15 miles north of Nineveh, but away from the Tigris, at the foot of the hills, is the one entombed in the mound of Khorsabad, excavated by M. Botta for the French Government in 1842. Some of the fine sculptures are now in the Louvre, at Paris. The structure, which is the best preserved of all the Assyrian ruins, was of the finest workmanship in every detail, and the extent, variety, and richness of the sculptures are almost beyond belief. Every scene of the royal builder's life is illustrated, every feature of the countries which he visited as a conqueror is portrayed. On the outer walls were 24 pairs of colossal bulls in high-relief, and the inner walls of the vast rooms display about two miles' length of sculptured slabs. The whole vast undertaking was completed within five years, a fact which proves the number of skilled hands which were at the command of this mighty Oriental monarch. Shortly after taking possession of this magnificent abode, Sargon was murdered there in 705 e.g., during a military revolt, and was succeeded by the Sennacherib who is so well known to us from the Biblical narrative. His reign (705-681) began with revolts in Babylon and Philistia, which he suppressed, and the king then warred with mountain-tribes in the Zagros range. His failure against Hezekiah, king of Judah, calls for no description, and we need only state that lack of detail in the inscriptions seems to confirm the Scripture account of a catastrophe, probably a pestilence, which swept away his forces. A great battle, a complete victory for the Assyrians, was fought in the south against the united forces of Elam and Babylon, and Sennacherib's vengeance on his hereditary foe was marked by the sacking of the city of Babylon, the carrying away of the signet-ring and of other 26 A History of the World trophies formerly taken from Assyrian kings, the demolition of the temples and statues of the gods, and the general destruction of the place by the spade and pickaxe and by devouring fire. The end of this monarch was slaughter by his two elder sons as he was at prayer in a temple, the motive for this horrible parricide being jealousy of the favour shown to their younger brother Esarhaddon. This favourite son took possession of power, overcame his brothers and their supporter the king of Armenia, and then went to Nineveh, which had been rebuilt with the utmost splendour by Sennacherib, with a new palace of the greatest magnificence, cover- ing eight acres of ground, and adorned with the most lavish and realistic illustrations of the royal builder's life at home and abroad, in peace and war. Esarhaddon showed political wisdom in dividing his time and place of abode between Babylon, in the low country, as a winter residence, and Nineveh, near the mountains, as a summer domicile. The city of Babylon and its desecrated temples were restored. His expeditions for frontier warfare were varied by an invasion of Arabia, in which eight chieftains were slain, two of them women, with the capture and carrying off of their wealth and gods. In 673 the Assyrian king made his great march into Egypt, and ended the war there which had been in hand, with various issues, for three years. The reign of this monarch, who is described by modern historians as being " the noblest and most gracious figure " among Assyrian rulers, ended in 668 with the rare event of abdi- cation. His successor was his son Asshurbanipal V., the Greek " Sardanapalus " (668-626), under whom the storm began to arise which was to sweep away for ever the imposing fabric of Assyrian power. The Aryan peoples were coming to the front in the persons of the Medes, called " Madai " in Genesis and on the Assyrian monuments. Coming from the plateau of eastern Eran or Iran, they had, about the middle of the 9th century B.C., reached and occupied many of the valleys and outer slopes of the Zagros Mountains, some distance east of Assyria proper, and they were soon in collision, from time to time, with Assyrian forces sent to check their advance. This people were to have a chief share in the general revolt, to the west, the south, and the east of Assyria, which was to lay the giant power in the dust, combined with wearing attacks from a people to the far north, the Scyths or Scythians, as the Greeks called them, the Sakhi or Saki in the Asiatic name. These were, to some extent at least, Aryan nomads whose hordes had overrun the vast plains of what is now southern Russia. I ; ire irbanipal, him as a patron of lit rt, in wl n art •. through his nst the Ethiopian spelled from M n land of k ' it. the . [*hen Phi igain sul> I and • under Psamatik ended in I irbanipal had be< n ei 1 by It under his brother, the i Ion, who ■ i i i of the Assyrian l tor the ' five I Sippara ted with men i rity. Then came ith the |" ■ I lam, ending in the capture and • • capita] Shushan and their other chief towns, and the d kingdom and a nation. .irbanipal, in triumph to Nineveh after the I and an • . . had the pleasure of being drawn in his ite kings and an An ftain. fail us foi n rtain that Asshurbanipal did not die before I we • whether he had or three fore the i iwnward i . il war I ame independent, [l it administered the death b rtish or i I ' with thu ■ in t 1 a n I ■ 28 A History of the World upon Assyria by a judicious alliance with Nabopolassar of Babylon, and their united forces advanced against Nineveh in 608. The Assyrian king Sarakos (by his Greek name) held out for two years of a siege concerning which we have no details, and then the great capital fell, and the Assyrian empire ended its course of conquest and splendour in irretrievable ruin. Chapter IV. — The Jews. The peculiar character and history and the persistent vitality of the Hebrew race have made them the most wonderful people in the world. This chosen people of God, as Christians hold them to have been, were never distinguished by numbers, nor by extent of empire. Nearly 4,000 years ago their great ancestor crossed the Euphrates and the Syrian Desert to Canaan. In these closing years of the 19th century we find them, in almost unmingled purity of blood and in their most ancient form of features, physical, intel- lectual, and moral, alive and flourishing in every part of the world — in central Asia and Africa, in every European capital, in New York, St. Louis, and Chicago. Apart from its religious import- ance, their literature is remarkable for originality and poetical power. Still marked by his old intensity of character, fierceness in hate and love, fervid genius, indomitable resolution in pursuing his aims, the Jew has attained in modern days eminence in every department of life — art, literature, science, statecraft, and money-making. The career of the Jews in their more ancient times may be very briefly dealt with, so familiar is it to all readers from their own sacred books. Their historical importance consists, of course, in the part which, through their literature, they played in the spread of religious truth — the conservation and conveyance to future ages of the moral and spiritual lessons which were developed and exalted into the Christian creed and practice. I Their God was one who, as the special deity of a family that became a nation, taught the unity of the godhead, issued the commands on which all true morality is based, founded spirit-worship in place of nature-worship, and, by preserving His people through all dangers, difficulties, and trials, enabled them to fulfil the mission entrusted to them, and to them alone, among the nations of the world. 1 We may here note that the word "Jews" comes from Yekudh/i, trie name given, after the Babylonish captivity, to the whole people, as chiefly belonging to the tribe of Judah, and that " Hebrews," The Je m and . which i>< really a national, not an individual, d< I ov< t the Euphrate i from did in Premising that the chroi uncertain, we note, in raham, then i '. iram, i " l'r of the < . called Israel after his wrestling the name being held I , p< rhaps m the and the sett • the "f numl ., in the en, t of ( ' tnaan, the n of the country : Semitic Hebi ••• . the worshippei 1 Hamil Lh there intcrman th the nal f the M ic 1 iw, vernment . in which the nation v. i under the immediati in the : the Tab In tin ■ v muel, th( 30 A History of the World greatest Hebrew since Moses, to choose for them a visible head in the form of an earthly representative king. The purely theocratic form of government, combined with that of a federal republic, was thus superseded by monarchy, a system which was a decided failure in the person of the first king, the brave, stately, wilful, partly insane Saul. He did effect something in the field against the heathen enemies of Israel, but died at last by his own hand after defeat in battle with the Philistines. We observe that the prophetic order arose at this time and gained great influence in the state, first as advisers of the civil rulers, and then as a class of men who took charge of the religious destinies of the nation, and expounded the will and purposes of God by word and in their writings. A great event came in the accession of David, progenitor of a line of kings, and of the promised Messiah. His reign of 40 years, 7 years in Hebron over Judah alone and 33 years at Jerusalem over the whole nation, covers the time when the Jews may be fairly said to have established an empire. At this time also Jerusalem became the great and holy city of the Jewish race, the centre of both the national and the religious life of the people. With Joab as his commander-in-chief, David extended his sway over the whole of Palestine, ruling from the north-east end of the Red Sea to Damascus, and making many surrounding peoples tributary. The reign of Solomon, also one of 40 years, was made specially notable by the erection of the first magnificent temple, which had a great influence in the elevation and purification of the Jewish ritual, and in making the national sentiment an unrivalled combination of religion and patriotism. The history of the Jews at this time is entirely peaceful. Lucrative trade was carried on with Phoenicia, Egypt, Arabia, and probably with India and Ceylon. The arts of music, poetry, and architecture were cultivated, and it appears to be the golden age of Jewish history. A grievous falling-off was to come. The people suffered from heavy taxation due to the lavish expenditure of their sovereign. The wise man became in hi? closing years an ordinary voluptuous and idolatrous Oriental despot, and his death was the signal for political rupture. The kingdom was divided into that of Judah, including the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and a part of Benjamin with the Levites, and that of Israel to the north, including the other tribes, with the capital firstly at Sichem and later at Samaria and Jezreel. We need enter into few particulars of the history of the two The Jews 31 separate kingdoms, generally friendly with each other, sometimes at war. The annals of the kingdom of Israel present us with a series of dynasties succeeding each other by assassination, and of wickedness and idolatry in the monarchs and people, vainly de- nounced by the prophets of the Lord. The more pious portion of the people of Israel were disaffected, and went up to Jerusalem to worship, in scorn of the two calves of gold set up at Dan and Bethel. Among all the royalty of this period and kingdom, Ahab and Jezebel, the Tyrian princess, his wife, are conspicuous for wickedness, and Elijah and Elisha as the prophets of God. The land went down to ruin, and, after being for some time tributary to the kings of Assyria, the kingdom of Israel perished, as we have seen, when Samaria, in 722 B.C., was captured by Sargon, and a large part of the people were carried off and settled in Assyria and Media. Their place was supplied by colonists from beyond the Euphrates, and it was from the mingling and intermarrying of these with the remnant of the Israelites that the people called Samaritans was formed. The history of Judah presents, upon the whole, a more favourable spectacle. Wickedness and idolatry were again and again combated and checked by kings who were zealous reformers and restorers of the national worship. The country was much harassed by foreign invaders, as under Rehoboam by Shishak of Egypt, under Asa by " Zerah the Ethiopian," under the powerful Jehoshaphat (873-848) by the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites, and, as we have seen, by the Assyrians under Sennacherib. The Temple was often robbed of its wealth in gold and silver to buy off invasion or to pay tribute to foreign foes. A remarkable episode was the usurpation of Athaliah (843-837), daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and wife of Jehoram (848-844), son of Jehoshaphat. She seized supreme power in Jerusalem, and put to death her own grand- children in order to destroy the line of David ; but one of the stock, Joash, was wonderfully preserved, and brought up secretly in the Temple. This wicked woman introduced the worship of Baal, and was then overthrown and put to death by Jehoiada the high -priest, who placed Joash on his ancestral throne. The prophet Isaiah flourished in the latter half of the 8th century B.C., under Ahaz and Hezekiah, the latter of whom was one of the greatest reformers, wielding considerable influence over the kingdom of Israel. His son Manasseh turned the Temple of Jehovah into a shrine of Astarte, the Phoenician goddess, and sacrificed to Baal and Moloch. Carried 32 A History of the World captive to Babylon, he repented and was restored to his throne. The last of the pious kings was Josiah, in whose reign the prophet Jeremiah came forward against idolatry, and the worship of Jehovah was restored, according to the book of the Law of Moses discovered in the Temple. The kingdom went rapidly to ruin after the death of Josiah in battle with Necho of Egypt at Megiddo (609 B.C.). The Babylonians became virtual masters of the country. Jehoiachin was carried away into captivity with many of his people in 597, and finally, in 588, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took and destroyed Jerusalem in the day of king Zedekiah, and the remnant of the people of Judah were carried off into the so-called " 70 years' captivity " in Babylonia, a period which is only correct if estimated from the capture of Jerusalem, in the reign of Jehoiakim, in 606. The prophet Ezekiel, who was one of the captives, gives some account of the condition of affairs in this period of bondage, during which the people were so kindly treated that only those of the lowest class returned along with the priests and Levites. We note that the Israelites, the " Ten Tribes " or " Lost Tribes," exiled nearly a century and a half before, never returned at all, and their subsequent fate has been always a matter of the wildest speculation. We learn from the book of Esther how large a number of Jews, remaining behind in the new abode on the return from captivity, were spread over the great Persian empire. Until about a.d. iooo Babylonia was a sort of " second land of Israel " to the people, and many import int changes in the Jewish worship and creed, including the belief in the immortality of the soul and in the resurrection of the dead, had their origin during the period of the captivity of Judah. It was in 536 b.c. that "Cyrus the Persian'' issued his decree for the return of the Jews to Palestine, when the foundations of the Second Temple were laid by Zerubbabel, of the royal line of David, the governor appointed by the king of Persia. Among the beneficial effects of the captivity may be noted the extinction of idolatry among the Jews, the establishment of a more spiritual worship, less reliance upon ceremonial, the practice of the regular reading of the Scriptures, by degrees collected into a " canon," in the ears of the people in the synagogues, and the rise of the scribes who expounded' the sacred writings and shared the respect paid to the priests and Levites. The observance of the Sabbath was firmly settled, and the use of private as well as public prayer had its place along with the rites and ceremonies of the older form of worship. The building of the Temple was interrupted for some years by the opposition of the The Jews 33 Samaritans, who rejected all the sacred writings except the Penta- teuch, and it was not completed until 516. The wasted cities were rebuilt and repeopled, and the complete restoration of the divine worship and of the observance of the Law was effected under Ezra the priest, who headed a second migration in 458 B.C., and Nehemiah, who came to Judea as governor for the Persian king 13 years later. Down to the fall of the Persian empire the Jews lived peaceably under their own institutions as tributaries of that vast dominion, and the rule of affairs came into the hands of the high-priests. When Alexander the Great overthrew the Persian empire in 331, the conqueror allowed the Jews the free exercise of their religion, and they easily submitted to the new ruler, who enrolled some of them in his armies, and carried off large numbers of them and of the Samaritans to form a population for his newly founded city Alexandria. In 301 Ptolemy Soter of Egypt settled a large number of the people in Alexandria and Cyrene, and in Egypt the Jews attained special honour and prosperity, and thus aroused the jealous hatred which was embittered by the scornful assertion of their claims as the favoured people of God. This further dispersion had great influence in the spread of Judaism, and, in later days, of Christianity, and the Jews now, in close contact with Greek civilisa- tion, gained a new distinction in science and art, while the influence of Greek philosophy promoted the division into sects by which the Jews became distinguished in early Christian times. It was during this period that the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament Scriptures was made for the use of the " hellenising " or Greek-speaking Jews now so widely spread abroad in western Asia and north-eastern Africa. The Jews of Palestine, after being well treated both under Syrian and Egyptian rule for a century and a half, fell under trouble when Antiochus IV. succeeded to his father's throne in Syria. There were rival Syrian and Egyptian parties, and amid civil dissension the high-priesthood was degraded by becoming an office due to bribery and intrigue, one holder of which paid homage to idolatry in sending offerings to the Tyrian Hercules. This Antiochus, surnamed " Epiphanes " (the Illustrious), a title sarcastically changed by his contemporaries into " Epimanes " (the Madman), attacked Judea in 170, stormed the city of Jerusalem with a great and wanton slaughter of both sexes and all ages, and then deliberately set about the task of forcing the Jews into paganism. The " Holy of Holies " in the Temple was profaned by a sprinkling of swine's broth, the sacred vessels were carried off, the 34 A History of the World holy building was dedicated to the Greek deity Zeus Olympius. In every village idol-altars arose, and those who adhered to the faith of their fathers were forced to eat swine's flesh or die. In this awful time of trial the Jewish character, on the whole, shone forth brightly. There were some who yielded, many who fled into other lands, but there were far more who boldly faced martyrdom. At last some great deliverers arose in the heroic family of the Maccabees. A priest named Mattathias had five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan. The family name was Asmonaeus, and the glorious title of " Maccabees " came from that bestowed on the most distinguished son, Judas, styled " Maccabaeus," from Makkabi — connected with the word " Maccab," a hammer, like the cognomen of the great Frank warrior, Charles " Martel," the " pounder " of the Saracens in after-time. The father and family had retired to Modin, a small place between Jerusalem and Joppa, there to mourn in solitude over the existing misery. When a Syrian officer came and demanded that he should offer sacrifice to idols, offering bribes of money and high office, Mattathias refused in the boldest terms, and slew with his own hand an apostate Jew at the altar, with the royal envoy and some of his men. He and his sons then retired to the hills, and raised a standard of rebellion which soon had many followers. The worship of Jehovah was quickly restored in many places, and the pagan altars were destroyed. The father died in 166, bequeathing the cause specially to his sons Simon as a wise counsellor, and Judas as the chief captain in battle. Nobly did these men fulfil their trust. Judas became even as Joshua and Jephthah, Gideon and Samson, of the olden days. He defeated again and again, by stratagem and by the most desperate fighting, great armies of Antiochus and his two successors, being well supported by his brethren, and in 164 became master of the capital, where he purified the Temple and restored the service of the One God of the Jews. Three years later Judas Maccabaeus laid down his life, and won immortal fame as one of the world's greatest champions of freedom, in fighting against a vastly superior force of Greek veterans, skilfully led for the king of Syria, in Galilee. He had already become high-priest, and in that ruling capacity he had sent envoys to the Senate at Rome soliciting aid in his struggle. It is likely that then, for the first time, the Roman senators beheld the face of the Jews whom the Roman power was to subdue. Eleazar and John also died in action, and the burden of the contest came upon the surviving brethren, Simon and Jonathan. 35 ■ time • of tyranny and more Jewish m.irt\rs died. Then Jonathan, who had renewed the ime high nd instituted th< ' a, Imt lie perished l>y Syrian the aim ite masi i had public documi ning " In the n 1 < hief <>f t:. >n was trea 1 by hi >n-in law, • 1 to hi> power. Then John 1 i ruled from 135 to 105, I. implete n rth, and Idumea to t . and, in with the Rom all the territory ruled by I »-i\ 1. !. i under Ins in ned rule. It was in hi rival - line establish ie name implies, in then 1 them, and the traditional Law w was believed to I in addition t<> the writ- . ••. The ilitical in. >f the lawyers and they rt and vital part of the Jewis The formed I <>f the Z . f theii denied the traditional . the nnn. ;l, and th and the Pentateuch alone as their rule of life. in number than the Phai n in i • ill of the nation. ie with the I ■ : I i : 1,6 A History of the World of Jewish manners and ideas, and a strong supporter of the Roman party. Styled "Herod the Great" among the various Herods of his dynasty, he held the office of " tetrarch " of Judea, or "governor of the fourth part," — the country being now divided into Judea, with its capital at Jerusalem ; Samaria, with Samaria and Sichem as chief towns ; Galilrea, with Nazareth, Capernaum, and Cana ; and Peroea, the district east of Jordan. This friend of Antony was politic enough to secure the favour of his successful rival Octavianus or Augustus, and he reigned in full power until his death in the year of Christ's birth, which was probably the year 4 prior to the Christian era, as erroneously reckoned. This Herod was a man of great architectural undertakings, rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem in Grseco-Roman style ; the city of Samaria, with a new temple there on Mount Gerizim, in place of the one destroyed by John Hyrcanus ; and the city of Coesarea. He was not less distinguished by atrocious cruelties, put in practice against all who incurred his lightest suspicion. Among his victims were his wife Mariamne and his and her two sons, countless persons who opposed and rebelled against his Roman policy, and the " Innocents " of Bethlehem. This last event occurred just after his murder of his own eldest son Antipater and just before his own death. Herod's son Antipas, born of a Samaritan woman, one of the tyrant's ten wives, became double tetrarch of Galilee and Pera;a. It was he who put John the Baptist to death for his rebuke of the marriage with Herodias, his half-brother Philip's wife, and who had Jesus sent before him by Pilate. He finally died in exile at Lugdunum (Lyo?i), whither he was sent by the Roman emperor. Herod Agrippa I., grandson of Herod the Great, through his son Aristobulus, put to death by his father, was brought up at Rome, and became, under the emperor Claudius, king of all Judea in a.d. 41. It was he who, in persecuting the Christians, put the apostle James to death, and died at Csesarea, "eaten of worms," in a.d. 44. Claudius then re-changed the kingdom into a Roman province, but in a.d. 53 Herod Agrippa II., son of the first Agrippa, was made sovereign by the same emperor over most of his father's territory. It was before this king that Paul made his memorable defence. This last of the Herods retired to Rome on the destruction of the Jewish nationality, and there died. In tracing the history of the chief Herods, made interesting and. important by their connection with events recorded in the New Testament, we have passed over matters now to be related, as The Jews 37 leading up to the final catastrophe. A son of Herod the Great, Archelaus, became in 2 b.c. ruler, under Augustus, of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. In ad. 7 he was deposed for his tyranny, and then Judea and Samaria became a Roman province under a "procurator," with his seat of government at Caesarea, subject to the prefect of Syria. In a.d. 26 Pontius Pilate held the office, and exercised it in a tyrannical way which made him very unpopular, and led straight to his cowardly crime in allowing the " Innocent One " to be sacrificed, in order that he might win back some favour with the Jews and keep them from accusing him at Rome. In a.d. 37 he was banished to Vienne in southern Gaul, after his cruelties and rapacity had caused many outbreaks, and had culminated in the murder of many Samaritans on Mount Gerizim. It was Roman tyranny that caused the great and disastrous rebellion of the Jews. In a.d. 38 that mad monster, the emperor Caligula, issuing an edict for divine honours to be paid to himself, was steadfastly disobeyed by the Jews in every part of his vast dominions. Fright- ful massacres took place at Alexandria and in Judea, and all the efforts of Herod Agrippa I., under the emperor Claudius, to conciliate the people, failed against the determined hostility of the national party. In a.d. 41 the Jews received the rights of Roman citizenship, and this Herod strictly observed the Jewish law. After his death the land became a scene of confusion and misery. Governor after governor came and was removed. Lawlessness and fanaticism were rampant. Insurrections, robbery, and assassinations provoked reprisals in which the Roman procurators crucified by hundreds the banditti and the " zealots " who infested the land. Felix, who was procurator a.d. 53-60, the man denounced by Tacitus, in his scathing style, as " giving full license to his lust and his cruelty, and wielding the power of a king in the spirit of a slave," the man whom Paul made to tremble, " as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," was succeeded by Porcius Festus, who had at least the grace to admit the innocence of Paul. After him came some cruel procurators, and confusion became worse confounded amid the work of fanatical patriots, ruffianly freebooters, Jews and Samaritans, impostors and pretenders to magic ; the priesthood torn by fierce dissensions, the populace at daggers-drawn with the Roman soldiery, who were chiefly of Grasco-Syrian race. The end was close at hand. In vain did Agrippa II. strive to restore order and dissuade the national party from the suicidal step of open rebellion. The tyranny of Gessius Florus, procurator in 4 38 A History of the World a.d. 65, caused the Zealots, also styled Sicarii or Assassins, to revolt. A civil war ensued, in which the rebels won the day over their own countrymen, and then the sturdy old soldier, of Sabine birth, Vespasian, was sent by the emperor Nero to suppress the rebellion, which in 66 had involved Galilee and Samaria along with Judea in common cause against Rome. We need pursue the story no further. The struggle was one of hideous renown. The command relinquished by Vespasian on his accession as emperor in a.d. 69 was assumed by his son Titus. Jotapata, in Galilee, had been taken after desperate fighting, and Jerusalem was invested at a time when the city was overcrowded by refugees from the country and by those who had come up to celebrate the Passover. A siege of several months, unsurpassed in history for its horrors, for valour, skill, and persistence in the assailants, for magnificent heroism and insane desperation in the defence, ended in the autumn of a.d. 70 with the storming and almost entire demolition of the city which was to the conquered people the centre of unity for their national life. According to their own historian, over 1,000,000 Jews had perished by the sword and by famine. The history of the Jews as a nation, independent or tributary, was at an end. Chapter V. — The Phoenicians and Carthaginians. The Phoenicians, as the greatest money-makers by commerce, and as the chief colonisers, of antiquity, may well command the interest and sympathy of all true Britons. They afford a striking instance, like Athens, Sparta, Carthage in the olden world, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Portugal in mediaeval days, and Holland and Great Britain in modern times, of the insignificance of mere size of home-territory in enabling a people to play a great part in the world. The Phoenician land was, in area, little more than half the size of Yorkshire. The Phoenician people, by their enterprising character and their maritime, commercial, and naval achievements, won for themselves immortal renown. They called themselves and their territory Chna or Canaan ; the name bestowed by history, Phcenice for the country, Phoenices for the people, comes from the Greek phoenix, in one of its two chief meanings — the purple-red or crimson colour for which the dyers of the country were famous, and the beauteous date-palm which grew, and grows, upon its shore. The territory lay on the eastern border of the Mediterranean, a long The Phoenicians 39 narrow tract, a far smaller Chili, between mountains and the sea, with Syria to the north and Palestine to the south. The coast-line was about 200 miles in length ; the average breadth of the country may have been 15 miles, varying from less than 2 in the south to over 20 in parts of the centre and towards the north. A marked diversity of surface and production was of great service for the development of a prosperous nation. The belt along the coast was composed of fine white siiicious sand, excellent for glass-making, and well suited for the date-palm. Inside this was a most fertile level region, the richest plains of which belonged, going from south to north, to Ake or Akko (Acre), Tyre, Sidon, Berytus (Beyrout), and, much farther north, Marathus. Here were gardens gay with the scarlet blooms of the pomegranate, orchards, and most productive corn-land. The plain is bounded on the east by low swelling hills, on which the mulberry, the olive, and the vine were cultivated in abundance. The Lebanon range, opposite the middle of the coast, stretches for 100 miles, with peaks exceeding 9,000 feet, snow-clad for eight months of the year. These mountains, and the more northern range called Bargylus, about 5,000 feet high, had forests of oaks, chestnuts, sycomores, terebinths, fir, and pine, Lebanon being distinguished by the noble cedars which have never lost their fame. This inexhaustible supply of timber fit for ship-building and for oars was of vast importance to the people of a country forced by nature, as it were, to the sea for a livelihood. The coast-line was not rich in natural harbours, though in some places headlands gave shelter, on either side, from prevailing winds, and some bays, like that of Acre, were almost land-locked. At other points, as at Aradus, in the north, and at Tyre and Sidon, islets on the coast gave protection to vessels, and the industry and skill of the people made excellent artificial harbours at all needful points by excavation of the sandy soil, and the construction of breakwaters. The mountains to the north and east were of great value, in the political history of Phoenicia, as barriers against invasion, and the position of the country, in the natural course of trade between the eastern and western worlds of those ages, marked it out as a most fit abode for those who aimed at commercial wealth. No records inform us exactly of how and when the Phoenicians first came to the land of Canaan. About 2000 B.C. Semitic immigrants from the east began to appear in the territory, and it is certain that for 1,000 years from the 14th century B.C. it was occupied by the people of Semitic race with whom we are 40 A History of the World now dealing, closely resembling their neighbours, the Jews, in form and feature. Their character, like that of all the western Semites, was marked by pliability, intensity of purpose, capacity for toil along with love of luxurious ease, and great regard for religion and religious ideas. The temple was the centre of attraction in every city, the gifts of monarch and people were costly, and the same gods with the same rites became objects of worship in every place where colonies were founded. In the historical period, the religion had become degraded from an original monotheism with a highly spiritual conception of Deity into a polytheism in which the chief gods adored were Baal, a sun-god ; the goddess Ashtoreth or Astarte, specially reverenced at Sidon ; and Melkarth, said to mean " king of cities," a " Baal of Tyre." Adonis, properly Adonai (" my Lord ") was a special god at Byblus, and Moloch, the Ammonite god, was also Phoenician. The religious rites were marked by foul cruelty and vice, due to the superstitious desire of propitiating the gods by sacrifice of what parents naturally held most dear — the lives of children, and, worse still, the honour of daughters. All readers of the Old Testament are familiar with the "passing of sons and daughters through the fire to Moloch." They were literally burnt alive by being placed in the outstretched arms of a metal image within which a fire was kindled, and thence they rolled into the furnace, while their cries were drowned by the din of kettle-drums and flutes. The test-sacrifice to Baal, ordered by Elijah on Mount Carmel in the days of Ahab of Israel, shows us the priests, in their despair of an answer to their prayers, and stung by Elijah's mockery, offering their own blood by "cutting themselves after their manner with knives and lancets." It was, above all, the character of the Phoenicians to be thoroughly practical. They were poor, so far as we know, in speculative thought, literature, science, and art. As ship-builders, navigators, merchants, miners, weavers, dyers, workers in metal, and colonisers, they were unequalled in the ancient world. Their enterprise and daring as explorers were wonderful, as they faced the perils of unknown seas in reaching all parts of the Mediterranean, the Propomis (h'ea of Marmara), ar.d the Euxine or Black Sea ; in circumnavigating Africa, pushing out into the Atlantic, and in reaching Britain and, perhaps, the Baltic. Energetic, persevering, dexterous, unscrupulous, keen in all practical affairs, they were nor, as has been supposed, the inventors of an alphabet, but they showed their practical genius in simplifying and adapting to the uses of Ihe Phoenicians 41 business the cumbrous multiplicity of earlier systems, and, discarding superfluous signs, they framed a real working alphabet, with a single definite character for each sound — an alphabet which, with slight changes, has been adopted by civilised nations from their day to this. The history begins with the occupation, at a very early date, of the sites of Sidon, Aradus, and other less important towns. The existence of Tyre came later, and Tripoli's, "ihe town of three cities," as the Greek name indicates, was' a colony of settlers from Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus. Gebal (called by the Greeks and Romans " Byblus "), Ake or Akko (Acre), Berytus (Bey rout), and Sarepta appear, with Tyre, in Egyptian inscriptions of the 14th century B.C. Sidon was the first of the independent townships or principalities which rose to the eminence shown by the allusions in the Homeric poems to her bowls of precious metal and her embroidered royal robes, and by her colonisation of Cyprus, the islands of the /Egean Sea, Malta, many places in Sicily, and of Utica and other points on the northern coast of Africa. Tyre became the leading city in the second period of Phoenician history, from the 13th to the 9th century, and founded colonies in Thasos, Thrace, and Bithynia ; at Hadrumetum, Hippo Regius, and Leptis Magna in Africa; at Carthage, in the same region ; and at Gadeira or Gades (Cadis), Malaca (Malaga), and other places in Spain. Tyre, Sidon, and the other Phoenician cities were never formed into a regular confederacy, but lived, for the most part, on friendly terms, and were at times ready to combine against any formidable common foe. The commerce of the towns was probably first carried on with Cyprus, Cilicia, and Egypt. Cyprus, " the copper- land," as its name indicates, was visited for the abundant metal which was combined with tin, in the proportion of about nine parts of the red to one of the white metal, to make the bronze that, in those days, before the general use of iron, was the chief material for all kinds of weapons, tools, and utensils. The need of tin took the Phoenicians first to southern Spain, the district called Tarshish or Tartessus, where it was found in small quantities, and then to the north-western corner of the Peninsula, where it was more plentiful. There is good reason to believe that the famous Cassiterides (" Tin Lands ") of Herodotus, formerly identified with the Scilly Isles and the coast of Cornwall, were really islets off the Spanish coast, near Vigo, and that the great traders of antiquity did not obtain 42 A History of the World Cornish tin by a sea-route until a comparatively late day. The most precious thing for Tyre and Sidon and their sister-towns, but especially for Tyre, was the dye obtained from two species of shell-fish, molluscs in the form of mussels, each of which yielded but one small drop of the fluid. The mussels producing the best dye were found on the Phoenician coast, between Tyre and Mount Carmel, and the possession of this finest raw material, along with chemical skill in fixing the colour, and the brilliant sunlight which, as the dyeing was in operation, gave the utmost vividness to the tint, enabled the Tyrians to produce the magnificent crimson or purple fabrics of their own weaving, used for the adornment of the temples of the gods, and of kings and nobles and Roman senators. Very costly to the buyer, and defying the many attempts at imitation, these articles were manufactured on the Phoenician coast until about the 8th century of the Christian era. The Sidonians were famous for glass in the form of vases, bottles, drinking-cups, and bowls, in small sizes made by the blow-pipe, and the people of both cities were renowned for excellence in bronze-work. In addition to their extensive commerce by sea, in which they were the chief " carrying " people for many hundreds of years, the Phoenicians had a great land-traffic with Judah, Israel, Syria, Arabia, Assyria, Babylonia, Armenia, Asia Minor, and other parts of the East by means of caravans. The best description of the trade both by sea and land is given in that valuable historical document the 27th chapter of the prophet Ezekiel. Leaving this subject, we turn to a brief account of the historical events, which are of little importance compared with the part played by the Phoenicians in the work of civilisation. Like prudent traders, the people wished only to be let alone. They did not aim at founding an empire. They were always more ready to pay than to fight, and would submit to any tolerable tribute if their commerce and religion and manufactures were not disturbed. They hired out their war-galleys to more powerful peoples in the various contests for supreme dominion. When they were hard pressed by direct attack on their own coast, they showed their Semitic capacity for desperate resistance. The one great monarch was king Solomon's friend Hiram of Tyre, who reigned for 43 years in the nth century. He greatly enlarged and adorned his city, and his commercial alliance with the Jewish king led to a most lucrative trade from Solomon's port on the Red Sea, Ezion-geber, carried on by the Phoenicians with Ophir, in south-east Arabia, and I PI ■ ins lia and I •el in marris \ Alter Ins : the end tribu remained, for ihe most part, .it p ntury an I he tyrannic .il . I i in an attempt to redu rhaddon, and Asshurbanipal had n ibmission, compelling them t<> ■ an attack the I taken, and the n< \t ■ midway from Messana to S ... .,, n _. ■ undertaken. I Punic army, and th< n ended in the .: and retirement of the Cartha ntry. had then dominion <>\er only a small territory in the I he and the • ■ but the matter ended in p in a mo; n than hefore her :. - • l rinth, the : In two battles the < nians lition that they should I i I not • 1 were qua I irit " till tm ■ ■ 48 A History of the World as to give his troops no choice but to conquer or die, and made Tunis his headquarters. His force included Samnites, Etruscans, and Celts from Italy, and the Punic forces were defeated with the loss of their camp. Many African towns, including Utica, the largest next to Carthage, submitted or were taken, and the chief city saw herself almost destitute of subjects and allies. He was then recalled to Sicily by the state of his affairs, and left his son commanding in Africa. There the Carthaginians defeated the invaders, and Agathokles sped back to Africa. He was repelled in attacking the Punic camp; his army mutinied and put him in chains ; and in 307 his famous expedition, on his release by the troops, ended with his escape in a boat to Sicily, where he vented his rage in the destruction of the city of Segesta. By another reverse of fortune, due partly to his own unscrupulous cunning in winning over partisans, Agathokles became master of all Sicily, virtually king of the island, and another expedition which he had planned against Carthage was only prevented from sailing by his death in 289 B.C. The last dealings of Carthage in Sicily, before her contest with Rome, were with Pyrrhus, the renowned king of Epirus. After his victories in Italy, to be hereafter noticed, he crossed over to the island, was well received at Katane and Syracuse, whence the Carthaginian blockading fleet at once sailed away, and he became master of nearly the whole of Sicily. He was foiled, however, at the siege of the Punic stronghold Lilybaion, on the extreme west coast, and, on the opposite side, at Messana, and then returned to Italy, leaving the island to become, as he said, " a wrestling-ground for the Romans and Carthaginians." The government of Carthage was held by two chief magistrates, elected from certain families of distinction, with appointment for life. The Romans called them " Suffetes," a corruption of the Punic word Shophetim, i.e. "Judges." The generals came next in power, sometimes holding both offices. There was a legislative body or senate of two chambers, the smaller Upper Council being chosen out of the larger. This council is remarkable for the unchanging policy which it followed for hundreds of years. There was also a popular assembly of whose powers we know nothing : the con- stitution was evidently that of an aristocratic or oligarchical republic, like Venice in modern days. The city was so great that, in the days of her decline, there were 700,000 inhabitants. The revenue was derived from the tribute of Phoenician towns in Africa, paid in money ; from tribute in dates, skins, corn, gold, and other products The Lydians and Phrygians 49 brought by the tribes of the interior ; from heavy customs duties ; and from mines of lead, tin, and other metals in Spain and Corsica. There was an extensive trade with the interior of Africa, by means of caravans, in which Carthage gave cheap drapery and weapons, and indispensable salt, in exchange for gold, slaves, ivory, and certain kinds of precious stones. The European trade of the Carthaginian merchants and carriers by sea included sulphur from Sicily ; wine from many countries ; wax, honey, and slaves from Corsica ; iron from Elba ; cattle and fruit from the Balearic Isles ; copper and tin from Britain ; and amber from the Baltic. There was a caravan- trade by way of Spain to the interior of Gaul. Such were the resources that enabled this famous state to command the services of fleets and of armies of mercenary troops, and to wage war, in her latest days, with the power that was to subdue the world. Chapter VI. — The Lydians and Phrygians. The Lydians, a people of Semitic race, according to high authorities, and largely Hittite, according to others, in civilisation if not in blood, dwelt in the west-central region of Asia Minor, watered by the river Hermus, its tributary the Pactolus, and the Cayster. Their capital, in historical times, was the famous Sardis, at the northern base of the Tmolus range of mountains, attaining the height of 6 ; ooo feet. The Pactolus, flowing through the city, was a mere brook, and its "golden sands" are now believed to allude to 'the riches of the people derived from the manufacture of stuffs, carpets, and rugs, and from the command of the trade between the inner highlands and the coast. The Lydians had much skill in the weaving and dyeing of wool, and the mines of Tmolus, if not the sands of Pactolus, gave much gold. In the history of civilisation they have credit for the invention of coined money, which greatly improved international and social intercourse by the substitution of purchase for barter. The deities chiefly worshipped were the sun-god Attys, and Cybele, the mother of the gods, corresponding to the Hittite-Babylonian Tammuz and Istar. The first really historical sovereign, after semi-mythical kings had reigned for about three centuries, was Gyges, who founded, about 690 B.C., the dynasty called the Mermnadas, of a native Lydian family. Energy, ambition, and statesmanship marked this period of Lydian history. Mysia, to the north, was annexed, and 5y the g hi and :i of the • a most I - iplined and well moun e 1 cavalry, ifaroyal trea ked with wealth in various forms. Tins . and amiable monarch, wh f fault a] : pride in his wealth, captured Ephesus and 1 on the • pt Miletus, with which he made an alliance. When < •ther m ■'. . the I.yduin I is kinsiu wing phi, to which be ived the well-known ambiguous thnt by he would , hoping ir with the aid of troops from all of whi< li states he sent envi plans. He folio Ice li i 111 l>y surpn him in a with the ind the monai f Gi the unsta I the M< man id e had him an intim 1 and in his 1 5 2 A History of the World Lydia proper, being a region whose pastures maintained vast flocks of sheep famous for wool of fine quality. Some of the land was very fertile, especially in the south-west, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains, giving rise to the Mseander and other rivers. There was gold in the streams, and the marble was noted in ancient times. Traces of the Phrygians are found in almost all parts of Asia Minor, in regions where they dwelt before they were driven into narrower limits by Semitic and other peoples. The question of their origin is one of gjeat difficulty, though some authorities declare the Phrygians to be a branch of the great Aryan stock which settled in Thrace (now Bulgaria and Roumelia), and, crossing the Bosphorus, moved eastwards as far as the Armenian highlands, becoming there ancestors of the Armenian nation which, mixed with later Aryans, has become so mournfully famed in the most modern days. About 750 B.C. an independent monarchy was formed in north-west Phrygia, with its capital at Gordium, on the bank of the river Sangarius. We know nothing certain of the dates of the kings, called by the names of " Gordius " and " Midas." The Phrygian religion, whose deities included Cybele and Attys, largely influenced the Greek mythology, and the country seems to have been a great centre of the orgiastic worship known as " Mysteries." The conquest by Lydia has been related above. Chapter VII. — The Bactrian?, Medes, and Persians : Medo-Persian Empire. Bactria, a territory nearly the same as that of the modern Balkh, to the north of the Paropamisus {Hindu A'us/i) mountains, was probably one of the original homes of the Aryans. Its capital, Bactra or Zariaspa, has been held to be the cradle of the religion of the ancient Persians. Still professed by the Parsis, the " fire- worshippers," as they are vulgarly called, this faith is really a monotheism, in which honour is paid to fire, as the purest and most perfect emblem of the Deity. The religion was founded or reformed by a man named Zarathustra or Zaradusht, in Greek " Zoroaster," who lived at an uncertain time not later than 800 B.C., perhaps much earlier, in or near Bactria. The main doctrine set forth in the sacred law, the Avesta, is that of a continuous warfare of good spirits, led by Ormuzd, against the evil spirits, headed by Ahriman, in regard to the life and destruction, welfare or misery, of man and The Bactrians, Medes, and Persians 53 the soul after death. Mithra, the sun-go i, was held to be the equal of his creator Ormuzd. The priests, originally called Athravans, from athao (fire), became the Magi of the Medes and Persians, a powerful hereditary landed class, the keepers and propagators of the Avestan law. There was once a powerful Bactrian kingdom, but it has no history in the proper sense ; there are only mythical accounts of the doings of its monarchs. In Media we are on firmer ground. We have already seen the Medians, in the 9th century, dwelling by the Zagros range, east of Assyria proper. It is probable that, in the formation of the Median nation, pure Aryans became a ruling class, a military aristocracy, among peoples mostly of non-Aryan race, and that the whole were, in course of time, called " Medes." In its greatest extent, the empire may have reached far into Asia Minor, and eastwards nearly to the Indus. At any rate, most of the countries in the eastern part of the plateau of Eran or Iran, as Hyrcania, Parthia, and Bactria, paid tribute to Media, and may have had Median governors. A king named Deioces, ruling from 708 to 655, is said to have founded the capital Agbatana (Ecbatana, the modern Hamad&n), a place stated by Herodotus to have had seven-fold walls, each higher than the next outside it, and with battlements of a different colour. The inmost wall enclosed the citadel, with the treasury and the archives. The city became, from its cool mountain climate, the favourite summer residence of the Persian kings. Phraortes or Fravartish, the second king, has been seen as killed in fighting against Assyria, and his son Kyaxares (633-593 B - c -) as warring with Lydia and as aiding Babylon, in 608-606, to overthrow the Assyrian empire. Astyages, last king of the Medes (593-558), was deposed by Cyrus, whose chief exploits, with the rise of the Persian empire, we now relate. The Persians were Aryans who, at an unknown time, migrated into the fertile plateau, to become under their dominion rich in fruit and corn, which bears their name. The uplands were watered by mountain-streams, and wooded pastures on the slopes and in the valleys gave abundant food for cattle. The soil and climate were thus well suited for the development of a prosperous people. An out-door life made them expert in riding and hunting, and the simple manly life of the warrior class or nobles is shown in the Greek historian's statement that " their sons were carefully taught to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth." The ruling class, the Aryan conquerors, were dominant over a large subject population, 5 54 A History of the World so that their position somewhat resembled that of the Normans in the British Isles. In time hereditary monarchy arose out of the chieftainship of various clans or tribes, and a long line of sovereigns, that of the Akhsemenidaj, had its first great representative in Kurush (Kei Khosrbo), called by the Greeks and known in history as Cyrus. He is held to be the founder of the Persian monarchy in 558, having united under one sovereign the Median and Persi in branches of the Aryan race. He was a conqueror and ruler of great ability, magnanimous, just, and mild, and soon made loyal subjects of the Medes. His conquest of Lydia has been related, and this was followed by the subjection of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor, and of Lycia and Caria. In eastern Iran (or Eran) the Bactrians, Hyrcanians, and other tribes or nations were added to the empire, and in 539-538 came the conquest of the Babylonian empire, as already told. The taking of the great city Babylon, surrounded by brick walls of enormous thickness and height, with a deep ditch in front, and gates of brass closing all streets leading to the river-banks, has been justly regarded as a warlike achievement of the highest class. There were in that age no military engines for the breaching of fortifications, and the large area of land within the walls grew food enough to enable the defenders to bid defiance to famine. Stratagem was the assailant's one resource, and this was aided either by carelessness or treachery on the part of some of the garrison. Cyrus resolved to turn the course of the Euphrates into the empty beds of a lake and canal near at hand. On a night when it was known that the whole city was given up to the reckless revelry of an annual feast, the high broad bank between the river and the empty lake and canal was broken down by a large division of the Persian troops. By midnight the work was done. The river-waters rushed into the receptacles provided ; the bed passing through the city was left dry ; and by this way other divisions marched into the heart of Babylon, through one or more gates left open at the street- ends abutting on the river. The palace was mastered in the midst of Belshazzar's orgie, as with " a thousand of his lords," and his princes, his wives, and the ladies of his harem, he drank wine from " the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem." This event occurred in 538 B.C., deriving added renown from the dramatic details concerning the letters of fire emblazoned on the wall. The conqueror displayed his politic clemency in the respect which he showed to the religion of his new subjects, sacrificing in the shrines The Medes and Persians 55 of Babylon, and releasing the Jews, as already related, for the rebuilding of their city and Temple. Nine years later, this most admirable of Oriental potentates, Cyrus the Great, fell fighting in one of his eastern expeditions. The seven-years' reign (529-522) of his son Cambyses was notable only for his temporary conquest of Egypt. The reign of Darius I., son of Hystaspes, from 521 to 485 B.C., was that of an administrator of great ability, a born ruler of men, and a captain of no mean capacity. He was not only one of Persia's greatest sovereigns, but one of the most distinguished monarchs of all time. The first task which confronted him was the suppression of revolts on every side. With the greatest vigour peace and order were restored in Babylonia, Asia Minor, Media, Parthia, Hyrcania, and even in Persia itself, the original province. In truth, the vast dominion which extended from the Nile to the Oxus, and from beyond the Hellespont to India, had not yet been organised by a master-mind. When the first needful work ot compelling obedience was achieved, and six years had passed away, Darius devoted himself to the higher duty of a patriotic sovereign, that of improving the condition of his subjects. For seven years he displayed his genius as a statesman in organising a vast empire under a vigilant, active, and absolute central government, that prosperity for all might exist in a settled dominion. The whole territory was divided into 20 " satrapies," or governments, ruled by men selected from the highest nobility, whose sons were carefully trained, under the king's immediate supervision, for the tenure of high office. The governors had each command of the local troops in his own province, but royal soldiers garrisoned all the fortresses. The satraps were kept steadily to efficient work by the transmission to the sovereign of reports made by inspecting commissioners, and by the king's own observation during his tours. Speedy punishment then fell on satraps whose territories showed signs of oppression or neglect in poverty and discontent, fields untilled, villages and buildings in a ruinous condition. The taxation was regulated and improved, and each province, through the governor, was bound to remit a fixed amount of tribute. Independent officials, the " royal judges," administered justice, and no interference with the religion, language, and local customs of the- people was allowed. Under a system so enlightened and benevolent, wonderful to have been devised and carried out by an Oriental "despot" in that age, it is clear that misconduct in the local governors was alone responsible 56 A History of the World for lack of prosperity among the governed. The provincial revenue included an equitable land-tax founded upon careful survey, and payable in gold and silver specie or bullion, as well as tribute in kind — horses, mules, sheep, ivory, slaves, grain, and other matters. Dues were also levied on forests, mines, and fisheries. Rapid communication between the provinces and the central government, essential to safety and stability in so vast an empire, was for the first time attained by the construction of good roads throughout the whole dominion, connecting specially the capitals of provinces. There was a regular postal service for the use of the government, with stations at which saddled horses were kept ready at all hours for the royal couriers. These highways were, of course, of great importance for the movement of troops, and, as Darius knew and intended, for commercial interests. This enlightened monarch also planned, and carried out as far as possible, a uniform gold and silver coinage, and completed in Egypt the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea which had been put in hand ages before by Ramesses II. and continued centuries later by Necho I. This anticipation of the Suez Canal of our day was in advance of the wants of the age, and, after being cleared and deepened two centuries later, was first disused and then choked up. The chief cities or royal capitals of the empire were Babylon, as a winter residence ; Agbatana or Ecbatana, on the high ground east of the Zagros mountains, as a resort during the summer heats ; Susa, the " Shushan " of the Hebrew writers, the chief royal residence, east of Babylon ; Pasargadse, in Persia proper, south-east of Susa, this being the cradle of the Akhaemenian dynasty, where the tomb of Cyrus is still to be seen ; and Sardis, in Asia Minor, the former capital of Lydia. Darius I. formed a new capital and erected a magnificent palace at Persepolis, in the finest part of his native state, south west of Pasargadae. The Persian style of architecture, midway between the massive Assyrian style and the artistic beauty of the Greek, was most finely shown at Persepolis, where staircases of imposing grandeur, one having above a hundred steps, each about four inches high, and wide enough for ten horsemen to go abreast, lead up to a platform of gigantic masses of marble masonry. The outer and inner walls of the stairs are profusely ornamented with sculptured figures in relief, and with rosettes. The "Hall of the Hundred Columns," in ten rows of ten tall and slender shafts springing from an inverted flower-base and with the bent necks of animals at the top, was one vast apartment, 227 feet square, used fhe Persians 57 »m and reception-hall, and the i»l. ale 13 when he turned from the work of II ambition, not l with all irithin his reach, turned to Eui and he n the \ iian plains. . with .1 vast host of men under Darius' imand, sho* us th torus and the I the subjection of Thi wed treat oft in armament from lack of resoui thiana were in close pursuit when Darius and his men hipboard, the only result of the expedition along thi I anil the Pontus Euxinus (Black S 1:. n< k\ -vent h led to the momentous cont if the 5th century, tlted in 501, led I •" tyrant " <>f utterly d 1 he peopli .rried off n < '.ulf, youths and maiden I he rebel! - on the H< ll< sp ml wer< bui n world sl I this retribul terribly displayed Persian power Darius . :, in the battle ol I id< . I iff M: I the hel| tlly rankled m the ture and burning ;< h inclu : Vthens. Resoluti • the - n which invad i under Datia and ion. the throi • in the war with I H I . 58 A History of the World was warfare with the Athenians and other Greeks who had helped the Egyptians. The next Persian king of any note was Darius II., surnamed Nothus, a son of Artaxerxes I. He was much under the influence of his wife Parysatis, a strong-minded wicked woman, during his reign of 19 years, 424-405. The empire had seen its best days. The satraps, not controlled as under Darius I., provoked the subjects of the empire by oppression. Egypt revolted in 414, and remained independent for 6o years. Greek mercenaries were replacing the native troops in the Persian armies, and, highly paid by revolting satraps, helped them against the central government. The reign of Artaxerxes II. (405-362) is interesting for the revolt of his brother Cyrus the Younger, which, after the rebel's fall at the battle of Cunaxa, near Babylon, in 401, was followed by the famous " Retreat of the Ten Thousand," the Greeks commanded by Xenophon, as related in his charming Anabasis. Other insurrections, with difficulty suppressed, showed the crumbling condition of the empire under weak rule. A change came for a time with Artaxerxes III. (362-338), a man of energetic and determined character. He sternly subdued revolting satraps, reduced Egypt again to vassalage, won back Cyprus, and conducted with success the war against Judea and Phoenicia, in which Sidon was taken and destroyed. He had planned an expedition to Greece in order to help the Athenians against Philip of Macedon, after having supplied the former foes of Persia with men and money, when he was murdered by his favourite Bagoas. In 336 Darius III., surnamed Codomanus, came to the throne, the last sovereign, of Persia. He was succeeding to an empire revived by the genius and vigour of Artaxerxes, but was wholly unfit to maintain the advantage. He had, moreover, to cope with one of the " world-historical " men, one of the greatest in all history, and, if he had been far stronger in character and ability than he was, he would have succumbed in the end to an antagonist like Alexander the Great. The struggle will be dealt with in the history of Greece, *.nd we need only here state that the last of the greater Oriental empires came to an end in 330 B.C. Chapter VIII. — The Parthians. Parthia proper, a mountainous but fertile and, in ancient times, well-wooded region, lying south-eastwards from the Caspian Sea, from which it was separated by Hyrcania, was part of a satrapy of The Parthi iple have been f j . • . the by hirth Or Office, I er the M I , re.it N >M.ir< h. whom ran the royal house. The priestly i last tO nun. f men, ; and commanding popular revei The provinces were either "a the Persian system, by satraps, or by dependent ki paying tribute and supplying contin for the m karkable that the many i tunded bj ler or I. to have their own munii • eminent Seleu< ia <>n ' the manding the navigation of the I .-■• and the 1 . and placed at the meeting <>f all I between eastern and western A : was pulation Ith, inhabited by from M nia, and .'. - J ■>h<>n, in tern hank of pita! of the Parthian kii itana • mil 1 and philan- thropic Mithl knew how iian empire, in war ssith - for a tune with the three and • ral prot rtl revolt. In the end, neral risii .in int. r! ■ 1 I ■ ■ ail t < hn with barbarism all I 1 1 ; • 1 | 62 A History of the World barbarians, became an independent monarchical power, and held dominion from the Gulf of Issus to the Caspian Sea. At this time also, between 112 and 93 B.C., Mithradates of Pontus created an empire of vast extent and resources, including territory to the east and south of the Black Sea, and in close alliance with Tigranes of Armenia. It was this formidable growth of power in this region that first brought Parthia into connection with Rome. Mithra- dates II. of Parthia sent an embassy to the famous Roman general Sulla, who was then in Asia Minor, warring successfully with the Armenians, and sought an offensive and defensive alliance with Rome. This did not take place, but a friendly understanding arose. After the death of Mithradates, Parthia suffered from Armenian attacks, losing much of her western territory. The history becomes at this time obscure. There were, it seems, civil wars and a rapid succession of monarchs up to 69 B.C., and then occurred events which ultimately led to war with Rome. In 66 b.c. the great Roman general Pompeius (Pompey), engaged in Asia at once against the two powerful foes Mithradates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia, sought to enlist Parthia on the Roman side, promising restitution of her lost provinces. For the first and last time, the Parthians were in alliance with Rome, and their forces engaged the attention of Tigranes while the Roman commander was breaking the power of Mithradates. Pompey, no longer need- ing Parthian help, did not fulfil his promises, and even sent troops who prevented the Parthian king from repossessing lost territory. This faithless conduct was not forgotten, and when Orodes I. (54-37) was on the Parthian throne, Rome paid the penalty in one of the worst military disasters of her whole conquering career. The plutocrat Crassus, ambitious to attain the military distinction won by his colleagues in the " First Triumvirate," Caesar and Pompey, chose Syria as his sphere of action, and in 53 B.C. invaded Parthia at the head of seven legions, 4,000 cavalry, and an equal number of slingers and archers. The eldest son of Julius Caesar, a brave youth skilled in war, especially sent by his father from Gaul, was on the staff of the Roman general. The Euphrates was crossed at a point north-east from Antioch, and Crassus was craftily persuaded by an Arab chieftain in Parthian pay, who had come into his camp, to follow up the enemy's artful retreat. The Parthian forces were in charge of Surenas (not a personal name, but an official title meaning "commander-in-chief"), a man of the greatest courage, ability, and personal distinction among his The Parthia . ilry, in the u-.-ir, I men the rid mid cope with ai outnumb by their trc.K h< • falsely si i the Parthian I tion whi< ly tr.ip into which they had (alien with arrows <>f great peneti ■ fell by hundi ! unable I with the mmandei with With ' and the ; the last I i I . I in full i ami » mch •irc«I . in ■ l 64 A History of the World moreover, to obtain possession of the Roman commander, which would be, with Orientals, the most highly prized proof of success, and would gratify the animosity which the Parthians felt towards Crassus. His greed for gold was well known to them, and they believed it to be his sole motive for his wanton aggression. He had, previous to his invasion, insulted them at a conference with envoys of their king, Orodes, by declaring that " he would give the ambassadors his answer in their capital." They were now in a position to prove the truth of the chief envoy's spirited reply, as he struck the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other, " Hairs will grow here, Crassus, before you see Seleucia." The Parthian general drew off his troops, and then enticed Crassus to a surrender by promise of favourable terms. The Roman general and his staff were being conducted towards the Parthian camp on the pretence of reducing the terms to writing, since " the Romans," as Surenas bitterly said, in allusion to the bad faith of Pompey, "were apt to forget engagements," when a scuffle took place, during which Crassus was killed. The rest of the army then surrendered. Of the 40,000 men that had crossed the Euphrates, one-half died in action, about a quarter returned, and nearly 10,000 prisoners remained in Parthia as virtual slaves, marrying native wives, and serving in the state-armies. The place of their settlement was Margiana, at the north-east of the empire, in the fertile oasis notable in modern days as Merv, now in Russian Turkestan. It was this successful defiance of Roman arms that gave Parthia her recognition from Graeco-Roman writers as the Second Power of the ancient world in those days. The Parthian king, Orodes, then visiting the Armenian monarch, was informed of the result, while he was a spectator of a performance of Euripides' play the Bacchae, by seeing the head of Crassus brought upon the stage by one of the company of Greek strolling actors. Parthian cruelty of derision was shown by the pouring into the head's mouth of a stream of molten gold. No great result, such as might have been expected, came of this Parthian victory. Mesopotamia was fully recovered, and Armenia was lost to the Roman alliance ; but it was only Roman credit for invincibility in war, not the solid fabric of Roman power, which suffered. The next conflict of Parthia with Rome came in 40 B.C., when Syria and Phoenicia, and all the southern coast of Asia Minor, were overrun by her troops. The triumvir Antony sent forces against them, and these won three victories, the last involving the death The Parthi • i .vim had . him with himself in tin- Parthian rule, l I the dominion ol u id mon tlu- west. The death [uickly followed !>>• that <<( his a ken fa 1 1 • his surviving 30 ly to die, of i'.irr; the hands of tli- tluis In the follow ■ the expense ol Parthia, invaded the empire with an immense arm) and l»or 1 ! tached portion of Ins I is utterly ruined in a battle, with the loss of 10,000 kilh .ill the h md engines of w.ir foi and, in hi from the unsu< cessful - imand was nv ly handled. The to:. I Roman loss Me third of the 100,000 men who had begun the < ami aign i • this warfare, an . nan Armenia and M< nst Rom •ill predominant in hi tan vanity w red l>y the voluntary : irds and the surviving prisoners taken from •ml-<\ by the courtly Roman 1 triumph the truth being thai the unpati I by the • • internal Stl I IS might, at anv ■1 Phraal |uent lenj P irthia, in whi< h I. inter" irmed foi under t ; nt < l 66 A History of the World emperor Trajan turned his attention towards Parthia, when he had effected, about a.d. 114, the conquest of Dacia and the reduction of that country to the form of a Roman province. The Roman ruler seems to have aimed at crushing the Eastern world and rivalling the fame of Alexander. Chosroes, the Parthian king, had been dealing with the affairs of Armenia, and this was made a pretext for war. In the winter of a.d. 114-115 Trajan quitted Antioch with a great army. First receiving Armenia's submission and annexing that country to the empire, and leaving garrisons in the chief strongholds, he made a double invasion of Parthia, by way of Nisibis in the north, and along the line taken southwards by Crassus. All upper Mesopotamia was overrun and annexed to the Roman empire, Chosroes withdrawing his forces beyond the Tigris. During the winter of 115-116 a fleet of vessels in pieces was constructed at Nisibis and conveyed in waggons to the Tigris. A passage was forced, against the resistance of the mountaineers, by a bridge made over the river, and then Nineveh, Arbela, and Gaugamela were occupied, Chosroes, with the usual Parthian tactics, still retiring and drawing on his foe. After recrossing the Tigris into Mesopotamia, and taking Hatra, a large town, Trajan, marching down the Euphrates, took Babylon without a blow, and then received the submission of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, facing each other on the Tigris. The Parthian king had thus abandoned his capital, taking with him his chief treasures, and hoping to draw his enemy eastwards, and wear him out by distance and by guerilla warfare. Trajan was too wary for such a course to succeed. He chose to take the surrender of the capital as the submission of the empire, and passed in triumph on shipboard down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, which was reached in the summer of a.d. 116. In the meantime, revolt had broken out in his rear, with the expulsion or slaughter of his garrisons at Seleucia, Hatra, Nisibis, Edessa, and other towns. The greatest vigour and promptitude were needed, and these, in Trajan's person, were forthcoming. Seleucia was stormed and burnt, and the other towns were recovered, but some Roman divisions were destroyed ; and Trajan, on his return to Ctesiphon, abandoned his idea of conquer- ing the Parthian empire, and retired, after appointing, and with his own hand crowning, a man of Arsacid blood in place of Chosroes. The Romans reached Antioch after suffering some further loss, and Trajan, on his way back to Rome, died in Cilicia in the summer Of A.D. 117. p and Hadrian, the up Armenia, M i, and other ti-rr to the west of the Euphi thu • I ranquillity Roman « Vntoninus ■ lian mon I i cpelled the Roman throne of Armenia, the <»1<1 battle field of strife ■ man army w ! in Armenia. Anothi n by the Parthians in Syria, and alarm m I in Rome, but in nised : drove the Parth I 1 ■ to rival the umi the low and thousands died in 1: many ; Ital) v tii<- disease in i : the Alps to tiie German < > I ulation. 1 i. i urred in the i of ti r Aurelius. I be em| ; i Parth ia by • to il<-.il with a rival emperor, who rthian invasion, and 1 ■ hich 1 i th ■ ■ 68 A History of the World established not only in the long-disputed Mesopotamia, but in the fertile region beyond the Tigris, called Adiabene, the richest part of ancient Assyria. The last king of Parthia was Artabanus V., who came to power in a.d. 215. The Roman emperor Caracalla, the vain, weak, and ambitious son of Severus, aimed at Alexander's exploit of conquering the East, and entered Parthia with a large force in a.d. 216. His conduct was that of a violent madman. He had made proposals to marry the daughter of the Parthian king, and to make an alliance between the two powers, with the view of founding a joint universal monarchy. Artabanus thought both proposals absurd, but felt obliged to pretend to yield, and welcomed the Roman at Ctesiphon. The Roman troops, at their emperor's signal, began to massacre the people, and Artabanus escaped with difficulty. Caracalla. then retired with a great, booty, plundering and burning on his route. At Arbela the Parthian royal burial-place was violated, and the remains of the monarchs were scattered. The emperor then wrote to the Senate in Rome, .announcing himself as the conqueror of all the East. In the spring of 217 he was murdered in Mesopotamia by one of his guards, and Macrinus, the chief conspirator, a commander of the Praetorian body-guard, was raised to power. Artabanus had been making great preparations to avenge the treacherous deed of the Romans at Ctesiphon, and his force included a camel-corps of men in complete armour, picked troops carrying very long spears. A three- days' battle took place near Nisi bis, in Upper Mesopotamia, and the Romans, after desperate fighting, were defeated. Macrinus had fled to camp during the struggle, and he had to submit to ignominious terms. The captives and plunder carried off by Caracalla were restored, and an enormous sum was exacted from the Romans. The last struggle between the two empires had ended in success for Parthia just before her own downfall. The Parthian dominion was one of those kingdom-empires of loose formation which always lack stability unless one of the races composing them has a great superiority of power and resources over any one, or two combined, of the other component parts, as is the case with Prussia in the modern German Empire, and with England in the British. Media, Armenia, Persia, Babylonia, Bactria,. Assyria, were each of them singly provinces equal to Parthia proper, and the Parthians, the suzerains of the vassal territories, had long been declining in vigour. For unknown reasons, it was the Persians who took the lead in revolt, and with speedy and complete success. THE ANCIENT WESTERN WORLD. O 69- The Aryan Immigration into Europe 69 Artaxerxes, the young and energetic tributary ruler of Persia, rose a.d. 225, proclaiming the independence of his country. Media was invaded, and Artabanus then took the field. In the last of three great battles he was defeated and slain, and the Parthian Empire was soon afterwards overthrown, while Persia, whose career from this time will be traced in a later part of this history, became again a great power in the world. BOOK II. THE WESTERN NATIONS: GREECE. Chapter I. — Introductory : The Aryan Immigration into Europe. The grand historical fact connected with the spread of the highest form of civilisation throughout the world is the coming of the Aryans into Europe during a period perhaps extending from 2,000 to 1,000 years prior to the Christian era. We have, in this series of migrations, the coming forward of the race which was destined to rule the greater part of the modern world — to fill the leading con- tinent, Europe ; to dominate a large part of Asia ; to become the masters of Africa ; and to people America and Australasia with new nations superseding the non-Aryan aboriginal tribes. These Aryans, the noblest specimens of mankind, alike in physical, moral, and mental character, poured into Europe, it is supposed, mainly through the steppes lying between the southern spurs of the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea. In course of time, in successive swarms, they spread themselves into the peninsulas of Greece, Italy, and Spain, and reached the northern and western territories of Europe. It is most likely that the Celts were the first-comers, the people who, at the dawn of authentic history, are found in the extreme west, in the British Isles, and in Spain and Gaul. This earliest migration from Asia seems to have been slowly made, large numbers of settlers remaining behind in various parts of central Europe, as in Bohemia and throughout Germany, where many traces of Celtic occupation survived the arrival of the second-comers, the Teutons. The Celts who occupied central Gaul reached their highest point of native civilisation, and it is supposed that migrations from this part, of the continent took 70 A History of the World them to the British Isles, the Spanish peninsula, and northern Italy. In the 3rd century B.C., a backward movement towards Asia took a band of Gauls into Greece, and thence into Asia Minor, where they settled in the interior region known as Galatia. The Teutons, who will be dealt with hereafter, drove the Celts before them, and occupied ultimately most of Germany, Denmark, Holland, much of what is now Belgium, and the southern and central parts of the Scandinavian peninsula (Sweden and Norway). The Slavs, the latest Aryan immigrants into Europe, occupied all the great eastern plain, prior to historical times, spreading northwards from the region of the Carpathians to the Baltic, westwards as far as the Elbe in its upper waters, and later, after the overthrow of the Huns in the 5th century a.d., going southwards beyond the Danube and peopling the whole peninsula between the Adriatic and Black Seas. The Slavs thus comprise most of the inhabitants of Russia, Bul- garia, Ulyria, Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, Bohemia, and Croatia. The Aryans have been also styled by scholars the Indo-European race, because some of the Asiatic branch, at the migrations from the original seats, came through the break between the Himalayas and the Hindu Rush chain into the Indian peninsula, long after the other branch had been making its way into Europe. The position reached by the Aryans in modern civilisation is due to the facts that they have not only inherited all the culture of the Oriental nations, including the Egyptians, but they possessed, in the highest degree, the faculties needful for attaining and keeping the moral and intellectual, as well as physical, mastery of the world — power of endurance, adaptability to varied conditions of life, and the capacity and zeal for indefinite self-improvement, and for continuous progress and achievement in science, literature, art, and all that has power to elevate mankind. It is now our purpose to deal, in the history of Greece, with one of the finest developments — in some respects yet unequalled — of this grand historical race. Chapter II. — Greece, ist Pkrioo : From the Dorian Migration to the Persian Wars (1100-500 b.c.).* Ancient Greece, as a geographical term, included four principal mainland regions, two archipelagoes, and some detached islands. The modern Morea, the southern peninsular portion, was called * For detailed information on Greek mythology and legends the reader is referred to Myths and Legends, by E. M. Berens (Blackie & Son): for Greek ( i : • Period (i 100-500 b ~ 1 ts chief I ! Corinth, last ■ divisions \t: To ■ l I Mori . the pui that the term •m the 1 tl e " < »n I he word " 1 1 lied, the in ti. r, it nit! the ■ the historical period. I the A .il with the '.Mill ■ I of rl c lien ic an Period (i 100-500 b.c.) iuth of T mountainous region which they ke| i & in their . ment i • ther tli-.tr •all, and 1 ast of their ntry. I 1 10 j l:.' , hut Un- til the north proba ipied Q I I of tim<- led, and the " Desci nt <>i ed, into Peloponnesus ihiil I also in vessels ovei the long narrow uulf, their tility in war enabli d I c all . lit <l • .ur number found 1, in phon. I ed in the islands • { I ■ 1 1 ttled and that in the 7th ttled frr.; r.il union I ■ ■ I !>y the I ■ I ■ ■ 8o A History of the World of affairs. The larger part of the people inhabiting the states were slaves. The progress from monarchy to the republican form of government was often marked by a stage in which we find Greeks dwelling under " tyrants," meaning men, or the heirs of men, who attained power in an illegal way, but did not necessarily wield that power in a cruel or oppressive manner. Of these usurpers, men ruling with power above the laws and contrary to the laws, instances occurred at Sicyon, at Corinth, Megara, and Athens. When the kingly rule at Corinth ended, {be state was governed by two hundred noble families called the Bacchiadae. The city was a place of great commerce, from its position between two seas, and the meeting of roads from all parts of Greece. The population was thoroughly maritime in tastes and pursuits, and it is interesting to know that when troubles arose under' the Bacchiadae, young nobles who were discontented and were thus sources of danger at home were encouraged to lead out colonies and found states in which they might take the lead. The chief of these Corinthian colonies were Corcyra, now Corfu, and Syracuse, a city we have already seen playing a great part in Sicily against Carthage. The Bacchiadae were finally overthrown by a noble named Kypselus, who reigned as " tyrant " for 30 years (655-625 B.C.), and was succeeded in power by his son Periander. This man was one of the famous ' Seven Wise Men," and under him Corinth made great progress in trade and in colonisation. He lived in all the state of an Oriental potentate, and ruled like a tyrant in the modern sense for the period of 40 years. This specimen of the Greek " tyrannies " of old will suffice. They had their rise in the Ionic cities of Asia Minor, where men were familiar with the spectacle of eastern despotism, and they rendered ultimate service in many cases to the cause of freedom by breaking down, in the interest of the usurper in the first instance, the exclusive system of oligarchs who treated the common people as if they were outside the state. The " tyrants " established new and splendid religious festivals in which all citizens could share, and were liberal encouragers of poetry and art. Turning to the history of Sparta, meaning " sown-land, " " corn- fields," after the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, we find the Spartans, so called from their capital city, settled in Laconia in the course of the nth century B.C. The population of this territory was divided into three classes. The Dorian conquerors, or Spartiatae, " true Spartans," dwelt in the fertile part of the territory, the valley of the Eurotas, and the lowlands stretching to the sea. The Lace- ice : ist Period (l 100-500 b.c.) the dwellers arntm ' nits :n and tilling their own ancestral fan on their landed and other ind t>> military and having no political rights. • mean "prisoners "f war," were ill-treated serl !, which they tilled for the benefit <>( their Spart in iiu ion "f the harv< st. As slaves ol hich et them fi toiled "ii the put. and tmpaign by several They were kept in a lition, being annually whipped to keep them in I of their ink then, nto mt'>\ a warning to the Spartan •heir num -aid to have f ' I he number of the I >ned at about f<>ur I of the S . <>r arisl in ti handicraft <>r trade, and the II I its may been two <»r three til It is iminant class, lived Ii ntry. They did not form a teni the whole number of inhabitants. 1 d them with HeloU with the most bitter hatred. on the ii luntry. The ■ te m tinti that I whom .ing n us nil ■ 1 whom it I I [{ I 82 A History of the World without debate. The Council of Elders or Seriate had also juris- diction over capital crimes. At a time two centuries or more later than Lycurgus, the five Ephors, or Inspectors, gained a great increase of power and the authority of the kings became a mere shadow. The Ephors had then a large control over the actions of every individual, including the kings, and over legislative, diplomatic, and military affairs. By the legislation of Lycurgus, every Spartan and Lacedaemonian family received an hereditary landed estate, which could not be sold. The number of the Spartan families at this time is given as about 9,000, of the Periceci or Lacedaemonian families as about 30,000. The social system established by Lycurgus was of a truly extra- ordinary character. For the Spartiatae, the land became a drill- grouiid from the cradle to the grave. Under this relentless discipline all weakly and deformed children were put to death. At the age of seven, the boys were taken from their mothers and trained to arms by state-officials. The hardships endured by the youth have made " Spartan discipline " proverbial. Music and poetry of a warlike character, including the songs of an Ionian bard named Tyrtaeus,. were the only things taught beyond gymnastics and endurance. Modern Sybarites have said that it is no wonder Spartans were always ready to die for their country, because such a life could not have been worth living. Manhood brought no relief. The married men, as well as the single, were drilled every day ; they messed together, on the coarsest food, at a public table, and slept in barracks. The women were trained in gymnastics, and became as hardy as the men, loving bravery and endurance, hating cowardice and softness of character, and ever ready to give their sons to death in their country's cause. The end in view was attained. The Spartans became the first soldiers in the old Greek world, and they have left not a building or work of art worth seeing, not a line of prose or verse worth reading. They were made into tools of the state, patriotic and warlike machines. The withering moral influence of the system, of the hateful restraints imposed upon and endured by men who boasted of being free amongst a host of slaves, had its natural effect. The whole history of Sparta shows only four eminent men — Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, Agesilaus — not one of whom attained eminence within his country's jurisdiction. This oligarchical republic, as it really was, purchased for the government a prolongation of its existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity abroad. The Greece: ist Period (iioc— 500 b.c.) 83 Spartans, domineering, arrogant, rapacious, and corrupt, cringed to the powerful, and trampled on the weak. They betrayed their allies at every turn. With complacent infamy they never showed either gratitude or resentment. They bartered, for advantages confined to themselves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives of those who had done them the most faithful service. They took bribes from Persia, the standing foe of Greece. With mean jealousy of merit even in their own ranks, they regarded a citizen who served them well as their deadliest foe. The ascetic training which was a constant struggle against nature and reason, the vain attempt to extirpate natural appetites and passions, only repressed external symptoms, and left the instincts common to mankind, debarred from their natural objects, to prey on the disordered mind and body. Hence it was that distinguished men of Sparta, in spite of every external restraint, often displayed a kind of madness in their public conduct. The institutions of Lycurgus, a man who never considered that governments were made for men, and not men for governments, aimed at and effected a lifeless equality instead of free movement, but they did secure for Sparta a stability of rule denied to all other states. Their conservative spirit did, at any rate, keep Sparta from internal revolution, and the military training enabled her, for a lengthy period, to overcome all Greek and " barbarian " forces on the field of battle. The first historical achievements of Spartan arms were those of the two Messenian wars waged 743-723 and 679-668 B.C. These struggles, of a desperate character, carried on by Dorians against Dorians, involved nearly the whole Peloponnesus. The Messenians were aided by the people of Arcadia, Argos, and Sicyon, who feared for their own independence. The Spartans had Corinth and Elis as allies. It was in the latter of these contests that the Spartans, when even their spirit was failing, were encouraged by the heart- stirring songs of Tyrtseus, the Ionian poet. The hero of the first war, on the Messenian side, was king Aristodemus, who slew himself at last when all resistance was hopeless. The end of that struggle came with the storming of Ithome, a strong fortress on a mountain of the same name, and afterwards the citadel of the town of Messene. Messenia then became tributary to Sparta, and for- feited some of her territory. In the second war, Aristomenes, the Messenian champion, endured a siege for 1 1 years in the mountain- fortress of Eira, from which the hero, with his sons and some of his followers, at last cut their way out and escaped abroad. The 84 A History of the World conquest of Messenia made Sparta the leading power among Dorian states. The best of the land came into Spartan hands. Many of the people fled to Sicily, and colonised Zancle, afterwards called Messana. The others were reduced to the condition of Helots, and Messenia vanishes from history for three centuries. Masters of Peloponnesus, in its southern half, from sea to sea, the Spartans then turned their arms against Tegea and Argos. The Tegeans at first defeated the Spartan troops, and made some of the prisoners till the land in the chains brought from Sparta for Tegean limbs. The end was that Tegea became Sparta's faithful ally, acknowledg- ing her headship in southern Greece, while Tegean troops, in recognition of the brave resistance made, formed the left wing of the allied army. The Argives were driven from their southern territory, and the leading position of Sparta was confirmed. We must pass swiftly over the early history of Athens. The rule of kings, at a very early period, gave way to that of nobles, the Eupatridae or " well-born," the executive government being in the hands of Archons (" ruling men "), who were chosen by the nobles from their own body, and, by the year 683, had become nine officials, annually chosen. The Archon Eponymus, meaning " he from whom the year is named," was president of the body ; the Basileus, or king of the sacrifices, was high-priest; the Polemarchus, "war-leader," became afterwards war-minister; the other six, called Thesmothetae, were judges. The first archon, or Eponymus, was the special representative of the majesty of the state, and acted as guardian of orphans and heiresses, and of the rights of inheritance in general. The Polemarch had also charge of strangers who- settled in Attica and of freedmen. Oligarchical oppression of the mass of the people, and factious contests among the nobles, who were great landowners in the plain-district of Attica; the democratic peasants of the hill-districts ; and the coast-inhabitants, a moderate middle party in politics, showed the strong need for political reform. The man for the time was ready. Solon, of the "Seven Wise Men" of Greece, one really deserving the title, was born about 640 B.C., son of a noble but impoverished sire. He took up trade, and travelled much, gaining both material and mental wealth. A good writer, at first of graceful and amatory, and then of stirring " Tyrtsean " verse, he first gained high credit with his Ionian countrymen in the war with Dorian Megara (610-600), by his dashing conduct as leader of an expedition which regained for Athens the isle of Salami's, hereafter to become of immortal fame. Called by the Greece: ist Period (1100-500 B.C.) 85 united voice of the people of Attica to devise remedies for mischiefs and to frame a constitution in the capacity of chief archon, Solon nobly illustrated his own motto, " Nothing in excess," by a graceful compromise between democracy and oligarchy, and, as a constructive statesman, rivalled the greatest legislators of the world's history. His work was taken in hand in 594 B.C. New laws in behalf of the embarrassed abolished interest, and thus relieved debtors of a great part of their burden ; lowered the standard of the currency ; annulled all mortgages and put every landowner in full possession ; placed a limit on great accumulation of lands in the same tenure ; and abolished servitude for debtors. A comprehensive code of laws dealt with all the relations of public and private life, and burst the bonds which had hitherto kept most of the Athenians in a state of political and legal pupilage. The new law-giver then, in his desire to give the poorest class some control over the officials and the law, divided the people into four classes, according to property. The democratic character of this arrangement is seen in the fact that property was substituted for birth as a qualification for the higher offices of the state. The three higher classes, possessed of a yearly income from land of value from at least 750 down to 225 bushels of corn, had to provide the land-army of Attica. The highest class, the men of 750 bushels and upwards, could alone fill the chief offices of state ; the second and third classes could hold minor posts. The fourth class, including all below the property- standard of 225 bushels, furnished the rowers in the triremes, the war-galleys of three banks of oars, hereafter to be the salvation of Greece in war against Oriental power, and the bulwark of Athenian empire. These citizens of the fourth class were, however, placed on the straight road to democratic power by having the right of voting in the general assembly which elected the public officials, passed sentence on their conduct at the end of their year of office, and debated and decided on legislation and other matters submitted to it by the Council, including the question of peace or war. This famous body, the Ecclesia, or General Assembly of the People, was composed of all classes of citizens. The Council or Senate com- prised 400 men, chosen annually by lot, to prepare business for discussion and decision in the Ecclesia. The lower courts of justice were composed of jurors, sitting to the number of several hundreds in each case, selected from a body of 6,000 citizens above 30 years of age, chosen annually from the Ecclesia. The famous Areopagus, a body of judges composed of archons retired from office, had 7 86 A History of the World the guardianship of the laws and of public morals, with jurisdiction in all grave criminal cases. There were many other regulations made by Solon concerning the power of fathers over children, the personal and domestic affairs of citizens, sacrifices, public amuse- ments, marriage, education, and slaves. The persons at Athens who had no political rights were the metceci, or resident aliens, mostly foreigners engaged in trade, paying a fixed sum for the privilege, and liable to public burdens, including military service ; and the slaves, purchased aliens and their descendants, whose lives were protected by Solon's legislation, with an appeal to the magistrates against ill-treatment. Freedmen, or emancipated slaves, had the same position as the metceci. The slaves and resident aliens formed the great majority of the inhabitants, the estimate for Athens in her most prosperous days being 90,000 citizens, 45,000 resident aliens, and 360,000 slaves. We may observe that the fourth class of citizens, or the owners of land yielding less than 225 bushels, or having no land, was largely composed of day-labourers in the country, artisans, sailors, and city-tradesmen. The members of the first three classes served in war as heavy-armed and armoured infantry ; of the first two, in case of need, as cavalry, furnishing their own horses ; and members of the first class supplied ships for the fleet at their own expense. These liabilities to service — the state- officials also receiving no pay — formed the only regular taxation of citizens. In cases of need, an income-tax or special contribution levied on the first three classes was called into play, but the ordinary revenue of the state came in later days from tribute received from subject-allies, customs-duties and harbour-dues, the alien poll-tax, and from the rich silver mines of the state at Laurium in the south of Attica. Some years after Solon had settled affairs in Athens, and had left Attica for foreign travel, the revival of factions led to the establishment of a "tyranny" in the Greek sense. A clever and ambitious noble named Peisistratus, by craft and intrigue, obtained the support of the largest and poorest class of the citizens, and usurped supreme power in 560 B.C., leaving the constitution of Solon untouched in its forms. After two periods of exile caused by a coalition of the nobles and the moderate party, he finally established himself in 541, and ruled till his death in 527. His sway was of a mild character, and he was an excellent patron of literature and the arts. His son Hippias, who succeeded to his power, became a cruel ruler after the murder, for a private wrong, of his brother i • Period ( 1 10^-500 1; 87 it in 510 1 .< . by nobles b< irmy, I for the < Athenian d 1 If at the popular lerable < h titution, d< . that nd ten new ti or local -commun I x-.ti influence >>( the aristoi en up by tlw^ The ( tuncil hail ico new m< ! l>y fifties from . tn'lx.-. I /en to a numb r >>( the me/aa, the and imi|> irtant offi d in the hold military i by turn icnt of foreign ;it: lally a. >n. •und, 1 by the it Pentel on tl f the silver ^ t r n > of sea between Attica and Eul with the thousand ships which had bro • med m ith the fl forty nations thai Darius, from the •m the I ixine, and bej . in the whole history of the world, the m tdern reader the thrilling and I he battles usually styled st tyranny, arc not to I with this world lI event, the salvatioi itic principle power! •. lominion and nura d by the renon i lost uniform \ i ry foe, but we 1. »te the purport of th( t. The nobl take, trembling in the ball a world united under one .1 l>, 14 A good mastei On 1 l bade h All the of the h ! up, all mankind ritual imount, I for futUl 92 A History of the World the Greek armour came here into play, and the utmost bravery of the Persians in rushing upon the Greek spears only increased the carnage. At last the lords of Asia turned their backs and fled to the shore, and another fierce contest arose when the Greeks, dashing after them to the water's edge, assailed the invaders as they were hastily launching the galleys. The enemy, fighting now for their very lives, made even harder battle than before. Callimachus the Polemarch was killed, with another general, and it was in this final struggle that the brother of ^Eschylus, as he grasped the ornamental work on a galley-stern, had his hand struck off by an axe. Seven galleys only were taken, and the skilful Datis, saving the rest, pushed off and started for the western coast of Attica, in hope of taking the city unawares and unprotected, before the victors should return. Then came one of the remarkable incidents of this great day. The Persians and Athenians had scarcely parted, after the conflict on the beach, when men of both armies saw a flash of light on the summit of Mount Pentelicus, now glowing red in the sunset rays. The flash was the reflection of the setting sun on the burnished surface of an uplifted shield. It was rightly interpreted by Miltiades as a signal from traitors at Athens for the Persian fleet to hurry round to the western coast. He started with most of the men for Athens, and, marching by the light of the autumnal moon, now at the full, had his troops arrayed on the heights above the city when Datis and the fleet sailed up in the morning to the harbour. Thus foiled in its purpose, the Persian armada started back for the Asiatic coast. The Spartan reinforcement reached the ground after the battle was over, while the Persian dead yet lay there. 2,000 spear- men, starting immediately after the moon was full, had covered the 150 miles between Sparta and Athens in the space of three days. Too late to share the glory of the action, they were allowed, at their own request, to visit the field. After gazing on the corpses of the enemy, and praising the Athenians for their deeds, they returned to Laceda;mon. The number of the Persian slain ex- ceeded 6,000 ; the Athenians had to mourn the loss of 192. The number of Platceans who fell is not stated, but it cannot have been large, as they fought on the left wing, which was not broken during the contest. The disproportion of slain on both sides, which is familiar to Englishmen from the instances of Crecj, Poictiers, and Agincourt, was mainly due to the protection afforded by the Greek armour and to the difficulty experienced by the Greece : and Period (500-338 b.c.) 93 Persians in getting at men standing firm in their ranks, with spears projecting several feet from the line. When Miltiades hurried with most of the victorious Greeks back to Athens, Aristides was left with his brigade to bury the dead, and to guard the prisoners and the spoil. The Athenian custom was to deposit the bones of all who fell fighting for their country in each year in a public sepulchre situated in the suburb of Athens called the Cerameicus. A special exception was made, for the first and last time in Athenian history, in favour of the men who died at Marathon. The slain were buried on the battle-field, and a lofty mound was raised over them on the plain. Ten columns were erected on the spot, one for each of the Athenian tribes, and on the monumental column of each tribe were graven the names of those of its members who had fought and fallen in freedom's cause. 600 years later, the antiquary Pausania,s read those names. The columns have per- ished, but the mound remains, a testimony for all the ages of the world. A separate mound was raised over the bodies of the slain Plataeans, and another over those of the light-armed slaves who had fallen. It is needless to say that Marathon remained a name of magical power for the Athenians. An enduring effect was left on the Greek mind, an effect greater than that of any outward monument or celebration. An Athenian army had looked in the face of the great king's hosts, had fought and conquered. The charm of the Persian name was broken, and henceforth the turban, the trousers, and the caftan were regarded as signs of cowardice and effeminacy. Through all the prosperous days of Athens, through her period of decay, and for centuries after her political fall, the day of Marathon was regarded as the brightest of the national existence. Nothing was omitted that could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had first taught the Athenian people to know their own strength by measuring it with the power which had subdued most of the known world. The consciousness thus awakened fixed their character, station, and destiny. Super- stition, ennobled in this case as a natural blending of patriotic pride with the piety of gratitude towards the fallen, caused their countrymen to deify the spirits of these dead Athenians. Religious rites were paid to them by the inhabitants of the district. Six centuries later Pausanias states, with full belief, that the battle- field was haunted at night by supernatural beings, with the snorting of unearthly chargers, and the clash of invisible combatants. The belief has survived by many centuries the change of creeds, and 92 A History of the World the Greek armour came here into play, and the utmost bravery of the Persians in rushing upon the Greek spears only increased the carnage. At last the lords of Asia turned their backs and fled to the shore, and another fierce contest arose when the Greeks, dashing after them to the water's edge, assailed the invaders as they were hastily launching the galleys. The enemy, fighting now for their very lives, made even harder battle than before. Callimachus the Polemarch was killed, with another general, and it was in this final struggle that the brother of ^Eschylus, as he grasped the ornamental work on a galley-stern, had his hand struck off by an axe. Seven galleys only were taken, and the skilful Datis, saving the rest, pushed off and started for the western coast of Attica, in hope of taking the city unawares and unprotected, before the victors should return. Then came one of the remarkable incidents of this great day. The Persians and Athenians had scarcely parted, after the conflict on the beach, when men of both armies saw a flash of light on the summit of Mount Pentelicus, now glowing red in the sunset rays. The flash was the reflection of the setting sun on the burnished surface of an uplifted shield. It was rightly interpreted by Miltiades as a signal from traitors at Athens for the Persian fleet to hurry round to the western coast. He started with most of the men for Athens, and, marching by the light of the autumnal moon, now at the full, had his troops arrayed on the heights above the city when Datis and the fleet sailed up in the morning to the harbour. Thus foiled in its purpose, the Persian armada started back for the Asiatic coast. The Spartan reinforcement reached the ground after the battle was over, while the Persian dead yet lay there. 2,000 spear- men, starting immediately after the moon was full, had covered the 150 miles between Sparta and Athens in the space of three days. Too late to share the glory of the action, they were allowed, at their own request, to visit the field. After gazing on the corpses of the enemy, and praising the Athenians for their deeds, they returned to Lacedsemon. The number of the Persian slain ex- ceeded 6,000 ; the Athenians had to mourn the loss of 192. The number of Platreans who fell is not stated, but it cannot have been large, as they fought on the left wing, which was not broken during the contest. The disproportion of slain on both sides, which is familiar to Englishmen from the instances of Crecj, Poictiers, and Agincourt, was mainly due to the protection afforded by the Greek armour and to the difficulty experienced by the Greece : 2nd Period (500-338 b.c.) 93 Persians in getting at men standing firm in their ranks, with spears projecting several feet from the line. When Miltiades hurried with most of the victorious Greeks back to Athens, Aristides was left with his brigade to bury the dead, and to guard the prisoners and the spoil. The Athenian custom was to deposit the bones of all who fell fighting for their country in each year in a public sepulchre situated in the suburb of Athens called the Cerameicus. A special exception was made, for the first and last time in Athenian history, in favour of the men who died at Marathon. The slain were buried on the battle-field, and a lofty mound was raised over them on the plain. Ten columns were erected on the spot, one for each of the Athenian tribes, and on the monumental column of each tribe were graven the names of those of its members who had fought and fallen in freedom's cause. 600 years later, the antiquary Pausania,s read those names. The columns have per- ished, but the mound remains, a testimony for all the ages of the world. A separate mound was raised over the bodies of the slain Platseans, and another over those of the light-armed slaves who had fallen. It is needless to say that Marathon remained a name of magical power for the Athenians. An enduring effect was left on the Greek mind, an effect greater than that of any outward monument or celebration. An Athenian army had looked in the face of the great king's hosts, had fought and conquered. The charm of the Persian name was broken, and henceforth the turban, the trousers, and the caftan were regarded as signs of cowardice and effeminacy. Through all the prosperous days of Athens, through her period of decay, and for centuries after her political fall, the day of Marathon was regarded as the brightest of the national existence. Nothing was omitted that could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had first taught the Athenian people to know their own strength by measuring it with the power which had subdued most of the known world. The consciousness thus awakened fixed their character, station, and destiny. Super- stition, ennobled in this case as a natural blending of patriotic pride with the piety of gratitude towards the fallen, caused their countrymen to deify the spirits of these dead Athenians. Religious rites were paid to them by the inhabitants of the district. Six centuries later Pausanias states, with full belief, that the battle- field was haunted at night by supernatural beings, with the snorting of unearthly chargers, and the clash of invisible combatants. The belief has survived by many centuries the change of creeds, and 94 A History of the World the shepherds of the neighbourhood still hold that spectral warriors meet at midnight on the plain, and declare that they have heard their shouts and the neighing of the steeds. Art was called in to commemorate the day whose achievement had broken for ever the spell of Persian invincibility that had paralysed the minds of men, the unequalled victory which had secured for mankind the intellectual treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions, the enlightenment of the Western world, and the gradual ascendency of the great principles of European civilisation. In the age of Phidias and Pericles the rock of the Acropolis, the citadel of Athens, was crowned at the eastern extremity by a temple of " Wingless Victory," now supposed to have taken up her abode for ever in the city. In that shrine there may still be traced on the frieze the figures of the Persian combatants with their lunar shields, bows and quivers, curved scimitars, loose trousers, and Phrygian tiaras. The walls of the Stoa Poikile (" Painted Colonnade ") at Athens were adorned by Polygnotus of Thasos, an Athenian citizen, with fresco-paintings of the battle, and centuries afterwards the figures of Miltiades and Callimachus at the head of the Athenians were conspicuous there. In the background the Phoenician galleys were seen, and nearer to the spectator, the Athenians and the Platoeans, the latter distinguished by their leathern helmets, were chasing routed Asiatics into the marshes and the sea. In concluding this narrative of one of the greatest events of history, we must not fail to record the gratitude of Athens towards the Platasans. They were made the fellow-countrymen of the Athenians, citizens of Athens, except as regards certain political functions, and from that time forth, in the solemn sacrifices at Athens, the public prayers were offered for a joint blessing from the gods upon the Athenians and the Plataaans also. 63 years later, during the Peloponnesian war, in 427 B.C., Platsea paid a dire penalty for the crime of being the friend of Athens in that struggle. Attacked by Thebes, an ally of Sparta, and forced to surrender, all the male population was slain, and the women were sold as slaves. Themistocles and Aristides now became the leading statesmen in Athens. Themistocles, one of the chief founders of the power of the commonwealth, was a man of wonderful mental resources. Sprung from the ranks of the people, he had a political genius at once tortuous and profound. He was marvellously quick and wise in foreseeing events, and most ingenious and prompt in devising means to attain the ends which he had in view. This intensely 1 Period . that I ntrymen ' fixed on marii ■ n i ■ ■ ■. nh it th* I - jualled i. • II re limit and equipped in the in order l the prosperit) of the ■ H ■ I 96 A History of the World war. Xerxes, king of Persia, son of Darius I., invaded Greece in 480 B.C. with a naval and military armament so vast that, without attempting to criticise the alleged numbers, running into millions of men, we may take as mainly true the statements of the Greek historian which relate the gigantic caprices of infinite wealth and despotic power : the bridges across the Hellespont, roads for armies spread upon the waves ; the canal for galleys cut through Mount Athos, in rounding which the fleet of Darius had been wrecked 12 years before; the streams drunk dry, the provinces exhausted to supply food for the invading host. The defence of Greece rested mainly upon Sparta and Athens. To the congress held at the Isthmus of Corinth in the autumn of 481, Argos and Achsea, from hostility to Sparta, sent no deputies, and Argos even favoured the Persian cause, as Thebes did, from her hatred to Athens. Plataea, of course, was at the side of Athens, and Thespian, Thessaly, and the Peloponnesian states, save Argos and Achaea, helped the common cause. No aid came from the chief colonies. By land no effective resistance could at first be made. Leonidas, a Spartan king, died bravely at Thermopylae in July 480 B.C., with his 300 Spartiatae and a few hundreds of Thespians who refused to leave him. The land-force of Xerxes swept onwards, destroying Thespiae and Plataea, in Bceotia, and receiving the forced submission of the whole country. During the three days of fighting at Thermopylae the fleets had been engaged indecisively off Artemisium, at the north of Eubcea, but the Persians lost 200 ships in a storm, and, in a second day's encounter, the Greeks severely handled the enemy, retreating on the third day to the Gulf of Salamis. As the Persian military host, in irresistible numbers, drew near, the Athenians abandoned their city, the whole of the people, carrying what they could in their hands, being conveyed on ship-board to neighbouring islands and places of safety on the coast. Xerxes at last took revenge for his father's wrong received at Sardis. Athens was burnt with all its shrines. The Spartans, during this time, had kept the Peloponnesian forces at the Isthmus of Corinth, where they began to build a wall across, leaving their Athenian allies to their fate. The matter was decided in the great sea-fight at Salamis, where nearly 400 Greek vessels met about double that number of Persian. The defeat of the invaders was largely due to the over, crowding of their vessels, and Xerxes retired by land with a large part of his army, which suffered much from hunger and disease. The great day of Salamis is remarkable in connection with the P i.e.) int in ti. I i Themisto I th<. Mardonius, ■ winter in '1 In l where 1 1 1 ■ and unp in ranks, pul forth tlieir w: the I^tlr i in . ,, with about 30,0 3 ! infantr] l 90,0 lUt IO.OC with I I 98 A History of the World wiih the duty of preserving the tombs of the slain Greeks, and had their territory, on which the battle had been fought, declared sacred ground. The successes of the Greeks did not end here. They had already taken the offensive on the coast of Asia Minor, and on the very day of Plataea they gained a great victory at Mycale, north of the mouth of the river Maeander, defeating the Persians on land, and destroying by fire the whole of the ships which their commander, remembering the issue of Salamis, had hauled up on the beach, afraid to meet Athenians on the sea. The Ionian cities on the coast were thus freed from Persian sway, and joined the Hellenic league, along with several of the islands, as Samos, Lesbos, and Chios. The grand triumph of Greece over Persia in this whole contest, amidst much cowardice, treachery, and vacillation in various Greek states, was due partly to the mistakes of the Persian commanders, and mainly to the courage, enterprise, and resolution displayed by the Athenians from the beginning to the end of the war, under the leadership of Themistocles. The energy of Athens had been, on the whole, well backed in military affairs by Sparta, and by the Peloponnesian states which were wont to act in union under her. Athens now began to receive her reward in the hegemony of, or ascendency in, the Greek states, a position which she held for over 60 years. The city was rebuilt and enlarged, and, through the foresight and craftiness of Themistocles, was strongly fortified, in spite of jealous opposition from the Spartans. The harbour of Piraeus was made thoroughly defensible, and the maritime and naval greatness of Athens was established. The real supremacy of the body of the people at Athens came at this time, as Aristides had foreseen, from the fact of all able-bodied citizens, rich and poor alike, having served on board the fleet in the great war. The poorer citizens claimed the right of holding state-offices, and it was Aristides himself who, in 477 B.C., met their views in carrying a measure by which all citizens were admitted to the archonship and other high offices of the state. The Hellenic confederacy was now formed, with Athens as its political head. This " Confederacy of Delos " was designed to exclude Persian power and influence from the ^igean Sea. The religious centre was the temple of Apollo in Delos, where the treasury was placed and the assemblies were held. Aristides was appointed the first treasurer, with the duty of assigning to each state its share of the general contribution. At first some of the smaller states contributed money instead of ships and crews, Greece : 2nd Period (500-338 B.C.) 99 and in time most of the others, in order to avoid the trouble and danger of naval service, adopted the same course. The position of these states was thus changed for the worse. They became tributary subjects of Athens instead of free allies, able to defend themselves, in case of need, by combining their naval forces ; and further mischief came when in 459 b.c. the treasury was removed from Delos to Athens, a step which gave her really the headship of an empire, instead of the leadership of confederated free states. The war against Persia in the eastern Mediterranean continued, and in 466 Kimon, son of Miltiades, gained a double victory, by land and sea, over the Persians at the mouth of the river Eurymedon, on the south coast of Asia Minor. Three years before this date, in 469, aristocratic jealousy and Spartan intrigue had caused the exile, by ostracism, of Themistocles, and Kimon became leader of the oligarchical party. He was a good general and an honest statesman, favourable to Sparta, and anxious to see rivalry between her and Athens ended by their alliance against Persia, the common foe. The new political leader, with the spoils of Persia, began to construct the important two long walls connecting Athens with the harbours of Pirseus and Phaleron. He won popularity by the lavish expenditure of his own great wealth in public works for the benefit of the citizens, such as porticoes, groves, and gardens, while he was munificent in feeding the indigent and helping deserving traders or artisans with loans. In 459 b.c. Kimon was exiled by the ostracism, and a new democratic statesman came to the head of affairs. This was Pericles, a man of noble family, whose name has acquired additional brilliancy from his association with the period called " The Age of Pericles," the great days of Athens in literature and art. Steps towards the aggrandisement and, as it proved, the corruption and decline of the Athenian democracy, had already been taken in the law carried by Ephialtes which deprived the court of Areopagus of all its former political control, and confined it to judicial functions, and in the measures passed for paying citizens who served in the army or acted as jurors, and for bestowing alms out of the public treasury upon the poor at the public festivals. In supporting these measures Pericles seems to have had an honest belief that it would be well for the state that the body of the citizens should receive political education by taking part in the decision of all kinds of public matters in the Ecclesia and in acting judicially, and he was anxious to keep the oligarchs, who favoured Spartan views, from having any control in affairs of state. The mistake ioo A History of the World made was that ic was impossible to secure a succession of wise and conscientious leaders like himself, and that human nature, always capable of corruption, was in fact corrupted. An idle, capricious, light-minded body of men, secure of sub- sistence and pleasure at the public expense, was invested with the supreme control of affairs. More ready to criticise the speakers in the assembly than to weigh calmly the probable results of measures brought before them, greedy of flattery, easily led away by promises, careless and hasty in decision, they became the supporters, after the time of Pericles, of a crew of demagogues. Evil ambition was aroused ; the allies, really subject-states,. were alienated by extortion, and the sway of the Athenian democracy became jealous, oppressive, cruel in vengeance on revolted cities and Greek foes. For the present, however, the new democratic empire flourished. The stately, eloquent, imperturbable Pericles, the "Zeus of Athens," ruled by the sheer force of his individual character, by his superiority of native genius and acquired knowledge. This central figure of Grecian history, wielding at will a restless democracy by an oratory never surpassed for condensed and vivid imagery, saw his country raised, by his own influence over the energy and ability of her citizens, to a great height of power in the Greek world. War was waged with various success against Sparta and the supporters of her oligarchic system. ^Egina was conquered, revolted Eubcea and Samos were subdued, new colonies were founded, the fortifications of the city were completed by the construction of a third long wall, parallel with the one leading to the Pirosus. The magnificent buildings rose on the Acropolis and elsewhere in Athens, the remains of which are the admiration and despair of modern architects. In 449 B.C. peace with Persia was made after a battle at another Salamis, in Cyprus, where the Athenians defeated the Persians by land and sea. The Persian monarch, Artaxerxes I., was compelled to recognise the independence of the Greeks of Asia Minor, and to agree that his fleet should not navigate /Egean waters, nor his troops approach within three days' march of the Asia Minor coast. Such, within 41 years of the victory at Marathon, was the splendid result attained by the spirit which that success evoked. The work and influence of Pericles should be studied in the pages of Grote, the greatest historian of Greece, who was the first to fully reveal Ancient Athens to the modern world. We may here briefly note some facts which set forth that wonderful republic Greece : 2nd Period (500—338 b.c.) ioi at the height of her political power. The democracy of Attica controlled 1,000 miles of the Asiatic coast, from opposite Cyprus to the Bosphorus, with nearly all the islands of the ^Egean Sea, and Corcyra and Zacynthus [Corfu and Zante) in the Ionian. The empire included the colonies on the shores of Macedonia and Thrace, and the coast of the Euxine from Pontus to the Tauric Chersonesus {Crimea). The eastern coasts of the Mediterranean were commanded by the Athenian galleys, carrying in war-time between 60,000 and 70,000 rowers and marines. In 457 B.C. we find 200 galleys and a land-force, the crews and soldiers together numbering 40,000 men, helping Egypt in a revolt against Persia. At the same time Athens had squadrons on the coasts of Phoenicia and Cyprus, and yet maintained a fleet in home-waters strong enough to win a naval battle against Peloponnesian foes off ^Egina, with the capture of 70 galleys. An original inscription at the Louvre in Paris, graven on a votive tablet to the memory of the dead, erected in that year by one of the ten Attic tribes, bears striking testimony to the energies of Athens at her best period, when she was at once seeking conquests abroad and repelling enemies at home. This record states, with emphatic simplicity, that of the Erechthean tribe there fell in 457 B.C. "men slain in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia, at Haliae (on the coast of Argolis, in Peloponnesus), in yEgina, and in Megara." It was jealousy of Athenian power and the discontent of some of her own allies which caused the outbreak in 331 B.C. of the struggle known as the Peloponnesian war, embittered throughout by the racial differences of character between Dorians and Ionians, and the political feuds of democratic and oligarchic parties, often within the same city-walls. The nobles were for Sparta and the people for Athens, and the contest was disgraced in many instances by the internecine fury with which it was waged, as Athens strove to change the form of government in other states, and Sparta strenuously upheld the aristocratic party. The resources of Athens have been just described ; Sparta had with her all the Peloponnesus, except Argos and Achaea, which remained neutral, and was also supported by Bceotia, Locris, Phocis, Megara, Ambracia, and the island of Leucas (Sa/ita Maura). The Spartans and their allies were superior in military, and the Athenians in naval strength. In the first part of this war, which lasted, with a nominal truce, for 27 years, we deal briefly with events from 431-421 b.c. During this period the Peloponnesians repeatedly invaded Attica with a 102 A History of the World force which the Athenians could not meet. The country-people took refuge in the city and Piraeus, or encamped in the wide space between the long walls which connected, as we have seen, Athens with her harbours. The overcrowding caused the outbreak of a plague which, in 429, brought an irreparable loss in the death of Pericles, and swept away large numbers of the citizens and slaves. A man named Cleon, of fluent speech and loud voice, then became the popular champion. Strongly denounced in his own day by Thucydides the great historian and by the comic poet Aristophanes, a man of thoroughly patriotic but old-fashioned views, it is very doubtful how far Cleon deserves the character usually assigned to him of being a shifty, unscrupulous demagogue. While the Lacedaemonian forces ravaged the Attic cornfields, olive-grounds, and vineyards, the Athenian fleet made reprisals on the coasts of Peloponnesus. In 428 the important city of Mytilene, in Lesbos, revolted, and the Athenian assembly, after the surrender of the place to the force sent thither, caused above 1,000 of the aristocratic party to be slain, and the city to be utterly destroyed, the lands being divided among Athenian citizens. The fate of Platsea, at the hands of the Thebans, in 427, has been already mentioned. Phormio, an Athenian admiral, gained some striking naval victories over greatly superior forces, and in 425 Cleon, aided by a blockading fleet, captured nearly 300 Lacedaemonians, including 120 Spartiatse, in the island of Sphacteria, on the south-west coast of Peloponnesus, and brought them prisoners to Athens. The invasion and ravaging of Attica was then stopped for some years by the Athenian threat of putting to death the captives, who included many young warriors of the best Spartan families. The reputation of the great military republic was tarnished by the proof that Spartan soldiers would rather surrender than die. The Athenians then conquered and held the island of Cythera, off the south-east coast of Peloponnesus, as a vantage-point whence they could ravage the Spartan lands at pleasure. In 423 B.C. one of the best of Spartans was sent by land to Macedonia and Thrace, to assail the Athenian supremacy in that quarter. This was the noble-minded and skilful Brasidas, excellent alike in diplomacy and war, a man of eloquence rare indeed at Sparta, just, wise, liberal, probably the only Spartan who ever made himself esteemed and beloved outside his own country. His glorious career was a short one. His presence caused several towns to revolt from Athens, and the important Amphipolis was captured. Cleon was sent with • 2nd Period (5 103 with i-Tt.il wounds. We may 1 that m 4^1 th .it I . the mainland, inva< tia, and were utterly helium. It was in the flight from this that the 1 >n of m<»t hrilhant talent-, versatile, !i> eiiti n m. inner and I the life of the ■ dity. ! a d< l»t incurred isly his life m batt e. I ; ■ • r of the war party at A nild- tern; N killed in war. ut I mid and in, to bring about in \; 1 tiled nly nominally •v the head of the war-part] I the Athenians to ■ •l ■-.]< by the In .4 in the < ruelty »wn in the treatment not liable to the penalties of r> \ It. I i< ; ibmit, an>l the conquest of the territory 1 by the f all the adult m I the ■ :it in th- . the r in I 1 104 A History of the World the decaying Persian empire would then be an easy prey. Dr. Arnold, the sagacious historian of Rome, has pointed out that Athenian success at Syracuse might thus have greatly influenced modern nations in making Greek instead of Latin the chief element of the languages of southern Europe and of France, and the laws of Athens, rather than of Rome, the foundation of law for the civilised world. In the summer of 415 B.C. a magnificent armament left the Greek shores for Sicily, composed of 134 triremes, or war-galleys with three banks of oars, carrying 36,000 men including the crews. The soldiers had among them the large number of 5,100 hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry. The commanders were Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, the last a brave honest soldier. The enterprise was doomed from the first to failure. Syracuse, promptly attacked, as Lamachus advised, must have fallen. The generals wasted time in going about seeking for allies among the Sicilian towns. Then Alcibiades, the one man who might have brought success to the enterprise, was recalled to stand his trial on a trumped-up charge which he had offered to meet before he started. Too wise to trust himself to the tender mercies of factious political foes, he escaped to Sparta, and, in a selfish desire for revenge, not only urged her to renew the war, but induced her, with fatal effect for his country, to send out a competent general to assume the direction of affairs at Syracuse. Meanwhile Lamachus fell in a skirmish. The vacillating Nicias, alternately over-cautious and careless, had nearly effected the complete investment of the place by sea and land, when, in 414, Gylippus the Spartan arrived in Sicily, gathered a force of heavy- armed infantry and irregulars, and made his way into the city of Syracuse through an unfortified gap left by Nicias. The besieged were at once filled with new hope, and Gylippus soon drove the Athenians from their chief positions on the high ground. The eyes of Greece were now fixed on events in Sicily, and large reinforce- ments arrived from Corinth, Thebes, and other states, both of men and galleys. A fleet was soon ready in the great harbour of the Syracusans, while the Athenian ships were rotting from want of repair, and the slaves and sailors from subject-states were deserting. Nicias, in September, wrote home begging to be relieved of his command, as he was suffering from illness, but he was foolishly retained. In the spring of 413 Gylippus attacked the Athenians by sea, and, after a repulse in one action, gained a complete victory, while his land-army seized the naval camp and stores of the Athenians on the beach. The Syracusans now looked forward to the speedy and utter destruc- G IP I 1 500-3 ; 105 but the) piril and l l>v the I, by the ad> i< lea in Attn a, the Athenians • :1 armam I .1 fresh indcr the comrn ind of theii most daring and n i • ible in in had d llent in Acarn mia and other pai ibly, and not Cleon, who really deserved the 1 He was .1 true pal unknown in I intry in t!. as the foi mer, after the 5 nd struck >t with terroi Jleys und with ind martial musi< A 1 h u ene <>f bright pro Athenian ^ well-planned thenes, made by 1 the high id held by I I, in the moment ■ the same kind of f the ;th and Alfouera, inn:. The with hca\ • in well-grounded no| >\ the utt< r l'is^ of the Athenian • ire, in a and ■ • 1 all who did no* put I : 106 A History of the World indomitable iVthenians did not despair. They sent a powerful fleet to sea, and transferred the seat of war to the Hellespont and the eastern side of the /Egean. The fickle Alcibiades, quarrelling with the Spartans, intrigued for his return to Athens, and he was recalled there early in 411, after a change of constitution which limited the franchise to men possessing a certain amount of property, and also abolished the payments for attending the Ecclesia, or public assembly, and the law-courts. The revolt of Eubcea at this time caused severe loss to the Athenians in depriving them of one of their chief sources of corn-supply, and nothing could now be grown in Attica, dominated by the enemy from Decelea. Alcibiades now made some amends for the grievous harm done by him to his country. He won two great sea-fights (411 and 410 B.C.) over the Peloponnesians, in the last of which their fleet was almost destroyed. The coasts of the Hellespont and Propontis (Sea of Marmara) were subdued for Athens, and in 408 the restless man returned in triumph to Athens, where he was appointed commander-in-chief by land and sea. The end of the war was, however, near at hand. The able and ambitious Spartan Lysander received the naval command, and in 407 defeated the Athenian fleet at Notium, in the Gulf of Ephesus, during the absence of Alcibiades, the commander, on a foraging raid. The Athenians at once dismissed him from their service. Three years later he ended his remarkable career in Phrygia, murdered by a band of assassins employed for an unknown reason. In 406 the Athenian fleet won a great naval victory at Arginusse, east of Lesbos, but in the following year their naval armament was surprised and overpowered at ^Egospotami, in the Hellespont, by Lysander. The tidings of this terrible blow, which destroyed Athenian power on the coasts and islands, and set up the oligarchical constitutions so hateful to the democracy, was received at Athens, now the sole possession of the republic, with cries of grief, first arising in Piraeus, and transmitted by the guards on the long walls up to the city. 3,000 Athenian prisoners had been slaughtered by the brutal victor, and the centre of Greek culture was soon invested by land and sea. In March 404 Athens was forced by famine to surrender to Lysander and to king Agis, commanding the army. The Peloponnesian war ended with the downfall of the Athenian empire, the destruction of the long walls and the fortifications of Piraeus, the surrender of all war-galleys except 12, the overthrow of democracy, and the establishment of an oligarchical rule known as that of the "Thirty Tyrants." Greece : 2nd Period (500-338 b.c.) 107 A reign of terror in Athens, with a Spartan garrison in the Acropolis, lasted for eight months, after which the violence and cruelty ended, with Spartan consent, in the oligarchs being overthrown in 403 by the return of fugitive democrats under Thrasybulus. The constitution of Solon, or moderate democracy, was restored, but the old political spirit of the Athenians, in their best days, had departed for ever. In 399 the fame of Athens was for ever sullied by the martyr-death of Socrates in the cause of truth. Little interest attaches to the events of Grecian history during the remainder of this period. Sparta had become, for the time, supreme. She warred against Persia, and against Greek confeder- ates roused by her tyranny. In 395 her forces, invading Bceotia, were defeated, with the death of Lysander. In the following year the able king Agesilaus, recalled from his work in Asia, restored matters for Sparta on land by the victory of Coronea in Bceotia over the forces of the allies. At the same time, the Athenian commander Conon, with a combined Persian and Athenian fleet, destroyed the Lacedaemonian fleet at Cnidus, off the coast of Caria (Asia Minor). Sparta began to decline in power. Her " Harmosts " (governors) were expelled from the islands and the Greek cities in Asia Minor. The coasts of the Peloponnesus were ravaged. The long walls at Athens, with the help of Persian money, were rebuilt by Conon, who restored, for a brief space, the maritime strength of his country. In 387 the disgraceful peace of Antalcidas, so called from the Spartan admiral who went as envoy to Susa, was concluded between the Greek states and Persia. The Greek cities of Asia Minor, so gloriously freed after Marathon, Salamis, Platcea, and Mycale, were given up to the effete Oriental power, and the suicidal struggles of the Greek states now brought them to the humiliation of submitting to Persian decision the terms on which they were to make peace with each other. A new brief phase of political power in Greece came with the rise of Thebes to supremacy. In 379 the exiled democrats of that city returned from Athens, and under the leadership of the nobly- born, wealthy, admirable patriot Pelopidas expelled a Spartan garrison from the Cadmeia or citadel. A body of troops, including 'the famous " Sacred Band " of youths, was formed and trained with discipline and tactics excelling anything hitherto seen in Greece. Agesilaus was dispatched from Sparta against the patriots, whose leadership, both in civil and military matters, was shared by Pelopidas' firm friend Epaminondas, chief of Theban generals and io8 A History of the World statesmen, one of the greatest characters of antiquity. The Spartan king failed in his operations, and then Athens, forming a new league of above 70 cities of the /Egean Sea, became the ally of Thebes, and the Spartan fleet was destroyed by the Athenians in several engagements. By 374 the Spartans had been driven out of all the Boeotian cities which they held with garrisons, and the old Boeotian League was restored with Thebes at its head. A jealous feeling then caused Athens to quit the Theban alliance, but the new power, under Pelopidas and Epaminondas, showed that she was capable of standing alone. In 371 the Spartan supremacy was destroyed at the battle of Leuctra, in Bceotia, where Epaminondas and his friend utterly defeated the brave Spartan king Cleombrotus, who died on the field. The Thebans were outnumbered in this action by two to one, and their fame in Greece rose to its height. In the following year the two great Thebans invaded Peloponnesus, and, though they failed in an attack on Sparta, they ravaged Laconia, created an Arcadian League, with a new city, Megalopolis, as its centre, and restored Messenia to independence, after three centuries of subjection to Sparta, with a new city, Messena, as capital. Thus was Sparta brought down from her proud position, so long maintained, to the ordinary level of Grecian states. In following years Peloponnesus was repeatedly invaded by the Thebans, who also did good work for freedom in other quarters by delivering Thessalians from the tyranny of Alexander of Pherse. In one of these expeditions, in 364, Pelopidas fell as victor during the pursuit, and Epaminondas was left alone to his work as statesman, diplomatist, and brilliant commander in the field. With him Thebes rose to a brief renown, and with his fall she fell to rise no more. In 362 the hero, invading Peloponnesus for the fourth time, entered Arcadia to meet Spartan invaders, and, heading a charge which broke the enemy's phalanx, he received a deep wound with a javelin in the breast. Assured of the Theban victory and informed that his life would end through loss of blood when the weapon was extracted, " I have lived long enough," he cried, and plucked it out with his own hand. A nobler patriot and soldier than Epaminondas never lived and died. A new power in the north was soon rapidly rising into view. In 359 B.C. Philip II. became king of Macedon. His country, rich in mines of gold and silver, in oil and wine, had not been recognised as " Greek " or " Hellenic " by the other states, not only as having people of mixed race, but because they lived a Greece : 2nd Period (50C-338 b.c.) 109 rough country-life, hunting and farming, unversed in literature or art. Archelaus, king from 413 to 399, was a wise and vigorous ruler, who introduced Greek culture, and improved his realm by building cities and making roads. The Macedonians were obedient subjects, hardy in life, brave in war, the right material for a man like Philip to mould into a prosperous and powerful nation. This monarch, whose fame has been, perhaps, somewhat unduly over- shadowed by that of his illustrious son, was a man of great acuteness, energy, eloquence, and decision. He had, in his youth, been for three years a hostage at Thebes, and had received invaluable lessons from Epaminondas in military and civil affairs. He quickly had a standing professional army, the chief strength of which lay in the famous phalanx of heavy-armed infantry, carrying swords, shields, and long pikes or spears. In the original Lacedaemonian or Spartan phalanx the men stood 4, 6, or 8 deep. The Theban formation was an improvement on that, and the Macedonian was the best of all. The soldiers, armed with spears 21 feet long, were drawn up in 16 ranks. Each rank was placed 3 feet in rear of the one before it. The spears were held at a part 15 feet from the point, whence it is clear that the spears of all the first 5 ranks would project respectively 15, 12, 9, 6, and 3 feet beyond the bodies of men in the front rank. As the ordinary Greek spears only projected 6 feet, nothing could withstand the charge, on level ground, where the formation could be maintained, of such a body of troops as the phalanx. This need for level ground, and its lack of flexibility, or capacity to wheel quickly or face about, were the defects which afterwards made it succumb to the Roman legion, but in Greece the phalanx proved irresistible, and it enabled Philip's successor to conquer all the Eastern world. With such a formidable power in prospect as a possible foe, the Greek states, with suicidal folly, engaged in various civil wars, the details of which have no interest, and rendered themselves helpless when the hour of conflict came. In vain did Demosthenes, one of the greatest orators of all time, warn his countrymen at Athens, in his Olynthiac orations, his Philippics, and other speeches, of what was surely coming on Greece from the north. By successful war, by cajolery, by bribery of venal party-leaders, Philip won state after state to his rising empire. Amphipolis, Pydna, Potidsea, and Olynthus, Greek colonial cities in Macedonia, were seized. He gained possession of the gold-mines in Thrace, subdued Thessaly and Phocis, and secured the pass of Thermopylae for his invasion of the south. The Athenians, in 341, no A History of the World had a gleam of success in compelling the Macedonian conqueror and intriguer to raise the siege of Byzantium, which commanded the Euxine from whose countries they drew their supply of grain. The end came in 338 B.C., when the armies of Athens and Thebes, allied through the influence of Demosthenes, were utterly defeated by Philip at Chseronea, in Bceotia, where his son Alexander, then 18 years of age, decided the battle by a charge which anni- hilated the Theban "Sacred Band." The Macedonian victor then marched into Peloponnesus, and deprived Sparta of. a great part of her territory for the benefit of the other states. A national assembly held at Corinth, from which the Spartans alone were absent, appointed Philip leader of the Greeks against the Persians, with absolute power. Chapter IV. — 3RD Period : Gr.^eco-Macedonian Age, down to Roman Conquest (338-146 b.c). Two years after Chaeronea the murder of Philip by a Macedonian noble in 336 b.c. left the throne to his son, one of the greatest heroes, military commanders, conquerors, and statesmen in the whole range of history. Alexander was but 20 years of age when he inherited the means of retorting upon the East, with complete and phenomenal success, her invasions of the West. His magni- ficent army of 40,000 men included the phalanx ; the guard, a body of infantry armed with the ordinary Greek spear and shield; two cavalry-divisions, one heavy-armoured and one more lightly equipped ; a body-guard or staff of young nobles, — all the above composed of native Macedonians. There were also regiments, both foot and horse, of Greeks, and bodies of light-armed troops from the barbarian regions adjacent to Macedonia. An artillery- corps worked engines for hurling stones both in sieges and in battles, and on the battle-field, apart from sieges, Alexander was the first to employ such troops. The whole force made up a regular professional army in the modern sense, not fighting as a citizen-militia, but as strictly disciplined soldiers thoroughly devoted to the consummate general who, with the additional authority of sovereign, led them to war. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the world. Space is lacking for a full consideration of the character of Alexander the Great. Pope's summary " Macedonia's madman " is of course absurd, only applicable to certain outbursts of fury caused by excess in wine, or the intoxication of marvellous I Pci .' Ill «.f i : • ihc I his l>n i the 1 and purified it, and held fiim ' him ■ . ■ In l natii I ooo • M I I ii2 A History of the World and won a final and decisive victory at Arbela, not far from the ruins of Nineveh.* Darius fled northwards, to be slain by a treacherous satrap, and the conqueror took Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, and other great Persian cities. In 330 Alexander reached Hyrcania, and traversed Parthia. His progress constantly saw the foundation of new cities as centres of Greek culture. In 329 Bactria was reached, and two years later the swift and sweeping conqueror was in India, where, in 326, he defeated Porus, an Indian king, in the Punjab, at the river Hydaspes (Jhehim). Eastwards again he sped, until his wearied soldiers declined to follow, and in 325 a fleet constructed for the purpose took the army and its leader down the Indus to the ocean, where they were surprised by seeing the ebb and flow of the tide. The admiral, Nearchus, coasted westwards and discovered the entrance to the Persian Gulf, while his master, with terrible suffering to the troops and much loss, led the army through the desert of Gedrosia {B chichi si an). In 324 Alexander was again in Susa (capital of Persia proper), and made known his great plan of spreading Greek civilisation throughout the East, and founding a Macedonian-Persian universal empire, in which there should be entire political equality of the Eastern and Western populations. This scheme shows the greatness of Alexander's conceptions, as a statesman of comprehensive views and of prudent toleration. The religion of all the conquered was respected, and the civil administration was largely left to native rulers. Many Macedonian officers married Persian ladies of good family, and 10,000 of the soldiers took Persian wives. The execution of this magnificent plan of civilisation was cut short by the great man's death of fever at Babylon, in the summer of 323 B.C., when he was 32 years of age. The effect of Alexander's conquests was very important and long-enduring. In the Greek settlements which were planted and the cities which were founded by himself and his successors, the Hellenic element soon became predominant, and thus schemes of civilisation, of commercial intercourse, and of literary and scientific work were blended with military enterprises and with systems of civil administration. The Greek language became that of all cultured persons in Egypt and the Eastern world, and the native tongues only retained their place as provincial dialects. The noble oratorical and literary instrument of Pericles and Plato was the language used * For the details of this great battle, readers are again referred to Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles. : Pel i i ; in | 1 in full vigour d ■ .il the I i <>( I; khara), in Hind* ami rit. It i n 1 of a have beei final th of the great M r, many and then tails of this ery turn, I til.',!.:. . Bithyni ; trill be sei n h< i tan republic briefly with I ler, until ■ I ■ I I l . I ii4 A History of the World poems (" idyls ") in his honour, was the Syracusan Theocritus, the creator of bucolic poetry as a branch of Greek literature. The Syrian dominions of Alexander became a kingdom under the Seleucidas, descendants of the first king Seleucus, one of his generals, with a capital first at Seleucia, on the Tigris, and then at Antioch, on the Orontes. We have already seen, in the history of the Jews, an important part of the annals of this realm, which we shall meet hereafter in Roman times. Macedonia, the third of these important kingdoms, brings us back to the period of Greek decline in the political sense. The end of the struggle of the " Diadochi," or " Successors," saw Cassander in possession of Greece and Macedonia. This son of Alexander's trusted officer Antipater succeeded to a posicion of power in Greece won by his father in the " Lamian war" of 323-322, so called from a town in Thessaly at and near which the military operations were chiefly carried on. The contest arose from an attempt of Greek states, headed by Athens, to free the country from Macedonian supremacy immediately after the death of Alexander. The democratic leaders at Athens, the immortal Demosthenes, and his pupil in oratory Hyperides, induced the states of central and northern Greece, except Bceotia, to take up arms in the common cause of Hellenic freedom. The struggle was short, sharp, and decisive, and involved tragic issues to the lives of the two Athenians whose names cast a parting gleam of glory over the period which ends in political extinction. After some success at the outset, the allies were totally defeated by Antipater at Crannon in Thessaly, and the states in succession submitted to the victor. Athens was compelled to receive a Macedonian garrison, and to give up her democratic constitution, the possession of citizenship being based on a property- census. Demosthenes fled, and, being closely pursued by the emissaries of Antipater, slew himself by poison in the temple of Poseidon, regarded as an inviolable asylum by all true Hellenes, in the island of Calauria off the coast of Argolis. Hyperides was slain at ^Egina by the orders of the Macedonian conqueror, who dreaded in his eloquence, as in that of the illustrious master, the power which stirred patriotic hearts. The oppression exercised by Macedonian kings caused the last efforts for Greek independence to be made by confederations of states, called the Achaean League and the ^Etolian League. The Achaean confederacy was originally that of ten cities on the northern coast of Peloponnesus, and we have hitherto had no occasion to Greece: 3rd Period (338-146 b.c) 115 notice it in the Greek history. In its new form, as revived in 280 B.C., a vigorous attempt was made to get rid of the " tyrants " set up in these cities, and in other states, by Antigonus of Macedonia. An important personage arose in Aratus of Sicyon, a brave general and skilful tactician, a statesman excelling in negotiation, and a thorough patriot. At the age of 20, in 251 B.C., he freed his native city from an usurper of rule, and brought it into the League, giving the confederacy thereby a great accession of power. In 245 he was elected " General," or " President," and brought into the League many other states, including Corinth, which he delivered from the Macedonians about 240, and Athens and ^Egina. Nearly all the Peloponnesian cities also joined the body except the sullen, isolated Sparta, which had entirely degenerated from her ancient simplicity of life, and was in the power of a wealthy oligarchy. Attempts were made to revive her olden system. In 244 Agis IV., one of the associate kings, thus sought to reform the state, in renew- ing the decayed institutions of Lycurgus, abolishing debts, and dividing the land, so as to create a large new body of citizens. The landed property had fallen into possession of about 100 families, and the number of " Spartiatse," or full citizens, did not exceed 700. At the command of the Ephors, who sought to please the corrupt aristocracy, he was assassinated by his misnamed colleague Leonidas. Cleomenes, son of this Spartan murderer, reigned from 236 to 222, and had more success in a like effort, his period of rule being a final burst of sunshine amid the clouds of his country's closing days. He had married the widow of Agis IV. Endowed with a noble soul, strengthened and purified by the best philosophy of Greece, and being a man of great energy, he gained military glory by successful warfare against the Achaean League. In 226 he turned upon the home-government, overthrew the Ephors, and made the constitution wider by admitting to full citizenship a number of the Periceci, The laws of Lycurgus were enforced, and Sparta for a very brief space of time had the semblance of her olden self. The League, under Aratus, called in the help of Macedonia, and in 221 B.C. Cleomenes, utterly defeated by their combined forces at the battle of Sellasia, north of Sparta, fled to Egypt, and died there in the following year by his own hand. In 208, after the death of Aratus, Philopcemen of Megalopolis in Arcadia, one of the few great men produced by Greece in this time of her decline, became " General " of the Achaean League. He had fought with distinguished courage at Sellasia. In 201 he again filled the post of president of the i r6 A History of the World League, and defeated Nabis, "tyrant" of Sparta. After serving in the Cretan wars, he returned to Greece, and was again Strategus or General of the League in 192. The Romans were by this time assuming a position of control in Greek affairs, and Philopcemen was too prudent to provoke them to conflict. He had the credit of dealing the death-blow to the Sparta which had once been the most powerful Hellenic state. In 18S he captured the city, razed the fortifications, made an end of the institutions of Lycurgus, and com- pelled the citizens to live under the Achaean laws. The ^Etolian League, deriving its name from the large territory in the west of central Greece, inhabited at the time of the Peloponnesian war by many " barbarian " tribes, was formed against Macedon about 284 B.C., and included Acarnania, Locris, part of Thessaly, and some towns in Peloponnesus. It had never the importance of the Achaean League and needs no further notice. The end of the eventful history of ancient Greece is now at hand. Roman interference brought the great Power into collision with Philip V. of Macedon, who reigned 220-178 B.C. He was an able man, skilful in war, but no troops could resist the legions of Rome. In 197 he was totally defeated by the Roman general Flamininus at Cynoscephalae in Thessaly. In the following year — a vain mockery for those who could read aright the signs of the times — Greece was declared " free and independent " of the Macedonian power by Flamininus at the Isthmian Games. This act, really a transfer of supremacy from Macedon to Rome, was received by the Greeks with the warmest gratitude. Henceforth Rome's policy was to foster quarrels between the Greek states, so as to diminish the influence of the Achaean League, and Roman and anti-Roman parties arose in the cities. In 171 b.c. another " Macedonian war" arose between the Romans and Perseus of Macedonia, son of Philip V. Three years later he was totally defeated at Pydna, in his own country, by the Roman general vEmilius Paulus, and after- wards died a wretched captive in Rome. In 147 Macedonia was divided into four districts, and became virtually a part of the Roman empire. It is instructive to know that the conqueror of Macedon, a man who is held up to us as one of the models of Roman "virtue, which at Rome, indeed, meant "manhood," "warlike courage,' obeyed a decree of the Senate in giving up 70 little towns of Epirus to be sacked and destroyed by his troops after all hostilities were at an end. Deceit was used in order to prevent resistance or escnpe, and this horrible cruelty was all perpetrated in one day and The Greatness of Athens 1 1 7 one hour, with the selling into slavery of 150,000 human beings. The long agony of Greece drew to an end when the Achaean League was brought into conflict with Rome. The capture of its leading city, Corinth, by the Roman Consul Mummius in 146 B.C., was attended and followed by the slaughter of most of the citizens who had not fled, the selling of the women and children into slavery, the ransacking of the temples and the private buildings, the destruction of the whole place by fire, and the carrying away to Rome of countless precious works of art. The whole of Greece at last became a Roman province as " Achaea," the governments of the several cities being organised on a democratic basis, and a praetor being appointed over the whole. Athens, Delphi, and one or two other towns, alone remained free. At some places, as at Corinth, Plataea, and Megara, Roman " colonies " were planted. The land had become a mere wilderness from war ; for days' journeys in succession the territory was depopulated or only haunted by banditti; and 3,000 fighting men were all that Greece could furnish for the Roman legions. From this melancholy spectacle we turn with relief to a view of Athens in her best days, and to a slight acknowledgment of the debt due to her from the civilised world. Chapter V. — The Greatness of Athens. One of the greatest of modern literary artists, a man who well knew his subject, has declared that "there seems to be every reason to believe that, in general intelligence, the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower orders of any community that has ever existed. To be a citizen in Athens was to be a legislator, a soldier, a judge, one upon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealthiest tributary state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both of agriculture and of trade, were performed by slaves. The commonwealth supplied its meanest members with the support of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were indeed few, but they were excellent and they were accurately known. . . . Books, however, were the least part of the education of an Athenian citizen. In a vivid picture, he then puts before us the admirable mental training at the disposal of all men in the glorious city where men, as they walked the streets in its best days, might see Phidias, with a delighted crowd around him, putting up the frieze on the entablature of a portico ; might hear a rhapsodist, or professional reciter, surrounded by a throng of 9 1 1 8 A History of the World men, women, and children— the tears running down their cheeks, their eyes fixed, their very breath still — telling from Homer's lines how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles and kissed those hands — the terrible, the murderous — which had slain so many of his sons ; might listen while Socrates, pitted in argument against some famous atheist from Ionia, brought him to a stand by catching him in a contradiction in terms ; might be a hearer of Pericles in the Ecclesia four or five times every month ; and attend the theatre for the performance of dramas and comedies of almost the highest excellence in their class. Such an education was eminently fitted, not, indeed, to form exact or profound thinkers, but to give quickness to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to the expression, and politeness to the manners. The freedom of the Athenian's daily life, the happiness arising from the unfettered exercise of the mind in pursuits congenial to it, combined with native ability, produced the almost ideal excellence belonging to Athenian models of poetry, philosophical writing, oratory, and the arts. In private life, the people were distinguished by their courtesy, and their amiable demeanour. Their levity was, at least, better than Spartan sullenness, and their impertinence than Spartan insolence. Without submitting to the hardships of a Spartan education, they rivalled all the achievements of Spartan valour, failing in the field, from time to time, from lack of practice, and being long unrivalled on the sea. Politically dead, and destined to be in after ages the prey, for a season, of the least cultured and the most fanatically savage of modern oppressors, Athens began, in the days of her dissolution as an independent state, to live for evermore. She became the university-town for young Romans and other youths of rank, for all who sought the highest attainable mental culture, the chief college of the whole civilised world. To Athens the most promising youths flocked to hear the discussion of high themes, the discourses of philosophers, in the four great " schools." The Academic school, founded by Plato, who flourished from about 400 to 350 B.C., derived its name from the gardens and gymnasium near Athens, called Academeia, because the land which they occupied was consecrated to Academus, a mythical hero. In these groves of olives and plane-trees Plato discoursed of the one eternal Deity, of perfect goodness and wisdom. There he taught that the spirit of man has had a former state of existence, seeing perfect, ideal forms of things, the dim remembrance of which in this life is the only knowledge we can attain to of what is truly good and wise. The ( vreatness of At!. 1 i g I • t<> this mmunion m his philo is in the handling <>f • marvello worthy in wit, < ng which : all pagan int. ; cts. I . eminent ..•I, we b '•. in 1 like . whose . Im.; tr mi 469 t" led '* tin • • 1. m war. This admirable in. m, so well known to us, not from any \\; ins own, hut ■ 'I' his illustl :.ircr . I , a true hero m his hfc and his death. It was his work .is a ph Ho- le a mental or ethical system, but to teach 1 tu.il truth m ridding then it, and finding a sure b now- •1 of .ill ill-grounded notion 1 1 iple, appli< all inquirers and all subje< ts of inv< led the ■ truth in all subsequei I the who, I introducing new ■ 500 ins prison through mi i) his fni Iling, in his i). in in tl in the immortality ■ of ti in indulging I His with hi ■ no A History of the World poet Lucretius, and needs no remark here. The Stoic school, founded at Athens about 320 b.c. by Zeno, a Greek of Cyprus, had its name from the place of his teaching, the Stoa Poikile already mentioned in connection -with the battle of Marathon. The name of " stoic " has become proverbial for the spirit which despises the external conditions of man's life, unseduced by pleasure, unsubdued by pain. The system is best known to modern times through the writings of three philosophers of the " Empire " period o v f Roman history — Seneca, Epictetus, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Virtue consisted in " living according to nature" — that is, according to the divine reason bestowed upon man ; favourite phrases of the Stoic teachers dwelt on the ideal "wise man," on "apathy" or equanimity of soul, on the power of the "will," the worship of " duty," and constant " advance " in virtue. I Stoicism held the government of the universe by one wise and benevolent Deity, and the absorption of the soul, after death, into the divine essence. Modern ethics have been, with advantage to mankind, largely influenced by a system which taught contentment, defiance of ill- fortune, limitation of wants, and the subjection of self to the general welfare, I The Peripatetic school, founded at Athens, in 335 B.C., by the flmous Aristotle of Stageira, a Greek colony in Macedonia, was ' so called either from the covered walks (peripatoi) of the suburban gymnasium styled Lyceum, where he taught, or from the deliverance of discourses whilst he was walking about \{peri- patetikos meaning " fond of strolling ") instead of in a seated position. The intellect of this great man embraced all the learning of his time, and his writings, largely extant, included almost all subjects which could interest the intellectual portion of mankind as the world was in his day — rhetoric, politics, ethics, natural history, poetry, and other matters. Aristotle, whose works have more directly and largely wrought on modern thought than those of any other ancient writer, was the greatest pupil of Plato and, as we have seen, the tutor of Alexander of Macedon. The literature of Ancient Greece is the greatest treasure, apart from the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, bequeathed to us from ancient times. The very names of writers are enough for fairly educated readers — so universal is the renown of these models for originality, richness, beauty, and force. The Greek writers were the first who gave themselves to the work of systematic thinking, and in the departments of history, logic, and ethics they laid what is still the foundation for modern treatment. Homer and the great writers The Greatness of Athens 1 2 1 en already named. An imi id irrepai tme in the almost utter extinction, thro r to the invention of printing, "f the I3 : Sappho, Al< bus, and nt of P the chii literary art. depth of philosophy, vigour and » Herodoi , in his liveliness and and Xen narrator, arc all familiar nam. I it survives in soni • "t his < hief, 1 arefully .111 any of the highest Wei in to the words of the renowned [uoted, himself thoi inversant with the splendid and incomparable literature from whii li have sprun h of the and the wisdom, the freedom and thi tern I, a literature distin alike by imaginative power, subtlety in. "11' have t indirectly, all the n I the human il >mplishmentS and the brilliant fai lering tire of Juvenal ; the 11 of the hum< the ■• ;tler ; the supreme and universal excellei All the triumphs of truth and . intry anil in •-, have heen the- triumphs I minds have made a stand against i, m th< if liberty in, there has n her spirit in the m inspiring, soling by the lonely Ian p of 1 in the o ' 1 the • iny thousands h.i. whii h took theii th in • il with ■ ■ ] 22 A History of the World the immortal influence of Athens." Above all, the Athenians were the pioneers for mankind in the path which leads to the noblest acquisition of the race — freedom of spirit. This is the liberty of soul which has delivered man from the trammels of superstition and the tyranny of priestcraft; which has enabled him to bring all matters, from the highest to the lowest, from the foundations of religious faith to the minutest regulations of police, to the bar of that reason which is God's greatest gift to those whom He created in His own image. The day was to come, nearly 20 centuries after the most glorious time of Athens, in the pride of her material power among the states of Greece, when the men of modern Europe, at the revival of learning, would draw new inspiration from that eternal spiritual spring, and would face boldly, with keen investi- gation, the claims put forward by those who stood between man and his Maker. The glorious result, one in which the highest interests of the race were concerned, was the removal for ever, from the necks of those who were wise enough to accept deliverance, of the yoke imposed by human authority which asserted itself to be divine. This, and not less, is the debt of mankind to that glorious republic of ancient days. BOOK III. ROME (? 753 B.C.— a.d. 476). Chapter I. — Mythical Period of Kings to beginning of , Punic Wars ( ? 753-264 b.c.).* The supreme importance of Roman history to modern readers lies in the fact that it is, in a large degree, the history of the world, if we regard history not as a mere chronicle of events, an " old almanack,''" but as the science of causes and effects. Rome alone founded an universal empire in which all earlier history is absorbed and out of which all later history grew. That empire included nearly all the civilised old world, and the breaking-up of that vast dominion gave rise to the chief states of the modern world. The * For details on the Roman religion, private and public life, and literature, the reader is referred to Roman Antiquities and Reman Literature, in Macmillan's History and Literature Primers. Rome: Mythical Period to Punic Wars (? 7 53—264 b.c.) 123 language of ancient Rome is the basis of the living speech of most of southern and of all south-western Europe, and of France, and it is largely incorporated in the literary dialect of our own country. For ages the classical Latin, little changed, was the ecclesiastical language of half Christendom, and it was also, until quite modern days, the common language of science, diplomacy, and learning. The law of Rome is still quoted in our courts of law, and taught in our universities, and the whole jurisprudence of great European countries has there its source and groundwork. A city became an empire ; a municipal republic ruled an ever-increasing subject territory. When the republican government ended in the sway of the Caesars, the Roman citizen and the provincial were alike their subjects, and then the rights of the Roman citizen were extended to the subjects of the whole dominion. The difference is thus very strongly marked between the history of Greece and that of Rome, since in the latter we have unity from beginning to end — -the rise, greatness, degeneracy, and fall of a single state. In contrast with the endless variety of the Greek struggles between many small states, we have in the history of Rome a steady solemn march of power paving the way for the spread of a heaven-sent religious faith arising in Palestine, and with its oracles or sacred books using the tongue of Greece, but reaching us only through the agency of Rome. In the Roman history we witness almost unbroken progress from the rise of a single small city to the dominion of the world. The growth was slow, but the materials were solid, and the fabric was durable. A main cause of the prosperity of ancient Rome lay in the mingling of Latins, people possessed of a genius for organisation, with Sabines, men of rigid virtue and self-devotion. The uncertainty of the details of early Roman history arises from the fact that, above 360 years later than the date (753 B.C.) assigned for the foundation of the city of Rome, nearly all the public records were destroyed after the Gallic capture of the town. The oldest annals were compiled more than a century and a half after the destruction of the records. The outline-history of the great Roman republic and empire which we shall here present will be, as in the case of ancient Greece, entirely devoid of legendary matter, and will consist of statements based upon satisfactory evidence. A brief geographical and ethnographical survey of ancient Italy will clear the way for what is to come. About the middle of the 8th century B.C., which we must accept as the date for the foundation of Rome, we must regard the whole peninsula as divided 124 A History of the World into three parts — Upper Italy, Central Italy, Lower Italy. Upper Italy, the great plain between the Alps and the Apennines, could not then be considered Italian at all. The larger portion was occupied by the Celtic race called Gauls, and had the name of Gallia Cisalpina, or " Gaul on this side [to a Roman, of course, to the south] of the Alps," in distinction from Gallia Transalpina, or " Gaul beyond [north-west of] the Alps." South-west of this Cisalpine Gaul lay Liguria, extending to the sea at and on both sides of the Gulf of Genoa, by its modern name. The Ligurians seem to have been distinct in race both from the Kelts and the Iberians, an ancient people of Spain, identified by some with the mysterious modern Basques of northern Spain. North-east of Cisalpine Gaul was Venetia, of whose people we can only state that they were not Keltic. Central Italy consisted of the territories marked on the map as Etruria, Latium, Campania, on the west ; Umbria, Picenum, Samnium, on the east. The Etruscans were the most important people in the peninsula at that time. Their name survives in the modern " Tuscany." These people are yet a mystery in their origin. Their language is entirely lost, and we can only say that at the time of the foundation of Rome they were a powerful people in a loose confederacy of 12 independent cities under kings called Lucumos, ecclesiastical as well as civil rulers, with a small close body of aristocrats holding the mass of the nation in serfdom or vassalage. They were highly civilised, as is proved by their proficiency in statuary, metal-work, ship-building, and architecture. They paid the greatest attention to religion, and furnished the Romans with various political and religious institutions, including the arts of divination. The other parts of central Italy were inhabited by Italian peoples, of Aryan race, and therefore akin in origin to the Greeks. The most important of these people were the Latins, having a league of 30 independent cities in historical times, and living in the plain south of the Tiber; and the Samnites, the bravest and most warlike of the simple, virtuous, and devout Sabine tribes, dwelling north-east and east of Latium, and destined to form an important element in the Roman population. We may note that Campania, on its western coast, had Greek colonies in the cities of Cumse and Neapolis {Naples). Lower Italy, consisting of Apulia, Calabria, Lucania, and Bruttii (wrongly given as " Bruttium "), contained so many important Greek colonies that it became known as Magna Graecia, or " Greater Greece." Among these cities were the powerful R • Mythical P< I Pui i< w : the Ithy inh.. i the ! river in tli.it |>irt of I r their t< I their powerful neighbours the ] town uas about 15 miles from the n I at tir^ upon a little 1 in this 1 1 the north the litti in trade. Within a century and a half of within the extended wall, lies in circuit, and a< quired in hi " thi Hills." The place I I the l< al two being m< reased in number with provincia r had a W hen r< ; fully :, the hol the five i hiel ■ the ■'; he id had - r in with reli ial rule, and and dismi 128 A History of the World political, between the patrician and plebeian orders. The fitness of Romans to create a powerful state is shown during this period by the wise spirit of moderation generally displayed by both parties in the contest for the retention of old and the acquirement of new power. There was rarely any violence ending in bloodshed, and there was no civil war. Both orders were united against foreign foes in time of need, and a high sense of duty to the state, as superior to all individual or party claims, was developed. Obedience, perseverance, and self-control were learned as patricians held out against plebeian demands until they were obliged by moral pressure to give way, and as plebeians strove to show themselves worthy of the rights which they claimed. The first trouble of the republican times arose from the impoverishment of plebeians through ravaging of their lands in war with the Etruscans. They were greatly in debt to patricians, and liable, on this ground, to imprisonment and slavery. This state of things was remedied through a peaceful revolt, or refusal of the plebeians to do military service for the state. The famous tribunate was created. These tribunes of the commons, who became at last ten in number, were the champions and protectors of the plebeians against the privileged class, the patricians, who held nearly all the ager publicus, or public land, both pastoral and tilled, acquired by conquest, and who virtually paid no taxes in the shape of rent. The persons of the tribunes were inviolable, and they could interfere to protect any plebeian from the injustice of an official. They could at last prevent any adminis- trative or judicial action by their jus intercessions, or right of inter- vention, and they exercised judicial functions, and convened the Comitia Tributa. The tribunes were elected only by the popular assembly, and, being soon admitted to the Senate, they could there, by a veto, deprive any resolution of the body {senatus-consultuni) of its legislative force. About the middle of the 5th century B.C. a temporary suspension of the constitution took place, and Decemviri, or Ten Commissioners, were appointed to draw up the famous code known as the Laws of the Tzvelve Tables, engraved on copper and set up in the Forum, or public place, that all citizens might have a safeguard against oppression in knowing what laws were those by which judicial functions were guided and contro'leJ. This step in advance subjected the patrician administration to public judgment. For the dates and details of successive steps in the development of the republican constitution, readers of this sketch are referred to any of the ordinary histories. Rome: Mythical Period to Punic Wars (? 7 5 3-2 64 b.c.) 129 On the resumption of the ordinary constitution in 448 B.C. tribunes were reappointed, and a first great charter of Roman freedom came in the laws, carried by the consuls Valerius and Horatius in the Comitia Centuriata, which made piebiscita, decrees or resolutions of the popular assembly {Comitia Tributa), binding upon patricians and plebeians alike, and compelled every official, in- cluding a Dictator, to allow appeals from his decisions. A few years later, marriage between patricians and plebeians was legalised, die children inheriting the rank of the father. In 366 the Licinian laws, so called from one of the tribunes who carried them after an obstinate struggle of ten years' duration, gave a great victory to the plebeians in enacting that one at least of the consuls must be chosen from their order. At the same time, relief was given to those who had been impoverished in the Gallic invasion to be noticed shortly, by deduction, from the principal of debts, of interest already paid. From ttr's time the progress of the plebeian houses towards the possession of equal political rights with the old patrician families was very rapid. When the year 300 B.C. arrived, all the great civil offices — the prsetorship, the censorship, the consulship, the very dictatorship — were open to all Roman citizens, and the chief posts connected with the state-religion were put within the reach of the hitherto non-privileged order by an enactment providing that four of the eight pontiffs or high-priests, and five of the nine augurs, should be taken from the plebeians. The augurs, or officials who " took the auspices " by observing the flight of birds or other signs on the right or left hand, and pretended to deduce thence the will of the gods, had a real political importance in being able to delay the progress of measures in the Comitia by deciding that no assembly could be held, as the day was unpropitious for public business. The patrician order was henceforth no longer a legally privileged caste, but merely a social order or rank. The new nobility, called optimates or nobiles, included the patrician and plebeian families which had won most distinction as holding, through different successive members, the highest public offices, and they looked down upon outsiders who won their way to any of these posts as novi homines (" new fellows ") or upstarts. The Comitia Tributa had now become the chief legislative body, and the great aim of patricians who wished to interfere there was to win over one or more of the tribunes, and get the veto exercised on proposed legislation. The constitution of the Roman republic was thus a moderate democracy, with the power of taxation and 130 A History of the World the chief judicial authority residing in the Senate. The senators comprised the practical statesmanship and political intelligence of the nation, and won renown, at many crises, by their firmness,* wisdom, energy, and patriotism. The religion of the Romans differed widely, like their character, from that of the Greeks. It was, as the word "religion" implies, a matter of obligation, of binding power, involving a feeling of constraint. The worship was a practical business connected with expediency and profit for the worshippers. The temples were generally erected in consequence of vows offered in times of diffi- culty and danger, when relief had been obtained, as was believed, by the interposition of some deity. The god had done his work, and the price was duly paid. Among the old Italian deities were Saturnus, the god of sowing and tillage ; Ceres, goddess of corn- crops ; Pales and Faunus, protectors of the flocks. Juno, the type of queenly womanhood, and Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, are attributed to a Sabine source. Juppiter (Jov-pater) represented the Greek Zeus, originally the Aryan Dyaus, " the bright one," and he was worshipped under many surnames connected with various attributes of supreme deity, and notably as Juppiter Optimus Maxunus, " the best, the greatest." Vesta was the same as the Greek Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and home. The domestic ties were very sacred with the Romans ; the Lares and Penates were the special deities of that shrine, the Roman's own fireside. The cry Pro arts et /oris, " For our altars and hearths," was the most stirring appeal in battle. One of the chief deities of the Italian tribes was Mars or Mavors, the god of " manliness," which was the chief virtue with the Romans, in the sense of " manly courage," combining duty, self-sacrifice for the state. Thus Mars, a deity once the god of creative power, the god of spring, after whom its first month (Martins, March) was named, became the war-god. The two-faced Janus, the god of opening and shutting, the sun-god who brings the day and shuts up the world in darkness, was brother to Diana, the moon-goddess. Venus and Neptunus need no description. The Roman deities were not, to their worshippers, living beings like the Greek, but mere abstractions, and they were worshipped in prayers, sacrifices, and games, in order to secure the goodwill or avert the anger of the gods. The college of Pontificcs, or priests, the chief religious power in the state, headed by the Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, had political importance as controlling the calendar, and deciding the days which were Rome: Mythical Period to Punic Wars (? 7 53-264 B.C.) 131 suitable or not for the transaction of public and private business. The Vestal Virgins, six maidens vowed to chastity for life, having charge of the sacred fire of Vesta in her temple between the Palatine and Capitoline hills at Rome, are well known. To con- clude, the religion had little or no influence on private or public morality beyond the production of a sense of living under obliga- tions, the development of the idea of duty, and the strengthening of the habit of obedience. It was a religion of prosaic character, a legal piety, an anxious ritual by which the Roman constrained himself to meet his religious engagements; and, making him a better servant of the state, it largely aided the development of a powerful and prosperous nation. In the later times of the republic many foreign deities were imported from Greece and from the East, especially from Egypt, when the old-fashioned rites of Rome had lost their meaning, and new modes of worship, conducted by various classes of priests, aimed at arousing religious emotions which had little indeed to do with moral culture. The moral teaching which existed at Rome in later days was due to Greek philosophers of the various schools already described. It has been well said that "at the basis of the Roman character lay the habit of obedience to authority." " Duty " was the Roman watchword : law, government, order, were the sacred things in the best days of Rome. The undue exercise of authority by officials was restrained by their liability to trial and punishment at the close of the term of office, by the influence of colleagues, and by the force of unwritten custom — the mos mdiorum, or "ways of ancestors," for which the Romans had a high regard. It was discipline, reverence for commands received from rightful authority, combined with stubborn and unwearied energy, patriotic zeal, steadfastness under trial and defeat, that enabled Romans to conquer the world. There is one point, especially, which distinguishes the Romans from the Ancient Greeks — the honour paid to woman as wife and mother. No nation of the olden world equals them in this respect. The Roman matron was the true mistress of the household ; the spinner of wool, amongst her female slaves, for the clothing of the family ; the trusted and esteemed companion and friend of her husband; the reverenced and devoted mother of her children. The Roman gravity and dignity of character, the deliberate and ripe thought employed in forming plans which were adhered to with sober resolution, are also in contrast with the levity and fickleness of which Athens showed many examples. The Roman 132 A History of the World character, on the other hand, was unsympathetic and hard. The foreigner, as such, was regarded as a foe. In their diplomatic dealings with men of other lands we find Romans constantly urging charges of bad faith, but they were themselves at least as faithless in regard to treaties and promises as any foreign peoples. Their great virtues were fortitude, temperance, veracity among themselves, spirit to resist oppression, ardent patriotism, and the respect for legitimate authority already referred to. The cruelty and the grasping nature shown in their conduct of foreign affairs prove them to have been wanting in charity and chivalrous generosity, virtues which are, indeed, mainly Christian. The Romans were, above all things, intensely practical, having the clearest utilitarian aims, to which they moved forward in a straight course which brooked no opposition. By their works they, long ages dead, speak yet to all mankind in every region where their eagles flew — by noble roads cleaving their way through modern realms ; by stately aqueducts, some of which are still in use ; by bridges, by excavations for draining cities, by remains of camps in earthwork, by fortresses whose solidity of construction yet defies the wind and weather. Some of the highways constructed in the British Isles for the march of legions and the conveyance of their heavy baggage at all seasons through conquered territory are still the basis of our best roads. The Roman engineering carried these roads straight to the strategical or commercial positions which it was needful to connect, with the piling-up of huge embankments, the draining of marshes, the filling-up of hollows, the spanning of valleys by viaducts, the tunnelling of hills, the bridging of streams. In Italy the great Appian Road {Via Appia, justly called Regina Viaria/i, " Queen of Roads ") was a causeway built with large square stones on a raised platform, and ran direct from the capital to the city of Capua, in Campania, afterwards extending to Brundusium {Brindisi), the port of embarkation for Greece. The Via Aurelia ran northwards along the coast, by Genoa, into Transalpine Gaul ; the Via Flaminia, through Umbria to Ariminum {Rimini) on the Adriatic Sea. The Via ^Emilia, passing through Cisalpine Gaul, carried the traveller from Ariminum to Placentia. The brick and tile-work structures of Roman builders, cemented with material which is only hardened by exposure to the air, exist among us as sturdy remains. Some of the finest examples are the Pharos, at Dover, on the heights where the castle frowns upon the silver strip of sea ; the cavalry-camp called Burgh Castle, in east Suffolk, near Roi M PcriodtoPui i ; the nobl< with lutt uburban l I he 50 mil< ! ■ iment <>t Roman I w.is the ed, it" equal 1( d, in world. I'he fam ■ tion, fantry, 1 ■ 1 . hurled into the 1 '.cr and conl in which the short. with terri ■ I, in the • mi and 1 id of •out timb ■ ■ 134 A History of the World night by lines of sentinels. The night, reckoned from sunset to sunrise, was divided into four equal "watches," and the watchword for the night, inscribed on small tablets of wood, passed through the lines, and then returned to the six tribunes, or brigadiers, each commanding the legion in turns for two months. It is well known that the great stationary camps constructed in the British Isles grew, in many cases, into important towns, a fact indicated in the modern names by various corrupt forms of the Latin castra ("camp"), as in Chester {the camp), Colchester, Lancaster (the camp on the river Lune), Exeter (Exe-ceastre, the camp on the Exe). One of the finest specimens of the encampment is that at Ardoch, in Perthshire, in the grass-grown mounds and ridges of which most of the Roman camp-divisions have been clearly recognised. We have now described the civil, military, and moral equipment with which the Romans started on their unrivalled career, and shall deal briefly with the achievements by which they created a vast empire, and then proceed to the period of decline which ended in the melting-away, through the occupation of the territories by alien hosts and hordes, of the gigantic political structure erected in the course of ages by genius and valour. The conquest of the /Equians and Volscians, neighbours of Rome, towards the end of the 5th century B.C., was followed by an attack on the Etruscans, the people who had once shared with Carthage the naval mastery of the Mediterranean. Their power had been declining of late by sea and land, the latter due to Gallic invasions from the north. A long siege of Veii by the Romans ended in the capture of the place, followed by the taking or voluntary surrender of many other towns of Etruria, and the Roman territory was much extended northwards. A blow came for the conquerors in their severe defeat by the Gauls in 390 B.C. at the battle of the Allia, a brook falling into the Tiber 1 1 miles north of the city. The enemy advanced on Rome, which was taken, plundered, and burnt, with the exception of the buildings on the Capitoline Hill. A seven-months' blockade of the fortress ended in the retirement of the enemy for a heavy payment in gold. It has been already shown how the uncertainty of events in early Roman history is due to the burning of the annals kept by the priests in the temples. The Romans soon recovered from the shock of this disaster. The city was rebuilt ; the ^Equians, Volscians, and Etruscans, who had taken up vengeful arms, were beaten ; successful war was waged with various Latin states, and other Gallic invasions were so repelled K M . thica] Pei I I Panic W 64 b.< . hi this way no m in, with inter the r much fi iiri r. Btlll md then with the lead I of the • ■ ind ha\ ii of the full citizenship in ca rhich wen . man : in < lampania l me had g lined a ]■ isition the I skilhil Samn the • • army in the fam .\->\ them ti> ji.^s under the y • ■ •! this humil with \ me, :mr« •• 1 .uxl takii I : in Ii rmish. rhe Romai <>f up. 1. m n. ■ I the cent] a turning point in the history <»f tlu- :;t wlil< h in ' IVlli ided in • I I 142 A History of the World A sudden march northwards of Nero, with some thousands of picked men, so strengthened his colleague Livius, who was facing Hasdrubal, that a complete victory was won ; the Carthaginian leader was slain, and Hannibal knew his brother's fate, and the blighting of the last hope of success, only when the head of the conquered leader was flung into his camp. Scipio, in Spain, completed the expulsion of the Carthaginians by capturing Gades {Cadiz), and then returned to Rome, where his success was rewarded in 205 by election as one of the consuls. In the following year he carried the war into Africa, ravaged the land, defeated Carthaginian and Numidian armies, and compelled the recall of Hannibal. In 202 the great Carthaginian, with a much inferior force, was utterly defeated by Scipio at Zama, and the war ended in the following year. The terms of peace were hard for vanquished Carthage. Spain and all her Mediterranean islands were given up ; a yearly sum of 200 talents (about ^50,000) was to be paid for 50 years. All ships of war beyond ten were surrendered, the immediate consequence of this being that Scipio had 500 vessels towed out to sea and burnt. No war could be undertaken without the permission of Rome. Scipio, the conqueror of the greatest general of that, perhaps of any age, was henceforth known by the surname of " Africanus," or " the man of Africa." The Italian supporters of Hannibal were punished by large losses of territory, and by deprivation of municipal freedom. Many Roman colonies were founded in Lower Italy to secure the country, and Upper Italy, after long warfare, was thoroughly subdued, and the Gallic population " Latinised " in language and manners. Spain became a Roman province after 205, but there was almost constant warfare for many years before the warlike tribes were thoroughly reduced. Hannibal, yet unsubdued in spirit, sought to raise his country from the depth to which she had fallen, and effected valuable reforms in the government ; but a Roman party caused his flight, in 195, to Antiochus of Syria, whom he roused against Rome without effect. Antiochus was utterly defeated in 190 B.C., and Roman strength in the East began. We have already, in the history of Greece, dealt with the wars against Macedon, and the end of her supremacy in Greek affairs. Hannibal, driven from court to court by dread of Rome on the part of the sovereigns, ended his life by poison in 183, when he was staying with Prusias, king of Bithynia, and learnt that he was about to be betrayed into the hands of the inveterate foes on whom he had inflicted such terrible blows. The chief results to Rome of her success in the R 143 it were predominance among all states on rtual in. 1 ., and t :rul of the great 1 ■ 1 which th< left Jth an l :er the f 2oi, si it to 1 imprudenl from the I 1 > ("the 1 1 in the ■: the irm n in the the with the well -known w r. that I i out." I villain M N midia. It Koine were little heeded. I • armed their n< . 1 their ther rv>t less than ten miles from ruin tin. 1 tin in. All ■ - 1 1 ,00 . in '• in tl. ■ 1 \ ■ 144 A History of the World enemy's fleet. The delay in the operations caused the dispatch to Africa of one of the new consuls, Publius Scipio, a son of /Emilius Paulus, the victor of Pydna in the third Macedonian war, and adopted into the family of the Scipios by the elder son of Hannibal's conqueror at Zama. The new commander, chosen to his high office, through the insistence of the citizens at the Comitid Tributa, before the legal age (he was only 37 instead of 43), proved himself worthy of his family connections. New vigour was thrown into the siege. A quarter of the city called the Megara was stormed, and then the Carthaginian army outside the walls, fancying that the city was taken, abandoned its camp and retired into Byrsa, the Upper City. The Punic commander, a Hasdrubal of no note except as a traitor and coward who surrendered, himself before the end to save his own life, then put to death with tortures on the wall the whole of the Roman prisoners in his hands. The place was now almost closely invested, as Scipio, burning the outside abandoned camp, occupied the neck, of the peninsula, and blocked up the harbour by a huge wall, built across. The Carthaginians then dug a new channel out to the open sea, and, to the amazement of the Romans, sailed forth with 50 new ships of war. The great city seemed to be doomed to capture ; for the ships which might, by a prompt attack, have destroyed the almost defenceless Roman fleet, and so enabled the place to be re-victualled, returned to harbour after a vain and joyous demonstration. An attack on the harbour-side of the city, in which the Roman battering-rams were used on the walls with much effect, was foiled through a daring sortie which drove off the foe and burned the works and engines. Scipio, in the winter of 147, when the siege had continued over two years, cut off the food-supplies by an attack on outside allies of Carthage, and the population were soon in a starving condition, the garrison alone being fed by Hasdrubal from the public stores. Early in 146 the war-harbour was taken by the Romans, who made their way into the neighbouring market-place, and then the Upper City was attacked by an advance along the three streets of six- storied houses leading thither. Incessant and desperate resistance could not prevent the storming of house after house, and the buildings, by Scipio's order, were fired, with the destruction of numbers of old people and children who had hidden themselves. For six days and nights, with relief-parties, the Romans fought on, and then terms of surrender were sought and granted. The wife of Hasdrubal slew her two children in sight of Scipio and his R • . .' i.e.) nd flung th< !• i the ■ >ll with her i m n M ami women w< ten times that numtx i ol and soli .t in the splendid i 1 hus l It was t ; . hit ii ■iu- tall <>t t lorinth. < art, ition lasting 17 days, was razed to tin- ground. on the - and ■ • the the ■ ived the titl a distim 'i.i. \\ Minor. This territory hail lac:. thru •iti<» hus of S pon the - Utalus 1 1 1 . (a [ui ath< ■ repuhli< <>f the western world. • 1 ■ »rth having in tin- basin <>f the in : 1 and ihi Minor. ■ i 1 146 A History of the World (ager publicus) both in Italy and the provinces ; by the amounts derived from customs-duty on imports and exports, from mines and salt-works ; and from a five per cent, duty on the numerous enfranchised slaves. We are now to trace the process of decline in the republic — the political and social deterioration which, from the corruption and frailty of human nature, ever waits on those who, raised to a position of great material prosperity, are not under strong restraints of morality and religion. Chapter III. — The Decline and Fall of the Republic. (146-27 B.C.) During the ages of conquest a great change had been passing over the olden simplicity and virtue of Roman public men. The homely country-life was abandoned for a race for honours and wealth in the capital. Luxury of living, introduced from the East, and the taste for art acquired from Greece, caused eagerness for wealth, and the attainment of public honours, the high offices of the state, was the surest road to its acquirement in provincial governorships where the plunder of tax-gatherers was shared, bribes were received for judicial decisions in cases between wealthy provincials, and rich gifts came from kings and states yet unsubdued. The Senate at this time wielded supreme power, and every rising citizen sought admission to the body. The way thither, as has been shown, lay through the holding of one or more of the five chief offices, and as the election to these offices rested with the body of citizens assembled in the Comitia Tributa, a gigantic system of bribery was developed, not in the way of payments man by man, but in the securing of the masses, tribe by tribe, through the expensive shows of the cruel public games, where men fought with strange strong wild beasts from abroad, and were pitted against each other in the famous fights of pairs of gladiators, well-fed, well-trained athletes, whose business it was to fight and in many cases to die "to make a Roman holiday." Crime begat crime in this career of Roman politicians. The successful candidate for senatorial rank was loaded with debt to the rich trading order of Rome, the knights — the tax- farmers and usurers of the day — through borrowing money for the vast expenditure needful to his election to office. When he quitted Rome for his provincial career as proconsul or propraetor, his only hope of repaying his creditors lay in what he could make out of those he governed. It was understood that, out of three years Rome: Decline and Fall of the Republic (146-27 B.C.) 147 of provincial governorship, the gains of the first year would pay the debts at Rome ; the second would obtain plunder enough to bribe up to an acquittal at the trial for extortion which might follow gross tyranny ; and the third year lay up a fortune large enough to enable the possessor to adorn his mansion with choice works of art, to live "in Oriental luxury, with his villa on the Campanian coast and his great retinue of freedmen and slaves. Greed for wealth, party-rivalry, and desire for personal dis- tinction, had replaced the old Roman virtue of self-sacrifice to the common good, unswerving loyalty to the state ; and domestic purity of life decayed with the introduction of foreign manners and licentious foreign forms of faith. The social system had been greatly changed through the disappearance, to a large extent, of the middle class which, in all free states, is the backbone of national welfare. The soil of Italy had been enriched by the blood of countless thousands of her sons slain in the dreadful warfare with Hannibal. The bones of many thousands more lay in foreign lands won by Roman swords. In exchange for these, Italy had received millions of slaves, the spoil of war, and the population and politics of the capital were debased by the admixture of large numbers of these men who received enfranchisement and became citizens. Both at Rome and in Italy at large, the old race was corrupted by intermarriages with these aliens from all parts of the Roman world. A wealthy oligarchy, and a degraded mob, living in idleness on free corn supplied by the state and by rich men seeking popular favour for political ends, represented the old Patricians and Plebeians, the latter of whom had been mainly small proprietors of land or traders, the middle class needful to give stability to a constitutional system. In another direction, the horizon was dark through the growing discontent of the Italian allies and the Latins, treated rather as subjects, as conquered foreigners, than as kinsmen who were worthy of, and were aspiring to, the full Roman citizenship. The land-question was the one which showed the most alarming condition of affairs. The ruin of the small farmers in the Hannibalian war had sent men to live in the towns rather than in the country-districts, and the wealthy men of Rome had bought up the soil, so that the great number of small freeholders had been replaced by a few proprietors of vast estates. Great areas of fertile corn-lands had been turned into pasture, and such tillage as remained was in the hands of chained gangs of slaves. Worse than all, the Roman nobles had lost the 148 A History of the World old regard for law and order. Armed violence took the place of constitutional methods. Tiberius Gracchus, a citizen of the noble Cornelian family, a grandson of the victor of Zama, became a tribune in 134 B.C., and sought to remedy existing evils by a measure for dividing the public lands, wrongfully held by nobles without paying rent, into small freeholds. In the following year he was murdered in the Forum, with some hundreds of his sup- porters, by the hands of the nobles themselves and their following of slaves and bravos. Ten years later his brother Caius Gracchus, also as tribune, aimed at still more extensive reforms, and met with the same fate. Henceforth the internal history of the re- public has much to do with civil war between aristocratic and popular leaders. The former sought to maintain the existing con- dition of affairs, so profitable for the oligarchy and the degraded mass of the people in Rome ; the latter aimed at reforms which would break down the power of the oligarchs, chiefly by admitting all the Italians to the full franchise conferring political power. Taking a momentary glance at foreign affairs, we find that southern Gaul (beyond the Alps) became a province as Gallia Narbonensis, with Aquas Sextise, the modern Aix, as a colony. The new territory was commonly called Provincia, or " the Province," and is represented by the modern Provence. The Balearic Isles were annexed, and after a war of five years' duration with an able and wicked usurper of the throne, the greatest state in Africa, Numidia, was added to the Roman territories (106 B.C.). Near the end of the 2nd century b.c. the Romans were, for the first time, and in a way formidable even for them, brought face to face with a body of the Teutonic (Germanic) peoples who were to form so large an element in the population of modern Europe. In 113 the people of the extreme north-east of Italy were alarmed by the appearance of hordes of tall strong warriors, blue-eyed, some with thick long fair hair, some with shaggy red locks. On their helmets were the heads of horned oxen, bears, or wolves, while others had the spread wings of eagles fastened to their iron caps. These were Cimbri, originally from the territory now called Jutland, and perhaps of Celtic race, and Teutons, German tribes from the Baltic coast. They had migrated into Helvetia (Switzerlatid), and dwelt there until the natural increase of their numbers forced them to seek food elsewhere. They were desperate, as men are in front of starvation, and their bodily strength made them terrible foes. The number of fighting men is said to have reached 300,000, and R " Dcclii • the Republi the 1 children t<>..k. part in the migrai I rn Alpine h the i! their inula h. ■>f low birth, i Afi I . in that line i >ond bold, n: the r.ink and file. In 1 ; • .1 for the man hed into the i . and aim in a tr< n battle near \ Ic slew th( d "f tin I the vill the ii i< ti ival, at w burnt on the hill uts of "\ 1 M, when the the •it of the •i«l the \ 150 A History of the World having consuls, prsetors, and a Senate, and a capital at Corfinium in the country of the Samnites, the chief of the rebel peoples, who were aided by the Marsians and others in central Italy, and by the Lucanians and Apulians in the south. The two-years' contest, in which 300,000 Italians are asserted, on good authority, to have fallen, was of a desperate character. Rome was saved from destruc- tion by the fidelity of the Latin allies, by the military skill of Marius, and especially of the noble named Sulla, a pupil of the old plebeian soldier in the conduct of war, and by the artful policy of conceding the franchise, during the struggle, to such Italians as had not yet revolted, and then to all who should lay down their arms within two months. In 89 B.C. Asculum, in Picenum, was taken by the state-troops and utterly destroyed, and finally tne Lex Julia gave the Roman franchise throughout the country to all citizens of towns in alliance with Rome up to the borders of Cisalpine Gaul. The devastation of the land almost equalled that Avhich had occurred during the war with Hannibal, and intensified the evil, above described, of the extirpation of small freeholders. The next phase of Roman history takes us to the East, where the very able and energetic Mithradates, king of Pontus, in the north-east of Asia Minor, reigning from 120 to 63 B.C., had founded a powerful realm, extending north-eastwards to beyond the Caucasus, and over the east of Asia Minor. In 92 he had been -checked by Sulla, as proconsul in Cilicia, in his aggressions on Roman de- pendents in Asia Minor, but in 88 Mithradates broke out again, defeated several Roman generals, and caused the massacre of many thousands of Roman subjects in the cities. His forces also invaded Greece, and excited the people to rebel against Rome. Sulla took the field in 87, landing in Epirus, capturing Athens, and defeating the Pontic armies in 86 and 85. He then entered Asia by way of Thrace and the Hellespont, and brought Mithradates to terms, which included the restoration of all his conquests, and the payment of a great war-indemnity. In order to complete this subject, we shall for the time leave aside affairs in Italy, and keep with the obstinate Eastern monarch. In 74, along with his son-in-law Tigranes, king of Armenia, he again attacked Roman power in the East, occupying the kingdom of Bithynia which the sovereign Nicomedes, another son-in-law of Mithradates, had bequeathed to the republic. The war was conducted for Rome with great ability and energy, at the outset, by Lucullus, one of the consuls, who drove the king of Pontus from his territory and then occupied Ron D line and Fall of the Republic (146 27 b.c.) i 5 1 attic In the ; from further Mithradal I nl r)ut t<» Asia in unlii Main nidi with the land ich as those < atia. In 1 f civil * :i tending to thi Disputed and l>y had < ome, under the . in the milil had • v chiefly raised l>\ recruit- mob, th ians, drawn from l • in the rd abundant pi Ins men, nothing either in m t that ■ ■ ■ 1 152 A History of the World a mere tyrant. In 82 Sulla, who had returned from the East with 40,000 men, and had been joined by Pompeius, then a young leader of the nobles, with an army of volunteers, defeated the Marian party and their Italian supporters in several battles, entered Rome, and then took a terrible revenge upon the cities and towns which had supported the democratic cause. A regular proscription deprived some thousands of knights, and many senators, of life and property, and the soldiers of Sulla had a rich booty. We need not be troubled about the so-called "reforms" of Sulla. Made "perpetual Dictator," he greatly increased the power of the Senate, and reduced that of the tribunes ; but these changes had no permanent effect, as the old free state was already dead, and things were swiftly moving towards the possession of absolute power by a single person. Sulla's death in 78, after his abdication in the previous year, was followed by more civil war between " Marians " and " Sullans," and then Rome had to face another peril in the war with Spartacus the gladiator. In the previous century (135-132) there had been a serious servile war in Sicily, where the revolted slaves defeated several armies. In 103-99 a hard struggle was needed to suppress a like insurrection in the same island. The danger now arose far nearer to the capital. Spartacus, a Capuan gladiator of real ability in war, headed a formidable revolt of comrades and slaves, and took up a position on Mount Vesuvius. Four armies, under praetors and consuls, were defeated by him, and several large towns were taken and plundered. The leader at last fell bravely fighting, and Pompeius, who had just returned from warfare in Spain, crushed the remnant of the rebels. In 70 b.c. Pompeius became consul, and was henceforth a leading politician, at first taking the popular side and repealing some of Sulla's legislation. He rendered great services to the whole commercial world of the Mediterranean by his skilful, systematic suppression, a virtual annihilation, of the pirates who infested the waters of that sea. The evil had risen to such a height that in 67 he was appointed, with supreme powers, to this important task. The sea-robbers had established a kind of free state afloat, a regular, organised community, with headquarters among the mountains of Crete and Cilicia. They swept the sea from end to end, and no merchant or his property was safe. They landed on the coasts and plundered towns and rich villas, carrying off the wealthy for ransom, and at last reached the point of dragging to captivity, from a high-road near Rome, a praetor journeying with all the retinue of his high office. The needful work was quickly Roi I line and Fall of the Republic (i-r and t h« »r ■ I he terra of Ins s;> i ial lintment w il in thre ns had been font had been m oo piratical craft had been taken, 10,000 ml)! d far away from tl rs had been taken and 1 1 lued .ind permanently MS, : • lished men of the • -t man in all hisl n in the historj ol Parthia, 1 further mention. 11 m up to the Ith, and t<> \u> wealth alone he owed his indson of th( 1 p A s kind, |p UOUS f<>r the lity of his ? ' \ brav< of tin- < hiel ith the utmost vehemence the ■ ' I Pom| F the nd little ni' ti< 1 in : destitute of the hi. ; but now ui; ' I I ; . I 54 A History of the World flight of the leader from Rome, the arrest and execution (by the order of the Senate and contrary to the law which allowed an appeal to the Comitia Tributa) of two chief conspirators, and the death of Catiline in Etruria, fighting like a demon with his followers against the other consul and his troops. In 70 ii.c. Cicero won undying renown by his impeachment of the infamous Verres, proconsul of Sicily, driving that villain into exile by his mere indictment, the opening speech which gave the chief heads of the atrocious mis- government of that fertile province. In 51-50 Cicero gained well-earned credit by his own just and kindly treatment of the provincials when he was governor of Cilicia. The well-known supreme and varied talents of Caius Julius Caesar, a noble of the highest rank who, for his own ends, took up the popular cause against the senatorial party, dispense with the need for elaborate eulogy of a man who was at once a general and a statesman of the highest order ; an admirable orator and writer ; a man of fashion ; the darling of Roman ladies ; cool-headed, generous, kindly to all Romans, — a very marvel in his union of gifts and attainments, and in his fitness for the work which he accom- plished, that of bringing the whole Roman world under subjection to one imperial ruler. He made instruments for his work out of the circumstances and the politicians of his time, using them with the utmost patience and the keenest intelligence as he moved onwards to his foreseen and predestined goal. Such was the man who, in 60 B.C., took a great step forward in his career by forming, with Pompey and Crassus, the secret alliance known as " The First Triumvirate." In the following year Caesar was consul, and in 58 he went as proconsul to Gaul for the term of five years. Pompey took Spain as his province. Crassus, as we know, went to Syria and met his death in Parthia. Of Caesar's eight campaigns in Gaul, and his two visits to the British Isles, it is needless to write in detail. He displayed in the conquest of the Gallic country from end to end, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, the highest qualities of a general, and he established Roman civilisation among the Celts of the central region, strongly resembling their kinsmen, the Irish, in character. Rome thus acquired a new nation of firmly attached subjects, who supplied her with many great men. For his own purposes, Caesar created there the magnificent army of veteran troops, thoroughly devoted to their great leader, with which he was to master the whole Roman world that had just received so noble an addition of territory. Rome : Decline and Fall of the Republic (146-27 b.c.) 155 Pompey and the senatorial party, in jealous dread of Caesar, caused the breaking-out of civil war in 49 B.C., and the conqueror of Gaul, crossing the famous and proverbial Rubicon, a little stream running into the Adriatic a little north of Ariminum, and there form- ing the boundary of his province, invaded Italy, swept through the country in 60 days, and drove Pompey and his party over to Greece. The terror in Rome was soon allayed by Caesar's mild and magnani- mous conduct towards his opponents, in striking contrast to the atrocities of the contest between Sulla and Marius. Turning first to Spain, in order to secure his rear. Caesar, in the summer of 49, broke up the forces there under the command of Pompeius' legatl or lieutenant-generals, took Massilia (Marseilles) on his return, and then, in the spring of 48, followed Pompey to northern Greece, landing on the coast of Epirus. At Dyrrhachium he suffered a defeat by Pompey's breaking through his lines, and retired to Thessaly There, in August, came the decisive battle of Pharsalus or Pharsalia, where Pompey, with double Caesar's force (about 22,000 men), was utterly defeated. He fled to Egypt, and. was there barbarously murdered by the king's minister, who hoped thereby to win Caesar's favour. The conqueror shed tears on seeing the victim's head, and displayed his noble clemency towards countrymen by taking no life of those whom conquest had placed at his disposal. The ''Alexandrine war," as it was called, of 48-47 was due to a general insurrection of the people, aided by the Roman army of occupation, against Caesar and his limited force. He was in the greatest danger, besieged in the royal palace, but escaped by aid of his own reckless courage. Making a diversion by causing the Egyptian fleet to be fired, an act which, to the regret of an accom- plished scholar well skilled in Greek learning, caused the destruction of much of the famous library of Alexandria, he swam over a branch of the Nile to a place of safety, and was finally victorious, in the spring of 47, by means of troops that arrived from Asia. It was at this time that the famous Cleopatra, then 16 years of age, became Queen of Egypt. The country was under Roman control, with a garrison in Alexandria. After returning to Rome, Caesar crossed to Africa, and in 47-46 warred with the adherents of Pompeius, including his son Sextus, Cato, and Labienus, Caesar's former able second-in-command or legatus. The battle of Thapsus, in 46, ended that struggle in complete victory for Caesar. Cato slew himself at Utica, rather than surrender. Sextus Pompeius and Labienus escaped to Spain. The 156 A History of the World conqueror then returned to Rome and celebrated triumphs for his successes, and gave splendid games to amuse the people, with a lavish distribution of corn and money. It was at this time that, with the aid of Greek astronomers, he corrected the calendar, which was nearly ten weeks " out," and established the " Julian Calendar," making the solar year consist of 3655 days. Caesar's work of pacification was not yet done. In 45 he was in Spain, taking the field against Pompey's sons, who were finally, after some success, defeated in the desperate battle of Munda, between Cordova and Gibraltar. Labienus, Cneius Pompeius, and 30,000 men had fallen, and at last the great Julius could return to Rome, master of the whole Roman world. As " Dictator " for life, by decree of the Senate, he was really invested with absolute power, under the constitutional form of a democratic monarchy, whereby all laws were still required to be submitted to the easily controlled Comitia. The Senate became a council of mere advisers, increased in number up to 900, by admission of Spaniards, Gauls, ex-officers, and even sons of freedmen, all appointed by the supreme ruler. The financial system was reformed by the abolition of tax-farming and the imposition of direct taxes. Numerous colonies were established for the purpose of spreading the Latin tongue and civilisation in the provinces, and of clearing .Rome of idle inhabitants. Many other schemes for the public benefit — as the codification of the Roman law, the establishment of public libraries, the draining of the Pomptine (or Pontine) marshes on the coast of Latium, the embanking of the Tiber to check the destructive inundations, and the improvement of the harbour at Ostia (the mouth of the river) — had been devised by the all-embracing mind of Caesar, when his career was cut short by one of the vilest and most senseless crimes in history. The aristocratic conspiracy against him included Brutus, Cassius, and many other men whose lives he had spared, and who had received other benefits at his hands. On March 15th, 44 B.C., at the age of 56, Julius Caesar died, stabbed in 23 places by the hands of those whom he had subdued and forgiven, in a hall of the great theatre of Pompeius, where the meeting of the Senate happened to be held on that fatal day. The populace of Rome, incited, in his famous funeral-oration, by Marcus Antonius, who had served under Caesar in Gaul, and commanded the left wing of the victorious army at Pharsalia, rose against the conspirators, and drove them from the capital. Thirteen years of disturbance and civil war followed the crime I I line and I ' the Republic (i . •• • tl Bupremc power, but ■ mpleting his i in < .' Caius Julius I • rr.illy known by h ' impi-ri.il • with tli. mk up hi thian I ! ■ In 158 A History of the World 30 B.C., pursued by Octavianus to Egypt, they both committed suicide, she by the poison of a snake called asp — probably the " horned viper " — he by the sword. Egypt became a Roman province, and this completed Rome's dominion over all the Mediterranean countries. Peace had come after so many troubles. Octavianus, heading a vast military force devoted to his service, and hailed with the highest satisfaction by provincials weary of oppressive governors, by the populace of Rome, and by all citizens who desired rest after so long a period of storm and stress, was abso- lute master of the territories henceforth forming the " Roman Empire." In 27 B.C., the Senate having been reduced to 600 members, with a high property-qualification, he accepted the title of " Augustus " (the " Majestic") and was fully installed in his imperial office. Chapter IV. — Imperial Rome to Fall of Western Empire. (27 b.c.-a.d. 476.) The imperial system established by Augustus retained the old republican offices and forms, but concentrated the titles and powers of most of them in one person. He was commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces of the state as Imperator, meaning, "the holder of a military command" from the people, and giving rise to the tide of Emperor. In the provinces he held proconsular power, but the control of these was divided between himself and the Senate. The more quiet provinces, needing but a small military force to maintain order, such as Africa, Asia (Minor), Achaia, Sicily, Sardinia, Hispania Bsetica (southern Spain), and others, were senatorial ; and those which needed the presence of regular armies, such as the four Gallic provinces, northern Spain, Syria, Mcesia (the modern Servia and Bulgaria), and Egypt, were imperial, governed by legati (lieutenant-generals or deputy-rulers) in the name of the supreme ruler. He was princeps Senatus (chief man of the Senate), always speaking first on every question, the title giving rise to the word prince. As censor he controlled all appointments to the Senate ; he also had the trilnoiitia potesfas, or privileges and functions of the tribunes ; the potestas consularis, or consular authority ; and the supreme pontificate, or headship of the state- religion. The imperial rule was thus the government of an autocrat under the forms of an aristocracy, a system in which the names of the ancient free state threw a transparent veil over an actual despotism. The Equestrian Order, or knights, the great rival of Rome : To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 1 59 the Senate under the republic, became now a nursery for the superior body, and the consuls were simply the agents of the emperor in the Senate for the transaction of public business. The title was still held in high respect by the people, and the emperors used to confer it on their favourites as the greatest distinction they could bestow. At last consuls came to be made out of freedmen, professors, and rhetoricians. There was at first little outward show of sovereignty assumed by the real ruler of the state, and a careful avoidance of the assumption of " kingship," a thing hateful to all Romans. The extent of Roman sway is to be seen in the boundaries by modern names. These were, on the north, the English Channel, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Black Sea ; on the south, the great African desert {Sahara) ; on the west, the Atlantic Ocean ; on the east, the Arabian Desert, the Armenian Mountains, and the Tigris. A great military force — 16 legions — was maintained on the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and eight legions on the eastern borders. The capital and the monarch were secured by the presence of 20,000 picked men — the City Cohorts and the Praetorian Guards ; the commerce of the Mediterranean was protected by two permanent fleets, with headquarters at Ravenna on the Adriatic, and at Mise- num in the Bay of Naples. The population of the whole dominion may have been 100,000,000, one-half consisting of slaves. The "Augustan Age" of literature is proverbial, as including, within wide limits, the Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Livy, Catullus, and other authors in prose and verse whose names are familiar to British schoolboys. The great poet Lucretius was a little before this period ; the comic poets Plautus and Terence flourished in the 2nd century B.C. ; the great satirist Juvenal and the famous historian Tacitus were about a century later than the time of Augustus. The Maecenas whose name is proverbial as the enlightened and liberal patron of literary men was a friend of Augustus, and shared with Agrippa — an active and able commander in the civil wars, who led the victorious fleet at Actium — the confidential management of public affairs. We may note that in 4 B.C., probably, really occurred the greatest event of the world's spiritual history, the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem of Judea. The erroneous chronology has been, for the sake of convenience, allowed to stand. In a.d. 4 Augustus adopted as his successor Tiberius, the son of his wife Livia by her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. One of the chief results of the imperial system was the deliverance of the provincials, to a great extent, from the oppression exercised 160 A History of the World under the later Republic, when the Roman nobles were in power. By degrees, the provinces received the Roman citizenship, and were placed on a political equality with the dwellers in Italy, sharing the benefits of protection from the Roman law. A striking instance of this is seen in the fear of the " chief captain " of the troops at Jerusalem, with regard to Saint Paul, "after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him." The Apostle was a " free-born " citizen of Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, made a "free city " by Antony for her support of the cause of Julius Caesar, and we see Paul justly asserting his rights, in the most dignified way, when, after he and his colleague Silas had been " beaten openly uncondemned, being Romans," and cast into prison, at Philippi in Macedonia, he compels the magistrates, who " feared, when they heard that they were Romans," to come in person and escort them out of durance, instead of their simply departing at the magistrates' order of release. Such was the majesty which belonged to the simple " Roman citizen." We must now give a brief account of the Teutonic tribes of Europe, before dealing with the most important secular event of the time of Augustus. The great region called Germany comprises central Europe, the slope from the Alps northwards to the German Ocean and the Baltic Sea, bounded eastwards by the Vistula and the Carpathians, westwards by the Rhine. The Roman provinces Roetia (the canton Grisons in Switzerland, and most of the Tyrol), Vindelicia (north-east of Switzerland, south-east of Baden, south of Wiirtemberg and Bavaria, and north of Tyrol), Noricum (most of Styria and Carinthia, and a part of Austria proper, Bavaria, and Salzburg), and Pannonia (east of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, south-west of Hungary, Slavonia, and part of Croatia and Bosnia) included a portion of what is now called Germany. The Roman Germania Superior and Inferior (Upper and Lower Germany) were Gallic provinces on the left (western) bank of the Rhine. Germany proper, which was never a province of the empire, was called by the Romans Germania Magna (Greater Germany). Upper Germany means the hilly country, in early times covered with vast forests of oak, pine, and birch, out of which the mountain-ranges rose like islands from a sea. Lower Germany is the northern level, having much heathery waste and marshland in the days with which we are dealing. There were many tribes of the old Germans : the Chatti (Hesse), the Angles (Schleswig), the Saxons (Holstein), the Suevi (Swabians), including then the Marcomanni (" Marchmen," in Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 161 Bohemia), and the Longobardi, on the middle Elbe; the Batavi and Frisii {Holland), and others. We need not enter into particulars of the pantheistic nature-worship which formed the religion of these peoples, with its " all-father " Woden or Odin, its storm-god (Thor) ; deities of war, love, justice, and the earth, worshipped by invocations and by sacrifices which included the slaughter of prisoners of war. The special days set apart for devotions to certain deities are retained in our names of days of the week, and many modern customs come from the old German festivities. The faith of the Scandinavians or northern Teutons (Norway and Sweden) was one of great complication, quite beyond our scope here. The social system included nobles, with no political privi- leges ; freemen, meaning landowners, a warrior class, with tillage performed by serfs ; freedmen, renters of land bound to military service ; and bondmen, partly serfs bound to the soil, partly actual slaves. The majority of the population was composed of the last two classes. The close connection in race between the bulk of the inhabitants of Great Britain and a portion of these ancient Germans gives a peculiar interest to the character and history of the old Teutons. They were marked by regard for personal and political freedom for men of their own race, by respect for women, probity, and purity of life — the qualities which, heightened by Christianity, are illustrated in the age of chivalry and romance. We see that it was of the utmost importance to the future welfare of the world that such peoples should not be conquered by Rome, but enjoy the freedom which could alone secure the full development of national character and institutions, when we consider over how large a portion of the earth the influence of the German element is now extended — the whole of western, central, and north-western Europe, all of North America, much of Africa and India, all Australasia. This great result was obtained when our own ancestor Herman (called by the Romans "Arminius") gained, in a.d. 9, his famous victory over Varus. The Romans had already been in conflict with Germans, since the defeat of the Teutons by Marius. During his Gallic campaigns, Julius Caesar had inflicted a severe defeat on Ariovistus, a German chief who invaded Gaul. In 12-9 b.c. Drusus, a younger brother of Tiberius, made four campaigns against the Frisii, the Cherusci, and other tribes, leading Roman armies to the Weser and the Ems, but making no permanent conquest. In 8-7 B.C. Tiberius was also in the field against Germanic tribes and had some success. Arminius, 1 62 A History of the World chief of the powerful Cherusci, living on both sides of the Weser, was a man who had served in the Roman armies and held the Roman citizenship as a knight. He bravely resolved, when many of his countrymen, including his brother, had made full submission to the Romans, to defy the power which had crushed Hannibal and Mithradates, and the gallant Gaul Vercingetorix, who had been led captive in Csesar's triumph and then slaughtered with deliberate cruelty in a Roman dungeon. Again referring to Creasy's pages for a full account, we may state that the indignation of Arminius and patriotic Germans had been strongly aroused by the licentious conduct of Quintilius Varus, the Roman governor, and his officers. His headquarters were near the centre of the modern Westphalia, and Arminius, having secretly incited a general revolt of the tribes near the Weser and the Ems, caused his emissaries to represent the danger to Varus, and urge him to take the field in full force. The Roman commander, a very incompetent man, was thus seduced with three legions into the hilly district, with deep, narrow valleys and vast woods, called still the Teutoburger-wald, or Teutoburg forest. When the Roman forces were entangled, with a great baggage-train, in this difficult country, then sodden with rain, they were attacked on all sides with showers of missiles, and forced to make their fortified camp for the night on the first open spot that was reached. In the morning the march was renewed, and Arminius again assailed the enemy in a woody hilly region where he had blocked the road with barricades of hewn trees. Confusion followed in the Roman ranks ; hundreds of men fell under showers of javelins ; the Roman cavalry- commander rode off with his men; Varus was severely wounded; the column was pierced through, and scarcely a man escaped from the scene of slaughter. This great success, the complete - liberation, as it proved, of Germany, was followed by the cutting-off of the Roman garrisons in every quarter. In following years, Tiberius and other Roman commanders made attempts to avenge this disaster, but no permanent success was attained, and a decisive verdict on the result of all the Roman efforts to subdue Germany has been given by the historian Tacitus, when he styles Arminius "Liberator hand dub ie Germaniae," " the man who beyond doubt freed Germany," and declares, with reference to certain Roman successes, that the Germans were " triumphati potius quam victi" " rather triumphed over [in the technical sense] than conquered." Tiberius, coming to power in a.d. 14, at 55 years of age, had much previous experience in state-affairs both civil and military. His Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 B.C.— a. d. 476) 163 character during his 23 years' period of rule has been drawn with consummate art, and probably with exaggeration due to the irritation of a recent hatred, by the historian Tacitus, as that of a gloomy, suspicious tyrant, whose just and moderate rule for the first eight years of his reign is ascribed to sustained hypocrisy. The imperial show of power was further developed by the reduction of the Com/'/ia, or popular assembly, to a mere shadow. The Senate, now a cowardly and servile body, was the highest tribunal for the state- crimes of its own members, under charges of majestas, or high treason, which grew in frequency as the reign proceeded. The most trivial offences were dealt with under the laws of treason, and gangs of men sprang into existence as a terror to the most innocent subjects whose popularity and wealth provoked attack. Shameless and pitiless accusatores, or " denouncers,"' hounded by impeachments to their ruin the victims of their malice or their greed, and the mean and cowardly delator, or informer, muttered his insinuations of treason against better men than himself into the ear of a jealous emperor, or, like the mouchard of the modern French empires, vilest of all the agents of despotism, provoked and contrived the plots which he was paid to reveal. At the same time, a people of freed slaves, a mixture of races from every clime in the vast empire, were ready to serve any imperial master that was lavish in feeding them at home by distributions of gratuitous corn, and in amusing them at the circus by displays of gratuitous cruelty. We may note that the victims of the laws of treason were either banished to some barren rocky island in the Medi- terranean, or were forced to self-destruction upon the system which, until the salutary revolution in Japan, existed with the ruler and the nobles of that country; the "happy dispatch" at Rome being designed to relieve the emperor from the odium of ordering a citizen's execution. For eight years (23-31) the infamous Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guards, was the favourite of Tiberius and the minister of tyranny. It was he who laid the foundation of the future power of the Praetorians, the "Janissaries" of Rome, by uniting their cohorts in one camp near the capital. For the last ten years of his reign Tiberius dwelt in seclusion at the isle of Capreae {Capri), off the coast of Campania, indulging in secret debaucheries, and finally lapsing into an almost insane condition. In a.d. 31 Sejanus himself, an ambitious, bold, and able man who incurred his master's suspicion, was struck down through an imperial letter to the Senate which consigned him to 164 A History of the World immediate execution and handed his body over to the outrages of the Roman mob. Macro, the successor of the fallen man, was a worse Sejanus, having all his vices without any of his ability. Fallen into a lethargic condition, Tiberius was suffocated by Macro in a.d. 37. Among the criminal tragedies of the reign may be noted the poisoning of the popular hero Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. He had fought with success against the Germans, twice defeating the famous Arminius, and in one of his campaigns his troops gathered up the bones of the soldiers who perished with Varus, and paid the last honours to their memory. Recalled by his jealous master, he was sent to the East, where he died through the act of Piso, governor of Syria, whom Tiberius felt obliged to sacrifice to the public indignation. Germanicus was the father of the emperor Caligula and of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. It is impossible to pursue here in detail the careers of the Roman emperors, and we shall note only a few important persons and events. Of the 62 emperors from Julius Caesar to Constantine, 42 were murdered, 3 committed suicide, 2 abdicated, and only n died a natural death, each " Caesar " having an average reign of little over 5 years. A part of the history is made up of civil wars between rival claimants for the imperial authority, another part deals with revolts of provincial governors and of the Praetorian Guards and other divisions of the military force, who raised to imperial power whomsoever they chose to impose upon the Senate. The mad Caligula (37-41) was murdered by some of his servants. The feeble old Claudius (41-54), younger brother of Germanicus, and husband of the infamous, proverbial Messalina, began the conquest of Britain, to be hereafter related, and visited the island. He was very good to the Gauls and gave the Roman citizenship to many of them. Mauritania and other African provinces were added to the empire, with Lycia, Thracia, and Judea, hitherto a dependent kingdom for many years. Poisoned by his second wife Agrippina, Claudius was succeeded by the monster Nero (54-68), who murdered his mother Agrippina, his wife Octavia, and his step- brother Britannicus, and degraded his office by appearing in public as a chariot-driver at the games, an actor, and a singer. The Christians were brutally persecuted on a false charge of causing the great fire at Rome which lasted for six days and laid much of the city in ruins. The capital was splendidly rebuilt, with a vast imperial palace, the domus aurea (" Golden Mansion "), covering all Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 165 the Palatine Hill and adjacent grounds. A general. revolt caused Nero, abandoned by all, to kill himself at the age of 30. With him ended all the male members, by birth or adoption, of the house of- Julius Caesar, and Galba, an old general of the "army in Spain, the dandy Otho, and the glutton Vitellius, were all raised to power and murdered within two years (68, 69). The Flavian emperors, so called from the first of the line, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, though only his two successors were of his family, were in power for over a century, and included the best men who ever ruled the empire. Vespasian (69-79), raised to the imperial power with universal approval, after a civil war, was a Sabine of the fine old stock, a brave, skilful soldier, simple in life, strict and moderate in rule. We have seen him in Judea, and he played his part in the conquest of southern Britain. Two months after the close of his reign the great eruption of Vesuvius buried the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. His son and successor, the excellent Titus, the captor of Jerusalem, reigned but two years (79-81), completing the Colosseum, the gigantic remains of which are still the wonder of visitors in Rome. His brother Uomitian (81-96), a cruel, cowardly tyrant, under whom the infamous informers were active, and the Christians, Jews, and philosophers were atrociously persecuted, was murdered by one of his freedmen. Five good rulers then followed each other through adoption as sons of the predecessors. The kindly Nerva, an old senator, reigned but 16 months, but in that time he repealed the law of treason and recalled the exiles. A bright period came with Trajan (98-117), a Spaniard by birth, the first ruler not of Roman, or even Italian, race. He is reckoned the greatest of the emperors for the- combination of mental, physical, and moral qualities. The great province of Dacia [Routnania, eastern Hungary, and Transylvania) was added to the empire by successful war against king Decebalus, to whom Domitian had paid tribute to refrain from attacks. From the numerous colonists then settled there, the modern Roumanians derive their language. It is probable that during this period, and under Trajan's three successors, the people of the Roman Empire had the happiest life of all the history of Rome. The emperor and his wife lived a simple quiet life, walking about unguarded in the streets of the capital. The Senate were treated with due respect, and the people were pleased by kindly treatment and by the adornment of Rome with splendid buildings. The magistrates enjoyed much of their former authority under the Republic, and 164 A History of the World immediate execution and handed his body over to the outrages of the Roman mob. Macro, the successor of the fallen man, was a worse Sejanus, having all his vices without any of his ability. Fallen into a lethargic condition, Tiberius was suffocated by Macro in a.d. 37. Among the criminal tragedies of the reign may be noted the poisoning of the popular hero Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. He had fought with success against the Germans, twice defeating the famous Arminius, and in one of his campaigns his troops gathered up the bones of the soldiers who perished with Varus, and paid the last honours to their memory. Recalled by his jealous master, he was sent to the East, where he died through the act of Piso, governor of Syria, whom Tiberius felt obliged to sacrifice to the public indignation. Germanicus was the father of the emperor Caligula and of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. It is impossible to pursue here in detail the careers of the Roman emperors, and we shall note only a few important persons and events. Of the 62 emperors from Julius Caesar to Constantine, 42 were murdered, 3 committed suicide, 2 abdicated, and only n died a natural death, each " Caesar " having an average reign of little over 5 years. A part of the history is made up of civil wars between rival claimants for the imperial authority, another part deals with revolts of provincial governors and of the Praetorian Guards and other divisions of the military force, who raised to imperial power whomsoever they chose to impose upon the Senate. The mad Caligula (37-41) was murdered by some of his servants. The feeble old Claudius (41-54), younger brother of Germanicus, and husband of the infamous, proverbial Messalina, began the conquest of Britain, to be hereafter related, and visited the island. He was very good to the Gauls and gave the Roman citizenship to many of them. Mauritania and other African provinces were added to the empire, with Lycia, Thracia, and Judea, hitherto a dependent kingdom for many years. Poisoned by his second wife Agrippina, Claudius was succeeded by the monster Nero (54-68), who murdered his mother Agrippina, his wife Octavia, and his step- brother Britannicus, and degraded his office by appearing in public as a chariot-driver at the games, an actor, and a singer. The Christians were brutally persecuted on a false charge of causing the great fire at Rome which lasted for six days and laid much of the city in ruins. The capital was splendidly rebuilt, with a vast imperial palace, the domus aurea (" Golden Mansion "), covering all Rome: To Fa tern Empii ■ With him ; the m.ii Juli i . . the i itho, and the glutton Vitelli t and I within ' II vian em| f the line, Titus Flavi ianus, th only In- • re in power (>>t o\ I men w the imp rer with univ< : the fine old stock, a bi pie in lil in rule. We have n him in '1 he played Ins part in the conquest <>f ..:.. I fler the close >>( . the of Pon . the the < 'ill the v. brother I informers the niur ■ I he kindl] iut 16 n. It in that tune I. • period came with I rd by Inrth, t ; Roman, or i He is i ■ the ■ empire bj Fi in ■ I • : • f the Roman 1 ■ 1 66 A History of the World liberal support was given to every useful institution in Rome or in the provinces. The Parthian warfare of this excellent emperor has been already given. Hadrian (i 17-138) was a lover of peace and a good administrator, an active man who seems to have been the first emperor who under- stood his real position as master of most of the civilised world. The vast expense of maintaining frontier-garrisons caused him to give up Trajan's conquests beyond the Euphrates, and he then made journeys to every part of the empire, in order to maintain good government of the provincials and strict discipline among the troops. Even the distant Britain was visited, and the imperial journeys ranged from the borders of Caledonia (Scotland) to the cataracts of the Nile. Much was done to develop the Roman juris- prudence in drawing up a code of laws based on the decisions and rules of the judges, and published by the emperor for public use. Hadrian thus rendered service not only to his own generation but to the people of Europe in ages then far distant. Great architectural works of public use and adornment arose under Hadrian — harbours, aqueducts, new buildings at Athens, and a splendid mansion at Tibur (Two/i) near Rome, with many still extant art-treasures. Antoninus (138-161), surnamed Pius, or " the Affectionate," from his devoted regard for his adoptive father, Hadrian, was a true father of his people, and his reign may be considered as the happiest period of the Roman Empire. The frontiers were well defended against the attacks of barbarians, and the world of Roman sway was free from the crimes, conspiracies, civil wars, and bloodshed which had so troubled and disgraced it under some previous rulers. Wise, just, kindly, courteous, an enjoyer of all innocent pleasures, this most admirable and lovable of imperial masters encouraged literature, extended commerce, repaired roads and bridges, improved the laws, and stayed the persecution of the Christians. His successor Marcus Aurelius (161-180), trained in his youth by sages of the Stoic school, and styled " the Philosopher," had already, as adopted son, taken a part in government with Antoninus. He was a man of the purest virtue, the noblest production of Stoicism, one of the finest moral characters in all history. He erred at times from the unsuspecting goodness of his heart, but his excellent intentions can no more be doubted than those of our own immortal Alfred, with whom he may be well compared. The reign of Aurelius, however, was one of great troubles for which he was in no way answerable. The warfare with Parthia has been already noticed, THE ROMAN EMPI L ' Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 167 as also the dreadful pestilence, the real Oriental plague, which over- spread the whole western world, slaying many millions of people, and was followed by famine. The first symptoms of the great northern migration of tribes appeared, and the emperor had to take the field against the Marcomanni, Alani, Sarmatse, and other races on the north-eastern and north-central frontiers. The energy and discipline of the Roman armies had become relaxed, and the fearful losses in the ranks due to the plague were supplied by the enlistment of vast numbers of slaves and gladiators. The German tribes were, on the whole, successfully dealt with in warfare which continued for most of the reign. The emperor was also harassed by the ill-conduct of his wife Faustina and the bad promise of his son Commodus. He had never been strong in health, and he died on a campaign against the Germans, worn out by constant anxiety and fatigue. This illustrious champion of the best heathen philosophy and faith displayed in his life a spirit of gentleness, magnanimity, humility, and forgiveness such as only the best Christians have attained, and his famous Meditations, invested with a melancholy charm of rare potency in their revelation of a soul saddened but not embittered by its loneliness amid the troubles of life, are the legacy to the world of this serene and elevated spirit, ever philanthropic, ever a student of his beloved philosophy even amid the storms of war. His death was lamented throughout the Roman world as a vast calamity, and he received almost divine honours in countless families, where his image, more than a century later, was found treasured among the household gods. Aurelius' two persecutions of Christianity, in 166 and 177, involving the martyrdom of Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle St. John, at Smyrna, were the work of a man who, clinging earnestly to his stoical faith, had been brought, through misrepresentations, to regard the new religion as an immoral superstition and as a political conspiracy. He believed that, in striving to extirpate the creed of which he might have been one of the noblest converts, he was doing his duty as a ruler in preserving society from revolution. We need hardly remark that Aurelius, like all the cultivated men of his day, had no belief in the old pagan mythology, which the witty Lucian, a Greek author of the time, born in Syria about a.d. 125, of Semitic race, treats with the most graceful and amusing ridicule. The old beliefs were, in fact, fast declining, and a great political and social, as well as mental, change was in progress when the German tribes, urged by the Slavonic peoples of the north-east, 1 68 A History of the World furnished many peaceful settlers within the Roman boundaries and recruits to the Roman armies. The empire was not merely depopulated, to a large extent, by the great plague and by other like visitations in the next century, but it was being repopulated by Teutonic aliens. We have here the real cause of the " downfall of the Roman Empire." With the reigns of the " five good emperors " the best days of the great Roman dominion passed away.- The military power was becoming supreme, and withal the provinces could no longer be governed, but merely defended against barbarian encroachments. Commodus (180-192), son and successor of Aurelius, was simply a monster of cruelty and licentiousness. Murdered by his servants, he was followed, on the appointment of the troops, by a man who was murdered by the Praetorians within three months, and then Septimius Severus (193-2 n) carries us into the dreary 3rd century, marked by the worst of calamities in the shape of tyrannies, plagues, and the mischiefs wrought by a mutinous, omnipotent, and half- barbaric soldiery. Severus, a good commander, fought with success in the East, and died at Eboracum ( York) on a visit to Britain for the strengthening of the frontier against the Scots. Under his rule the Praetorian Guards, hitherto always natives of Italy, were increased in number to 50,000, picked men from all the frontier- armies, and thus the capital of the empire was in the hands of troops of foreign birth. Caracalla (211-217) was a cruel tyrant, whose reign was made notable by the granting of the Roman citizenship to all the provincials who were free-born. The object in view was to obtain more money for keeping the soldiers in good humour, through the higher taxation imposed on citizens. The political effect was of great importance. All free persons governed by Rome now became " Romans," and the unity thus obtained gave a new sense to the designation " Roman Empire." Caracalla was murdered, as usual, and we pass over the debauched Elagabalus (218-222), also murdered, to Alexander Severus (222-235), an excellent ruler, under whom the famous jurist Ulpian, a native of Tyre, nourished. He was one of the emperor's ministers, and commander of the Praetorian Guard, who slew him during a mutinous outbreak. Emperor after emperor followed, short-reigned in all cases. Under Decius (249-251) the powerful Teutonic people called Goths, whom we shall see hereafter, invaded Thrace, and were repelled. Under Valerian (253-260) there was much warfare with the Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 169 northern barbarians, with the Franks in Gaul, with the Alemanni as invaders of northern Italy, with the Goths on the Danube and in Greece and Asia Minor. The emperor was defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor, king of a revived Persia to be seen hereafter. A period of confusion followed, with Gothic invasions, and warfare between pretenders to power, until a.d. 270, when a brief better period came with the emperor Aurelian (270-275), an lllyrian by birth. His predecessor Claudius (268-270), also a native of Illyria, and a brave soldier, had routed and driven back the Goths and Alemanni, and Aurelian showed both strength and wisdom in his dealings with the problem of foreign invasion. His brief reign was crowded with memorable achievements. The province of Dacia was surrendered to the Goths, and the Danube was in that quarter made the boundary of the empire. The Alemanni and Marcomanni were repulsed from Italy in a second battle of the Metaurus. A strong empire under one ruler existed again by Aurelian's defeat of a rival claimant of power in Gaul, Spain, and Britain. In the East, he reconquered Egypt, and defeated and brought captive to Rome the beautiful, brave, high-spirited, virtuous, and accom- plished Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra (" Tadmor in the Desert"), a rich and magnificent city of northern Syria, about midway between Damascus and the Euphrates. This famous lady, probably of Arab race, was wife of the Bedouin chief Odaenathus, who had been appointed by the emperor Gallienus, in a.d. 264, to the rule of the East, and allowed to set up a "kingdom of Palmyra." He drove the Persians out of Syria after their defeat of Valerian, and extended his sway over most of the adjacent territory, from Egypt to Asia Minor. Splendid remains of Palmyra, including the great mile-long colonnade, originally of 1,500 Corinthian pillars, and the temple of the Sun (or Baal), are still to be seen. Aurelian, after crushing this newly risen Oriental empire, ruled wisely and well by Zenobia after her husband's death in 271, exhibited his illustrious captive, decked with jewels, and weighed down with golden chains, in his " triumph " at Rome, and then permitted her to end her life, in peace and affluence, in the society of her two sons, on posses- sions which he bestowed near Tibur (Tivoli). The emperor Probus (276-282) also did good work in restoring Roman supremacy by repelling the Franks, Alemanni, Vandals, and Burgundians. He enlisted a large number of German mer- cenaries in the army, and in this way another step was taken towards the ultimate overrunning of the empire by northern tribes. 170 A History of the World Before the end of the 3rd century, in fact, the Roman dominions had become largely " barbarised " in the persons of the Teutonic Goths and Vandals who had entered the military service, and were spread through the territory more than any other nationality. The capital became, as we shall see, a provincial town on the banks of the Tiber. The Senate had no political existence, and the emperor became a kind of Oriental despot, naming his own . successor, and living in pomp and luxury, exacting the utmost servility of demeanour from his courtiers, and creating the principle of sovereignty which was to prevail in Europe for many ages until the rise of constitutional checks on monarchical power. A vast army of military and civil officials was spread over the empire, with expense that caused ruinous taxation, another prelude to the ultimate dissolution due to barbarian encroachments and attacks. We are here, however, somewhat anticipating the great change of system which began with Diocletian, proclaimed emperor by the troops in 284. Prior to dealing with this matter, we must see how the great transforming spiritual force, the transcendent power of Christianity, had been exerting its influence on the Roman world. The peace established by Rome on the Mediterranean shores, around which all the olden civilisation was gathered, had greatly promoted commerce and free intercourse. The imperial sway of Rome had spread abroad the Greek culture, and was preserving for modern times, through multiplication of copies, the unrivalled Greek literature. The Greek philosophy so widely known after the time of Alexander the Great had long been preparing men of education to receive still nobler lessons, and among the masses, severely tried by the calamities already related, there was a readiness to turn for relief to a faith which promised redress of grievances in a future state. A religion suited to the needs of mankind had long been preached and taught by men who, owing to the Roman supremacy, had free access to divers regions from which missionaries must have been excluded under other conditions. The seed, sown quietly, had been growing in many quarters ; the leaven had been working in the vast pagan lump. The rulers of the empire found that in the east and west, and north and south, thousands of orderly societies had come into existence, professing the same principles, and having the same polity and discipline. Throughout the provinces, men whose thoughts were wholly bent upon this world and its affairs found themselves in the midst of others who were devoted to the service Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 B.C.— a.d. 476) 171 of, bound to obey, another ruler than the emperor. The new people would in no way, by attendance at the pagan worship, or at the public games which recognised the old deities, give the least sanction to former beliefs. Family ties, the nearest and dearest relationships, were disregarded in comparison with sub- mission to the demands of the faith, and death was welcomed rather than denial. Bishops appeared as rivals, it was supposed, of imperial power, and hence came persecution from good men who thought that the new " superstition " was, in its essence, disloyal to the powers that be. Persecution only scattered the seeds more widely, made the organisation firmer, and gave the new religion martyr-heroes and a history. The closeness of alliance, the unity of doctrine, the clearness and boldness of its enunciation, which marked the votaries of the religion, made a great impression on thoughtful minds, and in less than three centuries from the death of its founder Christianity gained the official approval of the highest authority in the empire. Diocletian (284-305), a man who rose to supreme power by his own abilities, sought a way of escape from the perils which had menaced and overwhelmed former rulers, in a division of the imperial power, for administrative purposes, among four, persons. The frontiers would be made safer, and the emperor would be guarded against attacks of the troops. A co-emperor and two viceroys called " Caesars " shared the direction of affairs with himself. The empire was thus ruled from four centres : Gaul, Britain, and Spain from Trier (Treves) on the Moselle; Thrace, Egypt, and Asia, by Diocletian, from Nicomedia in Bithynia (Asia Minor) ; Italy and Africa, from Mediolanum (Milan) ; and Illyricum, Macedonia, and Greece, from Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia, the modern Mitrovitz, on the left bank of the Save. Rebellions and barbarian invasions were thus stayed, and the soldiers were kept at work building walls and castles, and forming fortified camps on all the dangerous frontiers. It is obvious that the new plan could only succeed while the four rulers were competent men and all worked together. Rome thus ceased to be the only capital of the empire. The emperors were never in residence there, and the differences between Rome and the provinces had passed away now that the imperial rulers had ceased to claim authority merely as being chief officials of the city of Rome and commanders of the armies. The last and the most severe and persistent persecution of Christianity began in 303 under 172 A History of the World Diocletian, two years prior to his abdication, caused by the failure of his health after 21 years of toil in state-affairs. This trial of the faith continued for about seven years. A decree issued from Nicomedia ordered the churches to be levelled with the ground, and the sacred books to be given up, under pain of death, to the imperial officers, and publicly burnt. All property of the churches was confiscated, and all public assemblies for Christian worship were prohibited. The Christians of rank and distinction were degraded from their offices, and declared incapable of holding any post of authority or trust. The right of Roman citizenship was taken from all those of the plebeian order, so that they became liable to corporal punishment or torture. Slaves who were Christians could not claim or obtain freedom. The whole body of Christians became outlaws, without protection in case of wrong, but liable to civil actions, bound to bear all the burdens of the state, and amenable to all its penalties. Many died by beheading, burning alive, and drowning. Nearly all over the civilised world, Chris- tianity was assailed by the full force of the civil power, urged on by the united influence of the pagan priesthood and the philosophic party. All was in vain. The non-Christian lovers of freedom had their sympathies aroused, and patience under tribulation excited admiration which in countless instances ended in conversion to the faith. The retirement of Diocletian was followed by civil wars, and during this period Constantinus (Constantine the Great) came to the front. He was born in 274, son of one of the co-emperors, Constantius, who had discouraged the persecution of the Christians, and of Helena, a Christian lady. Distinguished as a soldier, and very popular with the troops, he first assumed rule at Eboracum ( York) on his father's death in 306. He defeated Maxentius, chosen an emperor by the Praetorians, in a great battle near Rome in 312, and then entered the city, disbanded the Praetorians and destroyed their quarters. He was, in his religious creed and conduct, a strange compound of paganism and Christianity ; he was an able statesman who made an important change in the mode of government by dividing the civil and military authority, thus lessening the danger of revolt by lowering the power of the fegati, or provincial governors. In 313 he issued an edict at Milan, giving civil rights and toleration to Christians throughout the empire. The laws were well administered, the frontiers strengthened, and the barbarians chastised. Becoming sole ruler in 323, he fully Roi II tern Empire [73 inism, and in ntrol, the ■ the I Christ imp ided into ubian [l includii Js, solely 1 1 rem* • le into 1 me ruler. . he mat I where imperial authority resided, i ital, arhei . >ul- this purpose, the • mi, a plai e "t io in t': >ion by il I >partans), M splendid ■ 1 f Cons) known to .til the woi npire ie in 1 r fr<>m I ■ and phil I the iin II l ■ ■ . in 174 A History of the World the territory now forming Moravia, Bohemia and Bavaria; the Burgundians, on the Neckar-and the Rhine ; the Alemanni, between the Main and the Alps, along the Rhine ; the Franks, on the Lower Rhine ; the Saxons between the Elbe and the Rhine ; the Lango- bards, on the Lower Elbe ; the East Goths, in what is now southern Russia; and the West Goths, in Dacia (eastern Hungary and Roumania). These Teutonic peoples, now massed in a smaller number of larger tribes than before, had grown in numbers and power, and were better trained both in war and in political arts through connection with Roman civilisation. We have seen that the provincial armies were largely German, and German officers had acquired high position in the imperial service. At this time movements among the dwellers on the great plain of northern Asia were taking place, and these caused the invasion of eastern Europe by a fierce Tartar people called the Huns, of dwarfish figure, great strength, and ugly beardless faces, made more hideous by tattooing. The Goths were the first to feel the pressure. This remarkable body of Germanic or Teutonic people had for three centuries, up to about a.d. 380, a history of mere barbarian slaughter and pillage. A century later, they became the most powerful nation in Europe, with a sovereign of their race ruling in Italy, on the throne of the Caesars, with remarkable wisdom and benefit to his subjects, while another Gothic ruler held sway in Spain and southern Gaul. 250 years more pass away, and the Gothic kingdoms and nation have utterly disappeared. The meaning of their name is a matter of dispute ; it may be " the nobly born." Their language greatly resembled the oldest English. Early in the 3rd century, we find this people dividing into two great branches, the Visigoths or West Goths, and the Ostrogoths or East Goths, then referring to their positions east and west of the river Dniester. As things came to pass, the distinction remained appropriate through the conquest of the western countries, Gaul and Spain, by the Visigoths, and of Italy by the Ostrogoths. In person they were tall and strong, with fair complexions, blue eyes, and yellow hair, much resembling the modern Swedes. In character they were brave, generous, hardy, pure and loving in domestic life. Liable to cruelty in the first excitement of conquest, they were, notably after their conversion, just and humane towards those whom they subjugated. We have already seen them in conflict with Roman armies, and they had compelled a Roman emperor, Gallus, to pay them a large yearly tribute on condition of leaving Roman territory at peace. Roi II. tern Empire .». 476) 1 7 c The later mv they burnt th< in marble columns and in some plunden ble build i, at the n <»f .111 .1--.1 chief, the hlir.in .1, "men Its would give the ■ trouble in war. \\ bile they were --till heathens, the » I -m a premature >>( the empire by the and by the wise poli< have the emperor Aurelian. Settled in Da were alli< s <>( Rome f'<>r I tury. ths, while their kinsmen, th i i livinj ritory north <»f the ■ rn ( "run. . 1 unite. 1 ; with - mtine in , . whom the Goths had attacked, he ithic ibdued by the Huns, to whom the inst their number of the latter n in the ii. pel in I > l ■ i 176 A History of the World Goths south of the Danube, and was defeated and slain in the great battle of Adrianople. The victors moved westwards to the Adriatic and the borders of Italy, thus occupying another large section of the Roman territory. His successor Theodosius (379-395), ruling the Eastern Empire only until 392, fought the Visigoths with some success, and accepted them as allies in Mcesia and Thrace. It was in the person of this emperor that the rising power of the Church was strikingly shown. A Spaniard by birth, the last emperor who ruled over the whole undivided empire, he had cruelly punished, by the execution or massacre of several thousand persons, an out- break at Thessalonica, in Macedonia. On his return some months later to his capital, Milan, Theodosius was met at the church-door by Ambrosius the bishop, and excluded from communion until he had confessed his crime and done public penance. A formal end of paganism was made by decrees which forbade the worship of the heathen gods, under severe penalties. On the death of this ruler the territory was permanently divided into the Eastern and Western Empires, the latter now in its last century of existence. The real ruler of the Western dominions was the brave and able general Stilicho, a Vandal by birth. He aided the eastern emperor against Alaric, leader of the West Goths, who had invaded and ravaged Greece, and in 402 he caused his retire- ment from Italy. A few years later he defeated bands of German invaders, and maintained the frontier until 408, when he was put to death by order of his jealous master the emperor Honorius. Be- tween 406 and 409, when there was no longer any competent military leader in that part of the Western Empire, bands of Vandals, Suevi, and other German tribes crossed the Rhine from the Danubian regions, fought fiercely, with great losses, against the Franks, and invaded Spain. At this time northern Gaul was gradually occupied by the Franks, and Alaric with his Visigoths entered Italy in great force, and in 410 captured and sacked Rome, just before his death in Lower Italy. One of his successors, in 419, after fighting for the emperor against German invaders, founded a Gothic kingdom in southern Gaul, with its capital at Tolosa (Toulouse). This was the first regular settlement of the Teutonic barbarians inside the empire, and the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse continued for nearly a centrry. In 429 Genseric, king of the Vandals, crossed from Spain into Africa (Numidia), and took and sacked Hippo Regius, after a long siege, during which the bishop, the famous St. Augustine, died. It was through the ferocity with which the Rome: To Fall of Western Empire (27 b.c.-a.d. 476) 177 Vandals then destroyed and ravaged churches, cities, and tilled lands that they gained their proverbial name as types of destructive barbarism. The city of Carthage was taken nine years later, and it became the capital of the Vandal kingdom in north Africa, ably ruled for many years by Genseric, who founded a formidable naval force, and made his fleets a terror in the Mediterranean. It seems strange, but it is true, that this Vandal king was a bigoted Arian in his theology, and most cruelly persecuted the orthodox Christians in his dominions. A succession of insignificant emperors came in Italy, and in 455 the Vandal conqueror crossed over to Italy, and captured Rome, which his troops were plundering for many days. Much booty was carried off in the shape of metal statues from the temples and the Forum. We have now to deal again with the formidable Huns, and we come to another great crisis in the history of the world. In a.d. 450 these savage Tartar invaders of Europe had been for many years under the rule of a great man named Attila, known to us only from the literature and legends of those whom his warlike prowess made to suffer. Austere in life, just on the judgment-seat, conspicuous among his warriors for strength, hardihood, and skill with weapons, deliberate in counsel, swift and resolute in action ; carefully and shrewdly observant of the passions, prejudices, creeds, and supersti- tions of the peoples whom he conquered and held in subjection ; and of great strategical and tactical ability in war, Attila the Hun was to prove himself the last great and dangerous foe, save one, of the Aryan peoples in Europe. The Tartar and the Teuton were brought face to face in a death-struggle, and the future of the world depended on the issue. The laws, the institutions, and the Christian faith established in the Roman Empire were at stake when Attila, with armed bands of Ostrogoths and other conquered Teutons among his hordes of Huns, moved from his territories in south- central Europe. The head of the Visigothic kingdom in southern Gaul at this time (a.d. 45 i) was the brave and able Theoderic, and he made alliance with Rome, after much warfare with the emperor, for their common defence against the enormous hosts, computed at over half a million of men, that were advancing to overwhelm the west and south of Europe. The Rhine was crossed by the invaders, and the king of the Burgundians, a German people settled on the upper Rhone and the Saone, was defeated. When the eastern territory had been overrun, Attila, with the main body, marched upon Orleans, to invade the Visigothic territory beyond the Loire. 178 A History of the World Theoderic was aided by an army under the able general Aetius, com- posed of regular legionaries and large numbers of barbaric auxiliaries who dreaded and hated the Huns. The city of Orleans made a stout resistance, and on the approach of the united forces of Theoderic and Aetius, Attila retreated towards the Marne, called in his detached troops, and awaited the enemy on the " Catalaunian fields," the vast plains of Chalons-sur- Marne, as ground most suitable for the action of his formidable cavalry. A furious struggle, for the details of which the reader should consult the pages of Gibbon's immortal work, ended in the utter defeat of the Huns, with enormous loss, and the death of king Theoderic. This victory, the salvation of Europe from subjection to Tartar barbarism, was followed by Attila's retreat and invasion of Italy. His death in 453 broke up the Hunnish monarchy. The latest rulers of the Western Empire are not worthy of mention. The Western Empire quietly drifted out of political exist- ence in a.d. 476, when Odovaker (Odoacer), king of the Heruli, a German nation or tribe, ruled Italy, at the request of the Senate, as governor for the Eastern emperor. There was thus no catastrophe, no "downfall" of the empire in the usual sense. The dominion of Rome, apart from the Byzantine Empire, could not be conquered, because it had already been absorbed. The olden population had been replaced by a new set of peoples, mostly of German or Teutonic race, and so the grand fabric faded away. Most of the new people, already largely acquainted with the Roman language and civilisation, and in many cases converts to the Christian faith, were anxious to preserve existing political and religious institutions as those which would be most serviceable to themselves. Odoacer, ruling in the name of the Eastern emperor, was in a sense reuniting the East and West, Byzantium instead of Rome being the centre of the civil government. Among the chief consequences were the development of a Latin or Western, as opposed to Greek and Oriental forms of Christianity, and the emancipation of the Bishops of Rome, afterwards called " Popes," now left free to pursue the course which was to end in establishing so imposing a fabric of ecclesiastical and, for long ages, of temporal and political power. The German or Teutonic peoples who settled in Spain and Italy and Gaul adopted the Latin speech and Roman customs, and hence the modern languages of France and of the Spanish and Italian peninsulas are known as the Romance languages, having the speech of the old Romans as their basis. Section II. MEDIEVAL HISTORY, FROM END <>t WESTERN EMPIRE TO im DISCOVEI [ERICA A.D. )2). BOOK I. >.!/ /\ / /V 777Y< W OF WES TE RN ROMAN EMPIRE TREA VERDUN \ I I I. [tali rHE Papacy ;thi < m i ; • ro Engl \ni>. 1 {rears ol the i much i: I tic first half "f the period but this is somewhat misnomer. The occupation of the western part ol I I iman • i of the . institutions, and , which tl in their .■l « ivilisation i the ■ • itral Euro] fhe ( bristian h ml sulitn ■ ■ ... 180 A History of the World institutions, modern towns and municipal government ; the growth of commerce ; the beginnings of great native literatures in the chief European countries ; the development of the political freedom which was to culminate in the establishment of modern republics and con- stitutional monarchies, — these lead us on to the new world of geography and of mental and social life, due to the mariner's compass, the invention of printing, the great revival of classical learning, the rise of a middle class, the decay of blind faith and superstition, and the commencement of the reign of reason and free thought. We left Odovaker (Odoacer) ruling in Italy in 476. A remark- able man now came to the front in the Ostrogothic prince Theoderic, well trained in his youth for ten years at Constantinople. He became in 474, at 20 years of age, king of the Ostrogoths, whom he settled in the region which is now southern Austria. In 488 Zeno, the Eastern (Greek or Byzantine) emperor, commissioned Theoderic to deprive Odovaker of Italy, and to rule his own Ostrogoths there as representative or lieutenant of the Byzantine power. The task was welcomed as suiting the ambition of one who desired to be head of a compact and civilised state, and Theoderic led his people, with all their cattle and property, across the Julian Alps. In September, 489, the battle of Verona, with great loss to the invaders, was won over Odovaker, and by the close of 491 Theoderic was master of the whole of Italy. The Ostrogothic kingdom, fairly founded by 493, was well ruled for 33 years by the sovereign who earned the title of " the Great." He showed rare tolerance in protecting the Jews against Christian bigotry, and rare taste in his earnest endeavours to preserve works of ancient art in buildings and statues. Theoderic's three capitals, Rome, Ravenna, and Verona, and many smaller cities, were adorned with churches, theatres, palaces, and public baths constructed at the king's order with lavish expenditure. In the literature which he encouraged, Theoderic's reign was distinguished by the learning of his secretary- of-state Cassiodorus, and of the philosopher Boethius, author and statesman, the greatest name in literature for 100 years, the last Roman of any note who understood the language and studied the literature of Greece. He was specially acquainted with Greek philosophy, and his translations and commentaries were the medium through which the writings of Aristotle on logic became first known to the western world. During his imprisonment on a charge of treason, for which he suffered death about 524, Boethius wrote in pure style his famous work De Consolatione Philosophies ("On the Italy — the !' I iiort <>f I 'In!- 1 by r and Provid i i . ned by t\ ;-, which In I ration. In 5 jo ti. ried prisonei ( . : I arius, the • of the y by the larses, 1 made an >untry being ruled • h of Ravenna, under the emperor al I i i on this account, . in feeling with ilation, and it 1-. al . the I » inubi in territory 1 nate nd in a life of un* cury. I to b "ly of n l their en< 1 of the northern trib ially . were in the middle of the 5th century, tern In •n in rdy. I hold On ''-rural i, they hated Cai iolic yed lanns and ■ ■ • I on I 1 82 A History of the World capital of the empire, and the tradition that St. Peter preached there. In 449 Leo the Great, who had shown much prudence and courage during the Hunnish and Vandal invasions, maintained the claim of his see to supremacy in the Western Church, and, in his instructions to his legates at the Council of Ephesus, he rested it on Divine authority in the words : " Thou art Peter," etc. When the Western Empire came to an end in 476, the chief man in Italy was the Pope, who was regarded as the leader and defender of the people. At the end of the 5th century (in 498) the election of a pope, formerly shared by the laity, came to rest solely with the clergy. The waning of the Eastern emperor's power in Italy after the Lombard inroad increased the Papal influence, and Gregory I. (the Great) may be regarded as the real founder of the Papal power. He held the seat from 590 to 604, and, mainly exercising spiritual influence, was reverenced for his character and his energy in reforms. By him the Lombard con- querors were won over to the Catholic faith, as well as the Arian Visigoths of Spain, and, though his missionary Augustine was certainly not the founder of Christianity in the British Isles, as lately (in 1897) assumed with so much pride and pomp in the Isle of Thanet, 13 centuries after his arrival, yet Gregory justly acquired new fame from the work done in England. In the 7th century the Popes were harassed by the Eastern emperors, who, still claiming to be masters of Rome and holding, by the " exarch," territory in Italy, required elections to be submitted to their confirmation. The Papal power grew in the West, and in 664 the Church in England recognised the control of the See of Rome. In Germany, Irish missionaries, St. Columban and others, had been the first to preach Christianity, and from 677, for some years, the English Wilfrith (St. Wilfrid, bishop of York) made thousands of converts in Friesland (most of Holland and part of Prussia), being succeeded there by Willibrod, or Wilbrord, of Northumbrian origin, who became bishop of Utrecht, and worked with great zeal and success from about 690 to 739. All this later work was done under Papal sanction, and, under a commission from Gregory II. (715-731), Winfried, or Winfrith, a native of Crediton in Devonshire, and a Benedictine monk, won to Christianity much of central and southern Germany. Churches and convents were everywhere founded, and supplied with priests, monks, and nuns from England. This eminent man, known ecclesiastically as St. The Papacy — the Byzantine Empire • | made, in ;» and pi tc in tli • x bishoprics. In still th< ie Metropolitan of < his high post, l I in I: with lu> ition of . by nd of armed heathens. Hi^ remains, firs! i Utrecht •i/., had their final restinf . the fan ne abbey <■( Fulda (in Hi N tu), of Ins foundation. ■ il learning, can Bhow a copy of the Gospels in the p - handwriting, one leaf \y ief rd 01 I I 1:1 77 1, when Karl the • - I, but il iute. 1 1 184 A History of the World (474-491), and Anastasius (491-518) kept the realm unimpaired by barbarian conquest, and the last ruler left his successor a great treasure in gold, and a fine well-disciplined army of 150,000 men, largely composed of Isaurians, the mountain populations of southern Asia Minor, in corps raised by Zeno, who was of Isaurian birth, and of Armenians and others from the eastern frontier. The native elements of the army were thus strong enough to hold in check the Hunnish and German auxiliaries. Zeno had much trouble with Ostrogoth invaders of the Balkan peninsula, and at last got rid of the main body, as we have seen, by inducing Theoderic to turn his attention to Italy. The greatest of the Eastern emperors was Justinian, nephew and heir of his predecessor, the rough uneducated soldier Justinius. He reigned from 527 to 565, and under him the empire reached its highest point of power and renown. This slave-born Illyrian, gifted with keen natural intelligence, was trained at Constantinople, and became accomplished in every department save that of military science, in which he, like Louis XIV., was lucky or skilful enough in choice to have himself served by the ablest generals of his time. When he had almost reached middle age, the steady, practical man caused the world to wonder at his marriage in 526 with the dancer Theodora, the star of the Byzantine comic stage. Whatever her character may have been before her great elevation — there is little doubt that she has been much maligned — this extraordinary woman, one of the loveliest of all time, showed herself, both in intellect and in high spirit, as well as in spotless conduct, worthy to share an imperial throne. The emperor, ever brooding over great schemes, which he carried out with unscrupulous energy, had in his wife the most able and trustworthy of advisers. She was most bountiful to the poor, especially to unhappy beings of her own sex, and often intervened in favour of the victims of oppression. On one occasion, when the emperor's spirit quailed, her courage was the saving of his throne. At the splendid circus at Constantinople, called the Hippodrome, the chariot-races gave rise to the factions known as the " Blues " and the " Greens." This rivalry, by a singular perversion, was carried outside the circus into both religious and political affairs. The " Green " faction would oppose the Catholic or orthodox believers, or the " Blues " take a side in a contest for the throne. All classes of society chose their colour in this party- warfare, which, on many occasions in Byzantine history, caused very serious riots and insurrections. One of the worst of these outbreaks The Byzantine Empire 185 came in 532. The emperor ordered seven ringleaders from both sides to be executed, and a rescue of the last three at the scaffold brought on an insurrection in which both " Blues " and " Greens " united against the authorities with cries of Nika ("Conquer"), and demanded the removal of the finance-minister and of the city- prefect. Justinian lost his nerve, and promised to dismiss the officials. Then his imperial power became itself at stake. The only troops in Constantinople were 4,000 Imperial Guards, a few Germans, and some hundreds of armoured cavalry. Belisarius, the famous general, was in command, but the rioters made a fierce resistance. The Senate-house was fired ; the cathedral was burned ; most of the city fell into the hands of the insurgents, and on the sixth day of the outbreak they crowned Hypatius, nephew of the late emperor Anastasius. The Council sat at the palace, the only building now left to the emperor, and many of the ministers urged Justinian to flee by sea, and to reconquer the capital with troops collected in the provinces. Then the empress Theodora rose and declared that a king had better die than be a dethroned exile, and quoted the proverb " Empire is the best winding-sheet." The woman shamed the men into action, and a last attack was made by Belisarius. The Hippodrome was stormed at two portals, the rebels fell in thousands, and peace was quickly restored. In 548, at the age of 40, Theodora died, worn out by the anxieties and toils of her position. Justinian ranks high as a conquering sovereign, and under him the East and West were for a time again united. Warfare with Persia from 527 to 532 was indecisive, but a victory won by the young Thracian general Belisarius showed the military value of the courtier who was married to Antonina, the favourite lady of Theodora. He was soon provided with fresh work in Africa. The Vandal kingdom there had sunk into weakness through the physical and moral degeneration of the race. Belisarius landed at Tripoli, with an army of horse and foot, in 533, and two victories, with the capture of Carthage and the surrender of other fortresses, made an end of the Vandal power. Sicily was the next conquest. The warfare of Belisarius in Italy has been seen, with the overthrow of the Ostrogothic kingdom by Narses. These successes were followed by the conquest of most of the coast of southern Spain. The financial administration of Justinian was very oppressive, owing to the vast expenditure on warfare often use- less, and an evil result was - the lasting exhaustion of the provinces. 1 88 A History of the World masses of archers and spearmen. They now invaded the territory lying north of the Balkans, and before a.d. 600 most of the Thracian and Illyrian provincials, the chief Latin-speaking body in the Eastern Empire, had perished. The open country was wasted, and the new enemy came even across the Danube, and made progress westwards to Bohemia and the Tyrol. An evil time of revolution and tyranny, of Persian invasion to the heart of Asia Minor, was ended some years after the accession of Heraclius (610-641). All the provinces were overrun by Persians, or Slavs, or Avars. The treasury was empty, and the army had been almost annihilated by defeats. In 614 the Persians stormed Jerusalem and slew many thousands of Christians, carrying off the much-revered relic regarded as the wood of the "true cross." A great feeling was aroused, and, after some years of trouble with the Avars to the north-west, Heraclius took the field in 622 against the Persians. Six campaigns recovered all their .conquests, drove a great host of Avars and Slavs from the walls of Constantinople, forced the restoration of the " true cross," and enabled Heraclius to celebrate a true old Roman triumph in his capital. We leave him there in peace for the time, and note that by the 7th century the Latin language in the Eastern Empire had been almost superseded by the Greek, and that Christianity was effecting moral changes in the extinction of infanticide and a great modification of the evils of slavery. There was a vast amount of indifference to religion among the cultured classes, but there is no doubt that society in the Byzantine Empire has been much too sweepingly condemned for cowardice and corruption by those writers who have accepted all the statements of Gibbon. The contest with the Saracens, soon to be noticed, refutes the accusation of cowardice, and the charges of immorality levelled against the Byzantine people are deserved in no greater measure than they would be in any modern society. The Spain conquered by the Romans, peopled by Celts, Iberians, and the mixed race called Celtiberians, and by descendants of Carthaginian and Greek colonists, was a country whose inhabitants were, in the main, hardy, temperate, brave, and warlike. Their sturdy resistance to the Roman arms, which taxed the ability and energy of the best generals to overcome, proves their strong attachment to national or tribal independence. When the work of conquest was completed, in the days of Augustus, Spain became more Romanised than any other country in language and manners. In spite of the introduction, at a later period, of a considerable Spain — Frank Kingdoms 189 Arabic element into the tongue, the modern Spanish can be to a large degree understood, without any special study, by a classical scholar. Latin was. the language of the educated classes, and the tongue and literature of Greece and Rome were taught in the schools. Under the Empire some of the chief Latin authors were natives of Spain, as the two Senecas ; the poets Lucan, Martial, and Silius Italicus ; and the great rhetorician Quintilian. Chris- tianity rapidly spread through the country. A bishop of Cordova was a leading prelate at the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, and Prudentius, somewhat later, almost the first Latin Christian poet, was a native of northern Spain. Two centuries after his period, Isidore, bishop of Seville, a man of admirable character, was the most learned writer of the West. With the decline of the Western Empire, Spain also sank in moral character and military power. The best soldiers had all been withdrawn to serve in legions quartered in different parts of the vast dominions of Rome, and luxury and sensuality had sapped the energies of the higher classes. The mass of the people were either slaves or serfs bound to the soil, and the middle or burgher class were full of discontent under a heavy burden of taxation. No means of effective resistance to resolute invaders could be found, and hence the Suevi and the Visigoths had an easy prey. For over 200 years the Goths were in possession of the country, and they, becoming quite as immoral and corrupt as the Roman nobles who had preceded them, did little to improve the condition of their subjects. The middle and lower classes were in the same state as in the last days of the Empire, and all was ready for the new conquest soon to be related. The Frank monarchy was by far the greatest which arose on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Towards the end of the 5th century the Salic or Salian Franks, one branch of this large- limbed, long-haired, blue-eyed athletic race of warriors, were settled in the country now called Belgium, as a democratic nation of men who, in the intervals of peace, lived by hunting, fishing, the rearing of cattle, and the tilling of gardens, fields, and vineyards. The only social ranks, below the hereditary monarch of powers limited by the tribal assembly, were the chiefs or counts, the • free Franks or body of the nation, and the slaves taken in war. In 481, the new king was Chlodovech or Chlodwig (in modern German, " Ludwig "), a name which is, in French, corrupted into " Clovis " and the more modern "Louis." This lad of 15 was an ambitious, 190 A History of the World crafty, arrogant ruler, who began a course of conquest by attacking and defeating in 486 Syagrius, the governor of north-eastern Gaul, and annexing the country as far as the Seine. The Burgundian kingdom in the valley of the Rhone was then made tributary, and the land between the Seine and the Loire was overcome. In 496 the Alemanni, or Germans of the Black Forest, Switzerland, and the Vosges, invaded the Frankish territory, and were utterly defeated and brought to submission in a battle near Cologne. Chlodwig and his people then adopted the Christian faith of his wife Clothild (Clotilda), a Burgundian princess, and on Christmas-day of the same year (496) the monarch and 3,000 of his warriors, with the women and children, were baptised at Rheims by good old Bishop Remigius. The conversion of the king was followed by cruel and treacherous acts which brought the realm of the Ripuarian Franks, on the middle Rhine and the Moselle, into the possession of Clovis. His course of conquest was greatly aided by his having become an ortho- dox Catholic, which gained for him the strong sympathy of the Catholic clergy among the Arian Goths of Gaul. The Visigoths were defeated in a battle near Poitiers, and the western territory was subdued as far south as the Garonne. The Eastern emperor Anastasius, after the victory over the West Goths, conferred on Chlodwig the titles of " Patrician " and " Consul," and the favour of the Bishops of Rome or Popes was conciliated for the Frankish conquerors. On the death of Chlodwig, at Paris, in 511, the great kingdom, divided among his four sons, retained a certain unity in the fact that all the subjects considered themselves members of one state. Further territory was conquered east of the Rhine (Thuringia and Franconia), and in 536 Provence was acquired. In the subsequent history various divisions and reunions of territory occurred, with family feuds and wars of a horrible character. In the way of government, Dukes and Counts arose as rulers of larger and smaller districts, and these Merowingian kings of the Franks, as they are called from an early semi-mythical king Merowig, founded feudalism in adopting the Roman custom of granting lands {benefices or fiefs) to the Dukes and Counts, and to staff-officers, on condition of military service to the sovereign as " lord " of a " vassal " or " man." The system of feudal-tenures thus had its origin in a combination of Roman and Teutonic ideas, the holder of lands in the Roman Empire being bound to serve the state, in the German system to serve a person. A new aristocracy arose when the landholders gained hereditary I inta of lands I on the s.uiu- I i) in war. I ■ and lal <>r • r of :';.' of the i nd of ministers tn this , i by the : • chokl, an ider of the ft udal ■lie in the Krankish k; mportance, as the lical auth . anil the men of v Is of the Mayor oi lily of th P ( ine of tii virtual >■ ' the wh ..or northern n . 1 [e h u : I His son < and .1 warrior, wh ! the " Kr ,i. n 1 1 1.. ■ : . I 192 A History of the World Cassi (Hertfordshire), Damnonii (south-west to Land's End), the Brigantes between the H umber and the Tyne, the Silures in South Wales. The religion was the well-known Druidism, the priests of which were the arbiters of disputes and the judges of crime. The creed included a belief in the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of transmigration ; the ritual offered human sacrifices. The artistic nature of the Celts, with its bold and active fancy and love of music, had its instinctive wants met by the performances of the class called Bards, who sang to the strains of a rude harp the exploits and genealogies of chiefs, the wonders of nature, and the praises of the gods, in verse that abounded in metaphor and simile. The visits of Julius Cassar to the island* have been noted. The country was then mostly covered by forest and marsh, with a few clearings for the growth of corn, and the towns were collections of timbered or wattled huts, surrounded by a deep ditch, and a defence of felled trees. Far removed from mere barbarism, the Britons were subject to the authority of chiefs ; miners and smelters of their native tin ; tillers of the soil in the more civilised south-eastern district; fabricators of swords, shields, spears, and war-chariots; exporters of lead, tin, slaves, hunting-dogs, the skins of wild animals and domestic cattle, and of the delicious oysters of Rutupioe (Richborough, in Kent), dear to the Roman epicures; importers of brass, salt, earthenware, and woven fabrics from Gaul. The excavation of barrows or sepulchral mounds has disclosed bodkins, necklaces, beads, drinking-cups, and urns ; and prior to the Roman conquest Cunobelin, king of the Trinobantes, having his capital at Camalodunum (either Colchester or Maldon, in Essex), had a coinage probably of British workmanship. The Roman conquest began in a.d. 43, under the emperor Claudius, and was carried on by legions under the command of Vespasian, Titus, and other generals. The fierce and determined resistance of .the Britons, under leaders such as Caradoc (Caractacus), king of the Silures, and the great outbreak under Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, were overcome by a.d. 62. The conquest of the country south of the Clyde and the Forth was completed between 78 and 84 by the famous Julius Agricola, father- in-law of the historian Tacitus, whose eulogistic memoir of the great and good Roman ruler is one of the finest things in that class of literature. The Ordovices, a powerful tribe in North Wales, were subdued. The ground won was firmly held by the planting of forts and garrisons at suitable points, and conciliation brought many natives to submission. The warfare of Agricola ended with his great i Hid ■ I II in tow • municipal rule. Th< ! in in. .1 provim e <>( the ind rem ilc the northern • ibled b) f armed h and th l I the I earthen tun Firth. Durii and in the ; half '<( the 4th I by the ■ . th the arrival <»f • ml, and martyr- . and : I t British < n i ■ ■ .ui«l the :n Britain. In .n; th ■ ■ 194 A History of the World owners dwelling in rural districts. Roman arts and literature had little sway, and the scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons received from their Roman masters was nearly swept away by the English conquest. The signs of Roman presence are well known. Traces of their straight and durable roads may be seen in most English counties. Watling Street led from Kent to the Forth ; Hermin Street from the Sussex coast to the Humber ; Ikenild Street from Caistor (near Norwich) to Dorchester ; and the Foss Way from Cornwall to Lincoln. Among the chief towns of the Roman time were Londinium {London), Camalodunum (probably Colchester), Rutupiae (Richborough, in the Isle of Thanet), Aquae Solis {Bath), Isca Silurum {Caerleon, in Monmouthshire), Glevum {Gloucester), Lindum {Lincoln), Deva {Chester), and Chesterford, near Cambridge, all these being coloniae or Roman settlements, where the land was held by Romans, and the Roman institutions were adopted without any change in the local government. Veru- lamium {St. Albans) and Eboracum ( York) were municipal cities, with special rights and privileges for the citizens. Venta Belgarum ( Winchester) was an important place. The military occupation of the country, as has been already noted, is shown in such names of places as Chester, Castor (on the Nen), Caistor, Exeter, Lancaster, Gloucester, Manchester. The material signs of Roman occupation, in addition to the remains of roads, camps, and fortifications, consist of portions of villas, or country-houses, with mosaic pavements, bath-rooms, and other remains ; of towns unearthed at Wroxeter in Shropshire (the ancient Uriconium), and at Silchester in Hampshire ; and of countless objects of ornament and utility discovered in London, York, and other places, by workmen digging deep founda- tions for modern buildings — pottery and glass, sandal-soles, waxen tablets with the styles or pens of bone and wood, augers, saws, knives, coins, weaving-bobbins, bronze hair-pins, and many other articles. The state of peace, law, and order maintained by the Romans did much for the material prosperity of the country. The growth of corn increased so much as to cause a large exportation to other countries, and the emperor Julian, in the 4th century, built warehouses in his continental dominions for the storage of British cereals. Mining was al'-o greatly developed, in the tin of Cornwall and the lead of Somerset, and the pigs of lead in the British Museum, bearing the stamp of Domitian and Hadrian, confirm the words of Tacitus as to the mineral wealth of the island. In the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, iron was largely mined and Britain and England 195 smelted by the Romans, whose coins have been found in the pits from which the ore was taken. The Teutonic conquerors of Britain were the heathen Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, in this order of numbers and importance, coming respectively from the territories now forming Schleswig, the region south and west of Schleswig, and Jutland. The people of the coast were bold and hardy seamen, living by fishing and by the piracy which had long made them a terror to the south-east coast of Britain and the northern coast of Gaul. The inland folk were tillers of the soil and rearers of cattle, but warlike and also devoted to the chase. They lived in little settlements called townships, from the tun, or hedge and ditch that formed the outer defence. The society included, firstly, the eorlas (earls), or nobles, from whom were chosen, by the people, rulers in peace and leaders in war. The title of "ealdorman" was given to such a leader, and in the new home such a man often became royal by success in war and assumed the title of " king." The ceorlas (churls, a term that became degraded after the Norman conquest), meaning "the men," as opposed to slaves, were the main body of freemen. Self-government, the proof of personal and political freedom, existed in the village-council ; the hundred-court, representing the freemen of a number of villages ; and the great council (witan) of the tribe, who elected the head or king, usually from some one noble family. This body included, in theory, all freemen of the tribe, but was soon limited to the more wealthy and powerful, and became a kind of house of peers. The thegns (thanes) were companions or select followers of the ealdorman, and became in England a class of minor nobles, members of the king's military household. The particulars of the conquest of Britain and its conversion into England (Engle-land, after the name of the Engle or Angles) are too well known to concern us here. In the course of less than a century and a half, from a.d. 450 to near the close of the 6th century, a number of kingdoms were formed, by the Jutes in Kent ; by the Saxons in Sussex, Wessex Essex, and Middlesex ; by the Angles in East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia. We may note that Wessex included the country south of the Thames between Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex on the east and Devonshire on the west ; that Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Firth of Forth ; and that Mercia included much of the Midlands. The nature of the conquest may be described as complete, within certain limits ; as utterly cr very nearly overwhelming all 196 A History of the World that preceded the coming of the conquerors. In other countries subdued by German tribes the conquerors adopted the laws, the social life, and the religion of the conquered race. The followers of the Angle and Saxon chiefs brought with them the paganism and superstitions of the Elbe, and were still offering worship to Thor and Woden while the German princes in Gaul, Italy, and Spain were adoring the relics of Christian martyrs and discussing with bishops and councils points of Christian theology. In the England which arose on the ruins of Roman Britain the Christian faith became for the time extinct, save in a few distant places to which the conquerors did not penetrate. The . name of the country was changed, and the language which has now been carried to the remotest parts of the earth, and is gaining supremacy over all other tongues, swept away the Latin speech of the dwellers in towns, and the British dialects of the country, except in the extreme south-west of southern Biitain, and in the region to which the English gave the name of " Wales," or " the foreign land." The long resistance made by the British was greatly aided by their holding of the Roman fortified towns against invaders who had no siege-apparatus, and by the woody and marshy character of the territory, to make their way through, which the Angles and Saxons had no corps of engineers, like their Roman predecessors, for the making of firm causeways, the bridging of streams, and the cutting of roads through forests. The conquest was facilitated, on the other hand, by the ships of that age, which could make their way far inland by the rivers. At the end of the 6th century, the country south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde was divided between Celts and Teutons by a line stretching nearly north and south midway in the breadth of the land. There were many Britons who remained among the English on the conquered territory, and by intermarriage the old British blood was kept and may still be traced in parts of the country whose people are the most Teutonic in race. The Celtic in- habitants, driven away to the west and north, formed several small states in the hilly country. In the south, it was long before the conquerors of Wessex advanced from the Salisbury Avon to the Exe and then to the Tamar, and finally subdued the British kingdom in Devon and Cornwall, called Damnonia or West Wales. Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire retained large numbers of the Britons. Wales, remaining wholly British, had several petty realms. The kingdom of Cumbria included Britain and England 197 Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, extending from the Solway to the Mersey, and from the sea to the Pennine Hills, with its capital at Caerleol (Carlisle). In the south-west of Scot- land the British kingdom of Strathclyde had its chief town in Al-cluyd, now Dumbarton. During the 7th and 8th centuries the English were engaged in warfare with each other, and one kingdom after another gained supremacy *over its neighbours. At one time Kent, at another East Anglia, and then Northumbria, and, in their turns, Mercia and Wessex, became predominant. Thus Ethelbert of Kent, ruling from 590 to 616, the first who put forth written laws, was master over Essex, East Anglia, and Mercia. From 617 to 633 Edwin of Northumbria was supreme over all Teutonic England except Kent, and was then defeated and killed by Penda of Mercia, the leader of a heathen reaction, ruling from 6.26 to 655. Oswald of Northumbria succumbed to the same fierce pagan, who was, at various times, supreme over Mercia, Essex, East Anglia, Wessex, and part of Northumbria. In 655 he, in his turn, was defeated and slain in battle with Oswin or Oswy of Northumbria (655-659). His son and successor Ecgfrith had much success against the Britons of Cumbria and Strathclyde, and took Lincolnshire from the king of Mercia. In 685 his life, and with it the power of Northumbria, ended in battle against the Picts at Nectansmere in Fifeshire. Ethelbald of Mercia (716-755), one of whose pre- decessors, Wulfhere, had been " over-lord " of Essex and Sussex, became master of the whole country seuth of the H umber. Offa, the great Mercian monarch, ruled from 758 to 796. He conquered Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Essex, and then turned his arms against the Welsh. Crossing the Severn, he took Pengwyrn, the capital of the king of Powys, on the east side of North Wales, and changed its name to Scrobbes-byrig (" the town in the scrub or bush "), now Shrewsbury. After planting English settlements west of the Severn, between the river and the mountains, he secured the new frontier by the famous and still partly existing Offa's Dyke, a huge rampart with a ditch, extending from the mouth of the Dee to that of the Wye. Wessex was prominent under Ine or Ina, king from 688 to 726. This just and wise ruler issued a famous code of laws, and conciliated the Britons of the south-west, after subjection, by allowing them to keep their lands and encouraging marriages between them and his English subjects. He became master of Kent, Essex, and London. In 14 198 A History of the World the west, in order to guard his conquests, he built a fortress on the Tone which became the town of Taunton. Civil strife caused Ina's abdication and pilgrimage to Rome, where he died in 728. During all this time we have been leaving our forefathers in their original heathenism. The great fact of the period was the con- version to Christianity, but before dealing with that, and with the union of the kingdoms under Egbert, we must turn to the early history of Ireland and Scotland. The early state of Ireland — wild, tangled, roadless territory, abounding in forests, streams, lakes, and in the bogs which still cover about one-sixth of the surface — is wrapt in mystery. We can only begin to deal with the country as historical after the beginning of the Christian era, when the rude Celtic tribes had bards styled Ollamhs or Sennachies, and men called Brehons as the judges and law-makers. The country was called "Scotia" from the Scoti, a Celtic people who took much of the land from previous possessors of their own race. There was no primogeniture or hereditary right. Before the death of a chieftain, one of his family, judged to be the fittest, was chosen " Tanist," or successor, by the clan. All the land belonged to the clan or sept, and was held by it for the general benefit, without any system of a feudal kind. In view of the modern land-question in Ireland, it is curious to find, in the Senchus-Mor, one of the two chief books of ancient Irish law, regulations on three rents : the rack rent, to be extorted from one of a strange tribe ; the fair rent, required from one of the same tribe ; and the stipulated rent, to be paid by either. There was a large class of " broken men," outcasts from mis- conduct or from the breaking-up of clans through intertribal war, and these, becoming like slaves or serfs, were attached to chiefs as his armed retainers, the fierce class known in later times as "kerns" and " galloglasses." In time of war they were forcibly quartered upon other chiefs, and thus arose the system of "coyne and livery," or compulsory entertainment for horse and men, which became most detrimental to the people in later times. There was no representative system of rule. The method of government was patriarchal ; the household looking up to its head, and he to the chief of the clan. Blood-relationship was the real bond of union, combined with the system of fosterage by which the children of the wealthy were nursed and brought up in poor families till the age of 13 in the case of daughters and 17 for sons. Britain and England 199 This system of tribes, clans, or septs, a local organisation beyond the limits of which no person or property was sacred, had the same effect as in the Scottish Highlands, where life, in the wild times, was largely spent in fighting, plundering, and burning. Under such a system, men could not settle down to an orderly life, and the ideas of patriotism and nationality, in the modern sense, were unknown. We have here the key, taken in connection with Ireland's lack of thorough conquest by a strong governing power in early days, to much of the subsequent history of a people whose character has presented the strangest combination of shrewdness, credulity, poetry, humour, piety, courage, lack of discipline, indolence, cleverness, amiability, and impracticability that ever was seen in the world. A new figure and a new element came on the scene in Ireland with St. Patrick, the great missionary who brought the people to the acceptance of Christianity. This remarkable man, born towards the end of the 4th century at Dumbarton, was carried off as a slave to Antrim. In a few years he escaped to Gaul, where he became a monk, first at Tours and then at Lerins, a group of small islands near Cannes. In 432, when he was about 60 years old, he went as a missionary-bishop to Ireland, and landed in Strangford Lough. His success was wonderful and rapid, and the new faith was soon founded in Meath, Connaught, and Ulster. In about 20 years, numerous churches had been built, bishops consecrated, and priests ordained, and the Irish became the most enthusiastic of Christians. We have already seen their missionary- work in Germany, and we shall shortly find them engaged in Scotland. A glorious time of spiritual and intellectual light in Ireland had come, and during the 7th and 8th centuries the country played a really great part in European history. Students came in large numbers from Britain, Germany, and Gaul, and were main- tained and educated without charge in the Irish monasteries and schools. The work was carried on by St. Columba, a native of Donegal, whose chief scene of labour was, however, in the neigh- bouring country. Artistic advance went hand in hand with the development of Christianity, and the monks of Ireland became architects, painters, carvers, gilders, bookbinders, makers of crosiers and chalices in gold and silver, carvers of crosses, and writers of most elaborately decorated manuscripts. The political history, from the 5 th to the 8th century, includes much petty warfare between the clans, and the more important matter of the aggregation of clans under the rule of greater chieftains, ending in the formation of what 200 A History of the World are called the kingdoms of Meath, Connaught, Munster, Leinster, and Ulster. A time of trouble was coming in the Danish invasions which were to fill the country with misery and ruin. The black ships of the piratical Northmen first appeared off the coast about 790, and landed their men on the east side of the island. The cathedral of Armagh, the see of St. Patrick, was burned, the monks were slain, and the whole east coast was occupied by the invaders. The interior was then assailed as far as Athlone, and fresh hordes kept coming from the north. The famous round towers of Ireland, concerning which antiquaries have puzzled themselves with so much needless ingenuity, were erected in those evil days, and, being always found connected with churches or monasteries, were un- doubtedly places of defence against the Danes. When the prows of the piratical vessels were seen, or an advance of foes inland was reported, the defenceless inmates of monasteries took refuge in these keeps with the church-plate and other valuables, and the place having been provisioned, and the ladders drawn up to the door set many feet from the ground, a siege of some length could be endured. It was chiefly on the coast that the Danes established themselves, gathering the plunder of the country into towns which they built and fortified. This was the origin of the cities of Dublin, Limerick, and Cork, and of Waterford and Wexford. The Danish invasions and partial conquest of the country were most disastrous to Ireland. Their ravages, along with the intertribal wars, almost swept away for a long period the civilisation which had arisen under Christian influences. The Northmen, in Ireland, were not soon civilised, as in England, by contact with the invaded people, but remained heathen, foreign tyrants and oppressors, utterly hated by the people, and waging ruthless war against them and their religion. We have seen, in the Roman period, the conquest of some of southern Scotland, and the invasion of Britain by Picts and Scots. The earliest historical inhabitants were called Caledonians by the Romans, the Picts being possibly a mixture of Celts and of a non- Aryan race, and dwelling mostly to the north of the Forth and Clyde. In the 5th century a.d. the Celtic tribe called Scoti migrated from Ireland and settled in the Western Isles and Argyle, forming a state called Dalriada, and spreading thence to the south and east. In the end their name was given to the whole country. We have seen that the English conquerors settled in the district called Lothian, while Galloway, in the south-west, was still held by the Picts. The English speech gradually spread on the south of the Forth and !' ::;iin an I I tnd 1 :tis|i. In 61 ; sin limit a fort at Dill i from him Edinburgh. I mm h interti - in frequent conflii :. Common tended to brii and nited nati I the historic kingdom rth, and on the banks of I donation bein it on the famous Btone now in p Kenneth MacAlpin became rulei of ; > was king of th I what may I" 1 kingdom of Scotland, though the territory then comprised only .mil parts of Dumbarton and Forfar. Christianity must now be dealt with. St. N have Ween horn a : 1 mil- h ' In I mous rn to the it impuls< faith led a-> " • >rn m I) n 521, and ' na, where Mtre of m . and many m . the nd furtln 1 202 A History of the World Teviot became a preacher, under some Lindisfarne monks, and had much success through his sound sense, humour, pleasant ways, and real piety. Dying at Lindisfarne, after resigning his bishopric, St. Cuthbert was regarded in early days as the greatest of the northern saints. His shrine was much visited by pilgrims, and a cloth which he had used at mass became a standard borne in the northern armies fighting against the Scots. It waved over English heads at Flodden, and it perished by a bigot's hands when it was burnt by Calvin's sister, wife of the first Protestant dean of Durham. We now go southwards to see the introduction of Christianity direct from Rome. In 597; 1,300 years ago as we write this record, St. Austin, as he should be called to distinguish him from the great St. Augustine, arrived in the Isle of Thanet with a band of monks, dispatched by Pope Gregory the Great. The mass of English in the district, numbering only 2,000 or 3,000, were pagans, like king Ethelbert of Kent, but Christianity had a foothold there through the king's wife Bertha, the Christian daughter ot a king of Paris. A Frankish bishop had come over with her, and she worshipped in the little church called St. Martin's, near Canterbury, built in the Roman times. The missionaries from Rome were allowed to preach their faith, and within a year Ethelbert and many of his subjects were baptised. The new faith spread, and Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury, sees being also founded at Rochester and London. Paulinu-, one of St. Austin's followers, was the first bishop of York. Sc. David, son of a Welsh prince, was the apostle of his native country, and became bishop of Caerleon, and then of Menevia, afterwards St. David's. The Christian Church in England was placed on a firm basis in 664, when the Synod of Whitby settled its adherence to the Roman See and system, ' as distinguished from that of Ireland. A Greek monk, Theodore of Tarsus, who was arch- bishop of Canterbury from 669 to 693, was the man who organised the episcopacy and established the parochial system. The founding of many new sees and the later settlement of the tithes for the payment of the clergy gave the Church the form which lasted through mediaeval times. Egbert, of the royal line of Cerdic, the Saxon chieftain who landed on the shore of Southampton Water in 495 and founded the kingdom of Wessex, had been driven into exile, first at the court of Offa of Mercia, and then of Karl, king of the Franks. Under this last great ruler he had, during 13 years, been trained The Saracenic Conquests 203 in military and political affairs in such wise as to fit him for the part he was to play in his native country. He had fought with his friend against Lombards and Huns, and was well versed in royal duties when in 802, by the choice of the Wessex nobles, he assumed the rule of that kingdom. Cornwall was reduced to pay tribute ; Welsh invaders were defeated ; the king of Mercia was beaten in 825, and three years later, either through force or voluntary submission, the supremacy of Egbert was recognised by Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, while Kent, Sussex, and Essex were ruled by kinsmen of his appointment. He thus became in fact, though not in title, king of all England. Before his death in 837 he was much troubled in Wessex and Kent by attacks of the Danes or Northmen, closing his reign, however, with a victory in the west over their forces united with the Britons of Cornwall. Chapter II.— The Saracenic Conquests; Karl the Great; the Holy Roman Empire. Of all the revolutions which have had a permanent influence upon the civil history of mankind, there is none more remarkable, none that could be less anticipated by human prudence, as to its origin, extent, and duration, than the material and moral conquest effected by Mohammedanism, the religious faith styled Islam. The human agents' of this marvellous religious and political change were the Arabs or Saracens, the only people of Semitic race that have played a great part in history since the days of Carthage. The religion which was founded by Mohammed is the last of three great religions which have come out from among Semitic nations. All of these faiths expressly taught the unity of God, and forbade the worship of idok 1 . Judaism, Christianity, Islam — these are the three, and the last may be briefly defined as a confused, imperfect form of the second, in its ethical essence of resignation to the Divine will. Islam means, in fact, " Denial of Self," complete submission to the will and service of Allah, in the articles of faith, commands, and ordinances revealed to and put forth by Mohammed. It acknowledges four great teachers of mankind : Abraham, the friend of God ; Moses, the prophet of God ; Jesus Christ, the W T ord of God ; and Mohammed, the Apostle of God. Islam is certainly better than Judaism, as 204 A History of the World recognising the miracles, the teaching, and the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. It is a reformed Judaism, eminently adapted to be a civilising and elevating religion for barbarous tribes, as being a step upward, but not a step so high as the lofty and spiritual advance claimed from the adherents of Christianity. Its cosmopolitan character in being not, like the exclusive Judaism, confined to one nation, but extended to the whole world, and its preaching of a practical brotherhood, the social equality of all Moslems, give the new religion a vast attraction in the immediate bribe of admittance to a social caste. The morality taught in the Koran, meaning " the best reading," " the matter to be read," is of a very high character, including the virtues of benevolence, liberality, modesty, forbearance, patience, endurance, sincerity, frugality, decency, straightforwardness, love of peace and truth, and, especially, trust in God and submission to His will. The vices specially denounced are injustice, piiie, falsehood, revengefulness, avarice, prodigality, suspicion, and debauchery, and gambling is held to be so wicked that no gambler's testimony is valid in a court of law. Such was the religion that, in the first half of the 7th century, arose in Arabia, a region which had for ages remained in a strange solitude, undisturbed by the conquests of Alexander, unsubdued by the arms of Rome. There, about a.d. 570, Mohammed was born at Mecca, son of a poor merchant belonging to the powerful tribe of the Koreish, the most famous of all the descendants of Ishmael, and the head of the tribes whose centre of worship and of tribal sovereignty was Mecca. The old patriarchal faith of the days of Abraham had become a degrading idolatry, and some hundreds of images were displayed to view and worship in the Kaaba or temple at Mecca. The young Mohammed passed his youth, like David, in the tendance of sheep, and was soon noted by his family and friends as shy, meditative, and trustworthy. His temperament was nervous, excitable, and sympathetic; he was subject to ecstatic dreams and occasional epileptic fits. His person, in mature manhood, was that of a middle-sized, rather thin, broad-shouldered, strongly built man, fair-skinned for one of his race ; with black curly hair flowing round a massive head, lit up by large jet-black eyes, overhung with thick lashes. A large, well- formed, slightly bent nose, and a long beard gave further dignity to his appearance. When he was 40 years of age, after long brooding over the idolatry of his people, and the concomitant vices of such worship, and urged by dreams and asserted revelations on which The Saracenic Conquests 205 we can pass no judgment, Mohammed came forth as a religious reformer, proclaiming his creed with the assertion of the existence of an almighty, all-wise, all-just, merciful, everlasting, indivisible Deity, whose favour was to be obtained chiefly by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell were articles of faith. Like other prophets, the Arabian messenger of Allah had at first little honour among his own kindred and countrymen, his earliest adherents being his loving wife Kadija, many years his senior, a lad named Ali, and a freedman whom the new prophet adopted as his son. He was well acquainted wiih Judaism, but his knowledge of Christianity was probably confined to a few apocryphal books. In four years' time a small body of followers had been gained, but the Meccans arose at last in wrath against the man who denounced the ancestral idols, and in July, 622, he and a small band of adherents fled from Mecca to Medina. This flight begins the Mohammedan era styled the Hegira, or " departure." From this time the new faith was aided by the use of the sword, and the religious fanaticism of its adherents, belonging to a peculiarly susceptible race, was powerfully stimulated by the belief that death in the cause ensured admission to Paradise. Worldly ambition and religious zeal were combined in the souls of the warriors, and the annihilation of the mocking Jews of Medina was followed by the conquest of Mecca, the destruction of all the idols, and the establish- ment as a system of the Jehad or " Religious War," by which all men had given to them the choice of " the Koran, the Tribute, or the Sword." The prophet's life was ended at Medina by fever in 632, as he was preparing to maich beyond the borders of Arabia. The character of the founder of Islam was a mixture of sincerity and imposture, benevolence and cruelty, real enthusiasm and cunning calculation. He was human, and his career was sullied by errors and crimes, but he has now ceased to be regarded as a mere inventor of pretended revelations. His really heroic character was adorned by great virtues, and, upon the whole, he well deserved the extra- ordinary influence which he acquired over his followers. The faults and failures of Mohammedanism are due to the founder's ignorance, and to his grievous error in quarrelling with the Jews and Christians through a feeling of jealousy, instead of endeavouring to secure their aid as allies against idolatry. Before describing the conquests achieved by the armed adherents of Islam, a religion now numbering 200,000,000 of believers, we may note some causes of its incipient success. The way for a purer faith 2o6 A History of the World among a serious and reflecting people, as the Arabs were, had been in some measure prepared by Jewish and Christian teaching. Mohammed skilfully incorporated tenets, usages, and traditions which he found existing around him, and he attracted men by the simplicity of the creed, and of the ritual, with its fastings, pilgrimages, regular prayers and ablutions, abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and almsgiving. A visible standard of practice was thus set up, and the believer was encouraged to win Heaven by a steady adherence to a system of discipline within every man's reach. This reformed Judaism swept swiftly over Africa and Asia partly because, inferior as it was to Christianity at its best, it was decidedly superior to the Christianity then prevalent in those regions. The pure religion of Jesus Christ had been set aside for abstruse metaphysical dogmas. The Christian teachers were striving against the vices of a licentious age by demanding too much from human nature. They extolled the celestial merit of celibacy and the angelic excellence of virginity. The road to holiness lay through the sordid seclusion of a monastic cell. The people had become really polytheists, worshipping a crowd of martyrs, saints, end angels. The upper classes were effeminate and corrupt ; the middle classes were overwhelmed by taxation ; and the slaves were without hope in the present or the future. On such a world the new faith of Islam came like a blast of pure air from the desert, making an end of vain theological disputes, artificial virtues, religious follies and frauds, and perverted moral sentiments. It set manliness against monkishness. It gave hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and a due recognition to the fundamental facts of human nature. Islam, at the outset and at its best, swept away a mass of corruption and superstition like a consuming and purifying fire, and it was assuredly not by the sword alone that it attained so rapid and enduring a hold upon a large portion of the human race, spreading itself, within a century from its founder's death, over Syria, Persia, northern Africa, and Spain. The successors of Mohammed in religious and temporal authority were styled Caliphs (or Khalifs, Califs), the first being the wise and good Abu-bekr, father of the prophet's favourite wife Ayeshah, elected by an assembly of the faithful. All men who were approached by the armies were called upon to embrace the new faith, to pay tribute for the keeping of their old faith, but with the abolition of idolatry, or to die. Omar (634-644) conquered the rich province of Syria, defended though it was by numerous armies and fortified cities, 1 h. 207 and the < 'aliph hi nan! Ami ntire t the hi I >lani •is t-» ihi ' the : dynast) and t-> the I and famo Under < khmai . . I northern ( uil w.irs between rival < laim I tin- 71I) tury the | ntine) Empii n the the Atlai 1 1 an. 'I Ik- 1 the faith I I »ple <>f Puni< 1 ame united with the Aral 1 mitv .tin. fr< m northern Al ■ I after I 1 ity of K in It • tern dominions, wi a tii fare with P< :i!i!.<- I \ : by in armai in that :■ H I ■ 2o8 A History of the World with the loss of many thousands of men, from a frost of 12 weeks' duration. In the spring large reinforcements arrived for the besiegers, but the fireships of Leo burnt the Egyptian fleet as it lay at anchor, and a sudden attack cut to pieces a body of Saracens on the Asiatic shore. The Bulgarians, old foes of the empire, now gave aid by coming down from the Balkans, and routing a Saracen army of observation near Adrianople. The enemy were wearied out, and thus ended the last great Saracen enterprise against Constantinople, though for centuries longer there were frequent border-struggles between the emperors and the caliphs. It is probable that Leo the Isaurian thus conferred as great a benefit upon Christendom as that which will be soon narrated. The victorious Saracens of Syria and the more distant East rapidly degenerated through success. The vices of luxury fell upon the abstemious Arabs of the desert in the fruitful valleys of Damascus and Bassora, and the Mohammedan sovereigns of those regions, enriched by the tributes of enslaved peoples, lost strength and energy in" a sensual life. We have seen the corrupt condition of the Visigoths in Spain at the time when they were confronted, beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, by the hardy, fervent warriors of Islam, flushed with conquest of all the territory from the Nile to the western ocean. Attracted by reports of the beauty and richness of Phe land, its pastures and rivers, olives and vines, cities and palaces, Musa, the governor of northern Africa under the Caliph of Damascus, sent Tarif, one of his generals, in 710, with a small force, to make a preliminary raid on the coast of Andalusia. This leader landed at the place called from him Tarifa, the southernmost town of Europe, still of quite Moorish aspect, with its Alcazar or palace and battlemented Arab walls. The town is also of interest as having given rise to the word "tariff," or table of customs-regulations, from the duties collected at the port by the Moors. In a short time Tarif returned, having plundered Algeciras, with good news as to the defenceless condition of the country, and then Musa sent a larger force, about 7,000 men, under another leader, Tarik, whose name is immortalised in that of the great Rock near which he disembarked, the Gibraltar corrupted from the Arabic Gebel-al-Tarik, or Tarik's hill. The invader was soon met by the whole force of the Goths under their king Roderick, who was returning from the suppression of a rising among the Basques in the north. The two armies met in 711 on the banks of a little river near the Guadalete, which runs into the Straits hard i Conquest , I been increased, l>\ a i ;nt of 5,0c I M I it the finding <>f ins h ttle, in. ik> 1. This , and |>! inder the rult- A little < Christian I i i >m, und< ted in the north, the realn I .it the I ■ ! by the S rathon by thi the first \ thus that, among the 1 • mi of ful I i e the triumph <r the language of th . the mo nam Dutch " in the narrow modem the Bald mostly sj Latin <>r We thus have the beginnii ■ ition hc .->iiall find that they 1 fur a time unit I', H 'k II. 1KI-A VERDUN TO CRUSADE PERIOD . I I t nce ; th e Norm a n d by British the inhi Scandinavia, comj till a I • s, and have left on their moral, martial, and intellectual power, linavian peninsula the northern I : the hill 216 A History of the World urged to this career by the land-system which made a family estate an indivisible possession, and so they spent the summer seeking plunder on the seas and coasts. For this they launched their stout, seaworthy, roomy long-ships, or ships of war, with an upreared dragon for a figure-head, propelled by oars and by sails that were often of gay colours, or striped with cloth of red and white and blue. The steering could be ruled only by sun and stars, or by the flight of ravens which they carried and let loose as guides to the nearest land. The flag of these terrible sea-rovers bore a black raven on a blood-red ground, and the time came when the sight of it was hated and dreaded on every shore from the North Sea to the Levant. Their religion was a powerful aid to natural love of fighting, in hold- ing forth a hell of cold and darkness for those who died of sickness or old age, and a heaven where conflict passed the time from sunrise till the hour came for return to feast in the Valhalla or great hall. This was the lot reserved for all warriors who fell in action. A great impulse was given to the career of foreign conquest when the smaller chiefs at home began to fall under the sway of the more powerful, and separate kingdoms were created under strong rulers. The free landowners did not choose to sink to the position of feudal vassals, and many of them sought possessions in foreign lands as the gift of their own swords. Before the end of the 8th century there were Norsemen settled in the Faroe Islands and the Orkneys, and Iceland was discovered and colonised before the close of the 9th century. Leaving for the moment the work done by the Northmen in the British Isles and France, we find them, in their light-draught ships, passing far up the rivers in the valleys of the Elbe and Rhine, with force sufficient to capture and sack seaport towns and inland cities, as well as to plunder abbeys and churches of their gold and silver plate and vestments of valuable cloth, for which a ready market was found at regular trading-places on the Baltic and the North Sea coasts, where merchants from Italy and Flanders and the East purchased slaves and precious metals and stones from their captors. The period until the middle of the 9th century was rather one of plunder and adventure, extending in succession to the western coasts of France and the northern coast of Spain ; then to fighting with the Moors in Andalusia, and in 859 and 860 to ravages in Majorca and Mauretania, the Mediterranean coast of Spain, and western Italy. The last half of the 9th and the 10th and nth centuries found Norsemen, apart from their achievements in France and England, I Normans in I . 217 ilrns in Russia ; threatenin I .ntinople from the wn the 1 mieper : twi< Lai ; and even bunching <>n the Caspian, f M ..\s the : the Holy Sepulchre from the in. is that of the western Frank kii in the last half of the 9th century, ami the onl) moment . and terrible i f i Northmen, md other t- >\\ n-^, and the I. char.. 1 fiefs, pi j In th the death of ' me brid 1 in in the union of the whole empire under Karl the Fat of ed three years later for I. lice, f'»r the retreat of the Northmen in i r to beo ime the foun m the north of the country where they had ti I the • ' inland. f their I ■ \\ alker, tan had I '• r an mi the S 2 1 8 A History of the World extensive coast. In return for this permanent possession of territory, to be held in fief, or on feudal tenure, from Charles, Rollo became a Christian, baptised as " Robert," and thus was founded the Duchy of Normandy. Before his death in 927, the Norman influence had been spread over adjacent territory in Brittany and Maine, fresh lands had been acquired by grant from the suzerain, and the people were firmly settled in their new country. The Normans, as these people may now be called, showed an unrivalled capacity for adopting and improving upon the civilisation of the country and age in which they lived. With the speech, usages, and faith of those whom they had subdued, they acquired all the knowledge and culture of western Europe. They improved the rude early French into the most refined tongue of the age, the " Norman-French," adapted for high service in legislation, poetry, and romance. Good taste, splendour, and luxury appeared in their diet, their manners, and apparel, and the heathen rovers of the North Sea and the Channel became a nation of civilised people, almost fanatics in their religion, skilled in handicrafts, trade, arts, and letters, the builders of the noble castles and cathedrals which are among the glories of mediaeval architecture. The one thing which the Normans did not change or lay aside was their dauntless valour. The gentlemen and nobles of Normandy overlaid its original ferocity with the chivalrous spirit that made them the foremost knights of Christendom in the battle-field and the tournament. Their great improvement in the art of war was the employment of the heavy cavalry, horse and man alike protected by armour, the rider using a sword and a long heavy spear or lance. One or two of the successors of Rollo in the Duchy were at war with the Frank or French kings following Charles the Simple, and there were also conflicts between the East (or German) and the West (or French) Franks. The direct line of Karl the Great became extinct in 987 on the death of the feeble Ludwig V., and the history of France is held to begin with the Capetian dynasty (987-1328, in the direct line) in the person of Hugh Capet, son of Hugh of Paris, duke of France. Hugh Capet, king of France (987-996), was, however, only the chief among a number of great feudal lords, the dukes of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and other territories. His own little realm extended from the Somme to the Loire, with Paris as the capital, having Champagne on the east and Normandy and Anjou on the west. Under his successors, for over a century, the power of the The Danes in England 219 king of France, surrounded by territories whose feudal rulers sur- passed him in military resources, remained a shadowy thing. The reign of Philip I. (1060-1108) has no distinction of its own, but the period included two important events soon to be dealt with — the Norman conquest of England and the first of the Crusades. The Danes had begun to trouble England before the days of Egbert, having made in 787 their first recorded attack by landing on the coast of Wessex. The pagan rovers hated the English, akin to them as they were in blood and language, for their change of religion. Until after the middle of the 9th century, these assail- ants only made desultory ravages, some of a very serious kind, as the sacking of London and Canterbury in 851. Then began a period of settlement and conquest in various parts of the country, a time when it was well for England that Egbert's successors were energetic men, who made a stout fight against the invaders, and kept the country from being overwhelmed. It was in 855 that a party of Danes, for the first time, passed the winter in the land, maintaining themselves in a fortified position of the Isle of Sheppey, on the north of Kent. Under Ethelred I. (866-871), much of Northumbria was overrun, and a large part of East Anglia was conquered in 870, by a body of Danes who had come down from the north, and plundered and burnt the rich abbeys of Peterborough, Croyland, and Ely in the fen-country. Edmund, king of East Anglia, ranking as a martyr and saint, shot to death with arrows as he was when he refused to give up his faith, has left his name in the place of his interment, Bury St. Edmunds, or St. Edmund's town. Mercia was then forced to become tributary, and the invaders were masters of the whole of England north of the Thames. A turn of the tide came when, in 871, they moved on Wessex, and, pushing their way up the Thames to Reading, reached the Vale of White Horse in the north-west of Berkshire. The district has iis name from the most famous of the many huge figures of horses, on hillsides, chiefly found in Wiltshire, formed by removing the turf so as to show the chalk beneath. The one which traditionally commemorates the victory won by the king and his younger brother Alfred at Aescesdun, or Ash-tree Hill, a spot not clearly known, is over 350 feet in length, and 120 feet in height from ear to heel, cut out on a slope about two miles due south of Uffington. The Danes, after a severe conflict, were defeated and driven back to the river, but the arrival of reinforcements up the Thames made them stronger than before, and Ethelred fell in a later action. 220 A History of the World It was at this critical time that the rule of Wessex was taken up by one of the best sovereigns that ever reigned, one whose devotion to duty has never been equalled in our annals save by the great lady, his lineal descendant, who was Queen of England a thousand years later. It is needless, for British readers, to dwell on the noble career of the man born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849, who was king of Wessex for 30 years (871-901). We all know his retreat in 878, before Guthorm or Guthrum, Danish king of East Anglia, to a refuge in the Somerset marshes at the Isle of Athelney ; his gathering of forces, and his victory at Ethandun, another uncertain spot, perhaps in Wiltshire, over Guthrum and his men. The spirit of a true statesman was shown in the victor's compromise with the foe, embodied in the Treaty (or Peace) of Wedmore, in Somerset, a few miles west of Wells. The wise man knew that he could not drive the Danes from the land, and he resolved to turn gallant foes into a new and friendly element of the nation. The Danish king and his men were baptised as Christians, and by this and a later treaty Alfred kept Wessex, Sussex, and Kent, with London and the western half of Mercia, while the Danes possessed East Anglia, the eastern half of Mercia, and Northumbria to the Tees. The Northmen had thus the larger half of England, called the Danelagh, or Danes' community, until the Norman conquest, because it was ruled by Danish customs and codes. From 880 to 893 Wessex was, for the most part, at peace. An invasion from Normandy under a brave leader named Hasting, who landed in Kent, gave Alfred a contest of four years (893-897), by sea and land, against these new enemies, and the Danes of Northumbria and East Anglia. At last he was successful, and further invasion was prevented by the creation of a powerful fleet of ships, far superior to the Danish in size, stability, and speed, and manned by crews well trained in all the work of naval warfare. The roving squadrons were kept at bay, and pirates who were taken were promptly hanged. The work of Alfred in restoring and improving the civilisation of his portion of England is beyond praise. " Without haste, without rest," he was an able administrator ; a lawgiver who compiled from the old codes of Ina of Wessex, Offa of Mercia, and Ethelbert of Kent ; a restorer of ruined towns, churches, and abbeys, of justice and commerce, of literature and learning. He created a new militia and the first English navy ; he was the spiritual and intellectual leader of his people. His many-sided character and culture are seen in his literary work ; his skill and delight in the chase ; his Alfred the Great 221 love of ballad, anecdote, and merry tale ; his zeal as a builder, his mechanical ingenuity, his invention for measuring time, his planning of a new type of battleship. It was the genius and the incessant toil of this most admirable and lovable of Englishmen that made the grand empire of Queen Victoria possible, by saving his little England from foreign domination, raising her in the scale of nations, and maintaining her in the fellowship of Christian peoples. It is true that, three generations after his death, the people were overcome for a time by the successors of the Danes whom he had mastered, and that," in two generations more, the land was subdued again by Northmen. None the less had Alfred, in the days when he delivered Wessex from the Dane, rescued an England for the glories of the future. The indomitable courage, the religious endurance, the heart and hope of this great Christian hero, tested in every kind of trial, were a most precious bequest to the crown and to the nation, a model of our national character at its best, as combining, in the achievements of our race, the world of thought and the world of action " Duty before all " was and is the motto of the best of Englishmen, never more nobly illustrated than in the vivid and charming personality of Alfred, bright and frank in feature and expression ; dignified in form and demeanour; kindly, humorous, truthful, simple, in all points worthy of what he won, the lasting affection and esteem of posterity. Alfred was succeeded by his son called Edward the Elder, as the first king of that name, who reigned from 901 to 925. Under him and his able and energetic sister Ethelflaed, called the " Lady of the Mercians," as being the widow of the Ealdorman of West Mercia, the English cause was well maintained against the Danes by the building of fortresses along the border, and the annexation of East Mercia in the capture of the " Five Boroughs," Lincoln, Stamford, Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham. The subjugation of East Anglia and Essex made Edward master, before his death, of all the centre of the country as far as the Humber. The next king, Athelstan, (925-940), son of Edward, ruled with ability and strength, breaking up a powerful league of Welsh, Scots, and Danes, in 937, in a battle at Brcnanburh, an unknown site on the coast of Northumbria. His brother, Edmund the Elder (940-946), was energetic in warfare, and, after crushing a revolt in the Danish portion of the land, he conquered Cumberland from its Celtic possessors, and gave it over to Malcolm of Scotland, to be held by him on the terms of alliance against the Danes. At this period we have, under Edmund, Edred, brother of Edmund, and Edgar (959-975), the 222 A History of the World famous Dunstan as chief minister in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. This accomplished man, skilful in all the intellectual and manual arts of his day — carving, metal-work, music, painting, Latin — rose from the position of abbot of the Benedictine house at Glastonbury to that of archbishop of Canterbury in 959. He was an active restorer of monastic houses and discipline, and was devoted to church-work from the time of his retirement from civil affairs in 978 until his death, ten years later, at the seat of his ecclesiastical authority. In 954 the Danes of Northumbria were overcome by Edred, and the country from the Channel to the Firth of Forth was thus under one ruler. The surrender, to the Scottish king, of the land called Lothian, between the Forth and the Cheviot Hills, brought England to the limits which now exist, except as* regards Cumberland, which was taken from the Scots under William Rums, and gradually settled by English in place of Welshmen. During the 10th century the royal power increased through the king's leadership of a regular military force against the Danes. The office was subject to election by the Witan, or assembly of nobles, the new king being, however, chosen from the kinsmen of the late monarch, with preference for an eldest son, unless he were manifestly unfit. The transition from this method of choice to the hereditary kingship was easy. It was Athelstan who first styled himself "King of the English." The division of the country into shires belongs to this period, the territory of a county being that of one of the old smaller kingdoms, as in Kent, Essex, Middlesex, and Sussex, or a district connected with some important town. The system of local government still in full force existed in the shire-moot ("meeting") or county-court, with the ealdorman, the chief military and civil shire -official, and the bishop as presidents. There business was transacted, and law was dispensed, both in civil and criminal affairs, by the shire landowners, in many matters now managed by County Councils and by the justices at Quarter-Sessions. We have here an important difference between the insular and the continental systems. The Roman law, so prominent in judicial business among foreign European nations, has little sway in this country, south of the Tweed, and the " common law " of England is still, to a large extent, that of our Teutonic ancestors. The Danes or Northmen who had, by conquest and agreement, settled in England, soon became incorporated with the English clement by community of interest and intermarriage, and by adoption of the Christian faith. Abundant local marks of Danish presence I Danes in England • :ilt> llm< In the n t the I and th< 1 ; with '' v. .1 bi hill, • ur in Yorkshire ;mund where the " now a ith the ■ on which with ' • inland. The king was in a help unl the r . !>y the W [lowed by the hasty flight <>f the Norman md laym< n ol Go Iwin in i left the l " in the bands of Harold, now earl of lli> ambition was equal to that of his father, and he was ility and tact. 1 ' rest of I n he the real ruler nd, and he gained military fame in i l>v his sen I a powerful chief in N rmed, .m event followed by Ins deposition and death at the hands of his <>\wi people. Edward the Conf< I in January, 1066, and was buried in a new church called the r, built by himself <>n the site of the pi bey, nal work. I ril d, a noble specimen <>( an Englishman - a h: iptain in -.ilful . spirit brought to him an 'Ur unique in our by the Witan, he i that ever ruled in England, ry heir w. Ethel nj " Pi in< e i the side. We must Normandy, men ■r. He ; turbulent nobles. w I luchj I all men ol w ith ii with .1 \ 226 A History of the World revenge. As a strategist and tactician he was of a high class, and the ability of his statesmanship in very difficult positions is beyond dispute. This born ruler of men had to fight against his French neighbours in 1054, and again showed what was in him. One division of the powerful army was destroyed by surprise at the town of Mortemer ; the other was glad to be allowed to withdraw. In 1058 he triumphed over another French host at Varaville. Two years later, Maine and Brittany came, almost without a struggle, into his possession. His indomitable will in conquering difficulties had now made him one of the foremost men in Europe, ruling a loyal, prosperous, well-ordered state, the envy of its neighbours. Tillage and trade were protected and encouraged. The best men were appointed to high positions in the Church, and under Lanfranc of Pavia the school at the Abbey of Bee became the most famous in Christendom. This extraordinary man, William of Normandy, was in private life a good husband, brother, and father, in a cruel and profligate age. The duke had visited Edward the Confessor in 105 1, during the exile of Godwin, and, seeing a country well worth the winning, he had conceived the idea of conquest at a future day. We shall not here go into the vexed question of his claims, based upon an alleged promise of Edward, an alleged oath of Harold, and a supposed right through his wife, the good Matilda of Flanders. The rightful heir, as has been shown, was Edgar the yEtheling, a direct descendant, in the male line, of Alfred and Egbert. Nor need we linger over the battle, important as were its long-lasting consequences, fought out on both sides with the utmost valour at Senlac, eight miles inland, northeast from Pevensey Bay, on October 14th, 1066. This " Battle of Hastings," as it is usually called, gave William of Normandy in the end the possession of England, through the defeat and death of the gallant Harold, who had only just returned from defeating, at Stamford Bridge, in Yorkshire, a formidable invasion under his own banished brother Tostig and Harold Hardrada, king of Norway. The old name of Senlac was changed, through the foundation of an abbey by William on the ground where Harold and the standards had been posted on the great decisive day, the religious house being called L'Abbaye de la Bataille, whence Battle Abbey and the modern little town Battle. We may here point out that the title " Conqueror," given to the successful duke of Normandy, does not necessarily imply the forcible subjection of a people. It mean The Norman Conquest 227 simply " one who acquires," by bequest or by purchase, or in any way which was not regular inheritance. It is true that subsequent revolts, overcome by William with much effort and skill, made him "Conqueror" in the popular sense, but as he maintained his right to the crown of England by Edward's gift, and on other grounds, he was its "conqueror" in a strictly legal sense, according to his view. We here leave him and turn to other parts of the British Isles. As regards Scotland, we have seen that the kingdom began, in a sense, under Kenneth MacAlpin, who died in 860. The east and west coasts were ravaged by the ruthless Danes at this period, and king after king was slain in conflict with them. The realm was extended, in the 10th century, by the addition of Edinburgh, and civil warfare ended in Malcolm II. 's becoming king in 1005. This monarch invaded Northumberland in 1018, and a victory at Carham on the Tweed brought the cession of Lothian, followed by the incorporation of Strathclyde, and the establishment of a permanent frontier on the south. After warfare between various claimants, Malcolm III., surnamed "Canmore" (Oreathead), became king in 1057, and the old Celtic monarchy ended. He was an Anglo-Dane on his mother's side, and passed his youth at the court of Edward the Confessor. English influence became great in Scotland after the Norman Conquest, as Malcolm married, in 1069, Margaret,, sister of Edgar .Etheling. Many English nobles tcok refuge at his court, and the queen, an excellent woman, was very serviceable, in the way of moral and mental improvement, to the king, court, and people. We have seen something of the ravages of the Northmen or Danes in Ireland. In their presence, after they made permanent settlements, and amid the constant tribal wars, all political development was prevented, learning vanished, and the Church became powerless for good. In the 10th century some deliver- ance from Danish oppression came with Malachy, the head of the O'Neills, the leader celebrated by Moore as "wearing the collar of gold which he won from the proud invader,' and in the person of the famous Brian Boroimhe, or Brian Boru. This chieftain, aiming at supreme power, against the Danes on the one hand and the O'Neills on the other, cleared Munster of the Northmen in 968, capturing Limerick and putting the armed men to death, with the flight or enslavement of all others. Brian then overran Leinster and Connaught, and had the better of Malachy of Meath, 228 A History of the World who had won fame by his defeat of the Danes at Tara, in Meath, where his stronghold was, the place familiar to us from Moore's lines on " The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul oi music shed." In a sense, " Brian of the Tribute " was now king of Ireland, as a suzerain over vassal chiefs, without interference in local government. He won many victories over the Danes, and forced them to remain quiet ; and on one occasion he entered Dublin, and carried off hostages and treasure. For 12 years from 1002 Ireland enjoyed peace. The Danes of the coast-towns were becoming traders instead of robbers ; the monasteries were being rebuilt, and the tribal warfare was, in many quarters, exchanged for the making of roads, bridges, and other works of use in civilised life. In 10 1 4 more trouble came on the hapless country, and chaos ensued for a century and a half. Brian was growing old, and the work which he had effected was suddenly undone. The Danes of Leinster rebelled, and obtained help in great forces sent by their kinsmen from Northumbria, the Orkneys, the Isle of Man, and other quarters, headed by Sigurd, can of Orkney, and a viking named Brodar. Brian took the field with the men of Munster, Meath, and Connaught, with his five sons and old Malachy fighting under his banner, and on Good Friday the enemy were met on the shore at Clontarf, between Dublin and Howth Head. A long day's battle between the armies ended in the utter defeat of the Danes, with the death of Sigurd and other leaders. Old king Brian, unequal to the fatigue of fighting, had left the command to his eldest son, and remained during the conflict at prayer in his tent, pitched near the edge of the woods which then covered all the rising ground north of Dublin. As the Northmen fled at evening-tide, some to their ships, some to the town, and others to the open country west of Dublin, a party of Brodar's men, with their leader, came near the tent, and one of them pointed to the kneeling man, with long white beard, as the king. " 'Tis but a monk, a shaveling," cried Brodar. " It is Brian himself," was the answer, and with that the man rushed in, to receive a blow across his legs from the sword of the half-risen Brian. A battle-axe then clove the king's head to the chin, and his body, thus found by his victorious subjects, was conveyed to Armagh for burial. This grievous misfortune for Ireland Norway and Sweden 229 rendered the country a prey to utter anarchy, in which we must leave it until the days of Anglo-Norman invasion. Until near the 9th century we have no trustworthy history of Scandinavia. When the Jutes and Angles migrated to Britain, it seems that Danes from Zealand, P'iinen, and other islands took their place in the peninsula. A king of Jutland, at war with Karl the Great, built a line of forts (Dannevirk) across the isthmus. Gorm, king of Denmark at the end of the 9th century, was a bitter opponent of Christianity. His persecutions were stopped by Henry I. of Germany, and his death in 936 gave fresh vigour to the spread of the faith. Harold Blaatand (Blue- tooth) then ruled until 985, and was succeeded by Svend or Sweyn, and by Cnut the Great (10 14-1035), whom we have met in English history. Under him Christianity became the settled faith. On his death Denmark was separated from Norway, and in 1047 his nephew Svend or Sweyn became king and began a line of princes that continued for four centuries. There were wars with Norway and with the Wends, a branch of the Slavs on the southern coast of the Baltic. Sweden, early in the 9th century, had Chris- tianity preached by Ansgar of Picardy, but the Swedes, fanatical heathens, who treated the countries around the Baltic as their kinsmen of Norway and Denmark treated the people on the shores of the North Sea and the Channel, were not fully converted until three centuries later, though the Goths of the south of the country (Gothland) had long been professed Christians. Some Swedish bands settled around Novgorod, subdued the Slavs in that quarter, and laid a foundation for the future Russia. The early history of Norway shows us a country divided among many petty kings, with the usual distracted state of affairs, until the 9th century. Then the famous Harold Haarfager (Fairhair), who ruled from 863 to 930, in 12 years' warfare made a solid realm and introduced the feudal system. His sway extended as far north as Trondhjem, where he established his seat of government. It was his firm, treatment of the smaller kings and his repression of freebooting which drove so many Norsemen to emigrate to the Faroe Isles, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. From those marine fastnesses they sailed back to their own land, and so plundered the coast-territories given by Harold to other jarls or great vikings that the king went forth and drove them from the Orkneys and Hebrides to Iceland, and appointed earls over the conquered island-groups. 16 230 A History of the World At the court of this long-lived monarch the skalds or improvising poets, singing the praises of living warriors or their ancestors, were held in honour. Harold's death was followed by many years of conflict between his sons and other claimants. In 996 Olaf Trvggveson, a descendant of Harold, and a man of renown in England and elsewhere as a viking, became ruler, and died fighting in a d. 1000, against a host of Norwegian and Danish foes off the south Baltic coast. It was in these days that Northmen discovered, beyond the Atlantic, Greenland and Vinland (afterwards " New England "), and made settlements which endured for some years and then disappeared and were forgotten. Olaf II. (1015-1030) reigned well over a united Norway, and under him Christianity was established. He perished in battle against Cnut (Canute) near Trondhjem. Harold Hardraada was killed in 1066, as we have seen, fighting against Harold II. of England at Stamford Bridge. This last monarch of the period with which we are dealing had been a member of the famous Varangian Guard at Constantinople, composed of Norman warriors and Slav adventurers who took service under the Greek emperors in that period, and he had fought against the Saracens in Sicily. Chapter II. — The German Empire and the Papacy (843-1122); the Moors and Christians in Spain ; the Byzantine Empire ; the Rise of the Italian Republics. A time of trouble and confusion, both in Germany and Italy, followed the breaking-up, in 888, of the restored monarchy of Karl the Great. In both regions there was warfare with Norsemen and with the fierce Hungarian bands from the Caspian steppes, while Italy had also to contend with Saracen assailants of her coasts, and Germany with wild Wends (Slavs) and the Czechs, also of Slav race, in Bohemia. Each German provincial ruler — count, margraf, abbot, bishop — became semi-independent, secure in his own castle, a personal instead of.a territorial authority, and the evil of private war among these nobles arose and was long a curse to the land. Italy was desolated by the feuds of its petty princes, fighting for territory in north and south, and the Papacy, early in the 10th century, sank to its lowest point in a succession of wicked Popes, raised to power as the lovers and sons of two infamous women, Theodora and Marozia. At last, in Henry I., called " the Fowler " from his love of falconry, the first luler of the Saxon line, we have the real founder of The German Empire and the Papaq 1122 ■ ; I . >und him. Hungarian ind Bavari 1 • :ul the middh i their v. . I the better to repel I lungarian I lis monarch ha I the hurgl in the n< rns which he built, and in the old < in I I the due administration of justice in thes and : all public meetings and i in towns and 1 he new < la->> of traders which was thu !' the kings against rebelliou II Oil [.) ted km^ by the nobles, and crowni en (Aix-la < Ihapel \6, is .1 man e in in and Italian history. II wa ild when lu- monan hy, and by hi> wis • Jinn rnment, and especially through his revival of the " nan he well earned his title of "the Great" in 1 n. The II and ■ d Wend nission. The 1 in urn- 1 mt picture of hi^ knightly and virtue in a I 1 turbulent and .tiiul wid Kid, had been imprisoned in a loath • the north. ^ ill It of . in 1 her into • • n of 1 of a vassal. 1 ■ ■ in t: ■ Hcnccl 232 A History of the World crowns, attaching by far the greater importance to the imperial title, as giving them a stronger hold over the subjects of their mere feudal kingship in Germany. The new emperor did not delay the exercise of his power. The Pope turned against him, and was deposed, being replaced by a Pope, Leo VIII. , of Otto's choice. This connection of Germany with the empire had important effects in creating amongst Germans a proud sense of unity and nationality. For the emperors themselves the result was the reverse of beneficial. They lost most of their real power as German kings through interference, as emperors, in foreign struggles in which Germany had no interests at stake, and during their absence the great feudal nobles became almost independent of their suzerain. It was thus the lot of Germany to consist for centuries of many small independent states, instead of their being welded into strong compact monarchies like those of England and France. Such were some of the chief political issues of the re-establishment of this " Holy Roman Empire." The feelings and notions of the age embraced the two great ideas of a universal religion and a universal monarchy, representing at once the Church and the empire of the Caesars. The Papal chair was imperial as regarded the souls of men ; the Emperor's throne, filled by the vicar of God in temporal matters, represented the authority needed to maintain peace in the world, and to compel, from the laity, obedience to the priesthood. The Church and the Empire were thus regarded as one and the same thing, in two aspects. As divine and eternal, its head was the Pope ; as human and temporal, its chief was the Emperor. There could be no opposition between two earthly servants of the same heavenly Master, and thus had arisen, it was fondly hoped, a perfect union of Church and State. On this subject we may here take a swift forward glance through over eight centuries of mediaeval and modern time. The scheme of the "Holy Roman Empire " was indeed noble, altogether stately and sym- metrical in its proportions. It had, however, like many other schemes, political and religious, one serious defect — it would not work. The Pope, as ecclesiastical partner, encroached on the secular domain, and claimed a right of interference which emperors would not brook. The emperor insisted on the right of approving elections to the Papacy, and of investing bishops and abbots with their temporal possessions. The emperor's claim to supremacy over other European sovereigns was disallowed by the rulers of rising states, and his authority within the limits of his German kingship ! I id the Papacy i i : : ; I wits ilth and i i bandit • I ihe tyra of l>oth empt : 1 he i ;>lit up th< tual authority. In t!i the [n • entury t : • Great 'it to the front a people who item Church, the re, with a bit) h had no ribe the " Holy Roman Empire well nami that it was "not Holy, nan, in the 19th century, t into ti.' by t! 1 f tlu- land in the ]'■:> n and ■ I in import I the tr.. the line -ful ind Hun I ■ 234 A History of the World the empire. His son and successor (by election), Henry IV. (1056- 1 106), was but six years old, and during a long minority the princes regained much of their former influence. The passionate young king, of weak character, assumed power in 1065, and had at first much trouble with Saxon rebels whom he stirred up by his tyranny. It was then his lot to come into conflict with one of the greatest of all the Popes, a man who is the symbol of spiritual, combined with temporal, claims at their highest. The court of Rome had long been under the control of Arch- deacon Hildebrand, of Italian birth and French education, austere in life, of great eloquence, and the firmest will. He has been well described as the possessor of " that rarest and grandest of gifts, an intellectual courage and power of imaginative belief which, when it has convinced itself of aught, accepts it fully with all its con- sequences, and shrinks not from acting at once upon it." That of which Hildebrand had convinced himself was that to the Pope, as God's vicar, all mankind are subject and all rulers responsible, and that he, the giver of the crown, may also excommunicate and depose. Much had been done, through Hildebrand's influence, under Pope Nicholas II. (1058-1061), to advance ecclesiastical power. A change was made in the mode of electing the supreme pontiff, and the choice rested with the cardinals alone, instead of depending in a measure on the votes of the clergy and people of Rome. Cardinal Hildebrand, as he had become, was elected to the Papal chair in 1073 as Gregory VII., and' he at once undertook to carry out his theocratic ideas of vesting all the ecclesiastical power in the Pope, and making the Church quite independent of the temporal power. He sought at once the welfare of the Church and the reform of society in remedying what he viewed as the great evil of the day — the close connection of ecclesiastics with secular affairs, especially in Germany and northern Italy. The higher clergy had become great feudal proprietors, dependent upon the sovereign for investiture, or the act of giving possession of a manor, office, or benefice. In the case of bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries of the Church, the form of investiture consisted in the delivery of a pastoral staff — the crosier — and the placing of a ring upon the finger. It was regarded as an indignity for the Church that a layman, the suzerain, should thus commit to an ecclesiastic the spiritual care of souls, and as involving or inducing the crime of simony, or the presentation of a person to a benefice in return for money. The German Empire and the Papacy (843-1122) 235 In 1075 Gregory VII. therefore, by a "bull," condemned the practice of lay-investiture, under penalty of excommunication. He also insisted upon celibacy for all ecclesiastics, a measure which was strongly resisted by the secular or non-monastic clergy, who had hitherto had much freedom in this respect. As regards his hostility to lay-investiture, it is clear that government in Germany would have become impossible if the bishops and abbots, who held half the land and wealth of the empire, were removed from the control of the monarch to that of the Pope. Henry IV. promptly defied Gregory, and in 1076 he was not only excommunicated, but, in accordance with German law, suspended by the Diet of " Princes of the Empire " from his kingly office. A sentence of deposition was before him, and the attitude of many of his subjects, especially the Saxons, was such that he was forced to submit. Then came the famous and proverbial visit to Canossa, a castle of northern Italy, in the hills south of Parma. The mightiest prince of Europe, titular lord of the world, crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, accompanied by his wife Bertha, his infant son, and one attendant, and, in the garb of a penitent, bare-headed, bare-footed in the snow, he waited three whole days (January 25-28, 1077) in the castle-court, before he was admitted to the Pontiff's presence to receive absolution. The imperial authority never recovered from this blow. The cities of Lombardy, in later days, sought Papal sanction for their league against imperial aggression, and the German princes had always a weapon at hand against their chief. Henry IV., however, soon made a good show of rallying from his humiliation, which was, on his part, only a pretended submission to serve a momentary purpose. In 1080 a rival king in Germany, elected by the malcontents, was defeated and mortally wounded in battle, and Henry, again ex- communicated, declared the deposition of the Pope, marched into Italy, and captured Rome in 1084, after a three-years' siege. Gregory, shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo, was just saved from being made prisoner by the arrival of Robert ' Guiscard, Norman duke of Apulia, who compelled Henry to retreat. The Pope then left Rome, which was reduced to a miserable state, and died at Salerno in 1085, with words on his lips that showed his unbending firmness — " I have loved justice and hated iniquity ; therefore I die an exile." In his later years, Henry had much trouble with rebellious sons. .The quarrel concerning lay-investiture survived both the opponents, and Henry V., younger son and successor of the Canossa penitent, went to Rome and forced the Pope (Paschal II.) as his 236 A History of the World prisoner, to crown him as emperor, and to admit the disputed right. Then the Lateran Council declared this concession to be invalid, as due to force, and another council excommunicated Henry, who thus found himself at war with revolted subjects, in- cluding the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne. After further contest, the matter was settled in 1122 by a compromise called the Concordat of Worms. Investiture by the emperor was henceforth to precede consecration of a bishop or abbot, and was to be con- ferred with the sceptre, the sign of temporal rule only, and not with the ring and pastoral staff, and all ecclesiastics who held secular benefices were to perform the usual feudal duties. We now turn to the Moors and Christians in Spain, to view conflicts between the two faiths, and to survey the civilisation intro- duced by the Arab conquerors of Andalusia. The caliphate of Cordova, in the 9th century, fell into a state of anarchy due to the revolt of Arab governors, the hostility of Spanish renegades, or Mohammedan Spaniards, to the central power, and the brigandage of Berbers who had become independent in the western districts such as Estremadura and the south of Portugal. From this evil condition the land was quickly and completely rescued through the succession, in 912, of the young Abd-er-Rahman III. to the sultanate. He was already popular from his handsome person, dignified demeanour, graceful manners, and mental powers, and he was now to show, in a series of campaigns, his possession of the qualities of an able warrior. His march through rebellious regions was in some cases a triumphal progress. City after city opened its gates ; the Berbers were overcome ; the Christians of Regio, dwelling among the mountain-fastnesses of the Sierra Nevada, were brought to submission ; and by 930 the surrender of Toledo, the last seat of rebellion, placed him in full possession of his dominions. Abd-er- Rahman, ruling with justice, tolerance, and enlightened views, was a beneficent despot who brought back peace and plenty to a long- suffering land. He had a large standing army, with a choice body- guard of foreigners — Franks, Slavs, Lombards, and men of many other races — purchased as children from Greek and Venetian traders, and educated in the faith of Islam. These men were, in fact, like the famous Mamluks of a later time in Egypt and Syria. They had their own slaves under them, and held estates granted by the Sultan, being thus like feudal retainers in other countries. With forces including this special corps, the Sultan had not only made an end of rebellion and brigandage, but had gained successes over The Moors and Christians in Spain 237 the Christians in the north. In 920 he totally defeated the com- bined armies of Navarre and Leon, and after further successes Abd-er-Rahman III. set aside openly his supposed allegiance to the effete rulers at Bagdad, by assuming, in 929, the title of " Caliph," with the addition of words meaning " Defender of the Faith of God." For 30 years more he ruled with wisdom in civil affairs, waging constant war against the Christians, and sustaining from them in 939 a tremendous defeat, in which he lost many thousands of men and barely escaped with his life. The blow was not followed up, and while the victors were quarrelling among themselves the Caliph recruited his army, and was soon again ready for the foe. In 961 the great Caliph died, after a reign of nearly 50 years, during which he had effected a complete change. He had curbed the growing power of the Christians of Leon, Castile, and Navarre ; he had made Andalusia great and happy, and had acquired a fame for wisdom, power, and resources which extended to three continents, and brought envoys to his court from the emperor at Constantinople, and from rulers in France, Germany, and Italy. This eminent Mussulman was not less distinguished by mildness and generosity than by strong intellect, strict justice, warlike courage, religious zeal, and love of science and learning. The beauty and brilliancy of Cordova in those days illustrate the marvellous civilisation attained by the Moors in the 10th century, at a time when our English forefathers lived in wooden houses and trod upon straw, when the language was unformed, and reading and writing were unknown except to ecclesiastics. The city covered many square miles of ground, and the banks of the Guadalquivir were adorned with houses of marble, mosques, and gardens showing the rarest flowers and trees of other lands. The Arabs brought into the country their own system of irrigation, and the exotic plants and trees were watered from the mountains by means of leaden pipes bringing the pure liquid to basins of silver, inlaid brass, and even of gold, and to lakes, tanks, fountains, and reservoirs of marble. A splendid bridge of 17 arches across the calmly flowing river showed the skill of the Arabs as engineers, and the city, at the height of its prosperity, contained 50,000 houses of the noble, official, and wealthy classes ; more than double that number of the mass of the people ; 700 mosques ; and 900 public baths, essential for Mohammedans whose cleanliness, a part of their religion, was in the strongest contrast to the saintly dirt of Christians in that age. It is interesting to know that these and all other public 238 A History of the World baths were afterwards destroyed by order of Philip II., as "relics of infidelity." The chief mosque still displays much of its mar- vellous beauty in countless columns, rare stones, and glass mosaics. Cordova was at this time the centre of European culture, sought by students from all quarters in search of the knowledge which could there be best supplied. It is remarkable that the devotees of a religion whose holy book contains not a single precept encouraging the study of science or literature, became, after their period of conquest, in their days of repose and wealth, the possessors and promoters of high culture at a time when the Aryan races of Europe were in the depths of the "dark ages." At Bagdad the Caliphs Almansor and Haroun-al- Raschid invited learned men from all countries to their courts, and treated them with princely munificence. The works of the chief Greek and old Persian writers were translated into Arabic, and spread abroad in numerous copies. Under Al-Mamun excellent schools were founded in Bagdad, Basra (Bassora), and Bokhara, and great libraries were formed at Bagdad, Alexandria, and Cairo. Greek philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, became known then in Europe through translation from the Arabic into Latin, when few European scholars could read the Greek original. In science the Arabs or Moors of Cordova were proficient in zoology, botany, chemistry, and astronomy ; and in geography, while the scholars of the Western and Eastern Empires believed the earth to be flat, the teachers in the preparatory and upper schools of Cordova and other cities in Andalusia were giving instruction from globes. It was the Arabs who first built in Europe observatories for astronomical study, and we have a fact pregnant with meaning in that the Spaniards who boasted of driving the Moors out of Spain turned such a tower at Seville into a belfry, because they could make nothing else of it. Bigotry and superstition have had much to do with the present backward condition of the country once , glorified by Moorish enlightenment. Among the great names of the period are those of Averroes of Cordova, the translator and expounder of Aristotle, and Avicenna, born near Bokhara, another commentator on Aristotle and a writer on medicine and geometry. The mathematical learning of the Arabs was derived from the Greeks and the Hindus, translations being made from Euclid, Archimedes, and other writers. Their arithmetic, with the figures still in use and the decimal system, was derived from India, and modern Europe had its first knowledge I M nd Christians in Spain rider the « M I simplified and i the Ai bian the- • early in the the true hue i the In all parts of tin npire there were medical schools, cultivating knowledge of Hin thouf from progn ss in an the I prohibition ol In histori phy travellers in ther parts "f the • nical pharmac) i by the Arab al< the | chemistry, men who, toilii their mical ! with mercury a ulphur and arsenic, and furnished us with the tern;- 1 elixir. In architecture S art d< the hor- rid painted do oration • mu< li used both by the • in the • by an n forbade the introduction of animal I than thi nd nun. ire's and | . r to the . in the i within tl nd loveliest plains in ; building : ■ ' I 240 A History of the World with arabesque patterns in yellow and green upon a blue ground. Almeria, a very populous and flourishing town on the south-east coast, great in the arts, industry, and commerce, the chief port of trade with Italy and the East, was famous for vessels of glass, iron, and brass. Beautiful jewellery in silver-gilt adorned with pearls, sword-hilts, keys, ivory-carving of much delicacy, chased bronze, filigree-work, Toledo sword-blades, fine armour — all these, in extant specimens, prove the skill of the Moorish artisans. Here we must close our scanty contribution towards payment of the great European debt, never yet fittingly acknowledged, to these Mohammedan conquerors of Spain. Hakam II., son and successor of Abd-er-Rahman III., was a peaceful studious personage, and the Mohammedan cause against the Christians was sustained by his very able and energetic minister Almanzor, who became the virtual ruler of all Mohammedan Spain, ridding himself of all rivals with unscrupulous skill. He reformed the military force, won the devotion of the troops by liberality combined with strict discipline, led them to battle and booty in many successful campaigns against the Christians of the north, kept a keen eye on all departments of administration, and before his death in 1002 brought Andalusia to its highest point of glory. A time of anarchy then came for nearly a century — a time of revolution ; tumults and massacres and plunder in beautiful Cordova ; the rise of independent petty dynasties in many provinces or towns ; devastation by the Berbers and the revolted corps of "Slavs." The Christians did not fail to take advantage of this state of affairs. Alfonso III., whose reign of 44 years ended in 910, had by his valour and firmness secured, for many years, the Christian hold upon Asturias, Biscay, Galicia, northern Portugal, and a large part of Navarre. He won many victories over the Moors, and left the territory with the name of the " kingdom of Leon," called from the new capital, a city in the open plain, half-way between the sea and the Douro. The assumption of this position showed a great advance for the Christians, who had long been sheltered in mountain-regions. Then, after suicidal warfare between the new kingdom and the rising Christian realm Castile, came the conquering career of Almanzor, and in 996 the capital, Leon, was taken, with the slaughter of all the people. Another turn of fortune was seen in the helpless state of Andalusia as above described. Leon was rebuilt, and peace was made with Castile. Sancho, king of Navarre, became master of Castile in 1026, The \1 I ( Ihristians in 24 1 •in a united ( 'lir: 1 by the in when Ins death in I'M his tl At last Alfonso VI. became king his utt< ailed the '" in • <>r saints, the . / rush writers. They had minion w •\ 11 i thi •< w inder their k \ if, of all m. with • :!1 philosi and < mel pei Christians, hut 1 they, like the the Visigol . and in 20 ne had lost all martial power, falling t<> pieces under thi oft'. rhen the people rose and drove tin- Almonu from the land ddle and I , liter and romance, the centra] fi k •. . 1 ' by hirth I : 1 1 H I i 11 • 242 A History of the World We go back for a short time, as regards the Eastern (Greek) Empire, to the previous period. Leo the Isaurian, who had dealt so victoriously with the Saracens in 718, was afterwards engaged for some years with a very different foe — the gross superstition which was carrying the worship of images to a monstrous height. The great central truths of Christianity had become mixed up with and overgrown by childish legends, observances, and rites, and the worship of images and relics resembled African fetichism. Every picture and statue of a saint had its special miraculous powers for the votaries of this degraded form of religion. Leo headed a reaction of the more intelligent laity, and in 725 issued an edict ordering the removal of all the images in Constantinople. Serious rioting broke out, and the mob killed in their fury the officials who were taking down the great crucifix above the palace-gate. The executions which followed this act inaugurated Leo's use of armed force against the image-worshippers in every part of the empire. The famous Iconoclastic struggle included revolts in Greece and Italy against the emperor, only suppressed after hard fighting, and the Popes encouraged the rebels in a contest which tended to heighten their own spiritual and temporal authority. Leo's influence with the army alone saved his throne. His civil work was distinguished by sound legislation, the reforming of finance, and a reorganisation of the state which gave it a new lease of life and vigour for three centuries. His son Constantine V., who followed him in 740, persecuted the image-worshippers even more fiercely than Leo, and extended his hostility to the monasteries. The dynasty ended in 797 with the monstrous crime of the arrogant, clever, and popular empress Irene. When she was acting as regent for her young son Constantine VI., she seized and blinded him, and made him a prisoner in a monastery. She was deposed from power in 802 by Nicephorus, one of her chief officials, a man of' Oriental origin, and an opponent of the image-worship. After much trouble with the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, to whom he had to pay a large war-indemnity, this emperor died in 811, in battle with Bulgarians who were ravaging Thrace. Leo the Armenian earned the nickname of " the Chameleon " by a middle policy between image-breaking and image-worship, but by a severe defeat of the Bulgarians he rid the empire of their presence for over half a century. Murdered by conspirators at early communion on Christmas-day, 820, he was succeeded by a military officer, of peasant birth, named Michael. During his brief reign the Saracens The Byzantine Empire 243 conquered Crete, and after his death Moors from Africa won the whole of Sicily. In 886 began a fairly peaceful and monotonous period, lasting until 963, occupied by two reigns, those of another Leo and another Constantine. They were both men of merely literary ambition, who left behind them some interesting works — Leo on military affairs, and Constantine on the administration of the empire. A literary revival, before this period, had produced the learned and cultured Photius, Patriarch of Cons'antinople, who took a great part in the severance of the Eastern and Western Churches. Art was also improved at this time, in the execution of illuminated manuscripts, and Constantinople, amid a general decay of maritime trade due to the ravages of Saracen pirates, became, from the middle of the 9th to the end of the nth century, the one great commercial city of Europe, transmitting the products of the East to Italy and France under guard of the imperial navy. A time of military prowess arrived with the brave and able commander Nicephorus Phocas, head of a great family of landowners in Asia Minor. In 961 he regained Crete for the empire, and took many forts in Cilicia and northern Syria from the Saracens, completing the conquest of those territories, as co-emperor with two minors, between 964 and 968. This rugged, stern soldier was murdered in 969 by his wife Theophano and her lover John Zimisces, a distinguished young officer of cavalry, who succeeded as emperor. He won fame by his defeat of a great host of Russians who had invaded the Balkan peninsula. It was a desperate battle of sturdy and obstinate Slavonic infantry, having viking blood in their veins, clad in mail shirts and helmets, and wielding battle-axe and spear, against the mailed Asiatic horsemen, and bowmen. and slingers, of the Byzantine force. It was the archers that thinned the ranks of the great square columns, and made an entrance for Zimisces' horsemen. Five years after the great victory at Silistria, Zimisces died, in 976, and was succeeded by the young Basil II. This warlike, ascetic sovereign, who always had the monk's dress under his armour and his imperial robes, reigned for nearly 50 years, and acquired, in his continuous struggles, the surname of " Slayer of the Bulgarians.'' These people were forced back, in a contest of over 30 years' duration, from south of the Balkans to the Danube, so that the empire became conterminous with the territory of the Magyars in Hungary. Basil, in the latter part of his reign, had much success on his eastern frontier against the Moslem, and on his death in 244 A History of the World 1025 he had won more territory for the empire than any man since the time of Belisarius and Narses. Under weak successors much was lost, and in 1055 the last Byzantine possession west of the Adriatic became the Norman duchy of Apulia. A terrible foe had already appeared on the Armenian border — the Seljuk Turks, to be much seen hereafter. Anarchy caused by foreign invasion and civil war came in the latter half of the nth century, and the empire received blows and injuries that couid not be repaired. The emperors are not worthy of mention. The Turks, on the east, pressed forward in a career of ruthless cruelty under their sultan Alp Arslan, warring as light horse-archers, able to elude the heavy cavalry of their foe. The final disaster belongs to the year 107 1. The emperor-regent Romanus, an Asiatic noble, who had shown fine courage against the Turks, met their whole army at Manzikert, on the Armenian frontier. Prudence counselled delay to a commander having with him only a portion of his forces, and that composed of men wearied by long marches, but the Byzantine ruler rushed at once upon the Mussulmans, trusting to the weight of his cuirassiers. For a long summer's day the Turkish light horsemen were constantly broken and forced back, but the contest was ever renewed, and in the dusk confusion arose among the imperial forces from mistake of orders combined with either cowardice or treachery in the leader of the reserves, who quitted the field with all his men. The rest of the army was almost destroyed, and Romanus came into Alp Arslan's tent as a prisoner, and, according to Turkish custom, had his con- queror's foot placed on his bowed neck. He was soon afterwards released on ransom, only to be seized at home by a rival, and blinded with a savage roughness that caused his death. The decisive day of Manzikert was a turning-point in the long and chequered history of the Greek Empire. Asia Minor seemed for ever lost, and civil wars between pretenders to the throne were raging while the Turks were drawing nearer and nearer to Con- stantinople. We leave the subject at present with the accession to power, in 1081, of the brave and able Alexius Comnenus, a strange compound of virtue and vice, unequalled in his time for mendacity, meanly treacherous, foully perjured, but unstained by cruelty, and the deliverer of the empire, for a season, from an abyss of ruin. We shall now pass to Italy and see something of the rise of the republics in that beautiful country, of most complex, varied, and troublous history in mediaeval days. The renowned Florence had The Rise of the Italian Republics 245 its origin in the ancient Etruscan town Fiesole (Faesulae), built on the crest of an irregular height overlooking the fertile plain traversed by the Arno. A new town began at the foot of the hill, for the convenience of the traders resorting to the river, and this was the nucleus of Florence, a name of unknown source. The place is mentioned by Tacitus and Pliny, and before the imperial time of Rome it was a very fine municipal town. The city, restored by Augustus, becomes historically obscure under the Visigoths and Langobards or Lombards, emerging to view in the time of Karl the Great (Charlemagne), and governed by a duke, aided by officials chosen by him and the citizens. It is clear that the tendency of the people was towards self-government, and in the nth century, when Florence and a large part of Tuscany were included in the Papal territory, she became a flourishing free city, with inhabitants of republican spirit, patriotic and enterprising. The situation was favourable to trade, and at this early period Florentines had a share in European commerce, with store-houses in French and English seaports, and credit for skill in goldwork and jewellery. The coin called " florin " derived its name from the place where, at this time, it was first struck in gold. The enthusiasm and vitality of the citizens found a vent in warfare against one of their bishops who was accused of simony in purchasing appointment to his see, and the contest, after an appeal to the Pope, ended in their favour in 1068. The trade-guilds became of great importance, and the basis of a strong republic was formed. Genoa, the ancient capital of Liguria, and an important place in Roman times, finely situated for commerce, fell by turns into the hands of the Lombards, the Franks, and the Germans, always preserving, however, a high degree of prosperity. In the time of the Saracen conquests, the citizens showed courage and enterprise against the common foe, and began a great career of commercial development in the conquest of Corsica, for a time, from the Moors. Genoa soon became a strong independent little republican state, the history of which runs parallel, for a time, with that of its perma- nent rival Pisa, in alliance with which the subjugation of Sardinia and Corsica was effected. At the close of the nth century the Genoese formed a strong maritime and naval state, having also a considerable army. Pisa, lying on the Arno about 50 miles west of Florence, was a seaport until accumulation of matter at the river- mouth caused it to stand four miles from the sea, the source of its power in mediaeval times. Early in the nth century the city, 17 246 A History of the World which had received a diploma, conceding the exercise of her ancient customs, from Henry IV. of Germany, had become a powerful little republic, possessed of a good naval force and much territory along the sea-coast. Her noblest buildings arose at this period of her greatest prosperity, when she helped Otto II. against the Greek cities of southern Italy, fought the Saracens (Moors) with her galleys, carried on a great trade with the East, and put forth a code of maritime law which was the basis of such legislation for most of the Mediterranean commerce. The Moorish territory in Africa was twice invaded, and the Moslem were thoroughly defeated, in 1062, off Palermo. Early in the 12th century the Pisans deprived the Moors of the Balearic Isles. The wealth, independence, and luxurious life of the chief Pisan merchants were almost princely, and the state was a formidable rival to Genoa and Florence. The renowned state which arose at an early date among the lagunes at the head of the Adriatic now demands our attention. Venice is, to the historian, the artist, and the lover of the picturesque, a word of magical power, carrying with it a singular, and, in seme respects, an unrivalled interest. The light of romance still gleams over her waters even in days when the smoke of the steam-vessel profanes, as some conceive, the city of the many islands, the scene of the rule of Doges and of the terrible Council of Ten, the bride of the sea. Art, commerce, wealth, luxury, splendour, and an existence, as a free state, extending over 1,100 years, combined with the strangeness of her geographical position, and her political importance in great periods of European history, are the chief elements in the glory of mediaeval and modern Venice. Early in the 4th century of the Christian era, the islands of the lagunes had been partly occupied by people who fled from the mainland of Italy to escape from Alaric the Visigoth and other invaders. The incursion of Attila and his Huns in the middle of the century made the region a perma- nent abode, and we may place the origin of Venice in this period. The islands of the stream called Rivus Altus (Rialto) were those chiefly selected as places of refuge in the strange region of shallow waters, penetrating towards the plains of the mainland, dotted with islands and intersected by canals. A long curved narrow tongue of land called littorali or lidi, " shores " or " banks," separates the lagune from the open sea, with the concave side facing thereto, and having several openings which admit the tide to the inner waters, affording purity to the air and passage for ships to the safe inner basin. In course of time walls were built to protect the various 1 R f the Italian Republics 247 nan: . DCaUtiful in ti had :i of the isles, under which a mai rned ■ >f the 11 of Veni( the main I Padua, whose inhabitants hail in earlier tributed t>> her foundation. The irruption of the I 1 under Alboin, in the 6th centui and Ven v in ie end <>f that century 1 the . icument ensuring the protection of the imperial t th full liberty for trade, and thus began the , brilliant, and intei tnnection of Venice with the 1 nd merchants ments and cellars <»f their palaces, to « ■ las, . ; the 7th century the 61 I Duke) lute, lally f ritt < T of authority, until he I of the sl with mony. from :i the mainland. I tribute paid in kind. In tin ern- idult mali mity , Middle, Li er or 1 • Doj : but red. ii centur] came, territorj on the I had 1 1 248 A History of the World of the town. During a long period of comparative peace Istria was annexed ; commercial traffic was extended to the farthest shores of the Black Sea, and Venice became a leading maritime power in the Levant. After successive and very destructive conflagrations among the wooden buildings, marble from the Dalmatian and Italian quarries was brought into play, and the splendid solid palaces of the city of the lagunes began to rise. In the 10th century there was much trouble through pestilence and civil war, during which the first St. Mark's was burnt to the ground, the restored edifice being finished in 107 1. After much intestine strife and popular turbu'lence, a glorious time for Venice came with the rule of Doge Orseolo II. (991-1008), who restored order with a strong hand ; promoted trade by treaties, including one with the Saracens ; conquered Dalmatia ; and increased the commercial and naval importance of the state which was assuming the highest position among importing and distributing communities. Towards the end of the nth century there was fierce fighting, with alternations of success, in the Adriatic, off the coast of Dalmatia, with the Normans of Apulia, under Robert Guiscard, Venice being the ally of Alexius Comnenus, emperor at Constantinople. By this time Venice had attained a commanding position in the world of commerce, not only through her extensive sea-traffic, but in a brisk trade on the Italian mainland, largely carried on by caravans, and in letting out ships and boats to other peoples. The navigators were famed for their enterprise and skill. In the city, the people displayed a keen love of pleasure and pageant, which was gratified by religious and secular festivals, and by regattas and other aquatic sports. BOOK III. THE CRUSADE PERIOD (a.d. 1096- 12 70). Chapter I. — The Crusades; Monasticism ; Feudalism; the Age of Faith and Chivalry. The wonderful expeditions called the Crusades were undertaken from a variety of motives. The inspirer of the First Crusade was, beyond doubt, chiefly Pope Urban II. (1088-1099), who saw the interest of the Church in a general excitement of religious enthusiasm, and delivered an address to the multitude assembled at a council at The Crusades 249 Clermont, in Auvergne, in the autumn of 1095. A native of Rheims, and educated as a monk at Clugny (or Cluni), a famous Benedictine abbey near Macon, unsurpassed in the middle ages for splendour and influence, and second to Rome alone as a centre of Christianity, Urban was able to lay aside in his discourse the Latin of universal use among ecclesiastics, and to preach to the French warriors in his and their mother-tongue. He appealed to them in behalf of the pilgrims to the Holy Land, ill-treated by the Moslem possessors of the country ; of Jerusalem and its sacred buildings, the vault and Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great ; and of Antioch, once the city of St, Peter, given over to Mohammedan sway and superstition. He bade them exchange warfare amongst themselves for fight against infidels, and his words were received with enthusiastic cries of " Deus vult ! " "It is God's will !" Crosses were distributed to all who professed their readiness to start, and the bishops and priests of the Council returned to their homes to preach the new gospel in every quarter. There is much legendary matter concerning a little bright-eyed man of eloquent speech called Peter the Hermit or Peter of Amiens, who traversed France, riding on an ass, with a crucifix in his hand, and everywhere called on people to arise and start for the scene of action. An epidemical frenzy was caused by remission of penance, absolution of all sins, and assurance of eternal felicity for those who "took the cross," or went on the Crusade. Sham miracles and fanatical prophecies aroused high enthusiasm among the superstitious. There were thousands who made use of so excellent an opportunity to gratify curiosity, restlessness, love of licence, thirst for battle, emulation, and ambition. Some of the leaders aimed at founding principalities in the East. Some hoped to repair broken fortunes by the plunder of towns believed to hold boundless wealth. Of the common herd, the rank and file, of these expeditions, there were many thousands who sought there a refuge from the consequences of debt or crime. The Crusading host included priests who left their parishes, and monks who abandoned their cells ; peasants exchanging the condition of serfs bound to the soil for a life of adventure ; many women and children were found in the miscellaneous, undisciplined bands, led by Peter the Hermit, and such men as Gualtier Senzavoir, or " Walter the Penniless." Of these irregular hordes who started for the East, the vast majority perished, after boundless suffering from privation, at the hands of the people of Bulgaria, who were incensed by pillage. 250 A History of the World The first band of regular Crusaders was the Teutonic host, under the famous Godfre) of Bouillon, in Lorraine, who started in August, 1096, and after some trouble with Alexius, the emperor, at Constantinople, crossed into Asia early in 1097. Bohemond of Tarentum, in southern Italy, a son of Robert Guiscard, and his relative Tancred, the famous hero of Tasso's poem, led a body of Normans. Raymond, count of Toulouse ; Hugo of Vermandois, brother of Philip I. of France ; and Robert, duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, were other leaders of large bodies of men who made their way to Constantinople, numbering in all several hundred thousands. The emperor Alexius exacted trom all the leaders an oath of fealty or feudal homage, binding them to restore to the empire whatever territory they might conquer from the infidels, if it had previously belonged to the Byzantine rulers. The warriors of the Crusade were strong in their mail-clad horsemen, and in the course of two years they beat down all resistance of the Moslem. In June, 1097, Nicaea, the capital of the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor, was surrendered to the Greek emperor, who accompanied the expedition to look after his own interests. In July, on the way to Antioch, the first pitched battle was won by the Crusaders at Dorylaeum, in Phrygia, where the cavalry, protected by helmet and shield, scale and chain armour, carrying a long lance, sword, battle-axe, and heavy mace or club, and supported by archers with the long-bow or cross-bow, completely defeated the light quick-moving Asiatic horse under the sultan Soliman. The way to Syria was opened by the victory which restored to the Eastern Empire all the west of Asia Minor, and forced the Sultan of Roum to fix his capital at I'conium, in the south of the peninsula. Terrible privations were endured before the Christians arrived at Antioch, the great and. populous capital of Syria, defended by hilly ground, marshes, and a. wall of great height and solidity. The army melted away from desertion, fatigue-, and famine, and it was only after a siege of seven months, in. June, 1098, that the city fell through the treachery of one of the defenders. The captors of Antioch were then beleaguered by a. fresh host of Mussulmans from Persia, and endured much from famine until a desperate sortie under Tancred, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Bohemond, drove off the besiegers. Resting during the summer heat, the Crusaders marched along the coast to Jerusalem in the spring of 1099, and, now reduced to little more than 20,000 effective fighters, they stormed the city in July, after a siege of five weeks. The place was taken The Crusades 251 from the Saracens of Egypt, whose caliph had conquered it recently from the Turks. A horrible massacre of the Moslem people occurred, in which 70,000 are said to have perished. The Jews were burnt alive in their synagogues. It was thus that the votaries of the religion of mercy showed their zeal for the Christian cause. The political result of this First Crusade was the establishment of Christian kingdoms at Jerusalem, at Antioch, and at Edessa, in Mesopotamia. The coast-towns of Palestine were taken with help from the naval forces of Pisa and Genoa, and the kingdom of Jerusalem continued until its conquest by Saladin of Egypt near the close of the 12th century. We may note here the part played in the First Crusade by citizens of some of the Italian republics. As the Crusaders marched southwards along the shore of Syria, between the mountains and the sea, passing amidst the relics of old Phoenicia at Sidon, Tyre, Tripoli, and Acre, they obtained their supplies from traders of Pisa and Genoa, running down along the coast. When they had reached Jerusalem by way of Lydda, Emmaus, and other scenes of sacred history, they were enabled to attack the walls with success by means of a drawbridge let down from a huge movable tower of timber, constructed by the skill of Genoese artisans. The Second Crusade (1147-1149) was marked by the presence of two European sovereigns, Conrad III. of Germany and Louis VII. of France. The religious feeling of the West had been aroused by Moslem conquest of the kingdom of Edessa, and the famous St. Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux in Champagne, a chief theologian of mediaeval times, an oracle of Christendom, kindled the enthusiasm of French and German warriors by the glowing eloquence of his addresses at the Council of\e'zelay, near Auxerre, and during a tour beyond the Rhine- In this disastrous enterprise many thousands of lives were flung away. The German force was almost annihilated in Asia Minor by famine and Turkish attacks, and the French host suffered a like fate in Cilicia and northern Syria, without rendering the least service to the cause of Christianity against the infidels. The Third Crusade (1189-1192) is familiar to readers of British history from the presence and achievements of Richard Cceur de Lion. This renewal of the warfare of the West against the East was marked by some brilliant deeds of arms, but it had little permanent effect. The immediate cause of the expedition was the capture of Jerusalem in 1187 by Saladin of Egypt, one of the 252 A History of the World noblest characters of that or of any age, a most gallant soldier, a wise ruler, true as the steel of his own scimitar, magnanimous, just, generous — at all points the model of Moslem chivalry. The emperor Frederick I. of Germany, the famous " Barbarossa," who had taken part in the Second Crusade, 40 years previously, was the first to set forth, when he was nearly 70 years of age, and make his toilsome way through Hungary and Bulgaria. He entered Asia in the spring of 11 90, and was drowned in trying to swim a rapid stream on the borders of Cilicia, when he was heated and fatigued by the march. Richard of England and Philip Augustus of France were somewhat later in the field. They stayed some months in Sicily on the road, and when Richard sailed for Palestine in April, 1191, he was delayed farther by a storm which scattered his fleet, and by a call at Cyprus, where he conquered the island from the churlish king Isaac Comnenus, of the Byzantine imperial family, who had ill-treated some of the shipwrecked crews. At the same time and place Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, whom his mother Eleanor had brought to Messina. The English king, the most athletic and brilliant of feudal warriors, soon made his presence known in Palestine by the capture of Acre, besieged in vain for two years. In July, 1191, he was deserted, after many quarrels, by his French colleague, and he then started along the shore for Ascalon, accompanied abreast by Saladin's host, and harassed by the terrible heat. A fierce battle, in which Richard was foremost, cleaving his way through the enemy's ranks, ended in the defeat of the Saracens, who left 32 emirs, or chieftains, a title familiar to us from modern warfare in the Soudan, and 7,000 men, dead on the ground. Ascalon and Jaffa were held by the Crusaders. Many delays occurred, owing to quarrels, and to vain negotiations with Saladin, and it was not until June, 1192, that an advance was made towards Jerusalem. A great caravan on its way from Egypt was captured, with vast spoil in gold, silver, silks, spices, and weapons, nearly 5,000 camels, and countless asses and mules. After a retreat to Acre, for unknown reasons, Richard again met and defeated the Saracens, who were besieging Jaffa, and then the almost useless enterprise came to an end with a truce made between the English leader and Saladin, who had a sincere admiration of each other's prowess. The strip of coast between Joppa (Jaffa) and Acre was yielded to the Christians, and Saladin's promise, as good as any Christian's oath, secured safety for pilgrims to the " Holy Places " at Jerusalem, and gave permission for Latin The Crusades 253 priests to celebrate divine service at the Holy Sepulchre and at Bethlehem and Nazareth. The failure of the Third Crusade was mainly due to divisions among the Christian leaders. Richard of the Lion Heart was alone zealous in the cause, and his last words, as the low shore of the Holy Land faded from his view, were a prayer that he might yet return to its aid. In connection with these expeditions to the East, we may observe that progress thither, from western Europe, both by land and sea, in and after the nth century, had been made easy by two circum- stances. The conversion of the Hungarians to Christianity opened communication down the Danube, and the sea-route was cleared by the destruction of Saracen naval power in the Mediterranean through the action of the fleets of the Pisans, Genoese, 'and Normans in the open sea, and of the Venetians in the Adriatic waters. Up to that time, no war-galleys belonging to any Christian power except that of Constantinople had been seen in the great central sea. The Fourth Crusade (1 202-1 204), undertaken through the influence of Pope Innocent III., and including as many greedy military adventurers as real enthusiasts, was entirely useless as regarded the main purpose of the expedition. The leaders of the enterprise were great French barons, assisted by Baldwin, count of Flanders, a gallant, pious, and generous man, a worthy successor of Godfrey of Bouillon, and by Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, a territory in the north-west of Italy. This Lombard noble, a cunning schemer, cared for nothing but wealth and fame to be won in the East, by any forceful or fraudulent means. The aged Venetian Doge, Henry Dandolo, a man of the clearest head and the most unswerving energy, took part in the expedition solely for the interests of his country. The bulk-of the force included relic-hunting abbots in coats of mail, penniless knights, Venetian seamen who were half-pirates, and the brutal soldiery of the West. The Crusaders, when they did start, were persuaded by Dandolo to turn aside from Egypt to Constantinople, in order to help the dethroned Alexius Angelus. Some particulars will be given in the further history of the Greek Empire, and we need here only record, as the sole result of the Fourth Crusade, the establishment of a " Latin Empire " at Constantinople. The height of folly was reached in the "children's crusade" of 12 12, when thousands of French and German boys started for the Holy Land, only to die by the way, to wander back home in rags, or be sold into slavery. The Fifth Crusade (1228-1229) was conducted by Frederick II., 254 A History of the World emperor of the Western or " Holy Roman " Empire, who landed at Acre in September, 1228, with a force of only 600 knights, and made a friendly arrangement with the Moslem ruler at Jerusalem by which the Holy City (except the site of the Temple, covered by the Mosque of Omar), Bethlehem, and Nazareth were surrendered to the Christians. This proceeding was severely condemned by the Patriarch of Constantinople and by Pope Gregory IX. as a betrayal of the honour of the Church. In 1239 another expedition, not reckoned as one of the regular Crusades, started from Marseilles under Theobald, king of Navarre, being chiefly composed of Spaniards and Frenchmen. The Moslem position in the East had been of late much weakened by feuds among themselves, and by Tartar (Mongol) attacks, and a favourable opportunity seemed to have come. Part of the force was, however, destroyed in a surprise by the Saracens, and Theobald, in the following year, left Acre, with his followers, and went home. In 1244 Jerusalem was finally conquered by an Eastern tribe of Mohammedans, driven from their abode by the Mongols under the famous Genghis Khan, and this really ended Christian sway in Palestine. From this time forward, Crusading enthusiasm in the West was dying away under the influence of new ideas and aspirations. Important political changes were in progress, in the rise of great cities, the consolidation of kingdoms, the struggles for power between monarchs and nobles, combined with the beginnings of new studies and opinions, and of a transition from the age of blind faith to that of reason and argument. In France alone, under the rule of a truly pious king at the middle of the 13th century, could a monarch be found who was ready to " assume the cross." The Sixth Crusade ( 1 248-1 254) was due to the zeal of Louis IX. (St. Louis), who went to Egypt in the spring of 1249, after spending the winter at Cyprus in making preparations. The Saracens fled from Damietta at the mere sight of the great French armament of 1,800 vessels, but returned in great force, and in April, 1250, captured Louis and his army on the advance to Cairo. He was released, after some time, on ransom, and then passed four years in Palestine, engaged in fortifying Acre and other coast-towns, and in rebuilding Cassarea, Jaffa, and Sidon. The Seventh Crusade (1270) was also undertaken by Louis, who was accompanied by the kings of Aragon and Navarre. They landed at Tunis, in the hope of converting the ruler to Christianity, and there, in August, the excellent king of France died of dysentery, murmuring "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! 1 ' as he lay on his The Crusades 255 ash-strewn bed. The greater part of his army was swept away by sickness, and this was the end of the Crusades. An illustrious prince, eldest son of Henry III. of England, with many young nobles of his country, started soon after St. Louis. In October, 1270, they were at Tunis, and in the following year they arrived at Acre just in time to save the place from the Saracens. Some small successes came, and Edward was joined by a great force from Cyprus. In June, 1272, occurred the stroke of an assassin with a poisoned dagger, from the effects of which the prince was saved, not through the sucking of the wound by his beloved wife Eleanor, according to the romantic story invented half a century later, but by an English doctor's excision of the tainted flesh. A ten-years' truce was concluded with the Moslem, and Edward left for England with the princess in September, 1272. Nearly 20 years passed away, and then, in 1291, the Christian kingdom of Acre was overcome by the Mohammedans, a century after the recovery of the fortress by the Christians of the Third Crusade, and with the surrender of Tyre, Berytus, Sidon, and other ports, the Christian hold on Palestine was ended. The Crusades were the greatest events of the middle ages, the outcome of the deepest and most lasting enthusiasm, except that of Mohammedanism, which has been seen in the world. The move- ment cannot be fairly ascribed to popular delusion, or to calculating Papal policy,, or to an outbreak of barbaric zeal for war. The Crusades were wars for an idea, and in this respect differed from all other " wars of religion," because they were not influenced by intolerance or sectarian jealousy. As the first united effort of Western Christendom, they -embodied, in spite of the mingling of interested motives already noted, the best of the mediaeval spirit, and had an excellent moral influence in rousing the heroic and unselfish side of human nature. Failing in the grand object of finally expelling the Moslem from the Holy Land, the Crusades succeeded in delaying the fall of the Eastern Empire, a bulwark of Christendom, though the Fourth Crusade, which overthrew the true Eastern Empire, did .great mischief in aggravating the political and religious dissensions of East and West, and rendering a combined effort against the Turk impossible. Politically viewed, the Crusades were a phase -of the eternal " Eastern Question" which, in these latest years of the 19th century, is still before the statesmen and diplomatists of the Western World. It was an event of vast impor- tance for Western civilisation that the tide of Turkish conquest was 256 A History of the World stemmed for three centuries, until a new Europe of powerful consolidated states was existing, and the West could defy the utmost efforts of the worst human products of the East, the barbarians who, unlike the Saracens or the Moors of Spain, are devoid of literature, science, and art, and, capable only of valorous and skilful warfare, and, at times, of brutal massacre and outrage, still pollute with their presence the soil of Europe, under the special sanction and encouragement, for their own ends, of two " Christian " emperors. Among the effects of the Crusades, we may notice first the increase for a season of the power of the Papacy, which became the political centre of Latin Christendom. Civil authority was lowered as the ecclesiastical influence was raised, and the power of the Church was augmented by the institution of the new military orders, and those of the Friars, both due, directly or indirectly, to these great expeditions to the East. Ecclesiastics were enriched by the purchase, on most favourable terms, of the estates of Crusading barons and knights eager to raise money for the great expenses of their enterprise. In the political system, the power of the feudal sovereigns was increased through the reversion into their hands of many fiefs which became vacant. The absence, for long periods, of many members of the baronage threw more executive authority into the hands of royal officials. It was in France, especially, that the formation of a powerful monarchy was favoured by the merging of petty fiefs in the greater, and then of these larger lordships in the domains of the Crown. The power of the Empire declined, during the Crusade period, with the growth of the Papacy, and Germany and Italy became, for centuries, miserable spectacles of disintegration. Another important political effect was the rise and increase of municipal power in the towns, where the wealthy traders purchased charters of freedom from " overlords," or feudal proprietors desirous of raising funds for the fashionable trip to the East. When we turn to the social effects of the Crusades, we note the growth of inter- national sympathy among those who shared the same dangers and toils in a common cause ; the great development of trade and manufactures, in the necessity of providing the Crusading armies with weapons, clothing, harness, horses, and other articles, and in the introduction to Europe of Asiatic products. At this period the Italian republics reached their height of commercial prosperity, though Venice suffered greatly in the end through the loss of her previous monopoly of the Eastern trade, which she had to share henceforth with Pisa, Genoa, and Flanders. A great increase of The Knights Hospitallers 257 comfort and luxury in western Europe followed the connection, in the East, with Oriental modes of life, and the rude feudal nobility were improved in culture and manners. All orders of society derived some benefit from the change. In another view, the maritime energy fostered by the Crusades led to the great discoveries of the 15th and 1 6th centuries, and to the same source we may trace the growth of maritime law, and the commercial finance of banking and exchange. To conclude, there was, in the Crusade period, a great stirring-up of stagnant waters which gave the Western world a new historical, poetical, and romantic literature, a great increase of geographical know- ledge, and, according to some authorities, a new intellectual light not remotely connected with the event called the Reformation. The foundation of the religious orders of knighthood is due to the same enthusiastic feeling as that which prompted the Crusades. The earliest of these institutions was that of the Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers, having their origin about 1048 in a hospital founded at Jerusalem, with permission of the Moslem ruler, by some merchants of Amalfi, then a flourishing seaport and centre of Eastern trade, on the west coast of southern Italy. The hospital, provided for the tendance of Christian pilgrims, was dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and after the First Crusade many of the soldiers of the army joined the servants of the hospital, and devoted their lives to the care of poor and sick pilgrims. They were all formed into a regular religious body, with vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, under special protection of the Papal See, by a bull from Pope Paschal II., which confirmed to the Order, in 11 13, the possessions held both in Syria and in western Europe. In due course, the .service of the Order was extended to the armed pro- tection of pilgrims journeying from the seaports to Jerusalem, and the Knights of St. John then became a military body, sworn to defend the Holy Sepulchre to the death, and to make incessant war upon infidels. When the Holy City fell into the possession of Saladin, the knights settled at Acre (1191). A century later they were driven away by the Moslem to Cyprus, and in 13 10, under their grand-master Fulk de Villaret, they captured Rhodes and some neighbouring islands from the Greek and Moslem pirates, and from these strongholds they waged war with success for two centuries against the Turks, being now entitled " Knights of Rhodes." The Order possessed great wealth from royal and other benefactions, and from the spoiling of infidel foes. There were three classes of the brethren — knights, chaplains, and serving- 258 A History of the World brothers — the last being the " squires " of the knights in warfare. At this time of their greatest prosperity the Hospitallers owned many thousands of manors in different parts of Europe. In London, their great priory at Clerkenwell was maintained with much state until the suppression of religious houses by Henry VIII. The Knights Hospitallers had still a long career abroad. In 1523, driven from Cyprus by the Turks, they retired for a few years to Candia (Crete), and in 1530 they received from the emperor Charles V. the gift of Malta and Gozo, with Tripoli on the opposite coast of Africa. From Tripoli they were forced away in 155 1 by the renowned Barbary corsair Dragut, from whom they sustained at Malta a siege of four months in 1565. They defended their fortifications with great determination, and finally repulsed their assailants with the loss of many thousands of men. The "Knights of Malta," as they were now called, declined rapidly in moral worth and political importance after the Reformation, and the career of the ancient Order practically ended with the surrender of the island to the French in 1798, and the confiscation of their lands, about the same time, in various European countries. A modern revival, with its headquarters at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, is honourably distinguished in connection with cottage-hospitals and convalescent homes, an ophthalmic hospital at Jerusalem, the street-ambulance system, and the organisation of the " Red Cross Society " for the aid of the sick and wounded in war. The still more famous Knights Templars, so styled from their house at Jerusalem, near the site of Solomon's temple, were from the first a military Order, founded in n 18 by a Burgundian knight, Hugues de Payen, and eight French knights, for the protection of poor pilgrims against Moslem attacks. Bernard of Clairvaux obtained for them, from the Pope, a formal " Rule," and the Order became renowned for valour against the infidels. The organisation and vows were like those of the Hospitallers, and the mode of life was very strict. A Papal " bull" of 1172 rendered the Templars free from episcopal jurisdiction, and accountable to the Pope alone. This body of warriors, numbering many thousands in the 13th century, were in their best days lions in conflict, foremost supporters of Richard of England in the Third Crusade. No knight was ever known to shrink in battle, or to make dishonourable terms with the Moslem, and the Order could boast that, during its two centuries of existence, 20,000 members had died fighting in Palestine, and that seven out of 22 The Knights Templars 259 grand-mnsters had fallen on the battle-field, and five more from wounds there received. The seat of the Templars in Palestine was Acre, with a stupendous castle whose ruins still exist. The accumulation of vast wealth, largely due to the property of those who joined the Order, and the special privileges enjoyed, along with their exclusive and secret management of affairs, aroused great jealousy among both ecclesiastics and laymen, who freely accused the Templars not only of pride, but of luxury and gross immorality. The end of the Order was to the last degree disastrous. An unscrupulous king, Philip le Bel of France, aiming at their wealth, sought the aid of the Pope (Clement V.) and the Inquisition, and attacked the Order in 1307. The grand- master, summoned from Cyprus, and 140 knights, were seized at " the Temple," their palace in Paris, and imprisoned, and charges of the worst character — rank heresy and blasphemy included — were held to be confirmed by confessions wrung from victims by the most cruel tortures. Careful modern investigation has proved the infamous injustice of the proceedings against the Order in France. In Paris alone 36 knights died under torture. The doomed victims of a despot and his instruments, composed of envious bishops and abbots and an ignorant laity, were subjected to a long series of trials before prejudiced judges. In May, 13 10, 54 knights were slowly burned to death in Paris, refusing to make any confession, and the Order was suppressed by a bull in 1312, with transference of some of its landed property to the Knights of St. John. Two years later two chiefs of the body were roasted to death in Paris. In England a merciful treatment, by comparison, was accorded to the Templars, the last master dying as a prisoner in the Tower. The Temple Church in London, consecrated in 1 185 by Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, and splendidly restored, at great cost, in 1839-1842, by the Benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple, marks the spot, now so greatly changed in the character of the buildings and their occupants, where the prior, knights, and serving-brethren of the great military Order dwelt, in the London of mediaeval times, looking out on the waters of the fair broad river. The Teutonic Knights had a like origin with the two other military Orders, early in the 12th century. In the 13th century a body of these knights waged successful war against the heathen Wends in Prussia, and before the close of that period the Teutonic Order were masters of the territory between the Memel and the 260 A History of the World Vistula, as well as of possessions in Courland and Livonia. They began to decline in importance towards the end of the 14th century, when their true work — that of forcibly converting the Prussians and Lithuanians — was completed. The knights had also been of great service in protecting the Hanseatic league of trading towns, and in spreading German civilisation through the territory which became the Baltic provinces of Russia. The first seat of the Order had been at Acre. In 1291 it was transferred to Venice, and a few years later to Marienburg, near Danzig. In 14 10 the knights lost credit through a terrible defeat from the Poles and Lithuanians, and before the close of the 15th century the Order, having now removed its seat to Konigsberg, had lost west Prussia, and only held east Prussia as a fief of Poland. In 1525 the Order and its landed possessions were " secularised," and the grand-master, Albert of Brandenburg- Anspach, became hereditary Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. In 1809 the Teutonic Knights were finally suppressed by Napoleon in all the German states. A branch of the Order, left in Austria, was reorganised in 1840, and does service in caring for the wounded in war. Chivalry has been well described as " an institution which both affected the character of the Crusades and received from them in return a powerful impulse ; it was one means by which the nobles separated themselves from the people, for no one might be a knight but a man of high birth." The word properly means the usages and qualifications of chevaliers or knights, originally " mounted warriors," the word cavalry being another form of the same Latin derivative. The landed gentry, or feudal tenants of a certain rank, could alone render such service in war, while the infantry was composed of plebeians. During the Crusades, prowess in war added a personal chivalry to the technical, landed order of knighthood, and this, being won by merit alone, was an object of ambition to the younger sons of a noble, who accompanied the richer barons to war, as their paid comrades on the most honourable terms. In this new form, the knight was attended by his "squire," a youth of equal birth and similar hopes of plunder, promotion, and fame. Archers and men-at-arms completed the retinue. In order to prepare a lad for the career of chivalry, he was taken, at the age of seven years, into the castle of some baron as a page or "varlet," and trained in athletic exercises, with horsemanship and the use of weapons, until the age of 14, having also acquired from his surrounding of brave knights and noble ladies habits Chivalry i j he be ame a at ion and ceremonies including a bath, a n and the holy in B white robe, i ted a knight, . him to defend the Church, in their persons and their honourable reputation, to be l'>\al t<> Ins prince, to be the reliever of suff< i and wr- mg I he buckli "winnin the . mlv blessed by the priest .is it lay u|k.:. Mil by Ins " dubb in the laying <>f the flat *>f a Bword on llder. 'I ibrai e with anus round the neck, formed the "accolade," and he w.i^ thus a knight in the i. I . and of St. Mi i> of the I rii ritial to the km. r.uter Were I- . an>l munificence l ■ • . ■:.. cements to the feudal -w.i>, in the best to the knight who thus became "disloyal as well rrupt . and the honourable trust re[ in ■ knight's word ^as the source <>t the re! in order that 1 I return and procure hi-, ransom. A nol lelity in tl t i^ that of King John ol n by the rince .11 nd died there in 1364, in J of G he had Ween unable to procure, in his ulated sum. Th< indulgent treatment <>f 1 » r 1 ^ « > : ■. - r ^ which and the mun to 11. e > huf privilege of ki I, in dent 1 ind the n lawk ■ in prim i| 1 260 A History of the World Vistula, as well as of possessions in Courland and Livonia. They began to decline in importance towards the end of the 14th century, when their true work — that of forcibly converting the Prussians and Lithuanians — was completed. The knights had also been of great service in protecting the Hanseatic league of trading towns, and in spreading German civilisation through the territory which became the Baltic provinces of Russia. The first seat of the Order had been at Acre. In 1291 it was transferred to Venice, and a few years later to Marienburg, near Danzig. In 14 10 the knights lost credit through a terrible defeat from the Poles and Lithuanians, and before the close of the 15th century the Order, having now removed its seat to Konigsberg, had lost west Prussia, and only held east Prussia as a fief of Poland. In 1525 the Order and its landed possessions were " secularised," and the grand-master, Albert of Brandenburg- Anspach, became hereditary Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. In 1809 the Teutonic Knights were finally suppressed by Napoleon in all the German states. A branch of the Order, left in Austria, was reorganised in 1840, and does service in caring for the wounded in war. Chivalry has been well described as " an institution which both affected the character of the Crusades and received from them in return a powerful impulse ; it was one means by which the nobles separated themselves from the people, for no one might be a knight but a man of high birth." The word properly means the usages and qualifications of chevaliers or knights, originally " mounted warriors," the word cavalry being another form of the same Latin derivative. The landed gentry, or feudal tenants of a certain rank, could alone render such service in war, while the infantry was composed of plebeians. During the Crusades, prowess in war added a personal chivalry to the technical, landed order of knighthood, and this, being won by merit alone, was an object of ambition to the younger sons of a noble, who accompanied the richer barons to war, as their paid comrades on the most honourable terms. In this new form, the knight was attended by his "squire," a youth of equal birth and similar hopes of plunder, promotion, and fame. Archers and men-at-arms completed the retinue. In order to prepare a lad for the career of chivalry, he was taken, at the age of seven years, into the castle of some baron as a page or " varlet," and trained in athletic exercises, with horsemanship and the use of weapons, until the age of 14, having also acquired from his surrounding of brave knights and noble ladies habits Chivalry 261 of obedience and a courteous demeanour. At 14 he became a squire, and afterwards, with preparation and ceremonies including a bath, a night-watch or vigil, confession of sins, and the holy communion, he was clad in a white robe, and created a knight, always by a knight, with an oath binding him to defend the Church, to protect virtuous women both in their persons and their honourable reputation, to be loyal to his prince, to be the reliever of suffering and the redresser of oppression and wrong. The buckling-on of gilt spurs, the origin of the expression "winning his spurs," and the girding with a sword solemnly blessed by the priest as it lay upon the altar, were followed by kneeling and by his " dubbing " or "striking" as a knight in the laying of the flat of a sword on his right shoulder. This ceremony, and an embrace with arms round the neck, formed the " accolade," and he was thus created a knight in the name of God, of St. George, and of St. Michael the archangel, or of the Three Persons of the Trinity. The virtues held essential to the knightly character were loyalty, courtesy, and munificence. To break engagements — to the feudal lord, to a lady, or to a friend — was, in the best days of chivalry, social death to the knight who thus became " disloyal " or "recreant." Treachery, the vice of savage as well as of corrupt nations, was the vilest of crimes, and the honourable trust reposed in a knight's word was the source of the release of a captured foe in order that he might return and procure his ransom. A notable instance of fidelity in this respect is that of King John of France, who, having been taken by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356, returned to London, and died there in 1364, in John of Gaunt's palace of the Savoy, when he had been unable to procure, in his own country, the great stipulated sum. The courtesy of chivalry brought in warfare an indulgent treatment of prisoners which was scarcely known in ancient days, and the munificence required from a knight included great hospitality to travellers and bountiful aid to men of his own order. The chief privilege of knighthood, in the social sense, was the being a member of a distinct European class of distinguished persons, with rights and dignities independent of any sovereign. Chivalry was of vast use in promoting a sense of honour in every form, and the mediaeval times of history show many instances of the elevation of character thus developed. In lawless days it was of great value to have a class of men, high in position, who were bound by oath to display some of the virtues which are most surely based upon Christian principle. It is needless 18 264 A History of the World clad only in a coarse brown woollen tunic, girt with a cord of hemp. When he obtained followers and founded his first monastery, he made the vows, as in other cases, pledge the monks to chastity, poverty, and obedience, but the chief stress was laid on poverty, not merely for the members but for the Order. Success of the brethren in preaching brought the solemn approval, in 12 16, of Pope Innocent III., and the numbers of the Order, called also Gray Friars, and Minorites or Lesser Brethren, enormously increased before the death of the founder in 1226. They became the source of many other religious institutions, including several Orders of nuns. The Franciscans had among them many men of eminence in theology and philosophy, as Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Alexander of Hales, and Bonaventure ; and the wonderful Roger Bacon, who was also a linguist, scientific experimentalist, and skilful mechanician, was one of the same great fraternity. They had many monasteries in England, where the Friars of this mendicant Order did much admirable work in preaching and in the tendance of the sick poor during the 13th century. The rule of poverty was afterwards laid aside, and wealth and power brought degeneration and decay. The powerful Dominican Order of preaching Friars derives its name from the founder Dominic, a Spanish (Castilian) canon of ascetic life, who became a missionary among Mohammedans and "heretics" of the Christian Church. In the south -of France he laboured amongst the Albigenses, a body of sectarian Christians to be hereafter noticed, and in 1215 he founded his society at Toulouse. His work of persuasion became degraded, under the influence of the fanatical Pope Innocent III., into cruel persecution. Before his death in 1221 the Dominicans, devoted to rigid poverty, had 60 houses or monasteries. In England, where the dress of the members gave them the name of " Black Friars," their first founda- tion was at Oxford. It was the special object of the Dominicans to guard the purity of the faith. The theory of their canonised founder, St. Dominic, was that there was no salvation for the "heretic" in the next world, and that there must be no mercy in this. The Order had a chief part in the work of the detestable " Inquisition," of which they were the managers in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In theological matters, the Dominicans, numbering amongst their learned "Schoolmen" the famous Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, were the rivals of the Franciscans. On a general view, the preaching Friars did much to promote The British Isles 265 the religious influence of the Church, which had declined from the disuse of sermons, the ignorance of parish-priests, and the corrupt life engendered among monastic Orders by the possession of great wealth as landowning corporations. In political matters the sym- pathies of the wandering and begging brethren were almost wholly with the body of the people against the nobles and the Crown, and, as purveyors of news and arousers of feeling, they played an important part, especially in England, during the 13th and 14th centuries. /The good effected by the monks in the "dark ages" comprises the exercise and influence of virtues— such as meekness and self-denial and comprehensive almsgiving — in which the laity were deficient. They were the " relieving-offlcers " and the phy- sicians of the poor. They were the custodians and copyists, in the library and the scriptorium or writing-room, of the treasures of ancient literature and learning. Extending our view to the mediaeval Church at large, we may claim that she. fulfilled a high office on behalf of humanity in the shelter which the precincts of an ecclesias- tical building afforded to the fugitive, and in the bold stand which prelates and priests, abbots and priors, often made against the oppressor. | The right of " sanctuary " in a consecrated place, akin to the shelter provided in the Jewish " cities of refuge " and in . certain temples of ancient Greece, only accorded protection to a criminal for a limited time, until some arrangement could be made or the first heat of resentment were cooled, and the privilege was not granted to any person guilty of sacrilege or of treason. It is obvious that, in comparatively lawless times, the refuge provided by the Church was often a protection to the innocent. The influ- ence of ecclesiastics was also often used in inducing feudal lords, in their days of health, or on their death-beds, to emancipate their serfs. Chapter II. — Northern and Western Europe : the British Isles ; Denmark, Sweden, Norway ; France ; Spain ; the Byzantine Empire. When the conquest of England had been completed in the severe suppression of risings in various quarters, William I. (1066-1087) showed his wisdom in the measures which he took to consolidate his position as sovereign. The land was given to his chief Norman followers on feudal tenure, but in the form of manors scattered in many distant parts of the country, so that no baron should have 266 A History of the World the power of raising at once a large force of vassals for action against the Crown. In 1086 he made the feudality which was now firmly established in England more favourable to the king or supreme lord, by requiring all landholders, great and small, to take an oath of allegiance direct to the sovereign, thus binding them to serve him in war against their own lord, or fellow-baron, in case he were a rebel. Strong fortresses of stone were built in London (the Tower), at Rochester, Windsor, Canterbury, Norwich, Hastings, and many other places, and occupied by royal garrisons. The great statistical survey of the kingdom, the results of which were embodied in Domesday Book, still to be seen in the Public Record Office, Fetter Lane, in London, afforded a basis for taxation in its details concerning the nature of the tillage, the pastures, the mines, mills, fisheries, woods, live-stock, value, and service due from owner, in the case of each property, and, in furnishing the number of people on each holding, it was a muster-roll of the feudal force. The four large earldoms were abolished, and the shire became the chief political division, with its principal executive officer in the shire-reeve (sheriff), nominated by the sovereign. The lower local courts of justice were made subordinate to the king's court. The Church was reformed and reorganised under the new Norman archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc, William's ablest minister and adviser; while Normans replaced Englishmen in the sees and abbacies. We must specially note the independent attitude assumed by the great Norman ruler towards the Papacy. He positively refused any homage to the Pope, declaring it to be a thing unknown in England. He kept in his own hands the appointment to bishoprics, and ordained that no Papal letter, brief, or bull should be received in this country, no Papal synod or council held, and no bishop appeal to the Papal court in Rome, without the sanction of the sovereign of England. It was in the establishment of this great centralised, almost absolute royal authority, and its maintenance by strong-willed kings for several generations, with little interruption, that the Norman Conquest was of vital and lasting benefit to England. The elements of society were hammered into a united realm. The conquered people sank to a low position — the old English landowners into small feudal tenants, the former English yeomen into serfs, and their places were taken by Normans from beyond the Channel. There was also a considerable influx of Norman traders and craftsmen, and, within a century after the Conquest, it is estimated that one-eighth of a whole population of I Brii I ilea 00,000 < sorption of th :ter the l>attl< in t ', made Ihe true m iple, i morally l>v the admixture "i .1 ! of a new and n mainly . teamed, furnished the buil tedrals, the < hief mum. . the 1 1 n . the aim nmunical ilture in every form m II. (I tidier, and a rap • rant in his rule, -el with Anselm, the excellent archbish ilready * 1 rman hisl and other matters. Anselm, for hi . left the in 1 id not return until the n of the " Red Kin Henry I. (n 1 1 ;_; ). Phis able, 6rm, 1 ruler ptomptly took 1 on the sudden d is brother in thi . without .my supposed right of h brother I duke Normandy, whom we have seen in the First primogeniture prin :. and ind by \u> English subj irter, in whi( h the " Law of Edward and the abuses and exaction Kuh. nglish bj n • i royal line Edith, Mai. olm I to M rt to obtain the crown in not ended in [n 1106 H ping him in nti 11 l tie in w id. A quarrel with • • >i< h with t!. in 1 1 Ml. 268 A History of the World The reign of Stephen (1135-1154) was that of a usurper who, through the help of some of the greater barons and the citizens of London, set aside the rights of Henry's daughter Matilda (Maud) and her young son Henry, by her marriage with Geoffrey Plan- tagenet of Anjou. Her claim had been again and again recognised, on oath, by the barons of England and Normandy, including Stephen himself, who was Henry I.'s nephew. The new king was a brave, unprincipled, generous fellow, of delightful manners, never cruel to beaten foes. The events of his reign consist chiefly of those of a dreadful civil war between the king's adherents and the supporters of Maud's claim. In 1138 an invasion from Scotland was defeated at the " Battle of the Standard " near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The king and Matilda were taken prisoners in the course of a struggle which desolated the country, but he was exchanged, and she escaped. A renewal of warfare by her son Henry was brought to an end by the Treaty of Wallingford (1153), which left the crown to Stephen for his life, with remainder to Henry. Stephen's death in the following year brought to the throne of England a really strong man in Henry II. (1154-1189), first of the Plantagenet kings. He was at once the ablest and most powerful monarch of his time, endowed with a body of wonderful activity and strength ; with boundless energy, resolute will, political acumen, prompt and fluent speech. He was, at all points, such a man of business as is rarely seen, and one capable of an excellent choice and use of men to carry out his policy. The extent of territory under his control was remarkable — including the whole of England ; Normandy and Maine, by inheritance from his mother ; Anjou and Touraine, from his father ; and all the rest of central and western, and much of southern France, through his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, divorced consort of Louis VII. of France. Ruling thus from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees, he was as much a French as an English sovereign, and the greater part of his time was passed beyond the Channel. The first claim of Henry II. to notice lies in his foundation of the judicial system of England. In the set of decrees or ordinances called the Assize of Clarendon, from the place in Wiltshire where they were issued in 1166, he established in each shire the body called "grand jury," and formed the nucleus of the "petty" or ordinary jury in appointing 12 men to discover the truth in judicial cases by inquiry into particulars. Ten years later, The British Isles Northampl tern riminal causes in • the kingdom at ttii I lishii ;l tumults under nm the banditti who roamed the country ; he expelled the foreign ii, s who had been l>r<>. .il war; and h<- pulled h( " :. I his man • rule, thl the mil ■.. ound RJ »r of rchbishoprii . A chiel I the • Papal injust the learned ami patriotic bishop of Lincoln, an intimate frien . .1 Frani Montfort, earl of l iman !>y birth, but at: I glishman it . ■• three I friar, m mmon p :i. firmly unit t Papal [I i Adam Marsh that th< i ame known to the reform • the nst the I I >f the urn, onl) ne and i . ; re lai to I trfare in those territoi I • hout present wart ment held at i • the mt! . I i.- I ■ 274 A History of the World all future legislation, and in 1341 the Commons sat apart from the Barons or Lords, and henceforth there was a Parliament of two Houses. In 1354, also, under Edward III., the petitions of the Commons for changes in the law, with the assent of the Lords, ceased to be liable to alteration by the sovereign, and the present form of statutes or Acts of Parliament thus arose. Under Plantagenet kings, in days when there was no standing army to coerce the people, we see thoroughly established the following restraints on royal authority : that the king, without Parliament, could make no law, nor raise money legally by taxation ; and that the House of Commons could impeach, i.e. accuse as criminals before the Lords, as the highest judicial body in the realm, any evil counsellors (ministers) of the sovereign, and, on proof of the case, ensure their removal and punishment. It is here that we have the enormous difference, as regards popular control of the Crown, between England and all foreign nations of the later mediaeval period. Under feudal influences, in those other countries, the national assemblies, re- presenting the different classes of freemen — the nobles, the clergy, and the commons, or general body of citizens in the towns — which had arisen in western and central Europe, lost all power. The monarchs became absolute, partly through taking advantage of quarrels between the nobles and the commons, and, when they became the heads of standing armies of trained men, instead of a mere feudal militia, they were able to defy popular opinion. The firm maintenance in England, on the whole, of the constitutional right of withholding money, combined with the insular position which rendered a standing force less needful to prevent invasion, made political liberty abide here, when it had vanished from France and Germany and Spain, and in some measure from the northern Teutonic countries or Scandinavia. The power of Parliament in this country was signally shown in 1327 and 1399, when it was used to dethrone and replace sovereigns. Of Ireland and Scotland during this period there is little to record. In 1158 Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman that ever filled the Papal chair) issued a bull empower- ing Henry II. to conquer Ireland for the Papal See, in the interests of law, order, and civilisation. In n 66 some nobles of South Wales, Robert Fitz-Stephen and Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, went over with a force of knights, men-at-arms, and Welsh archers, and easily routed any natives that opposed them. Dublin was taken by surprise, Wexford and Waterford by Tht cs [| ih ruler, ime "kin I I aster," and in 1171 Henry II. went over and • nominal. . ina held ■ rritory near Dublin, Waterford, under thi the ] the Pale, land. B( yond these limits the tri rent on, .m«I the n thin the Pale passed t h « i r time in ii ! . and in quarrelling her. In I irroundings, the Bo-called 1 df-wild them- rule. Kin^ John, in a on with much skill in 1210, f< I by I 1 and the " m in of t I I. (1124-11 idal rule, and ,rl <>( Huntingdon in 1 \\ e h . ■ Of his 11 rper S ihen. 1 1 hurch, ai an 1 Meli William the I n in lus II. 1 :. in r II. ( 1 J 1 1 1 : . f Henry III. ol I I. Und< r A. tand< r III erful ■ ■ 1 1 276 A History of the World the frontier, and Norman castles were built in the centre and south. Under his successor Rufus, a great rising of the people won back much of the conquered territory, and it was not until the next reign that any firm hold was obtained, when Normans and English settled in Pembroke and Glamorgan. The popular Bards, by their songs appealing to patriotic spirit, made a great stir at this time, and the Welsh were strongly roused thereby. Under Henry II. there was again a national gathering in arms, and the king's forces were repeatedly beaten by those of the " Lords of Snowdon," as certain chieftains in the north were styled. King John waged war in 121 1 with success in South Wales, but all his work was undone when his energies were taxed in conflict with the English barons, and the Britons of the western region became united and free under a prince named Llewellyn, who ruled from 1194 to 1246. He had been a vassal to John, but the Papal excommunication of the king put an end to all allegiance, and the capture of Shrewsbury was followed by the expulsion of other royal garrisons in the south of the country. Another Llewellyn, ruling from 1246 to 1283, conquered Glamorgan, and under Henry III. had the control of the country as " Prince of Wales," a title yielded to him on condition of formal vassalship to the English king. In dealing with the Scandinavian kingdoms, we pass, for the sake of clearness, beyond the bounds of the period under review, and trace the history down to the close of the 14th century. In Denmark, under the feudal system, a powerful nobility arose, and the free people were reduced to the condition of serfs. Waldemar I. (1157-1182) conquered the Wends of Pomerania and Mecklenburg, and added Norway to his dominions. His son and successor, Cnut VI., went beyond his father, in throwing off allegiance to the emperor Frederick I. (Barbarossa), and his brother, Waldemar II. (1202-1241), surnamed "the Conqueror," had great success in the earlier part of his reign, subduing so much of north Germany and the Wendish territory as to make the Baltic a kind of Danish sea. These conquests were, however, rapidly lost through the king's treacherous capture by a German vassal-prince, when he was forced to give up all territory south of the Elbe and in the Slav or Wendish land to the east. Papal power interfered to annul this involuntary renunciation, but Waldemar was unable to regain the territory, and of all his conquests there remained only the island of Riigen, with a few places on the mainland of Germany and Prussia. Great strife followed his unwise division of the kingdom among his Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 277 sons, and the country fell into a condition of weakness and misery. Before the middle of the 14th century, one of the kings made concessions to the nobles and the clergy which crippled the royal power for centuries. Ecclesiastics and their feudal tenants could only be tried in Church-courts, and the bishops were, as regarded offences, only under Papal jurisdiction. The property and persons of the clergy were freed from taxation. The nobles were not bound to follow the king to war beyond the limits of the realm, and the declaration of war itself depended on the consent of nobles and clergy. Legislation was based on the consent of every class in the national Diet or parliament, and the rights of all freemen against unjust imprisonment were secured. Under Waldemar III. (1340- 1375), some recovery of lost territory was made, but then came war with Sweden, the powerful Hanseatic League, and other rivals, and in 1370 the League gained the concession of great commercial privileges. His grandson Olaf, already king of Norway in succession to his father Hakon or Haco, was a minor, and Denmark and Norway were well ruled under the regency of Margaret, his mother, who became queen of both countries, by election of the estates of the realms, on her young son's death in 1387. In the following year this able woman accepted the offer of the crown of Sweden, where the king had been deposed by his revolted subjects, and in 1397 the Union of Calmar brought the three countries into formal political connection. In Sweden, for 200 years, from the middle of the nth to the middle of the 13th century, there was almost constant war between the Svea, inhabitants of the lake-region, who clung to heathenism for a long period, and the Goths of the south. During this struggle the free peasants lost their rights, and a body of warlike nobles arose with exclusive privileges, having control of the Diet or national assembly, and making royal authority merely nominal. In the 1 2th century, under Erik IX., surnamed "the Saint," the Swedes were converted to Christianity, and the archbishopric of Upsala was founded in 1163. It was zeal for religion that induced this king to overrun and annex most of Finland, which was under the rule of the Swedish sovereigns until the 19th century. Stockholm was founded in 1255. The animosity between the Svea (Swedes) and the Goths began to subside under King Waldemar (1 250-1 275), and they settled down by degrees into an united people. Much trouble came from the turbulent nobles who, in alliance with the powerful ecclesiastics, oppressed the people and treated the king 19 278 A History of the World as naught. There was fairly strong and good government under Magnus I. (1279-1290) and Torkel Knutsson, regent (1290-1306) for a young king. Then came tyranny when the sovereign assumed power, until his death in 13 19, and the long reign of another Magnus who waged useless wars abroad and played the tyrant at home. On his deposition in 1363 the crown was given to his nephew Albert of Mecklenburg, who, unable to cope with the disorderly nobles, imported German troops and favourites, and unjustly taxed the nation for their support. We have seen the ending of this state of affairs with the Union of Calmar, in 1397. The almost ceaseless internal discord of the 13th and 14th centuries prevented all progress in civilisation. Tillage was neglected; literature, learning, and the arts of industry scarcely existed ; and even the higher classes, the nobles and ecclesiastics, were devoid of all mental culture at a time when, as we shall see, progress in this respect was taking place in the chief countries of Europe. The history of Norway during this period presents little of interest beyond what has been elsewhere noticed. The country prospered during a period of peace following the death of Harold Hardraada in battle against the English Harold in 1066. Early in the 12th century, the interests of the Church were promoted by king Sigurd (1103-1130), and towns began to have importance. Then came above a century of disastrous internal strife amongst three parties — the nobles, the higher Churchmen and their supporters, and the " nationalists," who had the best of the struggle in the end. Peace came at last during the long reign of the Haco who died at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, in 1263, on his return from his defeat at Largs in Ayrshire. Under his son Magnus (1 263-1 280) the laws were first put into a written form, and in 1266 the Hebrides were given up to Scotland. We have seen the union of the crown with that of Sweden early in the 14th century, and the Union of Calmar in 1397 in the days of the excellent queen Margaret of Denmark. In France, under Louis VI. (1108-1137), the sovereign found himself, on accession, hemmed in on all sides by feudal lords in all respects as powerful and influential as their suzerain. With their fortress-castles as strongholds, these robber-nobles plundered merchants and pilgrims on the highways, defiant of royal safe conducts, and brute force overrode the claims of order, jus-tice, and national union. In the inevitable struggle which ensued, the king had the aid of the associations of a municipal character which had France 279 arisen in towns for the sake of mutual protection against ecclesiastical and lay oppressors. This movement had developed itself, in the north of the country, at Cambrai, Beauvais, Noyon, Le Mans, Saint Quentin, Laon, Soissons, Amiens, and other places. The former serfs who had become hereditary owners of portions of land had, in like manner, organised communes or parishes. Both these elements of a new society placed their militia-forces at the service of the Crown, and, with the able Suger, abbot of St. Denis, as his minister, Louis VI. effected a decided increase of the royal power. His son Louis VII. (1 137-1180) was also aided in government by the prudent and conscientious Suger, a master in finance, who had sole charge of affairs during the king's absence on the Second Crusade. The country lost much in the transfer to Henry II. of England, through Louis' divorce of his wife Eleanor, of her great territories in the south and south-west, and it was in revenge for this that the French sovereign harassed his English rival by encouraging his sons in rebellion. The communal movement was fostered by the granting of many charters, and there was a marked increase of trade, industry, and population in the towns, with the cultivation of lands previously barren, and the clearing of much forest-growth. The chief " maker of France " as a powerful and united realm was a man of whom much has been seen in these pages — Philip II. or Philip Augustus (1180-1223), one of the ablest of all the French sovereigns, unfettered by scruples and by no means sympathetic in character, but a strong and sagacious statesman. It was he who made an end of the feudal system by the watchful energy which enabled him to outwit and master the barons. Much feudal territory in the north was won by conquest. Artois fell to the king by inheritance. The duke of Burgundy and the count of Chalons were forced to submit. The success of Philip against John, and the great growth of French territory thereby, have been above recorded. Towards the end of the long and successful reign, the victory of Bouvines (12 14) over Otto IV. of Germany, John of England, and the count of Flanders, crowned the successes of Philip. This very important event, without gaining fresh territory, was a signal warning to all the more ambitious and disorderly nobles. The French historian Guizot has described it as "the work of king and people; of barons, knights, burghers, and peasants of Ile-de-France, of Orleanais, of Picardy, of Normandy, of Champagne, and of Burgundy," and 2 8o A History of the World he justly declares that " this union of different classes and of different populations in a sentiment, a contest, and a triumph shared in common, was a decisive step in the organisation and unity of France. The victory of Bouvines marked the commence- ment of the time at which men might speak, and did speak, by one single name, of ' the French.' The nation in France and the kingship in France rose on that day out of and above the feudal system." The victorious king had a grand reception from the people of the districts through which he passed on his return to Paris, carrying in his train the wounded and fettered count of Flanders, the late powerful, now finally disabled, foe of his suzerain. The reign of Philip Augustus was also marked by the first sign of the revolt of free thought against the Papacy and the Church, and by the first armed crusade against " heretics," as contrasted with the movement against Saracenic or Turkish " infidels." The monstrous cruelty displayed by the champions of " orthodoxy " shows the intolerant spirit of mediaeval days. We must first note the difference in point of civilisation between the people to the north and those to the south of the Loire. In the north, the inhabitants, largely of Teutonic origin, were, apart from Normandy, of uncultivated character, with little commerce, literature, or luxury. In the southern region, the country called Languedoc {i.e. the pays de Langue d'Oc, because the people there spoke the Provencal dialect, the Romance or Romanised language in which oc was used instead of out for " yes " ), there was a poetical literature of high development in the lyric verse of the trouveres or troubadours, and a flourishing commerce was carried on, by merchants from the Eastern empire, at Toulouse and Narbonne. This region, singularly favoured by nature in scenery and soil, was in the 1 2th century the most flourishing and civilised part of western Europe. Wealthy cities, each a little republic, and stately castles, each with its own brilliant little court, were scattered among the vineyards and corn-fields. In this fruitful land, chivalry had assumed its softest, least warlike, and most entrancing form, associated with art and letters, courtesy and love. Tolerance of spirit had come through familiar intercourse with the best repre- sentatives of Islam, the Moors of Spain, and a welcome was given to new doctrines introduced by the Greek traders along with the drugs and silks of the East. The people became " heretical," or alien from the belief of the Catholic Church in various points, as the faith was laid down by Popes and Councils. The Papacy itray in tl m, when relate like Innocent III. was the I hurch. I able in. m, who reai hed his i salted position in to the I: Spiritual [) >W< r. \ , the •ns, he l>.i«l gained additional territory in central I li to interfere with foreign sovereigns, exercising . I their su of interdict and I rermany, John • Philip Learned, pure in life, he w Jinarian ol He and his instru- ■ •ist the b '1 holders, of false beliefs, numbers of the people in held m such abhorrence th than a pi a proverbial phra to the Papacj med formidable when the • transalpii de all re ,i positioi . in, whence the poison of their b< <:_;i)t \k- freely Iran I la , t by Dominic, leal with the " All d from tli> town of AH.i, north-east of . til, and a crisis came \s!i f To id VI., se» med to be favouring the ileman of his household, in i :? ■ s, murd I • then appealed to the 1 . hich in 1 201; laui linst north of the Loire, headed by n <:• M mil irt, father of our earl \s.irri>>r fell in one da) . m Kill 1 will ki I \ 1 1 of loulou in which tl. 282 A History of the World regular tribunal at Toulouse, with members selected from the Dominican Order, and, as is well known, this institution became, in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the most terrible instrument of Papal despotism. Under Louis IX. (St. Louis) (i 226-1270) wise government was exercised by the king's mother, the charming, good, and intellectual Blanche of Castile, as regent, during the king's minority and then his absence in the East, where we have seen him in the Sixth Crusade. Many reforms were made by the sovereign. Judicial duels (" wager of battle ") were suppressed, and the powers of feudal jurisdiction were limited by a right of appeal, in all cases, to the royal court. The authority of the Crown was augmented by the transformation of the communes into " royal cities," dependent upon the sovereign, but governed by mayors, councillors, and other officials chosen by the burghers. In Spain we find Alfonso VIII. of Castile assuming power in 1 1 70, and marrying Eleanor, daughter of Henry II. of England. His wife inherited much of her father's force of character, and greatly aided her husband, a man of amiable character, styled "the Good" by the monkish chroniclers, chiefly by reason of his loyalty to the cause of the Church, in behalf of which he issued a decree exempting all ecclesiastics from every kind of tax. He was, however, zealous also for the good of his subjects at large. In 1 195 he had to encounter a great host of the Almohades from Africa, whence they ruled the Spanish possessions of the Moors, and the Christians suffered one of their greatest defeats at Alarcos, near Eadajoz, losing thousands of men and vast spoils. The king, rash as a general but valiant as a soldier, was barely restrained from seeking death by plunging into the thick of the infidels when the rout began. The Mohammedans thus recovered much of the lost territory, and were again masters of Madrid, Salamanca, and other important towns. Alarm was excited in Europe, when the largest infidel army yet seen in Spain was brought over from Africa, composed of Egyptians, negroes, Nubians, Persians, and other contingents from Asia and Africa. Innocent 111. proclaimed a new Crusade, and the archbishop of Toledo, a man equally dis- tinguished in warfare and in learning, went about the Continent seeking help from Christian princes. A hearty response was made, and many French and English knights marched for the scene of the new holy war. Navarre and Aragon gave help, and the king of Castile, with his allies, came upon the Mohammedans in the Spain 283 Sierra Morena, the range dividing Castile from Andalusia, amidst some small upland valleys, surrounded by trees and rocks, called Las Navas de Tolosa. There, on July 16th, 12 12, a great and decisive battle was fought. Alfonso, with the choicest of the Castilian cavaliers, led the vanguard and the centre, with the archbishops of Toledo and Narbonne, and other warlike prelates. The infidels were led by a Mohammed, with a scimitar in one hand and the Koran in the other. The furious strife went on all day, the Christians being enormously outnumbered. The Templars in the front were destroyed to the last man. Alfonso and the archbishop of Toledo bore themselves like heroes, but the Churchman was the better general, from his cooler head, and when the king, in despair, wished to rush into the thick of the foe, the prelate restored the fight, and made dispositions which led to complete victory. The enemy, embarrassed by their own numbers, lost many tens of thousands of men, and the power of the Mohammedans in Spain never recovered from the blow. The Christians took one city after another, and in 1235 the Andalusian Moors, weary of their African masters, drove the Almohades entirely out of Spain. Alfonso VIII. died in 1214, leaving the country in Christian hands from the Bay of Biscay to the Sierra Morena, and from Barcelona to Lisbon. In 1230 Fernando, son of Berengaria, sister of Alfonso VIII., and of the king of Leon, united under his rule the two states of Castile and Leon, destined henceforth to be no more separated, and to play the chief part in the complete and final deliverance of the country from the Moors. Between 1238 and 1260 Fernando III. and his successor, in alliance with the king of Aragon, a state which had been steadily growing in power, conquered the splendid and renowned Cordova, with Valencia, Murcia, and Seville, and Mohammedan rule was confined to Granada, cr the country about the Sierra Nevada and the sea-coast from Gibraltar to Almeria. Even there the Moorish king, though he had many thousands of warriors at his command, was tributary to Castile, and there was little warfare for a long period between the rivals. At the close of the 13th century, Granada had taken the place of Cordova as the centre of Moorish civilisation in the sciences and arts, and the famous Alhambra, already mentioned, arose in its glory. In the Byzantine Empire, we left Alexius Comnenus on his accession to the throne in 10S1. He found himself confronted in the East by the Seljuk Turks, and in the West by the Normans. They had already deprived the Eastern Empire of Calabria and 284 A History of the World Apulia in Italy, and were now, under the famous Robert Guiscard, about to assail the possessions east of the Adriatic. In June, 1081, Guiscard and his men laid siege to Durazzo, the fortress guarding the coast of Epirus. Alexius hurried to its relief with an army comprising the imperial guard of Varangians, the Russian, English, and Danish mercenaries who had well served previous emperors. The rest were auxiliaries of Servian and other races, and regular troops from Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, the sole remnant of the once extensive Greek Empire. Guiscard and his Normans inflicted a severe defeat on their enemy, annihilating the Varangians, routing all the rest, and nearly capturing Alexius himself. Other defeats followed, but one victory for the emperor, and the death of Guiscard in 1085, put an end to the Norman trouble. Next came the Crusaders on their way to Palestine, and, as we have seen, their efforts made the Seljuks harmless for a century to come. At this time Constantinople began to decline as a place of trade, when the Venetians and the Genoese occupied the seaports of Syria, and conducted their business at Tyre or Acre rather than on the Bosphorus, and this change swept away much of the imperial revenue. John II. (1118-1143), son of Alexius, was a prudent and economical ruler, and a good commander in war, and he won back much of the coast of Asia Minor from the Turks. Manuel, his son and successor (1143-1180), was a great and successful fighter, adored by his troops for his fierce courage and untiring energy as a cavalry-officer. Servia was overrun ; the king of Hungary was forced to submit, and the Normans of Sicily were repulsed when they invaded Greece. The powerful Venice was defeated at sea, but her privateers almost ruined the remaining commerce of Constantinople, and the fearful cost of the constant warfare made the decay of the empire still more rapid. All was neglected except the army. The civil service was disordered ; roads and bridges, docks and harbours, were left untended ; and on the death of Manuel the house of Comnenus practically came to an end as rulers. Under Isaac and Alexius Angelus (1185-1204), both incapable of stemming the tide, complete military and financial disorder appeared. The mercenaries were in a chronic state of mutiny from lack of pay. Bulgaria and Cyprus were lost, and the crowning disaster came when the men of the Fourth Crusade made their appearance at Constantinople. The Danes and English of the Varangian Guard repulsed the attack of the French on the land -works., The Byzantine Empire 285 but the sea-wall was stormed by the Venetians from their galleys, urged on by their blind Doge, Henry Dandolo, and the city suffered much from fire kindled by the Crusaders who had thus turned aside from the professed object of their expedition. The conquerors then wrung a heavy subsidy out of the emperor, who melted down the golden lamps and silver candelabra of the church of St. Sophia, and removed the jewelled images and reliquaries of every church in the city. In January, 1204, this sacrilege caused a revolt of the citizens and troops. The Crusaders within the walls were slain or driven out, and an officer named Alexius Ducas became ruler of an empire without a serviceable army, destitute of a fleet, and devoid of a coin in the treasury. He was a man of energy and resource, and raised some money by confiscating the property of leading citizens. The nobles and people were forced to man the walls, and the payment of some arrears to the troops enabled him to take the field with a body of cavalry. The sea-wall was strength- ened, and provided with military engines, the rude artillery of the age, and then the Crusaders, in April, 1204, made their second assault on the imperial city. The attack on the sea-wall was defeated with loss, but Dandolo and the Venetians, a few days later, effected a lodgment at one point. Much of the emperor's army then dispersed, and the mutiny of the Varangians rendered him helpless. The Crusaders were thus in possession of the place without more fighting, and, with the slaughter of some thousands of unarmed citizens, Constantinople was deliberately pillaged. All outrages due to lust and avarice were perpetrated, and the soldiers of the Cross behaved like mere fiends, defiling the sanctuaries, while the clergy who accompanied the army devoted themselves to seizing all the holy bones and relics in the church-treasuries. This atrocious villainy caused the destruction of many works of ancient literature, and of enormous numbers of the monuments of ancient Greek art in the palaces and squares. These priceless works in bronze and brass were melted down to make coins, and the whole horrible scene of Vandalism amply justified the assertion of a Greek writer and eye-witness that " the Franks (French) behaved far worse than Saracens." Such was the inglorious inauguration of the "Latin Empire" at Constantinople, by which Count Baldwin of Flanders became Eastern emperor, with a capital half-destroyed by conflagration, and all of it clean-swept from cellar to attic by pillage. The new ruler received Thrace, and some provinces in Asia which were still in Turkish possession. The Venetians had Crete, the 286 A History of the World Ionian Islands, the ports on the west coast of Greece, most of the ^Egean Islands, and the land about the entrance of the Dardanelles. Thus was gratified their commercial ambition, in the holding of the good harbours and the strong posts on the' seaboard. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, held, on feudal tenure under Baldwin, Macedonia Thessaly, and the inland parts of Epirus. A Venetian prelate became " Patriarch " of Constantinople, and the union of the Eastern and Western Churches was thus, for a time, effected. The " Latin Empire " had a miserable and ignominious existence of nearly 60 years. It was like a sickly child, doomed to death from innate feebleness, and its lease of life depended from the first upon the unrivalled strength of the fortifications of the capital. In the hands of the French conquerors, Constantinople could not be assailed with effect on the land side, and the Venetian fleet was its defence by sea. The new ruler quickly found that he could not possess himself of his nominal territory outside the city. The Bulgarian hordes, in overwhelming numbers, defeated his troops near Adrianople, and Baldwin's capture was followed by his execution in 1205, after one year of imperial office. His brother Henry, who succeeded, was always on his defence to the north and south, and on his death in 1216 the empire practically consisted of a narrow strip of territory on the north of the Propontis (Sea of Marmara), stretching from Gallipoli to Constantinople. Boniface of Montferrat, in 1207, lost his life in battle with the Bulgarians, and a few years later the whole of that territory came into the hands of a Greek despot of Epirus. Other little Latin states had been founded by Crusaders in different parts of Greece, and we find a " Duke of Athens " ruling Attica and Bceotia. In Asia Minor the people would have nothing to do with French rulers or the priests of the Western Church, and a brave Greek officer, Theodore Lascaris, set up a state of his own as "emperor " at Nicaea, in Bithynia, and valiantly defeated the Seljuk Turks coming down from the central plateau, slaying their Sultan with his own hand in single combat. Another Greek state in Epirus was a rival to that of Nicaea, and it soon became clear that the Latin Empire would be the victim of one or the other. John III., of Nicaea, son-in-law and successor to the brave Lascaris, was a good soldier, and an able, energetic, and economical ruler. In 1230 he drove the French out of southern Thrace, and five years later Constantinople was only saved by the arrival of a Venetian fleet. The western Greek state of Thessalonica was annexed in 1245, but a few years later, in the time of a minor, Germany and Italy 287 an able general, Michael Paleologus, seized 'the throne, and soon had to meet a host of foes. The usurper, in 1260. won a great battle against the united forces of the French and Epirots, and then he turned against Constantinople, whose ruler, another Baldwin, was in the last stage of financial distress. In the absence of the Venetian fleet, the city was taken by surprise, and the miserable farce of the " Latin Empire " came to an end. The renewed Greek or Byzantine Empire, under Michael Paleo- logus, at first included a portion ot Asia Minor in the west and south. Northern Thrace and Macedonia were held by the Bulgarians ; Epirus was independent ; Greece, except a part of Peloponnesus, was gone, and the /Egean Islands, as we have seen, belonged to Venice. The chance of restoration to the olden power had departed for ever. Society was decayed ; fiscal and administrative efficiency was hopeless, from the lack of suitable instruments. The loss of trade at Constantinople placed the empire, from lack of means, beyond recovery. The merchants of the West had been taught by the Crusades to go for their goods straight to the places of production in Syria and Egypt, instead of seeking them in the storehouses of Constantinople, and the Latin conquest of the city had completed the commercial change by introducing the Venetians. The Italian republics were all arrayed, as rivals in commerce, against the Byzantine Empire, and there was no naval force to cope with theirs. The new emperor reigned for 21 years (1261-1282) without being able in any way to strengthen his position, ever at war with Venice or Genoa, and irritating each in turn, as temporary allies, by his treacherous conduct. The Turks in Asia Minor made some conquests, and the imperial dominion there became almost a nullity. Chapter III. — Germany and Italy. We turn from this spectacle of decline to Germany and Italy, where we shall see the conflict of Pope and Emperor, the representatives of those who had united in founding the " Holy Roman Empire." In 1 1 38 the Hohenstaufen (or Swabian) line of emperors came to power in the person of Conrad III. (11 38-1 152). The name is derived from Hohenstaufen, a castle which then stood on the summit of a steep and lofty conical hill in what is now the kingdom of Wiirtemberg. There were already a Papal party and an emperor's party in Germany, and about this time arose the names of "Waiblings" and "Welfs " (corrupted in Italian to " Ghibellines " 288 A History of the World and " Guelfs ") as those respectively assumed by supporters of the emperors and maintainers of Papal power. The nephew and successor of Conrad, elected by the German princes, was Frederick I. (1152-1190), surnamed in Italian "Barbarossa" or "Red Beard," one of the noblest personages of the middle ages. We may first note the changes, in feeling and in constitutional matters, which had come in German affairs. Papal power had been growing, and the encroachments of the Roman See aroused a feeling of repulsion north of the Alps. A real Teutonic patriot was bound to resist Italian priestcraft. All fiefs had become hereditary, and could only be granted afresh, in case of a vacancy, not by the feudal sovereign, but by the States or Diet of nobles. The commonwealth of princes and barons was beginning to be regarded as the main part of the empire. The principle of election to the imperial office by the feudal nobles had become well established. It was under these circumstances that Frederick Barbarossa assumed his position. He is still regarded as one of the national heroes, as the type of Teutonic character, enshrined in legend and song, statue and picture, throughout German territory. He stands forth as the haughty maintainer of imperial rights, especially as regarded northern Italy, where the authority of the rulers, who remained, for the most part, north of the Alps, had long been suffering from their neglect. In Germany Frederick's policy in dealing with his vassals was one of conciliation and judicious rearrangement of the balance of power. The duke of Saxony received also the duchy of Bavaria, and thus became by far the most powerful of German princes. At the same time, Austria was taken from Bavaria, and became a new and separate duchy, hereditary in the female as well as in the male line. Some of the barons were held in check by the conferring of new rights upon the municipal cities, their chief opponents. The duchy of Bohemia became a kingdom. The bishop of Cologne received Westphalia, and Guelf princes began to rule in Brunswick. The emperor, very handsome in face and dignified in form, with free gracious manners, a firm will, and high administrative ability, war- like in spirit, ambitious not merely for personal ends, was a sort of imperialist Hildebrand, regarding his office as being fully equal in sanctity to that of the Pope. At the beginning of the reign this was the Englishman Adrian IV. (1154-1159), who crowned Frederick "King of Italy "and "Roman Emperor." He was very strong in Germany, supported by all parties, including the prelates, and on one occasion, when a Papal legate declared in the Diet that Germany and Italy 289 the Empire was dependent on the Papacy, the man's life was saved only by the emperor's personal intervention. Frederick's great conflict with the Papacy, a strife of 20 years' duration, was carried on against Alexander III. (1159-1181), of Italian race, and it was only by the aid of the Lombard cities that the Pope prevailed. In 1158 the emperor, resolved on asserting his rights in Italy, marched thither with an army, and at first Milan and the other towns submitted to the transference of their inner jurisdiction to an imperial officer. The Pope encouraged them to form a league of mutual support, with " The Church " as their watch- word, and thus arose the Italian party of Guelfs. The cities were, of course, mainly contending for municipal self-rule, but Frederick, though it is ridiculous to represent him as a foreign tyrant and oppressor, could scarcely yield to such an attitude. He turned fiercely on the rebels in 1 162, and Milan vanished by utter destruction with fire. Five years later, the northern cities were again in arms — Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Ferrara, Mantua, Vicenza, Padua, Verona, Treviso, and others. In this cause Guelfs and Ghibelins were for the time united. Milan was rebuilt, and Alessandria was founded, with a name derived from that of their ally, the Pope. Frederick again crossed the Alps, and drove Alexander from Rome ; but he was soon forced to retire through a plague which almost destroyed his force. He was then occupied for some years with German affairs, and it was not until 11 74 that he crossed Mont Cenis into Lombardy. Failing in a siege of Alessandria, the emperor advanced to Legnano, about 15 miles from Milan, and there he met with utter defeat from the Milanese, gathered around their carroccio, a waggon with a flagstaff planted on it, which the Lombards used as a rallying-point in battle. This famous conflict, from which the emperor with difficulty escaped, had notable effects. The freedom of the cities was secured by the Peace of Constance, in which the emperor renounced everything except the mere recog- nition of his suzerainty. Nominally a part of the empire, and henceforth virtually independent, the cities of Lombardy began a career of freedom, often stained by mutual jealousy and con- flict, but productive of great things in the development of artistic culture. A great feature of Frederick's reign in Germany was his hearty recognition of the importance of the towns which had grown up in the south and west, mainly on the rivers which favoured trade. These natural allies of the Crown against the nobles 290 A History of the World and princes, clerical and lay, fostered also by the successors of Barbarossa, were the famous " Free Cities " which became, for a long period, the centres of Teutonic freedom and intellectual power, havens of safety amid the storms of civil war, loyal supporters of the throne with money and men, in return for the favours bestowed upon them in the way of municipal institutions, inde- pendent jurisdiction, and many privileges. Such were Cologne and Treves (Trier), Mentz (Mayence) and Worms, Speyer and Niirnberg, Ulm, Regensburg (Ratisbon), and Augsburg. The old order of German freemen in the towns was raised by Frederick's allowing them to be admitted to knighthood, and benefited by the checking of the unruly barons, and by improvements in the administration of justice. We have already seen the death of this great ruler in the Third Crusade. The limits of the empire at this period included the following territories, consisting of the German lands in which effective sovereignty was exercised, and of non-German districts where the emperor was acknowledged as sole monarch, but little regarded in a practical way. Germany proper, besides other territories, comprised Lorraine, Alsace, and a part of Flanders. Outside this were the northern half of Italy and the kingdom of Burgundy or Aries — this latter being made up of Provence, Dauphine, the " Free County " of Burgundy, or Franche Comte, and the western part of Switzerland. Bohemia and the Slavic principalities in Mecklenburg and Pomerania were outlying dependencies not yet forming part of the empire, and the region from the Oder to the Vistula was inhabited by yet heathen Lithuanians or Prussians, whose subjection and conversion came about afterwards, as we have seen, through the military order of Teutonic knights. Frederick's successor, his son Henry VT. (1190-1197), became ruler of Sicily by right of his wife, daughter of King Roger, and thus disappeared the Norman realm which had always supported the Pope against the Emperor. Henry, in his Sicilian dominions, was a cruel tyrant, and his death, occurring under the Papacy of Innocent III., allowed that energetic ruler to extend his influence in Italy. We pass over civil war in Germany between rival claimants for the empire, each elected by some of the princes, and the rule of Otto IV., one of the defeated allies at Bouvines, in order to arrive at the most remarkable of all the emperors, Frederick II., who ruled from 12 12 till 1250. This son of Henry, trained in Sicily, his native country, by his Italian mother, had little of Germany and Italy 291 the Teutonic character. His natural gifts, and his acquired accomplishments in literature, languages, science, and art, earned for him the title, from an English chronicler, of " Wonder of the World." Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Hebrew, Arabic, German- all spoken in his wide dominions — were to him like mother-tongues. He had the energy and knightly courage of his grandsire Barbarossa. It was on the intellectual side of his highly subtle, philosophical, and sympathetic character that he was least understood by the men of his own day, of whom he was many generations in advance. His love of beauty and luxury made the keen politician, warrior, and lawgiver appear to some a mere sensualist. In his Sicilian home he learned much from Mohammedan instructors, and he showed a favour to the adherents of Islam which caused him to be regarded by bigots as a mere pretender to orthodoxy when he went on the Fifth Crusade, and, in later life was a persecutor of heretics. His polished manners and witty discourse were those of the southern clime of his birth and education. He was accused of blasphemy and unbelief, but these charges, in the " Age of Faith," might rest on the slightest foundations. The many-sided man was and is a riddle of seeming inconsistency. What is certain about his career is that he, among the emperors, was fated to the long and desperate struggle with the Papacy which left Rome triumphant over the ablest and most accomplished of the long line of German Ccesars, who exhausted in vain all the resources of military and political skill in the attempt to vindicate the rights of the civil power against the Church ; that the result of the conflict determined the fortunes of the German kingdom, and of the little republics of northern Italy ; and that the vengeful hatred of the priesthood, pursuing his house to the third generation, effected the ruin of the line of Hohenstaufen. In 1220 Frederick went to Italy to be crowned as emperor, and he was absent from his German dominions for 15 years. It was at this time, while he was engaged in settling Italian affairs, that he founded the university of Naples, and was the patron, at his court, of poets, artists, and men of learning. He caused his chancellor to draw up a code of laws for the common benefit of all classes of his Italian and German subjects, but his earnest efforts for an impossible unity in his dominions were hampered by the opposition of the Papacy and the Lombard cities. The real ground of Papal jealousy and dislike was the emperor's possession of Sicily, which placed the occupants of the Holy See, very eager for increase of temporal sway, 292 A History of the World between the two fires of imperial power to north and south of central Italy. Frederick had, at the beginning of his reign, vowed to go on a Crusade, and when urgent affairs delayed the execution of this project from time to time, he was excommunicated. When he did start for the East in 1228, every effort was used by the Papacy to cause him to fail ; and when, without the use of armed force, he effected much for the cause of the pilgrims, he was charged with dis- honouring the Church by unworthy dealings with the infidel. In 1234, the emperor was troubled by the revolt of his son Henry, who had been crowned at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) as " King of Rome," the title of the German king-elect, but his efforts failed against the alliance, in the father's favour, of the princes of the empire and the imperial cities. The unrepentant villain, after submission, tried to poison his father, and ended his days in an Apulian prison. In 1237, Frederick was at open war with the cities of the Lombard League, and gained a great victory over the Milanese army at Corte Nuova in Lombard} 7 , capturing the famous carroccio, which he sent to Rome as agalling proof to the Pope of the imperial victory over his allies. From 1239 to 1250 the emperor, as an excommunicated and, by the Pope, in 1245, dethroned man, was at war with Gregory IX. and his successor Innocent IV. Rival rulers to himself were elected in Germany, but Frederick paid no heed and fought on in Italy. In 1247 his army was routed by the troops of Padua, and his brave natural son Enzio, fighting for his father, was taken by the men of Bologna, in 1249, and consigned to a life-long captivity. The following year brought the death of the emperor, worn-out by toil and disaster. His son Conrad, succeeding to the kingdom of Sicily, had to fight for his realm, and died in 1254. His half-brother Manfred, regent tor Conrad's infant son Conradin, and then king of Sicily, died fighting in 1266 against Charles, count of Anjou, brought into the field by Pope Clement IV., a Frenchman. The young Conradin, set up as king of Sicily by some Ghibelline nobles, was taken in battle by Charles in 1268 and beheaded, and with him ended the line of Hohenstaufen. From 1256 to 1273 there was an interregnum, and a time of lawless confusion in Germany, ended at last by the election to the empire of Rudolf of Hapsburg, a castle in the Aargau. The strength of the empire perished with Frederick II. The kingship in Germany had been sacrificed to the vain dream of universal dominion, and to the hopeless effort at combining power in Italy with real control of the feudal nobles north of the Alps. Germany and Italy 293 France was rising in political power as Germany declined, and the centralisation of authority there and in England was in striking contrast to the deplorable spectacle presented by the lack of unity and order in Germany. The kings of France and of England had been able to resist Papal encroachments ; the emperors of Germany had conspicuously failed. The most favourable view of Germany under the Hohenstaufen emperors is presented in the freeing of numerous serfs. Some were emancipated in reward for doing good service in the Crusades ; others obtained freedom from nobles who were setting out for the Holy Land ; many more, fleeing from ill-treatment, were welcomed and protected in the free cities, and received in due time municipal rights. This age was also remarkable in Germany for the beginnings of Gothic or pointed architecture, and for the poems of the Minnesanger or lyrists of love, and the great epic poem called the Nibelungenlied, now held to rank next to the Homeric poems in its own style of verse. The history of Italy in mediaeval times, except as regards the Papacy and Venice, which have a unity and superiority of their own, is of the most perplexing and tedious character through the incessant changes which took place in the internal condition and external relations of numerous petty states. We shall here deal with these down to the end of the middle ages in a general sketch, reserving Venice, the Papacy, and Naples and Sicily, as to the two later centuries of that period. It has been well said that " the key- notes of Italian mediceval history are individualism and self- assertion, and the breath of the people's being was a long-lasting, ever-reviving struggle between commune and commune, class and class, family and family." The communes or municipalities were the origin of these famous republics, all of them, large and small, animated by narrow and intense civic patriotism, and by the impulse of expansion at the cost of their neighbours. Skill and industry in handicrafts and trade were the foundations of prosperity in a country which was a great centre of agricultural produce and most favourably placed for commercial intercourse. Except in Lombardy, these cities never made any confederation for a common object of defence, and it is to this persistent individuality of character that their precocious development of a brilliant civilisa- tion is due. During the long period of German influence and interference in Italy, the conflicts between different states were complicated, in the nth and three following centuries, by the strife of the famous parties called Guelfs or Guelphs, and Ghibelins 294 A History of the World or Ghibellines. These words represented the Italian form, Guelfi and Ghibellini, as the theatre of contest was chiefly in Italy, of the original German "Welf" and " Waiblingen," the respective names of the historical family of which the House of Brunswick is a branch, and of a town in Wiirtemberg possessed by the imperial House of Hohenstaufen. The words became, in Germany, the war. cries of rival factions, "Welf" that of supporters of the Papal party and opponents of the emperor, " Waiblingen " that of the maintainers of the imperial cause against the Pope. When the struggle was transferred to Italy, the Guelfs were thus on the Papal side, and the Ghibellines were the partisans of the imperial cause. We must notice also that, when Frederick Barbarossa of Germany attacked the free cities, the Guelfs became the Papal party as well as the popular faction, because the Popes, for their own interests, sup- ported them against the emperor, while the Ghibellines, as imperial partisans, represented the Italian feudal party. The Italian cities were thus divided by the feuds of Guelfs and Ghibellines, both parties having the same object, that of predominance in the communes or municipalities. Neither wished to be ruled by Emperor* or Pope, but each looked for help to one or other of those great rivals, in order to attain its own ends. No principle was really involved in these feuds, and in some cities the imperial party was predominant simply from hatred of a petty neighbouring state which espoused the cause of the Church. In northern Italy the cities were divided between the two parties — Florence, Milan, Bologna, Piacenza, Modena, and others being generally more Guelphic, while Pisa, Lucca, and others were Ghibelline. Im- portant cities, however, as well as great Italian families, swayed from side to side according to successive political exigencies and private interests. When the influence of the German emperors in Italy became lessened, and at last almost extinct, the ancient names involved no longer any show of principle, but simply represented traditional or hereditary prejudice. With these circumstances attaching to the contests of Guelfs and Ghibellines, it is obvious that they can have no more interest or importance for modern readers than, as Milton wrote of the struggles between the early English kingdoms, "the strife of kites and crows." Nothing, in truth, can be more wearisome, as already stated, than Italian mediaeval history in its details, and we shall notice only the names of a few great families and leaders, with some special circumstances of the strife between parties and cities, except as regards the Italy 295 important and most interesting commercial and artistic development of the Tuscan Republics and of Venice. There were also in Italy many strong independent nobles in their castles. Some weaker nobles were admitted to various little states as citizens, and then they built fortresses in the cities, enabling them to defy the civil power, and the public peace was con- stantly disturbed by their quarrels. In order to check these dis- orders, a magistrate called Podeshl (from the Latin potestas, meaning " official power ") was appointed in many places, being a man of good birth from some other city, and thus unbiassed in local feuds. Chosen by the chief council, he held office for a year, and had to give account of his administration to certain magistrates at the close of his term. Another feature of this period in Italy was the rise and sway of tyrants in some of the cities. We have an example in Eccelino, who by help of the emperor Frederick II., whom he aided in turn, became master of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, and ruled in the north-east as a rival of the Lombard League. He used great oppression, forcing the citizens to serve in his army, and arousing general hatred by his cruelty. Milan was ruled by the powerful Ghibelline Matteo Visconti, in part of the 14th century, and he also became master of Pavia, Alessandria, and other cities. In Verona the family of Scala held sway, and Ferrara and Modena were subject to nobles of the House of Este. In Rome the great Colonna family, named from a village among the Alban Hills, and possessed of numerous castles, vast estates, and thousands of dependents, had much influence from the nth to the 16th century. During the period called "the Babylonish Captivity," because the Popes, from 1305 to 1377, dwelt almost entirely at Avignon, in Provence, great disorder arose from the quarrels of the Colonna and Orsini families. It was during this time that, in 1347, the famous Niccola de Rienzi, a young man of low birth and good abilities, was chosen " Tribune " by the people, and reduced the nobles to order. His head was turned by success, and after one expulsion and return he was killed during a tumult in 1354- In the latter part of the 14th century the Visconti family of Milan, one of whom is noticed above, became very powerful, ruling more than 20 cities, and being masters at last of most of Lombardy. They had a large trained army, including the famous English " Free Company " of mercenaries under Sir John Hawkwood, one of the 296 A History of the World most skilful generals of the age, and in 1369 the head of the Viscontis made war on Florence. That state was at last successful through hiring Hawkwood and his men. At the end of the 14th century, another Visconti became "duke of Milan," with a great territory, and the family was thus established with hereditary rule, governing Pisa, Lucca, Perugia, and Siena, and cutting off Florence from the sea. Her trade and even her freedom were thus imperilled, but an outbreak of the Oriental plague cut off the duke in 1402, at the height of his power. The duchy of Milan was then divided among a number of petty tyrants, whose courts were usually scenes of the foulest vice, as the rulers made humanity, decency, and natural affection yield to the gratification of their own desires. The example spread among private citizens, and the moral condition of affairs was to the last degree disgraceful. In 1447 Francesco Sforza, one of the ablest of all Italian commanders in mediaeval times, a man who had risen from the position of a peasant to that of leader of the Neapolitan army, entered the service of the Milanese, and gained a victory for them in a war against Venice. In 1450 he compelled the people of Milan to accept him as duke. At Florence one family, that of the Medici, was dominant. The famous Cosimo (Cosmo) de' Medici was son of a man who had become very rich by commerce. He carried on the business inherited from his father, lived in great style, and became a Mae- cenas of mediaeval days in his liberal patronage of literary men. His popularity was very great, and after banishment for a year through the influence of jealous rivals, he returned in triumph, in 1434, hailed as " Father of his Country," and the Medici family was finally established in Florence. On the death of Cosmo in 1464, after a moderate and splendid use of almost absolute power, the city had been adorned by the cathedral church, with the beautiful dome, due to the skill of the architect Brunelleschi ; and Cosmo's enlightened use of wealth had enriched his library, called the " Medicean," with the manuscripts of classical authors discovered by Bracciolini and other scholars who made researches in the monastic collections of western Europe and the Greek Empire. He was succeeded in power by his son, and, after a brief interval, his grandsons Lorenzo and Giuliano inherited the family sway. There were many conspiracies against the tyrants of Italian cities, men encouraged by the success of Sforza in becoming duke of Milan. People who had been studying the classical writers adopted the short and sharp way of dealing with cruel despots. Galeazzo, Italy duke of Milan, n ith in \\~ r >- At the . a leading family who took part in it, w I \ . an 1 by some . i The I and I , then holding way in Florence, I ■ not G I'he were .it tins time, <>( the 1 5 tli century, striving to obtain more u in: rer, not merely for the Church, but for their own families, l>y making Italian pi and i /i plot aimed at the assassination of the i, who hid I ne of the m hemes of Po| at a : ten >>n Sunday, April 161 . 1:7- 'I he rded the dinner, and then it « ed that in in the cathedral by two prii ■■-. V the moment I the little bell - Itar and the "Host" was uplifted * I 10 the heart bj the 1 but the two pru to kill They tied, hut I'he people tinst nd the .i , who had t tken • in the . "" ial The whole transaction throw I light upon tin morals r.uik at tl . and in I firmed by the failure o( the Ml nifi ■ •■• ' !-\ a 1 the public funds, ii men of letters ■ •int. Ki iand I ■ ■ ■ 298 A History of the World life was replacing the activity of the period of self-rule in the various states. It was at this time that the Dominican friar Savonarola began, in 1489, to earn his martyrdom by denouncing in Florence the social vices and the worldliness of the Church. BOOK IV. FROM THE CRUSADE PERIOD TO THE DIS- COVERY OF AMERICA (a.d. 1 270-1492). Chapter I. — Northern Europe : British Isles ; Scandinavia; the Netherlands ; France. Edward I., eldest son of Henry III., came to the throne in 1272, when he was 33 years of age, and reigned until 1307. This ablest and best of all the Plantagenet kings, one of the greatest of English rulers, was noble alike in person and character. Courageous and skilful in war, the victor over the great Simon de Montfort at Evesham ; learned and wise in legislation ; truthful and just in all his dealings; energetic, watchful, sagacious in administration and policy ; he lacked little of perfection as a king over men, and well won the fear, love, and admiration of his subjects. His faults were those of many monarchs of feudal days — pride, imperiousness, and occasional cruelty wrought on those whose resistance provoked his wrath. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, was worthy of her husband, and no higher praise can be given to her of whom Edward wrote, on her death in 1290, at Hareby, in Lincolnshire, to his friend the abbot of Clugny, in seeking his prayers for her soul : " We loved her tenderly in her lifetime, and we do not cease to love her in death." Her memory was kept alive by the famous " Eleanor Crosses," one of which was afterwards erected at every nightly halting-place, as her body was conveyed in solemn procession from Lincolnshire to London. The finest of all was that at Waltham Cross, in Hertfordshire ; the erection of the last, at the village of Charing, near to the final destination at Westminster Abbey, gave its name to the thoroughfare now ever alive with the traffic of the world's greatest city. The two great objects of Edward's policy were the bringing of the whole island of Great Britain under the rule of the English 1 Brii l Isles , and the foundii a by . ion, as r under h:s weak ami unworthy son and In the second, he won eminent Dealing .1 Edward, in i-*;;, inarching into rellyn, pi of tha n Ins [ii. Rhyddlan were taken and held and a fleet from the Cinque 11 supplies of provi '.let of the eneim mountains was winter, forced a surrender. I the river I 1 Llewellyn kepi ind the Snowdon district. J ■ . .i revoll I in the north by the Use in the army of | from thi ntain ire. I.!' i i David, I I | the ii a nt held a' :it to introduce t:;' I . . the aid ol . the . him the title of ' I | the to the n .ah of 1 n :. his title rem. lined henceforth that borne by t. ; . ion of the Count: ■t fully • ited wil i nd, retur until the time ol 1 i nry VIII. I ■ tth "f tl. 300 A History of the Wot Id it with vassalage to the English crown. In 1296 war was caused by a Scottish alliance with France, then engaged in hostilities with England, and by a renunciation of allegiance to Edward. The struggle for Scottish independence had begun, and at first the English sovereign had great success. Berwick was stormed with dreadful slaughter. Dunbar, Edinburgh, and Stirling fell. Baliol was dethroned and went a prisoner to London, along with the famous coronation-stone from Scone and the Scottish regalia. Southern Scotland was being kept down by garrisons, and had been put in civil and military charge of English officials, as a conquered country, when the great patriot and hero, and able general, William Wallace, took the field in 1297. He .at once gained a brilliant victory over an English army at Stirling Bridge, but in 1298 Edward, in person, routed his forces at Falkirk. On the renewal of the war in 1303, Edward reduced the south again to submission, and, two years later, Wallace was betrayed, taken to London, and executed, with gross injustice, as a traitor, though he had never sworn allegiance to the English sovereign. The spirit of the feudal times is shown in the fact that such a king as Edward, in dealing with so gallant a foe, could have his head struck off, after hanging, and placed on a pole fixed over London Bridge, and then dispatch the four quarters of his body for public exhibition at Newcastle, Berwick, Perth, and Aberdeen. One of Wallace's partisans, Sir Simon Fraser, was also put to death in London, and his head was placed beside that of his great leader. These were the only victims. A scheme of rule was drawn up which left Scottish law in force for most affairs, and placed authority in the hands of Scottish nobles. In 1306 a yet greater man than Wallace in ability, though not, perhaps, so pure a patriot, took up arms for his country. This was Robert Bruce, of English lineage, brought up at the English court, and having a good claim to the crown of Scotland. In July, Bruce was defeated by Edward's commander at Methven, in Perthshire, and he spent the winter as a fugitive in the little isle of Rathlin, off the north coast of Ireland. Many of his leading friends in Scotland were executed. In the spring of 1307 Bruce was back in Scotland, and severely defeated the victor of Methven, the earl of Pembroke, at Loudon Hill. The great English king, now not so much old in years (he was 68) as worn out by long and heavy toils in council and on the field of battle, died at Burgh- on-Sands, near Carlisle, as he made his way to take vengeance on The Rriti ' 301 the new "rebel " [n warfare with sh and French marin his [V. I territory in I • • 1 . . I ] reign was 1 >( "rtant 1 toe si. ante dealt with the undu ion of lands l>y the Church. Another favoured trade by enabling merer] I rompt m t defaulting debtors. A third, the f Wincht the publl by appointing I the highways of lurking' Another law created "entailed and .red the ri>e ntinuance • landowning fam end from father to son or other heir, in the actual ifirmation of the 1 was due to the tain patrii >ns to the kii • . trliament A rbade the exaction of .1 revenu with ■ nt of Parliament It was thus that the " | wholly and formally vested in thai In this n of the I 1 :u:non P . and Exchequer, which until » had criminal 1 in which the III. f suil : ■ I I 1 1 OOO 302 A History of the World Scottish foot and but 500 cavalry, over more than thrice the number of Englishmen, half composed of heavy mailed horsemen, was due to skilful generalship. The Scottish spearmen were arrayed in solid circles capable of resisting the charges of horse. The right flank was covered by the rugged ground and by the broken banks of the stream called Bannockburn. The left wing was protected by pits and trenches, which limited the space for the movements of the English cavalry. The Scottish spearmen stood firm against all attempts to break them. The English archers were dispersed, as their fire began to gall the circles of Scots, by a happy charge of the few cavalry of Bruce on the left flank. As confusion arose among the foes, Bruce brought up his reserve and pressed hotly forward, and a panic soon arose which sent Edward in full flight from the field, leaving behind him in the dust above a score of barons, 200 knights, 700 " squires," and 30,000 of the common sort. A vast spoil was secured by the victors, with countless prisoners, including over 20 barons and 60 knights. The conquering Scots lost nearly 4,000 in all. There was further fighting on both sides of the Border, but in 1328 the Treaty of Northampton recognised Bruce as king, and renounced the claim to feudal "homage" from Scottish sovereigns. The reign of Edward II. was, in other respects, one of almost unbroken shame and misery. His Gascon favourite, Piers Gaveston, was hated by the barons, who, after his banishment and recall, took and hanged him, having then assumed the government of the country. The barons were equally hostile to the new royal favourites, the two Despensers, father and son, but Edward turned with a spasm of energy upon his nobles, and, defeating their leader, the earl of Lancaster, captured and executed him in 1322. Four years later his wife, Isabella of France, in league with some of the barons, landed with her lover Roger Mortimer, and a body of men, in 1326, on returning from a diplomatic mission to her native country. The Despensers were then taken and hanged. The king was deposed by Parliament, and imprisoned in Berkeley Castle. There, in September, 1327, by order of Isabella and Mortimer, he was murdered with cruelty so atrocious, that " the shrieks of an agonising king," in the words of the poet Gray, who justly styles the wicked wife " She-wolf of France " — shrieks heard with terror by the neighbouring peasants amid the gloom of night — seem yet to ring through the ages, arousing ceaseless wonder as to what evil-doing of the victim — a crowned and I Brit ! 303 >uld have led him terrible a in. w.is a l; men of the feudal rrior. Ambitious, enei :uist of his 1 • int at tl. m assum rer in 1330. Roger Mortimer was Beized at midnight, as he a iih I>al>< ght up to Tyburn, in 1 ind hang< ■!. The iri< life-long near King's Lynn, where her Bon paid her | left I to her 1 married to the excellent Philrj ult, a provii N therlands, had Idren, of wh 1 of the wan Black Prince," the r ; the thir.l son, 1 . in the female line ; the fourth son, John of ( nund, am ■ : I in tlie mal In 1333 son with I i . r in an: i land. It : r into the Tudoi ip! II l.'a n ign, i^ 'he war • m the ( Channel ; I I ■ held 304 A History of the World and as a depot for the wool exported hence to Flanders ; and the battle of Poitiers, with the capture of the French king, and his kindly treatment by the victorious Black Prince. The importance of Crecy and Poitiers in mediaeval history lay in the fact that, apart from skilful generalship in Edward and his son, those great triumphs were due to English archery — to long steel-tipped shafts shot strongly and with accurate aim from powerful bows carried by English yeomen and peasants. The foot-soldiers of the day, the lowest military class of feudal times, laid low in battle the armour- clad knights, and the mass of the people knew the power of their own right arms in self-defence. The strength of feudalism — the ascendency in war of barons, knights, and squires — was shaken to its base, and the power of the popular element had begun. We must also note the dreadful work done by the pestilence, an out- break of Oriental plague, which raged through most of Europe in 1348-49, and was known as "the Black Death." Accurate statistics are, of course, impossible, but there is good reason to believe that from one-third to one-half of the people perished. The effect in England was to raise the rate of wages paid by landowners, who now tilled their lands mostly by hired labour, and to cause some legislation to compel the peasants to work at fixed wages in their own localities. Much of the land ceased, from lack of labourers, to be tilled for corn, and became pasture for the raising of wool, which was a source of great profit by export for weaving in the looms of the Netherlands. The French war ended tor a time with the Peace of Bretigny in 1360, by which Edward renounced his claim to the French crown, and received, in full sovereignty, not merely on the old feudal tenure, the territory of Poitou, Gascony, and Guienne. Nine years later the war was renewed, and a great French leader and hero came into the field in Bertrand du Guesclin. This commander, after the return of the Black Prince to England, with broken health, in 137 1, carried on the contest with such skill that by 1375, all the French territory was lost, except the towns of Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest, Cherbourg, and Calais. In his last years, after the death of the queen, Edward fell under the control of a worthless woman, Alice Perrers, and her friends, and it was needful for Parliament to interfere. The legislation of the reign included statutes to prevent appointments by the Pope to Church livings in England, and the famous law forbidding suits to be carried on appeal from the king's courts to that of Rome. The British ! 305 Th< rity, y the 1 the men Lent and 1 »s< \ (i 1 ihou ! made their way into l nu, and Simon ol 1 interbury refuge in the l . and I. Then the people against him * • > his ; the imposition of a heavy poll-! stly ami useless warfare with France and . menl thi old 1 1 labour of the " \ ill" or ] I he killing of Wat Tyler by Lord M I by the di of the in le by the young king at the in I pardon I f leases n fi 'lly in . but the 1 t of I timately to the cause ol between • i lay Ian I • the abi . but he was una] irbulent 1 until m bands. I ■ I . : : 306 A History of the World excess of wealth and power. The lives of many of the clergy, both monks and parish-priests, were of evil example to the laity. Church dignitaries and the religious orders cared more for their own worldly interests than for their religious duties. The friars, once devoted to a life of poverty and of toil among the suffering poor, now lived in luxurious ease, either in splendid religious houses or as holders of church-livings with large fees and tithes. The satire of the courtly poet Chaucer, and of Langland, the popular versifier, was aimed at these evils. A class of reformers called " Lollards " had arisen, the name being one of reproach bestowed by opponents, and probably meaning either " sowers of tares " (heresy) or " utterers of vain babble." Among these men were found persons of every class — ■ peasants dreaming of social equality ; fanatics in a hurry for moral, religious, and political reform ; nobles who hated the arrogant prelates, or who coveted ecclesiastical w r ealth. The champion, if not the founder, of Lollardry, on its religious side, was that illustrious Englishman John Wyclif. His name is spelt in over 30 different ways, and well symbolises the man's marvellous versatility of char- acter. He was born in Yorkshire about 1325, and became a popular teacher at Oxford, with a great store of learning and, in particular, a rare knowledge of the Scriptures. He was for a short time Master of Balliol College, and in 1374 he was presented to the crown-living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where his pulpit and other relics are still shown. Scholar, diplomatist, a statesman of great ability in his use of all kinds of men as instruments for his work, and in his avoidance of playing into the hands of his enemies ; quick and restless in temper; of winning manners, witty and eloquent in speech, subtle in logic, full of energy and courage, firm of conviction, a hater of hypocrisy and wrong — Wyclif was also the " Father of English prose " in his admirable popular tracts, and in his translation of the Bible, which was greatly circulated in written copies. As the chief supporter of English independence against the claims of Rome, he denounced the annual export of large sums of money collected by Papal agents for the enrichment of Popes who were, at that time, Frenchmen and foes of his country. He declaimed against the system by which foreigners held English benefices, so that, in defiance of the law, parishes were left destitute of priests and the rights of patrons were flung aside. After assailing the manifest abuses of the Church, he declared at last that it would be better without a Pope or prelates. He aroused the fury of the " orthodox " by teaching that the Church I ■ I' \h Klcs 307 •i«l that 5 I IS any of the and pen be i"ll" it ion. 1 rried throughout the land by hi> 01 t preai hen <>t ■• poor | lif may be w< 1 1 "the Morning-Star of the man whoa made th< 1 i pen to la) m< n and w< >m< n • i.in 11 waa w< 11! to be moderate learning, till more, .is one wh< da trine ■ of the \>t< ad and •1st in the celebration of m leadly blow at the priestly power. The n mtrol over the consciences, minds, • mankind, u[M>n her claim to interpret Scripture and to work a una. !<_• in I \V\< til w.is for making Vainl) authi tantial punishment was concerned, this •■.. after I" I Rome to an d>r I. 1 at Lutterworth on th He was the first who of the 1. ; he the tir^t apostle, of n the meth "1^ of in 1 l . nned all w yi hfs 1 held at then 11 n of 1 a ter I I'm. ndel In < In 1 bun t, in 308 A History of the World who had in early life been a follower of Wyclif. The ashes were thrown into the little river Swift, flowing by Lutterworth, on its quiet way to join Shakespeare's Avon. And then, in the words of Thomas Fuller, " this brook conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean ; and thus the ashes of Wyclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." Henry IV. (1399-1413) was the first of the three Lancastrian kings. His title was purely parliamentary, the next heir, by hereditary right, being the earl of March, a lad descended from Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., while the new sovereign was son of John of Gaunt, *he fourth son. The young earl was kept in honourable custody at Windsor Castle. Henry was an able, vigilant, unscrupulous ruler, devoted to peace and the maintenance of the rights of the Church. In 1401 the abominable Statute of Heresy provided for the burning, by the civil power, of persons condemned for heresy by the ecclesiastical courts. William Sautre, a parish priest of Lynn, was the first sufferer, and John Badby, a layman, thus died in 14 10. Archbishop Arundel, the foe of Wyclif, living and dead, was a great persecutor of the Lollards, and Sir John Oldcastle (Lord Cobham) was burnt in 141 7, early in the next reign. We may here note that the Inquisition was never established in England, and that it was by the law of this reign that the Protestant martyrs suffered under Mary Tudor. A rebellion of the Percies of Northumberland, aided by Welshmen under Owen Glendower, was suppressed by their utter defeat at the battle of Shrewsbury (1403), where the king, engaged in person, was valorously helped by his young son Henry, Prince of Wales. Some other risings were easily dealt with. Henry V. (1413-1422) had a short and, in the military sense, a brilliant reign. He was a brave and skilful general, of noble person ; an able, energetic, eloquent man ; and in home-policy strong for the suppression of heresy. The war with France, then desolated by a civil conflict between rival parties, arose from the king's revival of the claim to the French throne made by Edward III. Two- thirds of the large English army perished by disease and in battle at the long siege of Harfleur, and in 1415 the retiring force was intercepted by the enemy at Agincourt, on the way to embarkation at Calais. The brilliant victory of the king over five times the number of Frenchmen was due, as at Crecy and Poitiers, to the English bowmen. Two French royal dukes," hundreds of nobles, The B 309 and thou ken pris I •-. 1 4 1 7, M • 1 . ■ . the l • married I th <>f Charles VI., hi if that i!. In the follow •:>in, eld and and slain in army. Henry then w< nt [riven beyond the ■ 1 by the 1 li^ saddle and helmet mb in \\ ry VI. (1 I of the d Icing, the Privy .. il, with the k.i r . _ .ind the able ;tn-l nl rivalry. the duke of Bedford, an< ancle, held 11 I <>f lly unfit for rule in unqui is known as the n « I of K [n being wholly un >] of : the Hi n in ■ her 111 ■ turn to l . Irish the II 310 A History of the World Queen's party, and the insurgents demanded that the government of the country should be committed to Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, descended from the third and fifth sons of Edward III. He was a man of great popularity, wealth, and power, partly through marriage-alliances which gave him the support of a noble- man of vast resources and influence, the earl of Warwick. The rising was easily suppressed, after some damage had been done in London. The duke of Somerset, a descendant ot John of Gaunt, was a leading Lancastrian, and his claim to the throne was favoured by Margaret until the birth, in 1453, of her son Prince Edward. In the following year the king became insane for a time, and the duke of York was " Protector," but Henry's recovery restored Somerset to power, and then the contest for the throne, marked throughout by cruelty and treachery, began. It was not, in the ordinary sense, a civil war, for the mass of the people took little part in it. The Yorkist and Lancastrian factions of nobles employed in battle their own retainers and foreign mercenaries, while the tillage of the soil, the trade of the towns, and the usual course of affairs continued with little interruption. In successive battles, and by executions after victory, most of the nobles were swept away, and room was thus made for a new order of things, in which a middle class of merchants and farmers gained social and political importance. In the first action of the war, at St. Albans, in 1455, the Yorkists were victorious, Somerset the Lancastrian being killed, and the king being captured. On his release, in 1456, there was a truce for some years, and then, in 1460, a Yorkist victory at Northampton made the Lancastrians powerless. In this battle the young earl of March (afterwards Edward IV.), the eldest son of York, showed his warlike prowess ; many Lancastrian nobles fell, and the king was again taken prisoner. Margaret, with her little son Edward, took refuge in Scotland, and was engaged there, and in the north of England, in raising fresh forces, while the duke of York was accepted by Parliament as successor to the crown. A turn of the tide soon came. The great defeat of Northampton had occurred in July, and by December of the same year the restless and re- sourceful queen, enraged at the setting aside of her son's succession, was in the field with a great force. At Wakefield the Lancastrians were completely victorious. York was killed in the action, and, in derision of his claims, his head, with a paper crown thereon, was set up over the gates of the city which gave him his title. His second son, the young earl of Rutland, was murdered after The British Isles j i i the bftttle, and the Yorkisl in the dust, The ekfc 'J, now duke <•( York, aOOUl [g \c.irs of a b ly .m athletic and ea I warrior, man for BUCh a time- in a party's foitum -. In i i irdshire, Ins skilful fortnight later, at the second battle did not prevent Edward from entering London, where he '.'. med by the citizens, and declared km^ by some of the II re practi ally ends the reign of Henr) VI . as we need take | int of his restoration, in an iml>< -.ion, for a few months of 1470. re pursuing the fortunes of the Yorkist in the mode of elections to the 1 1 The franc! ght of voting for members, was :' 14 \o, win. Ii restru I ■14 land worth 40 shil IO in the pre were thus disfranchised, and the free I smallest farmers were thus deprived of polii power tor over four 1 and a half. I>urr VI. the borough members body of the burg< stead I by all t n who paid the in the t only the artisans hut the middle ire< t political infill' the COmn ncils in the boroughs were Usually the only 1 H ' I ommons mer, or main body of the le, but ai ly of t 1 and the 1, undei 'l or two i: m of m- • under th of th I We ma) nd, that 1 • this tin ' 11 312 A History of the World from his habitual indolence. The royal authority was much increased at this time from the lack of control either in the almost ruined old baronage, or in any strong middle class, which was not yet developed. The " new monarchy," as it has been called, of this and early Tudor reigns, was a kind of despotism under which the sovereigns, enriched by the plunder of the nobles and the Church, did not regularly summon meetings of Parliament for legal taxation, but resorted to unlawful measures in the shape of " benevolences," really forced loans, from wealthy persons, and of imposts not voted in the Commons. The restraint upon monarchs at this time was, in fact, public opinion, and the dread of armed insurrection, against which they could bring no force of a "standing army." It was under Henry VIII. that Parliament became most helpless and servile, though even then the Commons more than once stoutly resisted, and with success, the royal orders as to taxation. Under Elizabeth the power of the Commons slowly revived, and the people became ready for the struggle of Stuart days. The new king was compelled, at the outset, to fight for his throne against the still unconquered Margaret. On Palm Sunday, March 29th, 1461, near Tovvton, a village south-west of York, the most sanguinary battle ever fought on British soil ended in the utter rout, almost the annihilation, of the Lancastrians. In this horrible struggle Edward was aided by the earl of Warwick in the command of 50,000 men against 60,000 hardy enemies, men of the northern hills and moors, their ranks swelled by borderers whose life was made up of foray and fight. From nine in the morning, for six hours, with the utmost courage and obstinacy, the conflict was maintained. On this occasion Edward led, besides the retainers wearing the badges and gathered under the banners of many Yorkist nobles, a large contingent from Bristol, Coventry, Worcester, Salisbury, Leicester, Gloucester, Northampton, and Nottingham. The men of the towns had rallied round the ruler who represented the cause of trade, progress, and enlightenment, and of internal peace based on the extinction or suppression of a disorderly baronage. The skill or luck of Edward placed his men, at the outset, with their backs to a violent storm of snow which blew full in the faces of the Lancastrian archers, and baffled their aim, while the force of the wind drove home the Yorkist shafts. At three o'clock reinforcements for the king came up, and the Lancastrians gave way when nearly 40,000 men, about three-fourths of whom were of the " Red Rose," lay dead and maimed on the The Bi iti I !cs •i the purs mi on the ' this .1 a hair later the <>M men of the : " still talked of the gory bn lown through their sin II and ir.l fled ■ urvived the battle and the rout i In i 4'm- ;lt 'I- Igcley Moot and at ; i in were VlCtOI I the u iiter of li rred in or after the 1 hen tame a quarrel with Warwick, j lined by the Both had to flee to Fra where tbeycame to an understanding with the indomital in a furl plai e her imj husband e throne. When Warwick, in ij;o, landed in England, he I l.dward, in In-, turn, fled I ■:<>in hi* brother-in-law, Duke I, returned in the spring "! 1471, and I . and the La .it the bat; net, the " K: his life on the held. I mouth, in.- iry early in M : the north country. the Uttd the d m in the battle or pursuit, not brutally inur«: in 1 I b) I rv Irian writers, and the final i n, and m until the sudden We may 1 in <>f th \:nl to Jun . • l H 314 A History of the World free trade in books between England and the Continent, and in freeing the villeins (serfs) on crown-lands. Two statutes guarded the rights of owners of land, made precarious by the numerous forfeitures and transfers of estates during the war which had almost destroyed the old baronage. In June, 1485, Henry of Richmond, having won over Yorkists by an undertaking to marry Edward IV.'s daughter Elizabeth, now heiress to the crown on that side, landed with a small force at Milford Haven to fight for the crown. He had a claim by descent, on the mother's side, from John of Gaunt, and he was a Tudor through his father, son of Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman, and of Katharine, widow of Henry V. At the battle of Bosworth Field, in the south of Leicestershire, in August, 1485, the last engagement of the Wars of the Roses ended in the defeat of Richard III., and his death as, hopeless of a good issue, and doomed in case of capture or survival, he hewed his way with desperate valour, seeking to slay his rival, towards the spot where Richmond's banner was waving. He was cut down after killing the bearer of the standard and when he was on the point of closing with Richmond. The crown which he wore on his helmet had fallen, and was at once placed, amid the shouts of the victors, on the head of the man who was hailed as " King Henry." The brutality of the age, the time in which chivalry had clearly perished, was shown in the treatment accorded to the remains of one of its bravest warriors. The body of Richard was flung across a horse, and thus, besprinkled with mire and blood, it was taken to Leicester and buried in the church of the Grey Friars. The Stuart line of Scotland came to the throne in 1370 in the person of Robert, High Steward of Scotland, only son of Robert Bruce's daughter Marjory and of Walter, High Steward, which word became a surname and was written " Stewart," changed to " Stuart." During the reign of Robert II. (1370-1390) the treaty of mutual assistance and defence was renewed with France, and the only warfare consisted of border-raids, including the famous fight of Otterburn or Chevy Chase, in Northumberland, between the Scottish Earl Douglas and Earl Percy of Northumberland. Robert III. (1390-1406) had a reign of some trouble due to quarrelsome barons and the feuds of Highland clans. In 1402 a Scottish in- vading force was defeated, under another earl of Douglas, by the English under Percy, the famous " Hotspur," at Homildon Hill, in Northumberland. The Stuarts, as is well known, were a hapless race. James I. (1406-1437) was for the first 18 years of his The British Isles •i a rnptr. ei in a ship on his « ■ • 1 under ihe care ol H 1 •) i ; i i . . I • ■ i ' I I • turn i:i i . ■ . «1 him- • (»f law, justii Icr ; the : n «>f the ; the • • .- e in nun rth l>y i I inders in th bani i II. (1437 ' : ' ' ' *' ;i ' on 8 minorii . a frequent evil in Scotland. I and .1 - anm n e, held by the English. | [II. (141 s us to the cml of the period under review, had I irried M her the ' 1 S tlanda b rt of the tk man, giv< n up to 1 the pursuit alter the battle of Saw hieburn, e and prosperity was that whii h she lacked for < enturies after • t " under nment under a . with a permanent in 1 "i that, I left in a id whole and turmoil. 1 baronial I the I 1 I I others— were in < onfli< 1 with the : 1 other chieftains. In 1315 l v ■ • I Irish 1 In I 1 3 16 A History of the World The Ormonds and the powerful Kildares, whose stronghold was near Dublin, were exceptions. In 1367 Edward III. turned his attention to the country, and the Statute of Kilkenny was passed to check this tendency towards Irish ways of living. Marriage and fosterage between the English and Irish were forbidden, as high treason. No goods of any sort were to be supplied to the Irish. No Irish could be admitted into any English monastery or church- livings. War with the natives was enjoined as a duty for all good English " colonists." No Irishman, with rare exceptions, could plead at any English court, and the killing of an Irishman was not to be reckoned as a crime. The speaking of the language of the country was made penal. This most pernicious and foolish legisla- tion seems, in fact, intended to create a perpetual enmity between the English and the Irish, instead of seeking to form a united nation by conciliatory measures, and as the English were unable to root out the natives, a state of war existed for centuries. The settlers of the Pale were grossly ill-treated, under the harshest form of the feudal system, by the barons, and were exposed to the constant enmity of the natives outside. The result was that large numbers of the English fled away from the Pale, and, dwelling among the natives and marrying Irish wives, became Irishmen, whose descendants were to be, in coming time, the most dangerous foes of the country which might, by judicious measures, have retained their allegiance and affection. In 1394 Richard II. landed at Waterford with a great host of men-at-arms and archers, but effected nothing, during a stay of nine months, towards strengthening the position of the dwellers in the Pale against the native chieftains. Many of these came in and made submission by word of mouth, but in 1399 Richard had to come again with as great an army, and vast supplies of stores and arms, in order to suppress native risings. The English sovereign was quickly recalled by news of the duke of Lancaster's landing in England, and he returned to meet only, as we have seen, dethrone- ment, imprisonment, and death. Amid the disorder which ensued, the most ferocious English legislation against the natives, making Irishmen beings to be killed at sight, on mere suspicion of ill-doing, by colonists, was of no avail. The history of the unhappy country at this time is one of general carnage and rapine, as the baronage of the Pale made raids on the rest of the country, and the natives made forays on the property of the Pale. The churchmen of the two parties cordially hated each other. A Parliament, consisting of Scandinavia — the Netherlands 317 a few barons, knights, bishops, abbots, and burgesses, met occasion- ally in different towns, but there was nothing done except voting of money, and the land went drifting on to ruin. In 1449 there was an excellent English viceroy in Richard, duke of York, who won the favour of Irish and English by his firm and kindly rule for two years. His Irish popularity gave his son Edward, at Towton, a good body of Irish Yorkist partisans, under the leadership of the earl of Kildare. An Irish Lancastrian leader, the earl of Ormond, was taken in the battle, and beheaded, with the loss of all the family- lands, a blow from which the Ormonds (Butlers by name) were long in recovering. The house of Kildare, rival of the Ormonds, now became supreme, generally acting as deputy-rulers for the English sovereign. The triumph of the " Red Rose " at Bosworth replaced the Butlers in possession of their lands, and one of them was created earl of Ormond. In Scandinavia we find that Sweden had never taken kindly to the Union of Calmar, and was often engaged in fierce hostilities with Denmark, in favour of which country there was a strong party amongst the nobles and higher churchmen. Some of the nobles, and the mass of the people, the peasantry, were enthusiasts for national independence. In 1434 the men of Dalecarlia, patriots and lovers of freedom beyond all other Swedes, revolted under the leadership of an owner of mines, and peace was restored only by the appointment of a native noble as viceroy, ruling in conjunction with the mine-owner. During the latter half of the 15th century the country was generally under the enlightened rule of native independent sovereigns. We have hitherto seen little or nothing of the country called the Netherlands, the region now forming Belgium and Holland. The northern part of this territory, in its physical formation, is exactly like Lower Egypt, as being the creation of a great river through the deposits from currents of the water made sluggish, on approaching the sea, by division into many channels. Holland was, in fact, made by the Rhine. Most of Belgium is a monotonous flat, perhaps owing its existence to the retreat of shallow marine waters. The Hollanders, and the western coast-people, are mostly of Teutonic race, or Flemish ; those of the south-western region, or Walloon country, are largely of Celtic origin. In ancient Roman days, the territory between the arms of the Rhine was called Batavia, and the people became allies of Rome. They were at last merged in the swarms of the Frisian and Frankish tribes. The mediaeval 31 8 A History of the World Holland, then including the land which was buried by an irruption of the sea in the 13th century, and made into the Zuyder Zee, was under the rule of Karl the Great, the people keeping their native customs and the Frisian laws which asserted the freedom of their race. In the 10th century, when the great ruler's empire had been broken up, we find the northern country, after its conversion to Christianity, partly by force, partly by the persuasion of missionaries already noted, subject to a count of Holland and a bishop of Utrecht. In the southern Netherlands there were many petty sovereigns, of whom the chief were the dukes of Brabant and counts or earls of Flanders. These small autocrats were ever at issue among themselves, and feudal despotism prevailed, except in Brabant. We have seen some of the nobles, as Godfrey of Bouillon and the counts of Flanders and Hainault, engaged in the Crusades. Those expeditions reduced the barons' power in the expenditure of their resources, and the influence of territorial lords received a great shock in the battle of Bouvines, in 12 14 where we saw Philip Augustus of France inflict a severe defeat. A new epoch for the country began at this time. Towns rose to importance, buying charters of freedom from impoverished lords, with fixed payments of dues. The citizens thereby secured the right of being tried by their own magistrates, and all enjoyed personal freedom. Every freeman, in order to exclude runaway serfs, and mere vagabonds and outlaws, from municipal privileges, was enrolled in a trade-guild. We have already noted the great increase of commerce due to the Crusades, and the Netherlands did not fail to benefit therefrom. A chief source of the growing prosperity was the weaving of woollen and linen cloth. Large fleets of Dutch and Flemish ships traded to Spain and Languedoc, and Flanders was a great mart for England and all northern Europe. The population grew fast, and all parts of the country were tilled. Eastern goods collected at Venice and Genoa were sent over the passes of the Alps to the Rhine, and thence conveyed by the river to Bruges (Brugge, the "city of bridges"), with her many canals, now so fair in her decay. This town became a northern Venice, and one of the greatest commercial places in Europe, as the chief entre- pot for both Mediterranean and northern merchandise. Ghent became famous for her woollen manufactures, and by the end of the 13th century was one of the largest towns in Europe, much exceeding the Paris of that age. The burghers of the Netherlands became very powerful, having armed forces far superior to those of the The Netherlands 319 feudal lords. In 1302, when Flanders had been annexed to France, the men of Bruges arose against an oppressive governor, and utterly defeated a great French host, under Philip le Bel (IV.), at the battle of Courtrai. In Brabant freedom grew, and a legislative and judicial council arose, of whose 14 members only four were nobles, and ten were chosen by the people. At Ghent, in 1338, under Jacob van Arteveldt, the people drove out all nobles and adherents of the count of Flanders, and it was a fleet of their ships which greatly aided Edward III. in his naval victory of Sluys. The famous Philip van Arteveldt of Ghent asserted the self-government of the city against another count of Flanders, but in 1382 Charles VI. of France, after some defeats, routed the Flemings at Roosbeke, between Courtrai and Ghent, the patriotic Van Arteveldt being among the slain. Early in the 15th century the country came under the control of Philip of Burgundy, whose dominions extended from the foot of the Alps to the German Ocean, including the " overlordship " of all the 17 provinces of the Netherlands. The country was then very prosperous, and fully enjoying the freedom provided in her charters. The municipal bodies had much influence over the sovereign and the nobles of the Council. In the assemblies of the States, the stadtholder represented the prince in his absence, intervening between the nobles and the towns, on questions of taxation, as a check on both parties. The jealousy of the to\yns with regard to each other, and municipal isolation, were ultimately very detrimental to the cause of freedom. We may here note, as an important element in the prosperity of the Netherlands, the herring-fishery of the Flemings and the Dutch. Cured fish were of great value as diet in days when the lack of all winter-food for cattle, except hay, compelled people to eat salted provisions during several months of the year. The Church-fasts also caused a great consumption, and the North Sea fisheries were a very mine of wealth, coming next to the manufactures and trade, and serving as a school of skilled and sturdy mariners for the future Dutch navy. Philip of Burgundy, as guardian of his cousin Jacqueline of Hainault, one of the ablest and the most beautiful ladies of her time, had sworn to maintain the privileges and institutions of the Netherlands. Villain as he was, he first robbed his ward of her possessions, and then informed the cities and estates of the Netherlands that he considered his oaths of no effect, unless he chose to renew them. In 1435 ne compelled the Flemings to aid him in a war with England, their best friend 320 A History of the World in the way of commerce. An insurrection took place in Bruges, but the city was blockaded, to the ruin of her trade for the time, and with the death of many thousands from famine. The citizens had then to pay an enormous fine, and leave their privileges at the Duke's mercy. In 1448, Ghent rose against unjust taxation, but the city was compelled to submit to a heavy fine and loss of municipal rights, after a contest of four years. The death of Philip in 1467 brought to power his son Charles the Bold, or " Rash," " Headstrong," as his French name (le Temeraire) is better rendered. The new ruler engaged in warfare with Louis XL of France, and oppressed the Netherlanders with grievous exactions in order to meet his expenses. The government became a mere despotism, and it was a great relief when Charles, in 1477, fell in battle against the Swiss. His daughter and successor, Mary of Burgundy, granted the " Great Privilege," the Magna Charta of the Netherlands, by which natives alone could hold office, and no taxes could be imposed, or war undertaken, without the consent of the estates. Provision was also made against arbitrary imprisonment, and the constitution of the Netherlands became the freest hitherto seen in any country. In a few years Mary died from a horse-accident, and the rule of the country came to her little son Philip, whose father, Maximilian of Hapsburg, then " King of the Romans," or heir to the headship of the " Holy Roman Empire," conquered the cities one after another, revoked the Charter, slew the chief burghers, and brought the Netherlanders again under practically absolute rule. In France, Philip IV., surnamed Le Bel (the Fair), ruled from 1 285-13 14. He found himself in a time of transition from feudalism to the modern system, and was in sore want of money to meet the expenses of large bodies of civil servants needed for administration, and of mercenary troops and hired fleets for war. His warfare with the Flemings has been given, and the expenditure in this contest brought a serious quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII., who resented the French king's taxation of the ecclesiastical property in his realm. In 1301, the violent occupant of the Papal chair issued a " bull " asserting his supremacy over all kings. Philip had the document burned, and another instrument of the same kind, with a threat of excommunication, brought matters to a crisis. In 1303, Boniface was seized by Philip's emissaries, and treated with gross indignity, and he died shortly after the occupation of Rome by French troops. The election of a Frenchman (Clement V.) as Pope then brought a reconciliation between the king and the France 321 - h. T! ■ Philip IV. n l< for the establishment ment, which was a ju li< ia), n"t and I 1 iaJ matti ill their representative itiea ', or " thii ' in the neral, the other 1 and the nobles. On tl 1 < arles IV., in 1 ;--;■<. tin- i.ist of no male heir remaininj Ider line <>f tin- I - iu\ law, lit in tii- II I n'lip \ I i, nephew Philip 1 \ and rs John II. tdful ■ ailed th . ••• .;n the n : for the lower class in ] driven t>> m t> pillage m the war, and they committed \ere in like fashion. . : : die the u ■v \ I., was .i' km . to the n t, in timid, and I ■ t" 1 1 and m the 1 to his ca • •! ><( the du) . I . 1 i ■ I 322 A History of the World bank of the Loire s with suburbs extending far on the southern side, connected with the town by a strong bridge, was entrusted to the earl of Salisbury, one of the bravest, most skilful, and most experienced of the English generals, trained to war under Henry V. It was now, for the first time, that any great use of cannon was made in siege-operations, and the possession of two towers called the Tourelles, at the southern end of the bridge, enabled the English to rake some of the principal streets. On October 23rd, 1428, this important position was stormed by the French, and the hopes of the besieged rose higher when Dunois and La Hire arrived with reinforcements, and the earl of Salisbury was killed by a cannon- shot. The bridge across the river had been broken down by the French, and access to the town was thus cut off on the south. The new English commander, the earl of Suffolk, then resorted to blockade, aiming at a surrender through famine. Early in 1429 the lines of works round the place were nearly finished, and provisions were growing scarce in Orleans. At the " Battle of Herrings," fought at Rouvrai, a French attack on a great convoy of salted fish and other stores for the English troops in Lent was defeated, and the fate of the city seemed to be settled when a wonderful young woman appeared, backed by the power which the pious describe as faith, and which sceptics decry as superstition. Jeanne Dare (absurdly translated as " Joan of Arc "), heard of before this crisis as La Pucelle, or The Maid, was daughter of a small farmer in the hamlet of Domremy, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. Her fancy fed, as she tended her father's flocks, on legends of saints, and her soul brooded over her country's miserable condition. After hearing voices and seeing visions, she made her way, in soldier's garb, to the presence of the king, and at last induced him to believe in her mission to save France from the English. In April, 1429, she took the field clad in a new suit of white armour, mounted on a black war-horse, and bearing a lance in her right hand. Her unhelmeted head showed fair, expressive features, deep-set earnest eyes, and long black hair. A page carried before her a banner of white satin, strewn with the lilies of France, and bearing the words Jesus, Marie. The hearts of the troops were won at the outset by the sight of her fine figure, her skill in horsemanship, and her grace and ease in handling her weapons, which included a small battle-axe and a consecrated sword, taken at her bidding from one of the shrines of St. Catharine. In order to understand the success now achieved by Frenchmen I nice men of the sam the \ icton ol Ci and rt, we in mber the immen • of faith, or nne firm! I her to be t: led by tl. the ■ the ■ 1 I at the h( lime brought su|iplics up the river. It more th .... on t . named " Rouen," " P ■ th the I" tired. In June re won by tl I . 17th, about I iter the first inten with the kn 1 her promise of 51 •,_ 1 med at the ancient cathedral of Rheims. by the high altar, with hei mner in her hand, h. . I men by her v.. ithless na Her tragii .il fate, aftei jit.- f>r tl. .. ainl her delivery to the enemy rther remark than th • ndemned I the . the trial U i by in, bisho] hmen in the ■ rime committed, thn •try, 1)V re: In 1 ; trul, the ruin I • ■ 1 ;••' ' nl died \ . i I 1 I 324 A History of the World conquest was thus brought to an end, and England was saved, in fact, from being an appendage of France, and involved in all her Continental wars. Louis XI. (1461-1483), son of Charles VII., was one of the most crafty and perfidious politicians of his time, but he wrought great good for his country in the consolidation of her power. The power of the Church was reduced, and her privileges were curtailed. Appeals to Rome were forbidden, and the rights of the Gallican (French) Church were defined. The strength of the great feudal barons was brought down. After the battle of Montl'hery, in 1465. against a league composed of the dukes of Brittany, Lorraine, and other nobles, a treaty gave great advantages to Louis. On the death of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, his duchy was annexed to France, and the extinction of the house of Anjou in 1480 added Anjou, Provence, Maine, and Lorraine to the dominions of Louis. Several powerful nobles were executed on various charges. By immoral means, the feudal power which had served its time, and was now only harmful to peace, order, and sound government, was destroyed, and the power of the bourgeoisie, or citizens of towns, was enhanced by the sanction of free election of magistrates, the granting of command of the local watch, and other privileges. Industry and trade were greatly encouraged, and with Louis XI. the mediaeval system in France almost came to an end. His son and successor, Charles VIII. (1483-1498), was but T3 years of age, and the administration was in the hands of his eldest sister, Anne de Beaujeu, a lady of great ability. A rebellion, headed by the dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and Brittany, utterly failed in 1488, and the marriage of the king with Anne, the duchess of Brittany, in 1491, added the last great feudal territory to his dominions. His invasion of Italy is related elsewhere. His death occurred by accident in 1498 at the castle of Amboise, as he was planning great administrative reforms for the country. Chapter II. — Eastern and Central Europe : Russia, Poland, Hungary ; Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia. The origin of the name "Russia" is unknown. During the 10th, nth, and 12th centuries the country had a number of free democratic republics, with their centres at great trading towns such as Kieff (Kiev), the entrepot of commerce with Greece and Asia; Novgorod, dealing with Germany and Scandinavia; Smolensk, Russia 325 and Polotsk. Christianity was received, in the Greek Church form, from Constantinople, and the ecclesiastics aimed at introducing into Russian life the monarchical form of rule. There were number- less petty wars among the states, which had no other bonds of unity than those of language and religion. Territory was being won towards the east, and colonies settled on Finnish soil. A kind of feudal system arose under the boyars, men of wealth and power in town and country. In the 13th century, the land was overwhelmed by Mongol (Tartar) invaders from central Asia, united into a great confederacy by the famous Genghis Khan. They had already conquered vast territories in their native continent, and soon became masters of much of eastern Europe. The religion and landowners of Russia, and the authority of the princes, did not suffer much, but the rulers had to receive investiture from the Mongol Khan resident in Asia. The two centuries of Mongol supremacy retarded the development of civilisation, as the princes adopted Oriental ways. In 1325 the town of Moscow received new importance in becoming the metropolitan city of the Church, and was a centre of authority and influence over neighbouring principalities. To- wards the end of that century the place was taken and burnt by the ruler of one of the Mongol khanates which had been existing, during this period, alongside of the Russian principalities, but the city soon recovered from the blow, and the Moscow principality grew under the rule of Vassili I. and II. (1389-1462). We may note that the republic of Novgorod, in the north-west, had never been conquered by the Mongols, and the Russian saint, a perfectly historical character, Alexander Nevski (" of the Neva ") derives his surname from his defeat, on that river, in 1240, of the Swedes who invaded his Novgorod territories. In 1462 Ivan III., son of Vassili or Basil II., became ruler at Moscow. He was an ambitious and able man, and set himself to the work of creating a strong independent state. He married a niece of Constantine Palaeologus, last of the Greek emperors, and she brought to his court a large retinue of Greeks whose political ideas were autocratic. Ivan then assumed the title of " Ruler of all Russia," and adopted the arms of the fallen Byzantine empire. In 1481, he took possession of Novgorod, put to death many boyars and wealthy merchants, and completed the ruin of the republic and its trade by the removal of inhabitants and the subsequent pillage of the marts. The Mongol pow y er had long been declining, partly from divisions among 22 326 A History of the World the khanates, and the retreat of their forces, without attacking Ivan's host, when he had refused to pay further tribute, in 1480, may be regarded as the end of Mongol influence. Before his death in 1505 Ivan had won territory from the Poles and Lithuanians, and the foundation of a solid state had been laid. The name " Poland " appears first in that of a tribe, the Poliani, of the western branch of the Slavonic race, dwelling between the Oder and the Vistula. In the 10th century the Poles received Christianity in the form of the Latin or Western Church, and were thus from the first antagonistic, in point of religion, to the Russians. The first Polish bishopric was founded at Posen, and under Boleslas I. (992-1025) the kingdom was extended beyond the Oder, the Dniester, and the Carpathians. Many new cities were built, trade grew, and monasteries and schools were established. Boleslas III. (1102-1139) was an energetic warrior-king, who annexed Pomerania. At this time, and for a long period, the country was only a duchy. In the 13th century there was much trouble with the conquering Teutonic Knights, and then with the Mongols. Poland was, at this time, largely colonised by Germans and Jews. About 1295 the country became again a kingdom, and under Ladislaus I. ( 1 305-1 333) the first Polish " diet " or parliament was summoned. His son Casimir the Great 1333-1370) did much for the country, in the increase of trade, laying the foundation of law, and annexing Galicia. The Jagellon. dynasty, which endured for nearly two centuries, was started in 1386 by Jagello, last of the hereditary grand-dukes of Lithuania, who succeeded his father-in-law, king of Poland, and changed his name to Ladislaus II. Poland and Lith- uania were thus united, and the kingdom became for nearly three centuries the chief power of eastern Europe. Under Casimir IV. (1447-1492) successful war was waged with the Teutonic Knights, and western Prussia, including Pomerania and the cities of Thorn and Danzig, was annexed. At this time the Polish nobility had a great increase of power, receiving the right of choosing deputies to attend the diet, when they could not be present in person. The power of the diet was also so much enhanced that the govern- ment became that of an oligarchy rather than a monarchy, and the Polish kings could control affairs only through personal influence. It was under St. Stephen, the first king (997-1038), that the Hungarian nation began to pass from paganism to Christianity, and from barbarism to civilisation. This great and good man is still, to Hungary 327 the Hungarians, for his patriotic wisdom, the " Alfred " of their history, and on August 20th, his anniversary, his embalmed right hand is carried in a splendid procession through the city of Buda, in sight of all the people. He endowed the Church with the utmost liberality, founding bishoprics and abbeys. He established royalty on a firm basis, with due regard to the ancient privileges of the nobles. The royal domains and privileged cities were alone directly ruled by the sovereign. The Church and the nobility had self- government, with appeal to the king. The royal towns chose their own judges and other officials. The bulk of the people, various classes of bondmen and servants, were under the authority of the landowners. Many of the existing institutions of the country, as the ecclesiastical system, and the municipal and county councils, and the original form of the Diet of the States, or Parliament, were founded by this first monarch of the realm. Under this Arpad dynasty, as it is called from an early ruler, which was in power for three centuries, there were troubles with attempts at a revival of paganism ; contests with German emperors ; a terrible Mongol invasion ; and, in the last century of the period, anarchy from oligarchical excesses. In 1222, the document styled the "Golden Bull," a Magna Charta of Hungarian nobles, gave great privileges to that class, afterwards extended to the clergy and lower nobility. The diet was to be annually summoned, and the right of armed resistance to a sovereign's illegal acts was granted. In 1301 the house of Arpad became extinct, and in 1309 a good king was found in Charles Robert of Anjou. During his reign, lasting till 1342, he did much to advance civilisation, developing the rich mining-industry and other branches of trade, and creating an army by the introduction of the Western system of chivalry which proved attractive to the great lords. Under Louis the Great (1342-1382) Hungary became the most powerful nation in central Europe. His arms were successful against the Mongols and the Servians. Venice was forced to cede Dalmatia and to pay tribute. A great Turkish army was routed on the banks of the Maritza, and in 1370 Louis became king of Poland. He was one of the greatest of Hungarian monarchs, always victorious in battle ; a promoter of the arts of peace ; a giver of enduring legislation ; an improver of ecclesiastical and judicial institutions ; a liberal patron of learning. After a period of disorder and decline, including defeat by the Turks and the Venetians in the days of the king Sigismund who was also emperor of Germany in 328 A History of the World the latter part of his life, a revival came under an insignificant monarch, through the exertions of a brave soldier, skilful general, and prudent and energetic statesman, John Hunyadi, the chancellor of the kingdom. He won his first renown in fight against the Turks, and became an object of admiration to Europe, as well as the idol of his country, in the same cause. His victories, gained against great odds, were of an astounding character, due to a combination of craft and of desperate courage rarely equalled. In 1444 Hunyadi was gaining another triumph over the Moslem foe near Varna, when defeat was due to the king's rashness in en- countering the best troops of the enemy. He was quickly slain, and a panic arose among the Hungarians when his pale head, in his silver helmet, was suddenly displayed aloft on a pike. Under another sovereign, named Ladislaus, Hunyadi sustained one defeat from the Turks, through the treacherous conduct of a subordinate, but in 1456 he scattered a vast Turkish host under the walls of Belgrade, with the loss of 40,000 men slain and 300 cannon. At this most glorious moment, worn out by fatigue, Hunyadi suddenly died. A noble specimen of a knight and a Christian hero, this great Hungarian, modest and unselfish as a monk in his life, wealthy enough to be always able to raise and pay 10,000 warriors, and spending his whole income on armaments against the Turks, left a noble successor in the son who was raised by election to the throne for his father's sake. Matthias Corvinus ( 1458-1490), perhaps the greatest of Hungarian kings, was an excellent commander, diplomatist, and statesman ; he was great as a legislator and judge ; a true lover of the people whom he ruled ; a munificent encourager of art and science. In the field of war he was his father's worthy son — courageous in action, masterly in organisation, the first general of his time. His training had been such that, at 15 years of age, when he became possessed of regal power, he was well fitted to cope with the duties of his post. His spirit in childhood had been stirred by the hearing of the ballads and legends that dealt with the deeds of Alexander and Attila, Roland, and other heroes of war. His reckless courage in battle, as he emulated the achievements of his idols, made his soldiers tremble for the man whom they followed. Conspicuous above all his noble qualities was the love of justice and truth which made him delight in exposing hypocrisy, and bringing to shame the braggart and the bully. In person he was deep-chested, broad-shouldered, and strong-limbed, and this athletic frame was topped by a massive Hung try well-cut head, in which of a hawk. II solution, and enduran unfailing, and no • a moment his iron n _ht him to the end H I war, with n is northern n< ■ < with the I i invel tan emj rick III. ami m 1485 Matthias took bis capital, Vienna, hni) out in a destitute condition. The 11 in irian army included a n Hy trained by the king on the Roman discipline, and that furnished by the adm I the Turkish host. All the hardships of war neral with the I ho adored him in ■. ith the tendei I on. ■: from w , Matthias rid a fine pie of royal dignity, magnanimity, and splendour of life. II 1 tended t .rt, and his emba gnificent display. This model of a benevolent . c by the careful and impartial hearing which he 11 petitioners, from t t lord to the hum ibined with the framii lent I iws well enl ive him in his lifetime the tit iry in the ill current in II- ' K ing Matth He I with th( .md with the of his time, in gathering round him and lavishly ■ rt ol .: library, the ' med in t: la, the t halls b furnished, and the bool on whiti ound in .1 other ; The the work of the best artists of 1 : trans. rihers and ' •it volun II . ■ i:ned, under Mat:' I 1 amid 1 hen a rul 330 A History of the World In Germany Rudolf of Hapsburg (1273-1291) was a brave and successful emperor, who restored the judicial system set up by Frederick II., rid the country of robbers, and strove to prevent the pernicious private warfare between princes and nobles. His chief opponent was Ottocar, king of Bohemia, by far the most powerful prince of the empire, ruling with great tyranny also in Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. In 1278, he was defeated and slain in battle with Rudolf on the Marchfeld, near Vienna, and now began the territorial power of the Hapsburg house. Rudolf took possession of the duchy of Austria, with Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, granting them as imperial fiefs to his two sons and his brother-in-law, count of Tyrol. His son Albert I. (1298-1308) was murdered by his nephew, and the empire passed to Henry VII., count of Luxemburg, who made a show of reviving the " Holy Roman Empire " by being crowned king of Italy at Pavia and emperor in Rome. His death by poison in 13 13 was followed by a terrible and devastating war between two elected emperors, Ludwig IV., of Bavaria, supported by the towns, and Frederick of Austria, son of Albert, acknowledged by the nobles. In 1322, at the battle of Muhldorf, Frederick was defeated and made prisoner, and Ludwig, crowned emperor in Rome, ruled till his death in 1347. In his time a stand was made against Papal claims by a declaration of the electoral princes, in 1338, that every legally chosen German king was thereby " Roman emperor " without Papal coronation. The independence of the empire was thus established, to the general satisfaction of the German cities and princes. The reign of Charles IV. (of Bohemia), emperor from 1347 to 1378, a shrewd statesman and excellent linguist, founder of the first German university, that of Prague, is notable for the document called the " Golden Bull," from the gold case which contained the seal. This charter finally settled, in 1356, the Germanic constitution as regarded the electoral princes and the crown. Thereby the electors became independent, and the crown, the kingship of Germany, was deprived of power, except such as was derived from the possession of hereditary states. Henceforth there could be no civil war arising from double elections. All cases were decided by a majority of votes given by seven electors, always at the city of Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The electoral states were declared in- divisible and incapable of alienation, and were made hereditary in the male line, the electoral vote going with the land. The seven electors were the archbishops of Mainz (Mayence), Trier (Treves) 1 rermany Bohemia .um\ ' ■ mi. i, the ( '« »t:nt of the Rhine, tin- and the I he H ;m.il Cai I I Germany, under whom the rol barons and the petty warfare were more pernicious than i n the Rhine and in Swabia, < omprisii liy tain municipal freedom, while rmed, by the minor lords and the imperial knights, me hand and the prii of the empire on the 01 t. We m.i\ lure note that m the 17th century two more electoral pi iria and Han The reign of Sigismund (141 at his in neral f the ( hunh Tins assembly ■ ('the empire and a kind of Europ I by the emperor. .1 I 1 XXIII . .it this time lish, and Spanish with hun lent in the city. The council • r the thr< Papal power, and reforming 1 hui dine. I, and Martin V lurch-reform, in spite of t ; • 1 John I of the 1 ■ for I to confession, transul I if i House of I III. in » i ■ 332 A History of the World death. Germany was a scene of internal warfare between prelates and princes, which the emperor was unable to repress. An important event was the marriage of Frederick's son Maximilian with Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles, duke of Burgundy, by which the Austrian house received the Netherlands and Franche Comte\ or the " Free County " of Burgundy. The greatness of the House of Austria thus began, its power being derived not from the position of its heads as emperors, but from the rule of territory held by them as archdukes of Austria, kings of Hungary, and dukes of Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia. We must now relate the origin of one of the most flourishing minor states of the world, the Swiss republic which, in the 19th century, became a chief resort of European and American tourists in search of health and the charms of romantic scenery, and derives therefrom a large increase of wealth for her people. For British readers the story has the high interest attaching to a successful struggle for freedom carried on against enormous odds, and to the development of a little commonwealth which has maintained her independence for four centuries. Prior to the date at which we take up the history of Switzerland, the rugged country had been held by Alamanni, Burgundians, and Franks, and had been subject to Karl the Great, to kings of Burgundy, and to dukes of Swabia. Of the three original cantons, Schwyz, the one which ultimately gave its name to the country, was chiefly inhabited by free peasants ; in Uri and Unterwalden most of the people were mere serfs. Early in the 13th century the rulers of the country were the counts of Hapsburg, but the cantons soon began to strive for riddance from their jurisdiction. They were attached to the empire in a feudal relation by charters received from Frederick II., but the Hapsburg princes still claimed control of affairs, and in 1291 Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden formed a league. Schwyz and Unterwalden are mainly lands of verdant pasture, Uri a region of towering mountains and inaccessible rocks. The confederates (Eidgenossen) were not seeking to throw off allegiance to the emperors, but were hostile to the despotic power wielded by the " bailiffs " who represented them. . It is painful to have to dissipate fond beliefs which have been the delight of many generations of lovers of freedom, but we are bound to state, in the interest of historical truth, that there is no sound basis for the story of the oath taken by Stauffacher of Schwyz, Fiirst of Uri, and Von Melchthal of Unterwalden, in the meadow of Riitli or Griitli by the Lake of Lucerne, with the promise, still the motto Switzerland of t popular i"" tical ting the nply condense inl • time the contin on the three ' . in the i4tli ami the • n 1513 Hie story of William Tell, Gessler the g at the apple, i*> pure invention Of I later In 131 5. th< - had t<> defend them ntry in N with his elm ten No pi oitring w notice tl a helme.l by a downpour "f 1 • -r the purp' «e <>n the vc them. I the n by a n the hill ol with halberds, ami the hostile force « itroyed. in 133*1 ''. v t,c adhesion <>( Lucei ! during this and the ef landowners, mainly by the 1 ■ ■ addition of Zurich, rne. In July, Alien Id III. of A irten, invaded the country. The battle- ted by l»i • unsuita ry, hut the Austrian their • ted with ■ . : : < apturin with • ind with • . in and n 334 A History of the World Leopold fell in the thick of the struggle, and the matter ended with the slaughter of 700 nobles and 2,000 other men, while the Swiss lost little over 100. A vast booty was taken, but the moral effect of the victory was the chief gain of the day of Sempach. The defeat of a host of the knights and nobles of chivalry by a few hundred citizens and peasants astonished Christendom, and another Austrian defeat at Nafels, in Schwyz, 'two years later, brought 50 years of peace with Austria, and virtual independence. In the 15 th century the confederacy had to meet other foes. In 1444 the dauphin pf France, afterwards Louis XI., invaded the country with 30,000 men, and at St. Jacques (St. Jacob), near Basel (Basle), 1,600 Swiss met them, and died fighting to the last man, after slaying 4,000 of their foes. Th ; s Swiss Thermopylae made Louis grant an honourable peace, and the confederate cause gained strength and honour. The ne- 1 enemy of Switzerland was Charles of Burgundy, and that powerful nonarch and headstrong warrior met more than his match. In January, 1476, when the Swiss, previously enticed into war against him, had been left alone by France, Charles opened the campaign with 50,000 excellent troops, and marched across the Jura. About 400 men surrendered at Granson, on the south-west edge of Lake Neuchatel, with a promise of safety, and were then all hanged or drowned in the lake. In March a federal army of 18,000 horse and foot, well trained and equipped, marched from Neuchatel, and encountered Charles at Granson. A complete victory, with enormous spoil, fell to the Swiss. In June another battle came at Morat, on the north-east side of Lake Neuchatel, and there, by good generalship and downright courage in charging and silencing the cannon, the Swiss gained a brilliant victory, with a loss to Charles of 1,500 nobles and 12,000 men, hundreds being drowned in the lake. 3,000 men was the loss of the victors, and Murten (Morat) became in Switzerland a name of like power and pride with Morgarten and Sempach. In 1477 Charles fought his last battle, defeated and slain by Swiss troops at Nancy. By this time the confederacy had become a nation of the highest military repute, courted as an ally by France and Italy, by Emperor and Pope. Internal affairs were not so flourishing, owing to jealousies between the country-people and the towns, among which Zurich, Berne, and Lucerne were con- spicuous for wealth and population, influence and culture. The confederacy of the 13 cantons was completed by 15 13 in the B hemi.i 335 urn ell. ! !)>• the . •• SUn inten tion with the reform movement <>f Wy< lif, the . nn of t nation. The 1 mtinent I for the prun i| shman. i ved their Christianity from the ' I stern Chun h, and not ft<>m the West, the Herman in.m model, and it wa I tuse with their Teutonic fellow-countrymen. Prom i ;io to 1 1 \~ the country of the 11 e of Luxemburg, and it was in the time of Wenzel f I in the city and d '1 the archbi i f r ■ tin tly functions. The common |> ned here'.i' al uttei Pop il ir riots in ■,<1 in 1411 tfa - laid under Papal interdict 1 .a the kn, ntcd hin ... 1 ■)" Wyclif 1 to •■ent thither under ilation <>f that 1 md imprisoned In M nd in Jui t to 1 ' ' nit, (0 D I burnt t'> death on l the kh ' I I . whi< h : ! on hia ■ ■ but 336 A History of the World recantation, which was boldly withdrawn a few months later, Jerome went to the stake in May, 14 16. The result of these proceedings was a civil war. The utmost wrath was aroused by the fate of Hus and Jerome. The mob murdered "orthodox " ecclesiastics. In September, 1415, after the martyrdom of Hus,- 450 Bohemian nobles met in a " diet " at Prague, and solemnly recorded their confidence in the teacher and admiration of his personal character. Three days later they formed a league for maintaining the freedom of preaching in Bohemia, and declared their belief that the Scriptures were the rule for the Church. Excommunication by the Council followed, and the extreme party of Hussites rushed into war. A most able leader was found in Ziska, the most original and successful com- mander of that age. In a struggle of 12 years' duration the forces of the emperor were again and again defeated. This re- markable man was of noble birth, and, after being a page to king Wenzel, he took up a soldier's career. In 1410 he showed desperate courage at the head of the Bohemian and Moravian troops who decided the dreadful battle of Tannenberg against the Teutonic Knights, of whom the grand-master and many thousands of warriors remained dead on the field. After serving against the Turks, and at Agincourt with Henry V., he returned to Bohemia on the death of Hus. Taking the field in 1419, he defeated an army of 40,000 men, sent by Sigismund to obtain the throne on the death of his brother, King Wenzel, with a hasty levy of one-tenth of that number. In 142 1, Ziska had conquered Bohemia and taken the castle of Prague, the country being held by the erection of fortresses. Ziska's followers were provided by him with small firearms, then little used .in war, but his most ingenious device was that of the laager, or waggon-fort, familiar to us from South- African warfare. It was by this means that he remedied his lack of cavalry. The waggons or chariots, linked together by strong iron chains, contained all the fighting-men (except the few horsemen), and the women and children who accompanied the armies. The vehicles were covered with steel, or iron, and on each of them the best marksmen were placed next to the driver. In action the waggons were usually formed in four lines or columns, and for an offensive movement the drivers at one end of the line of battle strove, often with success, to outflank the enemy. The wide plains . of Bohemia, with few ditches or fences, favoured this novel method of warfare, and the marksmen next to the drivers, as well as the I. . p ■ . until 1. ■ untii en the in of their demands from S by a< . the shrewd and .ind in the I Hungary, under n.i. 1 : ; : I THE rick II. : no 111. tion through hi- ght him 1 1 ■ I ■ i injured the l 33 8 A History of the World express doubts as to its character, and claims to supreme power. After the return of the Papal court to Rome, in 1378, there was trouble concerning rival Popes, a matter which, as we lately saw, was settled at the Council of Constance. The new and sole occupant of the Papal chair, Martin V. (1417-1431), was a wise administrator, and the Papacy, along with its secular possessions in central Italy, regained much of its old credit and spiritual and political authority. A new and higher position was assumed under Nicholas V. (1447-1455), a man whose genius had formed an ideal of a Papacy which should impress the world by an aspect of greatness, with Rome, the Papal city, as the protectress of the arts, the abode of learning, and the centre of all Christian culture, as well as the supreme seat of religion. This admirable chief Pontiff, devoted to the cause of peace and progress, assumed power at a critical period of the world's history, a few years before the downfall of the Eastern Empire which had passed through the period of intel- lectual darkness in Europe and connected the two great ages of light. It was at Constantinople that the masterpieces of Attic literature had been mainly preserved, and in 1453, when the fanatical Moslem were wreaking their destructive wrath, as we shall see, on the treasures of art and learning of which they could feel and understand nothing, a few humble German artisans, with little thought that they were creating a power far superior to that of princes and armies, were cutting and setting the first types for the rude original printing-press. This was the age of Nicholas V., the age which witnessed the disappearance of the last trace of the Roman Empire and the publication of the first printed book. He was well worthy of the time in which he rose to the highest place in Europe, for he was the greatest of all the restorers of learning, and a lover and patron of art as well as of literature. He was a man who had sprung from the common people, but whose abilities and acquirements had soon attracted the notice of the great. He had studied much and travelled far, visiting the British Isles, and living with the merchant-princes of Florence, the men who first ennobled trade by allying it with philosophy, eloquence, and taste. He had arranged the first public library of- modern Europe under the protection of the munificent Cosmo. To him the students of the University of Glasgow look back with gratitude as their founder. When he rose from a private station to the Papal throne, Nicholas never forgot the studies which had been his life's delight, and it was he who established the Vatican library, and took measures for I he l'.ip.u . \ Venice the careful pi n <>f t!u- which had been snatched from the wreck of the pire. >usy, in the ng <>r b •i which wei lu^ made <>f man : i i . eminent i the introduction t<> the know : the unrivalled ra historical r the names and illustrate ; nius <>f i. With this illustrious name, <>n the modern history, we leave the after noting that this N i holas \ ted the \ in ti jent little liefly in | n <>f .: • mainly h( Id by g with Naples in the h centui I the member I uble with I ' red b) their warlike mt • .llllllllM.lt. the nd the \ ml privil nted b) I in d. In t the Irorr. 34O A History of the World first a temporary body of criminal judges appointed to inquire into a certain conspiracy, and then, in 1335, made a permanent institution, with supreme, plenary, inquisitorial authority and sovereignty over every individual in the state of Venice, and free from all responsi- bility and appeal. This body was annually chosen from the noblest and most esteemed citizens, at four different assemblies of the Great Council, for one year of office. Only one person from any family, or even of the same name, could serve at a time. There was no payment for the duties, and no other office could be held therewith. The acceptance of gifts was a capital offence. The Council of Ten exercised a tyranny beyond the reach of bribes, threats, or violence ; it was a dark, inscrutable body that ruled the republic with a rod of iron, and its existence was prolonged for five centuries. The " Lion's mouth," or the Council's letter-box, was a slit in the palace-wall for the reception of petitions, accusations, denunciations, and applications for the settlement of disputes, but no paper was accepted without a signature, and the discussion of the contents of each document was subject to many minute regulations and restrictions. The punishments inflicted by the Council ranged from fines, through torture, imprisonment, exile, and the galleys, to mutilation, and death by hanging, drowning, or strangling, inflicted either openly or in secret. The " Bridge of Sighs " was that by which the condemned were led to the dungeon of their doom. The oligarchical government of Venice has the glory of success in choosing skilful commanders, diplomatists, and other agents for the management of the affairs of the greatest mediaeval republic. In the 14th century a good trade was carried on with England and Flanders. Venice supplied the London market with sugar, and was paid in the shape of bales of wool, which were turned into cloth by Flemish looms, and then passed through Venice to Dalmatia and the Levant. The republic rose to the height of wealth. Silk-weaving was established by exiles from Lucca, and there was a great manufacture of mirrors and other fabrics in glass. There was much naval warfare with the Turks, and in iJ5^ a fierce contest arose with Genoa, due to rivalry in the Eastern irade. The Genoese had helped the Greeks to regain the empire from the Latins, and had received in return possession of the suburb of Galata, where they had great influence over political affairs at Constantinople. In 1352, in the waters of the Bosphorus, the Genoese gained a victory after severe loss to themselves, and in 34 ' the' ' I I that in I t<> t In i • , • | the w.ir I the i I by the Gen t of I ►aim n to i them of the channels in the I line i ■ upied the channel and < the road t<> the city, while 1 1 i tuld bridle the bi In this extremity two Yet; admirals, with a t m the Levant and other i <>(' the G i them until they were (><■ irrender. Vi time to tl : her If over in 1396 to the rule of Charles VI. of I . in the 1 warfare in northern It. . other t 1 with Italian ■ •l 14 16, for the republican 9e< t. It : the height <>f 1, • ■ mainland ; owninj ;.ooo i in he 1 ■■ ■ ■ 342 A History of the World great expenditure with little profit. When the Turks were besieging Constantinople, and the emperor appealed to all Christendom for help, and especially to Venice and Genoa, the Adriatic state was unable to make any worthy effort on a scene of action where her interests were more concerned than those of any other power. Commercial considerations, after the fall of the great city, led Venice to make a treaty with the Moslem conquerors, but in 1462 a long war with the new Ottoman empire began, and in 1477 a great Turkish army entered Italy, and defeated the Venetians, ravaging the country until the fires could be seen from the top of St. Mark's. Previous to this, the Turks had conquered from Venice the town of Negropont, and the republic had suffered the shame of seeing her admiral look on, with sailors once renowned as foremost for skill and valour, without an effort to save his countrymen from a hideous massacre. In connection with the revival of letters we may note that the first Greek grammar compiled in Western Europe was published at Venice in 1484, and that there, though at a later date than at Florence and other Italian cities, there were many patricians who were students and patrons of the new learning. In 1489, the republic, by discreditable means, became possessed of Cyprus, having induced the widowed Queen Caterina Cornaro, a Venetian lady to forego her possession of the island. We now turn to Spain, to view the events which led to the expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula, and the consolidation of the Spanish monarchy. On the death of Alfonso X. of Castile in 1284, his eldest surviving son, Sancho, a man of vigorous character, called " the Valiant " for his prowess in warfare against the Moors, became king through the influence of the Cortes. In 1292, he conquered the important town of Tarifa, on the southern coast. Much trouble followed his death, three years later, owing to long minorities of his successors, bringing civil warfare, and one great defeat, near Granada, from the Moors. In 1309, however, Gibraltar was captured by the Spaniards, and in 1340, on the banks of the Salado, near Tarifa, a great Moorish host was routed by Alfonso and the king of Portugal. Four years later, after a long siege, Algeciras fell, and the Moslem power was further shaken. Passing over a long period of warfare between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and between each of them and the Moors, diversified by civil wars, partly due to disputed succession, we find Fernando, prince of Castile, in 141 1, elected king of Aragon. On his death in 14 16, Castile was nominally I M r Spain ruled until i . tan II., but nt of literature, art, and teaming. For th< part of the I in the ban iplished statesman, Al. I una, ie with some of I Datable «>f < lastile," he r, and < ommander <>f tlu- army. The |" rity as ! nained in power. In i . i \i> tint to hi and betrayal of a faithful servant I riod that ■; us ornamei m( t. Utei the death <>f Juan II. there the ' . 1 mmh fighting, to I the infidt . the marriage <>f Ferdinand lella, lu-ir • I . tile, minded lady whose hand had b night \ union <>f tins k n desired by the mosi . and the idmirably In to the t her 1 thus, with the union of ■ I iw in her 2<>th ■. ■n, blue a 1 ruddy :;t, on h"th :'.>m the ■ : had no authority in < I | rule ■ 344 A History of the World The peculiar institution called the Holy Brotherhood, a kind of democratic committee whose proceedings were directed by a central body comprising the chief citizens— a body which, in its interference with the course of justice, had been made an engine used against the Crown — was now adroitly converted into a tribunal of vast power in support of the executive government. The great nobles were cowed, and in a few years a great degree of order and security was restored. Hundreds of castles of robber-knights were destroyed, and summary execution of malefactors on the highway gave safety to travellers. Legislation reformed the courts of law, making justice speedy and of easy attainment. In her zeal for the souls as well as the bodies of her subjects, Isabella " the Catholic," as she was styled, unhappily established, or re-founded, the Holy Inquisition, for the extirpation of heresy. This measure was due to the influence of her confessor Torquemada, and of Ferdinand, in whose realm of Aragon it had long existed. A bull of Pope Sixtus IV. authorised the introduction of the "Holy Office" into Castile in 1478, its original object being the conversion of the Jews, who were alleged to be plotting the overthrow of the government. The Inquisition, in Spain, seems to have been really a state-tribunal, entirely under the control of the sovereign, and not specially connected with the Church or the Roman See. Some of the Popes protested against it, and strove to moderate its action, but they were obliged at last to tolerate what they could not suppress. Under the Dominican monk Torquemada, the first Inquisitor- General in Spain, who lived till 1498, some thousands of persons died at the stake during his 16 years of office, and his successors were also terribly severe. The Inquisition became a curse to Spain, and, as we shall see, to the Netherlands under a Spanish sovereign. It is asserted that Isabella assented with reluctance to the institution, and strove to mitigate its severities, but it is certain that, between 1481 and 1492, 2,000 Jews were burnt alive in Andalusia, and that 17,000 others were allowed to save their lives, submitting to im- prisonment, banishment, or loss of civic rights, only by surrendering the whole of their property, the funds being used by Isabella and Ferdinand to complete the work of centuries against the Moors. The Moslem inhabitants of Spain had been for two centuries dwelling in prosperity, sometimes tributary to the Christian kings, and often on friendly terms with the Catholics. Granada, their capital, was at the height of its splendour, the largest and richest town in the peninsula, capable of raising a well-equipped, trained The M rs in Spain --0,000 men, including some of the 1 uxury li isly imp tired ■ >f the Moors, and in an evil hour, in 1476, their I wantonly defied the 1 by :us annual tribute with th< I ! with i: ' "f tins c hall' 1 1481, the same M Hassan, stormed the nish frontier-fort of Zahara. tins :ar from (ira: i been deemed impregnable by the Moors, and the • mi, the 1 rely felt as ad in t: :it of the Castilian chivalry. The 1 - were forced to interfere wh I 11 king • 1 Granada reined on th<- appi . Andalusian host, nd Isab 1 at the I Of Moot ' artillery and m1 1, but th<- M 1 ;d the • ■ . :ul munil from all | pie who had .rilhant bevy ol ridtr. I . ■...; \1 I--, with mii< idal foil) . tom with I . . the : ■ that nd then the 1 liranada, in 346 A History of the World a fit of madness, closed the gates of the city in his face, and gave rule to his unworthy nephew B'oabdil. A heroic defence was made at Malaga, and an attempt to storm the citadel was repulsed with severe loss, the Moors piercing the Christians with well-aimed arrows, hurling down huge stones, and pouring on the assailants boiling pitch and rosin. Mining was then tried with some success, and for the first time in Spanish history some of the fortifications were blown up with gunpowder. All the Spanish chivalry was around the walls, with Queen Isabella to arouse their utmost courage and enthusiasm. The wooden towers of olden days, and the Roman testudo, or tortoise-shell of shields to protect men in undermining the walls, were tried in turn, but still the Moors held out. The last sally of their leader had been repulsed with dreadful loss, when famine came to decide the struggle, and Malaga was surrendered to the Christian forces. The whole of the brave survivors of the garrison, and 15,000 inhabitants, old men, helpless women, and tender maidens, some of high birth and gentle condition, passed into perpetual slavery. The war was then, in 1487, suspended for a time, to enable the sovereigns to visit Aragon and deal with disorders in that kingdom, and to raise reinforcements for the army which now firmly held the western part of the kingdom of Granada. Boabdil basely congratu- lated Ferdinand and Isabella on their success at Malaga, while Ez-Zaghal, holding the country from Jaen, north of Granada, to Almeria on the coast, rallied round his standard all patriotic Moors. He commanded there the rugged Alpuxarras mountains, with countless sheltered valleys, watered by streams from the Sierra Nevada, and rich in flocks and herds, oranges and vines, pome- granates and mulberries. Baza (or Baeza), the second city in importance now left to the Moors, lying east of Granada, was in his possession, and on its fate depended that of the capital. In 1488, Ferdinand took the field with 100,000 men, and at once attacked Baza. Repulsed again and again by Ez-Zaghal, the Spanish king, with the loss of 20,000 from hardship and disease, at last reduced the place by famine, after laying waste all the surrounding territory. The city was surrendered in December, 1489, the success being really due to the queen's resolute spirit, when others counselled the abandonment or postponement of the war. Ez-Zaghal, whose power was now broken, made submission, and was well treated, retaining his title of " king of Andalusia," with a small estate as vassal of Castile. Almeria was given up, and by this time little I M< ora in Sp.iin -$47 more than the < itv of Granad I Ipril, d six month in which Christian and M ori . Itn i met in obai I . md the finest chiva there, hut even ha 1 not enable the Spaniards i the in batt irdinand 1 to rt to tliejid; ic. The whole country around the the iK-autiful and fertile »li^tri» t called the- at last the peO| B abdil to surrender. 1 he tulation I n the last day of 1491, and the t .redly most generous, and would have refl< - an, if they had only been observed. The ; a million in Granada, were to have peif< Jion Of their prO| power to depart whil 1 they pleased, rhose wh rwn laws and inder the g< n< r.il - The and the lead entered Krhich had be d in of the king throughout ll I iwer, tile and waved in the hr iole host of ' . fell on th< ii . and the abdil (otherwise Abu 1 of horsemen, met th< aand thi I the ' the last til, on a spur of the Alpuv "ii the beautiful " Allahu like ' what h( I the loss I in the 1 m of ■ I . ... ■ the 348 A History of the World beyond the bounds of the period under review in order to complete this subject, and have now to note that the bigoted Cardinal Ximenes persuaded Isabella to persecute the Moors, or " Moriscos," as they began to be called, on the ground that to keep faith with infidels was to break faith with God. The mosques were closed, the manuscripts of Moorish learning were burnt, and Mohammedans were treated like Jews. Many yielded and became Christians in professed belief; others rebelled in the Alpuxarras hills, and defeated a force sent against them. They were driven off, however, to exile beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, where many Moors joined the corsairs of Algeria and the Barbary states, and took an ample revenge in their raids on Spanish commerce. The "converted" Moriscos were ill-treated by the Inquisition. Under suspicion of possible relapse, their children were taken from them, and the young men were sent to toil at the oar in the Spanish galleys. Philip II., in 1567, roused indignation by enforcing a decree which bade the Moriscos abandon their special dress, renounce bathing, their language r their customs and ceremonies, and their very names. This detestable tyranny, well worthy of its author, one of the most loathsome personages in history, provoked a serious rising in the Alpuxarras, which was only suppressed by two years of horrible warfare. Many of the Moriscos were made slaves, others went into exile, and some were transported to different parts of Spain. The raids of the Moorish corsairs on the coasts, ravaging the country for miles inland, and carrying off Christian captives, exasperated the Spaniards. Continued persecution drove more and more Moriscos from the country, and at last, in 16 10, the whole of the survivors, numbering about half a million, were exiled. It is believed that the number disposed of by banishment between the fall of Granada and the above date reached 3,000,000. At the final wholesale expulsion the children under four years of age were taken to be brought up as Christians, and all property was confiscated, except what could be turned into coin or carried on the person. Every kind of outrage was perpetrated on the miserable people as they made their way to the coast. Most of the men were farmers or agricultural labourers. The poets and painters of Spain celebrated the trans- action, which was a kind of suicide for the country, as a glorious event. It was really the extinction of light, and, save for a brief period during which the remains of Moorish culture lingered in the land, Spain was for ages under the darkness of bigotry and ignorance. With the disappearance of the enlightened Moriscos, Portugal 349 whole tracts which had been rich in corn and wine and oil became deserts. Science gave way to superstition, skill to incapacity, learning to such brutal indifference to knowledge that Madrid, in the 1 8th century, had no public library — a contrast indeed to Cordova in the 13th century, where half a million volumes were gathered. The 16,000 looms of Seville soon became but a fifth of that number. Art and industry almost vanished from Almeria and Toledo. The land, devoid of the skilful irrigation of the Moors, became untitled. The populous cities of beautiful and fertile Andalusia decayed, and a horde of monks, banditti, and beggars replaced the merchants, scholars, skilled artisans, and agri- culturists of Moorish times. All history presents us with no more disastrous result of religious bigotry as regards dogmas, combined with utter disregard of the benign spirit of Christianity, than that which followed the expulsion of the Mohammedans from Spain. There is hardly an independent state in Europe, of old standing, which has not had her day of renown. Belgium, Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, and the sixth " great power," Italy, are all modern. Greece, if she is ever to be worthy of her ancient name, has certainly not yet, in 1898, attained that point. Holland and Switzerland, still worthy of all respect, were both glorious in their rise. Sweden was at one time, as we shall see, in a leading position. There are countries once independent, now forming parts of great empires, which were famous in their day, as Tuscany (Florence), Venice, and Hungary. Turkey was formerly the terror, as she is now the standing nuisance, of the Christian nations of Europe. Spain was, three centuries ago, the chief power of the world. The mention of Spain brings us to the small kingdom of Portugal, geographically a part of the same great peninsula, with people of the same stock, and practically of the same language, as the Spaniards, and yet for more than eight centuries, save for an interval of 60 years, politically distinct. We have now to trace how it was that Portugal became a separate nation, and in what respect she was, for a time, in a most honourable way, the leading nation of Europe. Like Spain, she produced a race of heroes, when her people were free and well ruled, and a spirit of Christian chivalry led to conflict with the Moors, and like Spain, she sank into insignificance through the influence of absolute government administered by narrow-minded bigots. We note first that Portugal does not represent, as commonly supposed, the ancient Roman province Lusitania, which was a 350 A History of the World district south of the Tagus, nor do the Portuguese represent a distinct branch of the Celtic population of the Iberian peninsula. Their early history is the same as that of the rest of the peninsula ; they were thoroughly Latinised in Roman days, with coloniae and municipia, or military settlements and self-governed towns, estab- lished at points suitable for trade such as Lisbon and Oporto. After the rise of Christian kingdoms in Gallicia, Leon, and Castile, and the winning back of much territory from the Moors, the history of Portugal as a separate country begins at the end of the nth century, when Henry of Burgundy, who had married a daughter of Alfonso VI. of Castile and Leon, received from him the territory between the Minho and the Tagus as a dependent fief. Count Henry, a restless knight-errant, went off to the Crusades, leaving his " county " in charge of his wife Theresa. Under the administration of this beautiful and accomplished woman, who held power until 1128, a spirit of independence, as regarded Gallicia, arose and was carefully fostered by her. Her son Affonso Henriques, or Alfonso I. of Portugal, when he assumed power, as a man who united his father's chivalrous courage with his mother's political ability, made successful war on the king of Gallicia, and in 1143 became sovereign of an independent Portugal. For the period of 25 years he was in conflict with the Moors, assisted by the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers, and in 1 139 he gained a brilliant victory over the infidels at Orik or Ourique, in the Alemtejo. In 1147 the great town of Santarem, commanding the upper Tagus, was stormed, and this success was at once followed by the capture of Lisbon, in which Alfonso was helped by a body of English Crusaders, men of Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire, Bristol, and Hastings, on their way from Dartmouth to the Holy Land. This was the beginning of the enduring connection between England and Portugal, very important for the smaller country. Other conquests followed, and the Burgundian house of sovereigns was thus settled, for nearly four centuries and a half, on the throne of Portugal. Under the successors of Alfonso I. there were struggles with the Moors and with the clergy and nobles of the country. Sancho I., son cf Alfonso, already known as a warrior, was an excellent ruler, building new cities and repairing and re-fortifying old, encouraging tillage, stoutly resisting Papal interference, and governing with great advantage to the kingdom until his death in 12 11. Under Alfonso III. (1248-1279) the country attained its existing limits, and in 1254 Portugal 3 5 1 at a " Cortes " or Parliament summoned at Leiria, including representatives of the cities sitting with the nobles and higher clergy, the power of the Crown was well asserted against feudalism and the priestly class. The wise policy of Portuguese sovereigns was conspicuous in two points — non-interference in Spanish affairs, and the steady maintenance of friendship and alliance with England. Diniz (Denis), son of Alfonso III., reigned from 1279 to 1325, and well earned, by prudent and energetic administration, the honourable title of "Re Lavrador," or "the toiling king." He was a lover of literature ; a promoter of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures ; a just ruler, a maintainer of peace. To him is due the cultivation of vines in the north of Portugal, which still maintains one of the country's chief branches of trade. He steadily turned the attention of nobles and people from warlike pursuits to the tillage of the soil, and he greatly improved the royal cities of Lisbon, Coimbra, and Santarem. The administration of justice was thoroughly reformed, under chancellors trained in the Roman law at Padua and Bologna, and a new legal system was established. A commercial treaty with England was made, and a royal navy was founded under an able Genoese " High Admiral." In 1300, Diniz founded at Lisbon the first Portuguese university, afterwards transferred to Coimbra. He was the best Portuguese poet of his day, and may be justly regarded as the founder of Portuguese literature. Under his son Alfonso IV., who was much engaged in warfare with Spain and with the Moors, a new commercial treaty was concluded with Edward III. of England in 1353, and the powerful English king, by a proclamation, commanded his subjects to abstain from all harm to the Portuguese. Dom John, an illegitimate brother of Ferdinand I., was elected king by the Cortes in 1385, and a few months later a Portuguese and English army decisively defeated an invasion from Castile, and firmly established Portuguese power. In the following year the Treaty of Windsor cemented the bonds of friendship and alliance with England, and in 1387 John I. of Portugal married Philippa, a daughter of John of Gaunt, who came to Corunna with 2,000 English lances and 3,000 archers, bringing the bride, and marching in triumph through Spanish territory, to Oporto. Under King John the power of the Crown was firmly maintained, and many internal reforms were made. A brisk trade was carried on with England by the export of fruits and wines in exchange for cloth made in English and Flemish 352 A History of the World loom-, and the king's favourite residence was at Lisbon, where he could view the daily passage of shipping to and from the city which was now becoming a great centre of commerce. Above all, it was in the reign, lasting until 1433, of John " the Great " of Portugal, that the age of exploration and discovery began which gave the country her great place in European history — the age of Prince Henry "the Navigator," ofVasco da Gama, of Albuquerque, and'of Camoens, the poet who celebrated the eminent men of his country. The king's sons were worthy of their sire and their great English descent. Dom Edward, the eldest son, named after his great-grandfather, Edward III. of England, aided his father in the duties of government, and drew up the first code of Portuguese law. Dom Pedro, the second son, travelled over Europe, winning respect at all courts by his abilities, fighting against the heathen Lithuanians with the Teutonic Knights, and then, on his return, taking a good share in the direction of affairs at home. Dom Henry, the third son, was the famous " Navigator." His great aim was to bring commercial gain to Portugal by discovering a continuous sea-route to India. Two younger sons were distinguished, one in civil rule, the other as a Crusader. The beautiful Isabel, their sister, married Philip "the Good " of Burgundy. Under the immediate successors of John the Great, there was some useless and unsuccessful warfare against the Moors in Africa, and Dom Ferdinand, the fifth son of John, fell a victim to imprisonment as a hostage, rather than consent to the surrender of Ceuta, the only ransom which his captors would accept. Alfonso V., foolishly attacking Castile, instead of adhering to the old policy, was utterly defeated in 1476. His son and successor, John II. (1481-1495), a brave soldier and a very able politician and statesman, returned to the wise policy of his ancestor, John the Great, maintaining a close friendship with England, and neutrality in Spanish affairs. He broke the power of the turbulent and rapacious feudal nobles, bringing their leader, the duke of Braganza, to the block in 1483. He was also a strong supporter of the systematic maritime exploration inaugurated by Prince Henry, and only made the one great mistake, as regarded his own glory and that of Portugal, of rejecting the proposals of Columbus. The Portuguese king, the first European monarch who thought of reaching India by sailing round Africa, was deaf to one who thought of sailing westwards with the same object. During his brief reign, John II. did much to improve shipbuilding and fire- arms, and his court was filled with men who became illustrious in p mar H red in the prin H work which . rical title. He mathemal ;urt of 1> i -^ \a>t wealth in ition and an 1 rawn tip and the * - improvi enterprising maj .. '1 he darn nun in. iv b from the fact that tiiur vo the open tter than half- men. In i • named from I I in the iptly i I that I ■ ■ ther the latter in 1431. 1 I in 354 A History of the World discoverer of Brazil), made his way to Sao Miguel or St. Michael, which is still so famous for its oranges. In 1434 Cape Bojador was doubled, and in 144 1 the most enterprising of all these captains, Nuno Tristao, reached Cabo Branco (Cape Blanco), and unhappily started the Portuguese slave-trade by bringing home some captive negroes. Labourers were needed for the tillage of Portuguese waste-lands, and a profitable traffic was at once started by the navigators on the west African coast. In 1445 Nuno Tristao reached the Senegal river, and in the same year the Guinea coast was discovered. A further trade in slaves was started there by the Lisbon merchants. Year by year the voyages went on, and Cape Verde, so named from its green appearance, was reached in 1446 by Diniz Diaz, one of the most adventurous commanders. After the death of Prince Henry in 1460, when the way round Africa had been well prepared, the slave-trade and other traffic on the Guinea coast, rich in ivory and spices, brought a lull in the voyages of pure exploration. In 147 1, however, the navigator Fernando Po discovered the island called by his name, with St. Thomas and Anno Bom (Annobon), and crossed the equator to some distance south. John II. built the fort of Elmina, now in British possession, west of Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, and in 1484 Uiogo Cam discovered the Congo. Still pushing forward, Bartholomew Diaz reached Algoa Bay in i486, and in 1487 at last doubled the cape named by him, from the weather which he met, Cabo Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, a title changed by his sovereign, when the north- east run of the coast gave a good prospect of success in the main object which Prince Henry had not lived to see attained, into the world-famous Cape of Good Hope, in his language Cabo da Boa Esperanca. Here, on the verge of modern history, and in full sight of her brief period of national glory in the 16th century, we leave Portugal, to treat of very different people and scenes at the other end of southern Europe. Before narrating the downfall of the Greek or Byzantine Empire, we must deal with a branch of the Turks, the people who founded a new empire in the south-east of Europe. We have already seen something of the Mongols in this record as hordes who invaded eastern Europe and held sway for centuries in a large part of Russia. The name is derived from the word mong, meaning " brave " or " bold." Their origin and early history are very obscure, but from Chinese annals we learn of their existence, from the 6th to the 9th century, in regions around the north of the great desert of Gobi The Turks and 1 -ike Baikal. In th<- ntury th< r'alour, anr future conquests by th ition :.ir military force, th< army of modern He independent through the death of the last prince of the Seljuk hue, and w;is most ablj I by his brother Ala-ud-din, the first Turkish " Vezir " (Vizier, I' Mini ' '• »rt rival claimants, and Murad then attacked him, n .til the pl< ( pie. rhe i irtift ati< na r. sisted all . and tl. . and the luced the itinople, 1 . and the ! 1, and 1.: [] . i capil is half in had dwindled t<> 100,000 s III-- 1;' : the in the I. I : ; i i I end die galL 360 A History of the World Huniades (Hunyadi Janos), which have been described, against the Turks, seemed likely to deprive them of the Balkan territory, but the Ottoman power soon revived. John VII. 's death in 1448, and Sultan Murad's in 145 1, bring us to the closing scene of more than 1,000 years of strange eventful history. The last Greek emperor was Constantine XI. (1448-1453) : his conqueror was Murad's son, Mohammed II., greatest in ability of all the Ottoman rulers ; a very able general, secret in counsel and swift to strike ; and a cruel, treacherous, and sensual tyrant. Constantine was a brave, pious, and generous man, but he was foolish enough to provoke the Sultan, who had already resolved on making Constantinople his capital. Mohammed at once erected a strong fortress near the city, on the European side, the Rumelia Hisar, or " Castle of Rumelia," with walls 30 feet thick, and having cannon throwing stone shot of six hundredweight. The Bosphorus was commanded by this strong work, facing the " Castle of Anatolia" on the Asiatic shore, and the siege began in April, 1453. Appeals for help had been made to the Italian naval powers and the Pope, but Venice and Genoa did very little, though their own commercial interests in the East were at stake, and Nicholas V., with the utmost goodwill, was unable to send more than a little money and a few hundred hired troops. The emperor's whole force for defence consisted of 3,000 mercenaries, his own little army of 4,000, and 2,000 volunteers from the city itself, all that could be raised among a population who regarded him, a " Romanist " like his predecessor, as an apostate from the faith of his ancestors. The number of troops was not sufficient to man the great extent of land-fortification and sea-wall, and the place was assailed by several hundred war-galleys, and by 70,000 picked men on the land side. The resistance made by the emperor, and by the Genoese commander Giustiniani, and the men under their charge, was both skilful and heroic, but it was hopeless from the first. The heavy cannon of the Sultan breached the walls ; the Christians could make no adequate reply. Brave sorties were made ; mining was met by counter-mining ; a great Turkish wooden turret was reduced to ashes by the famous " Greek fire." Mohammed showed his skill and resolution in getting many galleys into the inner harbour above Galata by a novel process. These vessels, of the lighter class, were moved by rollers, for ten miles, under the action of sails spread to the wind, and of men and pulleys, along a broad well-greased platform of strong planks. They were thus placed, with their light Downfall of the Byzantine Empire 361 draught, out of reach of the large Greek vessels guarding the entrance of the harbour. The most accessible part of the city was thus reached, and the end drew near when the cannon of the Turks had made several practicable breaches. On May 29th, 1453, at dawn of day, as Constantine and Giustiniani stood side by side in one of the breaches, with their best men around them, 12,000 Janissaries, in successive columns, began the storming. Hundreds fell before the swords of the Greek men in armour, but Giustiniani was mortally wounded by an arrow, and Constantine was almost alone at the wall when the Turks forced their way in and trod him under foot. The people were in the churches at prayer when the Turks entered the town. The corpse of Constantine was found so gashed that it could only be recognised by the golden eagles on his shoes. The head was struck off, and sent to the chief cities for the populace to view. As the Ottoman Sultan rode through the Atmeidan (" place of horses "), or hippodrome, towards St. Sophia, he rose in his stirrups and struck off with a blow of his mace the nearest head of the three, on one neck, forming the top of the monument dedicated by Pausanias at Delphi in 479 B.C., after the Greek victory over the Persians at Plataea. The East was at last avenging itself on the West, the Tartar on the Aryan, in maiming, after the death of the last Greek emperor, the memorial of Western victory standing on the spot where Constantine the Great had placed it 11 centuries before. The fall of Constantinople, and the firm seating of Ottoman power in Europe, came after 53 days of siege. About 2,000 Christians were killed in the first heat of capture ; the rest of the people — male and female, senators and prelates, patricians and plebeians, matrons and nuns, to the number of 60,000— became the spoil of war, and were sold as slaves. The "Church" became the "Mosque" of St. Sophia, and the Moham- medan rites were at once inaugurated after the muezzin or crier, from the highest turret, had issued the public invitation to worship. After his conquest of the former Greek capital, Mohammed annexed Bosnia and Servia, but he was driven from Belgrade, as we have seen, by Hunyadi of Hungary, and he could make no head against Matthias Corvinus. In Albania the brave and renowned prince George, called Scanderbeg, a national hero, had taken up arms against the Turks in 1443. Carried away captive at seven years of age, he was trained as a Mohammedan, and became a favourite, through his valour and skill as a leader, with Murad (Amurath) II. He commanded a division of the Ottoman forces 362 A History of the World under that Sultan, and deserted his service, with a few hundred Albanians, to become a Christian and the terror of his former friends. The Turkish garrisons were all driven out, and in 1444 the new leader, heading 15,000 men, almost utterly destroyed 40,000 Turks in the mountain-gorges. Other like successes came, and in 1449 Amurath himself, with a vast host, lost 30,000 troops in vain attacks on two hill-forts held by Scanderbeg. Unaided by the Christian potentates, except in munitions of war, and by volunteers who flocked to his standard, the Albanian hero was partly deserted by the chiefs through jealousy of his ambitious designs, but he continued to defeat all Turkish efforts to reach him in his mountain-posts, and again and again repulsed Mohammed II., who lost tens of thousands of men. This tall, athletic, active, fierce, and resolute patriot, after 25 years' incessant warfare, died in 1468, worn out by his exertions. He was a man of wonderful physical, mental, and spiritual gifts, who stemmed the tide of Moslem conquest while he lived, and whose value to his country and to Christendom was amply proved by the rapid cessation of Albanian resistance which followed his death. We have already seen, in the history of Venice, the warlike successes of Mohammed II. against the great republic. Before his death in 1481, the Turks were masters of most of Greece and the ^Egean archipelago ; and of Trebizond, Sinope, ana the Crimea, on the Black Sea ; and were navally strong rivals of Venice and Genoa. Chapter IV. — Mediaeval Civilisation : Rise of Towns ; the Hansa League; Decay of Feudalism; Art; Invention; the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. Of the rise of towns, and the leagues or federations of cities for defence against tyrannical sovereigns and disorderly nobles, we have already seen something in the history of Germany and Italy. By far the most important and long-enduring of these associations was that known as the Hanseatic League, or Ha?zsa, an organisation of cities in the north of Germany and the neighbouring states for commercial purposes, but one which thereby attained great political importance. Piracy on the sea, robbery on land, illegal exactions from king and baron, were the foes of mediaeval commerce, and against all these the Hanse towns waged unrelenting war. The other purposes of the confederation, whose precise date and circumstances of origin are unknown, included the control of the market for goods, and the maintenance of a monopoly for The Hansa League 363 its own members. The name of Hansa, meaning " a society," " union," first appears in 1241 ; but even so early as the reign of Ethelred II. in England, we find an allusion in the law-books, in 978, to "the peopie of the Emperor" in London, meaning the German merchants (called " traders of Almaine " — i.e. Allemagne, Germany — in a charter of Henry III.) who were doing business on the banks of the Thames. Traders from Cologne and other German towns, with special privileges, had a " factory," in the sense of a goods-depot in a foreign country, on the north bank of the Thames, a little above London Bridge, called " The Steel- yard," from the great balance for the weighing of goods. The wealth of the guild became such that Edward III. borrowed money from them for his French campaigns, and his crown and most valuable jewels were long kept in pawn at Cologne. The Baltic Sea was the earliest, and for ages the greatest, scene of activity for the merchants of the Hansa League. The mainspring of prosperity for traders in that region was the herring, one of the most prolific fish, which then frequented the Baltic shores in vast numbers. The " Easterlings," as the Hansa traders were called in distinction from merchants of southern Europe, bought from the fishermen the commodity which was in so great demand at a time when all Europe was of the Roman or of the Greek Church, both devoted to the strict observance of numerous fasts. The chief resorts of the herrings were the shores of Scania (southern Sweden), the seas around the isle of Riigen, and the coasts of Pomerania, and an early centre of Hanseatic trade was Wisby, on the north-west coast of the Swedish island of Gothland. From the 10th to the 14th centuries this place was one of the most important commercial cities of Europe, and its former prosperity is still attested by the almost intact walls and towers, and especially by the well-kept remains of ten churches, built in the iith and 12th centuries, of great interest as specimens of early Gothic architecture. Numbers of Roman, Byzantine, early English, and German coins are still found in the soil of the island. Wisby was the mother-city of the great Hanseatic settlement at Novgorod, near Lake Ilmen, in Russia, a city which, with the territory around it, was then an independent republic in the midst of various Tartar (Mongol) "khanates," or principalities. The place was a centre for Arctic- and Byzantine trade, and the Hansa merchants made their way thence by waterways as far as Smolensk, and farther still by the roads due to the Teutonic Knights holding 364 A History of the World sway in Pomerania and Livonia. From Russia the traders exported wax, leather, skins, taliow, and other products, in return for the strong beer brewed in northern Germany, with woollen and linen cloth, and metal-work of various kinds. From Sweden the Hansa League exported copper, iron, timber, potash, pitch, tar, granite, and limestone. Danzig, an important town even in the 10th century, had a great commerce with England, whose crossbowmen received from Austria, by way of that Baltic port, all the yew for their bows. The head of the League was Liibeck, on the river Trave, 12 miles from the Baltic, founded by Saxons in 1143, receiving a charter from Henry "the Lion," duke of Saxony, and being greatly aided by Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II. of Germany. This great city, having special control of Wisby in her palmy days, was at one time the commercial metropolis of the Baltic and northern Europe, wisely ruled by a council of men selected from the great mercantile families. There were great Hanseatic depots also at Bruges in Flanders and Bergen in Norway. Hamburg, founded in 808 by Karl the Great, became a commercial town, with privileges from the emperor, including a separate judicial system and exemption from customs-dues, towards the end of the 12th century. Fifty years later this city and Lubeck were the main founders of the Hanseatic League, and Hamburg was closely connected with Bremen, a place of early commercial note, and a leading Hansa city. Riga, founded in 1 201 by the bishop of Livonia, soon became a great place of trade, and a member of the League. In all, the Hansa confederation, at the height of its renown, included over fourscore towns, on the coast and inland, from Novgorod to Amsterdam and from Cologne to Cracow. In political affairs the Hanseatic towns usually observed neutrality, their chief aim being a monopoly of trade, and in warlike matters they acted on the defensive. Difficulties with princes and states were settled generally by means of shrewd diplomacy and by prudent gifts or tribute, but when the League was assailed with violent injustice, it showed that it could strike straight and hard. It had an early foe in Denmark, a country commanding the sea-passage to the Baltic by the Belt and the Sound, and thus capable of giving trouble to the chief Hansa trade. In 1227 the towns gained a victory over the Danes, on land, at Bornhoved, and in 1249 Lubeck, with scarcely any outside aid, severely defeated Eric II. at sea, and took and plundered Copen- hagen. Waldemar, king of Denmark, in 1361, after interfering with the Hansa fishing-rights off Sweden, and breaking contracts made The Hansa League 365 by his predecessors and himself, committed a gross outrage in suddenly invading Gothland, where his forces seized and plundered Wisby. This stroke was too much to be borne, and the League at once prepared for war. An embargo was laid on all Danish goods in the Baltic towns ; the alliance of Sweden and Norway was obtained; and a fleet was made ready. In May, 1362, their ships appeared in the Sound, and Copenhagen was again taken and sacked. The rashness and negligence of the Hansa commander caused the loss of most of his fleet, surprised by Waldemar while the enemy were engaged in a land-siege. The hapless leader, after a year's imprisonment, was beheaded at Liibeck as a punishment for his error, and the cities then made a truce with the Danish king. Waldemar, however, again made wanton attacks on the Baltic commerce, and in 1367 the League strengthened its constitution, in a meeting of deputies held at Cologne, representing 77 towns, by a solemn undertaking to be common enemies of the Danish king, and by an Act which became the fundamental basis of union. Waldemar grew alarmed when he found his foes, joined by many princes and barons, setting up a rival monarch in Sweden, and threatening to dismember Denmark. In April, 1368, the Hansa ships were to meet in the Sound for an attack on Zealand, when news came that the Danish sovereign had fled, leaving a viceroy to do his best. The war went on for two years, during which the forces of the federated towns did what they pleased, amply avenging the ruin of Wisby by ravaging the Danish coasts, with the sacking of cities and the gathering of abundant spoil. At the end of that time, Waldemar, returning from the eastern Baltic lands, humbly sued for peace, and received, by the Treaty of Stralsund, in 1370, humiliating terms. For 15 years the League was to have two- thirds of the revenue of Scania, the possession of all fortresses, free passage of the Sound, and control over the choice of a Danish ruler. Waldemar died four years later, leaving the Hanseatic League in a position of supremacy over Scandinavia, and enjoying the high regard, as a northern power, of Flanders, England, and France. The decline of this great trade-confederation began with a change in the movements of the herring. Early in the 15th century the fish deserted the Baltic spawning-grounds for the German Ocean; the Netherlands gained what the Hansa towns of the eastern sea had lost ; and Amsterdam, in a large degree, took the place of Liibeck, which, in the 14th century, had a population approaching 366 A History of the World the double of its numbers in 1S70. The wealth, pride, and power of these northern commercial towns of the League waned further after the change of commercial routes due to the discovery of America and of the way to India round the Cape. The Dutch members of the confederacy had left it early in the 15 th century, and the rise of British commerce in Tudor days had its influence, while the Reformation, changing the religion of northern Europe, lessened the demand for wax for candles as well as for the salt fish in which some of the towns still traded. Early in the 17th century Liibeck, Hamburg, and Bremen were the only survivors of the League, and these three famous "free cities," after the middle of the 19th century, relinquished their old privileges as free ports by incorporation into the German Zoll Verein, or Customs Union. The great commercial League, now for centuries .only a memory, played a noble part in its day by spreading civilisation through regions of Europe sunk in barbarism, and by maintaining the cause of right against might. It has been well said that " the free cities of Germany rose like happy islands amidst the wide-wasting ocean of violence and anarchy." They were the representatives of wealth won by industry, enterprise, and thrift, against warfare and spoliation which, left unchecked, would have caused the death of all that brings prosperity and happiness to human beings. The merchants of the towns, the great burgher-class, aided the Church in all righteous causes, and withstood her in the days of corruption and gross superstition. Their fortifications gave shelter to civil freedom when she had no other asylum, and the whole life of the towns was a perpetual paean to the glory of social order, justice, and peace. These organised communities, the abodes of intelligence, courage, and self-reliance, had a most healthy moral influence on the society in which they flourished, by maintaining a high standard of freedom, honour, domestic life, and useful activity, in an age of violence, religious fanaticism, intellectual darkness, and a large degree of civil and political slavery. The merchant was as proud of the town in which he was born, where he gained his wealth, and meant to die, as any noble was of his birth or any knight of his rank in chivalry, and the artisans in their guilds displayed the tools and emblems of their trades with as much complacency as the warrior showed his sword, or the highly-born pointed to his coat-of-arms. The glory of the Hanseatic League does not extend, like that of the Italian republics, to the domain of art and literature. The merchants aimed chiefly at money-making, on commercial principles Decay of Feudalism 367 which modern views must condemn as those of a narrow and selfish monopoly. Their entire want of political ambition alone kept them from creating a powerful independent state in northern Germany. Intimately connected with the rise and progress of towns in mediaeval days is the decay of feudalism. According to the great authority Hallam, the subversion of the feudal system in Europe was due to the increase of the power of the Crown, the elevation of the lower ranks of society, and the decay of the feudal principle. The first of these causes has been seen operating in England, France, and Spain. Men recognised the king as the one lord to whom obedience was due in the common interest, and preferred the rule of one tyrant to that of many. All kings were not tyrants, but subject to certain of the laws which they administered, as well as to the public opinion which might operate through armed force. The feudal nobles, whose castles had been centres of violence and injustice, became state-officials or mere courtiers, and all society was better for the change. The abolition of villenage or serfdom, the rise to influence of artisans and merchants, and the institution of free cities and towns, had obvious effects which need not be further noted. The commons or middle class were, by their very nature, destructive of feudal superiority. The Church took part with the king, as her best supporter, rather than with the feudal nobles, and as the prelates and religious corporations were great landowners in most European countries, this desertion was a suicidal cause of the extinction of feudal power. The invention of gunpowder put the foot-soldier on more than a level with the mail-clad baron and knight, and reduced to nothingness, by the battering force of cannon, the strength of feudal fortresses. The feudal principle, lastly, decayed because it had lost its former vitality, the essence of which lay in ancient prejudice and acknowledged interest. The reign of law and order made the protection of a feudal lord over vassals needless, and the use of mercenary troops did away with the need for the feudal militia. Respect and attachment for the feudal compact died away ; " homage " and " investiture " became useless ceremonies, and the payment of feudal dues to the lord was a mere burden. The whole institution had done its work and seen its day, and so it perished with the change of ideas, of institutions, and of the forms of civilisation. Of the Renaissance or Revival of Learning we have already seen something in connection with Pope Nicholas V. We must now 368 A History of the World go back and view the beginnings of this great movement. During the really dark ages, the Latin language, in a debased form, had been used for all legal instruments, and was the chief channel for conducting all communications on ecclesiastical and political affairs. From the 6th to the 1 ith centuries quotations from any classical Latin author are rarely found. In the T2th century these great writers began* to be studied afresh, and we find many references to Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Pliny, and other authors of ancient Rome. In the 14th century a zeal for the ancient learning appears, and a regular trade began in the copying of books, much aided by the introduction of good, cheap, rag-made paper in place of the costly parchment. Translations from classical authors made their appear- ance, Italy being ahead, in the revival, of the other European countries. Much was due there, in the 14th century, to Petrarch the poet and Boccaccio the prose-writer, for the preservation of the remains of authors by the rescue of manuscripts mouldering away in monastic libraries, and by the correction of errors of transcription, which furnished an intelligible text of the Latin classics a century before the invention of printing. In the 15th century Italian scholars gave up their lives to the work of thus reviving both Latin and Greek literature. A new intellectual life had given signs of its existence in the study of the Roman law. At a school of civil law at Bologna, in Italy, the code of Justinian was taught early in the 12th century, and rapid progress was made with this study at the Universities of Padua, Naples, and other cities. A new jurisprudence, based upon the Roman system, was created in the Italian municipal towns, and administered by the magistrates chosen by the citizens of those free communities. The Universities of Toulouse and Montpellier had many students devoted to the study of Justinian, and Roman law gained much influence in framing the codes used by the tribunals of France, Germany, and Spain. The first University which rose to high distinction was that of Paris, where the brilliant Abelard, famous for his guilty love of Heloise, was a "schoolman" or scholastic philosopher, noted as a poet, orator, grammarian, logician, mathematician, musician, and theologian, lecturing on several subjects, having St. Bernard among his pupils, and doing much to awaken mankind to regard for intellectual pursuits. The great English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge arose respectively before the Norman Conquest and in the 13th century. The rise of great schools of learning in Germany, at Prague and The Renaissance or Revival of Learning 369 Leipzig (Leipsic), in 1350 and 1409, may be noted. In Spain the University of Salamanca was founded about the end of the 1 2th century, and was famous for 300 years. New freedom of thought, the precursor of the Reformation, came with the new life of learning. The pioneers in this movement were, without any clear intention on their own part, the extraordinary beings known as " the Schoolmen " or " Scholastic Philosophers." The most famous of them had special names from their admirers. St. Anselm, whom we have seen as abbot of Bee in Normandy, and as archbishop of Canterbury, was a theologian aiming at a reasoned system of Christian truth, and is by some regarded as the founder of " scholasticism " or scientific theology. Lombardus, or Peter Lombard, a pupil of Abelard, was called the '" Master of Sentences " from the systematic precision of the work in "which he classified the opinions of the early fathers of the Church. Alexander de Hales, an Englishman, was styled the "Irrefragable Doctor " Bonaventura, a Franciscan monk of Tuscany, had, from his blameless life and lofty thought, the name of " Seraphic Doctor." The excellent Bradwardine, archbishop of Canterbury, who died of the great plague, the "Black Death," in 1349, a few weeks after his consecration, was known as the "Profound Doctor." Thomas Aquinas was the "Angelic Doctor," and the "Angel of the Schools," and the " Eagle of Divines." Duns Scotus was the " Subtle Doctor." His pupil, William Occam (or Ockham), a Franciscan monk, born at Ockham in Surrey, an eminent logician and disputant, was the " Invincible Doctor," and won honour as a defender of liberty of thought and opinion in the 14th century. These worthy men aimed at reducing the doctrines of the Church to a scientific system, and their efforts to reconcile the dogmas of Christianity with the conclusions of human reason led them into metaphysical discussions so intricate and subtle, so abstruse, and so bewildering to ordinary minds, that some of them have been accused, in burlesque, of trying to settle how many angels could dance at once on the point of a needle. Peace be to their souls ! they did much to expose supersti- tion in its native absurdity, and to prepare the way for better things. An analytical, sceptical, secular spirit, the exact opposite of mediaeval mysticism, was the outcome of the classical revival. Less and less regard was paid to the worship and doctrines of the Church. In the love of art and literature, ideas arose very diverse 370 A History of the World from those of Crusaders and ascetics, and indifference to all that was old and solemn, or that seemed to savour of monkery or feudalism, was accompanied by enthusiasm for things new, fresh, graceful, and clearly apprehended by the senses and the mind. The full outburst of the new light for the intellect of man came early in the 1 6th century, when a new geographical world, with all its wonders, was revealed, and the students of the glorious literature of Athens were enabled, for the first time, to read in the original Greek, with a text freed from most of its errors and corruptions, the Gospels and Epistles of the human founders of the Christian religion. The Greek language had, during many centuries, been almost orgotten in western Europe. A few of the " Schoolmen " knew a little Greek, but even in Italy the language was almost unknown, and scarcely any quotation from a Greek poet can be found in writers from the 6th to the 14th centuries. Petrarch and Boccaccio were the first restorers of this branch of classical learning, the former being a student of Plato under a scholar from Con- stantinople, and the latter causing lectures on Homer to be delivered in Florence. Towards the end of the 14th century Greek literature was taught in the great Tuscan city, and at Pavia, Rome, and Venice, by Manuel Chrysoloras, a scholar from Constantinople, who trained a number of pupils that acquired eminence in the Greek language ; Poggio Bracciolini, a native of Florence, a man who spent 50 years in the reviving of classical learning, searching convents for manuscripts, and travelling to England and over much of Europe ; Guarinus of Verona, Leonardo Bruno, and others. Many Italian scholars went eastwards, and carried home hundreds of Greek manuscripts, and the Turkish attack on Constantinople brought a general revival in the dispersal of men skilled in the ancient tongue. In the 15th century Johannes Bessarion, a native of Trebizond who became bishop of Nicaea and a cardinal in the Roman Church, did great things for Greek literature and philosophy, and on his death he left his valuable collection of 600 Greek MSS. to St. Mark's Library at Venice. Theodore Gaza is another eminent man in the same line, who taught Greek at Ferrara, was befriended by Bessarion, and published a Greek grammar. Constantine Lascaris, one of the refugees from Constantinople, laboured under Bessarion's patronage at Rome, Naples, and Messina. His relative John Lascaris, who also took flight from Constantinople to Italy, was employed by Lorenzo de Medici of Florence to collect the works of great Greek authors, and afterwards taught the language at The Renaissance or Revival of Learning 371 Paris, and became at Rome, under Leo X., superintendent of his Greek press and of a school for young Greeks. These were days when to be a Greek scholar was the road to high honour as the guest and friend of princes, and the holder of good positions in the Church. In order to complete this interesting and important subject we pass into the 16th century, and note the progress made in our own country. The study of Greek was first introduced into England at the University of Oxford by two distinguished scholars : William Grocyn, a pupil of William of Wykeham's great school at Winchester, who had learnt the language in Italy; and Thomas Linacre, the famous physician, an Oxford student who became a Fellow of All Souls in 1484. As a diplomatist under Henry VII. he was at Bologna, Florence, and Padua. In the Tuscan city he learned Greek, and on his return became tutor to Arthur, Prince of Wales, afterwards lecturing at Oxford. This founder and first president of the College of Physicians was probably the first English doctor of medicine who read Aristotle and Galen in the original Greek, and his Latin translation of the works of the Greek physician won high praise from Erasmus. Archbishop Morton, the trusted friend and minister of Henry VII., was one of the great promoters of the new learning, freely using his wealth in the cause, and being one of the first to discover the wonderful abilities of Thomas More, whom he sent to Oxford to study Greek under Grocyn and Linacre. John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, and founder of St. Paul's School in London, a friend of the illustrious Erasmus, lectured at Oxford on' St. Paul's Epistles, valuing Greek chiefly, not because it laid open to him the beauties of Homer and Sophocles, or the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, but because he could read his Greek Testament. The faith and the moral code of Christianity were there found in their original form, free from the mystical glosses of mediaeval theologians. The printing-press was by this time spreading copies of the classical authors over western Europe, and the minds of men, inspired by contact with the best intellectual work of ancient Greece and Rome, attacked every department of knowledge with new vigour. The perfect classical models of style showed the vast importance of literary form, and the free energy of the Greek mind gave the impulse to inquiry which led to the grand discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo in the world of science. The devotees of Greek learning were styled the Humanists, as the ancient classics were called literae humaniores ("the more polite 372 A History of the World or refined literature ") and the Humanities, in opposition to science and philosophy. The effect of the new learning upon religious, or superstitious, belief was such as patrons of letters like Nicholas V. had never contemplated. In Macaulay's words, " Ignorance was the talisman on which their power depended, and that talisman they had themselves broken. They had called in Knowledge as a handmaid to decorate Superstition, and their error produced its natural effect. Minds that were daily nourished with the best literature of Greece and Rome grew too strong to be trammelled by the cobwebs of the scholastic divinity." The classical scholars led the van of the grand assault on spiritual tyranny. Every one of the chief reformers was a Humanist, and in northern Europe almost every distinguished Humanist, according to the measure of his courage and integrity, was a reformer. In Scotland John Knox, George Buchanan, the noble-minded Maitland of Lethington, and Andrew Melville, principal of Glasgow College, were on the same side in religion as many of the most learned " Grecians " in England. On the Continent John Reuchlin, a good scholar both in Greek ' and Hebrew, a brave opponent of persecutors of the Jews ; and Erasmus, one of the greatest men in literature, the pupil in Greek of Linacre, the dear friend of Colet and Sir Thomas More, a professor of Greek at Cambridge, the lifelong foe of monkery, the first editor of a sound text of the New Testament in Greek, the greatest champion of the Revival of Learning, — these eminent men, not openly quarrelling with the established Church-authorities, undermined the position of the Roman See with men of culture by the expression of free thought. We must now give a brief glance at other sides of mediaeval progress in civilisation. In domestic architecture we observe the transition from the use of wood to stone and brick, and from the massive baronial strongholds, with mere loopholes for windows on the outer side, to such castle-palaces as Kenilworth and Warwick, Alnwick, Arundel, and Windsor, and beautiful castellated houses like Hadclon Hall. Chimneys and glass windows, both unknown to ancient Greece and Rome, were vast improvements. It is in Italy that we must chiefly look for high pictorial art during this period. Great Tuscan painters from the 13th to the 15th centuries were Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Ghirlandajo, Botticelli, and, partly in the 16th century, the wonderful genius Leonardo da Vinci, at once a painter, architect, sculptor, engineer, scientific inventor, mathematician, natural philosopher, The Renaissance or Revival of Learning 373 and accomplished gentleman. His lofty place as an artist is based upon the keen and earnest study of nature ; drawing unsurpassed for delicacy ; a noble style, and masterly skill in subtle expression, light and shade, modelling and perspective. Venice produced the brothers Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, the latter of whom taught Sebastiano del Piombo, the great Giorgione, and the greater Titian. Italy had, since the fall of the Western Empire, kept traces of the ancient civilisation in a far greater degree than any other country in western Europe, and the dawn of the new light was seen there long before it appeared in France, Germany, or the British Isles. The cities, as we have seen, held their own against feudal nobles, and enjoyed a large share of republican independence. With this municipal freedom were associated commerce, taste, comfort, and even luxury of life. Wealth, dominion, and knowledge, in the days of the Crusades, came to the commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tuscan seas. Italian ships were in every port of the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, of the Bay Of Biscay and of the Channel. Italian "factories," or commercial depots, arose on every shore. Italian money-changers did their business in every thriving town. Manufactures flourished, and banking was established for the convenience of trade. In the 14th century some parts of the fair southern peninsula had reached a very high point of prosperity and civilisation. In the earlier part of that century the annual revenue of Florence exceeded in value that which England and Ireland yielded to Queen Elizabeth at the close of the Tudor age, when the 17th century began. There were 200 factories and 30,000 workmen engaged in the woollen manufacture. There .was a large coinage of gold and silver, and 80 banks con- ducted the commercial business, not merely of the Tuscan city, but of all Europe. The city contained 170,000 people, with schools in which 10,000 children were taught to read, 1,200 studied arithmetic, and 600 received a learned education. Literature and the fine arts were making progress proportionate to that of material prosperity. A new language, the Italian based upon the old tongue of Rome, rapidly gained the perfection of sweetness and vigour. The Divina Commedia of Dante, the greatest work of imagination which had appeared since the Homeric poems, splendidly displayed the power of the language and the poetical genius of the author who wielded it. Petrarch and Boccaccio, as we have seen, introduced a more profound, liberal, and elegant 25 374 A History of the World scholarship, and aroused enthusiasm for the long- forgotten literature of Greece and Rome. The spectacle presented by Italy at this period is in striking contrast to that afforded by England and France, where illiterate masters still oppressed a degraded peasantry. In the north of Europe ignorance and semi-barbarism still largely prevailed, while the south showed opulent and enlightened states, large and splendid cities; " ports, arsenals, villas, museums, libraries, marts filled with every article of comfort and luxury, factories swarming with artisans, the Apennines richly tilled to their summits, the Po wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan." It will be our grievous task shortly to tell how, in the Italian states, precocious maturity paid a penalty in untimely decay, and how the pleasant land of wit and learning, of literary and artistic genius, of wealth and luxury, became a prey to ambitious men who brought upon her people a time of slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, slavery, and despair. In literature, the greatest Italians of the period have been already given. In England, our first great poet, Chaucer, was contemporary with our first great prose-writer, Wyclif, both flourishing somewhat later than Petrarch and Boccaccio. In French, Villehardouin, very early in the 13th century, wrote the Conquete de Constantinople (the Latin conquest) in admirable style — vigorous, graphic, and direct. Froissart, in the 15th, and Philippe de Comines, were reflective and picturesque historians, while Charles d'Orleans and Villon were the chief lyric poets. The German Nibelungen Lied has been already noticed. In the 14th and 15th centuries the national Teutonic literature was chiefly in the hands of the Meistersiinger, or artisan- poets, and we may also note the Volkslieder, or national ballads, and the satirist Sebastian Brandt, who deals with the follies and vices of his day in the Ship of Fools, published in 1494. Mediaeval times have transmitted to the moderns one glory, at least, in which they can never be surpassed — their, noble and stately, or graceful and beautiful, architectural models. In was in the 12th and following centuries that there arose in France and England, Belgium and Holland, Germany, Italy, and Spain, the cathedrals and abbeys which display so much varied excellence of general composition, along with all the beauties attached to intricacy of parts, elegance of form, and skilful use of light and shade. The rounded arch of the severe and massive Norman style gave way to the pointed arch of the Gothic, a style of building which soon Invention 375 displayed the profusion of ornament seen in the cathedrals of Amiens and other French towns. The cathedrals of Milan and Cologne, the latter of which has been only recently completed, belong to the 15th century. The Milan work is a wonder, a dream in white marble, bristling with pinnacles and statues, and without a rival in its own way. Some of the Flemish Hotels de Ville, or Town Halls, are exquisite in design and ornamentation. In Italy, the Tuscan Romanesque style is seen in the cathedral of Pisa, begun in the nth century, being a basilica with round arches and colonnades of pillars. The Italian Gothic is displayed in the cathedrals of Siena, Bologna, and Florence. At Venice, architecture passed from the Byzantine style, in the 13th century, into that of the pointed arch, and a special kind of Gothic arose. The beautiful palaces along the Grand Canal have details of both styles. Our last topics in dealing with mediaeval history are the mariner's compass and the art of printing. The use of the magnetic needle, which appears to have been known in Asia at a remote period, is believed to have been known in Europe, in the form of the compass, in the 12th century, by independent discovery, and not by importation from China, and it may have been used in western Europe in the 14th century. It is needless to point out the connection between its adaptation as a steering-guide and the progress of geographical discovery in great oceans. Printing, in some forms, was known in China many centuries, and in Europe for some ages, before the invention of the movable metal types which gave the art its wide practical value. A controversy of the utmost bitterness has gone on for over four centuries concerning the inven- tion of such printing in Europe. Into this matter it would be profitless to enter, and no certainty can be attained. We can only safely affirm that the art began to be practised, about the middle of the 15th century, in Germany or Holland, and that it spread with such rapidity that before 1500 there were nearly a score of master- printers in Strasburg, over 20 at Cologne, 17 at Nuremberg, 20 at Augsburg. When the 16th century opened there were printing- houses at over 80 places in northern Europe, over 60 in France and Italy, and above 20 in Spain and Portugal. Caxton brought the art to London in 1476 or 1477, and the powerful instrument for the spread of ideas was soon actively at work at Oxford, Cambridge, and other centres. An intellectual revolution came with the cheapening of books, the increased supply creating its own demand, and the pulpit becoming comparatively powerless in presence of the 376 A History of the World printing-press. The ecclesiastics could not hinder the dissemination of what orthodoxy held to be poison, and the transient impression produced by oral eloquence was as nothing against the abiding power of printed matter which could be leisurely read and carefully digested. Printing brought reading, and reading brought the Reformation which transformed Europe, and, through Europe, the whole course of modern history. Section III. MODERN HISTORY. (a.d. i 492- 1 898.) BOOK I. THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA (1492- 1648). Chapter I. — Discovery of America; Conquest of Mexico; Conquest of Peru ; the Cape Route to India. The geographical enterprise displayed in the 15th century had a glorious and, in the history of the world, a most momentous culmination in the opening of a fresh route to the East, and in the re-lifting of the veil which had so long shrouded the regions of the West. The remembrance of the transient settlements made by Norse adventurers in North America had passed away during the 14th century, and it was without design or any preconception of a possible new continent that the grand discovery was made at the close of the 15th. Christopher Columbus was born at Genoa, in the plebeian class, probably about 1440. This ingenious and enterprising man, a sailor from his early youth, had received some education at the University of Pavia. In or about the year 1470, being wrecked in a sea-fight off Cape St. Vincent, he reached the coast of Portugal floating on a plank, and soon afterwards married, at Lisbon, the daughter of an Italian navigator who had been governor of Porto Santo, an island of the Madeira group. There the Genoese mariner lived for some time, making charts for the support of his family, and studying maps and other documents left by his father-in-law, Perestrello. Convinced of the spherical shape of the earth, he came, as early as 1474, to conceive the plan 377 378 A History of the World of reaching the East by a westward voyage. His estimate of the circumference of the globe was too short by one-sixth, and his conception of the extent of Asia from west to east was far too long, so that he believed Zipangu (Japan) to be in about the position of the Sandwich Islands. His project of a westerly sea-route to t eastern Asia was partly based upon a desire to revive the trade of his native city, whose land-traffic with India by way of the Crimea and the Caspian Sea had suffered greatly from the Tartars and Turks. He was also influenced by the Portuguese attempts to make voyages to the East by way of the newly found Cape of Good Hope. After his vain attempts, for many years, in various quarters — including King John II. of Portugal and two Spanish grandees— to obtain the patronage needful to supply funds for his undertaking, the cause of Columbus was at last supported by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and on August 3rd, 1492, he sailed from the little port of Palos, in the south-west of Spain, in charge of the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, three small craft called caravels, carrying in all but 120 men. Leaving the Canary Islands on September 6th, after taking in fresh water, he sailed out boldly westward into an ocean never before navigated. The romantic incidents of this memorable voyage are well known — the despairing and then mutinous spirit of the men, the sudden variation of the magnetic needle, the sea-birds met flying from the west, the carved staff and the branch with fresh berries borne eastwards by the current, the flickering light seen ahead. At two o'clock on the morning of October 12th, a cannon-shot from the Pinta announced the sight of land, and the ships were soon anchored off one of the Bahama group, be it San Salvador, Watling's Island, or another. Columbus went to the grave in the full belief that the land which he had discovered was part of eastern Asia, the whole of which region was then called " India," and hence came the mistaken names of Indians applied to the natives of America, and of West Indies to the archipelago first visited by the great Genoese. Re- ceiving the homage both of the wondering natives and of his repentant crews on landing, Columbus, as admiral and viceroy by the appointment of the Spanish sovereigns, planted the royal standard and in their name took possession of the country. On October 28th the expedition reached Cuba, and on December 6th arrived at Haiti, called Espanola (Hispaniola or "Little Spain") by its discoverer. There he left a small Spanish colony, composed Discovery of America 379 of some 40 volunteers, with a wooden fort made from the timbers of his flag-ship, the Santa Maria, driven ashore and broken up by a gale. On January 4th, 1493, he started for Spain with the two smaller vessels, himself on board the Nina. The Pinta parted company during the very stormy voyage, but arrived at Palos on the same day, March 15th, as Columbus had entered the port amid the shouts of the people, the roaring of cannon, and the ringing of bells. The voyagers had brought back, as proofs of their success, six natives of the West Indies, some gold, and various animals, birds, and plants. The discoverer of America was received with the highest honour at the court, then at Barcelona. In subsequent voyages in 1493 and 1498 Columbus made his way to several West India islands, including Dominica, Jamaica, and Trinidad, and crowned his career as a discoverer by first visiting the continent of South America, at the mouth of the Orinoco. Such was the discovery of America, the vast continent named, not from the illustrious man who first made it permanently known to the rest of the world, but from the distinguished Florentine navigator and chart-maker, Amerigo Vespucci, a man on friendly terms with Columbus, and in no wise responsible for the injustice due to a German geographer who, in 1507, used the term Americi Terra, adopted by other writers as America. The first dated map bearing this name was published in 1520, but the name did not come into general use until the close of the 16th century. We need only note further, in the way of geographical discovery and navigation at this period, that in 1497 the Venetians John and Sebastian Cabot rediscovered the mainland of North America after a voyage from Bristol ; that Pinzon or Pincon, a comrade of Columbus, discovered Brazil, at the Amazon, early in 1500; that in the same year Cortereal, a Portuguese navigator, made his way to Newfoundland and the mouth of the St. Lawrence ; that in 15 1 2 Florida was discovered by Ponce de Leon, Spanish governor of Porto Rico ; that in the following year Nunez de Balboa, a Spanish landowner in San Domingo (Haiti), crossed the isthmus of Darien, and first of Europeans gazed on the vast expanse of the Pacific; that in 15 16 Diaz de Solis, a Spanish comrade of Pinzon, discovered the great Rio de la Plata, and was killed on its banks by ambushed natives; that in 1520 an expedition under the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magalhaes or Magalhaens (Magellan) first sailed into the Pacific, so named by him from the calm weather which he met with, through the strait bearing his name ; and that 380 A History of the World his flag-ship, the Victoria, commanded by his lieutenant Sebastian del Cano after the leader's death by violence in the Philippine Isles, was the first vessel that ever sailed round the world, completing the return voyage to Spain in September, 1522, and establishing the fact of the spherical shape of our planet by evidence which no " theology " could refute. European conquest in the New World quickly followed the discoveries made under the auspices of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the occupation of San Domingo and Cuba led directly, under their grandson and Ferdinand's successor, Charles V., to the subjugation of Mexico, discovered in 15 18 by Juan de Grijalva, a relative of Velasquez, governor of Cuba. His account of " New Spain " was so glowing that an armament composed of about 600 Spanish infantry, 200 or 300 Indians, a few cavalry, and 14 cannon, was at once fitted out and placed under the command of Hernando Cortes, alcalde or chief magistrate of Santiago, the capital of Cuba. This hero of romantic history, a commander and statesman of rare ability and courage, was born in 1485, at Medellin, in Estremadura, of a noble but decayed family. His character and achievements are fully described in the brilliant pages of Prescott. The power, resources, and civilisation of the country which he conquered have been greatly overdrawn by Spanish writers in order to exalt the glory of their country, but the undoubted facts display in Cortes a marvellous combination of astuteness and daring. Of Mexican history prior to the Spanish invasion we know little that is trustworthy, owing to the barbarous destruction of the native records by the Spaniards. Before the 10th century a people named the Toltecs came down from the north and made their capital at Tula, about 50 miles north of the Mexican valley. They were a tall, robust, well-formed, sallow race, of mild and peaceful character, industrious and enterprising, tillers of the soil for products including maize and cotton, and introducers of a civilisation which comprised the erection of cities and temples and colossal monuments showing architectural skill, the fusing of metals, the making of pottery, and artistic weaving. Their religion was a nature-worship, with offerings of fruits, flowers, and small animals. In the 13th century, when the Toltecs, greatly diminished in numbers by pestilence and famine, had migrated to the south, the Aztecs or Mexicans, also coming from the north, appeared upon the scene, and gained by degrees a mastery among the tribes. This fierce race founded a chief city called Tenochtillan, Conquest of Mexico 381 or Mexico, from their god Mexitli, and extended their empire from the shores of the Gulf to the Pacific in the course of the 15th century. The capital stood in the midst of a great lake, on islands united by embankments of earth and stone. The government was that of an elective empire, the deceased ruler being succeeded by some warlike relative, or a great noble, wielding a despotic power with the limitations of a feudal system. The popular religion was a polytheism, with a Mars or god of war as the chief deity, to whom were annually offered, with horrible savagery of detail, many thousands of human sacrifices, men, women, and children taken in war or exacted as tribute. In strange contrast, other rites showed offerings of fruits, flowers, and perfumes, with joyful accompaniments of dancing and song. The priestly class were very numerous and influential, instructing the young of both sexes in reading, writing, arithmetic, and choral singing, and in the elements of astrology and astronomy. The Mexican territory, in the geographical sense, also included a small independent republic whose fertile valleys, called Tlaxcalla, or " the land of bread," were inhabited by a bold, athletic people, destined to assume great importance in the story of Cortes. The expedition prepared by Velasquez set sail from Cuba in November, 15 18, and Cortes and his comrades, landing first in Yucatan, marched northwards for Mexico, and first encountered the natives at the Tabasco River. Great terror was caused by the Spanish firearms, and especially by the horses — strange creatures which were thought to be of one piece with their riders. An utter rout ensued, after some brave resistance, and at the end of March, 15 19, swift messengers reached Montezuma, the Mexican ruler, with the terrible tidings of the new-comers, and their marvellous engines of war. Envoys and presents were sent and received, but there soon came an order to quit the country, a message which reached Cortes on the coast at the site of Vera Cruz, already selected for the city which he founded. The Spanish invader, hearing of the Tlaxcallans as hostile to the Mexicans, set out for their country in August, after taking the decisive step of beaching most of his ships and cutting off the means of speedy flight. His enterprise was much aided by a beautiful Aztec maiden of high birth, who had become a slave amongst the Tabascans, and, learning their dialect, wholly different from the Aztec, could interpret for Cortes through Aguilar, a Spaniard who had acquired Tabascan during a captivity of seven years prior to his rescue at the invasion. Converted and 382 A History of the World baptised as Donna Marina, the graceful and intelligent girl became deeply devoted to the commander, quickly gaining Spanish enough to interpret directly from and into Aztec, and rendering great service by her vigilance, courage, endurance, and knowledge of the native character. In September, 15 19, a hot fight of some hours with the Tlaxcallans, ending in a Spanish victory, turned them into willing vassals of the crown of Castile, and allies whose fidelity was proof against disaster to the invaders which might have ended in utter ruin. During the march on Mexico, Marina discovered a plan for the destruction of the Spanish army, and Cortes took signal ven- geance on the plotters of the ambuscade ordered by Montezuma. The sides of the stately snow-capped Orizaba mountain, over 17,000 feet above sea-level, had been scaled as far as the rugged plateau Anahuac, the Mexican tableland, from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in height, which stretches almost from sea to sea, and whence rise the great volcanic ridges. In this temperate region, with a dry season from November to May, and a most pleasant time, with rains at evening and during the night, from June to October, the roses bloom throughout the year, and the scenery includes broad, richly verdant plains; lakes as lovely as Como and Garda; peaks of everlasting snow, clothed lower down with oak and pine ; brawling streams, and wild ravines. With some thousands of Tlaxcallans in his train, Cortes reached the city of Mexico on November 8th, and was received courteously by Montezuma and his retinue, though the streets were left empty by the royal command, and the silence of death reigned as the foreign intruders marched to the quarters provided for them. The Mexican sovereign, a grave, calm, silent, good-looking man of about 50 years of age, with a generally sad expression of features, was the victim of superstitious fears concerning the new-comers. He had good reason to dread the man whose audacious plan against his person was formed within a week of arrival in the city. Cortes, in his sincere religious zeal, first perplexed Montezuma by appeals, through Marina, concerning his adoption of the Catholic faith, and then, during an interview at the palace, appalled him by the suggestion that he should transfer his residence to the Spanish quarters. After a refusal, the hapless monarch weakly yielded to the persuasive powers of Marina, and thus became a hostage in the hands of his foe. At this moment, Cortes was summoned to Vera Cruz by tidings that Narvaez, dispatched by the governor of Cuba, had arrived with a large force to supersede him in the command. Conquest of Mexico 383 With prompt decision he attacked the new-comer in a night-surprise, and persuaded the troops, 800 in number, to join his own forces. On returning to Mexico in June, 1520, he found the city in insurrection against the Spaniards, a movement due to the severities of his brave and reckless lieutenant, Alvarado. The troops were beleaguered in their quarters, and fierce fighting occurred in sorties which daily diminished Cortes' scanty numbers. When Montezuma appeared on the roof of the building to address the multitude in behalf of the Spaniards, he was met with a shower of stones and arrows, and received a fatal wound. He died on the last day of June, and on July 1st, in face of the enraged populace, the Spanish leader started at midnight, on his retreat for his base of operations in the Tlaxcallan territory. The lake was covered with canoes full of armed men, and terrible losses were incurred during the march along one of the great causeways. Numbers of men were drowned at the broken bridgeways, and over 400 Spaniards, about 50 horses, the cannon and treasure, 4,000 native allies, and most of the Mexican prisoners, were killed, captured, or rescued. Despairing for the time, Cortes, on reaching a secluded spot outside the city, flung himself down under a cypress still preserved at Popotla, a suburb of modern Mexico, and gloomily reviewed his position. At dawn he mounted his horse, collected stragglers, and found that he still had his gallant Alvarado and his trusty Marina. The Aztecs, believing the enemy to be utterly destroyed, restored their fallen gods and temples, prepared for the renewal of the hideous human sacrifices, and chose Montezuma's brother as their ruler. In a few days he died of small-pox, a new disease in Mexico, brought up from the coast by a negro, one of the soldiers of Narvaez' command. The last monarch of Mexico, chosen from a neighbouring state, gathered his warriors on hearing that Cortes and a few Spaniards had survived, and marched to attack him in the mountains, where he had been joined by some Tlaxcallans. The mounted Spaniards dashed into the midst of their enemy, and a desperate fight ended in a panic among the Mexicans, due to the lucky wounding of the monarch and the capture of his banner by a Spanish lancer. This great victory of Otumba, gained on July 8th, was the turning-point of the struggle. Cortes, well received by the Tlaxcallans, made fresh preparations for conquest, and in December he headed a large force, mainly composed of native allies, but including 550 Spanish infantry, and 40 horsemen, with a few cannon. On his second march to Mexico, he took with him, in 384 A History of the World pieces, 13 brigantines made in Tlaxcalla, and these, with a fleet of native canoes, were launched upon the lake in May, 152 1, for the siege of the city. The artillery slew thousands of the Aztecs during the 80 days' operations, and the brigantines were used with great effect against the hostile canoes. The city had been almost ruined by the artillery and by conflagrations caused by Cortes' allies, and in August the Mexican king surrendered himself to the conqueror. 50,000 of the inhabitants had perished by pestilence and famine alone. The desperate resistance made foreshadowed the obstinacy and valour displayed by the Spaniards nearly three centuries later at Saragossa. Cortes placed the country under military rule, retaining the chiefs in some show of authority, and rewarding his men with encomiendas, or grants of Indian labourers to aid them in colonisation. In 1522 he was appointed by Charles V. to be governor and captain-general of New Spain, and, receiving reinforcements, he greatly extended the dominion in the course of a few years, and made discovery of California in 1526, during a voyage of research for a western or north-western passage to Asia. His subsequent career does not concern this narrative. The Aztec population, Christianised by their conquerors, suffered at times much cruel treatment from tyrannical governors and greedy adventurers from Spain, who sought riches in the slave-traffic, and disregarded the official instructions to deal kindly with the Indians. The country was well governed by Mendoza, the first viceroy, who, arriving in 1535, encouraged the native tillage, and strove to develop the growth and manufacture of wool by bringing sheep of the fine Merino breed from his native land. He founded the city of Guadalajara, now one of the largest and most flourishing places in Mexico, and also Valladolid, named after his own birthplace in Spain. The Mexican town had its name changed, early in the 19th century, to Morel ia, in honour of Morelos, a brave and able fighter for colonial independence. The religious orders, Franciscan and others, with the Inquisition, were established in the country in due course, and to the former were due the spread of education and the firm basis of Spanish government. The resources of the great colony were crippled by the exclusive com- mercial system which forbade all trade with any other country than Spain, and Mexico was, for nearly three centuries, treated simply as a mine to be worked by the labour of its people for the benefit of the conquerors. In population and material wealth it ranked first among the Spanish colonies, and the coinage-records, dating Conquest of Peru 385 from 1537, show a production of gold, in three centuries and a half, to the value of over 20 millions sterling, and of silver to above 30 times that amount, or 620 millions sterling. The conquest of Peru was the work of a wholly uneducated soldier of great courage, resolution, and resource, Francisco Pizarro, born towards the end of the 15 th century at Trujillo in Estremadura. In 1509 he was on an expedition in Darien, and stood by the side of Balboa when he discovered the Pacific. It was when he was residing at Panama about 1525 that his attention was drawn to the empire of the Incas, the aboriginal Indians of Peru, and that, under the auspices of the Spanish governor, he made some preliminary researches by sea along the coast to the south of the isthmus. The Peruvian people had reached a fair stage of civilisation, having domesticated the llamas, animals of the camel family, as beasts of burden, and the alpacas, with their long fine silky wool ; cultivating maize and a food-plant called quinoa, with potatoes and other edible roots ; and possessing skill as miners, metal-workers, masons, potters, and weavers. In literary work the Incas had drama and song, and their solid and extensive empire, with a highly centralised and socialistic system of government, was built up by superior military skill and valour. In 1530 a war of succession was raging between two sons of a deceased monarch, and this terminated early in 1532 in favour of the one named Atahualpa. At this time Pizarro, under a commission from the Spanish home-government, landed at Tumbez with a little force of under 200 men and 40 horses. The subjugation of the country was an easy task. Marching inland in May, 1532, Pizarro, at the close of the year, captured Atahualpa by treachery, extorted an enormous ransom, and then, with shameful cruelty and bad faith, put him to death in August, 1533. The capital, Cuzco, was entered, and a new sovereign set up as nominal ruler. In January, 1535, the conqueror, created a marquis by Charles V., founded Lima as the capital of his new government, and began to administer affairs with ability and foresight, sending out expeditions for discovery and conquest, and consolidating Spanish power. In 1536 a wide-spread insurrection of the natives placed the Spaniards in great danger, Cuzco and Lima being beleaguered, and Juan Pizarro, the conqueror's brother, killed in- action. In the spring of 1537 the marquis Pizarro's colleague Almagro, returning from an expedition to Chili, dispersed the rebels round Cuzco, and caused a civil war by marching on Lima with a view to its. occupation in his own interest. He was defeated, captured, and executed by 386 A History of the World Pizarro's brothers in April, 1538, and in June, 1541, the conqueror of Peru ended his career in assassination by some of Almagro's vengeful friends. The Peruvians, cruelly treated by the Spaniards in forced labour at the silver-mines and in the tillage of the soil, were also compelled to adopt the Catholic religion, and, so far as might be, to set aside the old modes of thought and culture. The ecclesiastical system of an intolerant priesthood was soon established in full force, with its hierarchy and swarms of clerics and monks, and an inquisitorial system which visited every village in the territory. The University of Lima, the most ancient in the New World, was founded in 1551, and another arose at Cuzco in 1598. The death of Pizarro was followed by a troublous time of contest between Spanish parties, one of which was for obeying the " New Laws " from Spain, enjoining equitable treatment of the Indians, and the other for maintaining the despotic system. The colonial policy of Spain in Peru was finally settled by Francisco de Toledo, viceroy from 1569 to 1580, who based his legislation on that of the old Incas. The amount of tribute paid by Indians was fixed, with exemption for males under 18 and over 50, and native chiefs were permitted to act as magistrates and collectors of the revenue. On the other hand, one-seventh of the people in every village were made subject to forced labour, usually in the silver-mines. The violation of the laws laid down by Toledo, and the abuse of the forced-labour system, under some of his successors, caused great misery in Peru, and, to a large extent, depopulation. The Span'sh government in Europe was ever calling for treasure from the mines, and the people toiled to death to supply these, rapacious demands. In 1780 a general insurrection brought to the front a descendant of the Incas, who took the name of Tupac Amaru, the last nominal native ruler, unjustly put to death by Toledo more than two centuries previously. The rebels were reduced to submission only after a long struggle, and their leader, cruelly put to death, really founded the independence of his country by the feeling which his heroic contest had aroused. We shall hereafter see the issue of this matter. The opening of the passage to the East round the Cape was an achievement of the latter part of the heroic age of Portuguese history, under the successor of John II., Manoel or Emmanuel "the Fortunate." Nearly every year of his reign of a quarter of a century was distinguished by discoveries and by daring feats of Da Gama's Voyage to India 387 arms, and the fame of Portuguese travellers and generals is rivalled by that of the poets and prose-writers of the same period. The monarch's own chief interest lay in the old vain dream of some previous sovereigns that Spain might be annexed by a ruler of Portugal. Under the system of absolute monarchy established by Jjhn II., the nobles, deprived of power at home, devoted them- selves to the career of discovery and conquest abroad, and most of the great men in this line belonged to high families. In July, 1497, a fleet of four ships set sail from Lisbon, under the command of Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of the royal household, son of an experienced mariner, taking with hirn two able sea-captains, his brother Paul da Gama and Nicolas Coelho. The dangers of the voyage have been sung by Camoens in his famous epic * poem The Lusiads (" Lusitanians "). After encountering terrific weather, the voyagers only reached St. Helena Bay, north of the Cape, in four months, and, rounding the Cape at the end of the year, Da Gama, having had much further trouble from storms and from mutiny among his crews, reached the little town of Melinda, to the north of Zanzibar, early in 1498. The friendly native monarch lent him a skilful pilot, and he then steered eastwards for his destination, but it was the wrong season for calm weather in the Indian Ocean, and only on May 20th, 1498, after a voyage of n months from the Tagus, did the Portuguese cast anchor off Calicut, on the Malabar coast of India. In September, 1499, Da Gama was back at Lisbon, where he was received with enthusiasm like that which had greeted Columbus in Spain. King Emmanuel assumed a sounding title as " Lord of the Conquest, Navigation, and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India," confirmed to him by a bull of Pope Alexander VI. in 1502, and erected the magnificent church of Belem in gratitude for his subject's contribution to Portuguese glory. Da Gama, now " Dora Vasco," was created a Count and " Admiral of the Indian Seas," with a large revenue to be levied on the trade in the East, and was allowed to quarter the royal arms with his own. Thus began the commercial and other inter- course, by way of the Cape, between Asia and Europe, which was mainly in Portuguese hands for about a century. In order to give some idea of Portuguese enterprise at this time, we may note that in 1501 Castella discovered St. Helena and Ascension; in that year and 1503, Vespucci, then in the Portuguese service, visited the Rio de la Plata ; in 1506 Tristao da Cunha discovered the island, now a British possession, bearing his name, and Pereira Coutinho 388 A History of the World explored Madagascar and Mauritius; in 1509 Lopes de Sequeira occupied Malacca and explored Sumatra ; in 15 12 Serrao discovered the Moluccas; in 15 13 Mascarenhas first touched at the lie de Bourbon (Reunion); in 1516 Coelho voyaged up the coast of Cochin China and explored Siam ; in 15 17 De Andrade settled at Canton, and, four years later, made his way to Pekin. We have already seen Cortereal in Labrador, and Magalhaes (Magellan) in the Pacific. The effects of the two great geographical and maritime achieve- ments of this memorable period — the discovery of America and of the sea-route to the East — may now be noted. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans, instead of the Mediterranean Sea, became the great highways of commerce. The Eastern trade in silk, cotton, pearls, spices, and other articles of luxury, formerly carried on partly through central Asia, and partly by Arabia and the Persian Gulf, by the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez, was transferred from the commercial republics of Italy to the nations of western Europe, hitherto largely excluded from the traffic. The loss of profitable routes due to the conquests of Islam, and especially to the sway of the Turks in south-eastern Europe and western Asia, had already wrought much mischief to Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. Their merchants were now left out in the cold, and life and movement were succeeded by vacancy and silence in those busy and crowded centres of trade. The prosperity of Alexandria also came to an end with the voyage of Da Gama which gave Portugal a monopoly of the Eastern trade. The great historical central sea was now no longer to be the chief scene of human intercourse and civilisation. Western Europe — France and England, Holland and Spain — became the centres of culture, in succession to southern and central Europe — Italy and Germany. When a century has rolled away from the time under review, we shall find genius and greatness established in the western or maritime states of Europe, the states which are to engage in the struggle for the New World presenting so grand a field for colonisa- tion and trade. England, which in Plantagenet days had scarcely been a maritime state, and was unable to control even the piracy of the Channel, and, warlike enough for land-contests, was destitute of a regular naval force, began to aim at greatness in commerce and at power upon the seas. In manufactures, her people, aroused from a state of dependence on Flanders and other foreign sources of supply, began to work for themselves on a larger scale, and the traffic on the ocean which began with the opening-up of the Europe before the Reformation 389 Americas was the first step towards British possession of the carrying- trade of the world. The two great western states of Europe, France and England, were placed in the van of intellectual progress, and attained a position which they have never lost Chapter II. — Europe before the Reformation. Before dealing with the religious revolution of the 16th century, the mighty event which is the greatest in the history of civilisation since Christianity superseded Paganism, the event which is the real beginning of modern history, we must take a brief glance at the state of Europe on the eve of the great revolt against Rome. The invasion of Italy by the French, under Charles VIII., in the autumn of 1494, was the beginning of great changes south of the Alps, making the peninsula an object of attack by foreign powers, then a battle-field for foreign sovereigns engaged in settling their own quarrels, and finally rendering her people subject to foreign conquest and domination until the latter half of the 19th century. The ultimate failure of Charles was followed by the French conquest of Milan in 1500, and by the Spanish conquest of Naples in 1504, after the complete defeat of Louis XI I. 's troops by Ferdinand of Spain's famous general, Gonsalvo di Cordova, called by the Spanish El Gran Capitan (The Great Captain), one of the greatest warriors of the age, who had served with much distinction in the war with the Moors of Granada, and now for some years ruled the Neapolitan territories as viceroy with a justice and mildness which strengthened the Spanish hold on southern Italy. At this time Genoa became subject to France, with the management of her own affairs, and Pisa, after a contest of 15 years' duration, was overcome by Florence. The Papacy was held from 1492 to 1503 by the infamous Roderigo Borgia, born at Valencia, in Spain, in 143 1, and known in history as Pope Alexander VI. His domestic and foreign policy was full of treachery. He levied oppressive dues in all Christian states, sold " indulgences " or remissions from the temporal punish- ment due for sin, and set aside in his own favour the wills made by cardinals. It was the wickedness of this Pope that specially stirred the eloquence of the Dominican friar Girolamo (Jerome) Savonarola of Florence, who called for his deposition, and became a martyr in the cause of truth and purity in 1498. Alexander's son 26 390 A History of the World Cesare Borgia, who had cast off his ecclesiastical orders after becoming an archbishop and a cardinal, was a man of great energy and unscrupulous ambition. He conquered the Romagna from its many petty lords, putting to death the heirs of ruling families in the cities which he gained, and thus creating a principality for himself. Julius II., Pope from 1503 to 15 13, was a man of war- like character who aimed at strengthening the Papal sovereignty, and ending foreign influence in Italy. In order to regain cities which had been seized by Venice, he formed the League of Cambray in 1508 against the great republic, by combining in his interest the emperor Maximilian of Germany, Louis XII. of France, and Ferdinand of Spain. The territory of Venice, which in 1503 had made a truce with the Turks, after 50 years of warfare, now extended from Aquileia to the Adda, and southwards to Rimini and Ravenna, and included the coast of Dalmatia, some islands of the Archipelago, Cyprus, Crete, some points in the Morea (Peloponnesus), and some towns in the kingdom of Naples. The dismemberment of the Venetian possessions was planned and war was declared in 1509. Louis crossed the Adda, severely defeated the republican troops, and recovered some former territory of the duchy of Milan. The Pope regained the lost cities of the Romagna. Venice seemed on the point of ruin, and was making great prepara- tions for the defence of the city itself, in case of need, having abandoned her territory on the Italian mainland, when a turn of fortune came in the surprise of Padua, and the successful resistance made when it was besieged by Maximilian. The republic was delivered by the Pope's withdrawal from the alliance early in 15 10, and his formation of the Holy League, with the republic, Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Spain, for the purpose of driving the " Barbarians," meaning the French, out of Italy. There was fierce fighting in Lombardy, where the famous Gaston de Foix, a nephew of Louis, after defeating the Swiss at Como and Milan in 15 1 1, took Brescia by storm from the Venetian troops, a feat of arms in which he was aided by the illustrious Chevalier de Bayard. In April, 15 12, in a great battle before the walls of Ravenna, the French defeated the combined Spanish and Papal forces, losing the gallant Gaston in the moment of victory, at the age of only 23. The Swiss in the pay of the allies then drove the French out of the Milanese territory and Lombardy, and the power of France in Italy ended for the time in the further loss of Genoa. The Medici family were, at the same time, restored Europe before the Reformation 391 to their former power in Florence. Pope Julius II. continued the sale of "indulgences" in order to obtain money for the building of St. Peter's at Rome, and this proceeding became, as will be seen, one of the causes of the Reformation. On his death in 15 13, Giovanni de' Medici, born at Florence in 1475, became Pope as Leo X. He was a great supporter of the Renaissance, caring far more for artistic and literary culture than for theology or ecclesiastical affairs. Eager for the completion of St. Peter's, Leo continued, on a larger scale, the sale of indulgences to the faithful in Christian lands. In France, Louis XII., who reigned from 1498 to 15 15, has been already seen, in foreign policy, in connection with Italian affairs. He was a kindly ruler, showing the strictest economy and honesty in finance, maintaining order, and promoting commerce, tillage, and other industry, in which beneficent work he was greatly aided by his able and energetic minister Cardinal d'Amboise, a lover of the people, and a man who had a large share in reforming the administration of justice, extending the postal service, and compiling the laws into a single book of statutes. Francis I., nephew and son-in-law of Louis, succeeding him in January, 15 15, was a brave, dissolute, superficially brilliant, and really frivolous man, whose chief merit was his liberal patronage of literature and art. He betrayed the interests of the French national Church by making a concordat, in 15 16, with Leo X., which conceded to the Pope an absolute supremacy in France, and independence of all Church councils. He was paid for this surrender by the transference to himself, from the ecclesiastical corporations, of the right of nomina- tion to bishoprics and abbeys, the bargain being concluded against the protests of the clergy and the University and Parliament of Paris. His religious " orthodoxy " was proved by the yearly burning of " heretics " by dozens, the dispatch of hundreds to the horrible slavery of the galleys, and the banishment of thousands, and, near the close of his reign, by the massacre of several thousand heretical Vaudois, men, women, and children, on the borders of Provence. The results of his jealous rivalry with Charles V. will appear in the history of that powerful monarch. The boasted " honour " of this sham-chivalrous sovereign did not prevent him from instantly violating, when he was free, with the Pope's absolution, a treaty sworn to in captivity, and his reign was productive of severe loss in men and treasure to France. In September, 15 15, renewing the war in Italy, Francis reconquered the Milanese territory by 392 A History of the World the severe defeat of Swiss mercenaries at Marignano, but the Papal troops, some years later, drove the French out of Italy, and the "Constable," or commander-in-chief, of France, Charles Bourbon, a man of great ability, courage, and wealth, the foremost subject of the king, deserted his cause in 1523, and fought against Francis in the great battle of Pavia two years later. In Germany, Maximilian I., son of Frederick III., was elected emperor on his father's death in 1493, and held the office until his own decease in 15 19. A noble specimen of the knight of chivalry, he was eager, restless, adventurous, and ambitious, forming schemes in which he usually failed. In home-affairs he rendered good service through his law passed by the famous Diet at Worms in 1495, making an end of the pernicious private warfare between petty princes and nobles, in compelling them to bring their quarrels before a new supreme court called the Imperial Chamber, consisting of a chief judge and 16 assessors, all nobles or lawyers. In 1500 the emperor, jealous of these new powers, caused the Diet of Augsburg to establish the Aulic Council at Vienna, as a rival to the other tribunal. He also established a regular postal system, and divided the empire into ten circles or districts for the better maintenance of the public peace. He failed in Italian warfare against French invaders, and in his reign began the long-standing rivalry and hostility between Germany and France. In 1499 Switzerland was practically lost to the empire and became an indepen- dent state. Some matrimonial alliances in this period were of great importance to the reigning Austrian family and to Spain. Maxi- milian's son Philip, who had inherited the Netherlands from his mother, Mary of Burgundy, married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. On his death in 1506 he left two sons, Charles and Ferdinand. The elder son, Charles, became ancestor of the elder or Spanish line of the Hapsburg house, and in him came the union of the Netherlands with the crown of Spain. The younger son, Ferdinand, ancestor of the younger or German line, married Anna, sister of Louis II., last king of Bohemia and Hungary, and this union brought the crowns of those countries to the house of Austria. When we turn to the British Isles, we find a new era, the Tudor age which begins our modern history, opening with Henry VII. (1485- 1509). The state-system of Europe was now established in the form which endured, in its main features, for about three centuries, until the first French Revolution. Foreign policy and Europe before the Reformation 393 the intrigues of diplomacy connected with the "balance of power" assume a new importance. The first Tudor sovereign, a strong- willed, able, and crafty man, rendered England the service of maintaining order and peace for nearly a quarter of a century. The great landed class was kept in check under his semi-despotic rule, and the wealthy were freely plundered in his interest by Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, the chief minister, and by Empson and Dudley, two barons of the Exchequer Court, wielding the powers of the revived Court of Star Chamber. An immense treasure was thus accumulated by the king, only to be squandered in his son's joyous youth. A middle class of traders, manufacturers, and farmers was meanwhile growing up, to become in later days the backbone of revived Parliamentary power against the Crown. The impostors and rebels Lambert Simnel, who claimed to be earl of Warwick, son of the duke of Clarence, and so heir to the throne, and Perkin Warbeck, who asserted that he was Richard, duke of York, the younger of the two princes generally held to have perished in the Tower under Richard III., were easily dealt with. Two important marriages in the royal house occurred. Henry's daughter Margaret married James IV. of Scotland, a union which afterwards brought a Scottish king to the English throne in the person of James VI. and I. In 1501 the king's elder son Arthur, at the age of 14, was married to the lady, then aged 15, commonly called Katharine of Aragon, a younger daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. On the Prince of Wales' death a few months later, a dispensation was obtained from Pope Julius II. authorising the marriage of Katharine with her deceased husband's brother Henry. This union was closely connected with the next king's quarrel with the Pope, the first step towards the separation of the Church in England from the Roman See. Henry VIII. (1509-1547) was troubled by no competitors for the throne, uniting as he did the claims of both lines, Lancaster and York. His character needs little discussion, though it may be remarked that he has suffered with posterity from the simple fact of his being so "very much married," like the Bluebeard of folk-lore, and from being, through no fault of his own, so unfortunate with his wives as to earn the contemporary title of " the great widower." Educated for the Church, he was a man of learning. His handsome face, athletic form, and bluff, hearty manners, made and kept him popular, and, with all his faults, he was, mentally, physically, and morally, a thorough Englishman. In all the sports 394 A History of the World of his time and country he excelled ; his tyrannous self-will was only the exaggeration of English arrogance and resolution ; his intellectual ability and attainments won for him the high esteem of such men as Erasmus, Colet, and Thomas More. In home and foreign affairs he was, at any rate, a strong and able ruler, and to this energetic patriot England owes her first modern Royal Navy, with the establish- ment of the "Navy Office" (Board of Admiralty); of the Trinity House, still dealing with our pilots, beacons, lighthouses, and buoys, and of dockyards at Woolwich, Deptford, and Portsmouth, the two former of which, now dismantled, were of great service until the days of steam and of ironclads. His foreign policy made him a member of the " Holy League " against France, and there was some warfare, of little moment, at various times, with that country. Parliamentary power was, to a large extent, in abeyance during the reign, except to pass bills at the royal pleasure, but in 1523 the House of Commons, with Sir Thomas More as Speaker, resisted an insolent demand of Wolsey for an excessive sum, and the attempt to enforce payment of an illegal tax caused a rebellion which made even Henry to quail, with the immediate withdrawal of the demand. Leaving the subject here until we deal with the Reformation, we turn to Scottish and Irish affairs. James IV. of Scotland (1488-15 13) adhered to the French alliance. He showed some wisdom and energy in checking the wild Highland clansmen, and was active in encouraging seamanship and ship-building. Scotland now first became a naval power, some- times successfully engaging, under Sir Andrew Barton and Sir Andrew Wood, in conflict with English vessels. The king was accomplished as a linguist and in the athletic contests of the tourney-ground, and maintained a splendid court, at which was seen an ambassador from Spain, then approaching the height of power and glory. It was a rash and fatal proceeding when James, as an ally of France, invaded the territory of his brother-in-law, Henry VIII. In Sep- tember, 15 13, the great defeat at Flodden brought the death of the king himself and of a host of his nobles and knights, with mourning fur almost every family of note in the realm, and a total loss of over 8,000 men. In the reign of Henry VII. a real attempt was made to reduce to order the territory called " the Pale," extending northwards from Dublin to Dundalk, and westwards to Trim and Kells. The " lords of the Pale," in 1487, as supporters of the Yorkist faction, welcomed the impostor Lambert Simnel in Dublin with enthusiasm, and had Europe before the Reformation 395 him crowned in presence of the earl of Kildare, the deputy-governor ; but the rebellious plot collapsed with the defeat and capture of Simnel in England at the battle of Stoke. The first Tudor king was a merciful man, and Kildare, on due submission and an oath of allegiance, was pardoned and retained in office. He was, however, soon removed from his post, and in 1494 Sir Edward Poynings was sent over from England as lord-deputy, accompanied by a force of 1,000 men-at-arms, and some English men of law who filled the posts of chancellor, treasurer, and other high officials made- vacant by the ejection of suspected occupants. The ever- lasting quarrels between the two powerful houses, the Geraldines (earls of Kildare) and the Butlers (earls of Ormond), kept not only the Pale but most of Ireland in trouble. Kildare was attainted as a traitor, and removed as a prisoner to London. A parliament held at Drogheda in 1495 passed the two famous Poynings' Laws or Acts, or Statutes of Drogheda, which were for nearly three centuries the basis of English rule in Ireland. The chief provisions were that all existing English legislation was henceforth to bind subjects in Ireland ; that no parliament should be there summoned without the king's special permission ; and that all statutes to be passed in Irish parliaments should be submitted first to the king and Privy Council in England, and, on return, be adopted without change. The Irish parliament was to be, in fact, a legislative body wholly bound by outside authority, knowing little of and, too often, caring little for the special needs of the country chiefly concerned. The Statute of Kilkenny, aimed at Irish usages and intermarriage, was also, in many parts, re-enacted, and the authority of the lord- deputy in Dublin was restricted to the Pale. A sense of humour compels us to return to the earl of Kildare. After lying for a year captive in the Tower, he was brought before Henry and there allowed to plead his cause. His wit and audacity were marvellous. Charged with burning the church at Cashel, he solemnly assured the king that he would not have thought of doing so if he had not believed that the archbishop was then inside it. The archbishop alluded to was one of his hearers. When he was advised by Henry to obtain a good counsel, he replied that he would have the best in England — the king himself. At last the patience of the accusers was at an end, and they cried out that " All Ireland could not govern the earl of Kildare." " So it seems," said the king ; " then let the earl of Kildare govern all Ireland." He was at once released and again made lord-deputy. He justified 396 A History of the World the king's conduct by energetic doings in the cause of order. Rebels were attainted ; garrisons were placed at Cork and Kinsale ; towns in Leinster, ruined in native raids, were rebuilt. Within the Pale, Kildare held despotic sway, and outside it he kept all other power in check. Evil days for the Geraldines came with the accession of Henry VIII. Wolsey was their sworn enemy, and the conduct of Kildare had caused many complaints. In 1520 Henry adopted the policy of ruling Ireland again direct from London, and sent over the earl of Surrey as lord-deputy. He formed the plan, thoroughly practical and statesmanlike, of a complete conquest of the country, district by district, with fortresses and strong garrisons for permanent security. This plan was unwisely rejected, and Surrey, at his own earnest request, was recalled. Kildare was again ruler ; then he was summoned to London and thrown into the Tower through the influence of the Ormonds with Wolsey ; restored to office, and finally deposed in 1534, to become again a prisoner in the Tower, where he shortly afterwards died. His son Thomas, acting as vice-deputy, revolted on false news of his father's execution in London, and took possession of Dublin. Allen, the archbishop, a foe of the Geraldines, was murdered on the coast, near Clontarf, as he sought escape to England. The time was a critical one for Henry, who was in the midst of his struggle with the Pope, and under excommunication. A Spanish landing in Ireland was to be feared, and Sir William Skeffington, with a large force of troops, was sent over as governor. The choice was a bad one, and the old, cautious, feeble lord-deputy remained idle in Dublin, while the Geraldines ravaged the country up to near its walls. The earl of Ormond, marching up from the south, was the chief support of the government. Skeffington at last moved out, and, with the help of his artillery, breached and stormed the strong Maynooth Castle, the chief fortress of the Geraldines. The de- fenders, including two priests, were at once hanged, and this blow ended the revolt. A new deputy, Lord Leonard Grey, in power from 1536 to 1539, warred with success against the tribes, and within a year or two all the leading Geraldines of Leinster, save a boy of 12 years, had been taken and executed. In 1541 Henry assumed the title of " King of Ireland," and a parliament held at Dublin included some Irish chiefs, of whom O'Neill was created earl of Tyrone and O'Brien became earl of Thomond. 20 10 . 1 "< ° / \ / ^ r7 "/o / b Z, y_ J / 'H"i< ^^^\ / 50 1 $ 1 *r* L q L \ G t Y . Cjf- «=c Q (j A M D* -J V* '' 1 t u (7 10 W? •"■» «"ir M N TW^Rjtf ° '*4, ^ jRfVi} v. ^W--lG lj JR ,M ky,^-, LlU^cr* y cg/pt/i r^ A - ( ;- \ UNO VL«tf^S< V 3 T' < 30 10 EUROPE AT THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION. [/>. 396. The Reformation 397 Chapter III. — The Reformation ; Wars of Charles V. The law of human progress made the Reformation a needful and inevitable phenomenon. No man can believe exactly as his grand- father believed. He enlarges somewhat, by fresh discovery, his view of the universe, and uncertain belief leads to unsound practice, to error, injustice, and mischief in divers forms, and thus provides material for mental and spiritual revolution. The sublime Catholicism of a Dante becomes, to many minds, incredible in theory, and being further defaced by faithless and dishonest practice, has to be torn asunder by a Luther, as .much a hater and breaker of idols as Mohammed was of the wooden gods of his day and country. Protestantism, for good or evil, was the grand root from which branched out all subsequent European history ; it was the beginning of a new genuine sovereignty and order.* The Reformation was a return to truth and reality in opposition to semblance and falsehood. These utterances of the sage of Chelsea represent the general view of Protestantism in every part of the world. The central fact of the Reformation is the breaking-off from Papal Christianity, from the Catholic Church, of the nations which became known as Protestant, and the ending of an order of things which had existed in Europe from the close of the 8th century. This event has been set forth by historians in many various lights — as a revolt of the laity against the clergy ; of the Teutonic races against the Italians ; of the kingdoms of Europe against the Papal claims to interfere with monarchs and to tax their subjects in the interest of a caste dwelling in a foreign land. To some it is an outburst of wrath against wealthy and corrupt clerics, a body from whom all spiritual life seemed to have vanished, an order of men who had become grossly unfit to be spiritual guides of the people. Others see in it a renewal of the youth of the Church by a return to primitive forms of doctrine, with the rejection of all additions of theory and practice made since the days of early Christianity. It is certain that among the doctrines and practices of the Church which were attacked as being unscriptural, and as opposed to primitive faith and usage, were the use of images, and of prayers for the intercession of saints : the doctrine of purgatory ; the employment of the Latin tongue, now unknown to the laity, in the services ; the enforced celibacy of priests ; the enforced confession of sins to a priest ; and especially the doctrine of the real bodily presence of Christ in the consecrated 398 A History of the World elements at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or, in other words, the transubstantiation alleged to be wrought by the priest in the sacrifice of the Mass. The essence of the Reformation lies deeper than all this, and was fraught with mightier consequences than any of these things involved. It was the assertion of the principle of individuality ; of the right of private judgment ; of true spiritual freedom. Obedience to a clerical caste had been hitherto the first duty of man. Truth, held to be something positive and external, was dealt out to the passive layman by its stewards, the priesthood. The saving virtue of truth lay in its formal and unreasoning acceptance, without regard to its being felt and known by the acceptor to be truth. Outward works — penances and pilgrimages, and charitable gifts — were held to be sources of holiness of heart and life. The Visible Church had become a mere government and hierarchy, with Deity represented in it by an infallible Vicar of God, the Pope ; or in the Mass ; or in the doctrine of the priest's power to remit sins. All this had ceased to accord with the growing intelligence of mankind, and was suddenly rent in pieces by the convulsion of the Reformation, and flung away by the more progressive peoples of Europe. Henceforth, the individual was to make truth for himself by independent examination and reasoning, and the truth, thus recognised and grasped, was to act from within on the outward life. It was the misfortune of the reformers, one inevitable from human nature and from the circumstances of the time, that the assertors of freedom violated in many cases the very principles on which they had cut themselves off from the Roman Church. They were intolerant of free opinion in others, and they sought to enforce agreement by civil penalties. No faith, on their own principles, could have any value unless it were freely given, and, since they laid no claim to infallibility, and set up human reason as a standard by which revelation should be judged, it was absurd and even criminal to persecute for differences of opinion, to mingle religion with politics, and to allow sovereigns, or the will of the majority, to impose on a whole country a particular form of worship, or, in other words, to set up national Churches, enjoying landed wealth, exclusive political privilege, and the power of coercing those who dissented from the creed or practice of the " establishment." Protestantism was long in learning the lesson of toleration, but the fact of its being happily learnt at last is a noble historical vindication of the principle that freedom is the great cure, the only cure, for the evils of newly acquired freedom, and that The Reformation 399 liberty has wisdom, mercy, and moderation as its assured, final, and permanent fruits.* Early in the 15th century Germany was ripe for religious reform, as the country where, outside Italy, every abuse of the mediaeval Church was seen at its worst, in the ignorance and sensual lives of the clergy, the burdensome Papal exactions, and the shameful traffic in church-benefices. The air was full of explosive matter, and the spark came in the collision of Martin Luther and the Dominican friar John Tetzel. Luther, one of the supremely great men of history, a man of mighty intellect, " whose light was to flame as the beacon over long centuries and epochs of the world," a moral hero of the highest rank, was born in 1483, at Eisleben in Saxony, the son of poor mine-labourers. The incidents of his earlier manhood are well known : his turning to a religious life through the impression made when his friend fell dead by lightning at his feet ; his education at the University of Erfurt ; his three years' study, as an Augustine monk in the same town, of St. Paul and St. Augustine ; his apprehension of the doctrine of "justification by faith." Ordained a priest in 1507, he became, two years later, a lecturer on the Scriptures at the new University of Wittenberg, founded by the Elector Frederick of Saxony, a wise prince and zealous Catholic. The originality of Luther's teaching was soon marked by his hearers, and his influence became widely spread through the distribution in Germany, France, and England of his printed sermons on "salvation by free grace." In 15 1 1 he was sent to Rome on a mission by the authorities of his monastery, and he was greatly moved by the spectacle of Papal corruption at its fountain-head. He ceased to believe in Pope and priest according to the traditional views, and adopted the principle of individual responsibility. In 15 16 Tetzel, engaged in selling indulgences, or remissions of the purgatorial punishment for sin, both past and future, appeared in Saxony, and advertised his traffic, as he went about from place to place, in a very shameless way, extolling his certificates above the Papal " bulls," which required repentance as a condition for pardon. The bait took largely with the ignorant and superstitious, and money flowed in freely to the coffers. Luther, now a Doctor of Theology in Wittenberg University, in October, 15 17, nailed upon the door of the Castle Church his famous Thesis of 95 propositions, denying * Much of the above is due to Mr. Bryce's masterly standard work, The Holy Roman Empire, 400 A History of the World that the Pope had power to forgive sins. He also called on the Pope (Leo X.), in bold but respectful terms, to stop the sale of indulgences, and to reform corruptions in the Church. In his writings and discussions the Erfurt monk, in 1518 and 1519, overthrew all opponents in argument — Tetzel himself, Eck, and Cajetan, the Papal legate — displaying an ample store of humour, acuteness, vigour, reasoning, and Biblical learning. He quickly found supporters in many quarters, and the whole of Germany was aroused. Luther's chief fellow-labourer in the work of religious reform was the amiable, profoundly learned Philip Melanchthon (a Greek translation of his real surname Schvvarzerd, " black earth"), a master of lucid exposition, who became, in 15 18, Professor of Greek at Wittenberg. His moderation of character and expression usefully tempered the vehemence of Luther, and his wisdom was of vast service to the cause. Luther had by this time fulfilled his threat of " beating a hole in Tetzel's drum." In 15 18 Leo, at last taking the new movement seriously, ordered Luther to come to Rome and answer for his Wittenberg Thesis. He declined to appear, or to retract his utterances, and in 1520, irresistibly urged on by what lay within, he issued treatises attacking not only the abuses of the Papacy and its claims to supremacy, but also the doctrinal system of the Roman or Western Church. This audacious conduct brought matters to a head between the reformer and the Pope. A " bull " was launched against Luther's writings, and the reformer retorted by burning that document, along with the Papal canons and decrees, in December, 1520, before an assembled multitude of doctors and students of the university, and of citizens, at the Elster Gate of Wittenberg. He was then excommunicated, with all his supporters, and was followed, in this formal separation from the Roman Church, by many German nobles and learned men, and by the University of Wittenberg, which was crowded with students from all parts of Europe. The Reformation had now fairly begun, and entered, in Germany, on what may be called its political phase, in which Luther's side was taken by many who cared little for theological views or for the justice of his cause. Mere desire to revolt from authority; self-interest, in release from payment of tribute to the Roman See ; and a sordid eagerness for plundering the landed and other pos- sessions of the Church, gave him allies in princes and nobles, as well as in patriots and in sincere seekers after truth. It was The Reformation 401 at this juncture that a new supporter of the Papal cause appeared on the scene in the person of the emperor Charles V., elected in 1 5 19, in succession to his grandfather Maximilian. He was the most powerful monarch of his day or for seven, preceding centuries, ruling dominions vaster than any seen under one sway since the days of Karl the Great. By his father Philip's death, he was master of the Netherlands. His grandfather Ferdinand's death in 15 16 had given him Spain, southern Italy (Naples and Sicily), and Sardinia, and he had large territories in eastern and southern Germany. Born at Ghent in 1500, he was now 20 years of age. Without being a great man, he was a very able ruler, cool, subtle, prudent, energetic, an excellent judge of men to serve him in every capacity. He failed in the chief purpose of his life, the bringing back of all Germany, by policy or force, into allegiance to the Pope, and his ambition led him into constant and costly warfare. He could not but oppose the reforming movement, though he had no love for the Papacy as a secular power. A sincere Catholic, he was also king, in Spain, of the most bigoted race in Europe. As emperor, he was bound to support the Church, since the Empire and the Church had the same basis, and, on the theory of the " Holy Roman Empire," the secular ruler's chief duty was to maintain the spiritual ruler against every foe. In 152 1 Charles presided at the famous Diet of Worms. Luther's books were at once ordered to be burned, and the great offender was summoned to appear before the emperor and princes. Modern European history shows no grander scene than that which ensued. With superhuman courage, Luther eagerly took the opportunity presented to him of confessing the truth before the assembled powers of Germany. True, he was armed with a safe-conduct from Charles, but he had before his eyes the case of Huss, burnt at Constance more than 100 years before, in spite of the safe- conduct from another emperor, the faithless Sigismund. The threats of foes were treated with disdain. The entreaties of friends, riding out from the city to meet him, in the hope of staying his steps in time, were met with the characteristic declaration from one who firmly believed in diabolical existence and power, " I am resolved to enter Worms although as many devils should set at me as there are tiles on the housetops." All Germany had been stirred by his heroism, and his progress to confront the Diet had resembled a triumph. He did enter Worms, and on the morrow, as he went to the hall of assembly, the people, crowding the 4-02 A History of the World windows and roofs, adjured him not to recant, with the solemn words, " Whosoever denieth Me before men — — ! " They had little need to dread the issue. He entered the hall. On the one side sat the world's pomp and power — the emperor, the princes, the Papal nuncio, dignitaries spiritual and temporal ; on the other there stood up, in the cause of truth and freedom for the human spirit thence- forth and for ever so long as the world abides, one man, the poor miner's son. His speech, of two hours, was respectful, honest, and wise in tone. He admitted the presence of a large element of human infirmity in his writings. They were, he said, partly his own, partly derived from the Word of God. Not being allowed to defend his opinions in argument, he could not withdraw whatever stood on sound truth and the basis of the Scriptures. " Confute me," he cried in conclusion, " by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just arguments : I cannot otherwise recant. For it is neither safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here stand I : I can do no other. So help me God. Amen ! " On his return from Worms he was seized, in mock indignation and real friendship, by the Elector of Saxony, and carried off, for safety from his foes, to the old castle of the Wartburg, where he abode for about a year, adding to his priceless services to mankind by the noble translation of the Bible which not only aided the cause of the Reformation but enriched German literature. We need not pursue his story much further. He threw aside monasticism in 1524, and in the following year began a happier period of his life by marrying Katharina von Bora, one of nine nuns who, under the influence of his teaching, had renounced their vows. Many of the monasteries in Germany were soon deserted and the priests in Saxony took wives. The edict of Worms prohibited all new doctrines, after Luther had been placed under the ban of the empire, but nothing could now stay the progress of the Reformation. In 1525 the elector of Saxony, Philip, count of Hesse, and Albert of Brandenburg, duke of Prussia, publicly became " Lutherans," and the new form of religion, with a German liturgy and communion in both kinds, was adopted in many cities and states. The emperor, engaged in war with Francis I. of France, was obliged to let religious affairs drift in Germany, or leave them to his brother Ferdinand, who had been made governor of the Hapsburg lands. In 1526 an enactment of the Diet at Speier was favourable to the reformers, but in 1529, when the emperor had triumphed over Francis, Ferdinand and the Catholic party, in a second Speier The Reformation 403 Diet, decreed the strict execution of the edict of Worms. The protest made by the " evangelicals " or reforming party at the Diet gave rise to the name <: Protestants." In 1530, at the Diet of Augsburg, the Protestant faith was presented in the Confession of Augsburg, drawn up by Melanchthon, but the Diet decreed that an end should be made of all religious innovations. The Pro- testants, on the rejection of what became the chief standard of faith among the Lutheran Churches of the Teutonic nations, and the threat of the " ban of the empire " for all who should disobey the decree, formed the alliance for mutual defence known as the Schmalkaldic League, agreed on by nine Lutheran princes at Schmalkalden in Hesse-Nassau, in April, 153 1. Eleven imperial cities joined the League. Civil war was avoided for a time because the emperor, whose German dominions were in danger from the Turks, could obtain no help from the Lutheran princes except on con- dition of his withdrawing the decree of Augsburg. He accordingly arranged, in 1532, the Religious Peace of Niirnberg (Nuremberg), revoking the obnoxious edict and conceding full freedom of worship to the Lutherans until the meeting of a new Diet or of a General Council of the Church. This closing of the ranks in Germany caused the immediate retreat of the Moslem forces. Charles was, however, resolved to put down heresy in Germany, if he could, and was only biding his time until his foes Francis I. and the Turks were finally disposed of. In February, 1546, Luther died at Eisleben, and was buried at Wittenberg. The measure of the intellectual and moral grandeur of his character is the hatred still borne towards him by the adherents of the Church which ought rather to cherish a feeling of gratitude to the man who compelled her, in very shame, to self- reform. His breadth of human sympathy, his spiritual genius, his energy, courage, strength of will, and consequent triumph over vast difficulties, have placed him on an eminence of renown in the history of the world from which no criticism or calumny have ever been able to lower him. The death of the reformer appeared to be the signal for war. The Council of Trent, summoned by Pope Paul III., at the emperor's request, had met in 1545. The Lutherans would not attend it, alleging that the Pope, as a party to the dispute, had prejudged their case as that of " heretics " The leaders of the Schmalkaldic League, John Frederick, elector of Saxony, and Philip, landgrave of Hesse, were placed under the ban of the empire, and both sides prepared for the appeal to arms 404 A History of the World When the war opened, disunion and delay injured the cause of the League. With a large force at his command, Charles first subdued the free imperial cities connected with the Lutherans, and other supporters in southern Germany. In April, 1547, the victory of Miihlberg, gained over the Saxony troops near Torgau, on the Elbe, gave the emperor a complete triumph, and placed the elector and Philip of Hesse as prisoners in his hands. The electorate of Saxony was transferred to Duke Maurice, and the Catholic cause in Germany appeared to be safe. Maurice, however, soon resolved to change sides and to join the Lutherans, and made a secret treaty with Henry II. of France, who was willing, on political grounds only, to aid him against the emperor. Maurice, in 1552, marched southwards with a large force, .and nearly captured Charles by surprise at Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, while the French king, invading Lorraine as " Protector of the Liberties of Germany," seized the. territory of the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The emperor, left unaided by the Catholic princes, who were jealous of his power, was compelled to liberate Philip of Hesse, and to conclude, in 1552, the Convention of Passau, granting free exercise of their religion to the Lutherans until the next Diet. In 1555 the Diet of Augsburg concluded the "Religious Peace" 1 which granted, to the Lutheran free cities and princes, freedom of worship, and the retention of ecclesiastical property that had been seized, and gave to the government of each state in Germany the right of tolerating both religions, or of suppressing either the one or the other. Such was, for the time, the settlement reached in Germany, a mere truce between two strongly opposed parties, each believing the other to hold deadly error in religious views, and the Catholics regarding the Protestants as possessors of stolen Church property. We may briefly notice the wars of Charles V. before dealing with the Reformation in other European countries. The enmity of Francis I. of France towards the emperor arose from the angry jealousy of the French king on his failure as a competitor for election to the empire. In 1522 the allied forces of the emperor and the Pope (Leo X.) drove the French from the Milanese territory, and Francis was prevented from entering Italy by sea through the capture of Genoa by the imperial troops. In the following year the French sovereign made another attempt on Lombardy, but his troops were again driven out in 1524, with the loss, during the retreat, of the Chevalier Bayard, mortally wounded Wars of Charles V. 4O5 and made prisoner as he gallantly led the rear-guard. As the hero, of spotless fame, lay dying at the foot of a tree, still face to the foe, he replied to some words of pity from their leader, the renegade Constable Bourbon of France, with the rebuke, " I need no pity, dying as a man of honour should ; you are to be pitied, fighting against your king, your country, and your oath." Francis then crossed Mount Cenis and entered Milan, but in February, 1525, he was utterly defeated in front of Pavia by the Constable, losing thousands of men in the battle or by drowning in the Ticino, and being taken prisoner along with his brother-in-law the king of Navarre. Several of the greatest nobles and captains of France, and Richard de la Pole, grandson of the duke of Clarence (brother of Edward IV. of England), fighting on the French side, perished on this memorable day. This great victory established the power of Charles V. in northern Italy. The French king, taken as a captive to Spain, obtained his freedom in 1526 by the Treaty of Madrid, in which he renounced his claims to Milan, Genoa, and Naples. On his return to France he repudiated its terms as having been extorted by force. Meanwhile, a general movement in Italy, largely due to the oppressive conduct of the Spanish and other troops of the emperor, was made for the purpose of throwing off the foreign yoke. The people of Naples, Milan, and Genoa, wearied of the presence of garrisons who plundered and murdered at will, were combined with those of Venice, Florence, and the States of the Church, now under Pope Clement VII. (a Medici), in the "Holy League" against Charles, to which Francis and Henry VIII. of England were parties. The Constable, commanding the emperor's troops, defeated the Venetian army, and was then strongly reinforced from Germany and by the viceroy of Naples. Marching southwards, he crossed the Apennines in 1527, entered the upper valley of the Arno, and then made for Rome. The German troops were largely Lutheran, and eager to overthrow the Pope, and they and the Spaniards alike lusted for the spoil of the city. On May 6th, at daybreak, in a thick mist, the place was entered by escalade. The Swiss guard of the Pope and his allies met the assaulting columns with a firm resistance, and the Constable received a mortal wound. Then the place was stormed by furious and superior numbers, and Clement fled for refuge to the Castle of St. Angelo. 40,000 fierce troops, mad with rage and ardent for booty, were in full possession of the capital of the world. The Lutherans destroyed priceless pictures and statues, as idolatrous 27 406 A History of the World things \ the Spaniards surpassed themselves in cruelty and greed. For seven months the hapless inhabitants were the subjects of every kind of outrage, and the sack of Rome became a scandal to civilisation and a dark blot on the page of history. The Pope, in June, surrendered from lack of provisions, and, held in captivity till September, made his escape in disguise to Orvieto, in Perugia. Henry VIII. and Francis made a fresh alliance against Charles, and French troops entered Italy, took Alessandria, and surprised Pavia. The remains of the army at Rome were led away, by the emperor's commander, wasted by disease, and disorganised by license. Genoa became free by the skilful management of Andrea Doria. The French army went south and blockaded Naples, and the French and Genoese fleets repulsed the Spanish ships which strove to relieve the place. Genoa was lost to the cause by the folly of Francis in offending Doria, and the withdrawal of her ships left the French besiegers in a serious position. Disease wasted their ranks ; the enemy's horse harassed them, and nearly all the army ultimately perished. In 1527 the people of Florence, driving out the Medici, the Pope's relatives and supporters, joined France against the emperor, and drew on themselves the enmity of the Pope, who was now anxious to come to terms with Charles. In 1529 the war ended with the Peace of Cambray, under which Francis paid a large indemnity and renounced his claims on Italy. In 1530 Charles was crowned "King of Italy" and Emperor by the Pope (Clement VII.), at Bologna, being the last holder of the imperial title so distinguished. He was now virtually, in his capacity as king of Spain, master of all the peninsula from the Alps to the extreme south, and throughout Sicily, and the struggle had ended in the humiliation of France, the greatness of Spain, and the slavery of Italy. Florence was attacked by an army of German cavalry and Spanish infantry, dispatched by the Pope with the consent of Charles. The city was defended by fortifications which had been strengthened under the supervision of Michel-Angelo, and had a militia-force raised at the instance of her ^famous deceased citizen Niccolo Machiavelli. In order to deprive besiegers of cover, the beautiful suburbs, with their villas and churches, oliveyards and vineyards, pleasant gardens and umbrageous trees, were laid waste for a mile around. An assault was repulsed, and at the end of 1529 the enemy's camp was surprised and much injured in a night attack. In the course of a few months, however, the city was in distress Wars of Charles V. 407 from a strict blockade, and the defeat of a relieving army com- pelled surrender. The great republic, after 400 years of freedom, was forced to receive the Medici as her masters, and was thus destroyed by the treachery and ambition of one of her own sons, Pope Clement VII. Many patriots were put to death, and the people suffered much during the next six years from the licentious conduct of a Papal garrison. On Clement's death in 1534, his successor, Paul III. (1534-1549), Alessandro Farnese, being desirous of aggrandising his family, rivals of the Medici, strove to help the Florentines against their ruling family, but the attempt failed, and in 1570, when Cosmo de' Medici was created Grand Duke of Tuscany by Pope Pius V., Florence ceased to have any independent political life, and became the mere capital of the grand-duchy. Under the successors of Cosmo, seven in number, the last dying in 1737, the state sank into a condition of decay. Among the expeditions of Charles V. were one against Bar- barossa, the piratical ruler of Tunis, in 1535, and another to Algiers in 1 54 1. Tunis was the key of the passage from the west to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, and in such hands as those of Barbarossa it was a standing menace to the emperor's dominions in Sicily. Charles set forth from Barcelona with a fleet of 600 vessels commanded by Doria of Genoa, having on board a choice body of Spanish, Italian, and German troops. Tunis was captured after some hard fighting, and for three days the city was given up to the brutal outrages, admitted even by the Catholic chroniclers, of his licentious soldiers. At this very time, in contrast with the conduct of " Christians," under the banners of the chief Catholic monarch, a grand vizier of the Turkish Sultan was entering Bagdad as a conqueror at the head of wild Asiatic troops, without harm done to a house or human being. ■ Some thousands of Christian slaves were released, and Charles was extolled as a Crusader and knight-errant of chivalry. The attack on Algiers, in which the duke of Alva, and Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, took part, ended in a disgraceful failure.* In 1536 another war arose between Charles and Francis, when the French king renewed his claim on Milan, on the death of its duke Sforza, who ruled for the emperor. Charles invaded Provence without success, and Francis overran Savoy and Piedmont, while his fleet, in conjunction with that of Barbarossa the corsair, sacked and burned Nizza (Nice). * Details may be sought in Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole's charming work The Barbary Corsairs {Story of the Nations series). 408 A History of the World In 1552 the emperor, at war with Henry II. of France, on account of the French king's seizure of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, as above related, lost many thousands of men in his unsuccessful siege of Metz. Three years later Charles V., worn out by his life's labours in the cabinet and field, resigned the crown of Spain and her colonies, with Naples, Milan, Franche-Comte (a part of Burgundy), and the Netherlands, to his son Philip, and in January, 1556, his final abdication left the empire to his brother Ferdinand I., already chosen as successor by the electoral princes, along with the hereditary lands of the Hapsburg house. Two years later the ex-emperor died at the monastery of San Yuste (St. Just) in Spain. The history of his rule in Germany had been that of a man who was rather politic than fanatical. In struggling with the Reformation, he had seemed not to be resisting religious freedom absolutely and in itself. He had Protestant allies against the Protestant League, and on one occasion Cardinal Farnese left the imperial camp in disgust because the service of the conventicle was performed beside the sacrifice of the mass. Charles, in Germany, was reduced to concessions and compromises. But elsewhere — in the Netherlands, in Italy, and above all, in Spain — he avenged himself for this extorted hypocrisy, and rigorously applied the principle of unity and constraint in matters of faith. In May, 1558, he wrote from San Yuste to his daughter, then acting as Regent of Spain, on hearing that the doctrines of the Reformation had made their way into Andalusia and Castile, denouncing "so monstrous and insolent an abomination," and counselling its extirpation. A few days before his death, in a codicil to his will, he commanded his son, Philip II. of Spain, Naples, and the Netherlands, to pursue and chastise the heretics with the utmost severity and vigour ; to protect the holy office of the Inquisition ; and thus " to deserve that our Lord will ensure the prosperity of his reign." The entire history of the execrable bigot to whom these words were addressed shows that the extirpation of heresy, the maintenance of the unity of the faith, by fire and by the sword, were the rule of his policy in every part of his dominions. Chapter IV. — The Reformation {continued) ; the Catholic Reaction. In Switzerland the new doctrines were preached as early as 15 16 by Ulrich Zwingli, born in 1484, in the canton of St. Gall. He was a man of enthusiasm for and learning in the Greek language, a The Reformation 409 gifted preacher, a zealous patriot, and a very able politician. In 15 1 8 he was chosen as preacher in the minster at Zurich, where the Reformation was formally adopted in 1523. The progress of the new opinions split the cantons into two hostile sections, and in 1528 five Roman Catholic cantons formed an alliance to which the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, was admitted. In the war which ensued, in 1531 , the Catholics made a sudden attack on the men of Zurich, and Zwingli was left dead on the field. His position as a reformer was in advance of Luther's. He repudiated everything, not only in doctrine, but in the formal worship and constitution of the Church, which was not expressly enjoined in Scripture. He was so liberal, in those days, as to maintain the salvation of unbaptised infants and of such virtuous heathens as Socrates, Plato, Seneca, and others. The movement at Geneva is for ever associated with the name of the acute, logical, hard-headed, arbitrary, and somewhat hard-hearted Jean Calvin, born at Noyon in Picardy in 1509. In the history of the great religious revolution his name is only less illustrious than that of Luther. Calvin rendered to Protestantism the two great services of drawing up a system of doctrine in his famous Institutio, a masterpiece of lucid argument based on the Scriptures, and of organising its ecclesias- tical discipline. He was thus at once the great theologian of the reformers and the founder of a new Church polity ; and his com- mentaries on the Bible have given him a foremost place as an expositor. In the political view, Calvinism is closely associated with the cause of civil freedom. The great French feformer had to flee for his life from Paris in 1533, and to Switzerland three years later, arriving at Geneva in the autumn of 1536. The citizens had recently emancipated themselves from the Catholic duke of Savoy, and a Protestant Confession of Faith was now proclaimed. Calvin, after being expelled from the city by a party who disliked the strict new moral regime established by the reformers, was recalled in 1541, and became a sort of autocrat in civil and religious affairs. A stain rests on his memory from the treatment accorded by the champions of freedom, as against the Roman See, to Servetus, a Spanish theologian who had put forth views which Calvin and his followers abhorred. He declared, in a private letter, that if Servetus ever came to Geneva, he should not be suffered to leave the place alive. The man was arrested on his way to Italy in 1553, and, after a trial lasting for two months, with intervals, he was burnt to death. Calvin vainly tried to have the mode of death alleviated, 41 o A History of the World and that was the extent of his mercy towards one who dared to hold what he, in his view of the Scriptures, considered to be wrongful doctrine concerning the Trinity. The bigotry of some of the reformers has been already alluded to, and it is shameful to have to admit that such a man as Melanchthon saw nothing but cause for gratitude in the atrocity perpetrated at Geneva. The influence of Calvin was great in France during the religious wars, and his form of Christianity is still that which prevails in the Presbyterian Churches of the British Isles and the United States, and in many other bodies dissenting from the episcopal system. In England, the divorce of Henry VIII. from Katharine in I 533 vvas not the cause, but the mere occasion, of the rupture with Rome. As in Germany, the Reformation was due to forces long at work. In teaching and in practice alike, the Church was in need of drastic change, and men who never broke away from the Papal See, such as More and Colet, were far in advance of mediaeval traditions. The Pope had been regarded for centuries as a foreign prince whose claims were hostile to English interests, and, in the matter of the divorce, there were many besides Henry who believed Clement VII., as an Italian prince ruling the States of the Church, to be guided in his opposition rather by fear of Charles V., who was Katharine's nephew, than by any higher considerations. A series of statutes between 1532 and 1535 made an end of Papal authority in England, the Act of Supremacy, in 1534, declaring the sovereign to be the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and bringing to the scaffold, as traitors who denied this view, the admirable More and the excellent Bishop Fisher of Rochester. The sup- pression of the monasteries, and the seizure of their landed and other possessions, which began in 1536, and was carried out under the direction of Henry's able and unscrupulous Protestant statesman Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, caused the serious rebellion of 1536, in the north of England, called the Pilgrimage of Grace, headed by a lawyer named Robert Aske. Many thousands of insurgents were in arms, and York, Hull, and Pontefract Castle were taken. The matter ended in the dispersal of the rebels on specious promises from the king's general, the duke of Norfolk, and the execution of Aske and some abbots. The northern folk were, in the main, strongly attached to the old faith, and the poor specially resented the destruction of the institutions which had been the chief almsgivers. At this time there were three chief The Reformation 411 religious parties. There were those who, like More and Fisher, still regarded the Pope as head of the Church. The king's party, rejecting Papal authority, adhered to the old faith. The reforming party, utterly opposed to the Pope, rejected much of the doctrine and ritual of Rome. Henry, as is well known, lived and died a Catholic in all points save that of Papal supremacy. In 1520 he had taken the field against Luther with his pen, and his work On the Seven Sacraments won from Leo the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith), still marked by the letters F.D. on our coins. In 1536, under the influence of Thomas Cromwell, he made some concession to the reforming party by allowing a complete Eng- lish Bible, the translation of Tyndale and Coverdale, to be placed in the churches, but three years later the Act of Six Articles, called by the Protestants the " Whip with Six Strings," upheld some of the chief Catholic doctrines under severe penalties for denial. It was under Edward VI. (1547— 1553) that the faith of the Anglican Church was changed. The Statute of Six Articles was repealed, and the Liturgy was purged by Cranmer of what was conceived to be Popish error, in his compilation of the First and Second Books of Common Prayer. In 155 1 the 42 Articles of Religion rejected all the Sacraments except Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and denied the " real presence " or transub- stantiation, with the rejection of a belief in purgatory and the practices of invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, and clerical celibacy. Insurrections in Norfolk and Devonshire were due partly to the religious changes and partly 10 the suffering caused by the inclosure of lands. Cranmer's lawless attempt to bring in a Protestant successor in the person of Lady Jane Grey utterly failed, and a reaction came under Mary Tudor (Mary I.) in 1553, the bigoted daughter of Henry and Katharine. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, a strong Catholic, and Bonner, bishop of London, conducted the persecution which lasted from 1555 until Mary's death in 1558. This direful work, in which about 300 people of all ranks, including some women and children, perished by fire, was of vast service to the Protestant cause. Setting aside Cranmer, who was only a " martyr " after he had renounced his Protestantism, and who only recanted back again when he found that, in any case, he was doomed to die, it seems certain that the deaths of Bishops Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer, and their fellow-victims, aroused an indignation which made many conform to the new system. 412 A History of the World The final settlement came under Elizabeth (1558-1603), the great queen who, though she was, by inheritance, .a Tudor tyrant, was very prudent and patriotic withal, yielding to her people's wishes when they were strongly expressed in Parliament, preserving peace almost throughout her reign, save when war was forced on her by Spain, and thus enabling the nation to recover from the troubles of the past, and to develop manufacturing industry and commerce. It is probable that she was only a political Protestant. The Anglican Church, a compromise between Rome and Geneva, was established with the sovereign as its visible head, and into this groove Elizabeth strove to force all her subjects by an Act of Uniformity and by a Court of High Commission for the suppression of heresy and schism. Catholics on the one hand, and the Protestant dissenters from the Church on the other, the people known as Puritans because they claimed to- be purer in faith and ritual than those who had accepted the Church-pattern, were alike persecuted, and in 1563 the 39 Articles, mainly the same as the 42 of Edward VI., stated the views of the Anglican Church. Protestantism may be held to have received its final sanction in England in the appearance, under James I., of the new and noble translation of the Bible called the Authorised Version (161 1), after a vain attempt to reconcile the Puritan and Episcopalian parties at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604. We may note that when Elizabeth came to the throne, half her subjects, as good authorities hold, were still Roman Catholics in belief. If this were so, the larger part of that half simply drifted into Protestantism under influences of various kinds in the course of the reign. The Puritans, we may observe, chiefly inspired from Geneva and by Calvin, were obnoxious to Elizabeth partly because she saw in them the supporters of a larger political freedom than that which she was disposed to accord. She managed the conflicting parties with great skill, and at her death the severance from Rome was almost universally accepted. The Protestant revolution in England, only confirmed by the Papal hostility shown in bulls of excommunication and deposition, and by the issue of the conflict with the hated Philip of Spain, was of great importance to the cause of the Reformation in other countries. In Scotland, the death of James IV. at Flodden, in 15 13, left an infant king as successor, and an anarchical condition of affairs ensued in the earlier years of James V. (15 13-1542), under the regencies of the duke of Albany and the earl of Angus, amid the incessant feuds of the two great factions of nobles, the Hamiltons The Reformation 413 and the Douglases. Angus, himself a Douglas, as " guardian " of the king, treated him as a prisoner and a mere tool of his ambition until the king, in 1528, at 15 years of age, made his escape and assumed regal power. Angus fled to England, with the forfeiture- of his estates, and the king chose his chief ministers from among great ecclesiastics. The nobles, in their jealousy, then began to lean towards the reformed doctrines, aiding the elements of religious change which in Scotland, as elsewhere, had long been working. The clergy were disliked and despised by the people, and in 1525 an Act was passed forbidding the importation of Lutheran books, and the spread of his "damnable " opinions. The spirit of bigotry and persecution soon led the Scottish Church-authorities further, and in 1528 Patrick Hamilton, an abbot who had received his Protestant teaching from Luther's lips, died by burning at St. Andrews. The lower orders, of the clergy, including some of the preaching friars, favoured the new doctrines. James V., a man of vigorous rule who sternly checked the turbulence of chiefs on the Borders and in the western Highlands, supported the persecution of " heretics." The old alliance with Prance was renewed in 1537 by the .king's marriage with a daughter of Francis I., and, on her early death, with Mary of Lorraine, better known as Mary of Guise, daughter of the powerful French duke 1 of Guise. The power of the Crown in Scotland was increased at this time by an Act revoking all grants made to nobles during the- king's minority, and another statute annexed the Hebrides, .and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and seized many lordships for the sovereign. His death came in December, 1542, after the shameful rout of a Scottish army by a small English cavalry-force at Solway Moss, in the north of Cumber- land. His spirit was broken by the- disaster due to the misconduct, through hostility to their king, of Scottish nobles, and another long minority began when the crown was left to his daughter Mary Stuart, born in the palace of Linlithgow only seven days before her father expired. The regent was James Hamilton, earl of Arran, who was soon at war with Henry VIII., when the strong national feeling forced him to decline a contract of marriage between the little queen and Prince Edward of England. In 1544 and 1545 English forces invaded the country by land and sea, partly destroying Edinburgh and Leith, and ravaging the south-east Lowlands with the utmost ferocity. The ripe crops were burned, with many towns, villages, and abbeys, these last including those of Melrose, Roxburgh, Dryburgh, and Kelso. In 1547, when Edward VI. was the boy- 414 A History of the World king of England, the Protector Somerset severely defeated the Scots, under Arran, at the battle of Pinkie, near Musselburgh. The little queen Mary was then sent away for safety to France, betrothed to the king's eldest son, afterwards Francis II., and brought up, at a very vicious court, as a strict Catholic, facts which should be remembered in her favour when an estimate is made either of her character or of the difficulties of her position, at a later time, as a ruler of a "heretical" nation. In 1554 Mary of Guise, Mary Stuart's mother, became regent, and her system of rule gave much offence to the body of the nation in assigning posts of honour and profit to her countrymen, and using French soldiers to garrison the fortresses. Turning again to the religious revolution that was pending, we find the influence of Calvin and Geneva strongly at work in the northern kingdom. Cardinal Beaton (or Bethune), archbishop of St. Andrews, was a stern opponent of the reformers. This able man, partly educated at Paris University, and formerly " resident " for Scotland at the French court, and special ambassador to France for James V., had obtained from the Pope (Paul III.) the appoint- ment of legate in Scotland, with supreme authority in all ecclesiastical affairs, and he soon caused the establishment of a " Court of Inquisition" to deal with heresy. In 1546, after hanging, drowning, or banishing various offenders, Beaton and other prelates, looking out from a window of the castle of St. Andrews, witnessed the burning of George Wishart, a man who had been accused of heresy in 1538 for teaching the Greek New Testament, as a schoolmaster in Montrose, and had then retired to the Continent, where he associated with reformers in Germany and Switzerland. In 1543 he was a professor at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he had as one of his students a youth named Tylney, who describes him as a tall, black-haired, long-bearded, comely personage, of melancholy cast of features, courteous, lowly, glad to teach, desirous to learn. He then went back to Scotland, and became an enthusiastic and eloquent preacher of the doctrine of justification by faith as opposed to the Catholic insistence on the efficacy of good works. Beaton's treatment of Wishart soon brought his own death. The Cardinal was not only haughty, cruel, and intolerant, but of very licentious character. When Wishart was burned, there were many who said that they would not suffer innocent men to be slain. A plot against him was formed, and in May, 1546, a few weeks after Wishart's martyrdom, a party of men murdered The Reformation 415 him at his castle of St. Andrews. The ablest champion of the Roman religious system in Scotland was dead. The 16 conspirators who slew Beaton, joined by above 100 men, held out against the regent, in the castle of St. Andrews, for more than 1 2 months, when they were forced to surrender by the arrival and attack of some French war-galleys, on board which they were conveyed to France, where the leaders were imprisoned or sent to slavery at the galley- oars. The religious struggle in Scotland went on, and in 1550 Adam Wallace, a humble layman from Ayrshire, was burned for heresy. Five years later the hour and the man for Scotland had arrived, and the work of Hamilton and Wishart was taken up by Calvin's greatest follower, John Knox. This illustrious man was born near Haddington in 1505. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he became expert in Latin and logic. Of his life for 18 years after he left the university we know nothing more than that he was ordained priest, and that in 1544 he was acting as tutor in some Scottish families where the Reformation doctrines were well regarded. He fell in with George Wishart, and his future course was soon decided. With all the intensity and self-devotion of his character, with what is called " fanaticism," which was, in Knox, combined with very shrewd sense, ready wit, and native humour, he became the apostle of the Reformation in Scotland. He moulded the future not only of Scotland, but of England, and, through England, of the large part of the world now ruled by natives or descendants of natives of the British Isles. It was no mere change of dogmas which was effected by Knox. The national life, spiritual and intellectual, was transformed and quickened. His work brought the triumph of principles which were to act upon all coming generations, in the very country, at the very time, wnen the victory was essential to the real progress of mankind. If the Reformation had failed in Scotland; if Mary Stuart had found the country, when she assumed power, united in the Catholic faith, she would have com- manded the destinies of England. The great English queen would have been thwarted in her efforts for a religious settlement, and Protestantism would have been paralysed in the country whose moral and material support of the new system enabled that system to hold its ground against the assault of the united strength of Catholicism. When Wishart was seized by the emissaries of Cardinal Beaton, Knox was wishful to follow his friend to the last, but Wishari, 4i 6 A History of the World knowing what lay before him, cried, "Return to your bairns" (meaning Knox's pupils), " and God bless you. One is sufficient for one sacrifice." In 1547 Knox and his pupils were forced, for their safety, to take refuge in St. Andrews Castle, and, being formally called to the ministry, he preached there and in the parish- church. When the place surrendered, Knox became a captive for 18 months, first as a galley-slave on the Loire, and then in prison at Rouen. With health impaired for life by his sufferings, the Scot- tish reformer was freed in 1549, on the application of Edward VI. of England, and in that young monarch's country he made his home for the next four years, becoming a royal chaplain, and having an important influence on the composition of the Church Articles. When Mary Tudor came to the throne, Knox, with other leading Protestants, fled to the Continent, and in 1554 he was at Geneva. In September of the following year he returned to Scotland, and zealously preached against the mass, with the support of some leading nobles. The persecution of heresy was still in vogue, and Knox returned to Geneva, being burnt in effigy by the zealous bishops, at the cross of Edinburgh, when he failed to appear at their citation. Many Scottish nobles, with an eye, in some cases at least, to Church-property, banded themselves together on behalf of the Reformation, and in December, 1557, the bond called the First Covenant united them as men sworn to advance the cause, in maintaining " God's true congregation, and renouncing the congregation of Satan." The Protestant nobles hence became known as "the Lords of the Congregation." In May, 1559, Knox landed at Leith, and resumed his preaching at Dundee, Perth, and St. Andrews. The efforts of the queen-regent (Mary of Guise) and the bishops to repress the now irresistible movement were met by popular tumults, censured by Knox and other leaders, in which monasteries were sacked, " images " in churches destroyed, and altars defaced. The Lords of the Congregation were too influential for the regent, and sent manifestoes to her, one of them addressed " To the generation of Antichrist, the pestilent prelates and their shavelings within Scotland." The help of England was sought against the French troops, and Elizabeth, in January, 1560, sent a fleet and army to the Forth, to capture Leith after six months' siege, during which the queen-regent died. The French troops, under treaty, quitted the country, and at this crisis, in 1 56 1, Mary Stuart, now widow of Francis II. of France, returned to Scotland and assumed her position as queen in her 19th year. The Reformation 417 We need not do more than allude to the chief events in the career of this charming personage, a woman of great abilities and little principle. She was between two parties, the Catholics, headed by the earl of Huntly, and the reformers, led by John Knox, who was a thorough politician, and by her half-brother James Stuart, afterwards earl of Moray (Murray). Her fatal mistake was her marriage, for his handsome face, with the vicious fool, her cousin, the Catholic Lord Darnley. Hence came the murders of Rizzio and Darnley ; the rebellion of Mary's subjects ; the abdication in 1567; the defeat of Langside, and the flight to England in 1568, with the fatal scene at Fotheringhay 19 years later. These matters are too familiar to need further account here. It was in August, 1560, that Protestantism was formally established by Parliament as the national religion of Scotland, on the basis of a Confession of Faith, mainly drawn up by Knox. The new Scottish Church was organised by him as a Presbyterian and democratic body, the episcopalian rule of the Roman Cnurch being exchanged for that of Church-courts in every parish, composed of the minister and lay-elders, with representative presbyteries in every group of parishes, and a representative General Assembly for the whole country. Knox, then minister of St. Giles' Church in Edinburgh, had no part in the revolt. He retained his influence until his death in 1572. His great successor, Andrew Melville, born in 1545, and a student at St. Andrews and Paris, was a fine " Humanist," or scholar in the new Greek learning, who became a professor of classics at the Academy of Geneva. On returning to Scotland in 1574 he became principal of Glasgow University, and then of St. Andrews, rendering great service to the cause of Scottish learning, and having a great share in drawing up the great document of Presbyterian polity known as the Second Book of Discipline. His bold opposition to attempts at restoring episcopacy caused his withdrawal for a time to England, and in 1605, when James was king of England, Melville was imprisoned in the Tower for five years for his invectives against the archbishop of Canterbury (Bancroft) on account of his encouragement of " Popery." In 1580 episcopacy was abolished in Scotland by an Act, and the Covenant, revised in 158 r, became the standard of orthodoxy, being signed by James VI. and his council. Eleven years later the Presbyterian system was fully established in its present form. James, with additional power derived from his kingship in England, set up episcopacy, with many sees, in 16 io, allowing bishops to preside 41 8 A History of the World at Presbyterian synods, and depriving ministers and " elders " of their powers of •discipline. An attempt to force some of the practices of the Anglican Church on the Scottish people was made in 1618 in the Five Articles of Perth. Further proceedings in the way of persecution will be seen hereafter. In Ireland, when the Act of Supremacy was passed, some abbeys were at once suppressed, and another Act, five years later, confiscated the property of some hundreds of religious houses. A vain attempt was made, under Henry VIII., to anglicise the Irish in language, dress, and manners, and to compel the sole use of the English (or Latin) language in the services of the Church. Under Henry's successors (save Mary), the English. government strove to force the Reformation on the Irish people, but they would have none of it. All classes, Irish and Anglo-Irish, closed their ranks. The destruction of venerated relics aroused general indignation. An attempt at English settlement was made under Mary by the seizure of lands which formed King's County (in compliment to Philip) and Queen's County. The history of the country under Elizabeth is one of horror and of shame for modern Englishmen. The Anglican Church-system was set up, like a foreign garrison, amongst people firmly cleaving to the old faith. Constant rebellion was met by stern repression in which the native Irish were treated as mere savages to be slain. In 1566 Sir Henry Sidney, a very able man, became lord-deputy, and found the country, in the south and west, terribly wasted by war. He exercised sway with the most ruthless vigour against the turbulent, burning villages, destroying the crops, driving off cattle, and blowing up castles, after hanging the garrisons in lines over the battlements. In 1579-80, when Lord Grey de Wilton was governor, new trouble came from foreign invasions. Sir James Fitzmaurice, under Papal sanction, landed at Smerwick, in County Kerry, and sought help in Connaught from the Desmond faction, but was killed by some of the Bourkes. Then some Spanish vessels, carrying 800 men, mostly Italians, escaped the English fleet, and landed in Kerry, also at Smerwick. Lord Grey arrived with troops including Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, then both young men almost unknown to fame, .and, with the help of cannon from the fleet, he forced a surrender of the invaders. The men were butchered in cold blood, the few women and priests were hanged, and the officers were held to ransom. Two years later, in 1582, the head of the Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, the earl of Desmond, rose in Munster, and was slain, Ireland 419 hunted down like a wild beast, after a great slaughter of his followers. In 1594 the famous Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, rose in Ulster. He had experience in war, and was more of an English politician and courtier than an Irish chieftain. This formidable rebel obtained arms and stores from Spain, and kept the field for eight years, winning great victories over the queen's troops, and rendering the absolute conquest of Ireland necessary. Elizabeth's favourite, the earl of Essex, went across the sea in 1599 and utterly failed. At last the right man was found in the cold, prudent, steady, solid Lord Mountjoy. This relentless conqueror called famine to his aid. Military posts were established at different points in the north, and the land between them was utterly wasted. The people died in tens of thousands, and the power of Tyrone faded away. At this time a large Spanish squadron, with 3,000 soldiers on board, came to Kinsale. Mountjoy, ever prompt and vigorous, hurried south with every man he could muster, routed Tyrone's force which followed him, and received the surrender of the Spaniards, who had been left by their own fleet, and were blockaded by English ships. The Spaniards were allowed to return to their country, and many Irish went with them. The earl of Tyrone submitted, receiving a full pardon for himself and his followers, and retaining his titles and lands, on abjuration of all alliances with foreign powers or with any enemies of the Crown. A few days later Elizabeth died, when her troops had, for the first time, effected the real subjugation of Ireland. Norway had fallen into a declining condition after the Union of Calmar in 1397. Spirit, enterprise, and intelligence seemed almost extinct ; her commerce had been absorbed by the powerful Hansa League ; and her old colonial possessions, the Orkneys and Shetlands, had passed from her to Scotland. In Denmark, which remained united with Norway, the people, under their olden right of election, chose as their king Christian of Oldenburg, in northern Germany, who was descended, in the female line, from the old royal family. The Oldenburg line, which continued unbroken until 1863, was thus established in the person of Christian I. (1448-148 1), who was at the same time elected duke of Schleswig and Holstein. His death was followed by half a century of international struggles in Scandinavia. Christian II., a ferocious half-insane tyrant, who reigned from 1513 to 1531, became king of Sweden by conquest in 1520, and in the same year, with a view to his own safety, he perpetrated the atrocious massacre, at Stockholm, of 94 of the 420 A History of the World foremost men of the country. A popular revolt drove him from Denmark to the Netherlands, and his uncle became king as Frederick I. This sovereign, reigning from 1523 to 1533, favoured the Reformation, and under his son, and, after a brief period of civil war, his successor Christian III. (1536-1559), the Lutheran form of Protestantism was fully established in Denmark and Norway, the latter country being now treated as a conquered province and forced to accept the reformed religion. We must now turn to the events which caused the final separation of Sweden from Denmark. In the history of patriotism, the name of Gustavus Vasa stands high. Born in 1496, of a noble house, he was treacherously carried off to Denmark in 15 18 by Christian II. and kept in confinement as a hostage. In a year's time he escaped, and wandered about in Sweden, at great risk, striving to stir up a spirit of resistance to the Danish oppressor. With a price set on his head, he made his way to Dalecarlia, in central Sweden, and worked on farms and in the mines. The massacre of 1520, or " Blood-bath " of Stockholm, followed by the slaughter, in the provinces, of about 500 leading patriots, was the signal for revolt. Gustavus, whose father was among the victims of the Danish king, led the hardy miners of Dalecarlia, and soon had a large force under his command. Fortress after fortress was captured by the patriots, and the fall of Stockholm in 1523 brought the final expulsion of the Danes and independence to Sweden. The Scandinavian union was thus ended, and Gustavus, chosen king of Sweden, with hereditary rights in his line, reigned until 1560 with excellent results to his country. Law and order were completely restored ; the Lutheran religious system was introduced ; the Lapps were converted to Christianity, and the Finns, for the first time, received religious instruction through parts of the Bible and hymn-books printed in their own tongue. Education and trade were promoted by the erection of schools and colleges, . the conclusion of commercial treaties, the establishment of fairs for merchants from abroad, and the making of roads, bridges, and canals. The only blot upon a rule always firm and, in case of need, severe, was the wholesale plunder of the Romish clergy, in the style of Henry of England. The Lutheran ministers, with very moderate stipends, were made dependent on the Crown. Financial reforms and renewed prosperity enabled this excellent king to leave Sweden, after his nearly 40 years of power, in possession of a well- trained army of 15,000 men, a powerful navy, and a full exchequer. Gustavus' eldest son, Eric, was deposed after eight years of foolish The Reformation 421 and somewhat tyrannical rule. Two of his successors favoured the cause of Catholic reaction, but the people, resolutely Lutheran, deposed the latter of them (Sigismund) in 1600, and placed his uncle on the throne as Charles IX. His rule of n years was beneficial to Sweden, now assuming importance in European affairs. We shall see his son and successor, the greatest of Swedish sovereigns, at a later stage, and we need here only note further the acquirement by Sweden, after a war with Denmark in 1643-1645, of the southern part of the country or Scania, and of the Baltic islands Gottland and Oesel. I In summing up the Protestant gains of the Reformation, we fir\d that, soon after the middle of the 16th century, or in 50 years from Luther's burning of Leo's " bull " before the Elster Gate of Wittenberg, the new religion had triumphed decisively in northern Europe, among the nations of the Teutonic race. England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden. Norway, Prussia, Saxony, Hesse, Wiirtemberg, the Rhenish Palatinate, several Swiss cantons, the northern Nether- lands, were all Protestant. In this region of Europe, Ireland alone held firm, as she mainly does to this day, to the ancient faith. Italy and Spain were left, as they have remained, almost untouched by the religious revolt, along with much of southern and central Germany.! It remains to trace the course of events in France, where the'struggle between the two religions was for a time doubtful. The University and the Parliament of Paris strongly supported the Papal cause, the former having, in 15 21, issued a severe censure of Luther's views. Henry II. (1547— 1559) has been already seen in warfare with the emperor Charles V. The contest, continued against Philip II. of Spain, involved the complete defeat of the French by the Spaniards, in 1557, at the famous battle of St. Quentin, in the north of France, and was ended, two years later, by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, a town east of Cambray. Early in 1558 the surprise of Calais by the French deprived England of the last remnant of the conquests made under Henry V. Henry II. 's wife, Catharine de' Medici, born in 15 19, of the famous Florentine family, was a notable woman, crafty, ambitious, thoroughly repre- sentative of an age of the vilest sensuality and the most subtle intrigue. Beautiful and witty, abounding in tact, she thus acquired the great influence wielded by her in the reigns of three successive kings, her sons. Francis II., first husband of Mary Stuart of Scotland, died in 1560. He was succeeded by his brother, Charles IX. (1560-15 74), a lad of ten years, entirely under his 28 422 A History of the World mother's control. The Guises were at this time enjoying great power, at first as rivals of Catharine, and then as her allies against other parties in the state. The chiefs of the house were Duke Francis of Guise, a military commander of courage and skill, the defender of Metz and captor of Calais ; a man of noble person and easy manners, frank in his dealings, a firm friend and a remorseless foe. His brother Charles, Cardinal de Lorraine, a quick, clever, licentious man, directed religious and financial affairs. Their chief rival was the " Constable," Anne de Montmorenci, a man of enormous wealth, and for many years a personage of great importance in France. He fought bravely in the Italian wars, and was created a field-marshal in 1522, in his 30th year. A playmate of Francis I. in his youth, he fought by his side on the fatal field of Pavia, and was his fellow-captive for a time at Madrid. Released by ransom, he rose to power through his exertions for the king's freedom, and in 1536, with masterly Fabian tactics, avoiding a battle in which defeat might have ruined the monarchy, he caused the retreat of Charles V. with his invading army. In 1538, ap- pointed " Constable," fifth of his family to attain that honour, he was the greatest subject of the Crown, austere in character, rough in demeanour, disliked at court, whence he was banished by Francis, for some unknown reason, in 1541. Restored to favour under Henry II., De Montmorenci, heading his own court-faction, was at constant issue with the Duke and the Cardinal. One of his chief claims to credit with posterity is his liberal employment of that great artistic genius Bernard Palissy " the Potter." In 1557 the Constable was taken prisoner by the Spaniards near St. Quentin, but he returned to Paris on parole in the following year, in order to defend his interests against the Guises. Protestantism, in the Calvinistic form, was at this time making much progress in France, in spite of severe persecution in the two last reigns. Known as Huguenots, a name said to be a Geneva nickname for the German Eidgenosse, or " confederates," the Calvinists included many persons of rank and of the middle classes, and were headed by the taciturn and stubborn Admiral Coligny, and his brothers, D'Andelot and Chatillon, nephews of the Constable, all three men who sacrificed to their religion worldly power and profit. Anton de Bourbon, king of Navarre, and his brother Louis, prince de Conde, were on the same side, either on religious grounds or from jealousy of the influence of the Guises. It is impossible to give here details of the complicated intrigues The Huguenots 423 of the time. Persecution of the Huguenots and political interests caused the outbreak of civil war in 1562. In December of that year a hard-fought battle at Dreux ended in the defeat of the Protestants under Coligny and Conde, with the capture of the latter on one side, and of Montmorenci on the other. In the -following February (1563) the duke of Guise, besieging the Huguenot headquarters in Orleans, defended by Coligny's brother D'Andelot, received a fatal wound. Anton de Bourbon had recently been killed at the siege of Rouen, leaving a young son, Henry of Navarre, born in 1553 at Pau, in the province of Beam, on the French side of the Pyrenees, whence came his name of " le Bearnais." His father had changed sides, and died fighting for the Catholics, but his mother, Jeanne d'Albret, who held the Protestant opinions, trained her son in her own faith. On the death of Guise, the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici, now virtually ruling the country, concluded with the Protestants the Peace of Amboise, with the purpose, as it seems, of vexing and depressing the Guises, who headed the Catholic cause. By this arrangement, which was merely a truce in an internecine contest, the Huguenots were to have the free exercise of their religion, except in certain districts and towns. Another change of policy caused Catharine to combine with Philip of Spain for the uprooting of heresy. The liberties of the Huguenots were then curtailed, and attempts were made upon the life of Conde and of Coligny. The war was resumed, and Paris was besieged by Conde, but he was defeated, in 1567, in a battle at St. Denis by Montmorenci, who there received a fatal wound. In March, 1568, there was another "peace" made, but the persecution of Protestants continued, and some thousands perished by massacre or judicial execution. Aided by troops from Germany and stores from England, the Huguenots again took the field, only to be severely defeated, in 1569, at Jarnac, near Angouleme, with the death of Conde, and at Moncontour, between Tours and Poitiers, where they were led by Coligny. The gallant young Henry of Navarre, now in his 17th year, the hero whose white plume was ever seen waving in the thick of battle, had now, at his mother's instance, assumed a leading part in the Protestant cause, and had fought both at Jarnac and Moncontour. Coligny, again helped from England, Germany, and Switzerland, gained some successes over the royal (Catholic) forces, in the capture of Nimes, the relief of La Rochelle, a town ceded to the Huguenots, and a victory in the field. Catharine then again, in 1570, concluded a peace (St. Germain-en- 424 A History of the World Laye), by which the Protestants were, with an amnesty for the past, to receive freedom of worship through all the country except in Paris, and a number of strong towns as security. This lull was only one preceding a storm in the perpetration of one of the worst crimes of all history. The treacherous and cruel Catharine, unable to crush her foes on the field of battle, devised an ambuscade. Human hearts were, to this wicked woman, only counters in a game of policy and crime, and she arranged a marriage, as if to bind a lasting peace, between Henry of Navarre and her beautiful daughter, Marguerite de Valois, sister of the king (Charles IX.). The celebration of the nuptials was the bait by which she drew the Huguenot leaders to Paris in August, 1572. Coligny received costly presents from Charles, and was made a councillor of state. Four days after the marriage, the brave Protestant, a model of virtue in a most vicious age, was wounded by a shot from the palace-window. The king, in real or pretended wrath, hastened to assure Coligny that he should be avenged, but on that very day, under his mother's influence, he came to believe that his life was aimed at by the wounded man, and, with a blasphemous oath, he ordered his slaughter and that of all his followers. Bands of armed citizens were prepared, and the signal for wholesale murder was given on the night of St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24th. The wounded Coligny was the first victim, and then, at midnight, the tolling of a bell in the palace-tower let loose the murderers on their prey. About 4,000 Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris, Henry of Navarre only escaping by attendance at mass. In the course of two months at least 30,000 more Protestants were slain in the provinces. The Pope (Gregory XIII.) showed his joy, as Vicar of Christ on earth, by proclaiming a year of jubilee, by the striking of a medal, by a procession to the church of St. Louis, and by the performance of a grand Te Deum. The court of Spain of course sent congratulations on this noble vindica- tion of Catholic principles. From the atrocious guilt of this deed no cavilling or sophistry, no pretences that the murdered Huguenots were mere political rebels, themselves planning the destruction of the monarchy, have ever been able to relieve its perpetrators or approvers. Writing in the year 1898, in a time when a criminal conspiracy of Christian powers, the hideous farce styled the " Concert of Europe," deliberately condones Armenian massacres, on a scale far vaster than that of St. Bartholomew's Day, in the fear of provoking a general war due to international jealousies on The Huguenots 425 the endless " Eastern Question," it is well to take readers back to the days of Elizabeth, and witness how this enormous crime was regarded by an English queen and her subjects. When the ambassador of France, a few days after La St. Barthelemy, as the French call the massacre, presented himself at court, he had to make his way to the throne in the hall of reception between lines of courtiers and officials, all clad in the deepest mourning and regarding him with gloomy looks of aversion. The queen, in like attire, received him with the demeanour due to one who, personally guiltless, was the emissary and representative of a monarch whose recent crime had put its blackest blot on the page of modern history up to that date, and had consigned his own name to indelible infamy. The tragedy was perfectly useless as a means of overcoming the Protestants of France. After the first shock of horror, they seized their weapons, caused a royal army to waste away in a vain siege of La Rochelle, and in 1573 extorted another "peace" by which they obtained the free exercise of their religion in their strong places, Nimes, Montauban, and La Rochelle. In 1574, on the death of Charles IX., Henry III., another son of Catharine, came to the throne. He was a man of weak character, caring little for the religious question, and only anxious for a life of dissolute ease. His mother's baneful influence, however, caused him to attack the Huguenots again, and the fifth civil (religious) war of this period in France began. The Protestants had the best of the struggle, and in May, 1576, another "peace" gave them complete freedom of worship in all parts, and eight new " places of security " or strong towns. Henry, duke of Guise, then formed, in alliance with Philip of Spain, the Holy League, headed by the king, for the annihilation of the Protestant cause, but again, in 1577, another "peace" (Bergerac or Poitiers), after some fighting, was granted by Henry, in fear of increase of power for the Guises, and Catharine, for the same reason, made a private arrangement with Henry of Navarre. Once more, when the court violated the terms lately granted, arms were resumed, and the seventh war began in November, 1579. A year later another "peace" confirmed the previous treaties with the Huguenots, and for some years the country was at rest. Henry of Navarre had resumed the leadership of the Protestants, and the death of the king's brother, the duke of Anjou, in 1584, foreboding the extinction, in the male line, of the House of Valois, 426 A History of the World gave the Bourbon prince the prospect of the throne. The Catholics, under Henry of Guise, then revived the League, and planned the exclusion of Henry of Navarre, and the transference of the crown, on the king's death, to his uncle Cardinal de Bourbon. This intrigue, and the revocation of the concessions to the Huguenots, at once caused the eighth civil war, known as the " War of the three Henries," of Valois (the king), of Navarre, and of Guise. The Protestant Henry gained a victory in 1587, but the Catholics had the best of the struggle in the end. Henry of Guise then plotted the deposition of the king, but died, by assassination at his order, at the castle of Blois in September, 1588. A year later Henry III., after a revolt of Paris and other great towns, and an alliance with Henry of Navarre against the Catholic rebels, was murdered in his camp at St. Cloud, before his capital, by the digger of Jacques Clement, a Dominican monk, and the House of Valois thus ended. The duke of Mayenne, brother of the murdered Henry of Guise, had now assumed the leadership of the Catholics. The House of Bourbon, which held the French throne until 1792, and from 18:5 to 1830, now began to reign in the person of Henry IV., the rightful heir, by descent from Louis IX. The Catholics, however, set up a rival king, the old Cardinal de Bourbon. Catharine de' Medici had died early in 1589, and one source of trouble for the wasted and unhappy country was thus removed. Henry, fighting for his throne, gained important victories over Mayenne, in 1589 at Arques, near Dieppe, and in March, 1590, at Ivry. When he besieged Paris, he was driven off by the combined forces of Mayenne and of Philip II. 's great general, the duke of Parma. Three years later he sacrificed his religious faith to secure his crown, and, abjuring the reformed religion at St. Denis, was crowned at Chartres in 1594. He was then engaged, between 1595 and 1598, in driving out Philip's troops from Brittany, Picardy, and Burgundy, as the Spanish sovereign claimed the French throne for his daughter by his third marriage with Elizabeth of Valois, sister of the late king (Henry III.). The civil wars of religion in France then came to an end with the Edict of Nantes, published in April, 1598, giving the Huguenots equal political rights with the Catholics, and freedom of religious worship, with restrictions thereof to nobles of a certain class, and to the citizens of certain cities and towns. It was prohibited in all episcopal cities, at the royal court, and in Paris and within a radius of 20 miles round the capital. Public offices were opened to Protestants, and they could have Henri Quatre and France 427 seats in the four parliaments of Paris, Grenoble, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. Some fortified towns were assigned to them, and they became a kind of armed political party. The Treaty of Vervins made peace with Spain, and all Philip's conquests of territory were restored. It was the task of Henry IV. to restore prosperity to a country devastated and disordered by civil war, and to place on a firm basis the royal authority which had been greatly impaired. This work was effected, in the course of 12 years, in a manner which has made the memory of " Henri Quatre " still cherished by the French people. He quickly became the most popular of sovereigns, whose chief faults were a licentious life, and an extravagant expenditure on personal favourites and natural children, which set the worst example to society, and were productive of much evil in his own and succeeding reigns. In the great work of restoration Henry had the invaluable aid of his minister De Rosny, better known as the duke of Sully. This admirable man, harsh and ungracious, and proud enough of his own services, was a statesman of unbending principle and integrity, devoted to the welfare of his country and his king. Born in 1560, and placed in early youth under the care of Henry, he barely escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew. At the Huguenot victory of Coutras, in 1587, he did excellent service in command of the artillery. At Ivry, receiving a severe wound, he had the glory of capturing the white standard of the duke of Mayenne. As the king's chief adviser, he approved Henry's " conversion " to the Catholic faith, in the interests of France. When he assumed power, the landed proprietors and provincial governors were severely controlled, and their tyrannical abuses of authority were stayed. Commerce was developed in the making of new roads and canals, and the financial administration was so vastly improved that, in the course of ten years, the national debt was reduced to less than one-sixth of its amount, and this in spite of the remission of arrears of taxation. The systematic plunder which had devoured half the sum raised by taxes on its road from the tax-payer to the treasury came to an end, and Sully, regardless of the clamour and hatred of thievish revenue-farmers and collectors, freely suspended or dismissed officials, and forced them to refund stolen sums. Between 1596 and 1609 tne revenue was more than doubled in amount, and the treasury, in the latter years, contained a large surplus ; the arsenals were prepared for war, and the fleet was well equipped. The reign ended on May 14th, 16 10, the day 428 A History of the World after the coronation of Henry's second wife, Mary de' Medici. His life had been often attempted by assassins at the instance of the papal and imperial courts, where he was regarded as still the foe of Catholicism, and of the ruling houses of Austria and Spain. Henry was on the point of setting out for war in Germany when he was fatally stabbed, as he sat in his coach in a narrow street of Paris, by a fanatic named Ravaillac, who is alleged to have been a tool of the king's Jesuit enemies. Before the middle of the 16th century the supporters of the old religious system which had been so rudely shaken by Luther, Calvin, and their aiders and abettors, had become convinced that it was time to set their house in order. Self-reform and revival were the urgent needs of the Catholic Church, and the work was carried out with admirable vigour and ability. The Protestant revolt was met by a great outbreak of Catholic zeal. A reformation of discipline and morals took place in the south of Europe. All the institutions which had been devised for the propagation and defence of the faith were made to work with new efficiency. The old religious communities were remodelled, and new religious communities were founded. As early as 1524, Gian Pietro Caraffa, bishop of Chieti (anciently Theate), afterwards Paul IV., a man of the most ascetic rigour of life, helped to establish the new order of priests called Theatines, the chief object of which was to supply the deficiencies of the parochial clergy. The members of the new brotherhood were active and zealous in preaching to multitudes gathered in the streets and in the fields, and in visiting the sick. A new class of Popes succeeded to Leo, the lover of luxurious ease, literature, and art, and to his worldly predecessors who had cared far more for the aggrandisement of their own families than for the spiritual work of the Church. Paul III. (Alessandro Farnese) (1534-1549) was zealously active against the Reformation. It was he who opened the famous Council of Trent in 1545, a body which not only sharply defined the doctrines of the Church, and finally divided Christendom into the spiritual subjects and enemies of the Papacy, but effected a great reform of discipline, issuing a " decree of reformation of morals and government," dealing with the residence of bishops and parish-priests, the qualifications for the priesthood, and the erection of seminaries for clerical training. Other regulations were made for the lives of monks and nuns. Paul IV. (1555-1559) brought to the Papal chair the fervent spirit of Dunstan and Becket, vigorously directing the Inquisition against the spread of heresy ; setting up The Catholic Reaction 429 the Index Expurgatorius, or catalogue of books the reading of which is prohibited to members of the Church on doctrinal, moral, or religious grounds ; and hunting up and burning heretical works. Pius IV. (1559— 1566) confirmed the decrees of the Council of Trent by a bull in 1563. Pius V. (1566-1572), beginning as a strict-living Dominican monk, and then becoming a rigorous In- quisitor-General, was an earnest reformer of morals and discipline, a terrible opponent of heretics in seizures of property, imprisonment, and burning, and a banisher of Jews. It was he who, in 1570, excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, absolving her subjects from allegiance, and cursing all who should acknowledge or obey her. Under his gorgeous vestments, this stern upholder of the authority of the Papal See, a man whose arrogant pretensions, like those of a new Hildebrand, offended some Catholic sovereigns, wore day and night the hair-shirt of a simple friar, walked barefoot in the streets at the head of processions, found time for private prayer amongst his most pressing avocations, and showed abundant personal humility, charity, and forgiveness of injuries. Gregory XIII. (157 2-1585), whom we have seen as the enthusiastic approver of the deed of St. Bartholomew's Day, encouraged plots against Elizabeth, the champion of Protestantism, and urged Philip of Spain to attack her. This head of the Church is more favourably known as the author of the reform of the Calendar in 1582. Sixtus V. (1585-1590) was a great ruler and statesman who, a swineherd in his early youth, became a Franciscan friar in 1534, and afterwards Inquisitor-General at Venice. In 1570 he was made a cardinal, and owed his election to the Papal chair, 15 years later, to the dissimulation with which he concealed his ambitious hopes and real vigour, and to the artful assumption of a pious, meek, and feeble old age. As Pope, he showed his ability and energy in the vigorous reform of civil and ecclesiastical abuses. The hordes of brigands were suppressed ; agriculture, trade, and industry flourished anew ; colleges were founded, and Rome was adorned with new buildings, including the present Vatican Library. In his foreign policy, he combated Protestantism by aiding Henry III. of France against the Huguenots, and Philip of Spain against England. It was the foundation of the Order of Jesuits which rendered the greatest service to the Catholic cause in the great reaction or anti-Reformation. The Society of Jesus is one of the most famous and powerful organisations in history. Ihigo Lopez de Recalde, known as Ignatius de Loyola, was born in 1491 at his ancestral 430 A History of the World castle of Loyola, in the Basque province of Guipuscoa. His career as a brave and chivalrous young officer ended in his being crippled for life by a cannon-ball in defending Pampeluna against the French. As he lay upon his bed of sickness, the perusal of the Lives of the Saints gave a new turn to his thoughts and aspirations. He soon burned with a spiritual enthusiasm like that of St. Francis and St. Dominic. He became a pilgrim, barefooted and begging his way, in the service of the poor, and an earnest student, at the age of 33, of the learning neglected by him in his youthful days. After dwelling for a time in the Theatine convent at Venice, Loyola went to Paris, and, amid penances and vigils, and visions of holy things and personages, he formed the plan whose execution made him, in the great Catholic reaction, the Luther of the Catholic Church. In 1534, in conjunction with five friends, Le Fevre of Savoy ; Lainez, Francis Xavier, and Bobadilla, of Spain ; and Rodriguez, a Portuguese, he drew up the rules of an order whose motto was " Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam," " To the greater glory of God." To the usual triple vow of all Catholic religious orders — chastity, poverty, and obedience — was added that by which members were bound to go as missionaries to any country in the world to which their steps might be directed by the Pope. A " bull " of Paul III. approved the scheme, and the Society of Jesus began to exist, and was soon well established in Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. In France the Jesuit organisation had not so much success. In the Netherlands, after the death of Loyola in 1556, Lainez, the second " general " of the Order, opened a college at Louvain which afterwards became one of the greatest Jesuit semi- naries. In Protestant countries the Jesuits could, of course, only be missionaries, and they carried on their work under perilous circumstances. In England penal laws rendered them liable to death, but some members of the Order were always to be found lurking, in Elizabeth's reign, in various disguises and under false names, hidden away, in case of need, in the retreats called " priest- holes," still shown in ancient mansions in this country. Their zeal and devotion as preachers in foreign lands have never been surpassed. They were found in all the territories laid open to the European world by the discoveries of Columbus, on every shore to which enterprise and contempt of danger could lead mankind. In North America, a Jesuit first revealed the true course of the Mississippi ; from South America, Jesuits first brought to Europe the invaluable Peruvian bark which supplied quinine. The world The Catholic Reaction . 431 was, in truth, their province — China and Japan, India and Tibet, Abyssinia, Kaffirland, the Guinea coast, Brazil, California, and Paraguay. Their fields of battle, in which, with consummate skill, they carried on the conflict against heresy, were the press, the pulpit, the confessional, and the school. Armed with all the skill and knowledge that could further their work, the Jesuits were great in science, learning, and literature, all employed in the service of the Church on whose behalf they defied all human laws and all penalties — racks and dungeons, gibbets and beheading-blocks. They aimed at the conquest of men's and women's feelings and opinions, and for this the Jesuit was admirably fitted by a training which showed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and a thorough understanding of the religious instincts and impulses of mankind. The preliminary exercises of the novitiate were designed by Loyola to make the young Jesuit personally holy, and at the school and college he was moulded for social requirements as a teacher and a spiritual director of mankind. The full-blown Jesuit thus " became all things to all men" — and women. In matters of conscience, he could be strict or indulgent at need, delighting the truly devout with the most saintly morality, and soothing the gay cavalier or the frail beauty with excuses for the " irregularities of people of fashion," in the style of an easy well-bred man of the world. He was at work in many great political affairs, plotting against the thrones and lives of apostate sovereigns, spreading evil rumours, raising tumults, exciting civil wars, and, in some cases, arming the hand of the assassin. Vehement, politic, strict in discipline, fearlessly courageous, self-denying, indifferent to private feeling, unscrupulous, versatile, intensely and stubbornly devoted to a single end, inflexible in nothing but in fidelity to the Church, the Jesuits dealt, according to the hearer, in the most opposite political doctrines. The subject of an absolute Catholic king would be taught that the ruler had a right to do as he pleased. The subject of a Protestant sovereign would be assured that any man had a right to rebel against or to slay a bad ruler. It may well be imagined what enormous power was wielded by such a body of men. The history of the Order of Jesus is, in fact, the history of the great Catholic reaction. While the Protestant reformation was proceeding at one end of Europe, the Catholic revival was going on with equal rapidity at the other. The Catholics, moreover, had a great advantage in zeal, in unity, in consistency of tactics. Talents, virtues, follies, crimes, 432 A History of the World were displayed on both sides, but steady, persevering work for the one great aim was far more prevalent among the Catholics. Success had made the Protestants lax, lukewarm, and worldly. Elizabeth, James I. of England, and Henry IV. of France had no such hearty feeling, in the Protestant cause, as that which animated Philip and other Catholic sovereigns. The Protestants quarrelled with each other. Calvinists persecuted Lutherans, and Lutherans harassed Calvinists. In England the prisons were filled with Puritans, all intense Protestants, because they would not conform to the Anglican Church. Meanwhile, the Catholics, with their operations taking in the whole world, with excellent organisation of forces, and complete unity among themselves, directed their whole zeal against Protestants of every Church and every sect. The result was that, whereas in the later years of the 16th century there was a great doubtful region where victory was in the balance between the two faiths, as in France, southern Germany, Belgium, Hungary, and Poland, all those countries — France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, and Hungary— half a century later, had been secured for Catholicism, and the Protestants have never regained what was then lost. Chapter V. — Spain and the Netherlands ; the Armada. We turn to a brief narrative of the rise of the noble, great little republic, the Seven United Provinces which formed Holland. Nothing less than great — heroically, morally, intellectually great — can that state be called which, having as her only basis, apart from the indomitable spirit and energy of her people, the precarious tenure of a land maintained only at vast expense, by barriers of timber and stone, against the destructive inroads of the raging sea — a mere reclaimed delta of mud, sand, and marsh — won her freedom, in a contest of 80 years' duration, from the most powerful empire in the world ; which founded a great commerce and colonial dominion ; which produced a succession of citizens eminent as soldiers, diplomatists, statesmen, scholars, philosophers, and artists ; and still, among the minor kingdoms of Europe, after the lapse of three centuries, commands the esteem of the civilised world as the model of a well-ordered and prosperous community. Holland was gained by her people, field by field, town by town, in a struggle against the best European troops of the time, commanded by the most skilful generals, and backed by what seemed to be boundless Spain and the Netherlands 433 resources. Their implacable foe, the king of Spain, represented the despotism of his age in claiming entire authority over the lives and fortunes of his subjects, and absolute control over their con- sciences. The tenacity and resolution of the Hollanders resisted and defeated the maintainer of pretensions so monstrous, and thus gave the first precedent for civil and religious liberty. Their example was never forgotten. The prosperity of free Holland was a spur to the efforts of other parties and nations striving for freedom. It stirred the Huguenots, who finally failed. It animated the Protestant states of Germany in a contest of 30 years, the result of which was freedom for many of the new faith. It encouraged Englishmen in their successful struggle against the Stuarts, and the success of the Dutch revolt was assuredly in the minds of those who headed the cause of Britain's American colonies. The victory of Holland over tyranny was, in a sense, the beginning of modern political science and civilisation, in its demolition of the claims of divine right for kings, and of divine authority for an Italian priest, the two worst enemies of human progress. The Dutch first established the two great principles of civil government in free countries : that the sovereign is the servant of the state, and that the priest has no control except over those who yield to him a voluntary obedience. The little state which had, in a desperate and successful struggle, to the full as heroic as that of Athens against Persia in ancient days, vindicated once and for ever the true principles of liberty, was also a pioneer or aider of civilisation in improved agriculture ; in discovery and navigation ; in commerce ; in international juris- prudence ; in the extensive use of the art of printing; in scholarship, physical research, rational medicine, finance, and philosophy. In 1494 Philip, son of Maximilian I. (emperor) and Mary of Burgundy, became sovereign, at 17 years'of age, of the 17 provinces making up the Netherlands, now Belgium and Holland. From him the rule of this prosperous territory passed, through Charles V., to Philip II. of Spain. Antwerp, in succession to Bruges, was the richest town in the north of Europe, trading with all commercial countries, her river, the Scheldt, being often crowded with vessels so that successive fleets had long to wait before they could approach the busy quays for discharge. The mariners of Zealand, in Scottish waters, carried on a very profitable herring-fishery. The people of the northern provinces had supplied the boldest and most skilful sailors in the world for the naval warfare of Charles the emperor. Literature and the arts had made great progress, architecture being 434 A History of the World specially prominent in the cathedrals and town-halls which still delight the tourist with their beauty of design and execution. The craftsmen of the Netherlands were expert in the woven work of wool and flax, in painting on glass, polishing diamonds, the making of tapestry and lace. To the inventive genius of Netherlanders was due the highest skill in the playing of bells in belfries, the carillons which still, from the fair aerial towers of Bruges and Antwerp, charm the ear as with a song of angels singing carols in the sky. Such were the people over whom Philip II. of Spain, in 1555, was called to reign. His father Charles, born in Flanders, and always far more of a Fleming than a Spaniard, had not been sparing in exactions of money from his subjects in the Netherlands. When the doctrines of the Reformation, in the Calvinistic, democratic form, hostile to the theory of the divine right of kings, made way in the country, he severely persecuted the heretics. When the men of Ghent, in support of the privilege by which grants of money could only be made with the unanimous consent of the Estates, broke into revolt against the ruler's arbitrary demand for a large sum, Charles annulled all the charters, privileges, and laws of the city, and confiscated the whole property of the guilds and corpora- tions. A still larger subsidy was exacted than that which had been demanded and refused ; an annual fine of 6,000 florins was im- posed ; and the famous " Bell Roland," whose tolling summoned the burghers to meet in council, was taken down. After destroying the constitution, heavily fining all the citizens, and executing many, the emperor had graciously forgiven rebellious Ghent, because he was born there. Such were the doings of the father in the Nether- lands, when resistance was made to tyranny. The whips with which he had chastised opponents were now to be exchanged for the scorpions of his son. The territorial dominion of Philip II., in Spain, Italy, America, and the Eastern seas, has been already indicated. His resources included the products of India and the Spice Islands, and the gold and silver of the Western world. His revenue has been fairly estimated at ten times that yielded by England to Elizabeth. His army was the best in the world for discipline and training ; his navy was large and efficient. No modern sovereign, except Philip, has been at once supreme both on land and on sea. In character Philip II. of Spain enjoys the distinction of being, to all men and women who are lovers of goodness and freedom, one of the most detestable human beings that ever existed. This slight, lean, some- Spain and the Netherlands 435 what short, weak-legged, narrow-chested man was a strong contrast, in person and attainments, to his energetic and accomplished father,' an excellent linguist, skilled both in military and political affairs. Charles was talkative ; Philip was silent. Charles could laugh right heartily on occasion ; the sullen Philip, shy of the public gaze, could scarcely smile. If his eye ever lighted up with a gleam of satisfaction, it was when he sat on his chair of state, surrounded by his courtiers, and saw heretics, in their horribly grotesque garb of yellow frieze, painted with flames and figures of devils, and with pointed caps, burnt to death at an auto da fe. This monster was a thorough Spaniard, knowing little of Italian or French ; finding pleasure in Spain and Spaniards only ; having no manners, tastes, or ideas that were not Spanish. His character is, in some aspects, not less mysterious than repulsive. He was possessed by a spirit of conscientious duplicity. His morality was utterly false and perverted. Sincere in his religious faith, and utterly devoted to the interests of his Church, he forgot every other duty. His public and private life abounded in cruelty, deceit, forgeries, assassinations, adulteries, ingratitude, selfishness, vindictiveness, and other kinds of atrocity and vice. Throughout all, he showed a frightful serenity of mind, under the conviction, as it seems, that his religion permitted and pardoned everything, provided everything were sacrificed to his religion. As a ruler of his vast dominions, it must be admitted that Philip possessed some important qualifications for a very difficult task. Laborious, persevering, firm, sagacious, skilful in the use of men, and in dispensing with those who had served him best, he was free from the ardour, impetuosity, and intemperate activity and ambition, which draw men into dangerous enterprises. Devoted to work, he could not bear movement. He sat in his closet, weaving webs of policy, slow and secret ; he lived at once in pomp and in silence, in business and in repose, in government and in solitude. It is supremely satisfactory to the British historian who is a lover of the freedom won by our forefathers to record the utter failure of all the schemes of this sinister personage. As the husband of Mary Tudor, as the suitor and then the assailant of Elizabeth, he failed to win England. After 40 years of sway which, in Spain at least, was without contention and without control, he lost the Netherlands. In France, after fomenting the two curses of religious persecution and of civil war, after supporting the Guises and the League in their most factious plots, he was forced to see Henry of Navarre put forth the Edict of Nantes, the stamp and 436 A History of the World seal of his defeat, the repudiation of his maxims, the ruin of his pretensions. His plots with Mary Stuart ended in her death upon a scaffold. His coasts in Spain were ravaged by English cruisers, and Cadiz was taken and pillaged by English troops. A few days after signing the peace of Vervins with Henry IV. and Elizabeth, Philip of Spain died, with his inherited possessions diminished, his political and religious aims frustrated, his pride humbled, and the Spanish monarchy enfeebled and depressed. The great antagonist of Philip in the Netherlands was William, prince of Orange, one of the noblest characters in history. His title came from a small territory in the south-east of France, near Avignon, where his family had once been vassals of the Pope. After migrating to the Netherlands, members of the House of Orange had filled high offices under the Burgundian rulers. In 1555, when Philip became ruler of the Netherlands, the prince was 22 years of age, head of a very wealthy house, still a Catholic in religion, and commanding in chief, on the French frontier, against Coligny and other Huguenot nobles. Styled " William the Silent " from his caution and prudence in diplomacy, he was to win in Holland the glorious and lasting title of " Father William," as the political creator of a free country. He soon embraced the Protestant religion, and showed himself far in advance of the ideas of his time, even among men of the most enlightened views then known, in desiring to tolerate all forms of worship. Philip, during his four years' stay in the Netherlands, clearly showed the intention of violating his oath to maintain all the privileges and liberties of the country. Spaniards were employed to carry on the government, contrary to the advice of his father, who had recommended the use of Netherlanders. An army of Spaniards and Germans was held in readiness on the frontier. With his usual cunning, when he desired to obtain large subsidies from the States, he revoked some of the edicts against heretics. He had, meanwhile, obtained from the Pope the right of appointing all clergy, knowing that the bishops were mostly men of moderate character, unfitted for his tyrannical purposes. The national militia was broken up into small parties and scattered over the country. When he was about to leave the Netherlands for Spain in 1559, he caused his creature, Granvella, bishop of Arras, to make a specious address to the assembly of the States, assuring them of his attachment to the people of the Netherlands, and appointing as their ruler Margaret, duchess of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V., aided by a council which Spain and the Netherlands 437 included Granvella and William of Orange. The deputies, secretly prompted by William, who had divined Philip's plans, made a reply requesting a diminution of taxes, and the withdrawal of foreign troops, and foreign officials. Philip was startled into a brief show of anger, but soon resumed his mask and promised compliance. The king had already seen who was to be his chief opponent in the coming struggle, and when he was embarking at Flushing for Spain, attended to the shore by William, as governor of Zealand, he took him aside and accused him of thwarting his plans. The prince declared that the States had acted for themselves, but Philip, for once natural, and not a hypocrite, grasped his wrist in a rage, and shaking it, cried, " JVo los Estados, ma vos, vos, vos ! " ("Not the Estates, but you, you, you ! "), employing the pronoun addressed in Spanish to menials. The two men thus parted to meet no more. The details of the struggle which ensued should be read in Motley's admirable Rise of the Dutch Republic. The conduct of the prince of Orange throughout was that of a man who placed his wealth, his life, his time at the service of his country. Ever vigilant, never despairing in the darkest hour ; thwarted at times, and even calumniated, by those whom he was striving to save ; he presents a spectacle of patient heroism, of calm resolution, of skill in diplomacy and statecraft, never surpassed in history. He gave Philip good reason for the hatred which could only be appeased by the shedding of blood. He had paid spies in the royal cabinet at Madrid, and was thus enabled, at many a crisis, to anticipate his adversary's moves, and to checkmate him in his country's interest. Margaret of Parma was regent from 1560 to 1567, chiefly aided by the proud, envious, insolent, immoral, supple, eloquent Cardinal Granvella, until his recall in 1564; by Viglius, a pedantic, narrow-minded lawyer ; and by the Count de Berlaimont, a stern, intolerant courtier, the enemy of his country's liberties. The persecution of heretics was carried on under the new king-named bishops, and Philip ordered the full execution of the edicts against heresy, and the proclamation of the decrees of the Council of Trent. On the popular side, at this time, Counts Egmont and Horn were William's chief allies ; but they were far from being his equals in under- standing, for their own safety, the character of the tyrant at work in Spain. The persecution drove thousands of Flemings to England, taking with them their weaving skill and industry, the foundation of flourishing manufactures in the eastern counties. 29 438 A History of the World In 1565 the prince of Orange, Egmont, Horn, and other patriotic noblemen virtually withdrew from all share in the government. A hotter persecution began, conducted by inquisitors, and frightful scenes of cruelty and disorder occurred. The hour of revolt was now at hand. In April, 1566, after the formation of a confederacy among the patriot nobles, now including, as prominent men, William's brother, Louis of Nassau, a brave, impetuous man, and a strong Protestant ; De Brederode, marquis of Utrecht ; and Philip van Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde, a deputation of some hundreds of the chief men of the country walked in procession to the palace, and had an interview with Margaret on the subject of the persecution. Many of the nobles were at this time greatly impoverished by extravagant living, and De Berlaimont, standing at the regent's side, was overheard to say that "she had nothing to fear from such a band of beggars " (fas de gueux). On the next day this sneer had results. De Brederode gave a grand banquet to his associates at the Hotel de Culemburg, a mansion in Brussels, and the remark was referred to. The confederates then adopted, for the patriots, the name of " Gueux," drank a toast to cries of " Long live the Beggars ! " and the host, sending for a beggar's wallet, slung it round his shoulders and passed it on. William of Orange, Egmont, and Horn came in, on hearing the noise, and were forced, by friendly urgency, to join in the demonstration. The banded patriots then took to wearing grey cloaks like those of mendicants, and the name " Gueux " was henceforth applied, in the Netherlands, to all those who supported the Reformation and were the foes of tyranny. The reformed religion was now making rapid progress, the Calvinists being prominent in the eastern provinces, and the Lutherans, who were by far the most numerous and wealthy, in the south. All were united in hatred to Popery, the Inquisition, and Spain, and the rallying-point of all the Protestants was Antwerp. At this time, an outburst of bigotry on the part of the Protestants unhappily gave Philip some excuse for a further exercise of tyranny. Not only did heretical " field-preachings " disturb the public peace, but the rioters known as Iconoclasts attacked the churches in several provinces, especially in Flanders and Brabant, breaking what they held to be idolatrous " images," plundering and ruining the interior of the splendid cathedral at Antwerp ; doing like damage at Tournai, Ghent, Mechlin, Valenciennes, and several other towns ; and pillaging in all over 400 Catholic places of worship. Spain and the Netherlands 439 Philip resolved on vengeance. He had already refused to allow the States to meet for the discussion of grievances, and he supplied the duchess of Parma with funds to raise a large force of horse and foot. Many of the Catholic nobles withdrew from the patriotic league. Open hostilities broke out, and Valenciennes, held by the Calvinists, was taken, after a bombardment, by Noircarmes, the governor of Hainault. The position of the country was such that William of Orange went into exile for a time, after vainly warning his friend Egmont to care for his own safety. William was aware of what Philip contemplated, and withdrew in order to plan for his country's freedom. The terrible duke of Alva, a relentless Catholic fanatic, an able general, and an everlasting type of cruel tyranny, arrived at Brussels in August, 1567, at the nead of a veteran Spanish army of 15,000 men, "and assumed the government of the Netherlands in place of Margaret. The absolute destruction of all heretics had been decreed, and Alva established what he called the Council of Troubles, styled by the patriots and known in history as the Council -of Blood. The Inquisition was re-estab- lished, and the work began. The new Council paid no respect to any existing contracts or privileges, and its judgments were without appeal. Counts Egmont and Horn were beheaded in Brussels. Hanging, decapitation, quartering, and burning of human beings were in full swing, with enormous confiscations of property. Count- less refugees fled to England, and were welcomed by Elizabeth who was glad for her realm to benefit by their skill in manufactures. The country, in some parts, was lapsing into a state of brigandage. William, collecting troops in Germany with money raised by the sale of his own property, by the help of his relatives, and by the subscriptions of refugee Hollanders and Flemings, took the field. In the spring of 1568 the Netherlands were invaded at four points. In May a division of the royal forces was defeated by the patriots at Heiligerlee, in the north-east of Holland, with the loss to the cause of freedom of one of William's brothers, Adolphus of Nassau. In July Alva in person routed his foe, with the loss of all their cannon and baggage, under Louis of Nassau, at Jemminghem, near Emden. William, heading an army of 30,000 men, could not bring the wary Alva to a battle, and in October the great patriot was forced to disband his men from sheer lack of funds. He retired to France for a time, and Alva, in the insolence of success, razed to the ground the Culemburg mansion at Brussels where the banquet of the Gueux had taken place, and set up, in the new strong citadel 440 A History of the World of Antwerp, his own statue in brass, made from the guns taken at Jemminghem. The patriots, unable to do anything on land, were developing a naval force in privateers swarming forth from every port in Holland and Zealand, and cutting off Spanish ships convey- ing army-stores and the goods of commerce. The atrocious Alva, whose truthful boast it was that, in a rule_ of six years, he caused 18,000 people of the Netherlands to die by the hands of his executioners, was now wearying out Philip, when it was found that all his murders and plunderings did not subdue the spirit of resistance. In the darkest hour of the country's fortunes, a gleam of success for the patriotic cause came, in April, 1572, with the capture of the town of Brill (Briel), on an island at the mouth of the Maas, by the fierce sea-rover William de la Marck. The people of Holland and Zealand rose in revolt, and William again appeared in the field, and took many towns in the south of the country, aided by his brother Louis. Alva would not meet him in battle, but attacked the northern towns captured by the Hollanders. The famous siege of Haarlem continued for seven months of 1572—15 73, costing the Spaniards 10,000 men before they could succeed. The women had fought like tigresses on the ramparts, facing the long pikes of the enemy, flinging boiling oil and tarred hoops set alight, and using dagger and pistol in defence of their lives and their honour. The governor, chief officers, and 2,000 of the garrison were murdered on surrender. On the other hand, the enemy were repulsed with great loss by the citizens of Alkmaar, and the Spanish fleet was nearly destroyed in a fight on the Zuyder Zee. In 1573 Alva was recalled, and his successor, Requesens, a man of mild character, removed Alva's statue and suppressed his famous Council. The struggle continued, with alternations of success. An offer of a general amnesty was rejected with disdain by men who had resolved on freedom or death. In 1574 a large Spanish fleet, gathered for the relief of Middelburg, in Walcheren, was utterly defeated by Louis Boisot, admiral of Zealand, and that important city, after two years' siege, surrendered to the patriots. William of Orange, and his brothers Louis and Henry, were again in arms, but in April, at the battle of Mookerheyde, on the Maas, the great leader's two brothers were defeated and slain. The renowned and successful defence of Leyden followed. Force and famine were used in vain against the noble citizens, and in October, 1574, the place was delivered by William's desperate measure in cutting Spain and the Netherlands 441 the dykes, flooding the country with the waters of tne sea, and thus bringing up boats with provisions for the starving people. 1,000 Spaniards were drowned before they could withdraw along their embankments. At all points of the heroic struggle William was present, in person or in spirit, by speech or by letter, with prudent counsel, vigilant care, indomitable courage, and unfailing resolution. The sudden death of Requesens in March, 1576, brought a lull, during which the government was in the hands of a council of state, including many Flemish Catholic nobles. Then came horrors due to the rage of the Spanish troops in lack of pay. Alost was stormed, and the country around was put under tribute. Maestricht was sacked, with every circumstance of atrocity befalling property and person ; and in November the awful event known as "The Spanish Fury," or the " Sack of Antwerp," ruined the great commercial town of northern Europe. For three days the place was in possession of mere fiends filled with the spirit of greed, murder, and lust, while fire destroyed the town-hall and hundreds of the better houses, and thousands of the citizens perished by the sword. In November, 1576, the famous Pacification of Ghent was drawn up and issued. This treaty was a bond of union between the northern provinces, especially Holland and Zealand, and the " Estates " or representative-bodies of Brabant, Flanders, Hainault, and other territories in the southern Netherlands. The people were thereby pledged, without regard to religious differences, to drive the Spanish troops from the country. Its importance consists in its practical defiance of Philip by the bold assertion of popular rights in the suspension of the edicts against heresy, and the annulling of all sentences passed by Alva's council. Requesens was succeeded by Don John of Austria, a natural son of Charles V., and so a half- brother of Philip. He was the naval victor over the Turks at Lepanto, as will be seen, in 157 1. William and the States-General had gathered a large army at Wavre, with some help in money from Elizabeth of England, in order to enforce the terms of the Pacifi- cation of Ghent. The Spanish troops were withdrawn, and the citadels which they had occupied were garrisoned by native soldiers. In September, 1577, "William of Orange entered Brussels in triumph, and was named Governor ("Ruward" or " Protector") of Brabant, by the revival of an old office, invested with almost absolute power. All seemed to be going well, when some of the nobles of Flanders and Brabant combined against him, and offered the government, 442 A History of the World in the name of Philip, to the young Archduke Mathias of Austria, who came to the country. William managed to checkmate his opponents by accepting Mathias on terms which made him a mere puppet, while real power lay in the council of state and the States- General, and with himself as administrative ruler. A new actor now appeared on the scene in succession to Don John, who died in 1578. This was Alessandro Farnese, prince of Parma, son of Margaret, the former regent. He was one of the most skilful generals of modern times, an able statesman, a thorough Spaniard in his training and character. In January, 1578, with a large force of Italian, Spanish, and French troops, he utterly defeated the patriot army at Gembloux, near Wavre. Mathias retired from office, and Parma captured Louvain and other towns. Amsterdam now declared openly for the cause of freedom, and the States- General, with some help from Elizabeth, obtained a fresh army of Germans and English volunteers. At this crisis the southern provinces, containing the Walloon, French-speaking people, mainly Catholics in religion, began to fall away from the common cause, and William adopted a new course. In January, 1579, looking to the north alone, he formed the Union of Utrecht, whereby the provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gueldres (Gelderland), and Groningen, afterwards joined by Friesland and Overyssel, became the real basis of the republic of Holland or the " Seven United Provinces." The omission of Philip's name from this document made it a practical renunciation of allegiance to Spain. Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and Ypres soon afterwards joined the union. Then came the siege of Maestricht, taken by Parma in June, 1579, and given up to a three days' massacre and sack. An attempt at reconciliation, in a congress at Cologne, was frustrated by Philip's obstinate refusal to allow Protestant worship, and William of Orange then took a decisive step. Early in 1580 a States-General met at Antwerp, and the United Provinces were declared to be a free and independent state. Thus Holland entered the states-system of Europe. The hatred of Philip towards William had now reached the highest point, and he covered his name with infamy by issuing his edict of proscription, full of the foulest and falsest charges, calling on all persons to assail him " in his fortune, person, and life, as an enemy to human nature." The sum of 25,000 golden crowns was promised to whosoever should deliver up William of Nassau, dead or alive, with a patent of nobility to the successful assailant. Spain and the Netherlands 443 William replied by his famous " Apology," published all over Europe, one of the noblest monuments of history, in which every false charge of the tyrant is refuted, and a crushing recrimination is made. William thus stood forth at the tribunal of the public opinion of the civilised world, as the accuser of a king who was a disgrace to his lineage, to his country, to civilisation, to Christianity, to humanity itself. The war continued under the prince of Parma, who was in power from 1578 to 1592. It was in March, 1582, that Philip's premium on the murder of a man whom he could neither bribe, nor cajole, nor catch, nor conquer had its primary effect in the first attempt on the life of William. He was at Antwerp, leaving the dining-room after a party to some of his kindred, when a young man advanced from among the servants and offered him a petition. He took it, and was at once wounded by a pistol-shot fired close to his head, the ball passing under the right ear, through the mouth, and out at the left jaw. The assassin was promptly killed by the attendants. The wounded patriot recovered in three months from his terrible injury. The papers found on the man's body proved him to be a Spaniard named Juan Jaureguy, in the employ of Anastro, a Spanish merchant of Antwerp. He had been hired by this man, who was on the verge of bankruptcy, to do the deed, with the connivance of a Dominican friar. Anastro had engaged with Philip to murder Orange, and to receive 80,000 ducats and the Cross of Santiago as his reward. He got away safely to the prince of Parma's camp. The bargain made with the king of Spain was signed in Philip's hand and sealed with his seal. Anastro's cashier, Venero, and the friar, Zimmermann, were arrested, and after con- fessing their share in the crime, and due trial, were executed. Parma, believing his enemy to be mortally wounded, sent circular letters to the revolted cities, calling on them to return to their allegiance to their forgiving sovereign, and to the holy Inquisition. The United Provinces, troubled by the loss of Bruges and other towns through treason, offered the sovereignty to William of Orange. He went to Delft to be inaugurated, and there, on July 10th, 1584, he was fatally wounded in his left side by three balls from a huge pistol. On this occasion also he had just risen from table, and fell at the side of his wife, Louisa de Coligny, daughter of the man who died in the " St. Bartholomew." William expired in a few minutes. The murderer, Balthasar Gerard, whose parents were both living in Burgundy, was a desperate and fanatical Catholic who had for years 444 A History of the World cherished the design of slaying William. He had purchased his weapon with alms received from the victim, to whom he had presented himself as " Francis Guion," a Calvinist, and the son of a martyred Calvinist. He nearly made his escape in the confusion, but was caught through stumbling at the edge of the town -moat, on the other side of which a horse was ready for him to mount. After two days' severe torturing, Gerard was executed. The murderer's parents were ennobled and enriched by Philip, and, with a malignity worthy of the man, the pension which they received was secured upon the estate of the murdered patriot's eldest son, who had been carried off as a hostage to Spain. The best epitaph of William of Orange consists in Motley's words : " He went through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. ... As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets." The death of a patriot is not always fat il to the cause which he supports. The prince of Parma, who was privy to the foul deed, was alive, and strong in military force, but he could not undo the victim's work. That work was taken up- by his second son, Prince Maurice of Nassau, now 18 years old, and the spirit of freedom, after the first shock, rose higher than ever. In August, 1585, after a famous siege of 14 months' duration, Antwerp succumbed to the genius and determination of Parma and his engineers. A little help was rendered to the patriots by Elizabeth, who sent over some troops under the incompetent and lukewarm earl of Leicester, and brave, good Sir Philip Sidney died in 1586 in a skirmish at Zutphen. In the south, Ghent and other towns were taken by Parma ; the reformed religion was abolished ; Brussels and Mechlin, weary of resistance, submitted. In 1585 the power of Spain was again established in most of the country now called Belgium, and it became the " Spanish Netherlands." The state of this reconquered territory was fearful. Most of the people in the towns had perished by war, pestilence, and famine. Much of the once fertile country was given up to wolves and wild dogs. The fields had become wildernesses; the very roads were overgrown with vegetation. People of rank were begging their bread in the streets. From this spectacle, from these ghastly results of bigotry and tyranny, we turn with relief to the Seven United Provinces of the north, in their courage, energy, and hard-won freedom, still to be maintained, with a few thousand troops, commanded by a lad, against Parma, the Spain and the Netherlands 445 skilful and victorious veteran, having 80,000 men at his command. Prince Maurice was named Stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral of Holland and Zealand. The civil government of the new state was committed to the able and virtuous Jan van Olden Barneveldt. The share of Holland against the Armada will be seen hereafter. There was a lull in the land-warfare at this time, but in 1 59 1 Maurice took Breda by surprise, and Parma, now duke, by his mother's death, went to France to oppose Henry of Navarre. During his absence more fortresses were taken by the Dutch, and even- after his return Zutphen, Deventer, and Nimeguen were captured. The most formidable military foe of Holland disappeared with the death of the duke of Parma, from disease, at the end of 1592. Albert of Austria, archduke and nephew of Philip, became governor in the southern Netherlands in 1596. In the previous year Maurice had taken Groningen, and in 1597, after defeating Albert's forces, he captured more towns. In 1599 the Archduke married Philip's daughter Isabella, and the southern provinces became an independent sovereignty under the husband and wife, known as " the Archdukes." Philip II. of Spain had died in September, 1598, and all Dutch patriots were breathing more freely for the removal of that deadly and relentless foe of civil and religious freedom. Dutch prosperity and power grew apace. The ships of Holland were doing the chief carrying-trade of Europe. Her " India Company" was formed in 1596. The Jews driven from Spain and Portugal found a refuge in the new republic. Tillage and manu- factures began to thrive again ; skill, industry, and courage were reaping their reward ; and all things gave token of the arrival of a happier age. The new king of Spain, Philip III., son of the late monarch, was his very opposite in regard to the business of government. Philip II. had striven to do everything : his son and successor would do nothing, and left all to his minister the duke of Lerma. Spanish pride and bigotry could not, however, even now formally relinquish what had been a prey, and the Archduke Albert continued the struggle in the Netherlands. In 1600 Maurice gained the decisive battle of Nieuport over Albert, striving to raise the Dutchman's siege of the town, and a great moral effect was produced. The famous Spinola, of Genoa, one of the greatest military captains of the age, was summoned by Albert to the com- mand, and the siege of Ostend, one of the longest of modern times, took the attention of Europe from 1601 to 1604. The operations 446 A History of the World were a sort of school of war, especially in engineering, to military visitors from all parts of Europe, and mining and bombardment reduced the place to ruins before it was surrendered to Albert's forces. Maurice and Spinola manoeuvred in the field with indecisive results. At sea, the Dutch defeated the Spanish fleet off Dover, in 1606 Spanish ships were victorious off Cape St. Vincent, and again, in 1607, the Dutch fleet had a brilliant success in Gibraltar Bay. Spain was growing weary of the war. Her resources were becoming exhausted, and, in spite of the opposition, in a conference at the Hague, of the ambitious Prince Maurice and a war-party, against Barneveldt and those who wished for peace, a truce was made between Spain and Holland in 1609, couched in vague terms, to save Spanish pride, as regarded independence for the Seven Provinces. Peace continued for the space of 12 years, and the troubles of Holland were only internal, but these were of a character disgraceful to a free Protestant state. The curse of the time was religious bigotry, and Prince Maurice used it for his own ambitious ends. Away from the field of war, this son of the great William of Orange was a vulgar character — rough, cruel, and despotic. The object of his hatred was the excellent and patriotic Barneveldt, the greatest man ever produced by Holland, except only William of Orange, and his descendant, William III. of England. At this time, all reasonable men in the country were deafened and disgusted by the loud, angry theological disputes between the Calvinists, led by Francis Gomar, a professor of theology at the new University of Leyden, founded in honour of the grand defence of the town against the Spaniards, and his colleague Arminius. The national energies were turned from the noble objects of consolidating civil and religious freedom into the barren field of metaphysical theology. Barneveldt supported Arminius ; Prince Maurice, for his own ends, sided with Gomar. Arminius was mild, courteous, and pure in life. Gomar was learned, violent, and rigid, a bad copy of his master Calvin. Arminius, after triumphing over his opponent in disputations held before the States-General, died in 1609. Serious riots occurred in several towns, and the religious rivalry became a public nuisance and peril. Our own pedantic sovereign, James I., plunged into the controversy as a stout " Gomarist," while all men of sound judgment and the favourers of religious toleration were laughing at both sides. The Catholics of Europe were, of course, delighted at the scenes exhibited in this Protestant bear-garden of Spain and the Netherlands 447 angry bigots. Barneveldt, meanwhile, as civil administrator and diplomatist, rendered good service by obtaining from England the restoration of the two important towns of Brill and Flushing, held as security for Holland's debt incurred to the niggardly and cautious Elizabeth when she furnished funds for the maintenance of the struggle against Philip. About one-third of the money due was paid to James for a receipt in full. After this great service, some of Barneveldt's ungrateful countrymen began to accuse him of treacherous views in the interest of Spain, and Prince Maurice, now aiming at sovereignty, and knowing that Barneveldt was the main obstacle to his projects, plotted the great statesman's ruin. His influence gained complete success for the Calvinist party, and the Arminians were persecuted with many outrages. Against this treatment Barneveldt vainly appealed to the prince, and the magis- trates of some towns, at Barneveldt's suggestion, called out the national militia to maintain the public peace. Civil war was in prospect, when in 16 17 Prince Maurice took a violent course in •seizing Brill, and declaring that Barneveldt meant to deliver the town to the Spaniards. This calumny was widely believed, and Barneveldt only consented to retain office at the entreaty of the States-General, and issued a dignified " Apology," addressed to the States, or assembly, of the province of Holland. Maurice, who had now become prince of Orange by his elder brother's death, arrested Barneveldt, treading public justice under foot, and acting with despotic power. The Synod of Dort met in November, 1618, and closed in May, 1619, after an absurd display of theological mysticism, and of conduct disgraceful to religion. Proscription, banishment, and execution of theological opponents (Arminians) followed, and even the Calvinists of France, Germany, and Geneva were shocked. The fate of Barneveldt was now sealed. After a mock-trial before a packed body of 24 prejudiced judges, accused and convicted of treason against the public liberties which he had passed his noble life in vindicating, Olden Barneveldt died by beheading in May, 1619. No fouler judicial murder stains the annals of any country. It stamped an indelible mark on the memory of Prince Maurice, and has left Barneveldt enshrined as one of the purest and greatest of patriots. In 1 62 1 the 12 years' truce expired, and Maurice and Spinola again faced each other in the field two years later. The Dutch people, weakened by their dissensions, cooled in their hatred of Spain, and with an army unused to war, were by no means eager 448 A History of the World for a renewal of conflict. Maurice was growing old, and the financial condition of the country was unsound. The prince was becoming hateful in his despotism. The two sons of Barneveldt laid a plot against his life, having been deprived of their offices, and reduced to destitution and despair. The matter was betrayed, and one son escaped, the other was executed. In 1623 Spinola had begun the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the fortress commanding the navigation of the Maas and the coasts of the Zealand archipelago, and Maurice, rushing to its rescue, forced him away, after desperate efforts on both sides, with heavy loss. Frederick Henry of Nassau, Maurice's half-brother, marched into Brabant, and ravaged the country to the gates of Mechlin, Brussels, and Louvain, levying a heavy contribu- tion in money. By this time the Thirty Years' War was in progress in Germany, Holland aiding the Protestant cause with money. In 1625 Prince Maurice died, and just before the end of his blighted life, he cried, in allusion to his victim Barneveldt, " As long as the old rascal was alive, we had counsels and money ; now we can find neither one nor the other." Frederick Henry of Nassau then assumed power as Stadtholder, and found matters in a bad condition. Discontent and disunion prevailed ; heavy taxes crushed the industries of the country ; the frontiers were almost defenceless ; and only in maritime affairs, in the East Indies, and, for some time, in the Western world, was the country flourishing. The new ruler, now in his 42nd year, showed his wisdom in a policy of religious tolerance and consideration, and the evil spirit of the past was by degrees exorcised. In 1626 some towns were taken from Spinola, and in the two following years Spanish treasure-fleets were plundered in the New World. The resources thus acquired enabled the republic to raise needful land- forces, and in 1629 Frederick Henry and other commanders defeated the enemy in the south, during Spinola's absence in Italy, at all points. Many towns of the Spanish Netherlands were taken, and Holland was freed from the danger of invasion. In 1632 almost all the fortresses on the Maas, including Maestricht, fell into the hands of the Dutch. In 1635 Richelieu, the French minister, made an offensive and defensive alliance with the republic. In concert with a French army, great success was won in the Spanish Nether- lands. After some changes of fortune Breda was retaken in 1637, and in 1639 tne famous Van Tromp gained a splendid victory in the Downs over the Spanish fleet, taking, sinking, or burning 50 ships. In 1641 Charles I. of England gave his daughter Mary The Armada 449 in marriage to Frederick's son William. The Stadtholdei had gained so much credit by his wise and energetic rule, that his office was made hereditary by the States-General, and the House of Orange was firmly established. In the civil war of England Frederick Henry aided the Royalist cause, but the people generally took part with the Parliamentarians, and remonstrated with their ruler. In 1647 he died, leaving a high character for integrity, prudence, toleration, and courage. It was his glory to leave com- pleted the task which his illustrious father had begun, and which the skill and courage of his half-brother Maurice had carried on. On January 30th, 1648, the Treacy of Munster between Spain and Holland renounced all Spanish claims, and fully recognised Dutch independence, after the lapse of 80 years from the first revolt. A more splendid triumph of the cause of freedom against enormous odds does not adorn the page of history. We turn now to our country's share in the great contest against Philip II. of Spain. British readers need no details of the Spanish Armada and its defeat. The victory, so glorious for England, was at once our Marathon and Salamis, the decisive event of a contest in which the future of the world was involved. It rendered possible the existence not only of the United States, but of great common- wealths beyond the Atlantic, and in Australasian seas, which are main portions of our vast empire. We need only note that the Dutch fleet played an important part in the preservation of our forefathers, blockading Parma in his harbours and preventing him from crossing to our shores while Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, the Catholic Lord Howard, and our other gallant countrymen, were battering the Spanish ships during their course up the Channel. With this grand event really begins our modern history. England therewith takes a new character and a new place in the world. The defeat of the Armada was the last act of a historical drama which had been played in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico, where English adventurers, Drake and Hawkins and their compeers, had long been contesting the Spaniards' monopoly of the New World, harrying their commerce, attacking their sea- board towns, and capturing their great galleons laden with the riches of Mexican and Peruvian mines. A new race of Englishmen, formed by a maritime career, a race of sea-heroes not before existing in the British Isles, met and repulsed, in destructive and conquering strength, the attack of the Spanish masters of the New World. With Drake and Hawkins be^an the British love of 450 A History of the World roaming the seas ; with Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert arose the impulse and genius for colonisation. A new England, at once commercial and warlike, appears upon the stage of history, and henceforth we have the close connection between war and trade, during the two succeeding centuries, which has so largely affected the course of modern history. The motto " Trade follows the flag " was turned into action, commerce leading to war, and war fostering commerce. The mediaeval state of affairs in Europe came to an end. The industrial ages began, and the western European nations, France and England, entered into a contest for the possession of the vast regions beyond the Atlantic. Chapter VI. — The Thirty Years' War ; the First Stuarts. On the abdication of Charles V. his brother Ferdinand became emperor from 1556 to 1564, and was a mild and tolerant ruler. His son, Maximilian II. (1564-1576), an amiable man, well inclined to the Protestants, was unable to control the angry passions of the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, who all combined in the political object of reducing the imperial authority, while they were hostile to each other on religious questions. The empeior, as head of the Catholics, became an accomplice or tool of the Jesuits, and, in the loss of one imperial privilege after another, he ceased to be a centre of governing power. Under his son Rudolf II. (1576-1612), a bigoted Catholic trained at the Spanish court, but an indolent, vacillating man, the Jesuits were very powerful, and the rival religious parties began to combine more closely against each other. The " Protestant Union," formed in [608, was responded to in the following year by the " Catholic League," and everything pointed to a renewal of armed conflict between the religions. The Protestant House of Brandenburg gained an accession of power, foreshadowing its future greatness, in the succession of the elector of Brandenburg to the duchy of Prussia. The emperor Mathias (1612-1619) irritated the Catholics by concessions to the Protestants, and yet was obliged to favour the Jesuits in their efforts to win back Germany to the Pope. The outbreak of the dreadful Thirty Years' War was made certain by the accession to power of Mathias' cousin, Ferdinand, who was emperor from 1619 to 1637. In 1618 the struggle had already begun in Bohemia through the tyranny exercised against the Protestants, under Ferdinand's influence, and his election as emperor in the following year drove that country The Thirty Years' War 451 into open revolt. Complete religious freedom had been granted to the Bohemians by Rudolf, and they well knew what they had to expect under Ferdinand. He was a jealous, implacable bigot, skilful in policy, who aimed not only at crushing Protestantism in Germany, but at turning the German Empire into an Austrian military realm, in which the emperor should again have the Crown's full prerogative over all its vassals. Bohemia at once revolted, and chose as king the young elector of the Rhenish (or Lower) Palatinate, whose marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England, in 161 3, afterwards brought the House of Hanover (Brunswick) to the British throne. This " winter-king," as he was styled from his brief tenure of power, lost his throne at once through the defeat of the Bohemian forces in the battle of Weissen- berg ("White Mountain") near Prague, in 1620, by Count Tilly, an able Catholic commander. He fled to the Hague, and was put to the ban of the empire, his Palatinate territories being held by Spanish troops under Spinola. Bohemia was thus brought to ruin. Many Protestant leaders were executed, lands were con- fiscated, the Protestant clergy were banished, and the Catholic worship was alone permitted. Learning and trade declined, and territorial and political influence passed into the hands of a new German and Catholic nobility. Thus ended the first phase of the war, in the utter failure of the Protestant movement in Bohemia.* The war was continued, on the part of the Protestants, by the brave, active, and skilful adventurer Count Ernest of Mansfeld, commanding a large army of mercenaries who supported themselves by the plunder of all occupied territories ; by Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania ; by Christian of Brunswick ; and by other nobles heading troops who often had little regard for the religious interests involved, but were mere lovers of fighting and booty. After much manoeuvring and fighting in different regions of the hapless country, the Catholic army, under Tilly's leadership, had the better of the struggle. The Protestant Union was broken up in 1622, and two years later Catholic forces were alone in the field, and Ferdinand seemed to have attained his object. Other Protestant rulers than those of Germany viewed the position with alarm, and in 1625 Christian IV. of Denmark plunged into the war, and enabled Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick to appear again in arms. Ferdinand, hitherto dependent almost solely on the forces of the * The details of the struggle should be sought in Mr. S. R. Gardiner's Thirty Years' War. 452 A History of the World Catholic League, led by Tilly, now called to his aid the famous Albert von Wallenstein (or Waldstein), a wealthy noble, a man of extraordinary abilities and character, ambitious in the highest degree, adventurous, superstitious, a consummate strategist and tactician, one of the most remarkable of military and political adventurers. He raised a large army, to be supported, not by regular pay, which the- emperor could not possibly furnish, but by the plunder of territories conquered by its arms. Wallenstein, of an old Bohemian family, had been brought up as a Catholic, but he never had any definite faith, save in astrology, and in himself and his fortunes. In 1626 Wallenstein and Tilly had together about 70,000 men. In April the Bohemian noble severely defeated Mansfeld at the Bridge of Dessau, on the Elbe, south of Magdeburg, and in August Tilly, at the battle of Lutter, south-west of Brunswick, routed Christian of Denmark. In the same year Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick died natural deaths. Holstein was conquered from Christian IV., its duke, in 1627, and the Protestant cause was in a desperate condition, when it was saved by the memorable and heroic defence of Stralsund, whose citizens resisted for ten weeks the utmost efforts of Wallenstein, and compelled him to retire with great loss. Peace was made in 1629 with Christian of Denmark, and thus ended the second, or Danish, period of this disastrous struggle. In the same year the bigoted Ferdinand did much harm by his Edict of Restitution. He had already made an end of Pro- testantism in Austria and Bohemia, and, holding himself, through recent successes, to be virtual master of all Germany, he now decreed the transference, to the Catholic clergy, of the lands of two archbishoprics, 12 bishoprics, and over 100 smaller church- benefices, which had come into Protestant hands since the Treaty of Passau. Only the adherents of the Augsburg Confession were to have free exercise of religion, and all other " sects " were to be abolished. The troops of Wallenstein and of the League had begun to put the Edict into execution, when the Catholic princes, jealous of Wallenstein's influence, and with complaints of the extortion and cruelty practised by his army, induced Ferdinand to dismiss him. Part of his fine force was disbanded, and part was handed over to Tilly. This was a fatal step for Ferdinand. The Protestant cause was on the verge of ruin, when the third or Swedish period of the struggle began with the appearance on the scene of Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. This Protestant champion, born at The Thirty Years' War 453 Stockholm in 1594, and king of Sweden from 161 1 to 1632, was grandson of the great Gustavus Vasa. He is one of the noblest characters in history, one of the most illustrious men of modern days. Carefully trained, he was highly accomplished in modern languages and classical learning, and in all athletic exercises. On coming to the throne in his 18th year, he remedied the dis- orders of his country, securing the adhesion of the nobles by wise concessions of privilege on condition of military service, and reforming the whole administration. It is only in romances that we find unmixed single motives of action, and the historical fact is that the great Swede, devotedly attached to the Protestant faith, and eager to restore the fallen cause in Germany, and being husband of the elector of Brandenburg's daughter, was jealous of the revived strength of the German Empire, and aimed at dominion on the southern Baltic coast, where he had already won territory in war with Russia. He desired chiefly, however, in Germany, to prevent a union of the Jesuit and the soldier which would be fatal to the religion which he loved. His operations were undertaken with the approval of the French statesman Richelieu, whose policy had, as a chief object, the depression of the House of Austria. In the summer of 1630, at the head of 15,000 men, the best disciplined, best trained, and best equipped soldiers of the time, Gustavus landed in Pomerania. The Protestant people hailed him as a coming deliverer; the princes at first held aloof, in a jealous suspicion of his designs. The admirable conduct of the Swedish veterans, in strong contrast to that which had been displayed by the licentious and ruffianly troops of Tilly and Wallenstein, and the influence of the Swedish king's noble character, won by degrees the confidence of the Protestant leaders, and he was soon regarded with universal admiration by those whose faith and freedom he had come to save. Pomerania and Mecklenburg were quickly cleared of the imperialist forces; Richelieu, in 1631, signed a treaty guaranteeing substantial help in funds for five years on condition of his maintaining an army of 36,000 men, refraining from change in the political system of Germany, and respecting the Catholic religion. On these terms Gustavus set to work. Tilly was driven back to the Elbe ; the fortresses on the Baltic were captured, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder, with a large imperialist garrison, fell. The emperor's army had been reinforced, and while the Swedish king waited for help from the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, there came, in May, 163 1, the storming of Magdeburg by Pappenheim, a general under Tilly, 30 454 A History of the World who was in no wise responsible for the horrors which occurred. The " sack of Magdeburg," ruined for resisting the Edict of Restitution, became a proverb for atrocious cruelty. Thousands of citizens were murdered, and the whole place, with the exception of the cathedral, was destroyed by fire. Thus encouraged, Ferdinand refused to withdraw the Edict, and haughtily commanded the Protestant princes to disband their troops. A reply soon came from Gustavus Adolphus, who had been joined by Bernhard of Saxe- Weimar, and by the elector of Saxony, after Tilly had forced the surrender of Leipzig. The power of the Swedish army lay in its flexibility of movement, and its quickness of fire with musket and cannon, owing to improvements made by the king. Tilly was an able commander of the old Spanish school, waiting until he had a superiority of numbers, and then using the heavy-column system of attack. In September, at the great battle of Breitenfeld, a village five miles north of Leipzig, Gustavus and his men showed their quality, gaining a splendid victory, after a contest in which Tilly left 6,000 men on the field. This success, a triumph, in the military way, of intelligence over routine, of individual spirit over the mechanical order and obedience of the Catholic system, had great political importance, in virtually making an end of Ferdinand's Edict of Restitution. The joy of Protestant Germany was great. The victor then marched for the Rhine, and enabled the Swedish troops, much enfeebled by disease and want, to gain new strength in the richest part of German territory. The Palatinate was recovered, and Gustavus held court at Mainz (Mayence), surrounded by Protestant princes and envoys. In April, 1632, Tilly was again defeated, and mortally wounded, at the battle of the Lech, in which Gustavus, with the fire of his terrible artillery, forced the passage of the river in the teeth of his foe. He was now master of all Germany, except the emperor's hereditary dominions in the east and south, and Ferdinand, in his trouble, was obliged to have recourse to the discarded Wallenstein. That very able man quickly gathered a large force, and drove the Saxons out of Bohemia. The Swedish sovereign advanced to meet him, and found him a difficult man to deal with. Wallenstein, declining battle, formed a fortified camp near Nuremberg, and there, for n weeks, from July to September, 1632, he kept behind his strong intrenchments. A Swedish attack was then repulsed with heavy loss, and Gustavus advanced to the Danube, while Wallenstein, turning upon defenceless Saxony, ravaged the country with ruthless The Thirty Years' War 455 cruelty. Then the Swedish king, reinforced by Bernhard of Saxe- Weimar, attacked his enemy at Liitzen, ten miles south-west of Leipzig. After a desperate battle, Wallenstein was defeated, but the victory was very dearly purchased by the death of Gustavus, who, in the prevailing fog, rode almost alone into the midst of a party of the enemy, and was dispatched by several wounds. He left a stainless and deathless name, and the fall of the hero ended for the time the hopes of the German Protestants. The Swedish forces came under the command of Bernhard, now duke of Weimar, and of Generals Horn and Baner, while the able statesman Oxenstierna, the Swedish chancellor, directed home and foreign affairs in the minority of Christina, the infant daughter of Gustavus. During 1633 the war continued, with general success for Wallen- stein, but his career ended in the following year with his murder by a party of his officers. He had been already deposed from his command on a charge of designs to gain supreme power in Germany, and his slayers were richly rewarded by the emperor. In the same year, 1634, the imperialists severely defeated the Swedes, under Bernhard and Horn, at the great battle of Nordlingen, with the loss of 10,000 men killed and wounded, and of 6,000 prisoners, including Horn. The elector of Saxony and other princes then made peace with Ferdinand, and the war seemed about to collapse, with the submission of all southern Germany to the emperor early in 1635, when the struggle entered on another phase with the active interven- tion of Cardinal Richelieu. The great French statesman had made a treaty with Oxenstierna, by which France was to receive, in the event of success, some German territory in return for aid to the Protestant cause. Duke Bernhard, gathering a fine army in the Rhine-territory, entered the French service, and Baner, the Swedish general, carried on the war in Saxony and elsewhere. On Ferdinand's side, the Treaty of Prague, concluded in May, 1635, had practically given up the Edict of Restitution, so that the Protestants had the chief part of the northern bishoprics, while the Palatinate became Catholic. Lutheranism was to be the only privileged form of Protestantism : the Calvinist states had no concessions. Branden- burg and most of the Protestant states accepted these terms. The Thirty Years' War now entered on its fourth and last period, the Franco-Swedish. The ideals of Ferdinand, the recovery of Church property ; of Gustavus Adolphus, a Protestant political union ; and of Wallenstein, a national unity on a military basis, had all disappeared, and the contest became a political one, in 456 A History of the World which the French and the Swedes were pitted against the Austrians and Spaniards. The struggle had by this time assumed a horrible character, owing to the utter want of discipline in the armies, and the suffering inflicted by their outrages on the people. Augsburg, after the victory of Nordlingen, was reduced by the imperialists in a siege of seven months' duration, and, when the city fell, her 70,000 inhabitants had dwindled away to 10,000 starved wretches, and a great commercial place had become a poor country-town. The death of Ferdinand in 1637 brought to the empire his son Ferdinand III. (163 7-1 65 7), who desired peace, but was unable to obtain it. A great French army had been put into the field. Attacks on the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands and in northern Italy had failed : the Swedish general, Baner, had some success. On his death in 1641, the new Swedish commander, Torstenson, gained a victory in the second battle of Breitenfeld or Leipzig, and then, called away by Danish attack on Sweden, he conquered Holstein and Schleswig, and invaded Jutland. Bern- hard had gained some victories and towns in Alsace, but in 1639 his services were lost by his death, and in 1643 the French were completely beaten by an Austro-Bavanan army. Richelieu had died in the previous year, and some new and very able French commanders appeared in Marshal Turenne, and the Bourbon prince, the Due d'Enghien, better known as the prince of Conde, or " the great Conde." These two commanders, in 1644, captured the chief places in the Rhine-country, after the splendid victory of the young Conde, in May, 1643, at the battle of Rocroy, north-west of Sedan, over the Spanish troops, a final blow to the glory of Spanish arms. In 1645 Torstenson gained victories over the imperialists at Magdeburg and in Bohemia, and in August of that year, at the second battle of Nordlingen, north-east of Ulm, Turenne and Conde, after a severe struggle, won another victory, and were then driven back to the Rhine by the reinforced enemy. Thus the hideous contest went on. The French could not be driven from Alsace. The Swedes, after advancing nearly to Vienna, had retired. The imperialists could not force Sweden from her hold on northern Germany. All parties saw that a continuance of the murderous work was useless, and after long negotiations, the Peace of Westphalia, concluded in October, 1648, ended the Thirty Years' War. By this treaty, Sweden received, as a fief of the empire, giving three votes in the Diet, a large part of Pomerania, and some other The Thirty Years' War 457 north German territory. France had sovereign power in Alsace until 1871, except in Strasburg and some other imperial estates, and retained the bishoprics and cities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Brandenburg retained part of Pomerania, and received the arch- bishopric of Magdeburg as a duchy. The German princes became territorially independent of the emperor. The republics of the United Netherlands and of Switzerland finally assumed the same position of independence. As regarded the religious question, Catholics and Protestants, in all imperial affairs, were placed on an equality. Calvinists, as well as Lutherans, now had the freedom of worship granted by the Treaty of Passau and the Peace of Augsburg. Austrian and Bohemian Protestants gained no rights, but the Lower (Rhenish) Palatinate, Wiirtemberg, Baden, and some other states had the exercise of the Protestant religion as in 1618. The members of the restored imperial court were to be Protestants and Catholics in equal numbers. All Church-property which the Protestants had held in 1624 was to remain in their possession. The Catholics were much disgusted by these con- cessions to their opponents, and the Pope (Innocent X.) issued a " bull," in which he declared the Peace to be, in his Latin, " null, vain, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, void, empty of strength and effect, in the past, the present, and the future." The day of Papal supremacy was waning, and to these awful denunciations no one paid the slightest heed. The Lower (Rhenish) Palatinate was transferred to the son of the former elector, now deceased. In regard to the position of the " Holy Roman Empire," the last link which bound Germany to Rome was broken ; the principles by virtue of which the empire had existed were all abandoned, now that both Lutherans and Calvinists were declared free from the jurisdiction of the Pope or of any Catholic prelate. The empire now contained and recognised as it's members persons who formed a visible body at issue with the Holy Roman Church, and schismatics had equal civil rights with Catholics. The sove- reignty of Rome was thus abrogated, and the Roman theory of Church and State was annulled, so far as regarded Germany. In civil affairs, the rights of making war and peace, of raising troops, building fortresses, levying contributions, passing or interpreting laws, lay henceforth, not with the emperor, but with the Diet. In 1654 it became a permanent body, destined to be notorious for formal, pompous, vain trifling. Religious difficulties were to be henceforth settled, not in the Diet, but by negotiations between 458 A History of the World states concerned. The Peace of Westphalia ended the last of the religious wars, and was the close of the period of the Reformation and Catholic reaction, drawing a final line of demarcation between the two religions. Thirty years of war had ended in a compromise under which the religious position of each German territory was fixed by the intervention of foreign powers, the rights of the central government being utterly ignored. The results of the war to Germany were deplorable and long- enduring. Not only had this wicked contest, while it raged, produced an infinite sum of misery to millions of innocent people ; not only had towns and villages been ruined by hundreds, and the manufactures and commerce of the country thrown back for a century. Great moral, political, and intellectual mischief was caused. Literature and art almost perished. Apart from Frederick the Great, scarcely any grand character arose in Germany for a century and a half. There was no originality, no noble enterprise, no sacrifice made for great public interests, no instance in which the welfare of nations was preferred to the selfish passions of princes. The great Frenchman Richelieu had, in conjunction with Sweden, worked his will on Germany. The House of Hapsburg had been humbled. German unity had been, for a long period, made impossible. About 300 petty principalities, between the Alps and the Baltic, formed a confederation of the loosest kind, with no common treasury or efficient common tribunals, no means of coercing a refractory member ; with different religions and different forms of government, and with the most embarrassing diversity of judicial and financial administration. Each petty prince had his own little court, a ridiculous copy of the pompous etiquette of Versailles ; his own little army, separate coinage, tolls and customs- houses on the frontier, and a crowd of fussy, pedantic officials, with a chief minister who was often at once the minion of his sovereign and in the pay of some foreign court. These princes, freed from imperial control, were mere despots in their own dominions, symbols of a degraded condition of feudalism which had ousted the power of the feudal lord without the least benefit to the people. Political life, in the true sense, there was none, and down to the French revolution, save in Prussia and as regards the wars that were waged for territory, the history of Germany presents little more than " the scandals of buzzing courts, and the wrangling of diplomatists at never-ending congresses." During the Thirty Years' War, the great contest for political The First Stuarts 459 freedom had been proceeding in the British Isles under the reigns of the first two Stuart kings. We shall deal with this great subject in the briefest fashion, on the assumption that all readers of this History of the World have a competent acquaintance with the annals of their own country. Turning first to Scotland, prior to the union of the crowns, we find that the weak, indolent, pedantic James VI., possessed of ideas involving a " divine right " both for sovereigns and for bishops, began to rule in the northern kingdom, in 1 58 1, at 15 years of age, after a long minority passed under various regents — Moray, Lennox, Mar, Morton — and partly in a state of civil war for the realm. His proceedings in Scotland after 1603, when he became James I. of England, have been above given. Apart from strictly political events, the Gunpowder Plot (1605) is notable as having been due to the rage and disappointment of some fanatical Catholic converts who had expected concessions to their faith from the new sovereign and were met by an enforcement of the severe laws of Elizabeth against all who refused to go to the services of the Anglican Church or assisted at mass. The unjust result to the Catholics as a body, so loyal to their country and sovereign in recent Armada days, was the immediate and future enactment of further penal laws. The tyranny of James I. consisted in illegal raising of money by customs-dues without grant of Parliament, in the imposition of a " benevolence " ; the dismissal from office of Chief-Justice Coke for his condemnation of the exaction ; and the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh to please the court of Spain. Parliament showed a revival of power and spirit in successful impeachments, including that of the illustrious Chancellor ; and in the " Great Protestation," asserting its liberties as the birthright of the people of England, and its right to discuss all urgent affairs of state. In the imprisonment of members for this attitude in favour of freedom, James continued a precedent of Elizabeth in a way which showed his ignorance or disregard of a changed state of feeling in his people. Under Charles I. (1625-1649), the evil political training bestowed by the father wrought ruin for the son. In 1628 the Petition of Right against illegal taxation, martial law at home in time of peace, illegal imprisonment, and other grievances, received the royal assent, only to be outrageously violated, in every point, during the "Tyranny" lasting from 1629 to 1640. Wentworth (earl of Strafford), in civil affairs, archbishop Laud, in ecclesiastical matters, were the agents of despotic power. The High Commission Court 460 A History of the World punished Puritans by fines, imprisonment, and exile. The Star- Chamber — by fines, long imprisonments, cutting off of ears and nose, and fixing in the pillory — wrought havoc on opponents of the Crown, and money was raised by every kind of lawless device. The attempt to abolish Presbyterianism in Scotland caused a renewal of the former Covenants of 1557 and 1581 against " Popery," and the " Solemn League and Covenant" drew all classes together against the king. A rebellion in the north caused Charles to give way, from lack of good troops or money to pay them. In 1640 the Long Parliament met, with Pym, Hampden, Selden, Cromwell, and other patriots among its members. Strafford's head fell by an Act of Attainder ; Laud became a prisoner in the Tower, to die on the scaffold some years later. The mad attempt of Charles to seize the Five Members in the House of Commons was the immediate cause of civil war in the summer of 1642. The genius of Cromwell and the valour of his " Ironsides " overcame the fiery efforts of Rupert and the cavaliers, and the great victories of Marston Moor and Naseby ruined the royal cause, and enabled a fanatical military section of the republican party to bring the king to a scaffold on January 30th, 1649. This violent, illegal, cruel, and most impolitic act made a practical end of monarchy in the British Isles for just the period during which the tyranny which provoked rebellion had endured. The efforts of the gallant Montrose in Scotland, in behalf of Charles, had finally failed in September, 1645, and the invading Scottish army of 1648 was destroyed by Cromwell, in August, at Preston. In Ireland, during this period, some important events occurred. From 1605 to 1608 an able and vigorous administrator, Sir Arthur Chichester, was in power as lord-deputy, and the rebellious chiefs in Ulster, O'Neill and O'Donnell, who were earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, were driven out when they opposed the introduction of English law, and the tribal institutions and hereditary jurisdictions of the chieftains were abolished. A large area of territory was con- fiscated, with the expulsion of native Irish to the south and west. It is in these appropriations of territory for the benefit of alien and Protestant possessors that we find the root of the Irish land-question and the source of most of her people's modern troubles. In 16 10 the modern province of Ulster began to rise through the measure known as the "Plantation" or "Colonisation" in that region, whereby the land was, to a large extent, placed in the hands of Scottish and English settlers, forming in course of time the great France 46 1 Protestant stronghold in the north of Ireland, the centre of, good tillage, and of flourishing manufactures. Under Charles I., Lord Wentworth (Strafford) ruled the country from 1632 to 1640, showing great ability and energy in maintaining order, and founding the linen-industry by the growth of flax in Ulster. In support of his tyrannical sovereign, he also raised a force of Irish troops for service in England. Disorder of the most serious character followed his return to England. The Catholic lords, mainly of English origin, caused the rebellion of 1641, in which the natives murdered some thousands of the Ulster Protestants. The Catholics were then practically masters of the country duiing the civil war in England. Chapter VII. — France ; Southern and Eastern Europe. In France, Louis XIII. (1610-1643) came to the throne as a boy of nine years, son of Henri Quatre. His mother, Marie de' Medici, was regent until 161 7, and the able Sully was removed from office. The Edict of Nantes was confirmed in 16 14, and the national Parliament, or States-General, composed of the nobles, the clergy, and the middle classes or bourgeoisie, was summoned for the last time before the eve of the French Revolution. This body proved to have no capacity for settling a national policy. Warfare with the Huguenots, ending in 1622, brought the loss of most of their strongholds. From 1624 onwards Cardinal Richelieu, one of the greatest of modern statesmen, diplomatists, and administrators, was the real ruler of the country. This very able man, one of the utmost vigilance and resolution, unscrupulous as to means, clear- headed as to his aims, crushed all plots against his power, overcame all resistance of the nobles, and laid the foundations of absolute rule for the next monarch. The Huguenots were finally mastered in the capture of their chief stronghold, La Rochelle, in 1628. The policy and success of Richelieu in the Thirty Years' War have been above related. On his death in 1642 Richelieu left France in the foremost European position, in succession to Spain, and the way was cleared, both at home and abroad, for the power and influence exercised by Louis XIV. In the great peninsula of south-western Europe, the death of Philip II. in 1598 brought to the throne his son, the weak Philip III., who was wholly in the hands of the duke of Lerma until 1618. The country was greatly and permanently injured through the expulsion, in 1609, in pursuance of the usual bigoted policy, of those 462 A History of the World diligent and skilful tillers of the soil, the Moriscos, to the number of over half a million. The descendants of the children, under four years of age, who were kept behind to be trained as Catholics, and of all who had been converted to Christianity, were constantly persecuted on suspicion of heresy, and as tainted with Moorish blood, which was a bar to the holding of the meanest public office. The credit of the country was for a time maintained abroad through the skill in war of Spinola and other commanders, but the best day of Spain was clearly over. The long reign of Philip IV. (1621-1665) brought no improvement. The king was as incapable as his father had been, and the real ruler, the chief minister Olivarez, count and duke, used his abilities to extort money, by corrupt means, including the sale of all public offices, for wasteful expenditure on ambitious foreign projects. The navy was ruined by the rising Dutchmen. A false colonial policy, by its selfish monopolies and restrictions, threw the profit of trade into the hands of skilful and daring smugglers, and the very abundance of gold and silver from the American mines raised the price of purchase for articles which the decline of the national industries compelled Spain to procure from abroad. Philip II. had begun to raise money without consent of the Cortes or Parliament, and that body had ceased to be regularly convened. The ancient privileges of Aragon and Castile had been abolished, and the government became absolute. The decline of Portugal rapidly followed her great period of history. The chief causes of this change may be briefly stated. Emmanuel (Manoel) "the Fortunate" was eager to secure for himself and his dynasty the throne of Spain, and with this view he proposed to marry the Infanta Isabella, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella ot Aragon and Castile. As a bait to Spanish bigotry, he undertook to expel the Jews and unbaptised Moors from his country. The Jews of Portugal formed a chief element in her commercial prosperity, and were renowned through- out Europe for wealth, acuteness, and integrity. They had dwelt for centuries in the land, at first protected by the Moors, and then favoured by such monarchs as Diniz and John " the Great." For this security and tolerance they had made an ample return in promoting the trade of their adopted country, dwelling chiefly in the great towns, especially in Lisbon, Evora, and Santarem. This suicidal measure was carried out by Emmanuel, and with the Jews departed many Mohammedans, who had fled from Spain on the capture of Granada in 1492. Emmanuel married the Infanta Portugal 463 Isabella, but he did not obtain the throne of Spain, through the death of his queen in 1498. Her infant son died two years later, and the widower's marriage with his deceased wife's sister Donna Maria of Castile did not attain the object he had in view. She was only a third daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the throne of Spain came, as we have seen, to the son of the second daughter Joanna, who became the emperor Charles V. Another cause of decline is to be found in the decay of the old nobility, whose descendants were mere courtiers instead of patriots, devoted to a sovereign whose wealth enabled him to bestow highly paid offices and large pensions. Public spirit by degrees died away, and political power, as well as a large part of the wealth of the country, was in the possession of the Crown. Under John III. (1521-1557) the downward course became more perceptible and rapid. This bigoted monarch, in 1536, in- troduced the Inquisition, and four years later he admitted the Jesuits. The tyranny and oppression exercised by these institutions, both in the colonies and at home, were very baneful to progress and public spirit. All the chief towns won from the Moors, and held by Portugal, in northern Africa, except Ceuta and Mazagon, were given up during the reign. Under an absolute king surrounded by sycophant nobles eager only for court-pensions or lucrative posts, corruption invaded every department of the administration. Greedy fortune-hunters and intriguers throve while merit was neglected, and it was from lack of due reward for his enterprise that the great navigator Magalhaes (Magellan) deserted his native country and took service with Spain. A very serious cause of Portuguese decline is found in the rapid decrease of population. The southern territory, Alemtejo and the Algarves, laid waste in the Moorish wars, had never been well repeopled and tilled, and large numbers of young, vigorous, and enterprising citizens were lost by emigration to the new colonies in the East and West. Many of those who remained in Portugal flocked to Lisbon, which had become the chief distributing centre of Eastern products, and the capital, in the space of 80 years, trebled its population, in spite of the ravages of pestilence due to a fearfully unsanitary condition. The large estates of the king and nobles, instead of being subjected to careful and scientific agriculture, were abandoned to the cheap and inefficient labour of African slaves, imported in such numbers as almost entirely to populate the Algarves and outnumber the free people in Lisbon itself. The kingdom was becoming rotten at 464 A History of the World heart, in spite of the wealth of the capital, the courtiers, and the king, who was the richest sovereign in Europe. The last shock to a decayed fabric with a yet fair exterior came under King Sebastian, who reigned from 1557 to 1578. A pathetic and romantic interest yet clings to the memory of this gallant young prince, Dom Sebastian, who died on the battle-field against Moorish foes, and in whom, save for a two-years' reign, the House of Aviz, the old Burgundian line, came to an end. He was but three years old when he became king, as grandson of John III. His mother, Donna Joanna, daughter of the emperor Charles V., retired to Spain, leaving him to the care of his grandparents. The queen, Donna Catharina, sister of Charles V., was regent, very unpopular with the Portuguese from her Spanish exclusiveness, bigotry, and pride. She retired to Spain in 1562, and the little king's uncle, Cardinal Henry, assumed nominal power, the rule of the country being really in the hands of two able Jesuits. In 1568 Dom Sebastian, then not 15 years of age, took up the government, and dismissed the Jesuits from office. The young king, rather German than Portuguese in features, fair-haired and blue-eyed, was of a dreamy and romantic turn of mind, a builder of air-castles, a lover of the marvellous, a seeker of adventures. His zeal for orthodoxy impelled him into a new Crusade, in an age too advanced for such adventures. With a warlike ambition Sebastian combined a fond- ness for solitude, and a deep melancholy of disposition which seemed to forebode an early and tragical end. In 1574, in his 20th year, he crossed to Africa, as if to recover the lost towns, but his small force of horse and loot was engaged only in raids wherein the king recklessly sought positions of peril. Two years later, a more serious enterprise in Morocco, then troubled by a disputed succession, was undertaken, and Sebastian hired a large mercenary force, composed of men of different nations, ill-organised and ill- equipped for his enterprise. Against the advice of Philip II. of Spain, his uncle, Sebastian set sail in June, 1578, with a force of 15,000 infantry, 2,400 cavalry, and 36 guns. About 10,000 were Portuguese, and the rest were Spanish, German, and Italian hired troops and volunteers, the latter, 900 in number, being commanded by a brave English Catholic, Sir Thomas Stukeley, who had been intercepted by the Portuguese king while he was on his way to raise an insurrection in Ireland against Queen Elizabeth. The march inland, at the end of July, under the burning sun, disabled many of the invaders, who were also harassed by the Moorish skirmishers. Portugal — Venice 465 On August 4th Sebastian and his men, in a Dad position, with both flanks exposed, were attacked by the Moors with 40,000 horse and 15,000 foot. The wings of the king's army were soon over- lapped, and after four hours' desperate fighting the Christian army was cut to pieces, 9,000 being killed, including Sebastian and Sir Thomas Stukeley, and the rest made prisoners. Only 50 men escaped from the field. Many of the chief Portuguese nobles and prelates perished on this disastrous day. The king's body was recovered, and finally buried, after interment at Ceuta, in the Church of St. Jerome at Belem. For many years the Portuguese people believed that Sebastian was still alive, and would reappear at some crisis, and many pretended Dora Sebastians arose. The dead king's uncle, Cardinal Henry, last of the line of Aviz, reigned from 1578 to 1580, and then, after a struggle among several candidates for the throne, Philip II. of Spain, winning over a majority of the Cortes, and bribing the duke of Braganza, husband of the true heiress to the Portuguese throne by descent from Emmanuel, obtained the sovereignty for himself, and entered Lisbon in triumph in 1581. Henceforth for nearly 60 years Portugal was but a province of Spain, losing territory in the East and in the Western world under Dutch and English attacks, and suffering from the ruinous wars waged in the Netherlands and Germany and against England. Under Philip III. and Philip IV. of Spain, the tyranny exercised by the chief ministers, the duke of Lerma and Olivarez, provoked a spirit of resistance, and in 1640 a general rising of the people and of the nobles, headed by John, duke of Braganza, the heir to the throne, made an end of Spanish domination. The duke came to the throne in January, 1641, as John IV. of Portugal, first sovereign of the House of Braganza. In the ensuing war with Spain, the Portuguese were at first aided by French and Dutch fleets, and by English troops, and the old possessions in India, Malacca, and Brazil were regained. In 1661 the aid of England was again obtained after the marriage of Catharine of Braganza to Charles II., and a long struggle ended, in 1668, in the formal recognition of Portuguese independence by Spain. In Italy, we turn first to Venice, and find her in a declining condition. Her former bold and brilliant policy, full of energy and resolution, became timid statecraft, and the great republic of the Adriatic was, in the end, regarded as a useless ally, an uncertain friend, and a foe of small account. A stand was made, early in the 17th century, against Papal claims urged by Paul V., and the 466 A History of the World matter was compromised by the admission of his power over ecclesias- tics, and the enforcement of the Venetian Senate's edict of expulsion against the Jesuits. In 1522 the capture of Rhodes by the Turks deprived Venice of a useful ally, and damaged her Levantine trade. There was much naval warfare with the Turks in the 16th century. In 157 1 Cyprus was lost by the surrender of Famagosta to Turkish besiegers, after a heroic defence, and at the end of this period the republic retained, in the Grecian archipelagos, only Candia (Crete), Paros, and the Ionian Isles. In the 1 6th' century the kings of Spain and the Popes wielded, in this order of importance, the chief power in Italy. In the north there was a rising state — Savoy. Formerly connected with Burgundy, the power of the counts of Savoy became solely Italian, in possession of Piedmont, gradually gaining territory in Italy. In 1 64 1 an Amadeus became duke of Savoy, receiving his title from the emperor Sigismund. About the middle of the 16th century all the territories were lost to Francis I. of France, but Emmanuel Phillibert (1553-1580), son of Charles III. of Savoy, regained them in 1559 by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. Piedmont, with Turin as capital, was now the chief state in the dominions of the dukes of Savoy, who also held the territory of their title, with Nizza (Nice) and other lands to the north-west of the Alps. Charles Emmanuel I. (1580-1630), married to Philip II. of Spain's sister, was an ambitious man, who invaded Provence without success, and even ventured on war with Spain, maintaining his position to the end of his reign. The Popes, at the end of the 16th century, had a rich, fine territory in the States of the Church, but the people generally suffered much from misrule involving heavy taxation, and the temporal power sank into general discredit during the 17th and following centuries. In Poland, Sigismund I., of the Jagiello or Jagellon dynasty, reigned from 1506 to 1548. The country was at this time pre- dominant in eastern Europe, with a flourishing trade in wheat and timber, her two natural sources of wealth, carried on from the mouth of the Vistula, acquired by treaty in 1466. The government was mainly in the hands of the nobles, who became farmers on a large scale, employing the forced labour of serfs, and thereby gaining great wealth. Trouble arose from the introduction of the Protestant doctrines, which spread rapidly in some quarters, but the bulk of the people remained Catholic. In the next reign (Sigismund II., Poland 467 1548-1572) Lithuania was joined to Poland, and Warsaw became the capital. A large part of Livonia was conquered, but territory in the east was lost in war with Russia. The population of the country rapidly grew, and along with it the authority of the nobles, who had spiritual power over their serfs, though a Diet of 1573 enacted tolera- tion for all religious opinions. The Diet, consisting of the higher nobility and of deputies chosen by the inferior nobles, sat in one chamber, with the absurd provision, at a later date, of the liberum veto by which a single vote could stay the progress of any measure. The ruin of Poland may be traced, in a large degree, to this Slavonic requirement of unanimous voting, which was used to shield corrupt conduct or to gratify private malice, and hindered all legislative improvement. The crown became virtually elective, and in 1575 a majority of the nobles' votes gave the sovereignty to one of Poland's best kings, Stephen Batory, prince of Transylvania, a famous soldier, who warred successfully against Russia. The throne was accepted by him under restrictions which gave the Diet control over a declaration of war and all military expeditions ; the imposition of taxes ; the choice of the council of ministers ; and the marriage and divorce of the sovereign. A general Diet was to be convoked every two years, or oftener if it were needful, and the duration of a session was limited to six weeks. Under the long reign of Sigismund III. (1586-1632), a Swedish prince, there were quarrels between the king and the Diet, and much persecution of the "Dissidents" or Protestants. In 1621 a great host of Turks and Tartars was defeated at Chocim by the renowned Polish general Chodkiewicz. The country had been in a declining stage during this period. The Protestants were estranged by persecution, and the anarchical conduct of the nobles reached its height. The Jesuits ill-treated members of the Greek Church. Livonia was conquered by Sweden, and during the period ending with 1668. Wallachia and Moldavia were annexed by the Turks ; and the Cossacks of the Ukraine, who had been organised into regiments of frontier-troops by Stephen Batory, were driven into rebellion by oppression and by religious persecution as members of the Greek Church. In 1654 these useful military subjects of the monarchy willingly submitted to Russian rule. Towards the close of the reign of John Casimir (1648-1668) the land beyond the Dnieper was ceded to Russia, after the country had been entirely overrun for a time by invading Swedes, Russians, and Brandenburgers. In Russia, government assumed its existing autocratic character 468 A History of the World in the reign of Ivan IV. (1546-1584), surnamed "the Terrible" from his tyrannous deeds. The country had seemed likely to become another Poland, in the hands of rival parties of nobles, when this strong, cruel ruler, after a long struggle, put down the feudal oligarchy, with the aid of enfranchised towns. He first assumed the title of "Tsar," a term connected with " Csesar," and the equivalent of " King " or " Kaiser," being the word applied in the Russian translations of the Bible to the kings of Judea and the Roman emperors. In his time English trade with Russia began by way of Archangel, and enlightened policy was shown in the welcome extended to foreigners whose superior knowledge in military and scientific matters might benefit the country. Much unsuccessful war was waged, but the empire was put in a state of defence by the erection of many strong fortresses ; Moscow was adorned with new buildings, and the printing-press was established there in 1553. The laws were codified, and Church-matters were regulated by a council. A large part of Siberia was subdued by a conquering Cossack officer, and that region became, at the close of the 16th century, the receptacle of political and criminal prisoners. Under a feeble son and successor of Ivan, the boyars, a secondary class of nobles, recovered much of their former power, and disorder came from the quarrels of rival parties. A law was promulgated by the Tsar's brother-in-law, acting as regent, which ultimately changed the condition of the peasantry into serfdom, by abolishing the right of annual removal to another estate, and attaching the labourer perforce to the land, Early in the 17th century much trouble was caused by the appearance of an impostor claiming to be the eldest son of Ivan IV., murdered by his father in a fit of passion. This " false Dmitri " was supported by the Jesuits and by some of the nobles in Poland, and by king Sigismund, and his appearance in Russia with an army of Polish volunteers was hailed by the people as that of a lawful sovereign. Crowned at Moscow in 1605, he disappointed expectations by being a mere tool of the Poles, and was murdered in a revolt. New impostors appeared, and the country fell into an anarchical condition, while Cossacks from the Don and Dnieper wasted the provinces, and Polish forces occupied Moscow. The risings of the people in favour of the " false Dmitri " and other claimants of power were really revolts of the peasantry and small traders against the boyars who were striving to become an oligarchy like that of Poland. Order was at last restored by the union of the ecclesiastics with the people of the great towns. Hungary 469 An army was raised, and the patriots drove out the Poles and Cossacks, and a " General Council of the Land," representative of all classes, elected a new Tsar in Michael Romanoff, member of a popular family. Under his reign, from 161 2 to 1645, there was trouble with the Swedes, the Poles, and turbulent nobles. Russia began to come more and more in contact with Western civilisation, and large numbers of foreign adventurers, including many Scotchmen — Hamiltons, Gordons, Bruces, Leslies, and others — made their way into the country, and in some cases founded families there. The death of Michael in 1645 brought his son Alexei (Alexis) to the throne, a ruler under whom much progress was made, and the days of his famous son were, in some measure, anticipated. The enforcement of serfdom by a new law caused many revolts. The States-General or Sobor (the " Council of the Land") was frequently convoked, for the revision and codifying of the laws and the reform of the local administration. Under Alexis, Russia finally had the better of Poland, and, as we have seen, gained the Cossacks as new subjects. The death of Alexis in 1676 left the way open, after the lapse of a few years, to the great man under whom Russia was to throw aside the semi-Asiatic ways introduced by Mongol occupation, and to become a European power. In Hungary, a period of rapid decay set in after the death of Matthias, in 1490, leaving no legitimate heir. Various pretenders to the throne came forward, and the magnates chose Vladislaus, king of Bohemia. The oligarchy of nobles were the real masters of the country ; the finances were in a ruinous condition, and the military institutions were disorganised. Invasion came from Poland and from Maximilian of Germany, who was only quieted by a disgraceful treaty restoring the conquests of the great Matthias. An insurrection of the peasantry in 15 14 was attended by fearful outrages. These wretched people had long been the prey of plundering Turks on the one hand, and of the exactions of their lords on the other. They paid all the taxes, and the nobles, exempt from burdens, wasted their receipts in riotous living. Maddened by oppression, and headed by a Transylvanian named George Dozsa, the countrymen gathered at Pesth to the number of 40,000, and, taking the nobles unprepared, swept through the country, burning the castles and massacring their inmates. The nobles then closed their ranks, and, aided by forces from Transylvania, routed the rebels with great loss, and reduced the peasantry to the condition of serfs 31 470 A History of the World bound to the soil. This monstrous law, passed by the Diet in 15 14, was accompanied by the important code establishing equal rights for all members of the noble class, and exempting them from taxation, limiting the authority of the clergy over lay-nobles, and denying Papal rights over Church- benefices. Two years later Vladislaus died, and was succeeded by his son, Louis II., a lad of ten years, whose minority was marked by party- struggles among the magnates, and the general neglect of needful measures of reform. The introduction of Protestant doctrines brought new trouble in persecution of the reforming party, and then the Hungarian nobles, as if demented, grossly insulted their powerful neighbour Suleyman of Turkey, by cutting off the nose and ears of his envoy, dispatched on a peaceful errand, and sending him back to his master. This outrage on humanity and the law of nations brought prompt vengeance from the Sultan. The two strongest border-fortresses, Shabatz and Belgrade, were taken in 1521, and the tidings roused the weak king Louis from his lethargy. A victory was gained over the Turks, but in 1526 Francis I. of France stirred up Suleyman against Hungary and the Hapsburg crown-lands, in order to divide the forces of his enemy Charles V. The Sultan took the field in person with 300,000 men and a great artillery, to meet which host Louis could only bring a force of 25,000, destitute of a capable commander. On August 29th, 1526, a day of evil name in Hungarian annals, the defenders of the country were almost annihilated at Mohacs, on the Danube. The king, with countless nobles and some prelates, perished in the battle, and the pillage of the country was followed by the capture of Buda, the destruction of the famous and magnificent library collected by Matthias, and the carrying-off of 30,000 people as slaves to the Turkish victors. Suleyman then retired, bearing away on shipboard down the Danube the bronze statues and other treasures of the palace at Buda, the only great building of the beautiful city which was not burned. The disaster of Mohacs soon brought the country under the rule of the Hapsburgs, in the person of Ferdinand of Austria, chosen by a majority of the nobles. For a century and a half the crescent- flag floated over Buda, though the people showed many instances of heroism in struggles against the power of the Moslem, defending fortresses with desperate courage, and reviving the memory of the long contest between Spaniards and Moors. Under the successors of Ferdinand of Austria — Maximilian, Rudolf, Ferdinand II., The Turkish Empire 471 and Ferdinand III. — the utmost efforts were made to suppress Protestantism, to which the great majority of the people adhered, chiefly in the Calvinistic form among the Hungarians, and as Lutheranism among the German and Slavic inhabitants. The anti- Reformation movement, however, partly by force and partly by persuasion, won the mass of the nation, the nobles, the people of the towns, and the peasantry, back to the fold of the Catholic Church. During most of the 16th and the 17th centuries there was also a continual constitutional struggle between the privileged Hungarian class and the foreign Austrian dynasty. Under Selim I. of Turkey (1512-1520), who came to "power after the languid period of his father Bayezid I. (1481-1512), Kurdistan and other territories were annexed from Persia, Syria was subdued, and Egypt was torn away from the possession of the Mamluks, who had held it almost since the days of Saladin. This great conquest gave to the Turkish sultans authority over the sacred cities Mecca and Medina, and the inheritance of the Caliphs of Bagdad, with their symbols of office, the cloak and standard of the Prophet. The Sultan Selim was thus enabled to hold, and to transfer to his successors, the chief rule over Mohammedans, and the headship of the religion of Islam in its orthodox form. It was under his son, the famous Suleyman (or Soliman), surnamed " the Magnificent," that Ottoman power attained its zenith. For nearly half a century, from 1520 to 1566, he reigned in glory derived from military and naval successes. His capture of Belgrade, and his conquest of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John in 1522, have been already noticed, with his great victory at Mohacs and the subjugation of Hungary. In an age of great sovereigns and great events, Suleyman and his exploits were in the foremost rank. With almost all revived Europe arrayed against them, as single powers or in combination, at various times, the Ottomans held their ground, and emerged from their conflicts in many cases with triumphant success. In 1529 the great Sultan failed in a furious siege of Vienna, but the Austrian forces could not meet him in the field, and the very fact of the siege was a menace to Christendom. No sovereign of the age was this Sultan's superior in ability and wisdom, in mildness and justice, and there was none his equal in warlike achievements. In 1541 his ninth campaign in the north forced Charles V. to sue for peace, and the Archduke Ferdinand to pay tribute to Suleyman as his suzerain. In the day of great navies and commanders on the sea, of Doria of Genoa and Drake 472 A History of the World of Devon, the Sultan's ships swept the Mediterranean up to the coast of Spain, and his admirals Barbarossa, Dragut, and other famous " Barbary corsairs," were the terror of all seafaring men and maritime states. In 1538 an Ottoman fleet beat the combined squadrons of pope, emperor, and doge off Prevesa, on the western coast of Turkey, at the entrance of the Gulf of Arta. On the other hand, in 1565, many thousands of Turks perished in a fruitless siege of Malta, heroically defended by her knights. This renowned Ottoman ruler, perhaps the greatest figure in Turkish history, left to his successors an empire which none of them was ever able to enlarge except in the conquest of Candia (Crete) and Cyprus. The Turkish dominions of his time included all the most famous Biblical and classical cities, save only Rome, Syracuse, and Persepolis. The crescent was dominant on the sites of Memphis and Carthage, Nineveh and Tyre, Palmyra and Babylon ; it waved in triumph over Damascus and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Smyrna, Athens and Philippi. At Algiers and Cairo, Medina and Mecca, Basra (Bassora), Bagdad, and Belgrade ; on the Nile and the Jordan, the Orontes, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, the Hebrus, the Ilyssus, the Tanais (Don), and the Borysthenes (Dnieper), the Turk held sway. The Propontis (Sea of Marmara), the Palus Mseotis (Sea of Azov), the Euxine, and the Red Sea were Turkish lakes ; the dominion touched the Caucasus on the east, and Mount Atlas on the west, and included such famous peaks and ranges as Ararat and Sinai, Carmel and Taurus, Ida and Olympus, Pelion and Athos, Haemus (the Balkans) and the Carpathians. Such was the splendid empire which, under the successors of Suleyman, void of energy and ability, was to enter on the downward road to steady, inevitable, and prolonged decay, relieved at times by a revival of the old spirit of warlike zeal for the faith or for conquest. The growth of Russia and of other European powers was an external cause of decline, but the chief agent is found in the lack of the wisdom needful to maintain an empire of such a character, a dominion over many foreign races and creeds, requiring the preservation of the old military efficiency, and the exercise of conciliation towards subject peoples. Wealth and power fell into the hands of weak, indolent, and vicious sultans. The soldiery became disaffected, and, like the Praetorians of ancient Rome, raised and deposed rulers at their caprice or for bribes. The bulwarks of the throne, the Janissaries, lost discipline and martial spirit. The Turkish Empire 473 Believers in absolute fate, and full of conceit inspired by former glory, the Turks regarded the Giaours, or infidels, with contempt, and cared not to adopt new scientific tactics and weapons. Rapacious pashas provoked provincial revolt. The whole administration became corrupt, and able viziers or ministers were often sacrificed to the hatred of the soldiery or the priests. The officers of the army became incapable under a system of promotion due not to merit but to bribes. In short, all the causes were at work which bring great empires to ruin. Suleyman's son and successor is sufficiently described as " Selim the Sot," but many of his father's able men were yet in office, and Turkish renown was fairly maintained for a time by the subjugation of Arabia and the conquest of Cyprus. The Turkish rule of the sea had a severe check in October, 15 71, when the battle of Lepanto, at the north side of the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth, was gained by a combined Papal, Venetian, and Spanish fleet, with a squadron of the Knights of Malta, under the young Don John of Austria, fresh from victory over the Moors in Spain. Into this famous conflict the allies brought 200 galleys and 6 great galleasses against a Turkish fleet of 240 galleys and 60 smaller vessels. The van of the allied vessels was led by Don John ; the centre, formed into a crescent, was commanded by the prince of Parma, whom we have seen in the Netherlands. A deadly fight went on for hours, until the Turkish centre was broken, with the boarding of the flag-ship and the death of the admiral. The right wing gave way, and the battle ended. About 130 Turkish vessels were captured, and over 90 were burnt or sunk. The allies lost 15 galleys and 8,000 men, while the Turks had nearly four times that number slain, and 15,000 Christian galley-slaves were liberated. The great Spanish writer Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, received three wounds in this battle, one of which disabled his left arm for life. The moral effect of the victory was great, but Turkish energy was not yet extinct, and in a few months a new fleet of 250 vessels was ready for action. About the same time the Turks received a severe lesson from the Russians, who almost destroyed an army of 80,000 men sent to protect workmen engaged in cutting a canal from the Don to the Volga, so as to give access from the Black Sea to the Caspian. The project, which involved an attack on Astrakhan, was then abandoned. Under Selim's son, Murad III. (1574— 1595), Georgia was conquered from Persia, and the reign of Mohammed III. O595-1603) was marked by a great victory over Austrian and Transylvanian forces. The empire, 474 A History of the World however, continued to decline in power, and the Turk was no longer a terror to Europe. After some weak sultans, Murad IV. ruled from 1623 to 1640, and was the last warrior of the race of Othman, making a great campaign against Persia in which he recovered Bagdad, working in the trenches with his men, and slaying in single combat a gigantic champion sent forth from the town to challenge all comers. The chain-armour worn by Murad in this conflict, a beautiful work of interwoven steel and gold links, is still on view in the Treasury at Constantinople. Bagdad remains to this day in Turkish possession. Her conqueror, received in Constantinople with joyous shouts and saluting cannon, died at the age of 28, and the real government of the empire was henceforth chiefly in the hands of vezirs (viziers) or prime ministers. BOOK II. PEACE OF WESTPHALIA TO FRENCH REVOLUTION (1648-1789). Chapter I. — The British Isles. The period now to be dealt with is one of vast importance in modern history. In France, under the rule of two kings, the length of whose successive reigns amounted to 131 years, a fact unique in all history, we have the age of costly wars and of misrule which led up directly to the great Revolution. In the British Isles we witness the final establishment, with a change of dynasty, of constitutional freedom. Between Great Britain, France, and Spain are waged wars closely connected with national aspirations and ambitions for maritime power, commercial extension, and the command of the New World and the East. We see the rise of the first British colonial empire beyond the Atlantic, and the loss of that dominion in a disastrous conflict, shortly after our acquisition, to the north of that territory, of the nucleus of another great colonial possession still loyal to the British crown. Our country, during this period, acquired the naval and maritime supremacy which, amid all modern changes, she yet retains. In Europe, under the rule of able and energetic sovereigns, two countries advanced from a position of comparative weakness and obscurity to that whereby, as Russia and The British Isles 475 Prussia, they took rank amongst the great European powers. The application of steam as a driving force for machinery, in the later years of this momentous period, gave Great Britain the wealth derived from manufactures which enabled her to bear, in the succeeding age, the vast expenditure of the greatest contest, for her national existence and her commercial standing, which she has ever waged. In the British Isles, after the execution of Charles I., the form of government, for the only time in our history, was for 11 years that of a republic or commonwealth, in which, for nearly 10 years, from January, 1649, to September, 1658, power was chiefly in the hands of the great soldier and statesman, Oliver Cromwell. With his successive parliaments and constitutional experiments we are not here concerned. Backed by a victorious army of unrivalled discipline and valour, and supported on the seas by a fleet commanded by the immortal Blake, the Nelson of his time, Cromwell nobly sus- tained the honour of his country abroad. The warfare with the Dutch was partly due to support given by Holland to the Stuart cause, but chiefly to English jealousy of the great Dutch carrying- trade, expressed in the Navigation Act forbidding the importation of goods into England except in English vessels. In this conflict, Blake and Monck, commanding our fleets, fought in the Channel, and off the Dutch coast, with general success, against the famous Dutchmen Van Tromp and De Ruyter. Against Spain, Cromwell was impelled partly by hostility to a Catholic power, and probably more by a desire to shake her commercial position in the New World. In pursuit of this policy, Jamaica was captured in May, 1655, and, two years later, Blake had a brilliant success in an attack on ships and powerful forts at Santa Cruz, in the Canaries. The Barbary corsairs of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli were chastised in the first naval successes ever won by our ships in Mediterranean waters. A direct threat of war from Switzerland compelled the duke of Savoy to cease from his cruel persecution of the Protestants called Waldenses or Vaudois. Treasure-ships of Spain were captured off Cadiz, and at the siege of Dunkirk by the English and French in 1658, a Spanish relieving-army was routed in the " Battle of the Dunes," an action in which a brigade of Cromwell's infantry, 6,000 strong, bore a brilliant part. At home, the two great efforts made by Charles II. to obtain his lawful power were utterly discomfited in Cromwell's victories of Dunbar and Worcester. Scotland, which had risen in the Stuart cause, was fairly conquered in the occupation 476 A History of the World of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, and other towns. In Ireland, the Irish Catholics and English Protestant royalists, under the duke of Ormond, were thoroughly subdued in campaigns which included the terrible storming of Drogheda and Wexford, Kilkenny and Clonmel. The new conquest of the country was completed in 1652, and, outside Ulster, a new great confiscation of land took place, the Catholic landowners being driven into Connaught. The " Cromwellian settlement," an im- portant feature in the Irish land-question, bestowed the territory on the Puritan conquerors, and many thousands of Irish Catholics left the country for the Continent, to enlist in the French army, and form special brigades which fought against the British, not always without success, on Continental battle-fields. The worthless, witty, clever Charles II. reigned from 1660 to 1685. The Episcopalians were triumphant ; the Puritans or Non- conformists were depressed, and, along with the Catholics, they were deprived for a long period of full civil and religious freedom by legislation which excluded them from municipal and other offices, and, in the case of Catholics, from sitting in Parliament. In Scotland, the Covenanters, as zealous supporters of Presby- terianism and opponents of episcopacy, were severely persecuted by fine, imprisonment, torture, and death, under two apostates from the Presbyterians, the duke of Lauderdale, and Sharp, archbishop of St. Andrews. Provoked to armed resistance, the Presbyterians, in 1679, murdered the archbishop on Magus Moor, in Fifeshire ; defeated the royal dragoons, under Graham of Claverhouse (after- wards Viscount Dundee), at Drumclog, in Lanarkshire ; and were then utterly beaten by the duke of Monmouth (one of Charles II. 's natural sons) at Bothwell Bridge, on the Clyde, near Glasgow. In Ireland, some of the confiscated lands were restored to the royalist Catholics, but two-thirds of the arable soil remained in the posses- sion of Protestant landlords, and the coming misery of Ireland was rendered sure in the mingling of religious hostility with the bitter- ness due to the " land-question." In civil affairs the reign of Charles, soiled by the judicial murders of Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney, was honourably distinguished by the Habeas Corpus Act securing the personal liberty of the subject against the Crown, and by a decision, in 1670, of Chief-Justice Vaughan, of the Common Pleas, which set jurors free from coercion by judges. The British sovereign was a mere pensioner of Louis of France, and naval wars with the Dutch, partly due to a French The British Isles 477 alliance, included the disgrace of 1667, when the enemy burnt British ships at Chatham, and battles in which our naval com- manders, the duke of Albemarle (Monck), Prince Rupert, the earl of Sandwich, and the duke of York (James II.), were not always victorious over Opdam, De Ruyter, and De Witt. James II. (1685-1688), cruel, faithless, stupid, hard-hearted despot as he was, had a short term of power, according to the prediction of his shrewd brother Charles. The prompt suppression of the wicked and foolish Monmouth rebellion, disgraced as the royal cause was by Jeffreys in the " Bloody Assize," had strengthened the position of a monarch who, from the day of his accession, had broken the laws in levying customs-duties and excise-imposts without consent of Parliament, and in attending openly the Catholic service of the mass. The statutes were then trodden under foot in the admission of Catholics to the army and civil service ; the revival of the Court of High Commission in ecclesiastical affairs ; the reception of a Papal nuncio ; the allowance of Catholic worship, and the appointment of a Jesuit as a member of the Privy-Council. In Scotland, the persecution of the Covenanters was continued by Claverhouse and two renegade Presbyterians, the earl of Perth and Lord Melfort, who had become Catholics to please the king. The insolent and tyrannical treatment of two chief bulwarks of the throne, the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, in the lawless appointment of Catholics to prominent offices ; the assumption of absolute power in the issue of two " Declarations of Indulgence," suspending the penal laws against Nonconformists ; the fruitless prosecution of the " Seven Bishops " for libel ; and, above all, the birth of a son to James by his second wife, Mary d'Este of Modena — a son who would be brought up in the Catholic faith, and would, if he lived, succeed to the throne — caused some leading Whig nobles, in the name of the nation, to summon to their aid William of Orange, the Dutch Stadtholder. His landing at Torbay with an army in November, 1688, led to no conflict save with a few Irish Catholic troops brought over by James. William's wife, Mary, was a Protestant princess, daughter of James by his first wife, Anne Hyde, and the helpless sovereign, for whom none of his English subjects would fight, retired perforce to France. The new sovereign, William III. (1689-1702), reigning jointly with Mary until her death in 1694, but from the first controlling affairs as a constitutional monarch, was one of the greatest statesmen of the age, and an able and heroic commander in war. The main 478 A History of the World object of his foreign policy was to baffle the ambitious schemes of Louis of France, and in this he had much success. The " Bill of Rights" (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701) finally secured British liberties. The House of Commons gained absolute control of taxation and expenditure, and of the standing-army recently established. A Protestant succession to the throne was secured in the assignment of the regal office to the House of Hanover, in default of heirs from Anne, sister-in-law and successor of the childless William. In Scotland, the cause of the Jacobites (or supporters of James II.) was ruined by the death of Dundee at Killiecrankie, and the repulse of the Highlanders at Dunkeld. The Presbyterian system of religion was fully restored. In Ireland, the efforts of the Catholics and of James were baffled in the glorious defence of Londonderry, from April to July, 1689 ; at the battle of the Boyne, July 1st, 1690 ; by the defeat of Irish and French troops at Athlone and Aughrim, and by the capture of Limerick in 1691. The victory of the Protestant cause was disgraced by the severe penal laws passed in the Irish Parliament, interfering with the freedom of Catholics in many important functions of life, in the holding of land, the education of children, in marriage, and guardian- ship. A new great confiscation of land confirmed the " Protestant supremacy " of a minority of the inhabitants, and Irish prosperity from tillage, grazing, and manufactures was rendered impossible by oppressive commercial legislation excluding her products from English and colonial markets. Ireland was at last at peace, under the heel of a conqueror, and had a rest which was the apathy of dumb despair. The reign of William III. is also notable for the establishment of freedom of the press, in relief from the censorship which had existed, in a severe form, in Tudor days, and had been maintained even under the " Long Parliament," in spite of Milton's noble protest in his pamphlet Areopagitiai. It was in 1695, with the expiry and non-renewal of the Licensing Act of 1662, that the press became free from a meddling and oppressive control exercised by government-officials. In Scotland, an important system of national elementary education arose in 1696, when an Act required every parish to have its own school with a master paid by the " heritors," or proprietors of land and houses, and supervised by the presbytery. William III. began the practice of choosing his ministers mainly from the party dominant in the House of Commons, and thus arose the " ministry " or executive-government of modern days, with its chief members forming the Cabinet, being, in fact, The British Isles 479 a committee of leading members of the two Houses, selected from the political party which commands a majority in the Commons. It was during the 18th century that the Cabinet became, as it remains, marked by unanimity on chief questions, unity in action, and full responsibility for legislation and administration. Sir Robert Walpole is usually regarded as the first " Prime Minister " or " Premier," in the modern sense, from his having introduced and enforced unanimity in the governing body. The warfare of Queen Anne's reign (1702-17 14) will appear, as will that of William's reign, in the account of Louis of France. The Anglican Church was benefited by the royal generosity which created the fund known as " Queen Anne's Bounty," in surrendering the "first-fruits," or first-year's income of new incumbents of livings, and the "tenths," or a tithe of the annual income of benefices, paid to the Pope before the Reformation, and annexed to the Crown by Henry VIII. The fund thus created is still employed for increasing the incomes of the poorer clergy and in the advance of money for the rebuilding of parsonages. We may note that Queen Anne was the last British sovereign who exercised the right of veto on legislation, in refusing her assent to a Militia Bill for Scotland which had passed both Houses. In 1708 the Act was passed which provides that every member of the House of Commons who accepts any office of profit under the Crown, unless it be a higher army-commission, must resign his seat and offer himself for re-election. The constituencies have thus a check on the corrupt use of offices by the Crown, in their power of rejecting a man whose appointment they may disapprove. The important civil event was the Parliamentary Union of England and Scotland by the Act of 1707. There was much discontent in the northern kingdom, from just jealousy of restrictions on Scottish trade and from other causes, and in 1704 the queen had assented to an Act of the Scottish Parliament for separating the crowns on her decease. In 1705 the English Parliament passed resolutions severely restrict- ing Scottish trade with England and France, and the Border-towns were fortified. The Union Act, passed with much difficulty, and with no small use of bribes judiciously administered to members of the Scottish Parliament, averted civil war, and for the first time brought the two countries into intimate connection. The two united kingdoms became "Great Britain": 16 Scottish peers, elected for each Parliament by the Scottish peers as a body, sat in the House of Lords ; 45 members of the Commons were assigned 480 A History of the World as the representative body of Scotland : the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland was maintained : the northern country kept her own laws and customs relating to property and private rights, and her Court of Session and other tribunals. All rights of trade, free intercourse, and citizenship were henceforth alike for Scottish and English subjects. This great legislative measure was the real beginning of modern Scottish history. It marks the entrance of Scotland into the trade-competition of the age, and it brought her, to her own great profit, into direct contact with the New World. An end was soon made of the proverbial poverty of Scotland, and the energy of her people enabled her to attain a very high position among the nations of the world. Under George I. (1714-1727) and George II. (1727-1760) the system of government by Parliament became fully established, the House of Commons being at this time largely influenced by bribery in the shape of places, pensions, peerages, inferior titles, orders of honour, and direct money-payments, and by control of elections in the small places called " pocket-boroughs." A Whig oligarchy thus had a large share of rule, subject to public opinion as expressed in the newspapers and otherwise. The two first sovereigns of the House of Brunswick (or Hanover) cared more for Hanover than for England, and the connection with that country was very harmful in drawing Great Britain into Continental struggles. The rebellion of 1 7 15 was a miserable failure, ending in the ignominious flight of James Edward Stuart, the " elder Pretender," son of James II. Some fighting occurred at Preston in Lancashire, and some noble heads fell on Tower Hill. The rebellion of 1745 was more important, but had, probably, no real chance of success. " Bonnie Prince Charlie," a really charming young man for a picnic or a dance, who died a bloated drunkard in 1788, became the hero of many Jacobite songs. The respectable side of the matter was the admirable devotion of the Highland peasantry to a ruined cause. The dis- graceful side was the savage cruelty of the victor of Culloden, " Butcher " Cumberland, a royal duke, to the people who had supported the cause. The statesmanlike aspect is seen in the wisdom of the first William Pitt (earl of Chatham), who repaired the evil of the past in enlisting Highlanders to fight for the House of Hanover, and formed the first of the noble regiments whose colours have so often waved in glory on our fields of battle in many lands. The country was pacified, and laid open for the traffic of peace and trade, and for the admiring tourists of later times, by The British Isles 481 the creation of excellent roads. The ministry of Walpole, from 1 72 1 to 1742, was valuable to the country from a policy which was marked by a steady love of peace, by economy, and by non-inter- ference with the progress of national industry and wealth. The revenue grew, and the public debt declined, under his wise fiscal management. Religious freedom for Protestant dissenters or Nonconformists — the Presbyterians of England, the Independents or Congrega- tionalists, the Baptists, and the Quakers or Society of Friends- had its rise in the Toleration Act of 1689, allowing them to worship freely in their own way, on condition of taking the oaths of alle- giance and supremacy, making a declaration against the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and assenting to the doctrine of the Trinity. Two oppressive Acts of Charles II. 's reign — the period of royalist and religious reaction — were thus repealed, except as regarded Romanists and Unitarians. Under Walpole, civil freedom was accorded in a large measure by the passing, from 1728 onwards, of an annual Act of Indemnity, securing Protestant dissenters who held municipal offices from the penalties to which they were liable under the Corporation Act of 1661 and the Test Act of 1673. The most important event of the early Georgian period was beyond doubt the famous religious revival called the Wesleyan Movement or Methodism. The Anglican Church had sunk into a lethargic condition, and little religious life was found except in the sects of Nonconformists. The prelates and the clergy were to a large extent absentees from their proper spheres of labour, their dioceses and parishes. Infidelity and immorality had spread greatly among the higher class of the laity and the lower part of the community, and the lives of many of the clergy were, at the least, very indecorous. The Methodists — a derisive term at first, applied to them by opponents who ridiculed their strict rules of conduct — arose at Oxford, where John Wesley, who was born in 1703 and died in 1791, a resident fellow, ordained as priest in the Anglican Church in 1728, gathered in his rooms a few friends for private worship. Among these enthusiasts were William Law, afterwards author of The Serious Call, and George Whitefield, who became one of the most powerful and influential of modern preachers, converting large numbers of the toiling masses of the people. In 1738 the movement was opened in London, with Wesley and Whitefield as the chief religious orators, and Charles Wesley, younger brother of John, as the writer of very popular hymns. 482 A History of the World The Church declined to have anything to do with John Wesley and his efforts for religious reform, and he was thus obliged to become a " schismatic." His wonderful genius for organisation was displayed in his founding and development of a new religious body — the Wesleyans or Methodists — legally incorporated in 1784. The doctrines are, in the main, those of the moderate adherents of the Anglican Church, and, with various sects separated from the original body, the Methodists form now the most numerous, wealthy, respectable, and intelligent body of Protestant Noncon- formists in England, the United States, and the British Colonies. A great reform of public morals took place ; the clergy of the Established Church were aroused to a new life, and a healthy rivalry began which ended in the rise, within the Church, of the party known as Evangelicals or Low Churchmen. Chapter II. — The Wars of Louis XIV. The reign of Louis XIV. ushered in a series of warlike contests, continuing, with some intervals, through the latter half of the 17th, the whole of the 18th, and the earlier years of the 19th century. These struggles have no parallel in mediaeval or modern history for the importance of the issues involved, the number of the combatants engaged, the power and resources of the belligerent nations, the skill of the commanders, and the interest attached to the chief battles fought by land and sea. Dealing here only with the wars prior to the French Revolution, we find that our own country was engaged in five great wars, varying in length from 7 to 12 years. These contests were on a larger scale than any previous ones in our history, entailing vast expenditure at the time, and incurring a portion of the enormous burden of our national debt. The first of these wars, waged from 1689 to 1697, was due to our last revolution, and in this contest William III. vindicated British independence of foreign control against the king of France. The second was that of the Spanish Succession, from 1702 to 17 13, settling the effort of France to become predominant in Europe. The third war, from 1739 to 1748, is called that of the Austrian Succession, and was one in which we took part on the Continent with reference to the Hanoverian dominions, but it began, on our part, as a war with Spain concerning her claim to the " right of search " of vessels along the " Spanish main " in America, and it was, to this extent, a struggle for commerce in the New World. The contest turned into a war The Wars of Louis XIV. 483 with France, in which the French and British colonists in America fought against each other, while we were also at war in southern India with the French for supremacy in that quarter of the world. The fourth, or Seven Years' War, from 1756 to 1763, was one in which we fought on the Continent again for Hanover, and against France and Spain in the East and West. In India and North America we were engaged with France, and at the Philippine Islands and Cuba with Spain. The fifth was the American Revolu- tionary War, from 1775 to 1783, in which we fought against our own colonies, Spain, Holland, and France, the struggle with the three foreign nations being mainly a desperate naval contest. The period is thus chiefly one of rivalry with France, in a kind of renewal of the Hundred Years' War of our Plantagenet days, after we had been, during the 16th and most of the 17th centuries, to a large extent on friendly terms with that country. We were fighting France for supremacy in North America and in India during all the middle part of the 18th century, carrying on the contest there even while, in Europe, we were at peace, under the Treaty of Aix- la-Chapelle, for the eight years between 1748 and 1756. In the war of 1776-1783 the French aided our revolted colonists in revenge for their loss of Canada and of their chance of dominion in India. It was thus a contest for the possession of power in the New World that was waged between 1740 and 1783, and it ended decisively in favour of Great Britain. Louis XIV. (1643-1715) was but five years of age when he succeeded his father, Louis XIII., and the regency was held by his mother, Anna, daughter of Philip III. of Spain, called by the French " Anne of Austria," meaning " of Hapsburg," as belonging to the Spanish branch of the Austrian house. The chief minister was Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian naturalised in France, and a political and diplomatic pupil of the great Richelieu. This able man was a consummate intriguer, a supple courtier of the smoothest manners, and a good administrator except in financial affairs. The successes of France in the Thirty Years' War, during the first five years of the reign, have been given. The monument of Mazarin's ministry, which continued, with some brief intervals of banishment, until his death in 1661, was the gaining of Alsace for France by the Treaty of Munster in 1648. The wretched civil war called the Fronde, from 1648 to 1653, was in part a final attempt of French nobles to recover lost authority, and it ended in the ex- tinction of parliamentary influence and the establishment of royal 484 A History of the World power. Matters had gone badly in the war with Spain w r hich had arisen during the Thirty Years' War, but the French cause was restored in 1658 by Turenne's success, aided as we have seen by some of Cromwell's troops, at the battle of the Dunes, and the retaking of Dunkirk from the Spaniards. The contest ended in 1659 with the Peace of the Pyrenees, cemented by the marriage of Louis with the Infanta of Spain, Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip IV. In 1661, on Mazarin's death, Louis assumed the direction of affairs, in his 23rd year, and at once showed himself master of the position. This celebrated man, styled by Bolingbroke " the best actor of majesty that ever filled a throne," and described by Macaulay as " a consummate master of kingcraft — of all the arts which most advantageously display the merits of a prince, and best hide his defects," was rather what the French call " gran- diose " than great. Never did a monarch more thoroughly impress and impose himself on his subjects. Throughout a tenure of power held for 54 years, Louis never, even amidst disaster, disgrace, and ruin, failed to command the reverential regard of his people. Never did a European sovereign demand and receive a submission, in outward demeanour and in practical obedience to the word of command,' so closely resembling that yielded to an Oriental sultan. The truth is that, with despotic power, he was not compelled, by the least resistance, to make a cruel use thereof towards his own subjects, and it was only under the influence of religious bigotry that his absolutism became disgraced by tyranny. His head was cool and clear ; his energy and resolution cannot be denied ; his manners were dignified and graceful, if somewhat pompous. His glory consists mainly in the skilful appropriation of the merits of others, though to him belongs the credit of a keen eye for genius and ability in men of every class, and of a politic generosity in rewarding their efforts. Assuredly no man was ever more ably served in his capacity as his own chief minister in all affairs. His generals and diplomatists were the ablest of the day. The renown of " Louis le Grand " is closely associated with the achievements of French literature and art, with the names of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere, and with the fame of such orators and divines as Bossuet and Fenelon, Massillon and Bourdaloue. On assuming power, Louis at once prepared for the execution of his ambitious schemes. Colbert, one of the greatest French statesmen, had control of the finances from 1662 until his death in 1683. He had been strongly recommended by Mazarin, and The Wars of Louis XIV. 485 amply justified his selection for office by a restoration of affairs in the punishment of fraudulent " farmers " of the revenue, and the introduction of order and reform. Under his able direction the whole administration was rearranged. Agriculture, commerce, colonial affairs, received unremitting attention. French skill and industry in manufactures were fostered. New roads and canals were made, including the canal of Languedoc which joined the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Deserted and ruined harbours were restored and fortified ; Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort became great naval arsenals. The creation of a powerful fleet was essential, and in 20 years from his assumption of rule Louis had a truly formidable naval force, including 100 ships of the line, many of which carried 100 guns or more, and manned by 60,000 disciplined sailors, a greater force than England and Holland together could display. Under Duquesne, French squadrons swept the seas free of the corsairs of Algiers and Tripoli, and against Algiers were used, for the first time in war, floating bomb-batteries, by whose fire part of the town was crushed and burnt. French squadrons and cruisers were, in the course of the wars waged by Louis, to be found in many seas ; damaging British property on the coasts of Newfoundland and Jamaica; capturing British and Dutch merchantmen on the high seas ; attacking the Spaniards at Carthagena, in South America. The war-department was under the control of Louvois, from 1668 until his death in 169 1. To this strong-willed, brutal, autocratic personage the French monarch was largely indebted for his successes in war. This consummate organiser and administrator of armies, never surpassed, even by Napoleon, as the creator and maintainer of a vast military machine, made a revolution in the art of training, distributing, equipping, and provisioning land-forces. He set on foot a standing army, commanded by officers recruited by compulsion from among the nobility. The drilling of the infantry was entrusted to the famous officer Martinet, whose name became proverbial for stern discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the formidable new array were the Royal Guards, the renowned "Household Troops," the finest corps ever seen up to that day, mainly composed of young nobles. Commissariat and hospital services were established ; meritorious service was recognised, and disabled valour was rewarded, by the conferring of orders of decoration and in the comfortable retirement of the newly founded Hotel des Invalides. In Vauban, Louis possessed one of the most honest and most virtuous men of the time, gentle, kindly, blunt in manners, sound in judgment, of 32 486 A History of the World courage unsurpassed, ever successful, and never unduly elated by success. He was the greatest of all military engineers. Left a destitute orphan at ten years of age, indebted for food and education to a village cure, enlisted as a private soldier under Conde', this extraordinary man rose, by sheer ability and force of character, to be Marshal of France. This father of the science of fortification first introduced the method of approach by parallels, and carried the art of fortifying, attacking, and defending towns to a degree of perfection before unknown. During his long career Vauban re- fortified over a hundred ancient citadels, erected more than 30 new ones, and had the direction of about 50 sieges. The kingdom was surrounded by a cordon of fortresses, especially on the eastern and northern frontiers, a triple line of strongholds which included the citadels of Strasburg, Lille, and Metz, impregnable to the artillery of that age. The projects of Louis comprised the extension of the frontiers of France to the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine, and, ultimately, the acquirement of European predominance in the annexation, by the House of Bourbon, of all the Spanish dominions. For these ends the blood and resources of France were lavished, and, in the prosecution of this purpose, not the least respect was ever shown to the most solemn obligations of public faith. Every promise was broken, every treaty violated, without scruple, as soon as the moment for action arrived. The first occasion for war came with the death, in 1665, of the French king's father-in-law, Philip IV. of Spain. Louis then claimed, in right of his wife, much of the Spanish Netherlands, and in 1667 he marched into Flanders with about 50,000 troops under the great general, Turenne. No resistance could be made by the small Spanish force ; town after town was taken, and all the territory afterwards known as French Flanders was occupied, including Uouai and the strong fortress of Lille. Early in 1668 came the conquest of Franche-Comte, or the " county " of Burgundy, as distinct from the duchy. This territory, corre- sponding to the modern departments of Doubs, Haute-Saone, and Jura, was called "free" (franche) as not being French. It had passed from France, under Charles VIII., to Germany, and came to Spain on the abdication of Charles V. Its peculiar privileges made it almost a republic. At this aggression " drowsy Europe awoke," in the words of Voltaire. Germany began to stir; the Swiss were alarmed ; Holland trembled for herself, and Spain applied to her for help. Louis' military power was then only The Wars of Louis XIV. 487 partially developed, and he was forced to recoil by the famous Triple Alliance, of England, Holland, and Sweden, concluded at the Hague between Sir William Temple and John de Witt, one of the chief statesmen of Europe. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in May, 1668, deprived France of the Burgundian territory which had been seized, but left her in possession of the Flanders fortresses. Bent on revenge, Louis bought the neutrality of England by the infamous secret Treaty of Dover concluded with Charles II., and then again took the field. Holland, the chief object of the French king's hostility, was at this time torn by two factions, one the republicans, under John and Cornelius de Witt ; the other, a semi-royalist party, supporting William of Orange (afterwards William III. of England), in depressing the aristocracy, or aristocratic republicans, who were in favour of an oligarchical rule like that of Venice. Sweden had also been bribed into neutrality, and in May, 1672, a great French army, under Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, and Vauban, poured into Holland. Louis was there in person, heading a picked corps of 30,000 men, including the " Household." To this wicked invasion the Dutch, with magazines almost devoid of stores, could oppose only 25,000 ill-trained militia, under a prince of 22 years, in feeble health. Most of the country was speedily overrun, and Holland seemed to be in a desperate condition, but the old heroic spirit was not extinct. The brothers De Witt, who desired terms cf peace, were killed by a furious mob at the Hague. William of Orange was made Stadtholder, and the French forces were driven from much of the country, by the cutting of the dykes, and the turning of Holland into a sea out of which Amsterdam stood up as a vast fortress, the symbol of unshakable firmness and resolve. William had already used diplomacy with good effect in forming a new' coalition against the French monarch, and the Dutch received aid from the Spanish Netherlands, from the emperor (Leopold I.), and the elector of Brandenburg. Turenne fought the imperialists in Westphalia ; William faced Luxembourg in Holland. De Ruyter, on the sea, fought bravely against combined French and English squadrons. In the end, after much cruel devastation of the country, the French were forced to quit Holland and make the Rhine-coun- tries the main scene of warfare. In 1674 and the following year, Turenne was gaining his last laurels in brilliant work against the imperialists in Alsace, where he was faced by the great Italian strategist and tactician Montecuculli, one of the best generals 488 A History of the World of the age, until his own death by cannon-shot in July, 1675. Meanwhile, Conde and William of Orange had met, in August, 1674, at the great battle of Senef, near Mons, where both leaders freely exposed their lives in a desperate drawn contest. Conde, succeeding Turenne in his command on the Rhine, had much success, and on his retirement the war was continued for France by generals of his and Turenne's training, of whom the ablest was the due de Luxembourg. In April, 1677, William suffered defeat at Mont-Cassel, near St. Omer. In the Mediterranean, the French fleet, under Duquesne, fairly held its own against the Spanish, aided by Dutch vessels under De Ruyter, who received a mortal wound after a glorious career. In August, 1678, the war ended with the Peace of Nimeguen, leaving France in possession of many of the Flanders fortresses, and of Franche-Comte'. Louis was by this time at the height of his power and fame. The Empire, Spain, and Holland disbanded the forces specially raised for the struggle, but the French army was maintained, and with trickery backed by a display of force Louis gained more territory in the Rhine-land, including the " free city " of Strasburg, at once refortified by Vauban, who erected works commanding the passage of the Rhine at Kehl. The French monarch, as the bully and tyrant of Europe, had his troops and diplomatists inter- meddling in almost every country, and bore himself with an insolence and arrogance which aroused the awe of the weak and the indignation of the strong. In 1664 a French brigade, including a picked body of nobles, had aided Austria in Hungary against Turkish attacks. The Austrian army, commanded by Montecuculli, fought against the famous vizier Kouprougli, and the French con- tingent won great fame by their valour, in the battle of St. Gothard, on the Raab. In the following year a body of Frenchmen helped Portugal in her war of liberation against Spain, and contributed to her victory over the Spaniards at the battle of Villa-Viciosa, which firmly established the independence of the Portuguese. The king of Spain had, at an even earlier date, been forced to grant precedence to the French ambassador over the Spanish envoy at foreign courts. In a quarrel with the Pope concerning an insult offered to the French envoy at Rome, Louis obtained full satis- faction, and forced the Holy Father to restore certain territories to minor Italian princes. In 1669 men-of-war were sent by Louis to help Candia (Crete) against the Turks, and a French nobleman, La Feuillade, headed over 300 fellow-countrymen of his class in The Wars of Louis XIV. 489 what was known as " the last of the Crusades." At a later date, French emissaries were engaged in rousing Hungary against Austria. At the Turkish court, Louis' ambassadors had the great distinction of being allowed to sit on a sofa in the Sultan's presence. In 1684 Genoa was bombarded as a punishment for supplying munitions of war to Algiers, and for building warships for Spain, and the republic had to seek peace on humiliating terms. The Doge and four chief senators were compelled to go to Versailles, and the Genoese had to retain the same ruler in power, though the immemorial law of the state deprived of office any Doge who should quit the city even for an hour. The fame of the French king extended to remote regions of Asia, and in 1684 and 1686 his pride was nattered by the arrival of embassies from Siam, where the prime-minister, a Greek named Phaulkon, sought the favour of France in his dread of English and Dutch power in the East. When another Pope, Innocent XI. (1676-1689), a good and able man, dared to remonstrate with Louis for rousing the Turks against the Empire, he was insulted by the dispatch to Rome of a new French envoy attended by a strong armed escort. In 1688, in a quarrel with the same Pope concerning the electorate of Cologne, Louis took possession of Avignon, in the south-east of France, which had been in Papal hands since 1307. We now turn to other aspects of Louis the Great's character and administration. In his relations with the female sex, he was as shamelessly immoral as his pensioner, Charles II., taking about in the same carriage, amid the splendour of his festivities, his queen Maria Theresa and two of his mistresses, in full sight of an army under review and of a crowd of spectators. Religious bigotry was the cause of the most shameful and pernicious doings of the reign, apart from the wicked wars of ambition which, before the close of the period, brought financial exhaustion of far-reaching conse- quences. It was in 1682 that Louis finally took up his abode at Versailles, and maintained the splendid court and elaborate etiquette which became the admiration of all the high-born and wealthy flunkeydom of Europe in that and succeeding times. In 1683 his queen, Maria Theresa, and Colbert died. Two years later Louis married Madame de Maintenon, widow of the poet Scarron, a lady who won the king's favour by her devoted care of his two sons by Madame de Montespan. She acquired a great influence over him, being herself governed by the Jesuits. Cold in heart and severe in morals, she was devoted to strict propriety, orthodoxy, and 490 A History of the World the Church, and to her is partly due the religious persecution which is the great blot on French history in this period. After the fall of La Rochelle in the time of Richelieu, and the capture of all other Protestant strongholds, the Huguenots, left defenceless as they were, bereft of all political power, and entirely dependent on the will of the court for the exercise of their religion, had not, for many years, been subject to interference. This happy state of affairs came to an end when Louis listened to Madame de Maintenon and his famous Jesuit confessor Lachaise, though they were not respon- sible for the worst cruelties perpetrated. The Huguenots were gradually deprived of civil rights under the renewed persecution, and then attempts at extirpation began. In 1681 bodies of mounted troops (dragoons) began the infamous " Dragonnades." Accompanied by monks, these men passed through the country, and being quartered in Protestant villages and houses, strove to force the inhabitants, by outrage and plunder, to renounce their faith. The places of worship were demolished, and the preachers were put to death. Many of the " heretics " made insincere professions of Catholic " orthodoxy," and were outwardly reconciled to " Mother Church." Hundreds of thousands fled to Switzerland, Holland, Germany, and England. At last, in October, 16S5, the French monarch, pious creature as he was, resolved to do what in him lay to complete the good work of conversion to the true faith. All rights of Protestant worship were formally withdrawn by the Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes, a step in which the war-minister Louvois was largely concerned. The Huguenots had been already forbidden to practise in professions and several important trades, or to hold any public office. By a royal edict all privileges were now swept away. The churches were pulled down, the worship was suppressed, the ministers were banished, and the Protestant laity were forbidden, under severe penalties, to leave the country. They were to stay in France, forsooth, in order to do the work of slaves, and to furnish material for slaughter in the " Grand Monarque's " campaigns. Disobedience to this atrocious decree was visited by imprisonment, torture, outrage, and death. The Huguenots sought safety and freedom of conscience abroad, and in a few years France was deprived for ever of over half a million of her best subjects, including professional men of high ability and culture, and crowds of indus- trious and skilful artisans. London was indebted to this flight for the establishment of a long-flourishing silk-manufacture at Spitalfields, and our country profited in the introduction or improvement of The Wars of Louis XIV. 491 work in tapestry, glass-making, pottery, dyeing, and paper-making. William of Orange, when he became king of England, received the valuable support of Huguenots in military, political, and financial affairs. They fought beside him at the Boyne, and in other ways strengthened the Protestant cause in Ireland. Under Queen Anne, London alone contained 30 Huguenot churches, and the number was only diminished, towards the close of the 18th century, by the absorp- tion of Huguenots in the Anglican Church and other religious bodies. To Louis XIV. Great Britain owes many leading families among the professional classes, and the adornment of her annals by the achieve- ments of men and women bearing the honoured names of Chenevix, Trench, and Romaine in the Church ; of Ligonier in the army ; of Romilly in the law ; of Martineau in literature and philosophy ; of Miliars in art ; with the Boileaus, Bosanquets, De Crespignys, I)u Canes, Layards, and many other noted families. The fury of the persecutors, inflamed by loss due only to their own suicidal policy, found vent in new outrages. The marriages of Protestants were declared null. Their children were robbed of the right of inheritance, and forcibly incarcerated in religious houses. The preachers were everywhere put to death. In the south of France many thousands of Protestants fled to the Cevennes mountains, and worshipped according to their fathers' faith. A fanatical energy was displayed, and the " Camisards," as the rebellious Huguenots were called from the camise or blouse worn by the peasantry, maintained a struggle for many years, with much success, against the forces of the monarchy. Prophets and seers roused the people to frenzy, and the insurgents were aided by the people of many towns. After the repulse or destruction of several detachments of royal troops, Marshal Montrevel, a renegade Huguenot, was sent, in 1703, with 60,000 men, who shot down or executed large numbers of the mountaineers and destroyed some hundreds of villages. The Camisards, in return, slew scores of priests and burned 200 churches in the diocese of Nimes. Their brave and able leader, Jean Cavalier, was aided by supplies of necessaries furnished from Nimes, Montpellier, and other towns, and by cannon cast by the citizens from the bells ot the burned churches. In April, 1704, Marshal Villars, one of the best generals of the day, was dispatched to take the command, and his mingling of conciliation with prompt severity and skilful action at last suppressed the revolt. A free pardon was given to all who surrendered, and all prisoners were released on swearing allegiance. Every person taken in arms was shot at once, and flying 492 A History of the World columns broke down the revolt in every quarter. In the same year Cavalier accepted the amnesty, and peace was for a brief time restored. Another outbreak, in 1705, due to the severity of the duke of Berwick (a natural son of James II. of England), ended in the desolation of the whole region and the slaughter or banish- ment of most of the surviving inhabitants. Such were the blessings due to " orthodoxy " under Louis XIV. William of Orange again roused Europe against Louis, in 1686, forming the League of Augsburg, which embraced the emperor and several German princes, Sweden, and Spain. The French armies took the field, numbering in all, in the course of this new war, from 1688 to 1697, over 400,000 men, a prodigious force in that age. In 1688 Germany was invaded by the French in great force, and then one of the great crimes of modern history was perpetrated in the frightful devastation of the Rhenish Palatinate. Town after town was captured by Vauban's operations. Early in 1689, in the depth of winter, the French generals gave notice to the people of the many flourishing, well-built towns, of countless villages, and of more than 50 castles, that they must leave their homes, or become the victims of fire and sword. Men, women, the aged, the young, fled in haste. Some wandered up and down, others took refuge in neighbouring countries, and the French troops sacked and destroyed everything. Mannheim and Heidelberg were first plundered and burnt. The electoral palaces, with the houses of the townspeople, were destroyed. The tombs of the emperors at Speier were broken open, the silver coffins stolen, and the bones of the dead were left scattered on the ground. Europe was aghast at the foul deeds of ruthless ambition ; the French officers themselves blushed to be the instruments of such deadly wrong. It was Louvois who gave the evil counsel ; it was Louis who acted thereon, and on their brows history has stamped an ineffaceable brand of infamy. The German army was led by the duke of Lorraine, who had aided Sobieski, as we shall see, against the Turks at Vienna, in 1683, and by the elector of Brandenburg. Bonn and Mayence were retaken from the invaders after severe sieges. The " Grand Alliance " was formed in 1689 by William of Orange, now king of England, who united his new realm and Flolland to the League of Augsburg, which the duke of Savoy had joined in 1687. By sea and land the contest was waged with variations of success. In 1690 the French admiral Tourville gained a victory off Beachy Head over the English and Dutch fleets, and our coast was then insulted by the burning of The Wars of Louis XIV. 493 Teignmouth. This disaster was amply avenged in 1692 by the great battle of La Hogue, partly fought in mid-Channel, and finished off the coast of Normandy, where the British sailors, under the eyes of James II. and of a French army prepared for the invasion of England, made an end of that enterprise by burning many French first-rate ships of the line. The chief glory, on the French side, in the land-warfare, lay with Catinat and Luxembourg. Catinat, fighting in Italy with Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, an able prince and brave warrior, gained a complete victory at Staffarde, south-west of Turin, and forced Savoy to submission. In the following year, 1691, Catinat passed into Piedmont, stormed the enemy's lines near Susa, captured that town, Montalban, and Nice, and finally, in 1693, gained the victory of Marsaglia, the more glorious that Prince Eugene of Savoy, one of the foremost soldiers of the age, was one of his opponents. The operations of Luxembourg and other generals in Flanders against William III. are well known from Macaulay's immortal work. In 1691 Mons was taken, under the eyes of Louis, and in presence of William's army. In 1692 Namur fell, in the same fashion, and Luxembourg defeated William at Steinkerk. In 1693 the same great commander was again successful over the English king at the battle of Landen or Neerwinden. His antagonist, great after defeat, soon showed as bold a front as ever, and the death of Luxembourg, in January, 1695, rid him of his most formidable foe. The duke of Savoy still maintained the contest against Catinat, and a French invasion of Spain had little success. Louis was fighting a many-headed hydra, and all his victories were of little real use. Men and money were beginning to fail, and the spirit of the armies was flagging. Louvois had died in July, 169 1, and the organisation of the troops suffered. In September, 1695, William effected the great military success of his career in the capture of Namur from Marshal Boufflers, in the face of a vast French army under Villeroi. The town and citadel had been newly fortified by Vauban ; the garrison was very strong ; the relieving-army, which did not dare to attack William's lines and covering-force, had 100,000 men. The great Dutch engineer, Cohorn, had a chief share in this grand achievement. Tired at last of the struggle, Louis made peace in 1696 with Savoy, the duke receiving back the territories conquered by Catinat, and giving his daughter in marriage to the young duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis. The war ended in October, 1697, with the Peace of Ryswick, a village near the Hague. The French king's acquisitions 494 A History of the World in Spain and Flanders were restored, as also several German towns. Alsace, with Strasburg, remained in his possession. The peace was, however, nothing but a truce, prior to the great struggle known as the War of the Spanish Succession, a contest which at once displayed the grasping and formidable ambition of Louis, and put an end to French predominance in Europe.* On the death of Charles II. of Spain in November, 1700, it was found that by will he had left the whole of his dominions to a grandson of Louis, Philip of Anjou. The French monarch, exulting in the success of his intrigues, which seemed to bring France and the great Spanish dominions virtually under one rule, declared to Philip, as he sent him to assume power in Spain, " There are no longer any Pyrenees." Louis well knew that a great war must ensue. The emperor, Leopold, claimed the Spanish throne for his son, afterwards the emperor Charles VI., and England and Holland were certain, in the interests of " the balance of power," to oppose by arms the French succession. In reckless defiance of treaties, Louis further provoked England in 1701 by recognising, on James II. 's death, his son James Stuart as king of England. The " Grand Alliance " instantly formed by the energetic efforts of William III. included England, Holland, and the emperor, with the other chief German princes, except the electors of Bavaria and Cologne. Savoy and Portugal afterwards joined the allies. The death of William in March, 1702, was a great blow to the cause, but his place was well supplied by the appointment of Marlborough to the command in Flanders, and, in political and diplomatic affairs, by Marlborough and Heinsius, who became the leading statesman of Holland. The imperial general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was Marlborough's able and energetic assistant. British troops had some share in the warfare carried on in the interior of Spain, but Philip V. was, in the end, firmly seated on the throne, mainly owing to the skill of his commanders, the dukes of Vendome and Berwick. In 1702 an English and Dutch fleet, under Sir George Rooke, almost destroyed a French fleet of 30 vessels in Vigo harbour, and captured or destroyed a number of Spanish galleons. In the same year the brave Benbow, in the West Indies, sustained the honour of the navy in a six-days' engagement with a greatly superior French * The origin of this war, and the operations in Spain, are best given in Lord Macaulay's Essays, War of (he Succession in Spain. For a general view, and a good account of Blenheim, readers should see Creasy's Decisive Battles of the World. The Wars of Louis XIV. 495 fleet, dying of his wounds on reaching Jamaica. In 1704 the sailors and marines of the fleet under Sir George Rooke surprised and took the fortress of Gibraltar, an acquisition little thought of at the time ; one which, as all the world knows, no efforts have ever been able to wrest from our grasp. Before briefly dealing with the main events of this great struggle, we may advert to some reasons, apart from the duke of Marl- borough's surpassing genius in diplomacy and war, for the final failure of France. The honest but incapable Chamillart had become, through the influence of Mme. de Maintenon, minister of finance in 1699, and minister of war in 1701. In the one capacity he was anything but a Colbert, in the other he was not quite a Louvois. In order to raise money, the colonelcies of regiments and the crosses of St. Louis — a distinction established in 1693 — were sold. The operations in the field were, to a large extent, directed by Louis, Mme. de Maintenon, and Chamillart, from Versailles. Students of the war in the Peninsula a century later are well aware of the mischief done by Napoleon's interference, from a distance, with his marshals in Spain. With the electric wires, a Moltke may, in full knowledge of all the enemy's movements and positions, direct his army corps like pieces of chess, and with success. In the days of couriers, the change of circumstances during the lapse of time between the dispatch and the receipt of orders often made such meddling disastrous. The discipline which had been so strict under Louvois had been much relaxed in the French armies. The com- panies of regiments, and the number of officers to a company, fell below the proper strength. This state of affairs was owing to a corrupt understanding of commanders with the commissariat-officers, who drew stores for the full number, and divided the booty. The magazines were ill-supplied, and the weapons were of inferior make and temper. The contest had begun in 1701, on the emperor's side, with his dispatch of Prince Eugene into Italy. That great com- mander, fighting against Catinat, Villeroi, and Vendome, with general success, won a great victory in September, 1706, storming the French lines round Turin, taking the camp, and routing the army, with the loss of all guns, baggage, and stores, and the military chest. An army of 60,000 men was thus ruined, under Marsin and the due de la Feuillade, the latter being the son of the incapable Chamillart, whose interference had evil effects. The French hold on Italy was almost entirely lost, and the emperor (now Joseph 1., son of Leopold) became predominant. The warfare in Flanders is 496 A History of the World well known from British history. The great victory of Ramillies, in 1706, deprived France of all territory as far as Lille. In 1708 the victory of Oudenarde, won by Marlborough and Eugene, " twin thunderbolts of war," was followed by the capture of Lille. France was becoming exhausted. It was hard to obtain money to pay the troops, and the " farmers " of the revenue first robbed the suffering people and then insulted them by their luxurious display. Chamillart resigned his office as finance-minister, leaving affairs in the greatest disorder, and in 1709 he gave up the ministry-of-war. The misery of France was completed by the terribly hard winter of that year. The olive-trees in the south were killed by frost, and most of the fruit-trees perished. The next harvest was an assured failure, and the stores of provisions were low. The needful supply of corn was brought at great cost from the Levant and from Africa, exposed on the way to hostile cruisers. In this extremity, Louis and the nobles sold their plate for the public service, and certain advances for peace were made to the Dutch, whose commissioners demanded that the French king should compel his grandson to resign the Spanish crown. When the matter was referred to Heinsius, Marlborough, and Eugene, who all wished the war to continue, the humiliating terms proposed — the surrender of Alsace, and the forcible expulsion of Philip V., by French troops, from Spain — forced Louis, for the first time in his life, to appeal to his subjects in a royal address whereby he strove to arouse their indignation and to stir their pity for his position. He then declared to his council that, if he must make war, he would rather fight his enemies than his own kinsman, and he prepared to renew the struggle. In 1709 the sanguinary battle of Malplaquet ended in the defeat of the French under Villars, followed by the loss of Mons. The danger on the northern frontier was so great that Louis again begged for peace, making large offers — the surrender of Alsace, the recognition of the German claimant to the Spanish throne, and the surrender of many fortresses, includ- ing Lille, to Holland. These terms were rejected with disdain by the allies, who insisted that the French monarch should himself drive his grandson out of Spain. The way to Paris was open to the allies from the north, when party-spirit in England deprived Marlborough of the command in December, 1711, and saved Louis from having terms of peace dictated in his capital. At the same time, by the death of the emperor Joseph I., the Archduke Charles, German claimant of the Spanish throne, became emperor in succession to his brother, as Charles VI. The Wars of Louis XIV. 497 In Germany, the French won many successes over the imperialists, but on August 13th, 1704, at Blenheim, the general issue was really decided in Marlborough's and Eugene's grand victory over Marshals Tallard and Marsin. Louis, from that day, was really fighting, not for conquest, but for favourable terms of peace. His German allies, the electors of Bavaria and Cologne, were driven from their territories, and some subsequent success of Marshal Villars was of little avail. In the north of France, at the close of the war, the same commander, facing Eugene alone in 17 12, was enabled to procure for Louis better terms than he could have hoped. The Savoy prince, heading a great composite army of Dutch, Brandenburgers, Saxons, Hessians, Danes, and Palatinate troops, had, with his advanced detachments, ravaged part of Champagne, and reached the very gates of Reims ; and Louis declared that, if another disaster in the field occurred, he would call around him all the French nobles, lead them against the foe, and die at their head. He was saved from this theatrical display of devotion by Villars. That able general suddenly attacked Denain, in July, 171 2, and forced the entrenchments of Albemarle, an English general under Prince Eugene, capturing him and all his officers. The prince, coming up too late to retrieve matters, retired, and the French marshal then swept on and captured Marchiennes, with vast stores gathered for the allies. Douai and other towns were soon retaken by the French, and Prince Eugene was forced to withdraw. We may here note the heavy domestic misfortunes which had befallen the French monarch, in the successive deaths of the dauphin, his only legitimate son ; of the dauphin's eldest son, the very promising duke of Burgundy, a man who might, if he had been spared to France, have averted by good government the great Revolution ; of the duchess of Burgundy, his wife, and of their eldest son. This last event left the throne open to their second son, afterwards Louis XV. The " Grand Alliance " had been now dissolved, and the war ended in various treaties of peace which are comprehended under the title of the Peace of Utrecht, concluded in April, 1 7 13, and in 17 14. In regard to Holland, that republic, by the " Barrier-Treaty/' received security in the right of occupying a number of fortresses along the French frontier, from Furnes to Namur. Lille was restored to France, and the fortifications of Dunkirk were demolished. Savoy received some more territory in upper Italy, and the island of Sicily as a kingdom. The elector of Brandenburg had a new title as " King of Prussia," and received some addition of territory on the wes-t. Philip V. remained king of 498 A History of the World Spain and her colonies. The emperor received the Netherlands (which thus became the " Austrian " instead of the " Spanish " Netherlands), Naples, Sardinia, and the Milanese territory. The electors of Bavaria and Cologne, who had been placed under the ban of the empire, were fully restored. Lastly, Great Britain had the Protestant (Hanoverian or Brunswick) succession recognised by France and other powers. The crowns of Spain and France were to be separately held, a decision which settled the chief original matter in dispute. North American territory — Newfoundland, Nova Scotia (Acadie), and Hudson Bay Company's lands — were finally ceded by France to the British empire, and Spain gave up Gibraltar and Minorca, and made the arrangement called the Asiento, or contract for supplying the Spanish colonies with African slaves, whereby British commerce on the Spanish main in America was benefited. The Treaty of Utrecht marks a great epoch in the history of the British as regards the contest for supremacy among the nations of the world. The work begun by their success against the Armada was thus completed. Holland had been the rival of England in the earlier part of the 17th century; in the latter half of that age France had been decidedly the foremost nation of the world. That position was now assumed by Great Britain, and from the date of this famous treaty she has always been, in all respects, in the very front, and foremost of all nations in trade, wealth, maritime resources, and naval power. The Asiento contract with Spain broke down the Spanish monopoly of trade in central and southern America, and the loss of Nova Scotia was, for France, a first step towards the cession of all her dominions in North America. Chapter III. — Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe; Rise of Russia and Prussia ; the Seven Years' War : Russia and Turkey ; the Partition of Poland. In Sweden, the abdication, in 1654, of Queen Christina, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, brought to the throne her cousin Charles X., who warred with Poland, Russia, Denmark, the emperor, and the elector of Brandenburg, the chief result being the Danish loss of all remaining territory in Sweden, and consequently of the absolute control of the passage of the Sound. On the king's sudden death in 1660, his son, Charles XL, became king as a minor. War with Denmark and Brandenburg, caused by Sweden's alliance with Louis XIV., brought a great defeat for the Swedes in 1675, at Centra], Northern, and Eastern Europe 499 Fehrbellin, north-west of Berlin, from Frederick William, the "Great Elector." The French monarch, however, compelled the victor, in 1679, to restore to Sweden most of his conquests in Pomerania. Under the Swedish king's wise and energetic rule much improve- ment was made, and the country, at his death in 1697, was prosperous and powerful. The accession of his son Charles XII. (1697-1718), at 15 years of age, was the signal of attack from ambitious and revengeful neighbouring sovereigns, who little knew the character of their intended youthful victim. This brave, reckless, able, ambitious, hardy, virtuous sovereign is well known to British readers, in the salient points of his adventurous and extraordinary career, from the noble lines in Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes. This strange hero's passionate and obstinate disposition, in public affairs, brought a downfall of power to the chief Scandinavian country. The reign opened with brilliant successes gained by the king over his three assailants, the tsar of Russia and the kings of Poland and Denmark. The Danes were torced to sue for peace, after invading Holstein, by Charles' invasion of Zealand, and the aid of an Anglo-Dutch squadron under Sir George Rooke. The king of Poland (Augustus II., elector ot Saxony), who aimed at seizing Livonia, was defeated in 1 701 and the two following years in three battles, and deposed from his Polish throne. In 1704 and 1706 two other victories of Charles forced Augustus to a humiliating peace, including the renunciation of alliance with Russia. The troops of the tsar Peter, the chief antagonist, had been utterly defeated in November, 1700, at the battle of Narva, to the south of the Gulf of Finland, where the young Swedish monarch, with only 8,000 warriors, stormed the Russian camp occupied by 50,000 men. Seven years passed away before Charles again invaded Russia, in January, 1708, with an army exceeding 40,000 men. He was now to encounter a different foe from the Peter of 1700. The Russian army had been well trained, and the sovereign had learned some strategy and tactics. After some initial success, Charles was led astray by the promises of the Cossack hetman (general) Mazeppa, and turned southwards, across the Dnieper, into the Ukraine, where he vainly besieged Pultowa. The promised large supports of Cossacks were not forthcoming ; reinforcements from Sweden were intercepted ; and at last, with an army reduced to about 20,000 men, and those exhausted by a hard winter endured with scanty supplies, Charles was forced to meet the tsar, who was in command of overwhelming numbers. The battle of Pultowa, fought on July 8th, 1709, founded 5evoted to the work of self-improvement in acquiring knowledge for the sake of his country, and keeping his Rise of Russia 503 brain ever at work on schemes for the national benefit, this same man, who found Russia Asiatic, and left her European, at one time displayed the best qualities of an enlightened ruler, and at another was merely a brutal and ruthless tyrant, who crushed opponents with terrible severity, and put to death his own rebellious son. One of his rarest gifts — amounting to positive genius — was his swift and accurate estimate of the men proper to aid him in his great work of changing a semi-oriental, degraded, and benighted people into a modern and civilised community. For his own education, for suggestions concerning schemes of reform, and for practical aid in carrying out those plans, Peter was largely indebted to two foreigners, both of Scottish origin, Patrick Gordon and Francois Lefort. The latter, a native of Geneva, served for a time with the Swiss Guard at Paris, and went to Russia in 1675, where he became a commander of new troops who were raised to counteract the influence of the " streltzi " or old militia. Lefort became the leading personage in Russia, next to the new tsar, and had a large share in forming an army on the European model, and in founding the Russian naval force. Gordon, a native of Aberdeenshire, born in 1635, ran away from a Jesuit college in Prussia in 1653, and then became a soldier of fortune for several years under the Swedish flag. In i66r he entered the Russian service, and his work in reforming discipline soon gave him the rank of colonel. Gallant service against Cossacks, Turks, and Tartars raised him in 1688 to the position of general, and his intimacy with Peter was cemented by the zeal and courage which he displayed in crushing the conspirators against the tsar's throne and life in 1689. Nine years later, during Peter's absence in western Europe to study ship-building and other mechanical arts, Gordon suppressed the formidable rebellion of the " streltzi " which caused the tsar to finally break up that antiquated force. The visit of Peter to England is narrated in a lively style by Ford Macaulay towards the end of his History. For three months he worked hard at acquiring information, living partly at Deptford, among the shipwrights, drinking and smoking after his day's toil with his companions at a waterside tavern ; and partly in London, where he lodged in Norfolk Street, Strand, visiting the king (William III.) at Kensington House; attending a sitting at the House of Lords, and seeing a play. At Lambeth Palace he saw the ceremony of ordination performed, and beheld in the arch- bishop's library the first good collection of books on which his eyes had rested. He declared that he had never imagined that 504 A History of the World there were so many printed volumes in the world. At Portsmouth he witnessed a sham sea-fight, to his intense delight ; from Oxford University he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. On leaving England in April, 1698, Peter showed his appreciation of our country by carrying off about 500 engineers, artisans, gunners, surgeons, and other workers with hand and brain as instructors for his subjects in the arts of peace and war. We have seen how the tsar fared in his contests with Sweden, and his extension of Russian territory in Europe. Towards the close of his reign, ending in 1725, war with Persia opened the Caspian to Russian trade by the conquest of territory including the towns of Derbend and Baku. He left his country, in many respects, regenerated and transformed, and firmly placed on the high road to further improve- ment and development of her material resources. On the political side, Peter established autocratic power by destroying that of the boyars and of the Sobor or States-General, introducing in their stead a senate nominated by the sovereign. The rank of patriarch in the Church was abolished, and the emperor became the head of that institution. Authority was centralised in the hands of various boards or committees, resembling modern cabinets or ministries, under the tsar's immediate control. The seat of govern- ment was transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the city created by himself on the banks of the Neva. Serfdom became intensified into slavery. All Russians of every class were the subjects of the tsar in equal degree, without interference with distinctions of class in regard to each other. Internal order was maintained, and plots against the throne were checked, through the action of a powerful secret police. The courts of justice and the financial system were remodelled. Agriculture and other in- dustries, education, the fine arts, literature and learning, were earnestly promoted. New breeds of cattle were introduced ; com- munications, in a region of countless rivers, were improved through the connection of streams by canals. In social matters, the Mongol principle was weakened by efforts to raise the low position of women. With the zeal of a drill-master, Peter strove, and with much success, to force, or as some writers express it, to " knout," his barbarous subjects into civilisation. Under Anna, empress or tsarina from 1730 to 1740, a German party was in power at court. There was territorial retrogression in the restoration of Caspian provinces to Persia, and disastrous war arose with Turkey. Matters were somewhat restored under Rise of Russia 505 Elizabeth (1741-1762), daughter of Peter the Great. The German party was ousted from power ; the senate founded by Peter resumed its authority ; the army was strengthened by a regular system of recruiting ; oppressive tolls were abolished ; and the revenue was augmented by import-duties. The gain of a portion of Finland in 1743 has been recorded; the share of Russia in the Seven Years' War will be referred to in connection with Frederick of Prussia. Catharine II. (1762-1796) is a famous Russian ruler. Of her private character the less said the better. In her public capacity she showed great ability and energy, and had much success, aided by her favourite Potemkin, as minister and general, from 1776 to 1791, and by the renowned warrior Suwarof (or Suwarrow). The limits of the empire were largely extended by force of arms. A war with Turkey, waged from 1768 to 1774, ended in the Peace of Kainardji (in Bulgaria), whereby Russia at last attained Peter's aim of access to the Black Sea. The chief ports on the Sea of Azov, and Kinburn, at the mouth of the Dnieper, were acquired. The Tartars and the Circassians had been already deprived of the territory between the Volga, the Don, and the Caucasus, and a new road into Asia was opened by the acquisition of the Pass of Darial in the great Caucasus range. The Treaty of Kainardji, a monument of Russian diplomatic skill, is notable for words having a most important bearing on the " Eastern Question," in giving to Catharine, and, by presumption, to her successors, the right to protect the Greek Church and its adherents in Turkey. A powerful weapon for Russian ambition in coming days was thus forged.' A few years later the Tartars of the south were overcome, and the Crimea was annexed. In 1787, when war with Turkey was resumed, the empress made her entry into Kherson, a new fortress of her erection on the Dnieper, beneath an arch bearing the significant words " The way to Byzantium." The " Eastern Question " is here expressed in the briefest possible form, meaning the determined purpose of Russia to rule some day at Constantinople, the cradle of her religious system. Suwarof gave token of his skill and valour in this new contest with Turkey, and in 1790 was victorious at Ismail, on the northernmost arm of the Danube, storming the fortress with bloodshed and other horrors that have become pro- verbial. In 1792 the Peace of Jassy confirmed previous Russian conquests from Turkey, and the Dniester became the boundary between the two empires. We now turn to the disappearance of Poland from the European 506 A History of the World system of independent nations. In the course of the 18th century, under weak kings, and amid evils due to the selfish, unpatriotic conduct of the nobles ; to the intolerance of the clergy ; to the lack of a middle class ; to the wretched state of the serfs, and to the want of strong natural frontiers for protection from powerful neigh- bours, the condition of the country became deplorable. Poland was a ready prey to ambition, and in 1772 Austria, Russia, and Prussia effected the first partition, by which Russia gained eastern Lithuania ; Austria took eastern Gallicia and other territory ; and Prussia acquired Polish Prussia, i.e. West Prussia, with the exception of Danzig, Thorn, and some other territory. The share of Russia (42,000 square miles) a little exceeded the combined shares of her two partners in the robbery. Efforts were now made by the Poles to amend their absurd constitutional system. The liberum veto in the Diet was abolished ; the burghers were put on a level with the nobles in that body ; the condition of the peasantry was improved ; religious toleration was introduced. The new consti- tution was promulgated in 1791. Some of the nobles, indignant at the loss of their precious privileges, then slew their country by inviting invasion from Russia. The Russian troops were supported by Prussians, though the king of Prussia, Frederick William II., had sworn to defend the Poles against their powerful neighbour on the east. A fruitless resistance was made by patriots under the famous Kosciusko and Prince Joseph Poniatowski. Kosciusko, who had become a brigadier-general in America, fighting against British troops for the revolted colonists, held a position at Dubenka for five days, with 4,000 men against 18,000 Russians. Poniatowski was afterwards with Napoleon in Russia, in 181 2, fighting splendidly at Smolensk and Borodino, and in 1813 he shared, after a noble defence on the right wing, in the disaster of Leipzig, and was on the spot created a marshal of France, only to perish in the waters of the Elster as he covered the French retreat. His body lies at Cracow beside those of Sobieski and Kosciusko. In 1792 he gained some brilliant victories over the Russian invaders, but nothing could prevent the second partition (1793). Russia now received territory to the amount of 96.000 square miles in the remaining part of Lithuania, with Podolia and Volhynia. Her fellow-robber, Prussia, was content with less than a fourth of that area, in " Great Poland " (now South Prussia), with Danzig and Thorn. A general rising of the Poles then occurred, in 1794, with Kosciusko as dictator and commander-in-chief. He defeated a greatly superior Russian force, Rise of Prussia 507 and the Poles in Warsaw then joined the movement. Poniatowski joined the army as a volunteer, but was placed by the leader in "command of the division whose task it was to defend Warsaw on the north. The patriots were overwhelmed by Austrian, Prussian, and Russian forces, and Kosciusko was defeated, severely wounded, and taken prisoner at the fierce battle of Maciejowice (Matchevitz). Suwarof (Suwarrow) captured Warsaw with dreadful slaughter to the defenders, and the Polish monarchy came to an end. In the third and last partition (1795) Russia again took the lion's share, acquiring 43,000 square miles in all the remaining eastern territory. Austria had 18,000 square miles in west Gallicia ; Prussia took 21,000 square miles in Warsaw and surrounding territory, part of Cracow (New Silesia), and the .region between the Vistula, Bug, and Niemen, or " New East Prussia." The middle of the 18th century is distinguished by the advance to a front rank among the nations of the monarchy of Prussia, under Frederick II., justly styled "the Great," the most considerable man who has succeeded to a throne since Charles V. His eminent position in modern history is due to the possession and exercise of most of the qualities that mark the subduer and successful ruler of mankind. His military talents were such as to make him the greatest general of his age, and to compel Napoleon, Prussia's deadly foe at a later day, to place him in the first rank. His zeal for good administration, for the prosperity and happiness of his people, was backed by the utmost energy, vigilance, sound sense, superiority to prejudice and tradition, and sympathy for cultivation and en- lightenment, and was marred only by occasional lapses due to a dictatorial temper and a restlessly active mind which urged him to meddle with affairs better left to his chosen and usually able instruments. He was emphatically a strong man, the embodiment of kingly resolution and force, and his achievements made him, in spite of a cold heart, a cynical temper, and a scornful demeanour, not only a favourite with his own people, but an object of pride to all men of German race. They contrasted him with the loath- some voluptuary that sat on the throne of France, and saw a petty Teutonic state, whose older fellows in the empire were decaying under an antiquated system of wasteful misrule, present a model of economy and material progress, and of military, legislative, and judicial reform. The great Frederick is best viewed, as a Prussian king, by contrast with his two unworthy successors who let the monarchy down to temporary degradation and ruin. 508 A History of the World The founder of the greatness of the House of Hohenzollern was a man already seen in these pages, Frederick William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector," a wise and. firm ruler, who died in 1688. His son Frederick, a vain man fond of pomp and show, was the first " king of Prussia," as Frederick I., crowned at Kdnigsberg in 1701. The exaltation of rank from an electorate to a monarchy was of importance in giving Prussian rulers an induce- ment to strengthen and extend their inheritance. This ruler, whose extravagance of life, imitating the splendour of Versailles, impoverished the nation, promoted civilisation by founding the University of Halle, the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and other like institutions. His son and successor, Frederick William I. (17 13-1740), was a man of entirely opposite character. Coarse in manners, violent of temper, often brutally cruel in conduct, con- temptuous of all culture and learning, he did much for the country which he ruled by a rigidly economical system, and by the creation, under the strictest discipline and the best training and equipment, of a regular army of over 80,000 men. As Philip of Macedon for Alexander, he forged the instrument which his son was to wield with so powerful an effect. We must remember that this military force was raised from and maintained by a population not exceeding two and a half millions. Frederick II. became king of Prussia, on his father's death, in 1740. He was 28 years of age, having passed an unhappy youth and early manhood, owing to his father's harsh treatment, which soured his temper and hardened his heart, and, in his rejection of the Christianity which his strictly orthodox sire had presented in so repulsive a guise, lowered his moral character in other points.* The year of his accession was that of the death of the emperor Charles VI., and the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession was due to disputes arising from the instrument called the "Pragmatic Sanction," whereby Charles, the last emperor, in the male line, of the House of Hapsburg, had made the Austrian dominions heritable in the female line. His daughter Maria Theresa thus succeeded to the hereditary dominions — the archduchy of Austria and other territories, and the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. This lady is known as the empress-queen, as the wife of Francis Joseph, of Lorraine, grand-duke of Tuscany, who was emperor from 1745 to * A picturesque and interesting account of the youth, character, court, and reign until 1763 of the Prussian king is given in Lord Macaulay's Essays, Frederick the Great. Rise of Prussia 509 1765, and as queen of Hungary in her own right. There were various claimants for the Austrian inheritance, the chief being Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, and Augustus, elector of Saxony and king of Poland. Charles Albert was chosen emperor in 1742, but died in 1745, being succeeded, as above, by Francis of Lorraine. In the dispute concerning the Austrian dominions, the unscrupulous Frederick of Prussia, eager to extend his dominions, promptly seized Silesia, one of Maria Theresa's fairest provinces, on an antiquated and really baseless claim. His first war with Austria, after his victories at Mollwitz and elsewhere, ended in the cession to him, in 1742, of the greater part of Silesia. The age of chivalry was over, and the young queen of Hungary found herself assailed, apart from Frederick, by France, Spain, Bavaria, and Saxony. In this position, the brave and loyal Hungarians rushed to arms in her behalf, and England and Holland took her side in the struggle. The queen's armies quickly cleared Bohemia of its Saxon invaders, and forced the elector to terms. Bavaria was overrun and Munich was captured. French invaders of Bohemia were then driven out, and Maria Theresa's cause was strengthened in 1743 by George II. 's victory over the French at Dettingen, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, when a British sovereign for the last time led his troops to battle, the event being celebrated by Handel in his famous Te Deum. The restless king of Prussia, jealous of the Austrian successes, again took the field, and, gaining three successive victories, made peace with Austria at Dresden in December, 1745, retaining Silesia, and recognising Francis, husband of Maria Theresa, as emperor. Thus ended the " Second Silesian War," and the first period of Frederick's warfare with neighbouring states. His exploits in fields of battle, and the general vigour of his proceedings, had already caused Prussia to be regarded in a new light by the great European nations. The general contest ended in 1748 with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, restoring all conquests, and recognising the " Pragmatic Sanction " in Austria. Frederick was well aware that the Peace of Dresden was only a truce. The jealousy of Austria had been strongly aroused by Prussian success, and Maria Theresa was brooding over the loss of Silesia. His n years of peace, from 1745 to 1756, were busily employed in internal improvements, the development of Silesian resources, and the maintenance of his splendid army in the highest state of efficiency. There were other European powers regarding Prussia with envious hatred, and a strong league was formed for the 510 A History of the World absolute ruin of the new monarchy and the dismemberment of the Prussian territories. This formidable combination included France, Austria, Saxony, Russia, and the states of the empire except Hanover, Hesse, Brunswick, and Gotha, which remained in alliance with Prussia. Great Britain aided Frederick with money and troops, and this help, especially that of the subsidies, of which Frederick made the best use, was the chief outward agent in the preservation of Prussia. The main elements of safety were the admirable skill, the heroic endurance, the energy, perseverance, and determination of the great warrior and statesman who was to emerge in glory from a sea of troubles, giving an example unsurpassed in history of what capacity and resolution can effect against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite of fortune.* The king of Prussia took prompt measures against his foes. Saxony was flooded with his troops in the summer of 1756. The electoral army was blockaded at Pirna, near Dresden, and ultimately forced to surrender. The capital was occupied, and Augustus fled to his kingdom in Poland. Marshal Brown, advancing from Bohemia with Austrian troops to relieve Saxony, was attacked by the Prussians and defeated at Lowositz. For the rest of the war Saxony was mostly in Frederick's possession, and one of his enemies was thus disposed of, while 17,000 men of the army at Pirna reinforced the victor's troops. Early in 1757, while the British and Hanoverians in west Germany kept France at bay, and while the Russian army was yet far away, detained by deep snow, Frederick and his men rushed into Bohemia by four passes, and, aided by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and by fine old Marshal Schwerin, defeated Brown in the great battle of Prague, with a loss, to the victors, of 18,000 men, and of Schwerin, who died in the thickest of the fray. The Austrians had 24,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or taken. The chief Austrian commander, Marshal Daun, was advancing, and the Prussian monarch, leaving a force to besiege a part of Brown's broken army in Prague, met the enemy on June 18th, at Kolin, midway between Prague and Sadowa, a place of more recent warlike renown. The cautious Daun, in an impregnable position, was attacked by Frederick with 30,000 men, and all assaults were repulsed with a Prussian loss of nearly half the men engaged. The defeated king then raised the siege of Prague, and hurried out of Bohemia. In the west of Germany the duke of Cumberland had been defeated by the * The best brief account of the Seven Years' War is contained in Macaulay's Essays, as above. The Seven Years' War 5 1 1 French, and, in order to save the electorate of Hanover, the British commander had concluded the humiliating " convention of Kloster- Zeven," withdrawing all his troops from the contest, and leaving the French army free to act against Prussia. In November, 1757, Frederick seemed on the verge of ruin. The Russians were laying waste his eastern territories ; the Austrians had overrun Silesia ; a French army was coming up from the west ; Berlin had been taken and plundered by the wild Croats of the Austrian service. The king dealt first with the French part of the appalling problem. The commander, Marshal Soubise, was a mere incapable, and on November 5th, in the great battle of Rosbach, west of Leipzig, he was utterly beaten. 7,000 French were captured ; the guns, colours, and baggage were taken. Frederick, active alike after victory and defeat, marched at once to Silesia, where all seemed lost. Breslau had fallen, and Daun and Charles of Lorraine, with a great army, held all the territory. On December 5th the glorious battle of Leuthen, west of Breslau, fought with 30,000 Prussians against 80,000 Austrians, ended in a complete victory for Frederick. Over one-third of the defeated were killed, wounded, or captured, and the trophies included 50 stand of colours, 100 guns, and 4,000 waggons of stores. This battle, in which the oblique order of attack, directed against a wing of the hostile line, was used with wonderful effect, is extolled by Napoleon as a masterpiece of tactical skill. The immediate effect of the victory was the retaking of Breslau, and the reconquest of Silesia. Charles of Lorraine abandoned the struggle and retired to Brussels, and the conquering king led his wearied troops into winter quarters, while the fame of his victories filled the world. A new British and Hanoverian army now took the field in the west, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who soon proved himself to be the second general of the age in ability. In 1758 Prince Ferdinand kept back the French, and Frederick, after some indecisive operations against the Austrian forces, marched to meet the Russians, now in the heart of his kingdom, and fought the battle of Zorndorf, near Frankfort -on-the-Oder. After a desperate struggle the enemy were defeated, and for a few months the east was rendered safe. The victor then hastened into Saxony to encounter the Austrians under cautious Daun and Laudohn (or Loudon), who was the most enterprising of the Austrian generals. They attacked him, in one of his rare moments of carelessness, at dead of night in his camp at Hochkirchen, inflicting a severe defeat, 512 A History of the World with the loss of the brave Marshal Keith. Frederick soon repaired his losses, made a rapid and circuitous march past Daun's victorious army, passed into Silesia, and defeated a body of Austrians besieging Neisse, in the south of the country. The enemy were thus driven into Bohemia. Meanwhile Daun, in Saxony, attacked Dresden, which was desperately defended by the Prussian garrison. The suburbs had been burnt to the ground, when Frederick's swift return from Silesia caused the Austrians to retire. The campaign was over — it was now November — and the king passed the winter at Breslau. In 1759 the Austrian troops were again in Saxony, and other forces were threatening Berlin. The Russians defeated the king's men on the Oder, menaced Silesia, and joined Laudohn. Both armies intrenched themselves strongly at Kiinersdorf, east of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and Frederick, hastening to attack them, incurred one of his worst reverses, with terrible loss in men and guns. Undismayed, the hero soon rallied his men and again faced the foe with 30,000 troops. Then disaster came fast on disaster. One Prussian general, with a large force, was captured at Maxen, in Saxony ; another was defeated at Meissen, north-west of Dresden. At the end of the year Prussia seemed to be without further resources to maintain a contest against odds so overwhelming. The only success had been in the west, where Ferdinand of Brunswick, by the victory of Minden, in which British regiments played a glorious part, had ended all fear from France. The year 1760 opened badly for the king's cause. Berlin was again occupied, with the plunder of the palace. Silesia then became the scene of operations, and at Liegnitz, to the west of Breslau, Frederick gained a great victory over Marshal Laudohn. At Torgau, on the Elbe, north-east of Leipzig, after a fearful struggle, he defeated Daun. In 1761 success was varied, but matters went badly, on the whole, for the king. No great defeat was sustained, but his resources were near exhaustion. Laudohn captured, by surprise, the strong fortress of Schweidnitz, south-west of Breslau, and with this loss went half of Silesia, and the command of the chief passes through the mountains. The Russians defeated the king's forces in Pomerania ; the country seemed utterly wasted. At this crisis, when utter ruin was in near prospect, a certain event changed the face of the struggle. Mr. Pitt (afterwards Lord Chatham) retired from office in England; and the Empress Elizabeth of Russia died. The withdrawal of Pitt menaced ruin to the Prussian cause, as he would never have deserted his ally. The new minister, Lord Bute, The Seven Years' War 513 made peace with France, and gave up interest in Continental policy. The loss of Frederick's only friend was, however, more than compensated by the change of rulers in Russia. The new tsar, Peter III., was an admirer of the Prussian monarch. He withdrew his forces, restored Prussian prisoners, and sent 15,000 men as a reinforcement. Thus aided, the king soon recovered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, and retook Schweidnitz. When Peter of Russia was deposed and murdered, his successor, Catharine II., maintained peace with Prussia. France became neutral towards Germany, and the great coalition against Prussia was thus dissolved. Austria alone was in the field, and, being threatened in formidable force by Turkey on the south-east, she could not act alone against Prussia. The war was over. In Macaulay's words on Frederick's part in the struggle, " the whole Continent in arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that iron grasp." In February, 1763, the Peace of Hubertusburg, in Saxony, left the Prussian king in possession of his conquest. He entered Berlin in triumph, after an absence of more than six years, passing along in an open carriage, with his able colleague in war, Ferdinand of Brunswick, at his side. His reception was such as to shake even his iron nerves. It was his task, and one fulfilled, on the whole, with admirable wisdom and success, to repair the fearful ravages of the Seven Years' War, during a reign protracted until 1786. The one great fact was that no debt had been incurred. Skill and rigid economy had enabled the king to pay his way throughout the contest, and the losses due to war were by degrees repaired. We turn to a brief notice of Austrian affairs in the period between the conclusion of peace and the French Revolution. Joseph II., son of Maria Theresa, a man of excellent abilities and intentions, was emperor from 1765 to 1790, but in the Austrian dominions he had full power only after his mother's death in 1780. He at once began a revolutionary system of benevolent reforms, in accordance with the arbitrary philanthropic methods of the 1 8th century. His object was to establish, regardless of prescription and privilege, a strong, centralised, united state, and he succeeded in giving a new vitality to the monarchy, though none of his reforms survived him, with the important exceptions of the abolition of serfdom and the edict enjoining religious toleration. The clergy and the nobility, as privileged classes, were the objects of his hostility. In 1 781 the edict was issued which granted freedom of worship to all Christian sects, and in the course of the reign nearly 700 514 A History of the World monasteries were closed, with the dispersal of 36,000 members of religious orders. The Pope (Pius VI.) vainly visited Vienna to oppose these proceedings. Attacks on the privileges of the nobles aroused great discontent, especially in Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands, and a revolt of the peasantry in Hungary, excited by the nobles, caused the withdrawal of the measures of reform. Chapter IV. — The Trans-Atlantic Problem : Great Britain, France, Spain. The earliest European colonisation of North America, apart from Mexico, was effected by the French. In 1534 Jacques Cartier, a navigator of St. Malo, made his way to the west coast of Newfound- land, and discovered Prince Edward's Island (afterwards thus named from Edward, duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria), Anticosti, and other places. Cape Breton Island had its name from French fishermen of Brittany in search of cod. In 1535 Francis I., pleased with Carder's success, sent him out with larger vessels, and the explorer sailed up the St. Lawrence to the Indian towns called Stadacona and Hochelaga, on the sites of Quebec and Montreal. Thus was Canada made known to the world, and Cartier heard from the friendly Algonquin and Huron natives something of the existence of great lakes and rivers to the west and south, in regions rich in game, rarely trodden by the foot of man. After passing the winter, Cartier took back to France some Algonquin chiefs who had been enticed on board, and this treacherous act, ending in their death in France prior to the explorer's next voyage, had a bad effect on the native feeling towards Europeans. Various efforts at colonisation failed from cold, famine, and disease, and we know nothing of Cartier after his return to France with survivors in 1544. Coligny made two useless attempts to found Huguenot colonies in the territory afterwards known as South Carolina and Florida. The first settlement was abandoned, and in 1565 the second party were all massacred by the Spaniards, " not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans," as the Spanish commander declared. About this time French and British fishermen and traders were engaged with cod and furs and skins, and Frobisher and Davis, Baffin and Hudson, were exploring to the north for the " north-west passage " to Asia. The massacre of Frenchmen at Fort Carolina was avenged three years later, in 1568, by a special expedition whose leader, before he slew the guilty, said, " I do this not as to Spaniards, nor as to 90 SO- 10 60 50 30 r J O /y^L All i js? cOr^ .^ 0> " ^^^\. y ° B * IV- — rrr^v^t ft" ^ ry^ 7^ re h i r-< I yNOBTHKAP T V""/ r \^\c«.roi.Iin\i C kJ C-FE ftB /*. H ftft(.E.5 T0N i ■ v^ L vVpi't ,* sCr 5?^ V l\$ 1 bTlff ^M ssiss' 1 "" <* V^l 1 w? ' VVI .•• G U L F M E X f .(^M ; *— ^ 20 P -i ' "1^7 C > \ ° 1 ^> o a porto rico 90 #£ 7(5 NORTH AMERICA IN 1 783. [A 5'4- The Trans-Atlantic Problem 5 1 5 mariners, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers." We may note that, in 1572, Francis Drake was attacking the Spaniards at Nombre de Dios and Darien, and that six years later the great navigator, on the first English voyage round the world, touched at the west coast of North America, and claimed part of the country for England as "New Albion." In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, landing at Newfoundland, took formal possession of the island for his country, and in the following year Sir Walter Raleigh sent out mariners who landed in the territory named Virginia. Attempts at colonisation failed, and we can only record the name of " Virginia Dare " as that of the first English child born in x\merica. It was under Henry IV., in 1608, that the first permanent French settlement was made in America, with the foundation of a trading-post at Quebec by Samuel de Champlain. The name of this able, honest, energetic man was given to the lake which he discovered, whence the river Richelieu flows into the St. Lawrence. His character was that of an enterprising, chivalrous, brave adventurer who was enthusiastic for the conversion of the Indians, and for 30 years he was honourably connected with the colony which he established on a firm basis. The chief native tribes were the Algonquins, Hurons, and Iroquois, active, hardy people devoted to the chase, living in villages by subdivisions of clans subject to a sachem cr civil chief; whose council was composed of the foremost warriors. Craft and cruelty are assigned to all these natives, estimated to number, at the period under review, only a few hundred thousand in the whole region between Hudson's Bay and the valley of the Mississippi. The sub-tribes of the Algonquins included those known by the names of Sioux, Ojibways, and Shawnees. The Iroquois or " Five Nations," including the Senecas and Mohawks, are the natives best known in the contests between British and French settlers, and were the people most prominent in courage, discipline, and cruelty, fighting on all sides with success, as deadly foes, for a long period, of the Europeans, in the ambus- cades of irregular warfare, and in the murder of outlying settlers. Under a succession of viceroys of "New France," the Canadian colony made some progress, and the energetic Jesuit fathers soon appeared upon the scene, and became distinguished in missionary- work combined with exploration. Claude Allouez made his way to the regions north of Lake Superior. Marquette, voyaging down the Wisconsin in a birch-bark canoe, reached the Mississippi, passed the points where it receives the waters of the Missouri and 34 5 1 6 A History of the World of the Ohio (or Wabash), and first revealed that the great river had a southward course towards the Gulf of Mexico. The mouth of the river was reached in 1682 by one of the greatest French explorers in North America, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, who claimed the southern territory for his sovereign under the name of Louisiana. In the reign of Charles I., from 1629 to 1632, Quebec was in possession of the English government, through seizure by Sir David Kirke, a Huguenot refugee, the Canadian colony being restored to France by the Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye. On Champlain's death, in 1635, there were only two or three hundred Europeans in French America, and the colony never attained any great success, mainly owing to the lack of settlers from Europe. Colbert made great efforts to increase the numbers and strength of the colonists by the dispatch of military settlers, and to promote prosperity by gifts of horses, sheep, horned cattle, and implements of tillage. Suc- cessful warfare was waged with the Iroquois, and trade grew in timber, fish, and furs. Towards the close of the 17th century, the attacks of the Iroquois, and outbreaks of scurvy and small-pox, caused the death of over 2,000 settlers, and in 1689, in the dreadful massacre of Lachine, near Montreal, some hundreds of men, women, and children perished. The French hold on North America was reduced to the posts at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, when the arrival of the able, courageous, and energetic soldier, Count de Frontenac, for a second term of office as governor, gave new life to the colony, now containing about 11,000 people. Before dealing with British colonisation of the New World, we may note that in 1609 Captain Henry Hudson, an English navigator in the Dutch service, entered a harbour at the point now occupied by New York, and sailed up the river called by his name, in the hope of thereby reaching the Pacific. Five years later the Dutch settled, as New Amsterdam, the place which became New York. In 1638 a colony of Swedes and Finlanders founded a settlement, east of Maryland, as " New Sweden," but in 1655 it was conquered by the Dutch. The Hollanders, in turn, were driven out by the English in 1664, and that part of the coast remained in British possession. The foundation of British colonies in North America is known from British history. Between 1607, when Virginia was settled by the "London Company" of merchants, and 1733, the date of the foundation of Georgia, 13 colonies, including the two named, had arisen on the east coast of the vast continent. The other 1 1 were Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, The Trans-Atlantic Problem 517 Connecticut, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The colonists, coming from a land blessed with a large measure of constitutional freedom, lived under various charters and forms of government, subject to the British Crown, and mostly having their own legislative bodies. In spite of restrictions on trade due to the unwise commercial policy of the time, as expressed in the Navigation Acts, rapid progress w r as made by British settlers in the New World. Before the middle of the 17th century, Virginia had plantations extending 70 miles inland, and exported abundance of corn to the northern or New England settlements. The population of Massachusetts alone exceeded 30,000. Towards the end of the century, the Carolinas, enjoying a genial climate and a fertile soil, were reinforced by the arrival of some thousands of Huguenots, driven by religious perse- cution from France, and bringing with them to their new abode high moral conduct, good manners, and political, artistic, and agri- cultural skill. In 1699 the North American colonies probably contained 300,000 people, chiefly in New England — or Massa- chusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — Virginia, Maryland, and New York. About one-sixth of the number were negro-slaves, mostly employed in the southern settlements, where the hotter climate precluded tillage by whites. Acadie, or Nova Scotia, restored to France in 1632, was occupied by both British and French settlers, who quarrelled with each other about fish and furs, and shared in the contests which arose between their colonial countrymen in Canada and the British possessions. Little progress was made, and in 1686 there were barely 1,000 people, whose chief occupation lay in the fisheries. The European war between Louis XIV. of France and William III. involved the colonists in America. In February, 1690, the enterprising De Frontenac, governor of Canada, sent a force of French and Indians from Montreal who assailed with success the settlers in New York and New Hampshire. Sharp reprisals were made, but an attack on Quebec was an utter failure both by sea and land. De Frontenac also waged warfare against the Iroquois, who were British allies, and the struggle between the French and English was only ended for a short time by the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. At this time France was in a strong position in North America, as holding the country from Maine to Labrador, and the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and as having a hold upon the great lakes. Hostilities were resumed in the "Queen Anne's War" of 1702 51 8 A History of the World to 1 7 13. The mariners of New England attacked every French settlement within easy reach of the coast. Frenchmen and Indians made sanguinary raids in Massachusetts. In 17 11 a strong ex- pedition from Boston, including 15 men-of-war and about 50 transports and store-ships, with seven British regiments and two battalions of Massachusetts militia, sailed to attack Quebec, while 2,000 men from other colonies marched overland. The enterprise, from lack of skill in both the military and naval commanders, was a disgraceful failure. Careless navigation threw eight transports on reefs in the St. Lawrence, with the loss of many sailors and 1,000 troops, the latter chiefly belonging to splendid regiments which had fought and conquered at Blenheim and Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. This disaster gave a new lease of life to Canada, under a new governor, De Vaudreuil, who was careful to strengthen her defences for any future contest, and extended a line of western forts towards the Mississippi valley. On the other hand, an expedition from Boston captured Port Royal, in Acadie (Nova Scotia), in 17 10, the name of the town being changed to Annapolis, in honour of the queen, and the Treaty of Utrecht, as we have seen, placed the country, with Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay and Straits, in British possession. The vast, vague region then known as Hudson's Bay Territory was claimed by the Company formed by Prince Rupert, under Charles II., and trading-posts were established at many points for barter with the Indian trappers and hunters in the trade of furs and skins. In the " King William's War" of 1690 to 1697, French expeditions captured Fort York and other posts, but the Treaty of Utrecht again made the Company masters of the whole coast. As regards north-western exploration, the Frenchmen named Les Verendryes, father and son, before the middle of the 18th century, were the first to explore, if not to discover, Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba, the rivers Assiniboine and Saskatchewan, and a large extent of territory for hundreds of miles west and north of Lake Superior. Somewhat later, a British traveller, Samuel Hearne, reached the Great Slave Lake, and made his way to the Arctic Ocean, discovering the mouth of the Coppermine River ; and the energetic and hardy Alexander Mackenzie, a native of the Highlands, in the service of the North-West Fur Company, a rival body to the Hudson Bay Company, voyaged in a birch-bark canoe from Lake Athabasca, in 1789, by the Slave River and Great Slave Lake, to the Polar Sea, down the whole course of the great river that bears his name. In 1793 the same great traveller crossed the Rocky The Trans-Atlantic Problem 519 Mountains, and reached the Pacific Ocean at a point now in British Columbia. He had thus beaten all records in North America by arriving at the Oceans to the north and the west along routes previously unknown to Europeans. Under De Vaudreuil, whose government of Canada ended with his death in 1725, the French colony remained at peace, and the population reached about 30,000 in number, engaged in the fur-trade, ship-building at Quebec, small industries in woollen and linen cloth and iron, and the export of timber, tar, pork, and flour to P"rance and to her AVest Indian islands, in exchange for the manufactures of the home-country, and for the molasses, rum, and sugar of the tropical possessions in the Gulf of Mexico. Various causes rendered true prosperity impossible. An " Intendant " exercised a paternal system of rule in fiscal and other affairs. Religious intolerance excluded enterprising Protestants. A feudal system of land-tenure hampered , tillage. There was little education, and small influx of new settlers from Europe. Under the marquis de Beauharnois, who was in power from 1725 to 1746, there was general peace in North America between the French and English, except in the last three years, when the " King George's War," connected with the War of the Austrian Succession, broke out. The French had already given clear signs of the policy which ended in their expulsion from North America as holders of dominion. In striving to keep the British to the coast, and to secure the sole, command of the western regions, they erected forts at various points, as Fort Niagara on the south- west shore of Lake Ontario, and Fort Frederick (afterwards Crown Point) on Lake Champlain. In Cape Breton Island they held a strong position in the fortress of Louisbourg, from whose port privateers issued to prey upon British commerce in the neighbouring waters. In 1745 a powerful expedition, organised by Shirley, the energetic governor of Massachusetts, and aided by men-of-war from the AVest Indian squadron, carrying some thousands of New England troops, was dispatched against the enemy's stronghold. Bombardment quickly ruined the works, and forced a surrender after a siege of seven weeks. A strong expedition sent from France to recover the place was disabled by Atlantic storms, and the British colonies were feeling the benefit of the possession of Louisbourg when, with an imbecility which has often followed British conquests, the home-government, in the Treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle (1748), restored the fortress to the French. In 1753 it became clear that a crisis of affairs between French 520 A History of the World and English power and interests was approaching. M. Duquesne, the new French governor of Canada, had instructions to oppose a firm resistance to British advance towards the west, where a new " Ohio Company," formed in Virginia, with a royal charter, was com- mencing operations. In 1754 the French took possession of the rising buildings of a fort at the junction of the two rivers forming the Ohio, and completed it as Fort Duquesne. Other armed posts were constructed by the enemy, and a young Virginian officer, to be immortal later as George Washington, was forced to surrender a British defensive point. In 1755 two regiments took ship at Cork for Virginia, the 44th and the 48th, under the command of General Braddock, a veteran officer. The British colonists and the home-government at this time, on the eve of the Seven Years' War, aimed at the possession of Fort Duquesne, a standing menace to Virginia and Pennsylvania; of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, bases for operations against New York and other colonies ; of Fort Niagara, commanding the north- western trade in furs ; of Louisbourg, lately captured and foolishly restored ; and of Quebec, the key to the St. Lawrence and the chief stronghold of Canada. The disastrous issue of Braddock's march against Fort Duquesne is well known. Ambushed Indians and French Canadians destroyed two-thirds of the force, with the loss of all the cannon, baggage, and stores, and the military chest. Braddock died a few days later of his wounds. An expedition against Fort Niagara was abandoned, on the desertion of the colonial militia, and the hostile attitude of the Iroquois. Three months later, in September, British credit was partly restored in the severe repulse, near Lake George, of a strong force of French regulars, Canadians, and Indians, by New England militia under the able colonial leader William Johnson, who received a baronetcy for his success. In 1756 the marquis de Montcalm arrived as commander of the French forces. He was a man in the prime of life, of high repute for skill and courage, and he brought with him two battalions of royal troops, a large supply of warlike stores, and an able second- in-command, the Chevalier de Levis, a brave officer who had fought at Dettingen. Montcalm soon made his presence felt by his British opponents. Fort Oswego, on the south-eastern shore of Lake Ontario, was attacked and taken with 1,600 prisoners, seven small men-of-war, 200 barges, 100 cannon, and a large supply of stores. The person chiefly responsible for this disgrace was The Trans-Atlantic Problem 521 the incompetent commander of the British forces in America, the earl of Loudon, who had ample resources at his disposal. Another discreditable failure came in 1757, when a powerful armament, including many sail of the line and some frigates, with 6,000 troops, was assembled at Halifax, Nova Scotia, for an attack on Quebec, and broke up in the autumn without producing any effect except a general impression of the utter incapacity of the direction of British naval and military affairs. Before a change came, more disasters were to try the patience of the British public at home. In July, 1757, a small British force, moving on Ticonderoga, was almost destroyed by an Indian ambush. In August, Fort William Henry, at the southern end of Lake George, was captured, after bombardment, by Montcalm, and over 2,000 British troops, with their arms and colours, marched out on condition of not serving in the war for 18 months. Many of the men, with women and children, were slain by the Indians, after surrender in presence of the French force, though Montcalm and De Levis used all efforts to save them, short of directing the weapons of French soldiers against their Indian allies. In July, 1758, General Abercrombie advanced from Albany against Ticonderoga, at the head of the largest army ever gathered in America. The force was composed of above 6,000 regulars, including the Royal Highlanders, or 42nd regiment, afterwards famous as the " Black Watch," and about the same number of the New York and New England militia. The fort was defended by Montcalm with 3,500 regular troops, and, in the lack of heavy guns to destroy the works or effect a serviceable breach, it was vainly assailed by the British infantry. Nearly 2,000 men were killed and wounded, including 500 of the 42nd regiment. In other quarters matters had a different issue. A new man had come to the front in Great Britain, William Pitt the elder, afterwards earl of Chatham. This noble patriot, directing foreign affairs in nominal subordination to a corrupt and incapable premier, the duke of Newcastle, was something different from " a lath painted to resemble iron." He was not a man to write state- papers arguing ably for his country's side in a dispute, and then yield every point at issue by a policy of " graceful concession." Capable of choosing fit men to do the country's work by sea and land, he had an ardent soul whose fire seemed to kindle the spirit of every officer and man, every sailor, ship's boy, and marine. Hurling proud defiance at the foes of Great Britain, he followed up words with blows of dire effect, and turned a scene of 522 A History of the World discomfiture and discredit into an arena of complete victory, where the foundation of a grand colonial dominion was laid. Pitt, resolved to annihilate French power in America, would not fail for lack of sufficient force. The American colonies were requested to supply 20,000 men, and about 12,000 regular troops were dispatched from England on transports convoyed by 23 sail of the line and 18 frigates. In charge of the ships was Admiral Boscawen, or " Old Dreadnought," as his men called him from a vessel once under his command. Major-General Amherst, on the recall of Lord Loudon, had become commander-in-chief in America, with James Wolfe as one of his brigadiers, a young officer who had fought at Dettingen and Culloden, and had risen by sheer merit to the command, in 1749, of the 20th of the line, a regiment nobly distinguished, ten years later, at the battle of Minden. Amherst had served at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and in other Continental battles, and had shown ability and the coolness of demeanour essential in a military chief. The first object of attack was Louis- bourg. A landing was made on July 8th, 1758; eight days later, some heights with batteries were stormed. The works were knocked to pieces by bombardment ; the French men-of-war in the harbour were all burnt or taken, and on July 27th the renowned fortress surrendered, and with it the island of Cape Breton came finally into British possession. 5,000 soldiers and sailors went as prisoners of war to England; 200 cannon, vast supplies, and 1 1 standards were taken, the latter being placed in St. Paul's Cathedral. The works were demolished ; Boston and all the New Englanders on the seaboard rejoiced ; Louisbourg was a deserted ruin ; Halifax became the chief strong- hold of the north-east coast. The disaster at Ticonderoga, which had occurred 19 days before the success at Louisbourg, was quickly remedied, though nothing could atone for the loss of the brave Scots and others who had fallen. In August the capture of Fort Frontenac (now Kingston), on the north-east shore of Lake Ontario, ended French supremacy in those waters, and the destruction of great stores of ammunition and food starved the chain of posts in the Ohio valley. In the following November the gallant John Forbes, former colonel of the Scots Greys, and now brigadier under Amherst, with young Colonel Washington in charge of a Virginia regiment, advanced on Fort Duquesne, and found it an abandoned ruin, blackened by the smoke of powder used to destroy works which the French despaired of holding. The Trans-Atlantic Problem 523 The rule of France in the Ohio valley thus came to an end, and the minister at home, the inspiring genius of those who were in the field, was honoured by the change of name to Fort Pitt, on the site of the modern flourishing town of Pittsburg, a Birmingham of the United States. At thcopening of the year 1759 it was clear to competent observers that the French hold on North America was much loosened. The worthless government at home disregarded the brave and able Montcalm's appeals for help. The whole of the males of Canada, from 16 years of age to 60, could not furnish 15,000 fresh men fit for service. There were only a few regiments of royal troops, and these were far below their full strength. The British Parlia- ment, under the impulse of Pitt's commanding spirit, voted abundant funds for the contest, and the royal troops and colonial levies made up more than 50,000 well-equipped soldiers. In June Amherst took the field in force, and found Ticonderoga deserted. Crown Point, also abandoned and destroyed, was restored in a stronger form, and powerful garrisons there and at the former place gave the British firm possession of Lake Champlain. In the west, Fort Niagara, commanding the passage from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, surrendered to Brigadier Prideaux, and all the other western forts in French hands, Detroit alone excepted, were speedily taken. This narrative must now draw to a close with a brief refer- ence to glorious events known to every British schoolboy. The key of French power in North America lay in the town and fortress of Quebec, garrisoned by 13,000 men of every age, including five royal regiments. Pitt was resolved to make an end, and Wolfe was placed in command of 8,000 men, including regiments whose colours showed that they had fought in some or all of Marlborough's great battles, and others that had conquered at Louisbourg. Royal artillery, a body of engineers, and some companies of the " Louis- bourg Grenadiers " were included in the force. The fleet numbered 22 ships of the line, and as many more frigates and smaller vessels, commanded with the utmost skill and energy by an almost forgotten British worthy, Admiral Saunders, a fit colleague of Wolfe in pro- fessional skill, devotion to duty, and loyal co-operation with his illustrious colleague. He had sailed with Anson round the world ; he ended his career as " Admiral of the Fleet " : his body lies in Westminster Abbey, near to the monument of Wolfe. Among the officers of the fleet were John Jervis, Earl St. Vincent in later days, as victor over the French in the battle of 1797, and James Cook, 524 A History of the World of renown in the southern seas. After a repulse near the Mont- morency Falls, some miles below Quebec, on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, Wolfe, worn with anxiety and wasted by disease, with the season so far advanced that the fleet must soon withdraw to avoid the ice- blockade, won immortal fame through the flash of genius which guided him to a landing by a morning surprise on the Plains of Abraham above the town. On September 13th the battle of Quebec was won, both commanders, by an issue of rare occurrence, being mortally wounded. The great Englishman was not 33 years of age. His body lies by his father's side in the vaults of Greenwich church. The gallant Frenchman's remains, those of a noble-minded man, a patriot of incorruptible spirit in an age of baseness among Canadian officials, were buried in the garden of the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. In the public garden overlooking the river, a stately pillar does honour, with a suitable inscription, to the noble pair. The victory in the field was followed five days later, on September 1 8th, 1759, by the surrender of Quebec, and in Pitt's words of eulogy on Wolfe, " an empire was added to British rule." De Levis, in the spring of 1760, when the British garrison was greatly en- feebled by deaths from cold and disease, and by frost-bite affecting the hands and feet, appeared before the fortress from Montreal, and tempted General Murray to an attack outside, with less than one- third of his enemy's force. The British, 3,000 strong, were out- flanked and beaten after a desperate two hours' battle, losing six guns and nearly 1,200 men killed and wounded. The issue of the struggle was not affected by this event. The works of Quebec were far too strong for an assault, and the arrival of a British fleet, when navigation was opened, drove the French back to Montreal. In the summer, the advance of three strong armies from the south and east — by Lake Champlain and the river Richelieu ; under Murray, from Quebec, up the St. Lawrence ; and under Amherst, by way of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers — -made the French position at Montreal hopeless. De Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, had 2,000 disheartened men against eight times that number surrounding a weak place, and he sensibly and honourably surrendered on terms which made Canada a province subject to the British Crown. A census showed the population of the colony to be a little over 76,000. A month later, on October 25th, 1760, George III. became king, and in February, 1763, the Peace of Paris finally ceded Canada, Nova Scotia or Acadie, including New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, and all other islands in the gulf and river of St. Lawrence, France S 2 S with the reservation to France of certain rights as to fishing and drying fish near and on Newfoundland, and of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as fishing-stations. Everything west of the mid-Mississippi was also surrendered, except New Orleans. Spain, which had also been at war with Great Britain, received back Havana, in Cuba, and ceded Florida and all other territories east of the Mississippi ; while France, by a separate treaty, gave up New Orleans and the whole of Louisiana, then a vast vague southern territory, to Spain. The number of inhabitants in the 13 British colonies had by this time reached nearly 2,000,000. We need only here further record that in the " Pontiac war " of 1763, an Ottawa chief of that name, a firm friend of the French, formed a combination of several tribes, and seized many forts on the Canada to Mississippi frontier ; but the whole movement was ultimately suppressed, by able military work under Colonel Bouquet, and by the skilful negotiations conducted by Sir William Johnson. Chapter V. — France; Southern Europe; the Pre- REVOLUTIONARY AGE. The death of Louis XIV. brought to the throne, at five years of age, his great-grandson as Louis XV. During eight years (17 15-1723) Philip, duke of Orleans, a man of most profligate character, was regent, having as his chief minister the infamous Cardinal Dubois. A policy of friendship with England and of religious tolerance was favoured by these men. From 1726 to 1743, under the honest, well-meaning Cardinal Fleury, an economical and peaceful policy was carried out, until court-intrigues forced him into the wars of the " Polish Succession " and the " Austrian Succession," with no advantage to the country. After his death, affairs fell into the hands ot the debauched king's favourite, the marquise de Pompadour, with the most deplorable results. The issues to France of the Seven Years' War, in Europe and America, have been given. After Fleury's day, in Macaulay's words, "the downward progress of the monarchy recommenced. Profligacy in the court, extravagance in the finances, schism in the Church, faction in the Parliaments, unjust war terminated by ignominious peace — all that indicates and all that produces the ruin of great empires, make up the history of that miserable period. Abroad, the French were beaten and humbled everywhere, by land and 526 A History of the World by sea, on the Elbe and on the Rhine, in Asia and in America." l)e Pompadour, on her death in 1764, was succeeded by the still viler comtesse du Barri, a woman of low origin. In 1771 the last relic of constitutional government passed away in the abolition of the Parliament of Paris, the chief law-court of the country. It was only under the due de Choiseul's administration, from 175810 1770, that anything was done to improve the naval and military forces, and matters went again to ruin under the influence of Du Barri. The political and social conditions were appalling to discerning observers. The higher clergy were mere greedy landed proprietors and creatures of the court, a pampered caste, leaving all the duties of religion to the village cures. The nobles had become a set of vicious courtiers, wielding local influence and authority on their estates, for the most part, only in the interests of oppression and self-indulgence, neglecting all duties, never forgetting to enforce their fiscal rights. The privileged classes — the nobles and clergy — paid little in taxes, and to them most offices of emolument were confined. Sinecures in every province, in all branches of administration, preyed upon the earnings of the classes who created the wealth of the country. The man who tilled the soil was mulcted in half its produce. In bad seasons he and his wretched wife and children fed on roots, boiled nettles, and even on grass. Strange diseases, due to starvation and improper food, appeared. In the chateau all was luxury ; in the cottage leanness prevailed. At Versailles idleness, extravagance, pompous etiquette, heartless frivolity, profligacy of the vilest character, unbelief in the very me,n who were paid to maintain the state-religion, were presided over by one of the worst of worthless kings, a man who knew what was coming in the latter days, and who predicted, half in callous scorn, half in a feeble fit of remorse, " After me, the flood." Some accession of territory came in the annexation of the duchy of Lorraine, and the conquest of Corsica in 1769, after its rising against Genoa under Paoli. The death of Louis XV. in 1774 left the throne to his grandson Louis XVI., with a hopeless prospect of affairs, past remedy, in all probability, by any man or set of men of whatsoever ability in govern- ment or devotion to duty. The new sovereign, a dull, well-meaning sort of man who might have been a good artisan in machine-work, was already married to the frivolous and indiscreet Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa. She never interfered in political affairs without doing harm, and she paid a fearful penalty for her faults France 527 in supporting the old system of favourites and in resisting reforms. The financial difficulty was taken in hand by the able and honest Turgot, but he was driven from power in 1776, when he proposed to tax the nobles and the clergy on an equal basis with the trading classes and the tillers of the soil. The Church and the aristocracy " would not have reform, and they had revolution. They would not pay a small contribution to the state-expenses in place of the odious corvees (or enforced labour of the peasants on the lord's estate and on the public roads without pay), and they lived to see their castles demolished and their lands sold to strangers. They would not endure Turgot; and they were forced to endure Robespierre." Necker, a Swiss banker of Paris, was finance-minister from 1777 to T781, and abolished some hundreds of superfluous offices. His reforms were not far-reaching enough to stay the continual deficits, and only irritated the privileged classes. The gap between income and expenditure was ever increasing, and the country went swiftly down the slope. Under Calonne, a favourite of the queen, from 1783 to 1787, the debt grew largely from the extravagant expenditure of the court, the position of affairs having been already greatly aggravated by war with England after the revolt of the American colonies. No more suicidal step could have been taken by a French government than one which increased the financial difficulty ; encouraged rebellion of subjects against a sovereign ; aided the American colonists to a success which greatly stirred the rising democratic spirit in France ; and brought back to the country troops infected with the revolutionary poison. The " Assembly of the Notables," a meeting of the chief nobles, officials, and dis- tinguished persons of every rank, in 1787, was a feeble attempt to stem the tide. Calonne was dismissed from office when he urged the nobles and clergy to yield their privileges and pay a land-tax ; the assembly was dissolved; and in August, 1788, Necker was recalled, and it was resolved to summon a States-General, or national parliament, a body unknown since 16 14, in the days of Richelieu. There, on the edge of the precipice, we leave the French king and privileged classes. In Spain, we left Philip V., first of the Bourbon kings, settled on the throne by the Treaty of Utrecht, with the loss of Spanish possessions, as we shall see, in Italy, and of Sardinia, Minorca, Gibraltar, and Flanders. The supporters of his rival, the Archduke Charles of Austria, in Catalonia and Aragon, were severely punished, and all their old constitutions and rights were abolished. For a few 528 A History of the World years, from 17 14 to 1720, under the able Italian statesman Cardinal Alberoni, much was done to develop the resources of the country, to increase foreign trade, and to remodel the military and naval forces, but his ambitious foreign schemes, against England and France and Austria, seeking to involve all Europe in war, caused his downfall. Ferdinand VI. (1746-1759), son of Philip, kept the country generally at peace, and his half-brother Charles III. (^o^^SS), wno ha ^ been successively duke of Parma and king of Naples and Sicily, was a wise ruler who called to his councils the best Spaniards of the age ; reformed the grossly corrupt colonial administration ; promoted manufactures and trade ; and failed only in his attempt to recover Gibraltar. The population and wealth of the country increased, and Spain was enabled to take a considerable part in the naval warfare of the later years of the century and of Napoleon's earlier time as emperor. We saw Portugal recover complete independence in 1668, under the regency of Dom Pedro, married to the queen on her divorce from the wretched Alfonso VI., who was dethroned and banished to the Azores. On this man's death in 1683 he became king as Pedro II., and maintained the same course of strict economy and peace,, enabling the country to recover from exhaustion due to past troubles.. In 1703 a close alliance was formed with Great Britain in the famous Methuen political and commercial treaty, whereby the Portuguese wines, notably port, entered England at lower duties than those of France and Germany, in exchange for manufactured goods on the same terms, while friendly relations of great advantage to Portugal were established. English colonies of merchants arose in Lisbon and Oporto ; English capital caused an increase of wealth ; and the importation of English articles of luxury and comfort gave Portugal a marked difference in domestic display from the other southern countries of Europe. No advance, however, was made towards political freedom and representative institutions, and the ignorant people remained sluggishly content under absolute rule. Under Joseph I. (175 0-1777) there was a temporary increase of vigour in national life through the influence of the able and. resolute marquis de Pombal, the greatest of all Portuguese statesmen, and one of the chief men of mark in the 18th century. He was the Richelieu of Portugal, supported in all his measures by the sovereign whose power he made greater than ever in breaking down the authority of the nobles. The army was remodelled ; the internal administration was reformed ; slavery was abolished ; the Jesuit order was sup- Southern Europe 529 pressed. After the memorable earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, which laid the capital in ruins, with the loss of at least 30,000 lives, Ponibal displayed his admirable energy in the work of restoration. In later years, hundreds of useless petty offices were abolished ; the Inquisition was made almost powerless for harm ; education, agri- culture, and, especially, the growth of the vine, were encouraged ; and Pombal was equally admired by king and subjects. Banished from court by Joseph's successor, his eldest daughter, Maria Francisca, Pombal died, at an advanced age, in T783. The new ruler was almost an imbecile, and was practically deprived of power in 1792. In Italy we find Venice, in the latter half of the 17th century, much engaged in conflict with the Turks. In 1645 the Ottomans, without any declaration of war, sent a great armament against Candia (Crete), composed of over 400 galleys and 50,000 troops. Canea, at the north-western point of the island, was forced to surrender, after the Venetian commandant of the citadel had blown up the fort with himself and the garrison. From this secure base of operations, the invaders spent 24 years in subduing the whole of Crete. Great exertions were made by the republic, and her appeals for aid brought volunteers from all parts of Europe, with troops and money from the Pope, soldiers under the Knights of St. John from Malta, and some help from Louis of France and the duke of Savoy. Great heroism was displayed by the Venetian commanders and men, and some brilliant naval victories were won, in the Dardanelles and off the island of Paros. In 1660 Francesco Morosini took the command of the republic's forces in Crete, where the chief town, Candia, had been for years besieged. From May to November in 1667 the place underwent 32 assaults; 17 sorties were made; 618 mines were sprung by the assailants and defenders ; over 3,000 of the besieged, besides 400 officers, perished, and the Turks lost 20,000 men. During the whole operations, extending over 20 years, the loss of the Turks much exceeded 100,000, and that of the Christians was over one-fourth of that number ; the fortress fired above half a million cannon-shot, and 9,000 .tons of lead were used for musket- balls by the besieged. It was towards the end of this remarkable leaguer that the Due de la Feuillade, as we have seen, headed a body of French " crusading " nobles, but their fiery valour was vainly expended in attacks on the enemy's trenches, contrary to Morosini's advice, and the remnant died of plague and other disease. Then Louis sent a reinforcement of 12 regiments of foot, a small body of cavalry, and some of the famous " household " troops, 530 A History of the World under the Due de Noailles as general, the Due de Beaufort being admiral of the fleet. They found Candia reduced to the last extremity — every building in utter ruins or much injured; mines ever springing ; the streets strewn with the dying and dead ; pestilence rife. The new-comers, with a rashness again vainly opposed by Morosini, at once made a sortie against the Turkish lines, only to be defeated. 200 heads of fallen Frenchmen, including those of the Due de Beaufort and some of his chief officers, were cut off and borne in triumph before Kiupergli, the grand vizier ; and this disaster caused the other French troops, with the Maltese, Papal soldiers, and other foreign contingents, to abandon the enter- prise in despair. The end of Morosini's heroic defence was come. He received honourable terms, due to the respect inspired by his conduct and that of his countrymen, and in September, 1669, Crete passed into the possession of Turkey. The Venetian republic was fast decaying through an obstinate adherence to the old oligarchical system, and was verging on bankruptcy when the long Cretan warfare ended. During 14 years of peace the finances were somewhat restored, and in 1684 Venice joined a new league against Turkey, and, with the same Francesco Morosini in supreme command, gained glory in the struggle. In 1685 a series of victories at Navarino, Argos, Nauplia, and other places gave possession of the Morea (Peloponnesus) in Greece. Then came the attack on Athens, with results to be lamented by lovers of art. In a bombardment of six days the whole town was fired. The glorious statue of Athena by Phidias was destroyed, and the Parthenon, turned by the Turks, on their capture of the city in 1456, from a Christian church into a mosque, and then into a powder-magazine, was greatly damaged by an explosion. Morosini, eager to save a few trophies, sent the marble lions from the Piraeus to Venice, where they yet guard the entrance to the arsenal. The victor was received at home with rapturous delight, and had an unprecedented honour in the placing of his bust, during his lifetime, in the Hall of the Council of Ten. This " last of the Venetians" was chosen Doge in 1688, by the unanimous public voice, and died at Nauplia in 1694, in command of a fleet on its way to the Archipelago. Many naval victories were won by the Venetians before the Peace of Carlowitz ended the war in 1699. During the War of the Spanish Succession the republic was neutral, but her territory was again and again overrun by the armies of Villeroi and Catinat, of the Due de Vendome and the Duke of Savoy, Southern Europe 531 and of Prince Eugene. In 17 14 Turkey declared war, and Venice lost, town by town, her possession of the Morea, where the people had not come to love their new masters. Corfu was saved to the republic, after a brave defence, and the Peace of Passarowitz, in 17 18, left her in possession of the Ionian Islands; of parts of Albania and Dalmatia ; of Istria and Friuli ; and of Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Rovigo, and other places on the Italian mainland. During the rest of the 18th century, down to the wars following on the French Revolution, Venice presents the melancholy spectacle of decay. The nobles, from whose ranks glorious leaders had emerged in the past days, became mere lovers of pleasure, sunk in indolence and vice. Impoverished members of the aristocracy kept public gaming-tables, and even, in some cases, begged in the streets. The Council of Ten, with popular support, ruled with an iron sway, and put to death, without public trial, known conspirators and suspected men. Some useful reforms were made in the opening of the port to free trade ; in the curtailing of donations and legacies to religious institutions ; in the restriction of the absurd number of festivals and holidays; in the expulsion of the Jesuits; and in the suppression, in 1780, of the Ridotto, or chief public gaming-house. Four years later, the expiring state gave a last sign of life in vigorous action against the corsairs of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. A fleet was dispatched to the African coast, and in a three-years' war much was done to rid the Mediterranean of a long-standing peril and disgrace. In the last half of the 17th century the Spanish sovereigns of the Hapsburg house merely plundered their Italian dominions by ruthless taxation. In 1647 an impost on fruit, almost the only food of the poor left untouched by fiscal greed, caused an insurrection headed by the famous Tommaso or 'Mas Aniello, who was assassinated at the instance of the viceroy. In Sicily, the populace rose at Palermo, but the movement was soon quelled. Early in the 18th century the duke of Savoy (king of Sicily) became " king of Sardinia," taking that island in exchange for Sicily, received by him, as we have seen, under the Peace of Utrecht. The ruler of Savoy, Piedmont, and Sardinia 'was the one independent, strong, Italian sovereign, and much was done for the state under the liberal and enlightened despot Victor Amadeus II., who reigned until 1730, and distinguished himself by depriving the Jesuits of all control over public education. The republic of Genoa, ever obliged to defend her freedom and independence against aggressive neighbours, lost Corsica by revolt 35 532 A History of the World in 1730, and finally, after recovering it by French arms from the patriot Paoli, ceded the island to France in 1768. In the Papal States, or central Italy, during this period, we note a general decline of industry, prosperity, and intellectual life. The Popes were all Italians, generally members of great families. Innocent XL (1676-1689) was an able, honest man, of austere life, an opponent of luxury, and of nepotism and simony in the Church. In conflict with the Gallican (French) Church, under Louis XIV., Papal infallibility received a severe blow in 1682. A convocation of clergy in Paris, summoned by the king, adopted a declaration drawn up by the eloquent Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. The " Four Articles " maintained that the Pope, in secular matters, has no power over kings and princes, and cannot loose subjects from their allegiance; that the Pope is subject to the decrees of a General Council ; that the Pope's authority in France is regulated by fixed canons and by the laws and customs of the kingdom and Church ; and that, in matters of faith, the Pope's decision is not unalterable. The king then issued a decree confirming these statements. In 17 13 Clement XL (1700-17 21) issued his famous "bull" Unigenitus against the Jansenists, the strong opponents of the Jesuits' teaching on moral points, the document being accepted by the French bishops, but resisted by a large body of the clergy and the laity. In France, at this time, infidelity of the Voltairean school was yearly rising, with considerable effect on political affairs at a later day. Benedict XIV., who was Pope from 1740 to 1758, is distinguished as, not the greatest, but the best and wisest of all the men who have filled the Papal chair. Learned ; cultured in literature and art ; in the best sense an accomplished man of the world ; able and conscientious in the discharge of all his duties ; liberal-minded, moderate, and observant of the spirit of the age ; sincerely pious, forbearing towards others, strict with himself, this admirable and delightful man, an honour to human nature, commanded the high esteem of Protestant and Catholic sovereigns, and was beloved by all who came within reach of his benign influence. He died after painful illness, cheerful and lively to the last. Clement XIII. (1758-1769), led by the Jesuits, strongly maintained the most arro- gant Papal claims, in defiance of the Bourbon princes who ruled in France, Spain, and most of Italy. His successor, Clement XIV. (1 769-1 775), was a man of opposite character, liberal by disposition and training, and in 1773 he deprived the Papacy of an able body of strenuous defenders by a " Brief" which abolished the Society of The American Revolutionary War 533 Jesus. The last Pope of the period was Pius VI. (1775-1799), who lived to see the confiscation of Church-property, the suppression of religious orders, the occupation of Rome by French troops, and the proclamation of a " Roman Republic." He died a prisoner on French soil. The war of the Austrian Succession, ended in 1748 by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapeile, left Italy in peace for more than 40 years, with most of the territory in the hands of the Bourbons, ruling in Naples and Sicily, Parma, Modena, and Genoa ; while the House of Savoy held Sardinia and Piedmont, and the Austrians retained Milan and Tuscany. The sovereigns were absolute, generally in their own selfish interest, with a very honourable exception in Peter Leopold, grand-duke of Tuscany from 1765 until his succession to the empire as Leopold II. in 1790. This enlightened reformer restricted priestly power, and made an end of the Inquisition. The financial adminis- tration and the criminal law were much changed for the better. He left a noble monument of his beneficent rule in the fertile Val di Chiana, a tract 50 miles in length between two mountain-ranges, and bounded by the rivers Arno and Paglia. Under his direction, this district was changed by skilful engineering from a malarious swamp into a region of bounteous production. Chapter VI. — The American Revolutionary War. We need not linger long over a subject so familiar from British history. The American colonies had several grounds of complaint against the mother-country. By the Navigation Acts and other legislation, British merchants, manufacturers, and tillers of the soil were favoured at the expense of American subjects of George III. The direct cause of quarrel was the attempt to levy taxation from those who were not represented in the British Parliament. Hostility and resistance were aroused by harsh measures, and hence came riots, suspension of colonial assemblies or legislatures, the destruction of tea- at Boston in December, 1773, the vindictive closing of the port to trade, the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1774; and the assembly of a congress at Philadelphia in the same year, where leading spirits were found in Samuel and John Adams of Massa- chusetts, and in George Washington and Patrick Henry of Virginia. Matters became serious when " a declaration of rights " was drawn up, and the concentration of British troops at Boston was followed by the organisation of the Massachusetts militia and the collection of 534 -A- History of the World arms and stores. In 1775 came the skirmishes of Lexington and Concord ; the seizure of Ticonderoga and Crown Point by the colonists ; the battle of Bunker's Hill ; the fruitless invasion of Canada ; the appointment of Washington to chief military command ; and, in June, 1776, the "declaration of independence" voted in Congress, and adopted finally on July 4th. The hero of the struggle was George Washington ; the turning-point was Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga in October, 1777, an event which is well described in Creasy's Decisive Battles. In the following month articles of confederation for " The United States of America " were agreed upon in Congress, and the flag with the stars and stripes began to wave. Early in 1778 France recognised the independence of the revolted colonies, and ships and troops were sent to aid them. Many battles were fought with various success, and on October 19th the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, with 7,000 men, to the colonial and French forces at Yorktown, in Virginia, gave a final triumph to the "rebels," and drove from office the British premier, Lord North, who was mainly responsible, with his obstinate and wrong-headed sovereign George III., for the disastrous contest. The struggle, apart from America, had been for Great Britain one for very existence as a naval and maritime power. Spain, Holland, and France, each possessed of a formidable fleet, were combined against her, and the people dwelling on the southern coast had to endure a humiliating and unwonted sight in 1779, when 66 sail of the line, with a large number of frigates, were afloat in the Channel, defying attack, under the flags of France and Spain. In January, 1780, our naval reputation was somewhat restored by Sir George Rodney's defeat of a Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, with the loss of eight line-of-battle ships. In February, 1781, when Holland had joined our foes, the same admiral captured the Dutch West India island St. Eustatia, with a vast store of tropical produce and 250 merchantmen. Spain deprived us of Minorca and West Florida, and a French fleet, under the Comte de Grasse, did much mischief to our trade and possessions in the West Indies. A turn of affairs came in 1782, and British credit in war against France and Spain was restored by two splendid achievements. On April 12th, in the West Indies, off Dominica and Guadeloupe, Rodney and Sir Samuel Hood won a glorious victory over De Grasse. The enemy's fleet, of 33 first-rates, carried a large number of troops for the conquest of Jamaica. The British admirals, with 36 sail of the line, fell upon them, and, in a battle of 11 hours' duration, captured The American Revolutionary War 535 the flagship, the pride of the French navy, the Ville de Paris, of no guns, with the admiral on board; five other great ships were taken, one was sunk, and the whole array was broken up in head- long flight. A few days later Hood captured two seventy-fours and two frigates, and the whole enterprise against Jamaica was wrecked. In September of the same year General George Eliott, afterwards ennobled as Lord Heathfield, repulsed the last great attack of French and Spanish naval and military forces on Gibraltar, and the valiant garrison, vainly assailed by bombardment, blockade, and starvation during a siege of over two years, remained still masters of the "Rock." In 1783 the Peace of Versailles ended the war, with the recognition of the independence of the United States, and the cession of Florida and Minorca to Spain. The quarrel with the colonists thus had its issue in one of the greatest events of modern history, far more memorable in its con- sequences than the great war with France at the close of the 1 8th century and in the earlier years of the 19th. A great new state arose in the world, British in origin, language, and tradition, but taking a line of its own in political affairs, independent of British and even of European precedents. It was a state that, in spite of menaces and probabilities of dissolution, has remained united, and has grown so as to be far superior in population and territory to all European states save Russia, the colonial territory and people of the British Empire being of course excepted. In the whole history of the world there had been no previous example of the foundation of such a mighty state on new territory — a state so highly organised at the starting-point of its career, and one in which the free will of man is in so high a degree active and alive. There is in all history no example of two great nations so closely allied to each other in blood, so closely connected by the bonds of trade, so strongly influencing each other in various ways, as Great Britain and the United States. The whole future of the world, in fact, depends upon the mutual influence of the offshoots of the British stock of the human race. 536 A Hi5tory of the World BOOK III. FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1789-1S15.) Chapter I. — The French Revolution and Napoleon ; Great Britain and Ireland (1 789-1802). The series of events known as the French Revolution has a literature of its own, and we can only here indicate its chief stages and most prominent events. The picturesque, grotesque, and horrible side of the earlier period is well presented in Carlyle's French Revolution and Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. The philosophy of the subject is an endless matter, belonging to other works than this. In its wider sense, the revolutionary period covers 25 years, from 1789 to 181 5, divided into four stages. The first includes events from the opening of the States-General in May, 1789, to the middle of 1793. The second, or "Reign of Terror," takes us to October, 1795. The third covers the period of the Directory and the Consulate, until Napoleon's election as emperor, in May 1804. The fourth stage is that of the French Empire under Napoleon I., with a brief interval of restored Bourbon rule, until July, 1815. The chief cause of the political convulsion in France has been already indicated — misery due to long misrule such as has rarely cursed mankind. The spirit of revolution was in the air, a spirit devoted to the reformation or destruction of all existing institutions ; a spirit expressed in bitter mockery, keen wit, scorn, searching analysis, enlightened philosophy, and advanced philanthropy by such writers as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, and Condorcet, some of them numbered among the Encyclopedistcs, or authors of the Encyclopedic, a work which appeared between 1751 and 1765, and was characterised by a disregard of all mere authority, and by a free spirit of inquiry and criticism on religious, social, and political matters. Without directly aiming at political changes, these men, wielding a very extensive and powerful influence, prepared the way for them by their exposure of abuses of every kind. It was in May, 1789, that on the advice of Necker, recalled to office in the previous year, the States-General, or National Parliament, met at 20 70 10 1 AT? / ^>T> / o nf a A-~_ / C ^ _/ I 7 / Lm z I 1 ^ ' 1 / / * "■ J I L, ) 1 FM*-> * 1 /TV S / _r^i flf>~*^ / *" <^^# \ AS \G&\ 1 ° R T H *//P S 50 ^* T^> / o Of \J£^lh a 7 I* V •> ( n CT Cj c °«/ c 4 v A / / V H X\ /S r^J/ A U ,"% f\ / VOL s / v f-J — M 7 *""" - — ^ fnc^ s'^M ^o 40 ^^S c 4 h -■»**_ l ? ** \ A5t\i — v \ 7 — v ->_^ ( ^AosE^ajY-r r = y c ^» < yCP^^^^f N hs ^^a 1/ j \-Ai -J 1 J ® \ h 1 W-v 1 J^ < / c/^CV / "-Gils f St*, ? ^ u *^*rf M i> S ^/ s |aR0iMa ^^ v_T / / S 'ClLY / IV ^ R / ' L? 30 P^ / iN? / 1 ^^__^^ o w EUROPE FROM THE 40 50 s v-> y c K S N -7. < » * • (/RHODES \ N 5 E U AU f-^ L— / ^ \ tc^^Jr \ ^^^ — ° 9 — —-^ — A \ry f> mj^z, ' \ ( "»\ CORFUXft J 6 A A A l V P \ f - ° \ 2(9 30 iSth century to iS^o. [A 536- The French Revolution and Napoleon 537 Versailles, composed of 300 representatives of the nobles, 300 of the clergy, and 600 of the Tiers Etat, or Third Estate of the realm, meaning the Commons, or mass of the nation. After various disputes as to methods of sitting and voting, the Tiers Etat, under the leadership of the resolute, able, and eloquent Mirabeau, a man of the noble class, styled themselves the " National Assembly," and were joined by the clerical and noble members. This was a first triumph for the popular element. The king, Louis XVI., listening to Marie Antoinette and the party of reaction at court, aroused distrust by gathering around him at Versailles a large body of troops, including foreign — Hungarian and German — regiments, and by arming the bridge of Sevres with cannon pointed towards the capital. This step, followed by the dismissal of Necker from office on July nth, caused an immediate outbreak in Paris. On July 14th the fortress-prison styled the Bastille was stormed by the people, and a provisional government was set up at the Hotel de Ville. The revolution had begun, and it was in vain that the king, in a panic, recalled Necker. A " National Guard " was formed by the municipality of Paris, under the command of Lafayette, a marquis and member of the National Assembly, a man who had fought on behalf of the revolted colonists in America. The famous " tricolour " of the French republic was now adopted as the national emblem, composed of blue and red, the Paris colours, with white in the centre, representing the monarchy. Matters now advanced with swift and terrible steps. The emigration of the nobles began, headed by the count of Artois, the king's second brother, afterwards Charles X. In the provinces the people rose, plundered and burnt many of the chateaux, and hunted the tax-gatherers out of the district, while local provisional governments were set up in the great towns. The nobles and clergy of the Assembly sought to allay popular rage by a voluntary surrender of all feudal rights and privileges — tithes, imposts, the hated gabelle or salt-tax, the preserva- tion of game. At the same time the sale of offices was prohibited, and the guilds which had restricted freedom of trade, and greatly raised the price of commodities, were dissolved. In October the famous mob of women rushed out to Versailles, urged by hunger, and brought the king and his family into Paris as hostages. The National Assembly, with numbers reduced by resignations, then sat in the capital, and in December all the estates of the clergy were confiscated for the benefit of the nation, the state assuming the support of ecclesiastics. In 1790 the old provinces were abolished, 538 A History of the World and the country was divided into 83 departments, with names derived from mountains and rivers, and with subdivision into districts and cantons. The old parliaments and judicial constitu- tion were swept away, and trial by jury was established. Hereditary nobility and titles were abolished, and all ecclesiastical orders were dissolved, except such as had charge of education and the sick. During this time the spirit of revolution in its most advanced form had made its home in the political clubs of the capital entitled the Jacobins and the Cordeliers. The more famous of these was that of the Jacobins, a name bestowed first by its enemies, and one which became proverbial for holders of extreme liberal views on political and religious affairs. The members called themselves the Society o Friends of the Constitution, and the title of Jacobins was derived from the fact of their meeting in a hall of the former Jacobin convent in the Rue St. Honore, the Dominicans of France being styled Jacobins because their chief religious house in Paris was that of St. Jacques (Latin, Jacobus) in the Rue St. Jacques. The presiding authority was Robespierre, and under the influence of his fanatical energy it became the headquarters of revolutionary agita- tion, wielding a power exceeding that of the National Assembly, and directing many hundreds of branch-societies or clubs throughout France, with a system of intrigue and espionage that reached every corner, and endangered every man and woman who might be deemed hostile to revolutionary principles and to the doctrines of " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." The Cordeliers ("cord-wearers," a French name for the strictest branch of the Franciscans, who wore a girdle of knotted cord) met in the chapel of a Franciscan monastery, and included the bold Danton, Hebert, Camille Desmou- lins, and Marat, the last three being very influential as journalists disseminating revolutionary matter. The club of the Feuillants, named from a reformed body of the Cistercian order, because they met at an old Cistercian convent in the Rue St. Honore", was composed of moderate monarchists who had quitted the Jacobins, and included Lafayette and Bailly, president of the National Assembly and mayor of Paris. As revolutionary violence grew, its influence decayed, and in March, 1 791, it was forcibly closed by a raging mob. In order to estimate the forces at work in Paris, the centre of agitation, we must note the new organisation of the municipality, or commune, of the capital, then containing about 800,000 people. The 84,000 voters, adult males, of the city were divided into 48 sections, each section having its primary The French Revolution and Napoleon 539 assembly, and the whole being directed by a general council, with an executive board of 44 members. The members of the sections were all armed, and were ready to rise at a moment's notice to carry out orders received from the revolutionary leaders. The death of Mirabeau — the one man who might, as mediator, have guided the revolution to moderate and beneficent ends— in April, 1 791, left a free course to the Jacobins. Louis had taken, for him- self, the fatal step of conspiring with foreign powers against his subjects, and arranging with the governments of Austria and Prussia for his deliverance by invasion. In June, 1791, with the queen "and two of his children, he made his escape from Paris, but was caught at Varennes, in the north-east, west of Verdun, and henceforth closely watched. In August the French people were irritated by the transaction known as the "Convention of Pillnitz," which was con- cluded at a country-house of that name near Dresden, between Leopold II. of Austria, Frederick William II. of Prussia, and some minor German princes. The contracting parties undertook to " interfere by effectual methods " on behalf of the French sovereign, and this proceeding practically sealed his fate. In September the National Assembly, having framed a new constitution and thus accomplished its purpose as a "constituent " body, dissolved itself. Some of its measures survived the revolutionary period and were embodied in the Code Napoleon. The political and other provisions included universal suffrage for tax-payers of a certain small amount ; freedom of the press ; liberty of worship ; abolition of the laws of entail and primogeniture, and equal subdivision of property among children. This body was succeeded by the " Legislative Assembly," composed of 745 members, mostly from the middle class, and mainly chosen under the influence of the Jacobin club. The party of the right, the Feuillants or royalists, had little power. The left, forming the majority, was partly composed of moderate republicans (styled "the Plain," as occupying lower seats), who included the Girondists, so named because leading members represented Bordeaux, in the new Gironde department, or Brissotins, from a leader named Brissot. This body, republicans famous from ability, eloquence, and their tragical end, included Gensonne, Vergniaud, Guadet, Petion, Roland, Barbaroux, Condorcet, Valaze, and Buzot. The " Mountain " party, so called from occupying the highest seats on the left side of the hall, was that of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, or advanced revolutionists, the supporters of a " united, indivisible republic." It was foreign interference with the domestic affairs of France 540 A History of the World that wrought mischief at this time. In reply to the Pillnitz conven- tion, the new Assembly was compelled by the public voice to pass severe measures against the emigres, or self-exiled nobles, and the priests who refused to swear allegiance to the new constitution. The king was, at this crisis, refusing to sanction the decrees of the legislature, and maintaining a correspondence with the enemies of his country. In February, 1792, an alliance was made between Prussia and Austria, and Leopold, on his death, was succeeded by his son Francis. In April war was declared against Austria, and the inexperienced republican troops suffered defeat on the northern and eastern frontiers. Popular fury was aroused in Paris, and on June 20th the Tuileries palace was invaded by the mob, and the king was insulted by being compelled to assume the bonnet rouge, or red cap, which was a symbol of republican views. In July Prussia declared war, and her general, the duke of Brunswick, issued a manifesto, in which he threatened France with " military execution " if Louis were personally ill-treated. The natural result of this monstrous folly was another outburst of revolutionary violence in the French capital. On the famous " Tenth of August " the mob stormed the Tuileries and slaughtered the Swiss guard, who were ordered by Louis, in his misplaced mercy, to cease firing at the moment when their heroic resistance was gaining the upper hand of the "Sections." The king was then suspended from his func- tions, and kept as a close prisoner with his family in the tower of the " Temple," the old house of the Knights Templars. Lafayette, as a royalist leader, was impeached, but escaped by flight, and became a prisoner for some years in the hands of the Austrians. The capture of Verdun by the Prussians, in whose ranks many of the French emigres were found, caused another outburst. The prisons of Paris were full of royalists and " constitutionalists," and these people, including numerous priests and ladies, became the victims of the terrible " September massacres," instigated by the city-council and by Danton, the minister of justice. Many hundreds thus died in Paris, and like outrages occurred in some provincial cities. A turning-point in the history of the Revolution, of France, and of Europe, came in the success, on September 20th, at Valmy, in the woody and hilly Argonne district of the north-east, of the troops under Dumouriez and Kellermann, against the Prussians com- manded by the duke of Brunswick. Referring readers, for full details, again to Creasy's delightful and instructive work, the Decisive The French Revolution and Napoleon 541 Battles, we may state that here, for the first time in this war, the French forces, defending their country against unjust aggression, made a firm stand, and compelled the foe to retire. The democracy of France was now decided in its warlike character ; the new levies gained confidence and courage; and the nucleus thus arose of the military force which was afterwards wielded with such effect by the greatest conqueror of modern days. On September 2 1st the "National Convention," superseding the Assembly, came into existence as a body composed entirely of republicans, 749 members in all, with the Girondists, or moderates, as the right wing, and the " Mountain," or Jacobins, on the left. Monarchy was at once abolished, and a republic was set up. The French troops were victorious in the Austrian Netherlands and on the Rhine, and the new republic at once took an aggressive attitude towards European monarchies by offering aid to all peoples desiring to change the system of rule. On January 21st, 1793, the king, condemned by a vast majority of votes for treason to France, died by beheading, and war was then declared against Great Britain, Holland, and Spain. In March the terrible " Revolutionary Tribunal " was established for the trial of offences against the state, and a struggle began in the Convention between the Girondists and the Jacobins. The extreme party, outvoted in the debates, but backed by the armed force of the " Sections," and aided by their own ferocious energy and resolution, won the day. In April the " Committee of Public Safety " was founded, ultimately composed of 12 members, invested with supreme administrative power. The leaders were Danton, Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Carnot (the famous director of military affairs), and Collot d'Herbois. The commune of Paris, acting through its committee of 20, sitting at the Hotel de Ville, also exercised great power. Under the influence of this last body, 31 of the leading Girondists were arrested in June, and some, as Vergniaud, Gensonne, Brissot, and their friend Madame Roland, wife of a leading Girondist, died in Paris by the guillotine. Some escaped from the capital, but nearly all perished in the end, in the provinces, by the axe, or by suicide with poison or steel. The " Reign of Terror " had fairly begun. In July, Marat, one of the most bloodthirsty fanatics, died by the dagger of Charlotte Corday, styled by Lamartine "the angel of assassination." Revolu- tionary committees throughout the country executed slaughter in various forms — by the axe, musketry, grape-shot, drowning — at Bordeaux, Arras, Nantes, and other towns where opponents of the 542 A History of the World extreme party were found. We need not give details of these atrocities, or of the atheistic follies which attended organised murder in Paris. The more violent revolutionists were alike foolish and wicked. Their absurdities and excesses paved the way for reaction, and for a period of despotic rule in their own country. They supplied the enemies of popular rights with telling arguments and illustrations against political concessions to the body of the people. They injured the cause of liberty in other lands. The first French Revolution, by creating a panic amongst the selfish and comfortable classes, and by arousing prejudice even amongst the sincere promoters of political development, postponed for 40 years the granting of parliamentary reform in the British Isles. The over-ardent French advocates of popular freedom, by seeking to impose the new revolutionary system on neighbouring states, caused a long and desolating European war in which some millions of men perished on the battle-field or by disease, and the progress of civilisation was, in some important respects, postponed for half a century. As for the sufferings and losses of the French nobility, with all due pity for the many innocent victims included among them, the privileged class reaped only what it had sown. A whole people had been oppressed. The lower class, in town and country alike, had been allowed to exist in misery and ignorance, and, suddenly possessed of power, they inevitably misused it. It may, however, be confidently asserted, that the amount of human suffering, in France itself, inflicted by revolutionary violence in the Reign of Terror, was exceeded a hundredfold by the misery of the people in the long years preceding the day of retribution. Successes of the allies against French troops, and anti-revolution- ary risings in the south and west of France, soon demanded the attention of the Committee of Public Safety. Mainz (Mayence) was retaken, and Valenciennes was captured by the allies. Toulon was occupied by the English, aiding the royalist party, and many French men-of-war were taken or destroyed. Carnot took energetic measures, and a general levy of the male population soon placed 14 armies in the field. The opponents of the republic at Lyon and other towns were crushed with merciless severity. The execution of Marie Antoinette, in October, 1793, was followed by more republican defeats on the Rhine frontier. Then the tide turned. The allies, in December, were forced to retreat, and the capture of Toulon by the republican forces was due to the young artillery- officer Napoleon Bonaparte. Early in 1794 Robespierre brought The French Revolution and Napoleon 543 to the scaffold his opponents of the extreme party — Hebert, Chaumette, and others — and the more moderate members of the " Mountain," Danton and Desmoulins. In June the victory of Fleurus drove the allies from the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium). A month more and Robespierre fell, with Couthon and St. Just, in the movement of July 27th, or the "9th Thermidor " in the revolutionary calendar. The " Reign of Terror " ended with their execution, and the establishment of a more moderate rule, with the closing of the Jacobin club, was followed early in 1 795 by the suc- cess of the French armies in every quarter. The English troops were driven out of Holland, and the " Batavian Republic " was founded. The formidable royalist revolt in La Vendee, on the west coast, between the Loire and the Charente, was quelled after a three-years' struggle, and the French republic, crime-stained as it was, became an established fact through the valour, energy, and patriotism of a people resolved to be masters in their own country. Prussia con- cluded the Peace of Basle, in which Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse- Cassel joined, ceding the left bank of the Rhine to France. At the same time Spain, after warfare on the southern frontier, ceded St. Domingo to the republic, and restored all other territories. In October, 1795, a revolt of the " Sections," instigated by the royalists in Paris, was crushed by Bonaparte on the day styled " 13th Vende- miaire " in the new calendar. The system of rule was now changed. The National Convention which had existed for over three years was superseded by the " Directory," the chief members in the executive body of five being Carnot and Barras. Legislative power was vested in a chamber of 500 for proposing laws, while a " chamber of ancients," or " council of elders," approved or rejected them. The war with Austria continued, and important events rapidly came. South Germany was invaded by armies under Jourdan and Moreau, and Baden, Wiirtemberg, and Bavaria were forced to terms. Then a new actor came on the scene in the famous Archduke Charles of Austria, brother of the emperor Francis, and destined to prove himself one of the ablest generals of the age. In the summer of 1796 he defeated and drove back Jourdan, and, turning then on Moreau, he forced him to his retreat through the Black Forest, memorable for the skill displayed by the consummate commander in charge of the French forces. The command in Italy was given by the Directory to a still greater general than the archduke or Moreau, one of the greatest in all history, the man who, born the son of a Corsican lawyer, united " all the brilliance of a Frenchman to all the 36 544 A History of the World resolute profundity of an Italian, and reared in, yet only half be- lieving, the ideas of the Encyclopaedists, was swept up into the seat of absolute power by the whirlwind of a revolution." As the leader of a fiery and warlike nation, drunk with revolutionary fury, Napoleon, seeking to rival Caesar and Charlemagne, was able to found in Europe an almost universal empire. A vast literature has gathered around the career of the world-famous man who entered Italy in the spring of 1796, and for the space of nearly 20 years made his own history almost identical with that of Europe. This is no place for any analysis of the character of a great bad man, who wrought infinite mischief combined with much good, and left the world its sternest warning against ambition and fatalism. In the proclamation which he issued to the troops on assuming the Italian command, Bonaparte gave the keynote of French policy in that age by invoking the spirit of self-interest and plunder. The system of war supporting itself was introduced, and all needful supplies were taken at the bayonet's point from the people of invaded territories. Success in the field was often due to this rough method, but in the end the hostility which w r as thus aroused against those who behaved like mere brigands was fatal to the perpetrators. In one of the most brilliant of campaigns, the young general of the Directory routed the troops of the Piedmontese and the Austrians, winning the victories of Lodi and Castiglione, Areola and Rivoli, and many others of less note. Milan was deprived of many works of art, which were sent to Paris ; Mantua was captured ; Venice was robbed of Verona and other towns. The Pope, and the governments of Naples, Modena, and Parma, were frightened into submission, and then, in the spring of 1797, the conqueror crossed the Alps into the Tyrol, and in several actions drove back the Archduke Charles. He was advancing on Vienna when the emperor sued for peace, and in October the Treaty of Campo Formio ceded the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) to France, and gave up Lombardy to form part of a new " Cisalpine Republic " in the north of Italy. An iniquitous arrangement made an end of the Venetian republic by transfer of her territory, in a large part, to Austria, and of the Ionian Islands to France. Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to the victorious republic, and Bonaparte was received at Paris with boundless enthusiasm by the people, and, by the corrupt Directory, with greetings which veiled a jealous fear of his ambition. Bonaparte's next military enterprise took him to Egypt, whither he was sent by the Directory in May, 1798, at his own desire, in The French Revolution and Napoleon 545 pursuance of his gigantic plans of Eastern conquest, aimed against British predominance in India. The French expedition, on its voyage from Toulon, was lucky in escaping the vigilant Nelson, and, capturing Malta on the way from the Knights of St. John, arrived at Alexandria on June 30th. Then came the famous " Battle of the Pyramids " in which the Mamluks were overthrown, and the capture of Cairo. On August 1st Nelson's destruction of the French fleet at the battle of the Nile (Aboukir Bay) cut the invading army off from the chance of return, and Bonaparte, passing into Syria, won some victories over the Turkish troops, but had his dreams as regards the East dispelled by his failure to capture St. Jean d'Acre, after desperate assaults and a siege of 60 days. In October, 1799, escaping the British cruisers, he was back in Paris, where he found himself called upon to deal with a grave condition of affairs at home and abroad. Looking first to Italy, we find that in 1798 Rome had been taken by the French, and its palaces, churches, and convents stripped of their works of art. Pope Pius VI. went as a prisoner to France, where he soon afterwards died. Naples was overrun, and the " Roman " and " Parthenopoean Republics " were established. Sicily was safe through the presence of British ships in the Mediterranean, but the whole mainland of Italy was now under French control. A second coalition against France was formed, including Russia, now under the emperor Paul I., Austria, and Great Britain. An invasion of the Netherlands by an army under the duke of York ended in a capitulation of the British troops. In Germany and Switzerland the Archduke Charles defeated Jourdan and Massena, and most of Italy was recovered for a time by Austrian forces and by Russians under Suwarof (Suwarrow), whom we have seen victorious over the Turks. The king of Naples returned to his dominions, where a terrible vengeance was wreaked on the " liberal " (republican) party, and the Parthenopaean (so called from the ancient Parthenope, a Greek colony on the site of Naples) and Roman Republics came to an end. In France the Directory had now fallen into discredit, and Bonaparte, as the political ally of Sieyes, one of the body, made an end of that form of government on November 9th, 1799 ( tne C0le P d'etat of the " 18th Brumaire "), and established the Consulate, nominally of three " consuls " as the executive body, but in reality a monarchy, with Bonaparte as " First Consul," elected for ten years. In Switzerland the military genius of Massena, after some terrible fighting, restored matters for France, and Suwarof withdrew to Russia. The new 546 A History of the World administration of France included prefectures for departments, and subprefectures for arrondissements (districts, subdivisions of depart- ments), and thus arose the still existing centralised system. An arbitrary rule, repealing the revolutionary laws and decrees, established a censorship of the press and political espionage, and so prepared the way for imperial government. When matters were arranged at home, Bonaparte again took the field. Crossing the St. Bernard pass in May, 1800, the great com- mander surprised the Austrians under Melas, and captured Milan, and then, after movements involving very brilliant but hazardous strategy, encountered the enemy on June 14th, on the plains of Marengo, near Alessandria, and fought a battle which, in the moment of defeat, was turned into a French victory by the fortunate arrival of a detached column led by Desaix, and by a happy cavalry -charge under the famous (younger) Kellermann. Massena, meanwhile, had been left to endure defeat from superior forces of Austrians, and to be starved into surrender at Genoa, after a terrible blockade during which 15,000 people died of famine. The battle of Marengo was followed by a convention with Melas which surrendered to France most of northern Italy. In Germany the French under Moreau won some battles against the Austrians and entered Munich in July, and on December 3rd, 1800, the same great general defeated the Archduke John in the famous battle of Hohenlinden. In February, 1801, the Peace of Luneville, concluded with Germany, extended the French frontier to the left bank of the Rhine ; recognised the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian (Genoa) Republics, and rearranged German territory in a shamefully unjust way for the benefit of minor German princes. In America, Spain ceded Louisiana to France, who sold the territory, in 1803, to the United States. Turning now to events in Egypt, we find that Kleber, left in command by Bonaparte, utterly defeated the Turks, in March, 1800, and was murdered at Cairo in June by a Moslem fanatic. In March, i8ci, the British expedition under the gallant Sir Ralph Abercrombie defeated the French under Kleber's successor Menou, at the battle of Aboukir (or Alexandria), in which the British commander was mortally wounded. Then his successor, General Hutchinson, received the surrender of Alexandria and Cairo, and the French forces, evacuating Egypt, were conveyed to their country by the British fleet. In July, 1801, after the re -establishment of the Church in France, a " Concordat " was made with the Pope (Pius VII., Great Britain and Ireland I 789-1 802) 547 1800-1823), whereby the French prelates were to be appointed and supported by the government, and confirmed by the Pope. The Papal States, diminished by the loss of Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna, were well governed by the new Pontiff in the encouragement of trade and manufactures, and an economical administration of affairs. We must now view some events in the British Isles, and our share in the naval warfare during this period. George III., a man who would have made a good farmer in that age, was a pious personage in his private life, but a deplorable failure as a king — obstinate, wrong-headed, always more or less insane. He was the last British sovereign who took an active and powerful part in ruling. Resolved to break down the Whig oligarchy which had so long held political sway in both Houses, he " managed " the House of Commons through the vast wealth which enabled him to purchase votes. His " Civil List," the annual income voted for the royal expenses, was about a million sterling, and this was supplemented by the royal revenues in Scotland and the revenue of Hanover, while further influence was given to the king by the possession of great patronage in Church and State — the power of nomination to countless posts of emolument, and to sinecures or places on the extensive pension-list. He carefully watched the division-lists in the Commons, and the use of parliamentary influence in other ways, and promotion in the Church, the civil service, and in the army and navy was made dependent on support of the ministers whom the king approved. Public opinion and the power of the press were thus the only restraints upon a system of jobbery and favouritism to which some disasters in war were due. The skill and courage of British admirals and sailors were the country's main defence against commercial ruin, invasion, and subjugation. In domestic affairs, the disgraceful Gordon or No-Popery riots of 1780 in London, a monstrous outbreak of bigotry and violence, showed the neglect of education and religious training among the masses. The repeal, in 1778, of a severe act against Catholics, long really obsolete, was resented by Protestant fanatics, and a half-witted Scot, Lord George Gordon, took the lead in rousing the brutal mob of the capital. For some days they were the masters of London ; the scenes which occurred are well described in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge. In a speech on popular education, delivered in the House of Commons in April, 1847, the most brilliant of British historians said: "The ignorance of the common people makes the property, the limbs, the 548 A History of the World lives of all classes insecure. Without the shadow of a grievance, at the summons of a madman, 100,000 people rise in insurrection. During a whole week, there is anarchy in the greatest and wealthiest of European cities. The parliament is besieged. Your predecessor (the Speaker) sits trembling in his chair, and expects every moment to see the door beaten in by the ruffians whose roar he hears all round the House. The peers are pulled out of their coaches. The bishops in their lawn are forced to fly over the tiles. The chapels of foreign ambassadors, buildings made sacred by the law of nations, are destroyed. The house of the Chief Justice is demolished. The little children of the Prime Minister are taken out of their beds and laid in their night-clothes on the table of the Horse Guards, the only safe asylum from the fury of the rabble. The prisons are opened. Highwaymen, housebreakers, murderers, come forth to swell the mob by which they have been set free. 36 fires are blazing at once in London. Then comes the retribution. Count up all the wretches who were shot, who were hanged, who were crushed, who drank themselves to death at the rivers of gin which ran down Holborn Hill ; and you will find that battles have been lost and won with a smaller sacrifice of life. And what was the cause of this calamity, a calamity which, in the history of London, ranks with the great plague and the great fire ? The cause was the ignorance of a population which had been suffered, in the neigh- bourhood of palaces, theatres, temples, to grow up as rude and stupid as any tribe of tattooed cannibals in New Zealand, as any drove of beasts in Smithfield Market." William Pitt the younger, prime minister from 1783 to 1801, was always a Whig (or Liberal) in his heart and in his policy, until the reaction due to the excesses of the French revolutionists drove him to repressive measures which caused him to be the idol of Tory partisans and timid patriots. He made a vain attempt at parlia- mentary reform, defeated by the king's influence, and showed his wisdom in finance by reducing duties on tea and spirits, to the great discouragement of smuggling in those articles. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended from 1794 to 1801, and under the Traitorous Correspondence Act (1793), forbidding intercourse with France, an Alien Act, and the Treasonable Practices and Seditious Meetings Acts, many persons were severely punished, not only for really seditious words and writings, but for opposition to and criticism of the king, government, and constitution, and for attendance at meetings to discuss grievances. British freedom was lessened Great Britain and Ireland (1789— 1802) 549 when, in 1799, another Act suppressed certain societies for parliamentary and administrative reform, and all debating clubs. In warlike affairs, brilliant success was won at sea. On the " glorious First of June," 1794, Lord Howe completely defeated the French fleet off Ushant, with seven ships taken and one sunk, and thereby stopped an invasion of our coasts. In 1796 we were confronted by combined naval forces of France, Holland, and Spain ; and another plan for invasion of the British Isles was formed, with the assemblage of squadrons at Brest and Cadiz, and at Texel, an island at the entrance to the Zuyder Zee. In February, 1797, the Spanish part of the enterprise was disposed of in the battle of St. Vincent (off the cape of that name on the south-west coast of Portugal), where Sir John Jervis (afterwards Earl St. Vincent), with 15 ships, routed a hostile force of 27, capturing several first-rates. Every Briton knows or should know that Commodore Nelson, as second-in-com- mand, did most of the work on that day, and that Collingwood and Trowbridge were also distinguished. In the same year shameful ill-treatment of the gallant tars caused dangerous mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. In the former instance the mutineers were appeased by the just and popular Lord Howe ; at the Nore, concessions were made to proper demands, and vigorous measures of attack caused the surrender of the ringleaders. In October, 1797, the projected Dutch invasion of Ireland, in conjunction with a French fleet, was ruined by the noble Admiral Duncan, first earl of Camperdown, off the place of that name on the Dutch coast. 1 1 ships were captured, and two years later, in 1799, Admiral Mitchell forced the surrender, off Texel, of 12 Dutch men-of-war and 13 " Indiamen." In northern Europe, a combination against Great Britain, first formed in 1780, was revived by Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark, under the name of the " Northern Convention," or " Armed Neutrality." This arrangement denied to us the right of search on neutral ships which might be carrying munitions of war to our foes. In those days it was not the custom of British ministers, with all their faults, to argue with insolent aggression, but to strike promptly and to strike hard. Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson, as second-in-command, on this occasion doing all the work, was sent to Copenhagen in April, 1 80 1, with a fleet, and after a desperate action with the Danish ships and forts he compelled Denmark's withdrawal from the con- federation, already on the way to dissolution from the murder, in March, of the emperor Paul I. of Russia, who was succeeded by his son, Alexander I. 550 A History of the World Some important matters occurred in the development of British freedom. The House of Commons, which did not really represent the people, in being largely controlled by the Crown and by great landowners, showed itself hostile to electoral rights in the case of John Wilkes, who had become notorious as the assailant of the government in his newspaper the North Briton. In 1763 he was arrested, along with nearly 50 other persons — alleged authors, printers, and publishers of the " libel " — under a " general warrant," meaning one in which no name is mentioned, authorising the officers of the law to arrest any suspected persons. Wilkes, the avowed author of the article, was at once released, under writ of Habeas Corpus, by Chief-Justice Pratt, afterwards the first Lord Camden, >on pleading his privilege as M.P. ; but the important part of the matter was that the Chief-Justice declared "general warrants" to be illegal documents, and Wilkes and others recovered substantial damages for unlawful arrest. In 1769 he was thrice elected for Middlesex and thrice rejected by the Commons, the seat being given to an opponent who had but a small minority of votes. After a long contest, Wilkes, again elected for Middlesex in 1774, took his seat, and in 1782 he carried a motion which caused the resolutions of the Commons, rejecting him from membership, to be expunged from the journals "as subversive of the rights of electors." The news- paper press was also at issue with the- Commons on the question of the publication of debates. In 1771, after the imprisonment of certain printers for publishing reports of proceedings in the House, the Commons tacitly yielded the point at issue, and became hence- forth more responsible to public opinion through the establishment of " free reporting." The public press, besides, being hampered, so far as newspapers were concerned, by the oppressive stamp-duty, under George III., of fourpence on every full-sized sheet, was controlled by the very severe laws of libel. In 1764 Lord Mansfield, Chief-Justice, decided that the judge alone could deal with the matter of a libel, or determine whether the published words were criminal or not, and that the jury had only to decide on the fact of publication. Newspapers and other publications criticising the government were thus at the mercy of judges, but in 1791 the illustrious Whig orator Charles James Fox caused the passing of the Libel Act which rendered juries, in criminal trials for libel, judges of the libel itself, as well as of the fact of publication. In Ireland, in the reign of George III., important events took place. The penal laws against Catholics had, as time went on, been Great Britain and Ireland (i 789-1 802) 551 much modified in action, but there were still abundant grievances for Irish patriots. An opportunity came in 1779, when many thousands of volunteers, raised to encounter possible French invasion, backed the parliamentary leaders Henry Grattan and Henry Hood. The repeal of Poynings' Acts was followed by legislation which allowed Catholics to hold land, erect schools, and enjoy other common rights of British subjects, and in 1782 the country had an independent Parliament, a body which existed for 18 years. The Irish House of Commons, wholly Protestant, was a very corrupt assembly, returned chiefly through the influence, in small boroughs, of the government and of a few great nobles. In 1780 and 1782 Protestant dissenters in Ireland obtained political freedom, and the great majority of the people in Ulster, who were Presbyterians in religious belief, were thus enabled to hold civil, military, and municipal posts. Some degree of freedom had been given to trade, but the efforts of the enlightened Pitt in that direction were frustrated by the jealousy of English merchants, manufacturers, agriculturists, and cattle-breeders. The country soon fell into confusion. The Catholics, excluded from Parliament, banded themselves together against the payment of rent to the landlords and tithes to the Protestant clergy. Catholic " Defenders " in the north fought with Protestant " Peep-o'-Day Boys." Then the " Orange " lodges, composed of extreme Protestants, were formed, and a new source of anarchy thus arose. The French Revolution, at its outbreak, brought together both Protestants and Catholics, under Rowan and Wolfe Tone, in the body called the " Society of United Irishmen," founded at Belfast in 1790. The Parliament was thus forced, in 1792-93, to remove many existing Catholic grievances. Catholics were admitted at last to the parliamentary franchise and to the legal profession. They were free to dispose of property by sale or by will, to marry Protestants, to educate their children, to worship in their own way, and to hold the lower civil and military offices. The " United Irishmen," under Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, at last adopted republican ideas, and, aiming at independ- ence of Great Britain, appealed to France for aid. An expedition, in 1796, under the famous Hoche, was dispersed by a storm, and other attempts at invasion were baffled by British squadrons. Matters came to a head through cruel measures of repression, and in 1798 a rebellion took place. Enniscorthy and Wexford were taken by the rebels, and some cruelties were perpetrated on Protestants, but on June 21st the main force was broken up in the 552 A History of the World battle of Vinegar Hill by General Lake, and then the most brutal severity was employed by the agents of the British government. Pitt saw the only remedy for the miserable condition of affairs in a legislative union, and by a free use of intimidation, coercion, bribery, and corruption he managed, in June 1800, to pass the Bill through the Irish Parliament. The Act of Union, coming into force on January 1st, 1801, gave Ireland 100 members in the Imperial Parliament (Commons) at Westminster, and placed for that country, in the Lords, four bishops of the Protestant Church, sitting by rotation, and 28 temporal peers, chosen for life by the general body of Irish nobles. Free trade between Great Britain and Ireland began, and the Union flag added the cross of St. Patrick to the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, united in 1707. The stupid bigotry and prejudice of the half-mad king, who protested that to admit Catholics to Parliament would be a violation of his coronation-oath, compelled Pitt to break the promises which, in conjunction with the Whig leaders, he had wished to fulfil, in the Union Act, as the price paid to the Irish Catholics for their assent to the legislative union. Pitt then retired from office, for a time, in disgust. In March, 1802, the war ended for a brief space with the Peace of Amiens. We need not discuss the terms of what was a mere truce, and only note that Trinidad was ceded to Great Britain by Spain, and Ceylon by the " Batavian Republic" (Holland). The position of Napoleon, as we shall henceforth style " Bonaparte," in France was much strengthened by the conclusion of peace after brilliant successes in war. It was at this time that he did the best work of his life, in creating institutions and executing works which have survived all changes in the country for whose benefit they were devised. The judicial system and local government were placed on a firm basis. The Bank of France arose. The Uni- versity was reorganised as an incorporated body of teachers who had passed a state-examination, and the whole system of higher education came under the control of the government. The " Institut National" was rearranged into four " academies "—the Academie Frangaise, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Academie des Sciences, and Academie des Beaux-Arts, originally founded under Louis XIV., or, in the case of the Academie Branfaise, under his predecessor. A new order of chivalry, the Legion of Honour, since much degraded by indiscriminate admissions to its ranks, was founded. Much was done for the promotion of agriculture, The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 553 manufactures, and commerce. A general amnesty allowed the royalist emigres to return to France. A court and a brilliant society again existed in Paris, and a monarch arose when a popular vote {plebiscite) of 3,500,000, in August, 1802, confirmed Napoleon as Consul for life, with the right of appointing a successor. The chief jurists of the nation, under the great man's own supervision, took in hand the Code Napoleon, the most famous of the modern codes of law, a splendid simplification published between 1804 and 1810, a great boon to France, which became, wholly or in part, the model for many Continental systems of law, as in Italy, Belgium, Greece, and Rhenish Germany. The Louvre Gallery in Paris was formed with the works of art stolen from Italy, and superficial observers thought that France was started anew on a peaceful and prosperous career. They knew not the vast ambition and the unscrupulous arrogance of the new ruler. He was eager for wider sway, and — fatal mistake of his career — -he could not rest until he had humbled Great Britain, the power he should have sought, above all others, to conciliate and to render neutral. Chapter II. — The Napoleonic War (1803-1815). The renewal of the struggle was mainly due to Napoleon's aggressive action in northern Italy, Switzerland, and Holland ; to the retention, by Great Britain, of the island of Malta, taken by our forces in 1800, in conjunction with the people, who had risen against their French masters ; to the French ruler's monstrous demand for the suppression of every publication in the British Isles which criticised his proceed- ings, and for the expulsion of all French refugees ; and to his grossly insulting conduct, in presence of the diplomatic body at the Tuileries, towards the British ambassador, Lord Whitworth. As regards Italy, in 1802, Napoleon seized Elba, annexed Piedmont and the duchy of Parma, and made himself head of the " Italian " (formerly " Cisalpine ") Republic. He retained military possession of Holland, and made an armed " mediation " in Swiss affairs. Malta, according to the Amiens treaty, should have been restored to the Knights of St. John, but the British government declined to do this, because, in Napoleon's hostile attitude, they deemed the possession of the island needful for British interests in the Mediter- ranean, and the Maltese people expressed their preference for our rule over that of the Knights. On the fresh outbreak of war in May, 1803, the law of nations was violated in the seizure, and 554 A History of the World detention for 1 1 years, of British residents and travellers, to the number of about 10,000, in France and Holland. Hanover was occupied by French troops, and almost ruined by exactions. A vast force was gathered at Boulogne for the invasion of England, and our shores were thus threatened with a descent until the summer of 1805. National enthusiasm was strongly aroused in both countries, and the danger to England was very great. In May, 1S04, Napoleon, after driving his rival Moreau to exile in America on a charge of conspiracy, and the deliberate murder, by shooting at Vincennes, of the due d'Enghien — a Bourbon prince of the Conde line, lawlessly seized on Baden territory — became " Emperor of the French," with hereditary succession in the male line, either in children of his own, or by adoption of children of his brothers, or by succession of his brothers Joseph and Louis Bonaparte. Pius VII. came to Paris for the coronation, but he was treated with scant respect, as the emperor crowned himself and Josephine with his own hands. A brilliant imperial court was established, with an array of grand dignitaries and a new nobility, while 14 marshals, including Davout and Lannes, Massena and Soult, Ney and Murat, Jourdan and Kellermann, were created for the chief commands in the imperial armies. In May, 1805, Napoleon was crowned " King of Italy," in the cathedral at Milan ; Josephine's son, Eugene Beauharnais, became viceroy of Naples ; and the " Ligurian Republic " (Genoa) was annexed to France. In May, 1804, William Pitt came again to the head of affairs in Great Britain, and, when Spain joined France in hostilities, the British minister formed the "Third Coalition," including Russia, Austria, and Sweden. It was in the summer of 1805 that the danger of invasion of our shores reached its height. A fleet of about 600 gun-vessels and other small worships was gathered at Boulogne, with more than 500 transports, protected by countless batteries ashore. At Calais, Dunkirk, Ambleteuse, and Ostend there were above 1,300 armed and about 1,000 unarmed craft, and these, with the Boulogne flotilla, were capable of carrying 150,000 men and 9,000 horses. Six army-corps were organised, under leaders including Ney, Soult, Davout, Murat, and Lannes, and the one thing needed was to obtain for a few hours the command of the narrow part of the Channel. Constant practice had trained 100,000 men to embark on the vessels in 40 minutes, and 70 sail of the line, French and Spanish, were at Napoleon's command. Nelson, blockading Villeneuve's fleet, at Toulon, in March, 1805, The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 55 5 was driven off by bad weather, and then the French admiral got out of harbour and sailed for the West Indies, drawing Nelson away in pursuit, but at 30 days' sail in the rear. Villeneuve then doubled back to Europe, to pick up the Spanish fleet and start for the Channel. On July 22nd Sir Robert Calder, apprised by Nelson, who sent on a swift-sailing frigate, of Villeneuve's return-voyage, attacked that admiral near Cape Finisterre, and captured two ships in an action made indecisive by foggy weather and light winds. It was this seemingly slight incident that spoiled all Napoleon's plans. There was a powerful Spanish squadron at Ferrol ; there were French fleets at Rochefort and Brest : they all awaited the leadership of Villeneuve; but that irresolute and nerveless commander, in dread of Nelson, disobeyed Napoleon's positive orders to sail for Brest, unite the fleet there with his own, and then hasten to Boulogne. The road was really open, as Nelson, in ignorance of Villeneuve's position, was cruising off Cape St. Vincent, and Calder had sailed with his two prizes for Plymouth. Villeneuve, however, went off to Cadiz, and reached that port on the very day that Napoleon expected him to be at Brest. The signal-posts (semaphores) were all ready, and staff-officers were placed along the coast for many leagues from Boulogne to the west"; but Napoleon looked in vain for his admiral, blockaded now in Cadiz by Colling- wood. Thus was Britain saved. The arrival of Nelson in the Channel made the enterprise hopeless, and Napoleon turned the splendid force at Boulogne to account in his finest campaign. In September, 1805, he marched for Austria, forced General Mack to surrender at Ulm with 30,000 men, entered Vienna as a conqueror, and on December 2nd, in the magnificent battle of Austerlitz, totally defeated the combined Russian and Austrian forces, in presence of the two emperors. The coalition was broken up. Pitt, already in weak health, received his death-blow, and ended his life early in 1806. Austria at once sued for peace, which was obtained by her surrender to France of all the Venetian territory ceded to her by the Treaty of Campo Formio, with Istria and Dalmatia ; by her recognition of Napoleon as " King of Italy " ; by the cession to Bavaria of Tyrol and other territory ; and by the granting of all remaining western Austrian lands to Wiirtemberg and Baden. The " Holy Roman Empire " now came formally to an end, and Francis assumed the title of " Emperor of Austria." Bavaria and Wiirtemberg became "kingdoms," and in July, 1806, the old empire was replaced by the " Confederation of the Rhine," $ 56 A History of the World with Napoleon as " Protector." Louis Bonaparte, the conqueror's third brother, was created king of Holland, and his elder brother, Joseph, king of Naples. It is needless to inform British readers that the control of the seas, for the rest of the war, had been secured for Great Britain, on October 21st, 1805, by Nelson's crowning victory of Trafalgar. In the autumn of 1806 Prussia, now under the rule of the well- meaning but weak Frederick William III. (1 797-1840), grand-nephew of Frederick the Great, in indignation at Napoleon's dealings with Germany, declared war against Napoleon, in alliance with Russia and Saxony. The struggle, as regarded Prussia, was very short and quite decisive. The Prussian military system was now cumbrous and antiquated, and the commanders were ill-fitted to cope with their adversaries. The great defeats of Jena and Auerstadt, on .October 14th, laid the monarchy in the dust. Berlin was occupied ; all the fortresses were soon passively surrendered or taken. The lasting hatred of the people was earned by the victor's unmanly treatment of their beautiful, graceful, gentle, benevolent, and patriotic queen Louisa, whose energy and resolution of character were dis- played in the darkest hour of her country's fortunes. The museums and picture-galleries were robbed of their choicest treasures. Napoleon then received the submission of Saxony, the elector entering the Rhine Confederacy as " king," and marched eastwards to meet the Russians. On February 7th and 8th, 1807, the in- decisive battle of Eylau was fought, with fearful bloodshed, amidst ice and snow, about 23 miles south of Konigsberg. In this great contest a Prussian corps repulsed the French right wing under Davout, but the allies, on the second night, left the field to the foe and retired on Konigsberg. In May, Danzig was taken after a brave defence, and in June the war ended with Napoleon's great victory over Alexander I. of Russia at Friedland, about 26 miles south- east of Konigsberg. The Peace of Tilsit, concluded in July, created a new " duchy of Warsaw " out of Prussian territory ; recognised Napoleon's new kingdoms in Italy, Holland, and Germany, and his Rhine Confederacy ; made a secret alliance of Russia with France against Great Britain, if the latter power continued the war ; ceded to Napoleon all Prussian territory between the Rhine and the Elbe ; closed all Russian and Prussian ports to British ships and British trade during war between Great Britain and France ; and, most humiliating of all for Prussia, restricted the number of her standing army to 42,000 men, and exacted a war-indemnity of 140,000,000 The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 557 francs (over ,£5,500,000 sterling), with occupation of the fortresses and remaining territory by 150,000 troops, at the charges of Prussia, until all arrears were paid. Prussia was thus deprived of 43,000 square miles of territory, or nearly half the whole, and of 5,000,000 inhabitants. Some of the territory ceded between the Elbe and the Rhine, together with Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel, and a part of Hanover, became the new kingdom of Westphalia, under Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte. It was at this time that the French conqueror started his famous " Continental System," intended to ruin the British commerce. In the " Berlin Decree" of November, 1806, he declared the British Isles to be in a state of blockade, and forbade all intercourse and correspondence with them. No trade in English goods was per- mitted, and no ship coming direct from Britain or a British colony could enter any port. This challenge was soon taken up by the British government. In January, 1807, an "Order in Council" prohibited neutral vessels from entering any port belonging to France or her allies, or under French control, and every neutral vessel violating this order was made liable to confiscation with all its cargo. Another Order in Council, issued in November, 1807, placed under blockade all Continental and colonial ports of France and her allies, as well as those of every country which was at war with Great Britain and from which the British flag was excluded. Napoleon retorted with decrees issued from Milan in December, 1807, and from the Tuileries in January, 1808, treating as British, i.e. as hostile, and liable to capture and confiscation, any vessel, of any nation, that had been searched by a British ship, or had ever made a voyage to the British Isles, or had paid any duty to the British government. Most of the European countries were forced by France to join the " Continental System." The effects of this commercial internecine warfare were remarkable. The main purpose of Napoleon's decrees was frustrated by a vast smuggling-organisation which no vigilance could deal with, and the trade of Great Britain was benefited by an arrangement which, as her fleets and cruisers swept the seas, made it impossible to obtain colonial produce except through her. On the other hand, the high price of colonial sugar set the wits of Conti- nental chemists and manufacturers to work, and thus arose the now vast production of saccharine matter from beetroot. The really important effects of this commercial contest lay in a different direction. The Continental nations suffering from Napoleon's oppressive measures, devised in his deadly hatred of Great Britain. 558 A History of the World were aroused against him. His attack on Portugal, for refusal to submit to his " Decrees," brought into the arena of land-warfare Portugal's faithful ally, Great Britain, with results disastrous, in the end, to French military power. The war with Russia in 181 2 was mainly due to her refusal to adhere any longer to the " Continental System." On the other hand, the British policy, in reply to Napoleon's, with regard to neutral commerce, was chiefly responsible for our lamentable war with the United States in 1812-1815. An immediate result of the Treaty of Tilsit, the secret articles of which became known, by some means which he would never reveal, to Pitt's ablest pupil and follower, George Canning, Foreign Secretary in the Portland ministry, was the high-handed British attack on Denmark. Napoleon had conceived the idea of again contesting British supremacy in naval warfare, and, with this object, he thought of using the fleets of the northern nations, Sweden and Denmark. Canning anticipated this by the dispatch of an overwhelming force to Copenhagen in August, 1807. The surrender of the Danish fleet into British possession was refused, and only enforced after a fearful bombardment both by sea and land, in which the terrible rockets invented by and named from Sir William Congreve were for the first time used in war on a large scale. On September 8th the Danish fleet and arsenal-stores were given into our keeping, and the island of Heligoland, opposite the mouth of the Elbe, was taken from Denmark, to be used as a place of storage for British goods to be smuggled on to the Continent. We must now deal briefly with the remaining events of Napoleon's wondrous, eventful career. The great struggle known as the Penin- sular War was due to his wanton attack on Portugal for her refusal to join the " Continental System," and to his invasion of Spain, followed by the enticing of King Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand to Bayonne, where they were compelled to renounce the throne. There can be little doubt that Napoleon's desire to possess himself of the Peninsula was due to a plan for employing the territory as a new base of operations against British maritime, naval, and colonial power. In Portugal the mental incapacity of Queen Maria had caused, in 1799, the regency of her eldest son John. When the French marshal Junot entered the country, the royal family took ship for Brazil in November, 1807, making the capital, Rio de Janeiro, the seat of government, and leaving affairs at home in the hands of a. Junta-, or administrative body. Napoleon, in his arrogant way, then declared that " the House of Braganza had ceased to The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 559 reign." There was, however, a certain "general of sepoys," named Sir Arthur Wellesley, in reserve to deal with that question. In Spain the people rushed to arms when Napoleon's brother Joseph entered Madrid as the new king, his throne at Naples being given to the brilliant cavalry-commander, Marshal Murat. In the field the ill-trained, ill-provided, ill-commanded Spanish armies could do little against the French, but the people distinguished themselves by two heroic defences of Saragossa, and the peasantry, with irregular troops, did much harm to the enemy in relentless and skilled guerilla- warfare. The details of the struggle are well known from British history, and we here give only a rapid summary. On August 1st, 1808, a British army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed at Mondego Bay, on the west coast of Portugal. In a few weeks that general's victories at Rolica and Vimeira compelled the French forces to evacuate the country under the Convention of Cintra. Another expedition, under Sir John Moore, then landed in Portugal, and advanced to Salamanca, in the north-west of Spain. A retreat was forced by the arrival of Napoleon in person with overwhelming numbers, and this brief campaign ended, in January, 1809, with Moore's victory, at Coruiia, over Soult, his mortal wound, and the safe embarkation of the troops. In April, Sir Arthur Wellesley landed at Lisbon, after a brief supersession in his command by two incapables. In May his brilliant and daring passage of the Douro drove. Soult headlong out of Oporto into Spain. A two-days' battle at Talavera, in July, completely re-established the credit of British infantry in a victory gained by 19,000 young soldiers, little aided by Spaniards, over 30,000 excellent French troops. Wellesley became Viscount Wellington. In September, 1810, Wellington, retiring before greatly superior French forces under Massena and Ney, faced round and repulsed them on the ridge at Busaco, near Coimbra. He then withdrew and wintered in safety, never once attacked, within the admirable and impregnable lines of Torres Vedras, of his own design. Massena retreated into Spain, after incurring great losses of men from privation and disease. In 181 1 Wellington, following Massena, fought with him in May the drawn battle of Fuentes d'Onoro, in the west of Spain, and his great adversary was then recalled by Napoleon, who had ordered him to " drive the English into the sea," and was replaced by Marmont. In the same month Marshal Beresford, an Irish general in the Portuguese service, with a British and Spanish army, defeated Soult in the desperate battle of Albuera, near Badajoz. 37 560 A History of the World Wellington was obliged, by superior forces, to retreat to Portugal, after two repujses in attempts to storm Badajoz. In January, 181 2, the British commander fell suddenly on Ciudad Rodrigo, a strong fortress in the west of Spain, and took it by storm, and in April he assaulted and captured Badajoz, another frontier strong- hold, thus securing the Portuguese border and having a base of operations against the French in Spain. On July 22nd the great British commander fought and won the decisive battle of Salamanca against Marmont, and in August entered Madrid in triumph. This grand success was a turning-point, not only in the Peninsular War, but in the general European contest against Napoleon. The sound of the cannon of Salamanca, when the news was known, reverberated through Europe from the Tagus to the Niemen. The nations awoke to thoughts of near emancipation from a master's sway. Prussia, long planning vengeance for the past, felt that the day of her deliverance had dawned, and took fresh heart and hope. Russia resolved to make no terms of any kind with her advancing foe. Napoleon, now fully on the march to Moscow, heard of the defeat with bitter wrath against the hapless Marmont, and took it as an evil omen for events to come. The victor, already an earl for Badajoz, became a marquis, and, by a brief outburst of gratitude from the execrable Spanish government to- wards the man who delivered their country from the French, he was made general-in-chief of the Spanish armies, a Knight of the Golden Fleece (a dignity most rarely bestowed on foreigners), and duke of Ciudad Rodrigo. After a failure to capture Burgos, Wellington was again compelled, for the last time in his glorious career, to retreat before superior forces, beyond Ciudad Rodrigo, into Portugal. In 18 1 3, with the salute of " Good-bye, Portugal! " as he crossed the frontier, the British general entered Spain at the head of ioo,coo men, and, marching by Valladolid, drove the French before him in a campaign conducted with consummate skill. The enemy were brought to bay, under King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, on June 21st, at Vittoria, where Wellington won a complete victory, capturing all the French guns and baggage, with the army-chest, and driving the enemy off in rout towards the Pyrenees. On August 31st San Sebastian was stormed by Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch. Then, in the famous " Battles of the Pyrenees," Wellington forced Soult back into France, and, winning on French soil the battles of the Nivelle, Nive, St. Pierre, The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 561 Orthez, and Toulouse, entered Bordeaux as a conqueror in April, 1814. We must now follow Napoleon's fortunes during the years of the struggle against his forces in the Peninsula. In 1809 the Fifth Coalition against France was formed by Great Britain and Austria, with Portugal and Spain. Austrian forces, under the Archduke Charles, entered Bavaria, and the French emperor, hurrying to the scene of action, defeated him in several encounters, including the battle of Eckmuhl, in April ; drove him across the Danube into Bohemia, and captured Vienna for the second time. In May the archduke, with a fresh army, defeated Napoleon, on the left bank of the Danube, nearly opposite Vienna, in the hard-fought battles of Aspern and Essling, and forced him to the island of Lobau. Early in July the emperor, strongly reinforced by Eugene Beauharnais, who had driven the Archduke John of Austria out of Italy, crossed the Danube again between Lobau and the left bank, and won the great battle of Wagram over the Archduke Charles, driving his army into Moravia. In October, the Peace of Vienna, or Schonbrunn, between Austria and France, ceded much territory near the Adriatic to Napoleon ; gave up lands to Bavaria ; yielded West Gallicia to the duchy of Warsaw (a kind of new Poland, under the king of Saxony), a proceeding which gave deep offence to the tsar ; and made Austria break off all connection with Great Britain, and adopt the " Continental System." Austria was thus deprived of 32,000 square miles of territory, containing 3.500,000 of people, and was fur- ther mulcted in a large war-indemnity. This success of Napoleon's was followed by his divorce of Jose'phine, and his marriage in April, 18 10, to the emperor of Austria's daughter, Maria Louisa. A son was born in tSii, who received the title of " King of Rome," but he never reigned, and, under his Austrian title of duke of Reichstadt, he died in 1832. In connection with this Franco- Austrian war we must notice the brave struggle, against Bavarian and French forces, carried on in the Tyrol by the loyal peasants under the command of Speckbacher, Straub, and Andreas Hofer. The enemy, beaten in many actions among the mountains, were driven from the country. After Wagram, Marshal Lefebvre captured Innsbruck, the capital, but the Tyrolese again freed the territory, and Hofer was for some time at the head of the government. The Peace of Schonbrunn yielded the Tyrol again to Bavaria, and the Austrian government induced the Tyrolese to lay down their arms. Hofer resumed the contest, but could get little support, and was 562 A History of the World finally betrayed to the French, who tried him by court-martial, and, with base cruelty, shot him, as a "traitor," at Mantua, in February, 1810. Napoleon was at the height of his power in 18 10 and 181 1. In 1809 Tuscany and the Papal States had been annexed. Holland, Westphalia, and the old Hanseatic towns Bremen, Liibeck, and Hamburg, were added to the empire, in order to give the emperor command of the seaboard, and enable him to render more strict the enforcement of the "Continental System," under which he now prohibited British trade even by neutral vessels. The French empire now extended from Denmark to Naples, and eastwards to the Trave, by Liibeck, comprising 130 "departments," and having a total population exceeding 40,000,000. The capitals of this great dominion were Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome. The fatal war with Russia arose from Alexander's irritation at the Franco-Austrian alliance, and at Napoleon's dealings with Polish territory, and, especially, through the French emperor's dictatorial tone with reference to his favourite commercial policy, which was becoming ruinous to Russia. We need not dwell on the events which ended in the ruin of the greatest military armament of modern days — the crossing of the Niemen, the storming of Smolensk, the fearful battle of Borodino, the occupation of Moscow, the burning of that ancient capital, the horrors of the retreat, the passage of the Berezina, the recrossing of the Niemen on December 20th, 1812, with a few thousands out of more than 400,000 combatants. The immediate results of this gigantic failure were the formation of the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon, ultimately including Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, and some minor German states, and the outbreak, in 1813, of the great "War of Liberation" in central Europe. The revival of Prussia after the misfortunes of 1806 needs a special notice in this narrative, for never did a sovereign and a nation more nobly turn to use the lessons of adversity. The king, Frederick William III., was stirred, after his recovery from the first shock of his great fall, to an admirable energy, perseverance, and self-denial, and the complete reorganisation of affairs was taken in hand. In this work he received invaluable aid from his minister Baron von Stein and from David von Scharnhorst, the military reformer. Hereditary serfdom was abolished; the sale and purchase of land were freed from feudal restrictions ; the privileges of caste came to an end ; a class of peasant-proprietors arose on the crown- The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) 563 lands. Monopolies and other obstacles to freedom of trade were swept away. A complete financial reform was made. Seeking to lay a basis of political freedom and responsibility in the middle class, Stein inaugurated a new municipal system which freed citizens from military officialism, and, in a word, he founded the subsequent greatness of his country. After his retirement in November, 1808, a measure enforced by the jealousy of Napoleon, the work was carried on by the minister Hardenberg. The military changes were due to the highly scientific and practical General Scharnhorst, the son of a Hanoverian peasant. His system of short-service enabled him to evade Napoleon's restriction of numbers in the ranks of the standing-army by passing through discipline continual fresh drafts of men. Thus, in a few years' time, a large part of the male population was trained for war, and a new army of citizen- soldiers was created in the Landwehr (land-defence), or first reserve, and the Landsturm, or men to be called out only in the case of invasion. At the same time, under the direction of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the excellent modern system of Prussian education was established, and the University of Berlin was founded. All classes joined in the resolve to free the country from the French yoke. The poet Arndt stirred patriotic hearts by fiery song. The philosopher Fichte, in his enthusiastic " Addresses to the Germans," full of impassioned eloquence, summoned his countrymen to the high duty of founding an empire of reason in which intellect alone should guide human affairs, and pointed out the true means of national regeneration in a system of public instruction. Men of all ranks, especially students and professors, joined in forming the " Tugendbund," or " League of Virtue," devoted ostensibly to educational reform, but secretly cherishing the plan of freedom from foreign domination over the Fatherland. Such was the Prussia to which her king appealed in February, 1 813, calling upon her youthful men to arm in her defence. An alliance was made with the tsar, who some years before had met the Prussian monarch at midnight by the tomb of the great Frederick, where they swore to be true to each other in any future contest for the deliverance of Germany and Europe. The Prussian people at once rushed to arms, and Alexander brought his hosts into the field. The new struggle against Napoleon lasted for over twelve months. He had, with wonderful energy, raised fresh forces, and had at first the best of the contest. In May the allies were defeated by him at Liitzen and Bautzen, in Saxony, where he met a combined force 564 A History of the World of Russians and Prussians. After an armistice, during which Napoleon's pride made him refuse reasonable concessions to Austria, that power joined his foes, and the war reopened in August with the French marshal Macdonald's utter defeat by Bliicher, the brave Prussian general, at the Katzbach river, in Silesia, and the French emperor's great victory over the Austrians at Dresden. Then, after much marching and counter-marching and some disasters to French commanders, the campaign in Germany ended in October with ihe great twc-days' battle at Leipzig, fought by over half a million of men, above three-fifths of whom were those of the allies. Entire defeat in this mighty struggle forced Napoleon beyond the Rhine, and he was then engaged in defending the roads to Paris against overwhelming Austrian, Prussian, and Russian forces. Again and again, during this period, Napoleon, in the very insanity of arrogant trust in his "star," or in the belief that con- cession would be fatal to his interests in France, rejected terms which would have left him ruler of a greater France than that of the Bourbon kings. He never displayed more brilliant strategy or swifter movement than in February and March, 18 14, winning battle after battle against isolated bodies, but he could not afford the losses sustained, and Paris was forced to surrender on March 31st. On April nth he abdicated, and retired, with the title of emperor, to Elba, while the Bourbon line was restored in the person of the Comte de Provence, next younger brother of Louis XVI. He reigned as Louis XVIII. , Louis XVII. being represented by the hapless young "dauphin," who had died, aged ten years, in 1795, a prisoner at the Temple in Paris, after cruel treatment at the hands of the revolutionary gaolers. The immediate results of the first downfall of the French empire were the return of Pius VII. to Rome ; of the king of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, to Turin; and of Ferdinand VII. to Spain. The sudden return of Napoleon from Elba in March, 18 15, while the Congress of Vienna was sitting, was due to the information which he had received concerning the unpopularity of the restored Bourbons. The position of public men and the titles to estates were unsettled. The army was full of discontent on seeing high commands awarded to returned nobles — the emigres — who had been fighting in the ranks of the allies against their country. Large numbers of Napoleon's soldiers had been restored to France by the release of prisoners of war, and in the persons of the troops who had been garrisons of German fortresses in the north. All The Napoleonic War (1803-18 15) * $6$ the elements of new trouble thus existed, and the landing of the dethroned monarch at Frejus, south-west of Cannes, on March 1st, 1815, was followed by his triumphant arrival in the capital on March 20th. We need not dwell on the events which closed the historical period known as "The Hundred Days." The Waterloo campaign may be read in Creasy 's fascinating pages. The shortest and most decisive campaign on record began on June 15th with Napoleon's occupation of Charleroi, in the south of Belgium. On the 16th his left wing, under Ney, was repulsed by Wellington at Quatre Bras. On the same day Napoleon defeated Bliicher at Ligny. On June 17th the allied commanders retired, by different routes, to the preconcerted scene of action at Waterloo, which Bliicher, however, was unable to reach in force until the afternoon of the great day. On June 18th the best-fought battle of modern days ended, with the Prussian arrival on the French right rear, in the total defeat of Napoleon's splendid army. On July 7th Paris was occupied by Wellington and Bliicher, and Louis XVIII. returned from his brief exile. The defeated man, unable to make his way to America owing to the vigilance of the British cruisers, gave himself up to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, on July 15th. After a brief detention on board ship off our southern coast, he was conveyed as an exile to St. Helena, where he lived in captivity from October 15th, 18 15, until his death on May 5th, 1821, after the most remarkable career, considered in all points, in the whole history of the world. In 1840 his remains were removed from the Atlantic island to their present place of repose under the dome of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris. The most famous victims of the great man's final fall were " the bravest of the brave," Marshal Ney, shot in Paris on December 7th, 1815, as a traitor to Louis XVIII., and Murat, king of Naples, who, defeated by the Austrians on May 3rd, at Tolentino, in central Italy, made a reckless attempt to recover his throne by landing in Calabria, and was captured, tried and condemned by court-martial, and shot on October 13th, 1815. The territory of Europe was now rearranged under the Peace of Paris of November 20th, 1815, and by the " Act of the Congress of Vienna." France received the boundaries of 1790, generally speaking, by surrendering fortresses and territory to the Netherlands and to Germany, and Savoy to Sardinia. A payment of 700,000,000 francs (,£28,000,000 sterling) as war-indemnity was enforced by the occupation, for some years, of fortresses on the northern and eastern 566 A History of the World borders by allied troops at the French charges. Works of art taken from Germany and Italy were reclaimed. Austria received the Milanese and Venice as the " Lombardo- Venetian kingdom," and recovered Illyria, Dalmatia, Salzburg, the Tyrol, and Gallicia. Prussia now had Posen (a part of the " grand-duchy of Warsaw ") with Danzig, also Swedish Pomerania with Riigen ; the old possessions in Westphalia, the lower Rhine duchy, and most of Saxony in return for the loss of territory to Bavaria, Hanover, and Russia. Holland and Austrian Belgium became a new " kingdom of the Netherlands," under the former hereditary stadtholder of Holland, as " King William I." A new " German Confederation " was formed, under the emperor of Austria as president, and comprised 39 sovereign states, including the " free cities " of Liibeck, Bremen, Hamburg, and Frankfurt-on-the-Muin. The Diet, sitting at Frankfurt, was to decide on affairs common to all German states, and to settle disputes between the members of the Confederation. Each state was independent in regard to matters affecting itself alone. War was not to be declared by any state against any other in the Confederation, nor any alliance be formed with a foreign power which could be injurious to any German state. The Confederate army, composed of contingents furnished by every state in proportion to population, was to be commanded by men appointed by the Diet, and its troops were to garrison the fortresses of Luxemburg, Mainz (Mayence), and Landau, which were the property of the Confedera- tion. Members of all Christian sects were to have equal civil and political rights, and constitutional government was to be established in every state. In the division of territory Russia received most of the grand-duchy of Warsaw as "the kingdom of Poland." The 19 cantons of Switzerland became 22 by the addition of Geneva, Valais, and Neuchatel, which had all been annexed to France under the Directory, and the whole Swiss territory was declared by the Congress to be perpetually neutral in European wars and inviolable. The Swiss Confederation was thus established, with a Diet, in which each state was represented, meeting alternately at Bern, Zurich, and Lucerne. In Italy, Sardinia received Genoa., and petty sovereignties were set up, in dependence on Austria, as the duchies of Tuscany, Lucca, Modena, and Parma. Finally, Great Britain retained, as her return for an expenditure of over ^"600,000,000 sterling, raising the National Debt to nearly ^900,000,000, the islands of Malta and Heligoland ; some French and Dutch colonies, in the West Indies, South America, the East, and South Africa ; and a protectorate of The Napoleonic War (1803-1 8 15) 567 the "Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands." Of these, the Ionian Islands were given up to Greece in 1864, and Heligoland to Ger- many (the Empire) in July, 1890, in return for certain concessions in East Africa. We note that, in Germany, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Saxony remained as monarchies, the latter losing territory, as above, in punishment for adherence to Napoleon, and that Hanover, reverting to the possession of the British sovereign, became a kingdom. In Italy the Pope received again the central territory as the " States of the Church," and the Bourbons ruled in Naples and Sicily, the latter having been always retained, as an island made secure by British maritime supremacy. In British affairs during this period we may record, for 1809, the great exploit of Lord Cochrane (afterwards earl of Dundonald) with fireships in the Aix (or Basque) Roads, on the south-west coast of France, where that great naval hero destroyed four line-of- battle ships, and could have done much more save for the imbecility of his superior in command, Lord Gambier. In the same year the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, dispatched to the Scheldt for the purpose of assailing Napoleon's great naval arsenal at Antwerp, was an utter failure from the incompetence of the military commander, the earl of Chatham (Pitt's eldest brother), and of Admiral Sir Richard Strachan. Flushing was taken, and Walcheren occupied ; both were perfectly useless achievements. Antwerp was not approached until it was made safe by French reinforcements. Many millions of pounds were thus utterly wasted. Thousands of men died of the marsh-fevers, and the health of thousands more was wrecked for life. At the end of 1810, after a previous attack in 1788, George III. became permanently insane, and his eldest son, George Prince of Wales, assumed power as Prince Regent. It is more satisfactory to note that, a little before this period opens, the exertions of the benevolent Granville Sharp obtained from the 12 judges, in 1772, in the famous case of the negro James Somerset, a confirmation of Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield's judgment that " the power claimed [of making a slave in England] never was in use here, or acknowledged by the law." It was thus decided that " a slave becomes free as soon as he sets foot on British ground." This victory of the early " abolitionists " was quickly followed up. In 1787 Sharp formed the Association for the Abolition of Negro Slavery, and was strongly supported by Thomas Clarkson and by William Wilberforce, the able, pious, and eloquent M.P. for the county of York. The merchants of Bristol and Liverpool resisted 568 A History of the World abolition, and the House of Commons for some years threw out all Bills. That noble-minded lover of freedom, Charles James Fox, lent his powerful aid, and in 1792 a Bill abolishing the slave-trade was passed in the Commons, but rejected in the Lords. At last, in 1807, the British slave-trade was assailed by the Abolition Act, inflicting pecuniary penalties. British subjects continued to carry on the wicked traffic under cover of the Spanish and Portuguese flags, and in 181 1 a Bill was unanimously carried making the slave- trade a felony liable to 14 years' transportation, or from three to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. An Act of 1824 made it "piracy," then a capital crime, and the statute of 1837, after the Act of 1833, emancipating all the slaves in British colonies, left trading in slaves punishable with transportation for life. In Russia, apart from her share in the Napoleonic wars, we find Alexander I. (1801-1825) as a man brought up, under the direction of the empress Catharine, his grandmother, in the most advanced ideas of the 18th century. On succeeding his murdered father, Paul I., in 1801, he did much to promote education, alleviate serfdom, and introduce a milder legal and administrative system. After the Peace of Tilsit, which made his policy hostile to Great Britain, Alexander attacked her ally, Sweden, and deprived her in war of the province of Finland. In war with Turkey, the Russian frontier was pushed farther to the south, and the Peace of Bucharest, in 181 2, conceding Bessarabia to Russia, made the river Pruth the boundary between the countries. When we look to the Scandinavian kingdoms, we find the French marshal Bernadotte, in the reign of Charles XIII. of Sweden (1809-1818), adopted in 1810 as heir to the throne. In 18 14 Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden, and Norway thus, after a long period of subservience to the Danes, had a revival of life and spirit in the recovery of rights, a liberal constitution, and a sense of national unity. The New Forces at Work 569 BOOK IV. EUROPE FROM 18 15 TO 1898. Chapter I. — The New Forces at Work. The history of the 19th century is emphatically a history of vast and unexampled progress due to the extended and developed work of old, or the operation of new, forces in the physical, moral, political, and intellectual spheres of human life and labour. A long period of diplomatic intrigue and of monarchical misrule, a time of wars, treaties, and revolutions, has been succeeded by nearly a century of material, mental, and social change affecting every class, and most of all the great body of the people, in every civilised community. Wars there have been in Europe, but of very limited scope and duration compared with the struggles of the past. Still confining ourselves to Europe, we find that many new states have been created. One new empire exists in Germany. Six new kingdoms — Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Roumania, and Servia — ■ have arisen. Two new principalities — Montenegro and Bulgaria — are found on the map. Many petty states in Germany — to the great relief of geographical students and Continental travellers — have been absorbed by Prussia and vanished from independent existence. Change after change has taken place in the form of government in France. All these changes of frontier and of rulers are trivial compared with those caused by the transcendent and transforming power of steam and electricity, and by the working of the democratic spirit which had its first strong modern expression in the American colonies of Great Britain and, for Europe, in the great French Revolution. The agency of steam, as applied to manufactures, navigation, and land-locomotion, has exceeded, in the character and degree of the changes thereby wrought, that of all other human inventions. The first real steam-engine was due to the Devonshire man named Newcomen early in the 18th century. The first really valuable production, rendering the application of steam possible in all industries, came from the Scottish James Watt, about 70 years later. The first British steamboat was probably one built by- Symington at Edinburgh in 1786, but the first regular service of vessels driven by steam arose in the United States about the same time. Railroads of iron were first used in England of all countries, 570 A History of the World and that about 1770. The first application of steam to railroads was due, in 1813, to William Hedley, but it was George Stephenson who, in 1814, vastly improved the locomotive-engine, and con- structed, 15 years later, the Rocket engine which was first really efficient for a high speed. We need not dwell on the marvellous effects of steam-locomotion on human life in times of peace and on the work of soldiers in war. It is quite certain that war has lost half its horrors in the swift decision between combatant nations rendered possible by the improved means of transport to fields of battle. As railways are the arteries, so the electric wires are the nerves, of the modern social, economical, and political organism, anni- hilating time in the transmission of news, and bringing the whole civilised world into the compass of a single parish for the inter- change of sympathy and thought. For this use of electricity mankind are indebted conjointly to Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. The first really efficient land-telegraph by means of wires was used in England in the year of Queen Victoria's acces- sion ; the first submarine-cable was laid in 1850 between Dover and Cape Grisnez ; the first efficient and permanent ocean-line was laid in 1866 between Ireland and Newfoundland. Volumes would be needed to deal with the changes wrought on the conditions of life in civilised countries by scientific discovery, by ingenious invention, and by the energetic development of resources which had previously been only in partial use. The mere names of things are sufficient for the thoughtful — lucifer matches, gas, the cheap postal system, the penny and halfpenny newspaper, cheap popular litera ture, the sewing-machine, the omnibus, the tram-car, and many other improvements. The greatest triumphs of human skill and organisa- tion are to be found in that moving palatial hotel, the great ocean- liner, and in the production and contents of the daily newspaper. The revolution in naval and military warfare due to scientific invention and improvement needs no detailed description here. The peaceful achievements of the 19th century are before us, in the last years of the last decade of that period, in the shape of changes beyond all comparison the greatest in the world's history for abiding and far-reaching influence. The conquest of natural forces has been followed by an enormous increase of wealth and population ; by the colonisation of vast regions of the earth which were once either void or peopled only by a few savages ; by the extension of the span of human life ; by the wider distribution, in many countries, of the necessaries, the comforts, and some of the The New Forces at Work 5 7 1 luxuries of life among those who are the creators of all wealth by the work of their hands. The existence of old and the rise of new evils, along with material improvements, have been met by fresh activity in philanthropic work, and by the creation of a great and complex system of charitable agencies dealing with every phase of the mischief which keen competition, the unequal distribution of wealth, human greed, and human mental, physical, and moral frailty, have created in the midst of what is called our " modern civilisa- tion." We turn from this tempting subject, and from any effort to deal with the domain of philosophy, science, theology, literature, and art, to the special subject of this work, political development and change. The chief note of the 19th century is the vast increase of popular power, the rise and progress of the democracy, in which term is here included tne great middle class, that below the titled and landed aristocracy and above the manual workers. The growth of the people, attended by a great increase of political, religious, and personal freedom, and by the application of more beneficent methods of rule, has given rise to new political and social problems concerning representative government, local self-government, the rights of labour, national and technical education, and other matters, causing, from time to time, minor revolutions, insurrections, riots, strikes, political and social congresses, endlessly various hostile and friendly conflict, discussion, and debate. It was the French Revolu- tion which, for good or ill, swept away old ideas along with antiquated institutions ; which taught governments of all kinds that they exist, not for themselves or for a class, but for the benefit of the community at large ; which made the masses of the people know their power, and strive to impress it, in lawful or unlawful ways, by remonstrance or appeal or peaceful agitation, or by threats or violence, on the holders of rule. To the principles established by the French Revolution, when the first evil effects of excess had passed away from the terrorised minds of moderate men, are due the rise of Italy, the freedom of Greece, the final abolition of serfdom ; with the advance of religious toleration, a large measure of liberty for the press, and a great share of self-government, in all European countries except Russia and Turkey. The evil attendant on the great political earthquake, that " open violent rebellion, and victory, of dis-imprisoned anarchy against corrupt worn-out authority," that volcanic outburst of disintegrating rage, which occurred more than a century ago in France, has passed away, and 572 A History of the World the good, in many forms, survives, likely to last as long as the world endures. The advance of modern democracy has overthrown in western and central Europe the remains of the feudal system, and replaced absolute government, in most countries, by one based on either universal or extensive suffrage. Its main features are those of complete personal freedom, with a career open to character and ability ; equality before the law ; and political power in the suffrage exercised through a representative parliamentary system. Along with these go universal education, and, on the European continent, general liability to military service. The growth of democratic power has been parallel with that of every other factor in the social life of mankind— the development of the art of printing, of industrial activity, of improvement in man's technical skill and resources, of human mastery over nature. The average standard of intelligence and morality has been greatly raised, and with the continuous education which exists in modern life in the elementary school, the workshop, the municipal and political agitation and discussion which culminate in the dropping of papers in a ballot-box, there has come to the great body of citizens a sense of responsibility forming the best safeguard against the evils connected with communism, socialism, nihilism, anarchism, and other schemes. These, originating in the minds of benevolent theorists, have been too often perverted by wild fanatics or by mere idle miscreants to the worst uses. The socialism which aimed at social reconstruction and renova- tion on an optimistic basis of belief in human perfectibility has been discredited. The scientific socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle, the founder of the social-democratic movement in Germany, and, partly, of Karl Marx, the originator of the international socialistic move- ment, involves a reorganisation of matters between the worker, or receiver of wages, and the capitalist, with a view to a fairer distribution of the wealth produced by work, through the intervention of the state as an organiser in the new capacity of the promoter of freedom, culture, morality, and progress, instead of its former function as a mere policeman or protector of property. In this form, socialistic theory has already had a great influence on the labour-movement in every part of the civilised world. The famous " International " or " International Working-Men's Association " was founded in London, in 1864, chiefly by Karl Marx, but, after the holding of congresses in Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels, Basle, and other towns, this organisation came to an end in 1873. The socialist parties, The New Forces at Work 573 however, in different countries, regard the movement as international, and their views and feelings have repeatedly found expression at congresses, as at Ghent in 1877, and at Paris in 1889, the centenary year of the French Revolution. In Germany the movement has made great political progress. It was in 1875 that German socialists drew together at Gotha. Eight years previously five members of the party had been elected to the North German Reichstag or Parliament. At the elections, in 187 1, to the first Reichstag of the new Empire, the socialists polled only 120,000 votes; in 1877 this number had grown to nearly 500,000. Exceptional legislation against the rising party did not prevent the increase of votes in 1890 to nearly 1,500,000, or about 20 per cent, of the total poll, with a considerable progress shown in rural and Catholic districts hitherto almost untouched by the movement. Denmark also now has a large number of socialists, and outside these two countries there is no very large known class of active and avowed adherents. The chief permanent result, at present, of the socialistic movement has been the development of wider and better views of political economy as that which should be subordinate to the welfare of mankind. The cause of the poor has thus been brought with great influence before society, and that which is styled "Christian socialism " seeks to remedy the inequalities of the distribution of wealth by insisting persuasively on liberal contributions from the rich towards all schemes devised for the benefit of the impoverished and suffering. The working of modern democracy is very favourably seen on the side of thrift, provident insurance, and co-operation. The " Friendly Societies," " Industrial Assurance Companies," and other mutual provident associations of the British Isles possess funds probably exceeding ^25,000,000 sterling. Co-operation, meaning generally the association of workers for the management of their own industrial interests, in the store, the workshop, or other under- taking, with a fair distribution of profits among those who earn them, has been largely adopted in various forms. In Great Britain the movement has had its chief success in the way of distribution through stores supplying the household needs of workmen and their families. Since the establishment of the society called the Rochdale Pioneers, in 1844, vast progress has been made, and many hundreds of such organisations are now at work, selling goods at the current prices of shopkeepers, and sharing the net profits quarterly among members in proportion to the amount of their purchases. The benefit to the working-class obviously consists in their capture, by 574 A History of the World this means, of the profits of the " middleman " and of the retail- shopkeeper, by direct purchase in the wholesale market, and direct transmission to the consumer. The " Wholesale Society," which is a federation of retail societies, confers further benefit by co-operative production on a large scale, the annual value of goods now reaching several millions sterling. The Civil Service Associations and Army and Navy Stores render like service to the middle classes, and the whole community has received advantage in the enforced reduction of shopkeepers' charges through the competition due to the co-operative principle. This established institution had its origin with the better class of workmen, the more enlightened part of the new democracy, aided by the intelligence and philanthropy of such men as Robert Owen, the Rev. J. F. D. Maurice, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, and other social reformers, among whom we must not forget to name George Jacob Holyoake, the veteran historian of Co-operation, Thomas Hughes" (" Tom Brown "), and the marquis of Ripon. It is remarkable that in the United States, the greatest of democracies, the co-operative system has not made great progress, perhaps owing to the large scope there afforded for individual energy and enterprise. In France the chief development of the system has been in the form of industrial partnership, whereby the workmen share in the profits of the capitalist. In Germany, Austria, and Hungary the principle has been chiefly active in the form of people's banks, along with many hundreds of societies for distribution of goods, the purchase of raw material, and other beneficial ends. Germany and Denmark have applied co-operation with great success to dairies, and England, Sweden, Switzerland, and Holland have also followed the lead of the United States and Canada, where the factory-system of production, or associated dairying, exists on an enormous scale. In Italy co-operation has made great progress in the form of people's banks, and there are also many co-operative bakeries and dairies, the movement being actively supported by the government. Belgium has also developed the system in the way of co-operative bakeries, fisheries, and stores. It is in these institutions that the democratic movement is seen at its best, the people managing their own affairs, acquiring intelligence, commercial skill, and higher moral character, and deriving benefit from foresight, thrift, and self-control, in alliance for truly legitimate and peaceful aims. No account of the modern democracy can omit reference to another form of combination — that of the workers or wage-earners The New Forces at Work 575 against the capitalists or large employers for the purpose of keeping- up or raising the rate of wages in various trades. For British readers " strikes " and " trades-unions " are words of somewhat sinister sound. In this country, in their modern form, the com- binations known as trades-unions arose in the 18th century with attempts of artisans to enforce trade-customs under various charters and statutes dating from Tudor and even from Plantagenet days. Many legislative measures — the " Combination laws " — were passed to check the action of the manual workers in this direction, but the advance of democratic influence in Parliament has for many years done away with all restraints on trade-unionism so long as members of the unions do not, by threats or violence, interfere with the freedom of others. The deplorable effects of strikes are in most cases now averted, more or less, sooner or later, by the methods of conciliation and arbitration between employers and employed, and the decision of the chosen umpire or umpires is almost always loyally accepted on both sides. The principle of trade-unionism is now, in this country, recognised and approved in every quarter — in Parliament, the pulpit, the press, and on the platform — and it is probable that the United Kingdom now contains considerably more than 2,000 trade-societies, with a total of members approaching 3,000,000 and an annual income exceeding ^2,000,000 sterling. The benefits of these societies for the workers, apart from any advantage due to judicious "strikes," are seen in the weekly payments to sick and unemployed members, and in pensions to men beyond the age for work ; in allowances for members disabled by accident, and for funeral -charges ; in insurance against loss of tools by fire, and in benevolent grants of various kinds. The amount of good hereby effected may be, in a slight degree, esti- mated from the fact that 13 societies, in 40 years, awarded in " provident benefits " alone, i.e. in addition to pay during strikes, nearly ^7,500,000 sterling, while their total strike-pay, during the same period, was less than ^500,000. These very societies were, moreover, those whose members had secured and maintained the highest rates of wages, the shortest hours of work, and the best conditions of labour enjoyed by industrial workers throughout the country. It is impossible to over-estimate the material and moral benefit derived from so splendid a display of self-help, of lawful combination, in the once down-trodden creators of a country's wealth who now, in proud self-respect, with the sanction of all classes, and in defiance of the pauperism 33 576 A History of the World which looks to outside support, maintain their own poor, succour their own sick, feed their own aged and infirm, bury their own dead, aid their own sufferers in every case of accident and adversity, pay all local rates and taxes like other citizens, and often afford generous aid, in time of need, to other associations of workers like to themselves. Thrift, sobriety, discipline, order, and obedience to law are inculcated, encouraged, and enforced, and in the great engineers' strike of 1897-98 the high praise of the German Emperor, a potentate of no democratic views, was elicited by the fact that, during a period of great tension and of no small suffering, no serious breach of law on the part of a vast body of working- men and their dependents ever occurred. In other European countries trade-unionism is by no means so advanced as in Great Britain, but progress is being made under the influence of the international labour-congresses, and the chief need is the " freedom of combination," under legal sanction, which exists in this country. The labour-organisations of the United States are on an extensive scale, but inferior in working to the British models. The Australian colonies, far ahead of all other colonies in this respect, have excellent unions of the best home-type. A grand proof of advancing enlightenment in the 19th century is seen in the development of public international law known as "arbitration." As a positive system, international law has arisen in Europe only since the 16th century, in succession to the formerly beneficent action exercised by the authority of the Church and by the principles of chivalry. Papal authority and advice often settled quarrels between states, and the evils of warfare were lessened by the practice of chivalrous virtues. It was after the atrocities of the struggle between Spain and the revolted Netherlands, and the outrages perpetrated during the Thirty Years' War, that the general feeling of Europe had a grievous want supplied by the rise of a system of international jurisprudence. The first systematic rules were laid down by the great Dutchman, Hugo Grotius, in his work De Jure Belli ac Pacis, published in 1625. Upon the deep founda- tions laid by a writer who combined profound learning and keen philosophic insight with great experience in worldly affairs, inter- national law still securely rests. The recognised rules depend in a large measure upon awards given by arbitrators, upon the judg- ments of mixed prize-courts appointed under treaty, and upon the decisions of the British Court of Admiralty and like tribunals in maritime affairs. Express treaties concluded between sovereign Great Britain and Ireland 577 states deal with many cases which might, in former times, have given rise to war, and in disputes to which recognised rules do not apply large recourse has been made in these later years to the method of arbitration by a specially chosen tribunal or by some friendly sovereign. Notable instances are found in the dealings between Great Britain and the United States, as the settlement, in 1872, of the famous Alabama claims by five arbitrators sitting at Geneva, and, in the same year, the arrangement of the dispute concerning the possession of San Juan Island, near Vancouver's Island, by the Emperor William of Germany. In 1885 Pope Leo XIII., acting as arbitrator, settled a dispute between Germany and Spain regarding the possession of the Caroline Islands. The most accomplished of European monarchs, Oscar II. of Sweden and Norway, holds the highest position in this peaceful and beneficent work of arbitrating on international questions. Chapter II. — Great Britain and Ireland. In 1 8 16 a British fleet under Lord Exmouth, aided by a small Dutch squadron, inflicted a signal chastisement upon the modern " Barbary corsairs " in the bombardment of Algiers. With a loss of nearly 1,000 men in killed and wounded on the victorious side, the Dey's fleet of many frigates and gunboats was fired; the strong batteries were knocked to pieces ; and he was forced to liberate the whole of the Christian captives, to the number of about 1,650, chiefly Italians taken from small trading and fishing vessels. The same British admiral had previously, by the mere display of his force, effected the release of about 1,800 Christian slaves at Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. There was some further trouble with the obstinate and truculent Dey even after this lesson, and Barbary piracy ceased only with the French conquest of Algiers. The ending of foreign warfare was followed by a period of domestic trouble in the British Isles. Bad harvests, and the high price of bread due to iniquitous duties on corn, caused much distress and discontent, under which artisans waged war against machinery, and rioters, called "Luddites" from Ned Ludd, a half-witted lad who broke some stocking-frames, did much damage in the great manufacturing districts of the Midlands and the north of England. The peasants, in the rage of misery, burned the ricks of farmers. The " Radicals," as the advanced Liberals were called, were agitating for parliamentary reform, in order to remedy evils by new 578 A History of the World legislation. Unwise and unsympathetic ministers resisted agitation by repressive measures, suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in 181 7, and passing, two years later, the famous " Six Acts '' against all attempts, harmful or harmless, to change the state of affairs. The hero of the Peninsular War and of Waterloo was, under the influence of aristocratic prejudice, by no means a model of wisdom in domestic matters, though his sturdy honesty and simplicity of character, and his sagacity with regard to yielding when longer resistance meant civil war, were in favourable contrast to the proceedings of some extreme partisans of his political school. In July, 1819, a peaceful meeting held at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, was dispersed with bloodshed by military force, and the angry reformers, in sarcastic allusion to Wellington's last victory, styled the outrage the " Battle" (or " Massacre ") of Peterloo. Among other events of this period may be noted the lamentable death, in November, 181 7, of the Prince-Regent's only child, the Princess Charlotte, with her newly born infant, son of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards the first king of the Belgians. She was heiress-apparent to the throne, and was universally regarded with well-grounded hope as an excellent future sovereign. In May, 1819, the birth of a princess, only child of Ekhvard, duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., gave to the nation the A r ictoria who, as queen for more than 60 years, was to replace her who had so lately passed away. The death of the aged king in January, 1820, brought the Prince Regent to the throne as George IV. (1820- 1830). A chief event of his reign, known from the British histories, was the desperate " Cato-Street Con- spiracy," of February, 1820, formed by Arthur Thistlewood, for the simultaneous murder, at a dinner-party, of all the cabinet-ministers, to be followed by the firing of London barracks, the seizure of the Bank and the Tower, and the setting-up of a republic. The leaders in this mad scheme were hanged, after betrayal of the plot and seizure of many conspirators at their meeting-place in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road in London. In the same and following years, great scandal was caused by the trial of Queen Caroline for misconduct as a wife, under a " Bill of Pains and Penalties," "virtually an impeachment, brought into the House of Lords at the king's instance. A strong popular feeling in her favour was aroused, and she was so ably defended by counsel who included Brougham, afterwards Lord Chancellor, and Uenman, who became Lord Chief- Justice, that the proceedings were abandoned. The hapless lady, who may be justly regarded as rather grossly indiscreet and Great Britain and Ireland 579 indecorous in conduct than as guilty of what was alleged, was a Brunswick princess, the king's first cousin. She died in August, 182 1, after a vain attempt to obtain admission to Westminster Abbey at the king's coronation, which she claimed to share. There are other events which will be seen in the history of Greece and of Ireland, and the reforming legislation which opened in this reign is elsewhere noticed. Under William IV. (1830-1837), third son of George III. (his second son, the duke of York, having died in 1827), the period of progress was fairly opened by the passing, in 1832, of the First Reform Act. The persistent opposition in the House of Lords, led by the duke of Wellington, had caused serious riots at Nottingham, Derby, and Bristol, and had brought the country within measurable distance of civil war. The final surrender of the Lords, at the instance of the duke, and the king's assent, made law of the measure which conferred a large share of political power on the great middle class of traders, farmers, and professional men. Many small boroughs lost their two members ; many more lost one; and nearly 150 seats in the House of Commons were thus given to large towns, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and others, hitherto unrepresented, to new divisions of counties, and to new districts of London. The Scottish members were raised from 45 t0 53 3 the vote m counties was given to tenan.s paying an annual rent of ,£50, and to owners of land or houses worth _^to a year; and in boroughs householders paying ^10 a year rent were enfranchised. The events of the glorious and happy reign of Queen Victoria (1837-) need little notice for readers of a work published in the country where two jubilee-celebrations, at the completion of the 50th and 60th years of the longest reign of our annals, brought forth a special and abundant crop of books dealing with every feature of the sovereign's life and character, every domestic and foreign occurrence connected with that illustrious and venerable lady's career. The Victorian age has been, beyond all others in all history, one of progress and colonial expansion. Two more series of legislative measures completed the democratic constitutions of the British Empire at home. In 1867-68 the Second Reform Acts gave votes to most householders in boroughs, and to the better class of lodgers. In the counties all tenants paying ,£12 annual rent received the franchise, n English boroughs lost their two members, and 23 others lost one member each. 25 580 A History of the World seats were given to new boroughs, and to the London and the grouped Scottish universities, and 28 members were assigned to fresh divisions of counties. Scotland received seven more members by transference from England, and her number was thus raised to 60. This statute invested a large part of the better class of artisans with political power. The Acts of 1884-85 gave votes to the agricultural labourers, and to a large additional number of artisans, by granting the franchise to all householders in county- divisions who did not possess votes for borough-elections to the House of Commons. The present number of voters thus exceeds 6,000,000, and the constitution of the United Kingdom has become that of a republic, wiih powerful aristocratic and plutocratic elements, and with the great advantage of a hereditary president representing a dynasty regarded by all classes with the utmost loyalty. Ireland, for the first time in her history, was placed on an electoral equality with the sister-countries by receiving pure and simple household-suffrage. The lodger-franchise was extended to the counties, and a new " service-franchise " gave a vote to any man inhabiting a house in connection with any office or employment. 18 members, six of whom were taken from seats belonging to boroughs disfranchised, for "bribery and corruption," since 1867, were added to the House of Commons, raising the number of representatives to 670. It was the "redistribution of seats" part of this measure which gave it a very distinctive character. No borough with a population below 15,000 was now allowed to have separate representation, the householders and lodgers receiving votes for the county-divisions in which they dwelt. All boroughs between 15,000 and 20,000 in population lost one seat, if they had two, and by these changes 144 seats, in addition to the above 18, were placed at the disposal of the framers of the Bill. Two English counties, Rutland and Hereford, each lost a member, and the City of London was deprived of two out of four. The total number of seats for disposal thus became 166. A near approach was then made to representation in proportion to numbers of the population in each constituency, the present proportion, in the English boroughs, being one member, roughly speaking, to every 70,000 inhabitants. The counties and the great boroughs were broken up into single- member divisions. The changes thus introduced were of a startling character, especially in London. The capital now had 62 members ; Liverpool nine ; Birmingham and Glasgow, each seven ; Manchester six ; Leeds and Sheffield, each five ; and so on in proportion to Great Britain and Ireland 581 numbers. Many new county-subdivisions were created, each with one member ; Lancashire, under the new arrangement of seats, being represented, in county-divisions alone, by 22 members, and Yorkshire, apart from the numerous borough-members, by 26. The great increase of population and wealth in Scotland was recognised by the assignment to the northern kingdom of 12 additional seats, making her representation consist of 72 members. We proceed to describe briefly the progressive legislation mainly due to the first two of the three Reform Acts whereby a large body of the people became possessed of the power of self-government in the free choice of representatives in the House of Commons. Dealing first with religious freedom, we find that in 1828 the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts of later Stuart days enabled Catholics and Protestant dissenters to hold municipal and other offices. The Catholic Emancipation Act will be seen under the history of Ireland during this period. In 1S36 another relic of religious bigotry and intolerance was swept away by the Marriage Act which enabled marriages to be legally contracted in Noncon- formist chapels and at registrars' offices. Jews had been excluded from Parliament, after the repeal of the Test Act in 1828, by the words " on the true faith of a Christian " inserted in the declaration made by a member on taking his seat. A Bill for abolishing the civil disabilities of the Jews in the British Isles was passed in 1833 by the House of Commons, but the measure was rejected by the Lords, and an act of justice was thus postponed until 1858, when Jews were admitted to both Houses, the first Jewish peer being Lord Rothschild, created in 1885. Up to a date beyond the middle of Victoria's reign, Nonconformists were compelled to pay Church-rates for the support of the Establishment, and resistance to this grievous injustice was often met by the issue of "distress- warrants " under which the plate-baskets of Dissenters were emptied and their kitchens rifled of goods. Year by year the struggle against the exaction was doggedly carried on in the parish-vestries and in the law-courts, and the difficulty of collecting the impost increased. A strong stand was made in the eastern counties, and a case known as " the Braintree case," from a parish in Essex, after 18 years of litigation and 13 legal decisions, gave a virtual death-blow to compulsory Church-rates by establishing the principle that no rate could be valid which was not made by a majority assembled in vestry. In 1868 an Act removed this grievance. The abolition of religious tests in regard to education was another 582 A History of the World step in advance. The restrictions which existed were such as to confine to Churchmen most of the advantages of the national universities and of the ancient grammar-schools and other educa- tional foundations. In 1871 an Act threw open to Nonconformists all lay-degrees at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Two years later religious tests were abolished at Trinity College, Dublin. Another grievance of Nonconformists was the deprivation of the right of burial for their dead in parish churchyards with the usual service. In many a rural parish, the rector or vicar, basing his bigotry upon the rubric prefixed to " The Order for the Burial of the Dead " — that the Office is not to be used for any that die unbaptised — refused to read the service over the remains of any unbaptised Nonconformist children or adults, or to allow a Dissent- ing minister to supply his place. Nonconformist ministers, with mourning relatives, were in such cases compelled to stand outside churchyard-walls, in a field or on the public highway, and there conduct funeral-services for those who were being laid in the ground inside the walls. The great Archbishop Tait of Canterbury admitted this state of the law to be " barbarous." In 1880 the Burial Laws Amendment Act granted freedom in this respect to Nonconformists, permitting them to enter the churchyards and there, with due notice, conduct their own religious service over their dead. Freedom of the press from shackles grievously restricting its power for good began in 1836 with the reduction of the hateful stamp-duty of fourpence per copy on all newspapers to a penny- duty. Even thus, a really cheap newspaper was impossible, because a heavy paper-duty still existed in addition to the stamp-charge. In 1849 an association was formed for the "Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge." In a few years persistent effort, in and out of Parliament, had its reward. In 1853 a budget of Mr. Gladstone's removed the tax of is. 6d. on every advertisement. Two years later the same statesman, in his budget, abolished the stamp-duty. In 1 86 1 the same statesman caused the repeal of the paper-duty, and rendered possible the present enormous development, assuredly more for good than for evil, of the production of newspapers and books within the purchasing-power of the humblest reader. In the days of County-councils and Parish-councils, municipal reform is an interesting subject. In the course of time the municipal government of towns had fallen into the hands of small self-chosen bodies, and the most scandalous and corrupt administration of Great Britain and Ireland 583 affairs existed in more than 200 boroughs of England and Wales. The body of the citizens were the victims of treatment inadequately described by " jobbery " and " robbery." The funds of the corpora- tion were largely diverted to periodical guzzling of aldermen and councillors, and to other base uses, including bribery and treating at parliamentary elections. Charity-funds for which the members of the corporation were trustees were often shamelessly stolen. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 swept away, in most of the cities and towns, this iniquitous system, and gave the administration of local affairs — gas, police, paving, cleansing, water-supply, and other matters — to councils freely chosen by the ratepayers who supply the funds. A new sense of citizenship thus arose, and with freedom came her beneficent train of attendants — energy, enterprise, a sense of responsibility, a just pride in good effected, resolution to do better still. A grievous want of the age — sanitary reform — could now be supplied, and the increase of medical knowledge was turned to beneficial use by reformers and legislators. Dr. Southwood Smith, Sir Edwin Chad wick, Dr. William Farr, and Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson are the men most justly honoured in this line, and to the legislature influenced by their labours and reports British citizens owe the Local Government Act of 1858, the Public Health Act of 1875, and other measures which have greatly and permanently lowered the annual death-rate in towns, and have made life, for all classes of the community, much better worth living. The County Councils measure, or Local Government Act, of 1888, extended to Scotland in the following year, created in England and Wales 60 " administrative counties " or districts, with aldermen and councillors, to control affairs previously regulated by irresponsible justices in quarter-sessions. A very wide and im- portant system of local government is thus exercised by persons elected by resident ratepayers, and highly beneficial results have been already attained. The Parish Councils Act of 1894 completed the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer by giving him self- government through his vote at meetings for the election of over- seers, the management of allotments, the control of sanitary matters, and the regulation of parish-property and parish-charities. The reform of the judicial system is another matter due to legislation in the 19th century. In i8ol there were more than 200 capital offences on the statute-book, these, however, being in practice reduced to about 25. A complete change of the barbarous system of punishments came through the efforts of Jeremy Bentham, 584 A History of the World the great "jurist and philosopher, James Mill, Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir James Mackintosh, and Sir Robert Peel. Between 1823 and 1830 Mackintosh and Peel, in the House of Commons, procured the passing of Acts which abolished capital punishment in most cases, and in 1837 the same legislation was applied to the offence of forgery. In 1861 only four crimes remained subject to death as a punishment — murder, treason, piracy with violence, and the wilful firing of arsenals or dockyards. The treatment of prisoners of all classes has been greatly improved, both in regard to humanity and to reforming and deterrent effect, and the proportion of criminals to population has very largely decreased, especially in the juvenile class. This result is mainly due to the establishment, in 1870 and 1872, for England and Wales, and for Scotland, of a thorough national system of elementary schools. This great work is mainly carried on by Board Schools and in voluntary schools controlled by the clergy or by Nonconformist ministers and laymen. Recent legislation has established compulsory attendance, with free- dom, in most cases, from payment of school-fees. We can here only allude to a wide subject in the philanthropic legislation specially connected with the honoured name of " the good Lord Shaftesbury." To him and to men of like benevolence is due the legislation protecting workers in factories and mines from the cruelty and other evils due to ignorance, carelessness, and human greed. Philanthropic effort in every direction is one of the chief glories of Great Britain in the Victorian age, the names of Peabody and Plimsoll, Andrew Reed and Barnardo, Benjamin Waugh and Burdett-Coutts, George Miiller and Samuel Morley, being among those most worthy of honour in this matter. We must close our notice of a few of the countless changes in a great age of progress by noting the abolition of flogging in the army and navy; the legisla- tion protecting women in regard to property ; the freedom of voting secured by the Ballot Act ; the stern action taken against electoral corruption ; and the freedom of trade obtained in legislation which repealed the Corn-laws and gave the people cheap bread, which swept away the Navigation Acts and threw open our ports to foreign vessels, which removed the duties from the raw materials of manu- factures and from almost all articles of food, and thus added inconceivably to the comfort and prosperity of the nation. Among the miscellaneous events of the period we note the Great Exhibitions of the Works of Art and Industry of All Nations held in 1851 and 1862, and the very important Colonial and Great Britain and Ireland 585 Indian Exhibition of 1886, which had a great effect in drawing the attention of the British public to our vast empire existing in other quarters of the world. That interesting, beautiful, and instructive display of productions of the Queen's dominions outside Europe first aroused the dwellers in the British Isles to something like a due sense of the reality and greatness of the empire of which, in territorial area, these islands form only an eightieth part. They began to see that the colonies were worth retaining in the bonds of mutual self-interest and loyal devotion to the same ruler, and there can be no doubt that the revived interest in the imperial naval forces is closely connected with the thoughts and feelings aroused in the minds and hearts of all true patriots by the great event of 1886. In connection with home-defence, we note the abolition, in 187 1, of the purchase of army-commissions, and the throwing open of the military service to gentlemen qualified, not by the possession of pecuniary resources, but by fitness proved by preliminary and by professional competitive examinations. This measure was parallel to that by which, in 1870, all posts in the Civil Service, except in the Foreign Office and the Treasury, were opened to competitive examination. Army-reform has included the establishment of the short-service system by which a powerful reserve of troops has been created ; and the enrolment, as auxiliary forces, of the volunteers, the first of whom came forward in 1859, in reply to French bluster concerning invasion, due to certain colonels who were enraged by an attempt, planned here by foreign exiles, to assassinate the emperor Louis Napoleon. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was an event of great importance for the vast and ever-growing British commerce in affording a new route, without transshipment of cargo and passengers, to the Eastern world and Australasia. The actual time of steaming between London and Sydney, for example, has thus been reduced to about 30 days. The death of the Prince Consort in December, 1 86 1, was an immense loss, not only to the Queen whom he so faithfully aided in her high duties, but to the nation whom he most ably served, with the rarest discretion and self-control, in diplomatic and social affairs. He was one of the foremost men of his time in intellect, virtue, and force of character, a man who sought, in his adopted country, to bring the people nearer to the throne by a just use of the influence of the crown for the improvement of the social conditions. His culture in science, literature, and art; his faculty of accurate observation; and his 586 A History of the World sound judgment, enabled him to render great services to .the advance of civilisation in the British Isles. The two " Great Exhibitions " were mainly due to his initiative and superintend- ence, and his whole course of life was such as to enable him to bequeath a stainless memory to his widow, his children, and the empire. The " Cotton Famine " in Lancashire, a period of distress lasting from 1862 to 1865, caused by the lack of raw cotton for the mills, owing to the blockade of ports, during the Civil War in America, in the Southern or " Confederate " states which were the chief sources of supply, was made notable by the wonderful patience and quietness displayed by the sufferers, a result largely due to the cheapness of bread given by the repeal of the Corn-laws, to the bountiful and judicious charity of their fellow-countrymen, and to the knowledge of the artisans that the contest beyond the ocean, the struggle to which their penury was due, was one waged for the abolition of slavery. The noble-minded President of the Federal (or Northern, Anti-slavery) States, Abraham Lincoln, a man whose name and fame have long overcome the superficial condemnation and base detraction of certain sections of the British press and nation in his own day, received an address from the working-men of Manchester, expressing their abhorrence of slavery. In his reply, dated January 19th, 1863, he referred to this utterance, made by such persons, in such circumstances of unmerited, inevitable suffering, as " an instance of sublime Christian heroism not surpassed in any age or any country." It will be admitted that the British artisan of the north, by his respect for law and order in this time of trial, nobly justified his admission to the franchise, two years later, and that in every political contest and crisis since the rise of democracy, the new wielders of power have shown themselves " conservative," in the best sense, in opposition to all revolutionary schemes, and to socialism in its objectionable forms. The wars of Great Britain since 18 15, with the exception of the Crimean or Russian war, noticed in connection with Turkey, have all been waged out of Europe, and are dealt with under the history of the other continents. We turn to a brief account of affairs in Ireland during the period. After years of agitation, conducted by the famous Daniel O'Connell through the " Catholic Association," the last political disabilities of the Catholics were removed by the Emancipation Act of 1829, which admitted them to both Houses of Parliament and to all civil offices except those of Regent, Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Chancellor of England, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and Ireland 587 Ireland. In 1867 the Chancellorship of Ireland was thrown open to Catholics, and that post was held for a time by Lord O'Hagan. We may note the almost complete disappearance of the element of bigotry as regards appointment to high office in the state in the Indian viceroyship (1880 to 1884) of the marquis of Ripon, and the tenure at the present time of the post of Lord Chief-Justice of England by Lord Russell. The attempts made for the repeal of the Union Act, and the establishment of a separate parliament for Ireland, have spread over a period of nearly 60 years. In 1841 O'Connell conducted a movement which ended in his conviction for sedition, the reversal of the sentence by the House of Lords, the loss of his influence through his strong opposition to violent measures, and his death abroad in 1847. In 1843 the "Young Ireland" party, aiming at the use of physical force for the repeal of the Union, and for the establishment of Irish independence of Great Britain, was headed by Charles Duffy, John Mitchel, Thomas Meagher, and Smith O'Brien, the last three of whom were sentenced to transportation beyond the seas, and the movement collapsed after a vain attempt at rebellion in 1848. Ten years later a movement began with secret associations formed among men of the lower class, and the " Fenian Brotherhood," whose name was derived from the Irish title of the old national militia, was founded by Irishmen in the United States in 1862. The close of the American Civil War brought across the Atlantic large numbers of trained Irish soldiers disbanded from the Federal forces, and risings in Ireland were planned. All attempts at insurrection were quelled, in 1865 and in the two following years, by the troops and by the fine body of armed police called the Irish Constabulary. The wretched rebels who hated England and all her ways and works then resorted to the murderous violence of explosions of gunpowder and, especially, of dynamite, in public places — at Clerkenwell Prison, in London, in 1867, and in 1883 to 1885 at Glasgow and in London, including serious outrages at the House of Commons and the Tower. Nearly all these miscreants were ultimately caught and sentenced to penal servitude. The " Home Rule " struggle for a separate parliament for Irish affairs, the last phase of Irish political history, conducted in the House of Commons by the legitimate means of argument and discussion, and, at a later period, in attempts to force the hand of British members through systematic obstruction of business, began 588 A History of the World with the founding, in 1873, of the "Home Rule League" led by Mr. Isaac Butt. In 1874 about 60 Irish members, or three- fifths of the whole number of representatives in the Commons, were returned as " Home Rulers." In 1877 Mr. Parnell became the head, in the House of Commons, of the " obstruction " party, and in 1880 he led a very large majority of Irish members pledged to the cause. A separate body of men, of desperate character, in close connection with Irish foes of England in the United States, obtaining funds from that source, and known as the " Invincibles," aimed at Irish independence through terrorism, and in May, 1882, these men perpetrated one of the worst crimes of modern days in stabbing to death, in daylight, in full view of the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Mr. Burke, an Under- Secretary, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, new " Chief-Secretary for Ireland," who had only that day landed to assume his duties. This monstrous deed was promptly disavowed by Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, but the Home Rule cause was undoubtedly injured thereby. The skill of the Irish police was evinced by the capture, within a few months, of all the principals and many " aiders and abettors " in the crime, five of whom were hanged, three sentenced to penal servitude for life, and others to various terms. In 1885 the Irish Home Rule members in the Commons numbered 86, and in the following year Mr. Gladstone's Bill was defeated there by a majority of 30, after causing a rupture in the Liberal party, and the secession of some of its most prominent members, including Mr. John Bright, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, Sir Henry (Lord) James, Lord Hartington (duke of Devonshire), the duke of Argyle, and Lord Selborne. Mr. Gladstone was followed, in supporting Home Rule, by Sir William Harcourt, Mr. John Morley, Earl Spencer, Earl Granville, Sir Charles (now Lord) Russell, the earl of Rosebery, the earl of Aberdeen, and Sir George Trevelyan. The whole matter was shelved for six years, from 1886 to 1892, under the Conservative government headed by Lord Salisbury. Meanwhile, the Home Rule cause was seriously injured by the conduct of Mr. Parnell, who in 1890 became the defendant in a divorce-suit promoted by his former friend Captain O'Shea. A special tribunal of three judges, known as the "Parnell Commission," sat for 128 days in the latter part of 1888 and in 1889, to do justice between the Irish leader and his Parliamentary supporters, on the one hand, and the Times news- Great Britain and Ireland 589 paper, on the subject of the famous articles Parnellisrn and Crime, in which Mr. Parnell and his Irish colleagues were charged with direct support and full knowledge of the murderous conspiracies and outrages in connection with Irish independence and the Irish land-system. A wretched man named Richard Pigott was shown, on his own confession, to have misled the managers of the Times by gross forgeries and fraud, and on March 10th, tracked to Madrid by detectives, he ended an infamous life by self-murder with a revolver. The case against Mr. Parnell and his friends was thus, in its chief points, destroyed. The report of the judges, laid before Parliament in February, 1890, acquitted them of the most serious charges, but condemned them of entering into a conspiracy to promote an agrarian agitation, by a system of coercion and intimida- tion, against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of ridding Ireland of the landlords. It was held to be not proved that they had afforded aid to notorious criminals or associated intimately with such persons. The judges found, however, that they had, for political objects, invited and received aid in money from a certain Patrick Ford, a known "dynamiter," connected with an association of desperate men called the Clan-na-Gael. The general effect of this report upon the public mind in Great Britain was detrimental to the Home Rule cause, and this bad effect was intensified by Mr. Parnell's immoral conduct on the social side. It thus came to pass that the efforts of a very able tactician and parliamentary chief were to a large extent neutralised. In a twelve- years' conflict he had forced the Home Rule question to the front, and had secured the adhesion of a large majority of Liberals and of their leader, Mr. Gladstone, only to pull down with his own hands the imposing fabric which he had reared. In the general election of 1892 that great statesman obtained a majority, including his Irish supporters, of nearly 40 in favour of a separate Parliament for Ireland, and in 1893, after a very long struggle, his Bill was carried through the Commons by a majority, on the third reading, of 36. A large majority of English, as distinct from Scottish, Irish, and Welsh members, voted against the Bill, and this fact enabled the Lords to reject the measure by the enormous majority of 419 to 41. The general election of July, 1895, gave a very large "Unionist" majority to Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister, and shelved the cause of " repeal of the Union," perhaps for ever. The Irish land-question has been previously alluded to in these pages. Very complex in details, which present, during the 19th 590 A History of the World century, a chequered scene of crime, tumult, coercion, agitation, intimi- dation, and tribulation, it is simple enough in origin and principle. We have seen that the agrarian difficulty had its rise in conquest and confiscation. The people, robbed of proprietary rights in the soil, have never ceased to regard that soil as justly theirs, and to resent the payment of rent as legalised spoliation. Native and alien landlords and their agents, in the latter half of the 18th and during most of the 19th century, were the objects of agitation, opposition, outrage, and murder conducted by secret societies formed among the peasantry — " Whiteboys," " Ri'ubonmen," and the like. Countless "Coercion Acts " were from time to time passed in order to deal with disorder and veiled rebellion. It was Ireland's misfortune that the lack of coal, capital, and enterprise had brought nearly all the people, save in the province of Ulster, into a state of dependence on the produce of the soil, and a bad harvest has been invariably productive of want approaching or reaching the point of starvation. The country was much over-populated under the existing economical conditions, and the evils of the land-question were aggravated by the fierce competition for farms which caused a constant rise of rents. Non-payment of rent brought evictions, or forcible expulsion of tenants, from their lands and homes, and eviction was frequently followed by outrages perpetrated on land-agents, on succeeding tenants, and on all who supported the cause of the hated land- owners. British legislation, for many years, paid little or no heed to these matters, or only made things worse by strengthening the hands of the landlords for enforcing the rights which, to the unhappy Irish tillers of the soil, appeared to be deadly wrongs. Commissions appointed to inquire into the state of Ireland constantly, in their reports, made use of the words " exorbitant rents." At the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign the condition of affairs was truly portentous. Independent foreign observers — French, German, Italian — declared the misery of the Irish peasant to be beyond all example in modern Europe. The Times and the Quarterly Review, very powerful organs of English opinion as far as possible removed from revolutionary views, denounced the " landlordism " of Ireland in the strongest terms of bitter indignation. Nature herself at last took the matter in hand, and brought a fearful but, in some points, effectual remedy to the miseries of the country. In 1 84 1 the population of Ireland had reached a number exceed- ing 8,000,000, the bulk of whom depended for subsistence on a single root. The failure of the potato-crop in 1845, '846, and two Great Britain and Ireland 591 following years brought the awful tragedy known as the Potato Famine. In spite of all British and American efforts, this slew at least 500,000 people through hunger and disease, had a large share in causing the immediate repeal of the Corn-laws, and started the great emigration-movement which, conveying away some millions of Irish, chiefly beyond the Atlantic, and in far smaller numbers to Australasia, relieved the country from its curse of over-population. Legislation had dealt with the symptoms instead of with the cause of the malady. Parliament maintained the rights of property, passed more and more Coercion Acts, and supported eviction. In 1849 the Encumbered Estates Act enabled Irish landlords or their creditors to sell estates, and a special court, in the course of 40 years, made the transfer to new owners of about one-fifth of the soil. The new landlords were even more ruthless than the old, and in 1870 the first real measure of relief to Irish tenants was passed. This first Irish Land Act of Mr. Gladstone compelled landlords to pay to tenants, on removal from holdings by the land- owner, the value of improvements, made at the tenant's cost, in the soil and the farm-buildings. The measure, however, failed to prevent the landlord from raising the rent of an improved holding, and if the tenant were thus driven to give notice, he had no claim to compensa- tion for improvements. Iniquitous landlords thwarted or evaded the intentions of the law, and there was a renewal of agrarian trouble in outrages, murders, and the acquittal of offenders, in spite of the clearest evidence, by sympathising juries of their fellow-countrymen. In 1879 the National Land League was started in Ireland, and strongly supported by Mr. Parnell and the Home Rulers of that country. In 1881 Mr. Gladstone's second Irish Land Act effected much good in establishing courts with power to fix a fair rental for tenants, payable at that standard for 15 years, during which period the tenant could not be evicted except for non-payment of rent or for breach of certain clear agreements between the land- owner and himself. In the following year an Arrears Act made an end of all debts due by tenants to landlords, on payment of only one year's rent. In 1885 another Act did much to further the cause of peasant-proprietorship in the soil by enabling the state to advance two-thirds, and later, the whole of the purchase-money to tenants, repayable over 49 years in the form of four per cent, interest. Many millions of pounds have been thus advanced, and the last state of Ireland, at the end of the 19th century, is in a marked degree better than the first. In spite of all troubles and 39 592 A History of the World difficulties, the country has, within the last 50 years, made a marked advance in material prosperity. The revenue, between 1850 and 1888, rose from £4,500,000 to ,£7,500,000 ; the deposits and private balances in joint-stock banks increased, between 1852 and 1885, from £"10,000,000 to nearly thrice that amount. The savings-banks used by the poorer classes of depositors have, in a like period, increased the amount of deposits fourfold. In 1854 only one person in 132 of the whole population was a depositor in a savings- bank of any kind. In 1887 the proportion was about one in 28. A vast improvement in the dwelling-houses has also taken place, and for every 100 families now living in the typical Irish "mud- cabins" there were 700 so existing when Queen Victoria came to the throne. In 1841 more than half the population over five years of age could not read and write ; 40 years later, only one-quarter were in that condition. The province of Ulster, largely differing from the rest of the country in religious faith and in the race and character of the people, has been disturbed and disgraced only by occasional outbreaks of hostility, "religious riots," between Catholics and Protestants. As regards the land-question, an unwritten law styled the " Ulster custom " afforded freedom of sale for the goodwill of a holding and the practical fixity of tenure so desirable for skilled and industrious farmers. In the most flourishing part of Ireland, the county of Antrim, manufacturing industry has had great success owing to capital, energy, and the proximity of cheap and abundant fuel in the Cumberland and Lancashire coal-fields. The great town of Belfast, now renowned for ship-building, has also supplied employment to large numbers of people in flax-spinning, linen-weaving, rope-making, and other trades. We leave this subject by recording the Act of 1869 for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland — a measure which ended a grievance of Irish Catholics by removing Irish prelates from the House of Lords and employing a part of the superfluous revenues of the Church for the relief of Irish suffering in various forms. In Scotland, the period under review has witnessed a great growth of population and prosperity, and the only event needing notice here is the noble display of public spirit which caused the formation of the "Free Church" in 1843. This step was a revolt of a large number of Presbyterian ministers and laymen against the patronage-system which forced new ministers on congregations who objected to their appointment. The " General Assembly," by its Great Britain and Ireland — France 593 Veto Act of 1834, had forbidden the appointment of a minister to any parish against the will of a majority of male Church-members. The civil law, in certain cases, enforced compliance with the wishes of lay-patrons, and a great secession from the established Presby- terian Church was the result. Nearly 500 ministers, headed by Dr. Welsh, the " Moderator " of the Assembly, and by the great orator, the accomplished Dr. Chalmers, resigned their livings and threw themselves for subsistence on the voluntary support of laymen who might approve their conduct. A grand response was made to this heroic appeal of conscientious men, and large sums of money soon supplied a sustentation-fund for ministers ; erected hundreds of new churches and " manses " ; established new theological colleges, and launched on its career the " Free Church " which has produced some of Scotland's ablest and most eloquent divines. In the Anglican Church the chief event of the 19th century has been the "Oxford Movement" or "Anglican revival" connected with the names and due to the efforts of Pusey, Newman, Keble, and other Oxford scholars. The Tracts for the Times, published between 1833 and 1841, caused the supporters of the movement to be styled " Tractarians " ; another popular name was that of " Puseyites." Many of these reformers, men of the school of Arch- bishop Laud in Stuart times, ended by going over to the Roman communion, the most notable examples being those of the men who became Cardinals Newman and Manning. The modern " High Church " or " Ritualistic " section of Anglicans now includes the large majority of the clergy, and a permanent result of the revival has been a greater degree of devotion to practical and parochial work, combined with a vast improvement in reverence of ritual, church-music, and church architecture. Nonconformist activity has, in a large measure, kept pace with the Church in these matters, apart from any changes of ritual. Chapter III. — France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule. In the reign of the insignificant Louis XVIII. (1815-1824), who, as the Comte de Provence, had steadily injured the cause of his brother, Louis XVI., by opposing every salutary measure, a reactionary course was adopted, under the influence of the restored nobles and priests, against the imperialist (Napoleonic), republican, and Protestant sections of French society. A " White Terror " arose in the provinces, 594 A History of the World and roving bands of assassins put to death hundreds of " heretics " and holders of republican principles. In 1823 a French army entered Spain and, supporting the cause of the restored Ferdinand VII., enabled that perjured monarch to violate the new constitution and murder subjects who claimed the fulfilment of his pledges. Great discontent arose in France, and secret societies were formed to counteract the policy of an ultra-royalist ministry and chamber of deputies. Under Louis XVIII. 's brother and successor, Charles X. ( 1 824-1 830), matters went from bad to worse in the direction of despotism. A liberal party of influential men, favouring a system of monarchy based on the support of the bourgeoisie or middle classes, began to arise. The new sovereign, devoted to the Jesuits and the clerical party, increased his unpopularity by disbanding the National Guard in 1827. In the following year a Chamber with a liberal majority was elected, and the foolish king, a typical Bourbon, sealed his fate when, in the face of this fact, he called to his councils an ultra-royalist and reactionary in the feeble-minded Prince de Polignac. This minister persuaded his master, after the election of a Chamber with an increased liberal majority, to issue certain "ordinances" of an insane character, declaring the recent elections to be illegal ; restricting the suffrage, by a new electoral system, 10 the large land- owners ; and forbidding any newspaper or pamphlet to appear without royal sanction. The people of Paris, in the famous " three days" of the "Revolution of July" (27th-2oth), rushed to arms, erected barricades, defeated the troops, captured the Hotel de Ville and the Louvre, drove the king into exile, made Lafayette, whom we saw in the great Revolution, commander of the National Guard, and set up a "provisional government." This prompt and effective assertion of the cause of freedom was sullied by no cruelties on the victorious side. The king was at their mercy, and they let him go. The ministers who had signed the " ordinances " were only punished, after a lawful trial, with imprisonment. Property was respected ; the fundamental laws of the country were revered. The mild character of the second French Revolution, one promoted by men who had enjoyed some blessings of freedom, was a triumphant proof of the proposition that the violence of such an armed uprising against misrule is proportioned to the degree of misgovernment which produces it. The July Revolution made an end of the older Bourbon line as rulers in France, and the younger branch came to a new constitutional throne in the person of Louis Philippe I. (1830-1848), France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 595 duke of Orleans, son of the Philippe Egalite (due d'Orle'ans) of the first Revolution, who voted for the death of Louis XVI., and himself died by the guillotine in November, 1793. The new " King of the French," le roi bourgeois, or " middle-class king," as he was styled, the chosen of the French people, was a man of varied experience, in a life of exile, as a tutor in Switzerland, a traveller over Europe and the United States, a refugee in England. The " citizen-king " was fondly believed to be a most sagacious man, and he began well by abandoning all claim to " divine right " ; abolishing censorship of the Press ; confining legislation to the two Chambers ("Deputies" and Senate), and generally recognising constitutional forms. His opponents were found among the ultra- royalists and the republicans, and among the latter party there soon arose agitation for an extension of the franchise, which was limited to the aristocracy of wealth and their supporters. The industry and wealth of the country grew, and the sovereign retained his hold of the middle classes whose interests he favoured to the exclusion of the peasantry and artisans. There was gross political and even judicial corruption, and the policy of France was marked by much unwisdom in the attempts to win glory by very sanguinary and costly warfare in Algeria ; in perfidious treatment of the Spanish queen with the hope of seeing a French prince dominant beyond the Pyrenees ; in the adoption of a hostile tone towards Great Britain ; and in the courting of the Napoleonic party by the bringing of their hero's remains, in 1840, to French soil. Many attempts were made on the king's life, and, under the influence of fear and of foolish ministers, he caused the enactment of repressive laws, tampered with trial by jury, and made the middle-class monarchy, the bourgeois predominance, yearly more hateful to the men of progress and the republican party. The end came in February, 1848, when the king, with his minister Guizot, a steady opponent of the advanced party, forbade the holding of a series of banquets in favour of electoral reform. On February 22nd the mob of Paris rose in arms, assisted by the defection of some of the troops of the line, and by the active aid or the complicity of the municipal police and the National Guard. The king, in disguise, and under the name of " Mr. Smith," made his escape to England with the queen, the estimable Marie Amelie, daughter of Ferdinand I. of Naples, and ended his life at Claremont in August, 1850. The Second French Republic arose, and in June a terrible contest in the streets of Paris, with the loss of many thousands of 59^ A History of the World lives, ensued between the moderate republican party and the socialistic section, the " Reds " or extreme republicans. The troops and the National Guard subdued the insurrection of the socialists, and in December, 1848, a Napoleon came again to the front, as President of the Republic, elected by over 5,500,000 of votes taken at a plebiscite, or election by universal suffrage, against about 1,500,000 given to the genuine republican, General Cavaignac, an Algerian soldier who had distinguished himself by skill, courage, and clemency in and after the outbreak of June, and was a man of the highest honour. The new head of affairs was, like Louis Philippe, a man of varied experience before he attained to supreme power. Nephew of the great emperor, as son of Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, Louis Napoleon, born at Paris in 1808, became in 1832, by the death of Napoleon's only son (the due de Reichstadt) and of his own elder brothers, head of the house of Corsican upstarts. Educated in Switzerland and Germany, he displayed in manhood a complex character, involving considerable intelligence ; dreamy, philosophic indefiniteness of thought; ambition, fatalism, irresolution and hesitation capable of being roused to decision and courage at critical junctures ; absence of all political morality ; kindliness, gratitude to all who served him in his days of ill-fortune. Outlawed from France under the Bourbons, he made two absurd attempts, in 1836 and in 1840, to arouse French troops against Louis Philippe, and he passed over five years, until May, 1846, as a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, on the Somme. Making his escape, he returned to England, where he was already well known in certain circles of London society, and on December 20 h, 1848, he took the oath of allegiance to the French Republic. A gang of adventurers of the most unscrupulous kind, mere creatures of prey — De Moray, Maupas, Fiolin (afterwards Due de Persigny), St. Arnaud, and others — had resolved to use the " nephew of his uncle " in their own sordid interests, and the nephew, full of thoughts of " Csesarism," of a display of modern imperial democracy, was willing to be so used. The first clear evidence of treachery to true republican principles was given in the suppression, by a French army, in league with monarchical Austria and a detestable tyrant at Naples, of the republican movement in Rome. The army, especially the strong garrison of Paris, was won over by systematic corruption, in- cluding gross debauchery. " Napoleonists" were placed in all prominent military and civil posts; the provincial towns were France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 597 courted in frequent presidential visits ; the people were cajoled by acts of clemency and by largesses of various kinds. The better part — in numbers, patriotic spirit, and intelligence — of the Assembly well understood what was going on, and the President and his creatures laid their plans against them. On December 2nd 1 85 1, the infamous Coup d'Etat, one of the greatest crimes of modern days, laid French liberty prostrate. The republican and Orleanist leaders — Cavaignac, Changarnier, Thiers, Victor Hugo, and many more — were seized at dead of night. Attempts at resistance, in the streets of the capital, were quelled, and society overawed, by the ruthless slaughter of men, women, and children. The " constitution " was annulled ; political opponents were exiled or transported to Cayenne, the French penal colony in Guiana. Perjured and steeped in blood, Louis Napoleon, elected by another plebiscite largely influenced by terrorism and deceit, became President for ten years, and inaugurated his new monarchical rule by con- fiscating the "appanages," or Bourbon crown-lands, of the Orleanist princes, and compelling them to sell their whole, private property in French land. On December 2nd, 1852, the edifice of new Napoleonic power was crowned by the assumption of imperial sway, and " Napoleon III., Emperor ,of the French," began to reign under the sanction of another plebiscite, said to have afforded nearly 8,000,000 of votes. The public press was put under restraint, and a system of absolute rule was set up under the mask of a Senate and Legislative Body possessing no real parliamentary powers. The Second Empire continued for nearly 18 years. Submission to a man who, under the protection of a devoted army and of a rigorous police, posed as the maintainer of law and order, was accorded by a generation of Frenchmen composed of men and women who knew nothing, by personal experience, of the miseries as well as the glories of the first Empire, and by many lovers of order and good administration who were ready to welcome the representative of the family whose founder's best work had survived him in admirable systems of law and public education, and in military institutions. Recognised by the European powers, the emperor declared his resolve to maintain peace, a pledge violated, as we shall see, with regard to Russia, Austria, and Mexico, prior to the last wanton and disastrous outbreak of French militarism. The country, enjoying peace at home, had a great increaes of material prosperity. The skill and taste of French artisans made 598 A History of the World wealth in manufactures ; the dogged industry of French peasants, tilling their own soil, created riches from the ground, and their thrift hoarded the returns for investment in the government-loans raised to meet a lavish expenditure on public works, or in the railways which were largely developed, to the benefit of trade and commerce, during the reign. All that material progress can do to justify the seizure of supreme power was effected. The masons and other building craftsmen of Paris were kept employed, at good wages, in the reconstruction of the city under the super- intendence of the eminently energetic — and expensive — Baron Haussmann, " Pre'fet of the Seine," at a cost of ^35,000,000 sterling for the widening of streets, the laying out of new boulevards and parks, the construction of sewers, barracks, and bridges. Imperialism made a brilliant show at home in a court headed by the lovely and extravagant empress, the Spanish lady Eugenie de Montijo, countess of «Teba, and the birth of a prince imperial in March, 1856, was hailed with rapture by the believers in the new empire. In the European system, an imposing effect was produced by success in land-warfare ; by the great increase of the national steam-navy, and by the completion of the vast harbour and fortifications at Cherbourg which Napoleon I. had begun. Alliance with Great Britain against Russia and in Chinese affairs added to the "prestige " of the new dynasty, and the vindication, to some extent, of Italian freedom against Austria, and the armed protection afforded to the Pope against Italian liberalism, conciliated at once the champions of the principle of " nationalities," and the devotees of the Catholic Church. The downfall was due to the shock given to the self-conceit of French militarism by the brilliant success of Prussia, in 1866, in war against Austria, and by the general advance of the leading state of Germany under the control, as Chancellor, of the renowned von Bismarck, who had again and again fooled and foiled, in the field of diplomatic contests, the emperor Napoleon. French " Chauvinism " (the " Jingoism " of the British Isles), a name derived from that of Chauvin, a fiery young recruit in a modern French comedy, had been galled by the Prussian minister's blunt refusal to give territorial " compensation " to France in the Rhine- country after Prussia's great success in Germany, and any pretext for war was sure of a welcome in Paris. The occasion was the offer of the Spanish throne to the Prince of Hohenzollern, a young man not in the reigning line of that House, as far as Prussia was France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 599 concerned, but French susceptibility was aggrieved by his accept- ance, and remonstrance was met by his withdrawal at the Prussian king's request. This was followed by the really insolent demand that the Prussian sovereign should undertake never to permit the Hohenzollern candidacy for the Spanish crown to be renewed. King William, then a visitor at Ems, near Coblenz, declined to discuss this matter with the French ambassador Benedetti, who sought to " interview " him on the public parade. We now know, from Bismarck's own cynical confession, that this incident was reported to and published in the Prussian newspapers in a form, prepared by himself, which was expressly framed as likely to irritate the French, and provoke the outbreak of war for which he knew Germany to be well prepared. On the other hand, it is certain that the French government was meditating war from the fact that, in the spring of 1870, their agents had been purchasing corn and forage in the southern English markets, and a flotilla had been secretly gathering in the northern French ports for the transport of men and horses, presumably to the north coast of Germany, in case of need. The provocation given by Bismarck was instantly taken up, and the French government declared war on July 15th. The whole of northern Germany rose as one man, with the alliance of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, and Baden, and the French hope of aid from, or, at least, of neutrality in, those states was baffled. Stern, quiet resolution, along with a complete state of preparation for war, on the east of the Rhine, was confronted with premature boasting, excited yells of A Berlin, and a military state of disorganisation which quickly gave the lie to the French minister of war, Marshal Leboeuf's statement, at the council where war was decided on, that " all was ready, even to the last button on the soldier's gaiters." A detailed account of this great struggle, with its succession of astounding events, may be sought in any of the special works devoted to its history. It has no parallel in mediaeval or modern times for the numbers of men engaged, along with the swiftness and completeness of success attained by the victors, a success due to superiority of force in well-trained troops, to better organisation, and to the skill of the German chief of the staff, von Moltke, one of the greatest strategists of all time. The " Commentaries " of Napoleon I. were the handbook of military study in the German staff; the French generals seemed to be wholly ignorant of his principles or incapable of applying them. The French emperor 600 A History of the World accompanied his men into the field, and quickly found his fears as to the real state of the army well founded. The force under arms was less than 250,000, or 100,000 below the numbers on paper. Mismanagement, and embezzlement of funds, the work of years, had left the actual numbers raised and disciplined short, to that extent, of those voted, and the arsenals and storehouses were lacking in supplies of all kinds. The Germans took the field, within a fortnight, with about 400,000 men, crossed the frontier, and at once assumed the offensive. On August 4th a French advance-post of 9,000 men was crushed at Weissenburg. Two days later their right wing (45,000 men) was broken to pieces, under MacMahon, at Worth, and at Forbach, with the storming of the Spicheren heights, another army was driven back in rout upon Metz. The emperor retired with MacMahon to Chalons-sur-Marne, where a new army was being formed from the remnants of the force defeated at Worth and from the newly raised Mobiles. Bazaine, intending retreat on Paris with his army of 140,000 men, including the imperial guard, was finally shut up within the Metz circle of forts and the town, after the three great battles of Courcehes (or Colombey- Nouilly) on August 14th, Vionville (or Mars-la-Tour, or Rezonville, from other villages on the scene of action), and Gravelotte (or St. Privat), the last two of which were fought on August 16th and 18th. The next step was the adventurous and fatal attempt, prompted by political considerations as to the effect in Paris of the emperor's return thither as a defeated man, leaving Bazaine invested, made by the army under MacMahon and Louis Napoleon to come down upon Metz from the north, by way of Rheims, Mezieres, and Thionville, and extricate Bazaine by an attack on the rear of the investing army. Von Moltke's strategy foiled this by a change of direction given to the Crown Prince's army, then on the march for Paris, and by the formation of a new force, under the Crown Prince of Saxony, which went, by Verdun, down the valley of the Meuse, towards the Belgian frontier. By these two armies, the French, defeated by the Prussian prince at Beaumont on August 30th, and by the Saxon prince at Mouzon on the same day, were finally surrounded and utterly beaten at Sedan on September 1st, and compelled to surrender on the following day as prisoners of war. This greatest capitulation, up to that date, in the history of modern warfare, sent the emperor, MacMahon (severely wounded early in the day), and 100,000 men in captivity to Germany. The emperor, dethroned two days later, on September 4th, by a France: the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 60 1 revolution in Paris, which founded the Third Republic, was a prisoner at Wilhelmshohe, three miles from Cassel, capital of Hesse- Nassau, until the close of the war, when he joined his wife and son in England, dying at Camden Place, Chislehurst, in Kent, in January, 1873. With the exception of a single army-corps under General Vinoy, the whole regular (imperial) army of France was by this time in captivity, or shut up without hope of rescue in Metz, Strasbourg, and many other fortresses in the north and east. The people of France then took up the cause, and more than 1,000,000 fresh men were raised and organised under the direction of Gambetta, a native of the south of France, of Genoese-Jewish origin, minister of the interior in the new republican government, a man of marvellous energy and resolution. The whole nation was stirred by his appeals, and the republican troops, by a determined and prolonged, however vain, resistance to the German victors, redeemed the fame of the country whose interests had been sacrificed to the incapacity, if not the treachery and corruption, of imperialism. The whole contest now became a struggle for Paris, invested on September 19th, with its continuous line of bastions and trenches, or enceinte, and its 16 detached forts on the outside, by the armies of the Crown Princes of Prussia and Saxony, over 200,000 men. The defenders included about 85,000 trained fighters — the garrison, Vinoy's corps, sailors and marines — and over 300,000 of the guard-mobile and national guard of Paris, and mobile-guards from the provinces. The siege of over four months was one beyond all example in history, one whereby a city containing 2,000,000 of persons was cut off from all communication with the outer world except by permission of the investing force, and by the "balloon-post" and "pigeon-post." Gambetta, quitting the capital by balloon, made his way to Tours, and thence, as the area of German conquest was enlarged, to Bordeaux, from which places he directed the operations undertaken for the raising of the siege. The German line of communication with the frontier on the east was cleared by the surrender, on September 23rd and 28th, of the fortresses of Toul and Strasbourg, after severe bombardment, and many other places were given up after bombardment or blockade. The attention of the whole civilised world was concentrated on the siege of Paris and the efforts made for its relief from the outside. The operations were conducted, in two instances, with great ability and energy by French commanders, Chanzy in the south-west, and Faidherbe in 602 A History of the World the north, but all efforts failed against von Moltke's skill, well backed by intelligence in his subordinate commanders and by admirable discipline and courage in the troops. The surrender of Metz, on October 28th, by the treacherous Bazaine, who was in league with the exiled empress for the preservation of his great force with a view to an imperial restoration, was a capitulation far exceed- ing even that of Sedan. On that memorable day 3 field-marshals, 66 generals of army-corps, divisions, and brigades, about 6,000 officers, and 170,000 men, became prisoners of war. A force of over 170,000 Germans was thus set free, after a deduction as garrison of the captured fortress, for operations against the French relieving armies. A great force had been gathered on the line of the Loire, and a Bavarian army, immensely outnumbered, had been defeated in several engagements, retiring in good order. The surrender of Metz sent Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, one of the ablest generals, to the scene of action near Orleans, with 70,000 men, and he speedily, with some help from the army round Paris, broke up the army of the Loire, and retook Orleans on December 4th. Sorties from Paris, made in great force, failed to break through the German lines of investment, and the French army of the north was driven back within the network of fortresses on the Belgian frontier. Paris was drawing near to the end of her supplies of food, and the able French commander Chanzy, in charge of forces near Orleans, resisted with great skill and courage, for a fortnight, all attempts to force him away ; by December 17th, how- ever, he was driven back to Le Mans. The crisis was at hand, and the German army was largely reinforced to meet the last desperate efforts of their foe. On the north, Rouen, Amiens, and Dieppe had been occupied by the invaders, and Faidherbe, fighting an indecisive battle at Bapaume early in January, 187 1, was utterly defeated, a few days later, at St. Quentin. Chanzy, advancing from Le Mans, was routed on January 10th and nth, and that town was taken, on the following day, with 20,000 men, and large supplies of food, arms, and ammunition. This defeat ended all hope for Paris from the south and west. A force of 100,000 men, under General Bourbaki, formerly commander of the imperial guard, was used to strike at the German communications to the east, first attacking von Werder, who was besieging the great fortress of Belfort, at the southern end of the Vosges. Garibaldi and his son, heading French and Italian volunteers, had won some small successes over the Germans near Dijon, and Bourbaki hoped to master the line France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 603 from Strasbourg to Paris. The strategical skill and promptitude of von Moltke wrecked the whole plan. On hearing of Bourbaki's move eastwards from Bourges, he formed a fresh army of 50,000 men, and sent them at the utmost speed across the country to strike at Bourbaki's flank and rear. That hapless man, defeated, about the middle of January, in a three-days' contest near Belfort, and driven under the guns of Besancon, was smitten with dismay on the appearance of the new foe, lost his head, and attempted suicide. His army, shoeless and starving amidst deep snow, was driven in detached bodies over the Swiss frontier, where they laid down their arms to the number of 80,000 men. On January 28th the French capital, starved out, surrendered to the German forces. There were fiery and determined, not to say reckless, spirits among the French people, including the brave Gambetta, who wished to continue the struggle " to the bitter end," but the vast majority of a national assembly gathered at Bordeaux voted for peace, and the Treaty of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, signed on May ioth, 187 1, concluded the war with the cession to Germany of the whole of Alsace, except the fortress of Belfort and its district, and of the fifth part of Lorraine, including Metz and Thionville, and the payment of a war-indemnity of five milliards (5,000,000,000) of francs, or ^200,000,000 sterling, within three years, in addition to the ransom paid by the city of Paris on surrender — 200,000,000 francs, or ;£8, 000,000 sterling. The whole cost to France, direct and indirect, of this great war must have been at least ^600,000,000 sterling. Germany had her western frontier secured by possession of Metz and Strasbourg, which have been further fortified, and her national pride was also gratified in the recovery of territory and towns wrested from her, by fraud or force, in the days of the French kings Henry II., Louis XIV., and Louis XV. Unhappy France had not seen the end of her woes in the surrender of Paris. During the siege, a socialistic element had given some trouble and caused some disorder, and these " Red Republicans," working-men led by those who desired autonomy or independence for the capital through its " Commune " or municipal- ity, and aimed at making France consist of a federation of municipal republics, seized on power in Paris after the capitulation. The movement is not to be confounded with " communism," or the social system based on community of property. The " Com- munists " of Paris, in the former sense, had become possessed of several hundred cannon and mitrailleuses, and, having already 604 A History of the World abundance of rifles and ammunition from the part which they had taken in defence of the city, they converted the north-eastern districts, Montmartre and Belleville, into strong fortresses, and rose in arms on March 18th. A fearful civil war, with a reign of terror inside Paris, ensued. German forces, holding territory near the capital as security for the payment of the indemnity, of course observed a strict neutrality. The regular forces of the republic, hundreds of thousands of men who had returned from captivity in Germany, represented the cause of law and order, and a powerful army, under MacMahon, had its headquarters at Versailles, the seat of the government headed by M. Thiers, a literary man of great eminence ; a thorough, if in some respects a misguided, patriot ; an able orator ; a former chief minister of Louis Philippe ; now elected President of the French Republic. The Parisian rebels murdered two generals, despoiled the churches, exacted large sums of money from the Bank of France, and arrested the archbishop of Paris (Monseigneur Darboy) and many priests as " hostages." They were masters of several outside forts, and the government-troops, or Versaillists, had to undertake a regular siege of the capital. The place was bombarded from the old German lines, and by the great fortress of Mont Valerien, and the " Commune," mad with rage, destroyed the house of Thiers and overthrew the great column in the Place Vendome, a monument of the victories of Napoleon I., covered with bronze made from cannon taken by his troops. On May 21st (Sunday) the Versailles soldiers effected an entry at a point left unguarded, and on the following day the storming of Paris by Frenchmen was steadily progressing. With horrible slaughter, the work went on from day to day, and barricade-fighting took place in the heart of the city. In the fury of despair, as the inevitable end drew near under the incessant efforts of disciplined troops skilfully led, the " Reds " endeavoured to destroy by fire the city which they could not hold, and some government buildings, with the Tuileries, a part of the Palais Royal, the Hotel de Ville, the library of the Louvre, and other important edifices, perished in the flames. Notre Dame was just saved by the inrush of victorious Versaillists as a light was being applied to the choir-stalls smeared with petroleum. On May 28th the victory of order was complete, after many thousands of insurgents had perished, the archbishop and his fellow-hostages having been deliberately murdered by shooting. The blood-stained, blazing capital was a scene of horror such as has been rarely seen in modern days, but a sharp France : the End of Bourbon and Imperial Rule 605 lesson was given to the supporters of anarchy, and the peace of Paris and of France has not since, during nearly thirty years, been seriously menaced or disturbed. The latest history of France need not detain us long. The main fact is the firm establishment, against the efforts of monarchical agitators, of republican rule, and its continuance for a longer period than any form of government set up since the first downfall of the Bourbon monarchy at the great Revolution. The world, which had been astonished by the collapse of the country in the great war, was not less surprised by the vitality displayed in the speedy restoration from calamities so crushing. Among successive presi- dents have been Thiers, who induced the peop'e to raise money enough to pay off the last instalment of the vast war-indemnity, and so clear the territory of German troops in September, 1873 ; Marshal MacMahon, an excellent soldier but weak in political affairs, favouring monarchical intrigues during his tenure of office ending in January, 1879 ; M. Jules Grevy, who held office from that date until 1887, and was then succeeded by M. Sadi-Carnot, grandson of the famous minister-of-war in the Committee of Public Safety and the Directory and under the Consulate. In 1892 there were serious dynamite-outrages perpetrated by anarchists in Paris, and one of these detestable miscreants effected the assassination of President Carnot at Lyon on June 24th, 1894. The colonial and foreign policy of France since 18 15 will be seen under Asia, Africa, and America. To French capital, and to the engineering skill and energy of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the commercial world owes the construction of the Suez Canal. The same great engineer's undertaking at the Isthmus of Panama ended in the collapse of the company in 1889, after the useless expenditure of some ^£70,000,000 sterling, and attempts to revive and continue the scheme were productive of scandalous disclosures showing that republics as well as empires are not free from gross financial corruption. The French military system has been restored on a new basis supplying an enormous force of trained troops, and a continuous rivalry has existed between France and Germany in this matter. The great increase of naval power has caused a moie than corresponding activity in British shipyards, and has greatly contributed to the development of naval force which enabled us to make so magnificent a display at the Portsmouth review in 1897. In the early spring of 1898 the trial of the French novelist Zola for libel in connection with his championship of the army-officer Captain 606 .A History of the World Dreyfus, condemned for treason in January, 1895, § ave a ver y unfavourable impression of French " militarism," as overriding not merely the sense of decency and propriety among civilians and officers, but judicial dignity and impartiality. Chapter IV. — Germany : Austria ; Prussia ; the New German Empire. For many years after the Congress of Vienna, Austria, under the rule of Francis I. (1792-1835) and his son Ferdinand I. (1835- 1848), in political alliance with Russia and Prussia, was the leading state of Germany, and greatly influenced Continental affairs. Home- government and foreign policy alike were chiefly directed by the able Prince von Metternich, a clear-headed, firm man, who had proved himself a match for Napoleon in diplomacy. His con- summate art in negotiation and in intrigue, conducted with an ever-smiling face and winning ways, was used with great effect against the French emperor prior to his downfall. He was the steady opponent of constitutional freedom, and ever strove to repress any advances thereto, in speech or writing, by severe measures against the public press, combined agitation, and private utterance. The German princes, under this evil system, exhibited a horror of change and reform, and in 18 19 a convention of ministers at Karlsbad, under the presidency of Metternich, adopted resolutions in restraint of the press, gagging university-teachers, forbidding societies and political meetings, and creating a kind of inquisition for the discovery and punishment of democratic agitators. The revolution of 1830 in France had its effect upon the German party of progress, and risings took place in some of the smaller states. In Brunswick, the palace of the unpopular duke was destroyed by fire, and he was in much personal danger. The rulers of Saxony, Hanover, and Hessen-Cassel, and the new duke of Brunswick, then granted "constitutions" on a more or less wide basis. In 1837 the kingdom of Hanover, which could not, under the Salic law, be ruled by a female sovereign, ceased to be connected with Great Britain on the accession of Queen Victoria, and the new ruler, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland, a man of detestable character, restricted the new constitutional liberties, and dismissed from office seven distinguished professors of the University of Gottingen, including the two renowned brothers Grimm, for protesting against his tyranny. Austria 607 A brief awakening came with the French outbreak of 1848. During a generation passed under despotic rule, the desire for freedom had become irrepressible, and the rulers of most of the smaller states, in presence of the popular feeling, showed their fear by taking ministers of more liberal views. The king of Bavaria abdicated in favour of his son, and the grand-duke of Hessen- Darmstadt made his son co-ruler. Austria became the arena of serious events. The repressive system of rule had specially affected some of the nationalities under her sway, and in 1846 a Polish insurrection had caused Cracow, made a " free state," under the protection of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, at the Congress of Vienna, to be incorporated with the empire. The troubles in Italy will be seen hereafter. Bohemia was clamouring for change, and Hungary took up arms. In March, 1848, an insurrection in Vienna overthrew the civil and military power, and Metternich, fleeing to England, vanished for ever from the scene of his long domination. The emperor and court took refuge in the capital of the Tyrol, leaving Vienna in the hands of the national guards and the armed citizens and students. A rising in Prague was crushed with sanguinary severity, but in Hungary matters, for a time, took a different and very serious course. The constitutional movement in that country, under the leadership of Francis Deak, Louis Kossuth, and other patriots, had become very formidable prior to the French revolution against Louis Philippe. Kossuth now became the leader of revolt, and Hungary demanded complete independence. In October Vienna was recaptured, after a siege of eight days, by the imperial troops under Field-Marshal Windischgratz, and quiet was restored in Austria proper on the abdication of Ferdinand in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph, now (1898) in his 50th year of sovereignty. The Hungarians, joined by many Germans and Poles, but opposed by the Croatians and Transylvanians, defeated the imperial troops in several actions with great loss, and captured Buda-Pesth. Armies numbering 200,000 men were under the command of Bern and Dembinski, Polish generals, and of the Magyar princes Gorgei and Klapka, and a bold advance on Vienna, at the crisis of the struggle, might have overthrown the Austrian power. In his trouble, the new emperor appealed for help to Russia, and in May, 1849, her forces crossed the frontier. The Hungarian troops were now outnumbered, and, after a severe struggle, overpowered. Some of the leaders took refuge in Turkey ; Count Batthyanyi was shot ; and the revolt was punished by the infamous General Haynau with great 40 608 A History of the World severity in executions of leaders, imprisonments, floggings of men and women, and confiscations. The new constitution was abolished ; Transylvania and Croatia were separated from Hungary ; and the general struggle for freedom ended in the re-establishment of the former despotic system of rule, without any freedom for the press or trial by jury. Turning now to Prussia, we find that country, under the rule of Frederick William III. (1797-1840), making great progress in commercial and educational affairs. Treaties of commerce were made with various maritime nations ; steam-traffic on the great rivers was developed ; a new and excellent system of roads was formed; and Germany at large began to receive benefit through the establishment of the famous Zollverein or Customs' Union, which included, in 1838, 23 states. Many useless restrictions on trade were thus removed ; and the idea of national unity was thereby fostered. The leadership in this movement was due to Prussia, and her influence in Germany was increased. The utmost efforts were made, and large sums were expended, in the spread of education, and the established Protestant Church was newly and liberally endowed. On the other hand, amidst all the legislative and administrative activity, no provision was made for promoting civil and political freedom, and efforts in that direction were repressed on the Metternich model, with violation of the pledges given by the king in 18 15 for the establishment of a general representative government. Frederick William IV. (1840- 185 8), son of his predecessor, equally opposed political reform, and a crisis came in March, 1848, when an insurrection in Berlin caused the withdrawal of the troops, after some fighting, by the king's order, and some form of constitutional government was set up, only to be modified by degrees in its more valuable features. Material improvement went on apace, in the development of roads, railways, and river-navigation, and in the increase at once of educational and military efficiency, matters closely connected with the subsequent successes of Prussia in the field of battle. The main feature of German history in and shortly after the middle of the 19th century is the contest for supremacy between the two leading states. In 1850 Austrian jealousy of Prussian efforts to rally the smaller states round herself as the centre of authority in a new " federal state " came near to causing civil war, but the bold attitude adopted by the Austrian absolutist statesman Prince Schwarzenberg, at the famous Olmiitz conference in November Austria and Prussia 609 of that year, caused the somewhat feeble and vacillating Prussian monarch to give way, and the influence of Austria became for a time supreme. A change came with the accession to the throne of Prussia, in 1861, of King William I., brother of the former sovereign, for whom he had held power as "Regent" since 1858. The new monarch was one who aimed not at popular progress in the political sense, but at Prussian aggrandisement and at German unity through Prussia. He was not intellectually great, but he had firmness of character, clear perception of fitness in the instruments of his policy, and unswerving fidelity in their support. Bismarck, one of the greatest of modern statesmen in his union of sagacity with stern resolution, presided over diplomatic and political affairs, becoming chief minister in 1862 and imperial chancellor in 1871. Count von Roon, minister of war, organised the military forces in the style whose best eulogy is found in the brilliant results. Von Moltke, as the wielder of the mighty weapon forged, we have already seen. The policy of " blood and iron," in Bismarck's words, as the one hope of Prussian predominance and German unity, was carried out with ruthless vigour, and all opposition in the parliament was met by dissolutions of the house of representatives, and, on the return of a still larger majority of opponents, by dispensing with the passage of money-bills as a preliminary to taxation for army expenditure. In 1863 Austria received a rebuff in Prussia's refusal to attend a congress of German princes at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, for the purpose of deliberating on a political reorganisatk n of Germany. Matters were brought to a crisis between the two Powers after the war of 1864, in which their combined forces speedily crushed those of Denmark, and deprived ih it country of all rights in Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg. The victors quarrelled con- cerning the spoils, and in 1866 the Austro-Prussian War, one of the briefest on record, broke out. Known as the " Seven Weeks' War," its actual operations were confined to one month, from June 22nd to July 22nd. In this sharp, short, and decisive struggle the allies of Prussia were Italy, whose share in the war will be seen hereafter, and the smaller north German states. Austria was supported by Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and the two Hesses. General Benedek headed the Austrian forces, comprising about 250,000 men ; the Prussian armies were superior in numbers, somewhat inferior in artillery and cavalry, but had an enormous advantage, not only in von Moltke's daring and 610 A History of the World comprehensive strategy, but in the possession of the famous " needle- gun," a breech-loading rifle which could fire several shots for one delivered by the Austrian muzzle-loaders, and which was wielded by infantry thoroughly trained in its steady and effective use. Hanover and electoral Hesse (Hessen-Cassel) were at once invaded and subdued. Saxony was overrun, its sovereign and army retreat- ing to Bohemia. Then two great bodies of men invaded Bohemia by different routes, each winning several actions on the way through the mountains. On July 3rd their united forces gained the great battle of Koniggratz or Sadowa (villages in the north of Bohemia), and, marching southwards and winning another battle, forced Austria to a truce when Vienna itself was threatened. Prague and Briinn had been occupied, and Hungary invaded, when French mediation brought negotiations ending the war with the Peace of Prague between Austria and Prussia. The new arrangement of Germany excluded Austria, and incorporated Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hessen-Cassel, Nassau, and the " free " city of Frankfurt- on-the-Main, with Prussia, increasing her territory from 111,000 to 140,000 square miles, and her population from 19,000,000 to 23,500,000. An offensive and defensive alliance was concluded with Wurtemberg, Baden, Bavaria, Hessen-Darmstadt, and Saxony, those countries also engaging to place their troops, in case of war, under the supreme command of the king of Prussia. A North German Confederation was formed, with a Diet on a basis of manhood and direct suffrage, under the presidency of the Prussian sovereign, and an Imperial Diet {Reichstag) was also created on the same system. The military forces were centralised under the Prussian king's command, with universal compulsory service, and the customs, telegraph, and postal services were united. Count Bismarck became Chancellor of the Confederation. It was exactly 60 years since the old German (" Holy Roman ") Empire had been ended by Napoleon's conquering power. The new organisation comprised 21 states, including Brunswick, Oldenburg, Saxony, the Mecklenburgs, Hamburg, Liibeck, Bremen, and Saxe- Coburg, in addition to those already named. Thus Prussia became the leading power in Germany, and one of the chief military powers in Europe, a position heightened, as we have seen, by the result of her conflict with France four years later. The new Confederation had a brief existence, during which the Zollverein, in a remodelled form, was extended to every part of Germany except the cities of Hamburg and Bremen. The The New German Empire 6 1 1 existing political condition arose after the grand success obtained against France. The southern states (Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, and Ffessen-Darmstadt) had been admitted to the " North German" Confederation, making it the " German Confederation," after the victory at Sedan, and on January 18th, 187 1, the king of Prussia, in the halls of Versailles, the palace erected by Germany's great foe of old time, Louis XIV., was hailed as " Emperor of Germany " amid the cheers of the assembled chieftains. The new empire included 25 states and one Reichsland, or imperial territory — - Alsace-Lorraine. There were four kingdoms — Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wiirtemberg; six grand duchies, five duchiesj seven principalities, and three free towns — Hamburg, Liibeck, and Bremen. The legislative functions lay in a Federal Council (Biaidesrath) of 58 members, appointed for each session by the separate states, and in a Parliament or Diet (Reichstag) of 382 members, elected by universal suffrage and by ballot for three years, as representatives of the whole German people of the empire. A free, united, powerful Germany at last existed, realising dreams long cherished by Teutonic patriotism, with a territory of 217,000 square miles, and a population exceeding 41,000,000. The foreign policy of the new empire was conducted by Prince Bismarck with good judgment and success in favour of peace, to which end he concluded the famous " Triple Alliance " with Austria and Italy. In home-affairs a Protestant attack was made, in the Falk laws of 1873 to 1875, so-called from the Prussian Minister of Public Worship, on the ecclesiastical rights and claims of the Catholics. The German state sought thereby to interfere in the schools and the training of teachers, and with the appointment of bishops and ministers. The Jesuits had been expelled in 1872, and the Catholics now made a strong resistance. The Pope (Pius IX.) declined to receive the German ambassador, and the Catholic hierarchy treated the new legislation as non-existent. Several prelates were banished from the country, and the Reichstag, in 1874, made marriage a mere civil rite. The resistance continued, and the Catholic deputies in Parliament opposed every government-measure. The election, in 1878, of a new Pope (Leo XIII.), a man of statesmanlike capacity, caused a compromise. Falk resigned office in the following year, and peace was restored by concessions made between 1881 and 1887. The rapid spread of socialism in Germany, already noticed, was met by repressive laws of a somewhat stringent character, and, more wisely, by legislation conceived in a socialistic spirit, 6i2 A History of the World aiming at the improvement of the condition of the working-classes. With the same object, the commercial policy of the country became strongly "protectionist," and in 1884 a new colonial policy was undertaken, in order to provide new outlets for surplus-population and new markets for the rapidly improving manufactures. It was thus that Germany acquired extensive territories in western Africa, New Guinea, and some islands of the southern Pacific. In March, 1888, the emperor William died, at 90 years of age, and was succeeded by his son as Frederick III. This admirable man, a successful warrior, the "Crown Prince" of the conflicts of 1866 and 1870, married to the Princess Royal of Great Britain, eldest child of Queen Victoria, was already suffering from an affection of the throat, and he died in the following June. No ruler was ever more deservedly and universally regretted, not for what he accomplished — since death deprived him of the chance of action — but for what he was and what he would surely have achieved. A brave and capable commander — " Our Fritz " of his devoted soldiers — he was a sincere lover of peace, kindly to his foes, modest in the hour of triumphant success. Patient to the last under the moral and physical torture of his dreadful malady, " Frederick the Noble " — no man ever more justly named — passed away in the piesence of his household-servants, gathered weeping at the door. His last important public appearance was in June, 1887, when he rode, in the magnificent white uniform of the Cuirassiers of the Guard, at the side of the Prince of Wales, in Queen Victoria's first Jubilee procession. His stately figure, admired by all beholders, overtopped all others in that " Cavalcade of Princes," composed of 24 sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons of the British sovereign. His social, political, and religious ideas were the reverse of those cherished by the emperor William and his trusted chancellor. Cultured, broad-minded, liberal in the best and highest sense,- he could not bear an autocratic system. Encouraging arts, sciences, and letters; loathing the prevalent fudenhetze, or hostility to Jews; eager to adopt every measure which might combine an imperial monarchy and a people in harmonious action for the good of all, he would have won the loftiest position on " Fame's eternal bead- roll " of the best rulers of mankind. Frederick III., second emperor and eighth king of Prussia, was succeeded by his eldest son as William II. The young man soon gave proof of his extraordinary energy, versatility, and restlessness of character. Unwilling to be controlled or advised by any "man The New German Empire — Austria-Hungary 613 of any age, ability, or experience, he dismissed Bismarck from his councils in 1890, and, with high notions of divine right, and strongly imbued with the spirit of militarism, he nevertheless adopted a liberal policy towards the socialists, allowing the lapse of the legis- lation adverse to them, and encouraging efforts in behalf of the working-classes. The world has been from time to time startled by the impulsive utterances of the emperor, but he has, at any rate, worked for European peace, and set an excellent example of domestic virtue. The opening, in June, 1895, °f tne Baltic Canal, was important for commerce in shortening the route for ships from western Europe to the northern ports. The emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, a monarch regarded, after 50 years of power, with universal esteem, has shown that he does not resemble the Bourbon kings in incapacity to learn lessons from the past. Excluded, by the loss of Lombardy and Venetia, from a scene of former supremacy, the Austrian ruler and his ministers wisely sought political safety in consolidation of power to the north of the Alps. In 1867 constitutional freedom and a new independence were accorded to Hungary. The very composite dominions were divided into two parts. These were the Cisleithan or Sclavonic-German provinces — " Cisleithan " meaning " on this side the Leitha,'" a tributary of the Danube on the frontiers of the archduchy of Austria (the original nucleus of the empire) ; and the Magyar or " Transleithan " realm, to which the dependent territories of Croatia and Transylvania were now reunited. In June the emperor and empress were crowned "king and queen of Hungary " at Pesth, with the old historic rites, and the national feeling of the Hungarians was thus gratified. Hungary now had her own laws, parliament, ministers, and government, and the exclusive right of managing all affairs pertaining solely to herself. The ministers for affairs common to the whole empire — the army, foreign affairs, and finance — are responsible to neither parliament, but to a body called the Delegations, a parliament of 120 members, half chosen by the Austrian, half by the Hungarian legislature, as a connecting link between the two portions of the empire. Good use has been made by Hungary of the restored constitution, and of a long period of peace, in promoting civilisation by the establishment of an excellent system of elementary and higher education ; by the construction of an admirable network of railways, now largely owned by the state ; by the development of industry and commerce, the improvement of the judicature, and the institution of the Hoiiveds 6 14 A History of the World (" land-defenders "), a body of men answering to the German "landwehr," for national defence, apart from the regular Austro- Hungarian army. The various nationalities — Servians, Wallachians, Germans, and others — enjoy equal political rights with the Magyars, and the country is in a fairly prosperous condition. In Austria proper, the Cisleithan territories, constitutional free- dom has greatly advanced. The Concordat of 1855 — an agreement with the Papacy which made Roman Catholicism a privileged religion, with a censorship of books and educational control — was annulled in 1868, and marriage was placed under the jurisdiction of the State. A greater degree of freedom was given to the press. Security against foreign foes has been sought in the adaptation of the military organisation to the Prussian model. The territory of the empire was increased in 1878, by the Treaty of Berlin, in the transference to Austrian administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a joint area of 23,000 square miles. Torn away from the ever- lessening Turkish empire in Europe, these regions have for 20 years enjoyed immunity from misrule. Chapter V. — Switzerland; Belgium; Holland; Denmark; Sweden and Norway. In Switzerland, after 18 15, the democracy grew in power and many of the cantonal constitutions were modified in that direction. Religious troubles arose between Protestant and Catholic cantons, and in 1841, after some fighting in Aargau, some convents were suppressed, with the confiscation of lands and other property. In 1844 the town of Lucerne was attacked by bands of volunteers, demanding the expulsion of the priests. Protestant indignation had been aroused by the concession to the Jesuits of control over public education. Hence arose, in 1847, the war of the Sonderbund, or "separate league," composed of the cantons of Lucerne, Freiburg, Valais, and Zug, whose people, mainly Catholic, insisted on the re-establishment of the convents and of Jesuit authority. The federal army was assembled, to the number of '50,000 men, under General Dufour, the Catholics being able to muster only half as many troops. This little civil war of less than a month's duration ended in the capture of Freiburg, the submission of the other cantons, the dissolution of the Sonderbund, and the adoption of a new form of constitution. The confederacy, formerly a close alliance of sovereign cantons, now became a federal nation, with Switzerland — Belgium — Holland 6 1 5 two councils sitting in Bern, one of members representing the governments of the separate cantons, and the other a national assembly for the whole people, elected according to density of population. In 1874 other modifications were adopted, but the main point is that the Federal Government is supreme in matters of peace, war, treaties, the army, the postal and telegraph system, the coinage, weights and measures, import and export duties, public works, the revenue, copyright, patents, bankruptcy, and other matters, so that uniformity of policy and administration is secured. Education and manufactures have made great progress, and this " playground of Europe " is yearly enriched by the expenditure of some millions of pounds from the pockets of tourists attracted by the superb scenery. We note finally that in 1873 there was a complete rupture with the Papacy, and the institution of a Catholic clergy elected by the people. Entire liberty of conscience exists, and the order of Jesuits and its affiliated societies are excluded from all parts of the country. The political connection between Holland and Belgium, estab- lished at the Congress of Vienna, soon proved to be an ill-assorted union. The people of the northern and southern parts of the " kingdom of Holland " were essentially different in language, interests, religion, and historic feeling, and the Belgians were greatly dissatisfied at their exclusion from the higher civil and military offices. Belgium was a Catholic, agricultural, and manufacturing country ; Holland was largely Lutheran in religion, commercial, and maritime. The people of Belgium included two nationalities — the Flemish and the Walloon — the latter being of mingled Celtic and Roman origin, descended from the old Gallic Belgae of Julius Caesar's day. The language of the Walloons is now a dialect of northern French, with old Celtic and " Low German " words, and they are far more like the French than the Flemings in appearance and character. The signal for revolt in the southern provinces was given in 1830 by the French "July" revolution, and the volunteers of Liege, Tournay, and Mons being hailed by the Flemish insurgents as " Belgians," the name was taken as that of all the rebels. Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia soon recognised the independ- ence proclaimed in November, 1830, and in 1832 a large French army, under Marshal Gerard, forced the surrender of the citadel of Antwerp by the Dutch commandant, after wrecking the interior of the fortress by a terrific vertical shell-fire from enormous mortars. The new state had been already constituted as a liberal monarchy 616 A History of the World under the excellent Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, formerly husband of our Princess Charlotte. King Leopold I. ruled with great popu- larity and success for 34 years, during which manufactures, arts, and commerce were greatly developed. The only troubles of the country have been electoral and parliamentary conflicts between the liberal and clerical (Catholic) parties on the subject of education, and some serious industrial riots and Socialist disturbances in the mining and manufacturing towns of the south-east. In 1865, on the king's death, his son Leopold II. came to the throne. In 1870, when the Franco-German war caused an uneasy feeling in the country, Great Britain induced the two belligerent powers to recognise anew the neutrality of Belgium in European warfare, a matter which had been guaranteed by the Powers in her behalf in 1 83 1 and 1839. We shall see hereafter the entrance of Belgium into Africa as a colonial nation. In Holland, William I., in 1840, abdicated in favour of his son, William II., who died in 1849, J ust after the revolutionary move- ment had compelled him to grant a new constitution. The reign of his successor, William III., was marked, in 1862, by the abolition of slavery in the Dutch West Indies, with compensation to the owners, under which about 42,000 slaves, mostly in Dutch Guiana, became freemen. In the following year the navigation of the Scheldt was freed by the purchase from Holland, on the part of the European naval Powers, of her right to levy tolls. In 1867 the " Luxemburg question " arose in an awkward form, when Louis Napoleon of France sought " compensation " for the increase of Prussian power by negotiations for the purchase of the grand duchy from Holland, but Prussian resistance caused the scheme to be abandoned, and the matter was settled after a Conference of the Powers in London, whereby the Prussian garrison evacuated the fortress of Luxemburg and the works were dismantled and destroyed, the duchy becoming an independent state. In 1869 capital punish- ment was abolished. In 1887 a new constitution increased the electorate by 200,000 voters, and the death of the king, in November, 1890, brought to the throne the young Princess of Orange, Wilhelmina, only child of his second marriage with Emma of Waldeck, a lady who acted as regent until the young queen's assumption of power, at 18 years of age, on August 31st, 1898. Denmark, at the middle of the 19th century, was in trouble concerning the Schleswig- (Sleswick-) Holstein duchies, which Danish royal policy had for many years sought to make wholly Denmark 617 dependent on the Danish crown. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna had reincorporated Holstein in the German Confederation. The population was, to a large extent, German in race and feeling, and much hostility existed towards the Danish element. In 1848 great discontent was caused by King Frederick VII. 's proclamation that Sleswick was to be an integral part of the Danish kingdom, and his refusal to summon the common " estates " of the joint duchies. The German party in both territories were united in feeling, and in March, 1848, a revolt occurred in Holstein under the leadership of Prince Frederick of Augustenburg. The Holsteiners were aided by Prussian and Confederation troops, and some sharp fighting took place. In April, 1849, the Danish redoubts at Diippel were stormed by Bavarian and Saxon troops, and the Danes, a few days later, were defeated by the Schleswig-Holstein army under the Prussian general Bonin. Peace came for a few months, concluded between Denmark, Prussia, and the Confederation, but in January, 1850, the struggle was renewed by the duchies, whose forces were several times severely defeated by the Danes. Austrian intervention then brought a cessation of hostilities, Denmark making a vague promise to " respect the rights of the duchies," but continuing really her former policy of hostility to the German element and of attempts to render the territory thoroughly Danish. It was im- possible that such a state of things could continue, and the "Schleswig-Holstein question " became the terror of Lord Palmerston and other great European diplomatists. The matter came to a crisis on the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark at the end of 1863, when Frederick of Augustenburg proclaimed himself " Duke of Sleswick," a title also claimed by the new king of Denmark, Christian IX. In 1864 conjoint forces of Austria and Prussia invaded the territory, overwhelmed the Danish troops, with the storming of the Diippel lines by the Prussians, and occupied Alsen island and all Jutland by the end of June. Some naval warfare was also unfavourable to the Danes, and the Peace of Vienna, in October, 1864, concluded the war with the renunciation by Denmark of all her claims on the duchies, which ultimately became, as we have seen, an integral part of the Prussian state. Denmark has since remained in a peaceful and prosperous condition, deriving large sums of money from the dairy-industry conducted with great skill by her people, and distinguished among European nations in the fact that her royal family has given a king to Greece, a tsarina to Russia, and a Princess of Wales to Great Britain. 618 A History of the World In Sweden and Norway, we find Bernadotte, Napoleon's former marshal and foe, succeeding to the throne in 1818 as Charles XIV., and actively engaged, during a reign of 26 years, in the useful work of educational and financial reform, the development of com- munication by roads and canals, and the reclamation of waste-lands in the vast territory under his control. A constitutional reform, in the shape of a directly elected parliament replacing the old diet, came in 1866, under the reign of Charles XV. A continuance of peace has favoured the commercial and industrial activity which arose in Sweden about the middle of the 19th century, and the national representatives of the peasantry and the trading-class, the chief holders of power under the new constitution, have been actively engaged on questions of internal development and reform. Norway now derives much pecuniary advantage from the annual visits of yearly increasing numbers of British and other tourists — yachtsmen, salmon-fishers, and lovers of fine scenery. The present king of the two countries, Oscar II., has already received honourable mention in these pages in connection with international arbitration. Chapter VI. — Southern Europe: Spain; Portugal; Italy; Greece. The history of Spain since 1815 presents for the most part a dreary record of disaster and disgrace — tyranny, revolution, civil war, only of late years ending in the establishment of a constitutional govern- ment. The miserably perfidious Ferdinand VII., on his restoration to his kingdom in 1814, set aside the "Constitution of Cadiz" of 181 2, which he had sworn to maintain, and, after being compelled by revolt to recognise it for three years, from 1820 to 1823, he was enabled by French aid to re-establish absolute power until his death in 1833. His young daughter Isabella was acknowledged queen by the Cortes, under the regency of her mother Marie Christina, a Neapolitan Bourbon, and a civil war was at once begun by Don Carlos, the deceased king's brother, who claimed the throne under the old Salic law excluding females. The "Carlists" and " Christinos : ' were in conflict for years with variations of success, but in the end, with the general support of European opinion, and armed aid from British and French volunteers, the young queen's cause was successful, and she assumed power in 1843, with an oath to observe the constitutional form of rule. Order was fairly main Spain 619 tained under the influence of the prudent and energetic minister Narvaez, and liberalism made some progress, with the rise of a republican feeling after 1848. The administration of affairs was generally corrupt, under many successive ministries, but progress in internal development, and an increase of naval and military strength, took place during seven years of really liberal government from 1858 to 1865. Three years later, a revolution arose at Cadiz, under the leadership of General Prim and Marshal Serrano, and Queen Isabella, whose vicious private life had disgusted all classes, fled to France, the deposition of the Bourbons being proclaimed. After two years of "provisional government," and the assassination of Prim, who had been virtually dictator, in December, 1870, the Spanish throne was offered to and accepted by Amadeus of Savoy, second son of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. In 1873 he resigned the crown, and a republic was proclaimed, leading to a second Carlist war, which raged in the north of Spain in behalf of another Don Carlos, a collateral descendant of the former claimant. At the end of 1874 Isabella's son was proclaimed king as Alfonso XII., and early in 1876 Don Carlos gave up the struggle and withdrew to France. For 11 years, from 1874 until 1885, when Alfonso died, Spain enjoyed a period of comparative prosperity and improve- ment, which continued under the constitutional rule, as Regent, of his widow Christina, an Austrian princess, holding power for her son Alfonso XIII., born in May, 1886, some months after her husband's death. On August 8th, 1897, the hateful energy of the enemies of the human race styled " anarchists " was again lament- ably displayed in the assassination of one of the best Spanish states- men of modern times. Seiior Canovas del Castillo, after having held office as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finance and of the Colonies, took a leading part in bringing Alfonso XII. to the throne, and then becam; in succession twice Premier, President of the Cortes, and again Premier in 1890, and, for the fourth time, in March, 1895. The son of a peasant, ugly in person, brilliant, a man of sarcastic and witty speech, he became the head of the Conservative party, being followed also by the masses owing to his wonderful oratorical power. His services to Spain included the passing of the law for the abolition of slavery, financial reforms which restored the credit of the state, and the restoration of universal suffrage. At a crisis of trouble due to the long-continued Cuban rebellion, Canovas was fatally wounded, by a Neapolitan anarchist, with three shots from a revolver, in the piazza of an hotel at Santa Gio A History of the World Agueda, in the Basque country, between Vitoria and San Sebastian. He fell at the feet of his wife, a young and beautiful woman of an illustrious and ancient family, a " society belle " devoted to and proud of her ill-favoured and ill-fated husband. After the downfall of Napoleon, the affairs of Portugal, like those of Spain, were for many years in a troubled state. In 1815 the Inquisition was abolished, and the Jesuits were expelled, but the sovereign, John VI., and the court resided at Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, until 182 1, and much public discontent existed in Portugal, where the government was in the hands of English officers, including Marshal Beresford, one of the commanders in the Peninsular War. In 1820 a peaceful revolution at Lisbon set up constitutional rule in a highly democratic form, and the king, returning from Brazil, accepted this new system. A despotic party at court, headed by the queen, a Spanish princess, and her son Dom Miguel, caused a counter-revolution in 1823, with the dissolution of the Cortes. The king, dying in 1826, left the throne to his son Dom Pedro, who had become emperor of Brazil as an independent country, but he renounced the Portuguese sovereignty in favour of his daughter Maria da Gloria, on condition of her marrying her uncle, Dom Miguel, who was to be regent. The despotic party claimed the throne for Dom Miguel as an absolute ruler, and in 1828 he was declared king by the Cortes. A period of anarchical confusion followed. In 1832 Dom Pedro, resigning the Brazilian crown, returned to Europe, overthrew the usurper with the aid of a British squadron under Charles Napier, and set up Maria as queen in 1833. Her reign was troubled by contests between parties favouring different constitutional forms of rule, but peace was generally maintained with the useful aid of her second husband, Ferdinand of Saxe- Coburg, brother of Queen Victoria's admirable consort. On Queen Maria's death in 1853, her son became king as Pedro V., and progress was made in restoring financial affairs, under the manage- ment of his father as regent. On the king's sudden death in 1861, his brother succeeded as Luis I. and ruled steadily as a constitutional monarch until his death in 1889, when his son came to the throne as Charles I. Italy, since the peace of 181 5, has been the theatre of most important events, amounting to a complete revolution of affairs in that long-divided, much -harassed land of ancient and mediaeval renown. The Congress of Vienna left the country, as we have seen, in the hands of several rulers caring nothing for the aspirations of Italy 621 Italians for union and independence. For 45 years, from 1815 to i860, Austria and the Bourbons held most of the country enslaved under a rigorous system of repression. The Jesuits were restored, and to their hands was committed the work of elementary education, with results that may be easily conceived. Secret political societies, such as the famous league styled Carbonari, aimed at the overthrow of despotic rule. The above name was derived from that assumed by certain republicans of Naples under Murat's rule, who made their way to the wild regions of the Abruzzi frequented by the " carbonari " or charcoal-burners. Insurrections in southern Italy were crushed in 1820 and 1821 by Austrian aid, and like failure attended similar movements in subsequent years, in Piedmont, Modena, Lombardy, and other quarters. Priests, army-officers, and ladies were found among the Carbonari, who included most of the patriotism and intelligence of Italy, but the lack of military force, good leadership, and funds made all efforts futile for many dreary years of conspiracy closely watched by ubiquitous police-spies. After the failure of revolutionary attempts in central Italy in 1831, the party styled " Young Italy " was organised by the able and famous patriot Giuseppe Mazzini, aiming at the establishment of a republic. Many wild and useless efforts were made, but there is no evidence to convict him or his supporters of any policy of assassination. Expelled in turn from France and Switzerland, Mazzini sought refuge in London, and carried on his work from 1833 to 1848 in the European press and by secret correspondence with Italy. The hope of freedom was flattered for a time by the advent of Pius IX., in 1846, to the Papacy. He began a course of liberal reforms, and even Ferdinand II. of Naples granted a "constitution" in 1848. That revolutionary year seemed to be carrying Mazzini and his party to the front, and the rebels for a time drove the Austrian troops from Lombardy and Venetia, Modena and Parma. The fair prospect was soon overshadowed by reactionary gloom. Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, declared war on Austria and won an initial victory, but his forces were completely defeated in later battles, notably at Novara, in March, 1849, and the broken- hearted monarch gave up his throne to his son Victor Emmanuel II. The Pope, meanwhile, had withdrawn, as if in terror, from the advanced political position which he had assumed, and had been driven from Rome, where a republic was set up, in February, 1849, by Mazzini and two co-triumvirs. The great patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had twice defeated the king of Naples' forces 622 A History of the World defended Rome with desperate valour against a besieging French army, but the place was taken on July 2nd. Venice, heroically maintained for a long time by the patriots under Daniel Manin, succumbed to the Austrian forces in August, and the petty sovereigns returned to power, the Pope's throne henceforth resting on French bayonets, with a state of siege maintained in his capital for seven years from 1850. Henceforth Italian patriots looked to the House of Savoy, the king of Sardinia, as the chief hope for unity and freedom. At the middle of the century Sardinia was the only constitutional monarchy in the whole peninsula. The excellent king, Victor Emmanuel, honoured by his popular title " II Re Galantuomo," " the honest king," bestowed on him in contrast with the perfidious tyrant Ferdinand of Naples, was a bluff, brave specimen of a noble race, animated by the straightforward and steadfast purpose of ruling a free people in such wise as best to promote their prosperity and happiness. He had the advantage of possessing, as his chief minister, one of the ablest and most enlightened of modern European diplomatists and statesmen, Count Cavour, who may be fairly regarded as a chief agent in the restoration of Italian unity and nationality. As a traveller and resident in England and France, he had become well acquainted with the details of constitutional government, and with the industrial and economical conditions conducive to national welfare. After serving with excellent results as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, of Marine, and of Finance, Cavour became Premier in 1853, and at once took in hand the work of forcing Sardinia to the front as representing the cause of Italian unity and independence. With great tact, he aided the French and British allied forces before Sebastopol, in 1855, at a time of difficulty, with a well-appointed brigade of 15,000 men, who fought victoriously against the Russians in August of that year, at the battle of the Tchernaya. Thereby winning French and British sympathy, the great Italian minister intrigued with Louis Napoleon, the French emperor, for a combined movement against Austrian domination in northern Italy, and his efforts were backed in a manner as far as possible removed from the sphere of his knowledge and control of affairs. In January, 1858, a desperate and almost successful attempt was made to assassinate the emperor by the explosion of three bombs under his carriage close to the entrance of the Opera-house in Paris. The leading conspirator in thjs atrocious affair was Felice Orsini, a member of the noble family Italy 623 known in the old times as supporters of the Guelph party, and one which had produced famous scholars, soldiers, and ecclesiastics, including Popes Nicholas III. and Benedict XIII. The Orsini of the modern plot, a man of violent character, had escaped to England in 1856 from imprisonment in the fortress of Mantua. The outrage in Paris caused the death of ten persons and the wounding of 156, and Orsini and an accomplice died by the guillotine. It is believed that Napoleon III. was influenced by expressions in Orsini's will intimating that there could be no safety for the emperor from Italian plots until Italian freedom was obtained. However that may be, the French ruler soon resolved to draw the sword, and he took the field in support of Sardinia in the spring of 1859. The war was a brief one. The French had a great advantage in the use of rifled cannon, and in generalship which was at any rate superior to the miserable incompetence of the Austrian commanders. In May the Austrians w r ere defeated at Montebello ; again, on June 4th, at Magenta ; and on June 24th at the great battle of Solferino. The fear of Prussian intervention caused the French emperor to patch up a hasty preliminary peace at Villafranca on July 13th, and in November the Peace of Zurich ceded Lombardy, apart from the fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, to Sardinia, and gave Nice and Savoy, by way of compensation, to France. Early in i860, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and some Papal territory, also fell to Victor Emmanuel, with the consent of Austria and France, and a good beginning had thus been made towards Italian liberation and unity. During the struggle with Austria, Garibaldi had played his part as a guerilla-leader, acting on the Austrian communications, and that ideal patriot and hero now came to the front as a chief agent in freeing southern Italy. The condition of the " kingdom of the two Sicilies " (Naples and Sicily) was a scandal to the civilised world under the vile tyranny of Francis II., who had succeeded in 1859 to his father Ferdinand, the monarch infamously known as " King Bomba " from his having shelled his people in the cities of Messina and Palermo when they revolted against his violation of the constitution which he had sworn to maintain. His atrocious treatment of liberal politicians who had broken no law had been mercilessly exposed in 1 85 1 by Mr. Gladstone, in the famous "Naples letters" to Lord Aberdeen, wherein he justly assailed the tyrant's whole system of rule as "the negation of God." In May, i860, Garibaldi, with 1,000 of his red-shirted volunteers, landed at Marsala, on the west coast 41 624 A History of the World of Sicily. His numbers were rapidly increased, and after some fighting the Neapolitan troops were withdrawn from all points except the citadel of Messina. The conqueror crossed to the main- land on August 20th, and made a triumphal progress through the south of the peninsula, forcing the king to leave Naples for the fortress of Gaeta. Piedmontese troops had meanwhile occupied Umbria and the Marches, and the Papal States, excepting Rome and adjacent territory, were seized and annexed by Victor Em- manuel. The Sardinian king then invaded the Neapolitan territory and joined Garibaldi, and Capua was taken on the retreat of the royal troops. Gaeta was forced to capitulate in February, 1861, after a brave defence, and the whole of the territory of Naples and Sicily came into the hands of Victor Emmanuel, as king of an Italy which included the whole peninsula except Venetia and the city and Papal domain of Rome. Some rash attempts of Garibaldi, made without the sanction of his sovereign, to obtain possession of Rome, which was held by French troops, ended in his defeat at Aspromonte, by Italian royal troops, in August, 1862, and at Mentana, by French troops, in November, 1867. In 1861 the new Italian kingdom had a severe loss in the premature death of the prudent and wily Cavour, and the government for some years found much difficulty in reducing to order the Neapolitan territories, swarming with brigands who fought, as they declared, for " King Francis," and under that cloak committed all sorts of outrages. In 1864 Florence became the capital instead of Turin, and Italian patriots looked eagerly forward to the possession of Venetia and Rome. The first of these objects was attained in 1866, after the Austro-Prussian war. Austrian pride, as against Italy, Prussia's ally in that struggle, was gratified by her victory over Italian land-forces at Custozza, and by her naval triumph at Lissa, in the Adriatic. On the conclusion of peace, Venetia was transferred, first to the French emperor and then to the king of Italy, along with Peschiera and the other Austrian fortresses of the famous " Quadrilateral." Rome alone remained for the completion of Italian unity. This last prize came with the downfall of French imperial power in 1870. On September 20th Italian troops entered Rome by the Porta Pia, which had been breached by a few shots from the artillery, and in June, 1871, the "Eternal City" became at last the capital. The temporal power of the Papacy had an end, the Pope retaining possession only of the Vatican, the Lateran palace, the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, the villa of Castel Gandolfo, and their Italy 625 precincts, with an income of ^150,000 a year voted from the Italian revenues. Italy, entering the European system of states as the sixth great Power, has incurred vast financial expense in the main- tenance of a great military and naval force, entailing a very serious burden of taxation on a people mainly dependent on the products of the soil. Victor Emmanuel, dying in January, 1878, was succeeded by his eldest son Humbert I., who has ruled fairly well as a consti- tutional sovereign. Much progress has been made with education, Sicily and southern Italy being still the most backward parts of the kingdom in this respect. In May, 1898, at the time when an illustrious British statesman lay dying at Hawarden Castle — the man revered by all good Italians as a champion of the cause of freedom in Italy — there was a violent outbreak of the revolutionary spirit of socialism, republicanism, and anarchy in Milan, Naples, Leghorn, and other Italian towns. Revolt had been long expected by those who were best acquainted with the misery due to taxation which made salt, an absolute necessary with vegetable diet, a luxury unattainable by the poorer peasantry, and which mulcted of a large part of their wages men earning only from 1 1 francs to 4 francs per day, in support of an ambitious policy of rivalry with European states of vastly superior resources. Discontent was at last, under a great rise in the price of bread, turned into the madness of starvation and despair. At Milan the populace and the troops engaged in a conflict marked by the erection of barricades, the use of artillery, and the slaughter of some hundreds of men. A state of siege was declared, and tranquillity was only restored when there were 40,000 troops in possession of the city. At Naples the crowd of rioters and the troops fought hand to hand, and streets were strewn with dead and wounded men. Like tumult occurred at Florence and other towns of Tuscany. Most of Italy was for a time in a state of suspended constitutional freedom, under military law, and the noble structure erected by the valour of Garibaldi and the genius of Cavour was seriously endangered through long-continued misrule. It was made clear to all impartial observers and true friends of Italy that immediate reform, including vigilant economy, the stern punishment of defaulters, and the contraction of costly armaments, could alone save the country from anarchy and dismemberment. As regards the Papacy in the 19th century, the loss of temporal power has been attended by a great gain of spiritual influence. Pius VII., restored to his rule of the Papal States in 1814, held power till his death in 1823, combining a conciliatory temper with 626 A History of the World a bigoted and inflexible policy in ecclesiastical affairs. Simple in tastes, devout, benevolent, he was a wise and moderate ruler, who, nevertheless, dealt energetically with brigandage and the secret societies. Under Leo XII. (1823-29), Pius VIII. (1829-30), and Gregory XVI. (1831-46), the Catholic revival was greatly promoted by the purity of life exhibited in the holders of the Papal chair. A spirit of zeal and of loyalty to the Holy See was displayed alike by Catholic clergy and laity in all quarters, and in France eminent men, Montalembert, Lamennais, and their school, sought to combine a new liberalism of thought with complete submission to the teachings of the head of the Church. Pius IX. (1846-78), who was Pope for a longer period than any of his predecessors, has been already seen in his brief career as a political reformer. After his restoration to power by French troops, he made a new departure, as regarded England, in refounding the hierarchy of Catholic bishops, headed by the able and cultured Cardinal Wiseman as archbishop of West- minster. Pio Nono, in 1854, issued the famous Bull defining, as a Catholic dogma, the " Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary." Ten years later, his Catholic zeal caused him to issue an encyclical letter with a Syllabus specially condemning certain erroneous beliefs of the day. The annexation of most of the Papal territory by Victor Emmanuel in i860 made Pius IX. a fervid foe of the Italian kingdom, and his feeling was from time to time displayed in hot denunciations whose tone was in strange contrast to his really mild and benevolent disposition. In July, 1870, the famous Vatican Council, attended by prelates from all parts of the world, decreed the doctrine of " Papal Infallibility," rejected by a small minority of the bishops, and by a considerable and enlightened part of the laity, forming the body known as " Old Catholics." On the occupation of Rome by the Italian government in September, 1870, and the cessation of the temporal power of the Papacy, Pius IX. aroused the sympathy of the Catholic world by his assumption of the character of a martyr, or, at least, a " confessor," as " the prisoner of the Vatican." He was always treated with the utmost courtesy and forbearance by the Italian government, but he issued constant letters of appeal to his devoted Catholic followers in foreign countries, and was consoled by the visits of crowds of " pilgrims," and by liberal contributions of " Peter's pence " and costly presents in various forms. It should be observed to his credit that he refused to accept the large pension voted to him by the Italian Parliament. A month before his death in February, 1878, he sent the Papal benediction to that politically Greece 627 erring son of the Church, Victor Emmanuel, as he lay dying. His successor, Cardinal Pecci, assuming the title of Leo XIII., still, after 20 years (in 1898), at a very advanced age, fills the Papal See in a statesmanlike manner which has won for him general respect and esteem. It was his wise diplomacy which, in Germany, effected a compromise concerning the anti-Catholic laws. In 1888, after a report from his special envoy to Ireland, Leo issued a circular to the Irish bishops condemning the practice of " boycotting," and the movement against payment of rent known as " the Plan of Campaign." The Irish Catholic laity, devoted followers as they are of the Pope in spiritual matters, paid no heed whatever to his injunctions in affairs regarded by them as purely social and political. In 1 89 1 an encyclical letter to the Catholic bishops propounded principles which should be observed in dealing with contests of the day between workers and capitalists. The regeneration of Greece is one of the most interesting facts of modern European history. After the conquest of Peloponnesus by the Turks in 17 15, a revival of Greek influence came in the appointment of Greeks to many posts of importance under the Ottoman government, and the establishment of schools in all parts of Greece through the aid of wealthy and enlightened patriots. Towards the end of the 18th century, premature armed efforts for independence were crushed with the usual Turkish barbarity, but a great impression was made by the heroic valour displayed by the Suliotes of Epirus, a race cf mixed Hellenic and Albanian origin. In a community comprising less than 600 families, dwelling in hamlets among the mountains, the women and boys fought like brave athletic men, a remnant only escaping, in 1803, to the Ionian Islands. The French Revolution gave a new impulse to the rising spirit of Greek nationality, and the admirable scholar Adamantios Corais (or Koraes) not only fostered this spirit, but was the first to purify the modern Greek language and reduce it to fixed rules, and to bring home to the modern Greeks a knowledge of the ancient literature. At the same time, among the islands of the ^Egean, arose the nucleus of the naval force which played so glorious a part in the war of liberation. All classes of the Greek world — the priests, the scholars, the merchants, the mountaineers, the peasantry, and the large maritime population — were united in aspirations for freedom, and they had many foreign sympathisers, especially in France and in the British Isles, where attention to Greek claims was strongly aroused by the magnificent poetry of Lord Byron. 628 A History of the World The hour for revolt came in April, 182 1, when the patriots of the Morea (Peloponnesus) rose in arms, and a six-years' struggle began under the leadership of such heroes as Marcos Bozzaris, who fell fighting at the head of a Suliote force in 1823 ; Alexander Mauro- cordatos (Mavrocordato), the resolute defender of Missolonghi in 1822-23 5 Constantine Kanaris, the dashing seaman who twice, in 1822, blew up a Turkish admiral's ship, and in August, 1824, burnt a large frigate and some transports with Turkish troops on board ; Theodoros Kolokotronis, a modern Ulysses, inexhaustible in stratagems, fearless in perils, rich in popular and humorous eloquence ; Andreas Miaulis, the chief naval commander, " an iron man who never smiled and never wept," of great valour and skill. The contest was marked by deeds of heroism and cruelty unsurpassed in modern times. In many actions thousands of Turks were beaten by only hundreds of Greeks, but the Ottoman government was continually able to place great bodies of men in the field, ably led, in the latter part of the war, by Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt. In 1821 many thousands of Greeks were murdered at Constantinople, Adrianople, Thessalonica, Smyrna, and other towns. In 1822 the beautiful and fertile island of Chios was desolated by the Turks with the most savage barbarity and the utmost horrors of bestial criminality, involving the slaughter of 25,000 men, women, and children, the selling of nearly double that number into slavery, and the reduction of a smiling garden to a desert of ruin. In 1823 Lord Byron joined the Greek patriots, and aided them with money and counsel until his premature death at Missolonghi in April, 1824, as he was about to take the field at the head of a corps of Suliotes of his own raising. Many victories were won by the little Greek navy, whose commanders struck terror into the foe by their use of fireships. In 1825 Ibrahim Pasha landed in Peloponnesus with a large well-trained army. The Greeks resisted with a valour that reminded men of the days of Leonidas, and a crisis came in the siege of Missolonghi, defended by 5,000 men and attacked by 20,000 Turks, supported by a powerful fleet. Many assaults were repulsed in the course of five months, and many valiant sorties did great damage to the besiegers. In January, 1826, the Turkish commander was joined by Ibrahim with the reinforcement of 10,000 excellent troops and a strong artillery, but a summons to surrender was treated by the Missolonghi men with contempt. Half the fortress was in ruins, and famine and disease alone had carried Greece 629 off 1,500 of the people. The arrival of a Greek squadron under Miaulis broke the blockade, and allowed two months' provisions to be introduced. Further assaults were repulsed, and the place was then again reduced to extremities by famine in which the inhabitants consumed seaweed and their shoe-leather softened by a little oil. The streets, strewn with ruins due to bombardment, showed men women, and children lying dead or dying from pestilence and hunger. In this desperate condition of affairs, a sortie of all the people was arranged, with all the able-bodied men and women, the latter armed and in men's dress, taking the lead, the mothers carrying a sword in the right hand, and their infants on the left arm, or slung on their backs. Then were to come the old men, women, and children, with a military guard in the rear. A few decrepit persons were to remain in the town. The plan was betrayed, and the advance-guard found vast masses of Turks and Egyptians ready to receive them. Most were driven back into the town, and the Greeks fought all night in every street and house, and finally blew up the magazine with a large body of the enemy. Missolonghi was thus captured as a blackened heap of ruins. About i,Soo men and women had effected their escape in the sortie ; 3,000 people lay dead in the town. After the fall of Missolonghi, followed by the bombardment and capture of Athens, and the failure of attempts to drive the Turks out of Attica, the Greek cause was in a desperate condition, with all continental Greece in Turkish possession, and Peloponnesus ravaged by Ibrahim Pasha with the deliberate purpose of extirpating the whole Greek population and replacing them by Egyptians and Arabs. At last, however, some of the European Powers resolved to interfere. The fall of Missolonghi had aroused general sympathy, and the great British statesman George Canning, becoming Premier in February, 1827, induced France and Russia, in July, to join this country in a demand for an armistice. The fleets of the three countries were sent to the Peloponnesus, and there on October 20th, 1827, two months after Canning's death, an accidental collision brought the battle of Navarino, in which the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were destroyed by the British, French, and Russian ships. The Turkish government even then refused to grant an armistice, and the war continued. In the autumn of 1829 defeats of the Turks by fresh Greek and by French forces freed continental Greece, but the country was really saved by the success of Russia in war against Turkey, who acknowledged the independence of Greece in 1830. 630 A History of the World In May, 1832, a new kingdom of Greece was recognised by the Treaty of London, under the rule of Otho, son of the king of Bavaria, the Greek territory including the mainland south of the Gulfs of Pagasae and Ambrakia, with Peloponnesus, Eubcea, and the Cyclades islands, while Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, and Crete were still left under Turkish rule. The Greek monarch, in a reign of over 30 years, did nothing to satisfy the reasonable demands or the ambitious dreams of his subjects. The system of rule was tyrannical and corrupt, and public offices were filled by royal favourites and flatterers. In 1843 a rebellion forced Otho to grant a constitutional form of government, but he remained unpopular, and a general movement forced his abdication in October, 1862. In March, 1863, the throne was accepted by Prince George of Denmark, brother of the lady who had just become Princess of Wales. In the following year Greek territory was increased by the Ionian Islands, the " protectorate " of which was renounced by Great Britain. That Power has, on several occasions, usefully employed her influence in preventing the little state from entering into conflict with Turkey, chiefly in connection with chronic rebellion in Candia, or Crete, due to Ottoman misrule, and to the desire of most of the Cretan population for union with Greece. The country has not made the progress hoped for by her friends, and has wasted, on ambitious aims, for expansion of her borders at Turkey's expense, the energies which would have been better employed in developing the natural resources of the region under her legitimate control. In 1881 the kingdom received a substantial increase of territory in Thessaly and part of Epirus, a benefit largely due to the British government, which induced some of the Powers to join her in compelling Turkey to act in accordance with suggestions made in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The depressed condition of the country 20 years later, in 1898, was due to her suicidal folly in connection with the eternal Cretan question. Another Cretan revolt, carried on in 1896-97, caused the dispatch of the fleets of the Powers to the coasts of the island, with an order to Greece to withdraw troops which had been permitted to invade it. In March, 1897, the Greek government, refusing compliance, prepared for war with Turkey, and in April irregular forces crossed the frontier, followed by the Greek army. The conflict which ensued had the inevitable result foreseen by all intelligent and cool-headed observers. The invaders, ill-provided and badly led. were promptly over- whelmed by superior forces ably commanded, and, after a complete Russia 631 victory at the Miluna Pass, the Turks occupied Larissa on April 25th. Volo surrendered on the following day, and the general result was not affected by some repulses of Turkish forces early in May. Pharsala was occupied, and on May 20th the Sultan granted an armistice sorely needed by his opponents. After much negotiation, terms of peace, with the consent of the Powers, were settled in September, 1897, Greece being compelled to pay, as a penalty for her rashness, a war-indemnity of ^4,000,000 sterling, and to accept a rectification of the Thessalian frontier which put the chief points of strategical importance in possession of Turkey, along with a foothold on the southern bank of the river Peneus. The finances of Greece were placed, until the full payment of the indemnity, under the control of the Powers. Chapter VII. — Russia. One of the chief notes of political history in the 19th century is the great advance of the Russian empire in European and Asiatic influence, a result partly due to natural growth in population, the raw material of military force in these days of vast standing armies, and partly to the exercise of a diplomacy remarkable for combined persistence, audacity, and craft. Leaving aside for the moment Russian affairs as connected with Turkey and the "Eastern Question," we deal with the internal events of the empire and her territorial acquisitions. Under Alexander I. (1801-1825), after the new settlement of Europe in 18 15, the earlier promise of the reign regarding the establishment of a more liberal system of rule was succeeded by a reactionary policy due to the influence of Metternich. Severe measures of repression were thus adopted by a monarch, a man of somewhat unstable and emotional character, who had at one time been credited with almost Republican principles. He showed no sympathy with the efforts of the Greeks for freedom, and died unlamented in December, 1825. Having no legitimate heirs of his own body, Alexander I. was succeeded, through the renunciation of the throne by the Grand-duke Constantine, by his youngest brother as Nicholas I., a man of determined character, who had to begin his reign by crushing, with the utmost cruelty and vigour, a revolt planned by members of the higher classes and supported by many army-officers. The new ruler, temperate, frugal, intensely Russian, and a devotee of Panslavism, adopted the system of absolutism based upon military force, and was the steady opponent 632 A History of the World of political and intellectual progress, restraining education within the practical limits of preparation for the public service, and exercising a severe censorship of the press. Along with this general bureaucratic tyranny, the emperor sought to Russianise all his subjects, and to bring Roman Catholics and Protestants within the " orthodox " fold of the Russo-Greek Church of which, as tsar, he was the head. In war with Persia, Nicholas forced the cession of Erivan and other territory, but his chief addition to the empire by conquest was in the Caucasus. Russian attacks on the independence of the mountaineers in that region began in 1813, and the determined resistance made to aggression for more than half a century drew the admiring attention of all free peoples. One of the great patriotic heroes of modern days was the chief named Shamyl, leader of the Lesghians in the south-east of the great range, a man of infinite courage and resource, a marvel of "luck" in his many escapes from positions of the utmost peril, and after capture by his foes. In 1824, in the prime of early manhood, this renowned warrior took up arms against Russia, and, as a priest or " mollah " of the Sufite Mohammedans among the tribes, he strove to combine all the man- hood of the Caucasus against their common enemy, the infidel Russians. Severely wounded in 1831, he became, on his complete recovery three years later, " imam " or head of the sect, and then devoted some years to the organisation of military force under a theocratic system of rule by which he was absolute spiritual and temporal head of a number of tribes. A guerilla-warfare of sur- prises and ambuscades was carried on with great success, and many severe defeats were inflicted on the Russian forces. In 1839 Shamyl's enemies surrounded a fortress where he was known to be, took it by storm, and put all the defenders to death, in order to be rid of their most dangerous foe, whose person was unknown to them. In a short time, however, having made his escape in some mysterious way, the fanatical hero was again preaching the "holy war," and the Russians were not only repulsed again and again with severe loss in attacks on his strongholds, but found their own territory invaded. It was, however, impossible to contend for ever against the military power of a foe that could, and did, employ hundreds of thousands of men in the struggle, by slow degrees seizing and main- taining strategic points, and making roads to the heart of the Caucasian fastnesses. In 1852 exhaustion began to be felt by the gallant mountaineers, and Shamyl, reduced more and more Russia 632 to the defensive, became a prisoner in September, 1859, after being hunted in the mountains for several months, and a final struggle in which his last little band of 400 followers was reduced to about one-ninth of the number. Russian admiration for a most valorous opponent assigned Shamyl a residence in the interior of the country, with an ample pension. The great Caucasian warrior closed his life at Medina, in Arabia, in 187 1. It was only in the previous year that the Russian conquest of the Caucasus had been completed, and the last defenders of freedom slain, captured, or expelled. We turn now to deal with the fortunes of the hapless Polish subjects of Russia. The Congress of Vienna in 1815, assigning to Russia part of the original shares of Prussia and Austria, had made Poland, to the extent of over 220,500 square miles (as against 26,000 square miles in Prussian and 35,500 in Austrian Poland), a constitutional kingdom attached to Russia only by the bond of having the same sovereign, with a responsible ministry, a biennial parliament, a separate army, and a free press. This liberal system of rule was, however, soon violated by the rude, cruel, and energetic military commander the Grand-duke Con- stantine, brother of Alexander I., and in November, 1830, after the revolutionary movement in France, an insurrection began under the leadership of the military and university students at Warsaw. Joined by the Polish troops and the civilian population, the rebels, seizing the arsenal, drove out the grand-duke and his Russian supporters, and in January, 1831, established a provisional govern- ment under Prince Adam Czar tory ski. In a series of fierce engagements with Russian troops, the Poles at first had some success, but they were soon overpowered by superior forces under Marshal Paskevitch, a veteran of the great campaigns of 181 2 and 1 8 14 against Napoleon, and a victorious commander in warfare with the Persians and the Turks. In September, 1831, Warsaw was captured, and Nicholas I. adopted the severest measures of punishment. Polish independence came to an end, and in 1832, with the annulling of the constitution, and the establishment of a strict censorship of the press, the country was declared to be a province of the Russian empire, with a separate administration under a viceroy. The cruel tsar caused the execution and flogging of many victims, with the banishment of others to Siberia, and the destruction of Polish nationality began in the suppression of the language for official purposes, and the exclusive employment of 634 A History of the World Russians in civil posts. Early in 1855 the accession of Alex- ander II., on the death of his father Nicholas, brought back to Poland, by an amnesty, many of the exiles, and attempts were made to conciliate the people in restoring to Poles the tenure of public offices, making Polish the official language, and granting municipal government to Warsaw and other leading towns. No fitting response was made to this humane policy, and after attempts to assassinate high Russian officials, including two successive governors, General Luders and the emperor's brother, another Grand-duke Constantine, the last effort of Poland for freedom came in the insurrection of February, 1863. This struggle was, on the part of the Poles, a mere guerilla-warfare of peasants, with some slight successes for the rebels, but no great actions, and by March, 1864, after much desultory conflict and great losses to the insurgents, the revolt was utterly crushed. The last remnant of Poland, as a separate nationality, then vanished. In 1868 the Polish pro- vince was fully incorporated with Russia, and the ten " govern- ments " of the territory were numbered with those of Russia in the proper sense. Education in the university and the public schools was henceforth conducted in the Russian language, and the ex- tinction of the Polish people, as a political body, was completed. Alexander II. (1855-1881) was a monarch whose reign must be regarded, especially in its earlier years, as forming a very memorable epoch of Russian history, one to be compared with those of Peter the Great and Catharine II. in its effect of raising Russia towards the level of west-European civilisation. Trained by a father who was little more than a military martinet, and overawed by his majestic, imposing presence, the young Alexander, showing no enthusiasm for soldiering, and displaying a kindly disposition regarded as unsuitable for one who was to become an autocratic ruler, was declared by Nicholas to be "an old woman who would do nothing great." He had not been reigning long before he gave evidence of the courage, energy, and persevering resolution that enabled him to execute reforms which his stern and strong-willed father, had he possessed the desire, would have shrunk from under- taking. Adopting the advanced utilitarian ideas of a class which probably included three-fourths of the educated people of the country, a class largely drawn from the ranks of the small landed proprietors and from the families of the village clergy, the emperor, after careful inquiry, and with a prudent restraint of extreme views, abolished in 1861 the serfdom of 23,000,000 peasants, transferring Russia 635 them from the position of men subject to the arbitrary rule of irresponsible masters to that of a class of independent communal proprietors. This great reform was followed by that of the judicial and administrative systems, with a new penal code, and a simpler civil and criminal procedure ; local self-government in which each province and district had its elective assembly with a restricted right of taxation ; a new rural and municipal police under the control of the Minister of the Interior ; and new municipal institutions with some approach to modern ideas of civic equality. The establishment of trial by jury, the publicity of proceedings in the law-courts, and the abolition of legal corporal punishment (the terrible knout or whip) marked a great advance for Russia, and it was chiefly in political affairs and with regard to political offences, still left in the hands of the department of State Police, that the former odious tyranny was maintained. It is remarkable that the reign of this reforming monarch was the period during which revolutionary discontent amongst an educated class, notably men and women proficient in physical science, assumed the terrible form of Nihilism. In 1866 the tsar's life was attempted, and in later years most daring plots assailed him and leading officials. In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkine, governor of Kharkoff, con- demned by the secret tribunal of the Nihilists, was shot, and in April of the same year the tsar was fired at in St. Petersburg with four shots from a revolver. A state of siege was pro- claimed in the capital and other great towns, and the most rigid measures of repression and precaution were vainly adopted. Two successive chiefs of the secret police, Generals TrepofT and Mesentzof, had been murdered in St. Petersburg in 1878; their successor, General Drenteln, was attacked by assassins in the following year, and many other victims of less note perished in the ranks of the army and bureaucracy. It was the avowed in- tention of the revolutionists to strike terror by these crimes into the hearts of their rulers, and the secret organisation became known as that of the "Terrorists." In December, 1879, tne i r deadly hostility to the tsar adopted a new method of attack, and one of the vans of a train preceding that by which the emperor was returning from a visit to the south was blown to pieces by a mine laid under the rails and fired from a neighbouring house. On that occasion his life was saved by a mistake, but the deliberation and ferocity of this plot, followed by a revolutionary proclamation, in which the tsar was denounced as " the personification of a 6^6 A History of the World despicable despotism, of all that is cowardly and sanguinary," renewed the panic of the spring of the year, and caused more arrests and increased vigilance on the part of the police. No precautions were able to hinder the Terrorists from attempts of even greater audacity than any hitherto displayed, and they seemed to have the aid of treachery in the very household of the ruler when, in February, 1880, the dining-hall of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, with the table laid for a numerous party of guests including the tsar's son- in-law the duke of Edinburgh, was wrecked by an explosion in the cellars beneath. The lives of the whole party of guests were saved only by a combination of accidents causing a few minutes' delay in taking their seats for dinner. Several soldiers in the intervening guard-room lost their lives. The Terrorists at last attained their evil object on March 13th, 1881. In a street of the capital, on his return to the Winter Palace from a review, Alexander II. was killed by the explosion of a dynamite-bomb. Two assassins were engaged, the first of whom flung a shell which injured some of the guards preceding the carriage, and caused the emperor to alight. The second then advanced and threw his bomb at the feet of his victim, shattering his legs and the lower part of his body, and causing death in a few hours from loss of blood and shock to the system. The murdered tsar was succeeded by his son as Alexander III., whose lot as a ruler of a great world-wide realm had "fallen on evil days." The cause of freedom in Russia was not furthered by the outrageous violence of revolutionary crime. The new emperor, naturally appalled by his father's fate, made himself a state-prisoner in the palace of Gatchina, near the capital, and adopted a reactionary system of rule. Restrictions were laid upon the self-government granted to the provinces in the last reign, and the landowning nobles had increased authority through the abolition of the "justices of the peace." Literature and education were subjected to a rigorous censorship and supervision, and an odious tyranny was displayed in the " Russification " of Finland, with the curtailment of her ancient autonomy, and in a cruel persecution of the Jews by which Russia lost, through voluntary exile, many thousands of her best subjects. An alliance between republican France and the chief autocratic European country has been attended with effusive demonstrations of friendship which have attracted the amused attention of the world. On the death of the tsar in June, 1894, he was succeeded by his son as Nicholas II. Russia 637 The latter half of the 19th century has seen a rapid extension of Russian dominion in central Asia, and an advance to the borders of Afghanistan, with the marking of a definite frontier, in the interests of peace between Russia and Great Britain, between the territories of the tsar and the Afghan ruler. The region called Turkestan ("the country of the Turks") stretches eastward from the Caspian Sea to beyond no° east longitude, and from Siberia southwards to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. It is divided into western and eastern portions by the lofty tableland called Pamir ("roof of the world "), with a mean height of 13,000 feet above sea-leve!, uniting the western ends of the Himalayas and the Tian-Shan Mountains, and both with the Hindu-Kush. We have here to deal mainly with western Turkestan, consisting of the great hollow plain of the Caspian and Aral Seas, and of the hilly and well- watered regions among the branches of the Tian-Shan and Hindu- Kush. Deserts of loose shifting sand contain oases with a clay subsoil ; there are strips of fertile land along the rivers, the chief of which are the Syr-Daria (the ancient Jaxartes) and the Amu- Daria (Oxus), and there are some very fertile valleys in the eastern districts. The people, mainly composed of Uzbegs (Turco-Tartars) and Turkomans, of kindred race, are chiefly Mohammedans in religion, and live by tillage and pastoral industry, with some manufactures of cotton, silk, woollen, and linen goods. There may be 5,000,000 in all, dwelling in a territory exceeding 500,000 square miles in area. We have seen in part of this region the ancient Persians, the founders of the chief cities ; then the Mace- donian Greeks led by Alexander ; and finally the Parthians. It was then overrun in succession by Turkish tribes ; by Arabs, in the 8th century of the Christian era ; and by the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan. Turkestan became the centre of the vast empire of Timour the Tartar (Tamerlane) in the 14th century, a dominion stretching from the Hellespont to China, and from Moscow to the Ganges. That time was for Turkestan a golden age of imported civilisation, but under Tamerlane's successors the empire was broken up, and in the 17th and 18th centuries we find independent khanates or kingdoms at Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand. In the first half of the 19th century there was much warfare between the khanates, and of marauding Turkomans, who were great brigands and man-stealers, with Persia and Afghanistan. In i860 these people severely repulsed a large Persian force, capturing 30 guns and 15,000 men. In 1839 tne tsar Nicholas I. vainly attempted to 638 A History of the World conquer Khiva, and further Russian attempts were postponed for many years. In 1865 Russian forces took Tashkend and Khokand, and three years later, after warfare in which the emir of Bokhara was severely defeated, the important city of Samarkand fell to Russian rule. In 1869 and 1871 Russia erected forts on the south-eastern shores of the Caspian, and renewed her attacks on Turkestan from this fresh base of operations. In June, 1873, Khiva was occupied after a most arduous march of troops in five columns across the desert, and a large part of the khan's territory on the right bank of the Amu-Daria was incorporated with the Russian empire. In 1875 and 1876 the rest of the Khivan land was absorbed, and Russian ambition turned next to the Tekke- Turkomans of the Akhal oasis, a 300-mile strip of well-watered garden-ground rich in corn and maize, cotton and wool, containing the finest horses of all Turkestan, and great herds and flocks of cattle, camels, and sheep. The inhabitants exceeded 120,000, under the lordship of the khan of Merv. The men were warriors of a high class, raiding the Russian and Persian borders, and victorious, in 1855 and 1861, over Khivan and Persian hosts. In 1878 a Russian expedition utterly failed from heat, fatigue, and disease, and in the following year, under like difficulties, and after severe conflict with the Turkomans, a much larger force was compelled to retire in disgrace from the fortress called Geok Tepe, pursued by Tekke horsemen even to the shores of the Caspian. The dashing General Skobeleff, a famous soldier of the recent Russo-Turkish war, was appointed commander of the troops sent to retrieve this disaster. With careful preparation, this brave and able man, assisted by a new railway, advanced into the Akhal country, and, after a regular siege of " parallels " and bombardment, took Geok Tepe by storm, with great loss to the Turkomans, in January, 1881. Merv became Russian in 1883, and the conquerors have since strengthened their hold on their central Asian possessions by the construction of a railway-line from the Caspian to the Oxus, and thence to Samarkand. Chapter VIII. — Russia and Turkey; the Eastern Question ; the New Balkan States. As regards Turkey, we have seen her loss of Greece in the reign of the able and energetic Mahmiid II., who reigned from 1808 to 1839, and the advance of the Russian border to the Pruth, by the Peace of Bucharest, in 18 12. This monarch, in pursuit of internal reform, Russia and Turkey 639 made an end, by a general massacre in June, 1826, of the dangerous Janissaries, and he then organised his army on the European system. In the war with Russia in 1828-29, there were alternations of success, hut the Russian general Diebitsch, in 1829, captured Silistria, crossed the Balkans, and reached Adrianople, and the able Paskevitch, in Asia, took Kars and Erzeroum. The Peace of Adrianople restored most of the conquered territory to Turkey, but Russia retained much of the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and acquired a " protectorate " over Wallachia and Moldavia. The revolt of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, brought his troops through Asia Minor to within 120 miles of the Bosphorus, and the Ottoman government, appealing for aid to Russia, had to see her ancient foe's troops encamped at Scutari. Mehemet Ali's forces were withdrawn, and Turkey, in the Treaty of Hunkiar-Skelessi, in 1833, undertook to close the Dardanelles against the armed ships of all nations except Russia. Henceforth the history of Turkey becomes a part of the great " Eastern Question " which has for over half a century troubled the diplomatists and the peace of Europe. That question means, in its essence, the disposal of the territories of the effete empire whose record has long been that of decrepitude and decay, save only in the element of military force to the maintenance of which all else is sacrificed in a chaos of general misrule, attended by occasional ferocious outbursts of Mohammedan fanaticism directed against Christian subjects provoked by tyranny to open or secret discontent. In the northern provinces, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, with Wallachia and Moldavia, the bulk of the Porte's subjects consisted of adherents of the Greek Church. This fact afforded Russia a constant excuse for interference in the internal affairs of Turkey, and her intrigues and aggressions have been due to something more than an ordinary national desire for aggrandisement. Religious fanaticism has for centuries caused Russians to aim at the possession of Constantinople, the sacred city whence they received their particular form of Christianity, the spot where they desire to replace the crescent by the cross on the Mosque of St. Sophia. The sympathy of race, in the Panslavism of the great northern empire, with the largely Sclavonic people of European Turkey, has furnished another impulse in the same direction, and it is only the jealousy of the other great Powers that has hitherto prevented Russia from attaining the main object of her ambition. The Russian has, moreover, a hereditary hatred of the Tartar race who held sway for two centuries in the old " Muscovy," and the Tartar and the Turk are closely akin in blood. 42 640 A History of the World In 1841 the jealousy of the Powers took an active form, and the Treaty of London provided that the Dardanelles should be closed against all ships of war while Turkey was at peace. At this time the Sultan was Mahmud's son Abdul-Mejid (1839-61), under whom the ambitious plans of the emperor Nicholas, seeking to give effect to Russian aspirations, brought about the Crimean War with events familiar to all readers of British history. The Russian invasion in Europe totally failed, brilliant victories being won on the Danube by Turkish troops, and the Russian forces being repulsed with enormous loss at the siege of Silistria. In Asia, Kars.was overcome by famine, after the failure of a great Russian assault. In the Crimea, the victories of Alma and Inkermann were followed by the long and memorable siege of Sebastopol, ending in the capture of the fortress by the allied French and British forces in September, 1855. In March, 1856, the Peace of Paris restored to Turkey the command of the Danubian mouths ; ended the Russian " protectorate " over the Christians in Turkey and the Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) ; restored Kars to Turkey ; and bound Russia not to maintain any naval arsenals in the Black Sea, or any naval force superior to that of Turkey. In 1861 Abdul-Mejid, who had made much pretence of " reforms " in his treatment of Christians and had then become noted for his wantonly profuse expenditure on barbaric splendour of life, was succeeded by his brother Abdul-Aziz. In 1866 Wallachia and Moldavia, expelling their ruler Prince Couza, an immoral and tyrannous personage, assumed virtual independence as " Roumania " under their chosen hereditary Prince Charles of Hohenzollern. In 1870 the main achievement of the Crimean War, as against the development of Russian naval power in southern waters, was rendered nugatory by that Power's taking advantage of the outbreak of the Franco-German war to declare that she would no longer be bound by that article of the Treaty of Paris (1856) which neutralised the Black Sea. Great Britain was not prepared to go to war, single-handed, to enforce the article, and in March, 1871, a Conference made an end of the clauses which shut the Euxine to ships of war belonging to Turkey and Russia. The fleets of other nations were still excluded by the closure of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus in time of peace. It has thus come to pass that Sebastopol, captured and destroyed at a vast expenditure of human life and treasure, is again a great naval arsenal and fortress, a standing menace to Turkey in conjunction with Russia's new powerful Black Sea fleet/ Russia and Turkey 641 The perennial misgovernment exercised by Turkey over all her subjects, Moslem and Christian alike, soon' caused another war with Russia. In 1875 a revolt began in Herzegovina, supported by Servia, Bosnia, and Montenegro^ and the rebels were aided by Russian volunteers with the connivance of their government. The Turkish troops were at first unable to suppress the outbreak, and the fury of Moslem fanaticism expressed itself in the murder of the German and French consuls in Salonica. A "palace-revolution" in the Turkish capital caused the deposition and death of Sultan Abdul-Aziz, succeeded by Murad V., who was deposed, as mentally incapable, in August, 1876, and replaced by his brother Abdul- Hamid II., the astute, miserable, blood-stained monster, justly branded as "the Great Assassin," who still (in 1898) defiles the world by his existence in a seat of irresponsible power. In the summer of 1876 the whole civilised world, an expression from the scope of which British and other sympathisers with Turkey must be carefully excluded, was horrified by the atrocious cruelties per- petrated by the Turkish irregular troops after the suppression of a revolt in Bulgaria. Popular feeling was so strongly aroused in Russia that the tsar (Alexander II.) was impelled to invade Turkey in April, 1877, and the latest Russo-Turkish war began. The Russian troops were at first miserably handled, and severe repulses, with great loss of life, were incurred in vain assaults on Plevna, but the subsequent generalship of Todleben, the hero of the defence of Sebastopol, Skobeleff, and Gourko caused the capture of the Plevna garrison, the victorious passage of the Balkans, and an advance almost to the gates of Constantinople in the early days of 1878. In Asia, Kars was taken by storm in November, 1877. The Congress of Berlin, sitting in June and July, 1878, restored peace on the terms of independence for Servia, Montenegro, and Roumania, the first and last becoming " kingdoms " ; the cession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria ; the creation of the independent principality of Bulgaria in the territory between trie Danube and the Balkans ; the establishment of southern Bulgaria as the province of Eastern Roumelia, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, with a Christian governor-general and a separate militia ; and the reduction of the Sultan's territory in Europe to the land south of the Balkans which represents the ancient Thrace, Macedonia, part of Epirus, and Illyria, between the Black Sea and the Adriatic. In Asia, Russia retained Kars and the port of Batoum, the latter on the express stipulation that it should not be made into a naval station, but 642 A History of the World should remain a purely open commercial port. With her usual shameless perfidy, Russia has now withdrawn the privileges of Batoum as a free port, and converted the place into another Sebastopol. The history of the new Balkan States may be briefly dealt with. In 1885 Servia, ruled by King Milan I., under a constitution including a freely elected national assembly, wantonly attacked her neighbour Bulgaria, but the invaders were decisively defeated by the invaded at the battles of Slivnitza and Pirot, and the Servian state was saved only by Austrian intervention. In 1889 King Milan abdicated in favour of his young son Alexander, a lad of 13 years of age, who was installed as sovereign under a " Council of Regents." Bulgaria, on becoming an independent principality, passed under the constitutional rule of the freely elected Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a scion of the Ducal House of Hesse by a morganatic marriage, and a near kinsman of the tsar. He dis- played great gallantry and skill in leading his troops in the brief war with Servia, and gained the warm affection of his subjects. A kind of union with Eastern Roumelia took place in 1886 in the Prince's recognition by the Porte as governor of that province. In the summer of that year Alexander was kidnapped by Russian partisans in his palace at Sofia, and sent to Austria, whence he soon returned to receive an enthusiastic welcome from his Bulgarians The insolent hostility of the tsar then induced the prince to abdicate, and a provisional government, firmly maintaining the national cause against Russian menaces, held rule until the acceptance of the throne, on the choice of the regency, in 1887, by Prince Ferdinand of Coburg. Roumania, whose troops fought with the utmost gallantry alongside the Russians at Plevna, became a kingdom in 1881 under Charles of Hohenzollern, and the country has since become flourishing, with a very large and thrifty body of peasant proprietors of land. There is a limited monarchy with two Houses of Parliament, and Roumania is now freed from the evil effect of both Russian and Turkish influence. The latest stage of European history has presented the disgrace- ful spectacle of the six great nations styled "the Powers" in a position of impotence to deal with the Eastern Question in any way that shall do justice to nationalities suffering under the atrocious misrule of Turkey. The governments of Russia and Germany have been conspicuous in preventing the adoption of measures The Eastern Question 643 which should fitly assert the dignity and rights of Christendom and civilisation against the Moslem tyrant. Abdul-Hamid, the energetic, relentless, vigilant, and consistent enemy of Christians, has caused and permitted, in his Asiatic dominions, slaughter and devastation far exceeding any beheld in those much-enduring countries since the days of Othman and Bajazet. In the Treaty of Berlin, Armenia came under the protection of Great Britain, and that fact alone made her wretched people a special mark for the suspicion and hatred of a remorseless despot and a fanatical populace. Nothing could have been more unfortunate for the Armenians than the assumption by Great Britain of a vague form of protectorate which, for the first time, excited political hopes and, perhaps, even revolutionary dreams, in the minds of those who trusted to the Western Power. The independence of Bulgaria had bitterly wounded Turkey. The alleged ingratitude of Bulgaria had enraged the Russian govern- ment, and the two former foes, Russia and Turkey, became combined, the one by the basest inaction, the other by the most ruffianly violence, in hastening the ruin of the Armenian people. The Armenians, forsooth, not being adherents of the Greek Church, could claim no Christian sympathy from holy and orthodox Russia, the only Power in a position to save them by prompt military action, and the Sultan, secured against restraint and punishment by the mutual jealousies of the great European nations, revelled in the opportunity of insulting and defying the best public feeling of the country, Great Britain, whose arms and diplomacy, in the Crimean War, and after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, had twice saved Turkey from extinction as a European power. It was in 1894 and 1895 that the Armenians, long exposed to the ravages of Kurdish and Circassian raiders, were subjected to the deliberate system of massacre inaugurated by the Turkish Sultan, with the loss of tens of thousands of lives, and the carrying-off of countless women and girls into a slavery worse than death. Many meetings were held in the British Isles to express the utmost indignation of humane people, but British diplomacy, unable to face the contingency of a general European war, unable to induce any action on the part of Russia, a country now callous to all considerations save her own interest, has made patriotic Britons look back with bitter regret to the days of Palmerston and Canning. Section IV. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY OF ASIA. Chapter I. — China and Japan. The historical interest and importance of those remote Eastern peoples, the Chinese and the Japanese, begin only when, emerging from an exclusive and non-progressive condition, they came into contact with Europeans. The vast Chinese empire, embracing in its broadest sense Manchuria, Mongolia, eastern Turkestan, and the practically independent Tibet, with an area exceeding 4,000,000 square miles, has China proper as its centre of power and population, a territory variously estimated as having an area of 1,250,000 to 1,500,000 square miles, and a population from 350,000,000 to 400,000,000. The people were known to the ancients as the Seres, the Serial of the geographer Ptolemy, in the 2nd century a.d., mean- ing north-west China, and adjacent parts of Tibet and Chinese Tartary. In mediaeval times the country was called in Europe "Cathay," a Tartar name. Mountainous and hilly in the south, with a vast alluvial plain and delta in the north-east, the territory has a soil of unsurpassed fertility, with a temperate climate, and was well suited to the early and rapid growth in numbers of the Mongolian people who inhabit it, superior in strength to most Asiatics, diligent and enduring in toil, skilful in tillage. Of the early so-called history, and of the primitive religion, of the Chinese, we can here say nothing. The famous philosopher Confucius (K'ung-Fu-tsze in Chinese, or, " the Master, Kung ") founded a new moral system in the 6th century B.C., embracing the " Golden Rule " contained in the words " What you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others." He is still regarded by the Chinese, and twice yearly worshipped by the emperor, as "the Perfect Sage." It is obvious that his great rule 644 China 645 of moral conduct involves benevolence, honesty, humanity, and justice. He also taught that there was one God and one emperor, with the kings of other nations as his vassals ; that ancestors should be reverenced, all old usages and customs observed, old age held in high esteem, and children strictly disciplined. In the 3rd century B.C. the famous Great Wall, the largest artificial structure in the world, carried for 1,400 miles over height and hollow, reaching in one place the level of 5,000 feet above the sea, was erected of earth, gravel, brick, and stone, as a barrier to protect the northern frontier from inroads of barbarous tribes. About the time of Confucius the ethical teacher Lao-tsze flourished, his name meaning " the old philosopher." He was the author of a system called Taoism, "the way of living so as to develop the nature of man in the highest and purest form." In the 1st century a.d. this became a sort of religion, and its founder was deified, the new system being really one of gross and mystical superstition. At the same time Buddhism was introduced from India into China, where it still exists in a degraded form, and has many adherents. Confucianism is held by the upper or learned class, but the people in general have no special creed, practising a form of Buddhism, or a mixture of the three religions, with the old ancestor and spirit worship prevalent among the lower classes. The Chinese are domesticated, hard-working, frugal, courteous, noted for filial piety, respectful to age. On the other hand, the mass of the people are freely addicted to lying, treachery, and gambling. The form of government is an absolute despotism vested in the emperor as supreme civil ruler and head of religion. The business of the state is carried on by a council of chief ministers and seven boards, with a Board of General Supervision or Censorate reporting to the emperor.- Official station, in the lack of any nobility in the proper sense, is due entirely to success in the competitive examinations which have existed for many centuries, and have furnished China, in the persons of the literati or learned men, with its gentry, governors of provinces, judges, magistrates, ministers of state, and diplomatic body. Chinese ingenuity enabled the people, at a very early period, to invent the arts of paper-making, printing from wooden blocks, the manufacture of the porcelain which has given the name of "China" to every kind of fine and beautiful earthenware, the weaving of exquisite silken robes, the making of lacquered ware, and the delicate carving of ivory, tortoiseshell, wood, and mother- of-pearl. Of science, in the true sense, they knew nothing until 646 A History of the World they derived it from foreign sources in recent times, and their language, destitute of an alphabet, and having each word represented by a single character or symbol, is in a high degree clumsy and cumbersome. Isolation, self-conceit, devotion to ancestral ways of thought and action, have been the persistent bane of a country which has only adopted European methods, in military and naval affairs, in the most recent times. In 1898 an intelligent traveller could truly report that Pekin, the capital, was the dirtiest of towns, where no pavement existed for foot-passengers, and the carts in the crowded streets passed along deep ruts. The people, at a most critical time for the empire, showed the most apathetic disregard for public affairs, except the officials, of whom a large number were being paid from the secret service fund of Russia. " Nothing could," he writes, " convey a better idea of the utter conservatism and childishness of the Chinese than two sights which I witnessed yesterday. The first was a body of soldiers engaged in practising with bows and arrows, and the other was the picture of a huge cannon painted on a canvas screening a part of the town wall, with the object of frightening assailants." It must be stated, however, that the Chinese army has of late much improved in discipline and training under British and other European officers, and that cannons and rifles of recent patterns have been imported, while the former ridiculous and inefficient navy has been replaced by men-of-war from British and German shipyards. Passing over various so-called " brilliant periods " of Chinese history, when we hear of the empire being " consolidated," and of literature having a " Golden Age," and of valiant warriors and wise rulers who held the Tatars (Tartars) in check, we find these for- midable foes, in the 8th century of the Christian era, making constant inroads, sometimes resisted with success, often stayed by the payment of tribute. By the middle of the 12th century Tartars had come down as far as the Yang-tse-Kiang river. Early in»the 13th century Mongols under Genghis Khan took Pekin and annexed some of the northern provinces, and in 1259 the famous Kublai Khan, a nephew of Genghis, became master of the whole northern territory and founded the Mongol dynasty of China, which was in power until 1368. It was in the time of Kublai, who reigned until 1294, that the Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited the country, with his father and uncle, who had previously been there. Marco gained the special favour of the great Khan from his quickness in acquiring the language and customs of the Mongols, and was China 647 employed by him in frequent missions to neighbouring rulers. He resided in China for 17 years, until 1292, and wrote a valuable and interesting extant work on what he had seen. In the course of the 1 6th century we find Portuguese merchants settling at Macao; the coasts of China ravaged by Japanese ships ; further trouble from the Tartars ; and an attempt of the Japanese to subdue Corea. Early in the 17th century the Dutch and the Spaniards appeared in China, and in 16 16 Manchoo Tartars invaded the country, and effected its conquest within the spacS of 30 years. In 1644 the existing Manchoo dynasty was founded in the person of the emperor Shun-che, with the capture of Nanking. There was then warfare in which Chinese resistance was completely overcome, and the introduction of the shaved head and pigtail which are the symbols of Tartar sovereignty. Under an emperor named Kang-he (1661-1721) Tibet and Formosa were subdued, and war was waged against Russia. French and English were at this time settled at Canton, the latter being traders connected with the East India Company. The first direct intercourse between the British and Chinese governments came in the embassy of Lord Macartney in 1792. This able and experienced man, of Scottish descent, born near Belfast, had been a special envoy to Russia, Chief-Secretary for Ireland, governor of Grenada, and governor of Madras, and had been offered, but declined, the high post of Governor-General of India. Raised to the peerage for his eminent public services, Macartney, dispatched by George III. as ambassador, had several interviews with the emperor, but no result came from the mission. In 18 1 6 Lord Amherst, afterwards Governor-General of India, went as ambassador seeking permission for a British minister to reside at Pekin, with the opening of ports on the northern coast to British trade. This British noble and envoy was not even admitted to the august presence of the Chinese ruler because he very properly refused to perform the ceremony of " Kotow " or prostration at the emperor's feet. He returned to England with a letter to the Prince-Regent, in which were the words : " I have sent thine ambassadors back to their own country without punishing them for the high crime they have committed " (in approaching me). The time was rapidly drawing near when the rulers of China, in their besotted self-conceit, were to be, justly or unjustly, somewhat rudely shaken from their attitude of isolation as "superior persons." The East India Company had long traded with Canton for tea, silk, and other Chinese exports, and had introduced, before the close 648 A History of the World of the 1 8th century, a traffic in opium, as an export from India to China, which was very profitable. During the period when the China trade was solely in the hands of the Company's agents, the imperial edicts forbidding the importation of the drug were quietly evaded by bribing the Chinese customs-officers. The Act of 1833, ending the exclusive privilege of the Company in the China trade, was soon the cause of serious trouble. The new British officials, in support of the illicit traders in opium, openly encouraged the traffic ; and the court of'Pekin, in 1838, sent to Canton, with extraordinary powers, the once famous " Commissioner Lin." In 1.839 this official caused the seizure of many thousand chests of opium, of enormous value, in the Canton river and elsewhere, with the destruction of the contents. British subjects residing in the " Factory " or trading-station, at Canton, under the charge of Captain Elliot, the British superintendent, were surrounded and menaced by Chinese troops, and the refusal of compensation to the traders caused the contest known as " the Opium War." In January, 1840, an imperial edict forbade all trade with the British, and our reply consisted in the storming of forts on the Canton river, the destruction of war-junks, the seizure of Hong-Kong, the silencing of the Bogue forts, the dispatch of an army from India under the veteran Sir Hugh Gough, and the capture of Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, and Ching-Keang, operations attended with severe loss to the ill- armed Chinese forces. The Treaty of Nanking, in August, 1842, opened Canton, Amoy, Fuhchau (Foo-choo), Shanghai, and Ningpo to British trade ; ceded Hong-Kong ; paid a large indemnity to the opium-merchants and the British government ; established a regular tariff; and made an end of the absurd restrictions and pompous etiquette of Chinese usage in respect to official intercourse. Thus was Chinese exclusiveness broken down, and the opening of the northern ports to trade, at points of the coast nearer to the tea- growing districts, brought great profit to the Chinese growers, with Shanghai as one of the principal outlets for the ever-increasing export of the leaves to Great Britain. In 1844 China made commercial treaties with the United States and with France. In 1850 the great rebellion broke out which became known as the " Tai-ping " revolt, because its leader Tien-teh (" celestial virtue "), announcing himself as a heaven-sent political and religious reformer, sought to dethrone the Manchoo dynasty, and to found, in his own person, that of Tai-ping or Universal Peace. For some years a horrible civil war went on, with the capture of Nanking and Shanghai China 649 by the rebels in 1853. Two years later, an attempt on Pekin failed, and the insurgents were finally subdued by bodies of troops of various nationalities, commanded by an American adventurer called " General Ward," an able man who did good service to the imperialist cause until his death, in battle, in 1862, and especially by a great force organised and led by the famous British officer Colonel Charles (" Chinese ") Gordon, the subsequent victim of his own heroic rashness, and of official apathy, at Khartoum. In July, 1864, Nanking was taken by the imperialists, and the remnant of the rebels melted away in the following year. In 1857 the seizure of a small vessel, the once famous lorcha Arrow, flying the British flag, and the refusal of an apology or reparation from the Chinese government, caused another war, in which both British and French forces took part. In 1857 the Chinese fleet was destroyed, and Canton was captured, and in June, 1858, the Treaties of Tientsin, concluded with Great Britain, France, and the United States, made great concessions to their commerce, but a failure to carry out the treaties caused a renewal of warfare in 1859. A" English naval force was repulsed with severe loss in an attack on the Taku forts at the mouth of the Peiho river, but they were afterwards taken by British and French troops in a land-assault, and an advance was made on Pekin. The large Chinese army was routed, and the surrender of the capital was followed by the sacking and burning of a number of great buildings in a large park, collec- tively known as the emperor's " Summer Palace," in punishment for the treacherous seizure and murder of Mr. Bowlby, special corre- spondent of the Times, and some other British subjects, during the march on Pekin. In October, i860, the Treaty of Pekin ratified the former treaties, declared the toleration of Christianity, and arranged for a revised tariff, the payment of an indemnity, the residence of a British minister at Pekin, the admission of British subjects with passports to all parts of China, and -the opening of five fresh ports, including Formosa, Tientsin, and Haina i, to European trade. Thus was China at last laid open to the Western nations, and a very enlightened and excellent Chinese envoy, the late Marquis Tseng, was received at the chief European courts. The most recent events in China, in 1898, include the cession of ports to Russia, Germany, and Great Britain under circumstances not yet ripe for historical treatment. The war with Japan is treated in our account of that country. The island-empire of Japan, in the North Pacific, has an area 650 A History of the World exceeding that of the British Isles by one-fifth, and a population about equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland, or nearly 40,000,000. With a wide range of temperature, a very varied vegetation, and a people skilled in cultivation of the soil, the country is rich in food- products, including tea, and in cotton and tobacco. The Japanese, chiefly Mongolian in race, are frugal, clever, persevering, brave, courteous, good-humoured, and frank, and they possess remarkable ingenuity in native and imitative manufactures — metal-work, mosaics, tortoiseshell, leather-work, wood-lacquering, paper-making, and textile fabrics. The popular religion is Buddhism ; and there are many devotees of Shintoism, a form of religion which includes the worship of heroes, emperors, and great men, and of certain natural forces and objects, with the sun-goddess as the chief divinity. With the origin and mythical period of the Japanese we here have no concern. The first trustworthy records begin with the 10th century a.d. The emperors, known as " Mikados," had by this time been compelled to share their power, under the system known as " the dual govern- ment," with an usurping military official, like the " Mayor of the Palace " in early French history, styled the Shogun or Tycoon. The Mikado, living behind a veil of formal etiquette, with a reverential regard for his office, was devoid of real power, which lay in the hands of certain energetic families holding the chief military com- mands. The system was, in fact, feudal, with a separation of state- offices into two sections, civil and military, each held by one group of noble families, a great predominance of power lying in the military element. The whole male population consisted of two classes — the agricultural, comprising all unfit for military service, and burdened with the annual payment of a part of the fruits of their toil to the military class ; and this latter body, including all the bravest and most intellectual men in the country, supported by the taxation above mentioned, and, to a large degree, able to devote themselves to literary pursuits. They formed the best element of a nation which, under the feudal nobles, suffered much from oppression and anarchy until a time beyond the middle of the 19th century. In the 1 2th century there was civil war between leading families; in the 13th an invading armada of the Mongol-Tartars from China was partly destroyed by a typhoon, and the survivors of the storm were defeated and massacred by the Japanese. In the 14th century we have more warfare between ambitious nobles, and the long contest between two rival Mikados styled " the War of the Chrysan- themums " from the display of that imperial emblem on each side. Japan 651 At this time feudalism had become fully developed, and the land was divided among the soldiers of the Shogun (Tycoon) or military commander and ruler, from whom they held their estates as fiefs on condition of service in war. These military lords, or daimios, had vassals, holding lands as fiefs, of the agricultural and other classes, and the holders of civil offices, the Mikado and his court, sank to a low position, impoverished by the greed of the feudal lords who grasped most of the taxes. In the 15th and 16th centuries Japan was in a wretched condition of civil warfare of rival emperors and between ambitious nobles, and towards the end of the period we have . the Japanese invasion of Corea already recorded, and the persecution of Jesuit missionaries. About the middle of the 17th century, under a new dynasty of Shoguns (or Tycoons, " high princes "), we find the adoption of an exclusive system which shut Japan to all foreigners except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were allowed to trade at Nagasaki. A general persecution at this time effected the extirpation of Christianity. Japan became first known to Europe, under the name of Zipangu, through Marco Polo. In 1542 it was visited by the Portuguese, who carried on a lucrative trade until their final expulsion in 1640. In the 17th and 18th centuries much progress was made, through native energy and ability, in civilisation and material prosperity, and the population of the islands, in 1744, was found to exceed 26,000,000. We arrive at the middle of the 19th century before we find any startling change in the political and social condition of the people who had so long been living in the isolated state, according to their own proverb, of "frogs in a well." The class called samurai, or second order of vassals, to whom the great feudal nobles, or daimios, leased their farms in return for military service, had long been dissatisfied with the usurped power of the Shoguns (Tycoons), and the daimios were jealous of the long tenure of the Shogunate by the Tokugawa family, who had held it since 1603. An element of internal revolution was thus at work. At the same time, in 1854, Commodore Perry, of the United States, after a visit in the previous year, with four men-of-war, to the harbour of Yedo, induced the Shogun to conclude a treaty with the great republic of the West, con- ceding certain rights of trade to citizens of the States. In the same and the following year Great Britain and Russia made like treaties with Japan, and in 1858 Lord Elgin, after the Treaty of Tientsin with China, made arrangements with the Japanese ruler by which several ports, including Yokohama, Hakodate, and Nagasaki, were 652 A History of the World opened to British trade, with consular agents, and a resident British diplomatist at Yedo. In the same year the United States, France, and Russia received like concessions by treaty with the Shogun. The Mikado and his court, with the conservative Japanese party, were incensed at these proceedings of the Shogun, and there was a deep-seated feeling of hostility towards foreigners. In i860 the first Japanese embassy to the United States was sent out by the prime minister, who paid the penalty in assassination. Civil dissensions arose, and a brief irregular war with Great Britain came through the murder, in September, 1862, of Mr. Richardson, a member of the British Embassy, who was attacked on the high- road by the retinue of a daimio, brother of the prince of Satsuma, one of the chief feudal nobles. The Shogun (or Tycoon), who was not responsible for this outrage, made a full apology, and paid a large sum in compensation, and Satsuma, who refused all redress, was brought to terms in August, 1863, by a British squadron which, in bombarding the forts at Kagosima, capital of Satsuma's province, almost destroyed the large wood-built town. At last the long-threatened revolution in Japan came to pass, and it was one of a very rapid and complete character. There had been further warfare with foreigners, in consequence of their somewhat lawless conduct in entering one of the forbidden ports after due warning, and being fired on by the Japanese forts. In 1863 and 1864 British, French, Dutch, and American vessels bombarded and destroyed the batteries at Shimonoseki, and a large indemnity was exacted. In 1867 a struggle between the Shogun, with his partisans, and some of the chief daimios, ended in the resignation of the last military ruler (Shogun or Tycoon), and the "dual government" was abolished in the restoration of full power to the Mikado, or emperor, as both the temporal and spiritual head of the realm. A revolt occurred, with severe fighting, but by June, 1869, the imperialist cause prevailed, and the Mikado transferred his residence from Kioto to Yedo (Jeddo), changing that city's name to Tokio (" eastern capital "). This large and splendid place, the centre of Japanese literary, commercial, and political activity, now contains about 1,500,000 inhabitants. A complete change of policy followed. The life of the emperor and the court had henceforth a publicity in complete contrast to the olden seclusion. The former treaties with foreign nations were ratified, and embassies were dispatched to European capitals and to Washington. The daimios resigned their fiefs in exchange for state-pensions, and a system of consti- Japan 653 tutional and administrative government, on the European model, was established. Western civilisation was fully embraced, and hundreds of young Japanese men were sent to Europe for education. A new code of criminal law ; a government postal system ; railroads and telegraphs ; the adoption of the European (Gregorian) calendar ; a Tokio university ; female education ; modern military drill, tactics, and arms ; and a modern navy, gave ample token, along with the establishment, in 1889, of a Parliament of two Houses, that Japan had, with startling energy, entered on a new path of progress to enlightenment, prosperity, and power. The chamber of peers is in advance of the British, in being partly hereditary, partly elective, partly nominated by the Mikado. The representative chamber is chosen by men of 25 years of age and upwards, paying taxes to a moderate annual amount. The cabinet or ministry includes officials, under the premier, presiding over foreign affairs, finance, war, the navy, education, religion, justice, public works, and the imperial household. In 1874 an expedition to Formosa avenged the murder of Japanese sailors on that island. In 1887 the Japanese imports from Great Britain and her colonies had reached a value of nearly ^£4,000,000 sterling, and the one thing needed to prove the completeness of Japan's conversion to European ways was a demonstration of her strength in the modern style of warfare. In August, 1894, a dispute concerning Corean affairs caused Japan to declare war against China. The first success was won by the Japanese army, which defeated the Chinese forces with great loss, in September, at Ping Yang, in Corea. On the same day the Chinese were worsted in a great naval action in Corea Bay. On October 24th the Japanese troops crossed the Yalu river and entered Chinese territory, and early in November Kinchow and Talienwan were captured by the invaders, who followed this up by the occupation of Port Arthur. Early in February, 1895, the greater portion of the Chinese fleet, attempting to escape from Wei-hai-wei, nearly opposite to Port Arthur and on the southern side of the entrance to the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, was sunk by the Japanese fleet stationed outside the harbour. This succession of severe blows, showing the decisive superiority of the reforming Japanese to the conservative Chinamen, in warfare both by sea and land, caused the Chinese government to sue for peace, and on March 16th, 1895, a treaty ceded Formosa and the adjacent Pescadores isles to Japan, and undertook the payment of a large indemnity. 654 A History of the World Chapter II. — India. We must here deal in the most summary fashion with a subject needing volumes for detailed treatment. One of the greatest achievements in the world's history is shown in the conquest of the vast and populous territory of India and Burma by Great Britain, and the subjection of about 300,000,000 people, alien in their races, languages, customs, and religious beliefs, to the mild, just, peaceful, uniform, and, assuredly, beneficial sway of less than as many thousands of European soldiers and civilians. The ancestors of those Europeans were, at a remote date, prior to historical records, cognate in blood with the Aryan forefathers of many millions of the people of India, and this return to Asia, in conquering strength, of the flower of the Aryan race which came forth, as we have seen, thousands of years ago, from Asiatic uplands into southern and western Europe, is in itself a fact of the utmost interest. In early pre-historic times India was inhabited by aboriginal, non-Aryan peoples, some millions of whose descendants still exist, under the name of Santals, Bhils, Gonds, and by other designations, in the wilder hill-country. The beginnings of civilisa- tion came with the influx of the Aryan race into the Punjab and the valley of the Ganges, perhaps between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The sacred verse of the books called Vedas, and the two great epic poems, the Maha Bharata and the Ra.7na.yana, written in the now dead Sanskrit language, show us these Hindus, as they are called from Hind, the basin of the river Indus, as a people worshipping gods who represented the powers of nature — the sky, the rain- vapour, fire, storm — with a chief deity styled Dyaus-pitar (Diespiter or Jupiter, in Latin), "the father of heaven." The native tribes were either enslaved or driven away to the mountains by the new- comers, who in course of time pushed southwards along the coasts of the Deccan and reached Ceylon. Many despotic kingdoms were founded, and there was a great development of royal power and priestly influence, the Brahmans, or priestly class, being the highest of the four castes, strictly separated in social matters. The old religion was superseded by the Brahmanic, a trinitarian system in which Brahma figures as the Creator, / 'ishnu as the Preserver, and Siva as both the Destroyer and the Reproducer, the philosophy of this last invention embodying the idea that death begins another life. The Brahmans were the possessors of all philosophy and learning, in which India 655 scientific grammar, and profound and ingenious speculation, were conspicuous, and the Indian astronomers, after learning from the ancient Greeks and improving on their acquirements, became fairly proficient, and teachers of the Arabs, in the 8th and 9th centuries of our era. Algebra and arithmetic (the decimal system) had their origin in India. In medical science the Brahman doctors showed some proficiency at an early date, but in the later times of Hinduism, after the 9th century of the Christian era, superstition forbade the Brahmans to touch blood, and surgical practice came to an end. In the 6th century B.C. a young prince named Gautama, leaving his father's court for an ascetic life in the jungle, became a religious reformer, and founded Buddhism, from his religious name Buddha, " the enlightened." Its morality was pure, and its ritual was simple and attractive in the offering of flowers, fruit, and incense, along with processional hymns and prayers. It was strongly antagonistic to Brahmanism in preaching the essential equality of all htfman beings. About the middle of the 3rd century B.C., when Buddhism had spread over northern India, it was adopted as the state-religion by a king of Behar, named Asoka, and until the end of the 8th century a.d. the two religions existed side by side. Then Buddhism began to suffer from a mysterious process of internal decay, so far as India was concerned, as well as from the active hostility of a Brahmanistic reaction, and by the end of the 9th century it had almost disappeared except in Kashmir and Ceylon, with an ample compensation of victory in other regions — Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Siam — now containing over 300,000,000 followers of the faith. In 327 B.C. India was brought into immediate contact with Europe by Alexander the Great's invasion of the Punjab, where he defeated a prince named Porus on the banks of the Hydaspes (Jhelum). Some cities were founded in the Punjab and Sind (Scinde), and a basis of Greek influence was laid. About 308 B.C. one of Alexander's successors, Seleucus Nicator, founder of the Syrian monarchy, was in alliance with a king of Behar named Chandra-gupta, and the Greek ambassador at his court, Megasthenes, gives us a description of the capital, Palimbothra (now Patna), and of the social system in his day. For many centuries after this date we have no records that are trustworthy in details. There were invaders of northern India vaguely described as " Scythians," in conflict with Indian monarchs at various times until the 6th century a.d., but no important effect was produced by these people, and the main fact is the firm establishment, on the decay of Buddhism, of the new form 43 656 A History of the World of Brahmanism called Hinduism, combining the old Vedic faith with Buddhism and with the ruder rites of the aboriginal peoples. It was the ingenious blending of religious elements that gave the reformed Brahmanism its permanent hold on the vast population of the peninsula. Mohammedan invaders appeared early in the 8th century, but their only conquest at that time was Sind (Scinde), which was again in Hindu hands early in the 9th century. About a.d. 1002 a Turkish conqueror, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, a small territory in Kabul, appeared at Peshawur with his fierce predatory horsemen, and after many inroads and retreats, in which Hindu temples were plundered and idols destroyed, he conquered the Punjab. The territory was held by many of his successors, but towards the end of the 1 2th century the Afghans of Ghor, now a ruined town near Herat, conquered Ghazni, and the first Mohammedan dynasty in India proper was founded at Lahore by a descendant of Mahmud. The Moslem afterwards became masters in northern India, driving the Hindu princes away to found new kingdoms in the forests and hills to the south. Behar and Bengal were subdued by the followers of the Arabian prophet, and in the 13th and part of the 14th centuries Mohammedan sultans were ruling at Delhi, and Mohammedan invaders made their way to the south. A confused period of warfare due to Hindu reaction and revolt furnishes horrible records of massacre, famine, anarchy, and misrule, and in 1398 a new terror came in the invasion of Timour the Tartar (Tamerlane), ruling at Samarkand, who swept down on the Punjab and Hindustan (the territory between the Punjab and the Nerbudda), and retired into central Asia with a great booty after a year of massacre and plunder. In southern India, during this time and until the middle of the 16th century, we find a powerful Hindu realm called Narsinha or Vijanayagar, with a capital still to be traced by extensive ruins in the Bellary district of Madras Presidency. This empire was destroyed by the defeat and death, in 1565, at the great battle of Talikot, on the right bank of the Kistna, of its sovereign at war with some allied Mohammedan rulers in the Deccan. A new phase of Indian history began with the advent of Mongol conquerors. Early in the 1 6th century Baber, a descendant of Tamerlane, was driven from Bokhara by Tartar invaders, and sub- dued an Afghan realm at Kabul. In 1526 this courageous, gay, and genial conqueror defeated and slew the Delhi sultan in the battle of Panipat, and in 1556 his grandson Akbar, in another fierce India 657 action at the same Panipat, on the wide plain 50 miles north of Delhi, defeated the Afghans who had driven out the Mughals. He then founded the Mughal (Mogul) Empire in the days of Elizabeth, reigning from 1556 till 1605. His conquests gave him the historic title of " Akbar the Great," well earned by a combination of courage, energy, skill in diplomacy and war, wisdom, and humanity, and by religious tolerance unrivalled in Oriental records. Rajputana, Gujerat, Bengal, Kashmir, and Sind (Scinde) were sub- dued by his arms, and many petty Moslem states and Hindu rajas were either directly ruled or were influenced through friendly treatment and marriage-connections. Before the close of the 16th century, Akbar was master of all the territory to the north of the Vindhyas, and westwards to Kabul and Kandahar. Hindus and Mohammedans were both employed alike in civil and military posts, and the maintenance of two separate armies enabled this politic ruler to send Hindus against Mohammedan foes or rebels, and Mohammedans against Hindu rajas. A skilful organiser, Akbar divided his empire into provinces, each under its own governor ; settled the land, after survey and measurement, on a regular system for taxation by assessment according to produce ; and established an administration of justice and police in his capital ? Agra, and the chief towns. Towards the close of his reign the great Mughal sovereign failed in attempts at conquest in the Deccan. His son and successor, Sultan Jehangir, received a British envoy from James I. in the person of Sir Thomas Roe, who left a vivid description of the splendours of the court, and of the tyranny of the Oriental potentate. In 1627 Jehangir's son, Shah Jehan, began a reign of 30 years, during which Kandahar was finally lost to the Persians, and some Hindu kingdoms in the Deccan were subdued. The empire was at the height of its power and splendour, but an ominous sign of the future appeared in the attacks of the formidable Mahrattas, mixed in race, Hindus in religion, living in the northern part of the Ghats extending from Surat towards Goa. The founder of the political power of these fierce freebooters was an able man named Sivaji, commanding a force of mounted spearmen. Before parting with Shah Jehan, who was deposed by his son Aurangzeb in 1658, we may note his eminence as a builder. By him was founded the modern city of Delhi still called by Mohammedans " Shah Jehanabad " or " city of Shah Jehan," with its grand Jama Musjid, or Great Mosque, and he is immortal as the erector of the fine mosques at Agra, the Jama Musjid and the Moti-Musjid ("Pearl 658 A History of the World Mosque "), and, especially, of the matchless Taj Mahal in the same city, a mausoleum dedicated to his favourite wife. Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1658 to 1707, made some con- quests towards the south, annexing Golconda and Bijapur, but he failed to subdue the confederate Mahrattas, who became the chief power in southern India. Early in the 18th century the Mahrattas were ruling from Poona to Tanjore, at Gwalior, in Gujerat, and in part of Berar. Their camp-fires were seen from the walls of Delhi ; their horsemen swept over the rice-fields of Bengal. A line of rulers called Peshwas, really hereditary ministers of state, headed the Mahratta confederacy, with Poona as their capital, and under their attacks province after province was lost to the Mughal empire. Viceroys revolted from the emperor, and before the middle of the 1 8th century the Deccan had become independent under its former governor, the Nizam-ul-mulk (" regulator of the state "), and the Subahdar (viceroy) of Oudh practically defied his sovereign ruling at Delhi, while he maintained an .outward show of allegiance. From this time the Mughal emperors had but a shadow of power. A terrible blow was inflicted by a Persian invasion under Nadir Shah, who captured Delhi in 1739, and gave the place up to pillage for weeks, retiring with a booty worth many millions. This was followed by Afghan invasions between 1748 and 1761, during which time Delhi and northern India were ravaged, and the Mahrattas, in a third battle of Panipat, were routed with fearful slaughter by the Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah, in 1761. The power of the Peshwa at Poona rapidly declined, and the confederacy was broken up into five parts — the Peshwas, the Bhonslas of Nagpur, Sindhia of Gwalior, Holkar of Indore, and the Gaekwars of Baroda. The Mughal empire, as a political force, had come to an end, and the long struggle for the rule of India among Asiatic races — pre-Aryan, Aryan, Afghan, and Mughal — was to end in European supremacy. Portuguese rule in the East was founded by the famous Alfonso da Albuquerque, who was viceroy of the Indian possessions from 1509 to 15 15, and built the city of Goa, on an island of the same name, about the middle of the western coast. Before 1550 the Portuguese were also established at Diu, off the coast of Gujerat ; at Cochin, in Malabar ; and at Bassein, northwards from Bombay. Christianity was introduced with its churches and priests, monasteries and monks, Jesuit missionaries and the Inquisition, and efforts at conversion were made by word of mouth and by the use of force. Cruelty and superstition had their usual effects ; the natives did not India 659 embrace the exotic faith, and the Portuguese had to encounter many attacks on their "factories" and forts. After enjoying a monopoly of the Indian trade during the 16th century, Portugal, conquered by Spain in her European possessions, began to decline in India before the Dutch and the English. In 1632 Hugh, a settlement not far from the site of Calcutta, was conquered by Shah Jehan, with the carrying off of the people as slaves to Agra. At the present time Portugal retains only Goa, Daman, and Diu, all on the west coast. During the 17th century the Dutch were foremost in maritime and commercial affairs, and their East India Company, founded in 1602, had trading settlements in India and Ceylon, but lost all their posts on the mainland in the course of the 18th century. It was on the last day of the 16th century that some London merchants, jealous of Dutch enterprise in the Eastern trade, were incorporated, by a charter of Elizabeth, as the East India Company, and that famous body began its long and remarkable career, extend- ing over more than two centuries and a half, during which they advanced from the position of mere merchants on Indian soil, existing there by permission of native potentates, to that of holders of great territorial sovereignty, makers of war and peace, wielders of naval and military force, possessors of a vast revenue and of very extensive and important patronage. Between 161 2 and 16 16 the Company, by the grant of the Mughal emperor Jehangir, established " factories " or trading-posts at Surat, Ahmedabad, and Cambay, on the west, with the privilege of introducing their merchandise at a fixed rate of duty. In 1641, by permission of native princes, a foothold was obtained on the Coromandel (south-eastern) coast, and Fort St. George arose on the site of the future great city of Madras. In 1654 this post became the seat of the first "Presidency," under a President and Council appointed by the Board of Directors in London. In 1668 the island of Bombay, part of the dowry of Catharine of Braganza, was granted by her husband, Charles II., to the Company, with new privileges, and the place soon became of importance as a centre of commerce. Under Louis XIV., the French appeared on the scene with an East India Company, having a " factory " at Chandemagore on the Hugh, a branch of the Ganges, and another at Pondicherri on the coast of the Carnatic. The English Company, in 1691, met this by erecting Fort St. David, south of Pondicherri. Seven years later the second English Presidency had its origin in Bengal, with the purchase of some land from the emperor Aurangzeb. Fort William, on the Hugh, gave 660 A. History of the World strength and importance to Calcutta, which became, in 1707, the seat of government for the Presidency, and new " factories " or trade-depots arose at Dacca, Patna, and Cossimbazar in Bengal. In 1 708 Bombay became the third Presidency. It was the decay of the Mughal empire, and French rivalry, that caused the British East India Company to become, at first almost in spite of themselves, employers of warlike forces and conquerors of territory, instead of mere peaceful traders. In the early years of the 1 8th century the three Presidencies had, purely for self-defence, small garrisons of British soldiers, and native troops called Sipahis. War between France and Great Britain in Europe (the " Austrian Succession"), beginning in 1741, soon caused collision in Asia, and hostilities began in southern India, where the Mahrattas were fighting against the Nizam, Mohammedan ruler of the Deccan, the country between the Nerbudda and the Kistna. The British, in 1746, lost Fort St. George by surrender, after bombardment, to La Bourdonnais, who came against it from Mauritius with a fleet and army, and then the able, crafty, and ambitious Dupleix, French governor of Pondicherri, intervened. He had formed the design of expelling the British from India, and of bringing the whole peninsula under subjection to France, and it was his genius which conceived the plan of effecting conquest by means of native troops (Sipahis) drilled, trained, and armed in the European fashion. The details of the struggle which ensued are well known from British history, and need not be given here. Dupleix declined to ratify the terms made by La Bourdonnais, and carried off the English governor and his officers to Pondicherri, but they were released, and the Madras Presidency was recovered, in 1748, under the Treaty of Aixda-Chapelle. The French and English, apart from hostilities in Europe, during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), engaged in warfare as supporters of rival native princes in southern India. British supremacy was due to the genius and courage of Robert Clive, one of the greatest of English commanders. His daring seizure and splendid defence of Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic ; his victory of Plassey over the young Nawab (Nabob) of Bengal, Suraj-ud-Daula (Surajah Dowlah), avenging the hideous tragedy of the " Black Hole of Calcutta " ; his rule in Bengal ; the victories of Sir Eyre Coote in southern India; the skill of Major Monro, in the battle of Buxar, east of Benares, saving Bengal for the Company by defeat of the emperor's forces : these were the causes of French discomfiture in India, and of the rise of the Company's empire, India 66 1 in 1765, in their appointment, by the Mughal ruler, as virtual governors of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, a territory twice as large as the British Isles. A period of misrule under the Company's officials followed the departure of Give from India in 1767, and the natives of Bengal suffered much from extortion and other oppressive proceedings. Financial ruin for the Company was in prospect, and in 1772, with ;£i, 000,000 sterling of arrears, the Company borrowed largely from the Bank of England, and also applied to Parliament for aid. This was granted, on conditions which changed the method of rule in India. The Regulating Act of 1773 established a new Supreme Court at Calcutta, with a chief-justice and three judges nominated by the Crown, and appointed a Governor-General of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, with a salary of ^25,000 a year, assisted by four highly paid councillors. The other Presidencies were made subordinate to his rule. The first Governor-General, probably the greatest, in ability and achievements, of a long and illustrious roll of high officials in India, was Warren Hastings, already " President " at Calcutta, whose Indian career had begun with a clerkship in Bengal, in 1749. In 1765 he had risen to the post of member of council at Madras, and he became governor of Bengal in 1772. During his 13 years' tenure of power until 1785, this famous ruler committed some high-handed acts, due to zeal for the Company's and his country's interests, but he has lately been freed, after careful investigation of the records of the time, from the chief calumnious charges brought against him by Burke in the " impeach- ment," charges based upon the false representations of the malignant Sir Philip Francis, Hastings' colleague in council, and repeated, in good faith, with lack of full knowledge of the facts, by Macaulay in his brilliant essay. It was Hastings who founded British rule on a firm basis in India, and, in Macaulay 's words, "preserved and extended an empire; founded a polity; administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu." Amongst other administrative reforms, the collection of the revenues was vested solely in English civil servants ; the native ryots, or cultivators, were protected from oppression. Civil and criminal tribunals, in which British officials were supreme, were created in country-districts, curtailing the powers of corrupt native courts. The Company's servants were checked in various corrupt and oppressive practices, including monopolies in salt, tobacco, rice, and other articles of trade. A great and growing revenue 662 A History of the World arose in the manufacture of salt and opium, now brought under the control of the government. The country was cleared of bands of roving robbers or " dacoits." In foreign affairs, the great Governor-General had an ample field for the display of his abilities and strength of character. One of the most formidable of foes had appeared in southern India. This was Haidar (Hyder) Ali, a man of rare energy, daring, and skill, who became ruler of Mysore in 1762. The country, under his sway, was enriched by trade and tillage, and increased in terri- tory through conquests effected by a reorganised military force. The British dominions were attacked, and the government of Madras, in 1769, was forced into an alliance binding them to help Haidar against all foes. In 1770 the Madras council declined to aid him against the invasion of a great Mahratta army, and the ruler of Mysore, who never forgave the English for what he deemed to be a cowardly breach of faith, was deprived of nearly half his territory. The crisis came in India in 1778, when war with France began through her aid to the revolted British colonies in North America. French agents, intriguing with the Peshwa, the Mahratta ruler, at Poona, strove to form an alliance against British power, and Hastings took prompt measures to meet the danger. Chander- nagore and Pondicherri were taken, and an expedition was sent from Bombay against the Mahrattas. Ill-success at first attended our arms, but a Bengal army restored the position, and in T780 Ahmedabad and Bassein were taken ; the powerful Mahratta chiefs, Holkar and Scindia, were twice defeated ; and another force from Bengal took by escalade the great rock-fortress of Gwalior, deemed by all men in India to be impregnable. In March, 1781, Scindia was again defeated, and no more present trouble from the Mahrattas was to be feared. A greater task was to be faced in the south. The indomitable Haidar was again in the field, in alliance with the Mahrattas, and in 1780 he was carrying fire and sword through British territory in the Carnatic with an army trained by French officers. Sir Hector Monro, the victor of Buxar in 1764, was forced to retreat, with the loss of his guns, and Haidar then seized Arcot. Hastings at once dispatched from Calcutta Sir Eyre Coote, the old hero of Wandewash in 1760, with a small, well-equipped force of British and Sipahis. In July, 1781, Coote gained, south of Pondicherri, the decisive victory of Porto Novo, or Cuddalore, defeating 80,000 men under Haidar with a tenth of that number, the victors losing only 300 men. In August a less brilliant success India 663 was gained at Pollilore, and in June, 1782, Coote again worsted the fierce old Mussulman, then in his 80th year, at Arnee, south- west of Madras. In October Coote was forced to return to Calcutta from ill-health, but the death of Haidar two months later made an end for the time of all danger in southern India. The Mysore sovereign, succumbing to old age, expressed his regret that he had ever attacked a nation that no defeats could ever compel to yield, and left a charge to his son and successor Tippoo to make peace with the British on any terms. Tippoo, however, continued the war, with some slight success, but the Peace of Versailles, in 1783, deprived him of his French contingent under the able Bussy, and in March, 1784, when a British army had drawn close to Tippoo's capital, Seringapatam, a peace was con- cluded which left the British masters in the Carnatic, with Tippoo ruling in Mysore. Hastings had made terms with the Mahrattas in western and central India, restoring all his conquests except Gwalior, but binding them to friendship and intercourse with the British alone among Europeans. In 1784 William Pitt's "India Act" gave the home-government its first real power in Indian affairs. A " Board of Control " in London, consisting of six privy-councillors nominated by the Crown, and always including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Secretaries of State, was headed by a President, having all the actual authority, a member of either the Commons or the Lords, and responsible to Parliament and the Crown, who gained through him direct knowledge of Indian affairs. This new system, which continued until the extinction of the Company as a political body, left to the Directors their power over patronage and com- mercial business, but deprived them and the Court of Proprietors of supreme authority in civil and military affairs. In February, 1785, Warren Hastings returned to England, where he received a vote of thanks from the Directors. Three years later, his famous trial, or impeachment by the Commons before the Lords, began in Westminster Hall, to end in April, 1795, with acquittal on every charge. More than 20 years later, in advanced old age, Hastings went to his grave " in peace, after so many troubles, in honour, after so much obloquy." The eloquence of Burke, Fox, Pitt, and Sheridan had been launched in vain against the man defended in a masterly style by Law, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, and, in 1794, by the valuable evidence of Lord Cornwallis, who, succeeding the accused as Governor-General, had learned by a long 664 A History of the World experience the facts and conditions of British rule in the Asiatic dominions. The rule of Cornwallis, from 1786 to 1793, was made notable by his complete reform of the Company's civil service, and by his per- manent settlement of the system of raising the land-revenue in Bengal. The native zemindars, or revenue-farmers, now received in perpetual tenure the lands on which they had previously been only collectors of the tax, and they undertook henceforth to pay that annual sum to the government. The Company's officials were deprived of all irregular sources of income, receiving henceforth salaries ample for their maintenance, and judicial officers ceased to be employed in the collection of revenue. It is obvious that these changes were all in the -direction of pure and non-oppressive rule. In war with Tippoo, from 1789 to 1792, Lord Cornwallis took the field, in alliance with the Peshwa of the Mahrattas, and with the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the storming of Bangalore was followed by a march on Seringapatam, the defeat of Tippoo, and his retreat under the guns of his great fortress and capital. Cornwallis, short of supplies, was then compelled to retire, but in January, 1792, with reinforcements from home raising his force to 20,000 men, and aided by the Nizam and the Mahrattas, the Governor-General again marched on Seringapatam, stormed three strong lines of advanced works mounting 300 guns, and forced his foe within the walls. The ruler of Mysore had then to yield half his territory for equal division among the three allies ; to pay ^£3, 000,000 sterling as a war-indemnity; and to deliver up his two sons as hostages. Lord Mornington, better known as the Marquis Wellesley, was Governor-General from 1798 to 1805, an d under him, through great ability in council and in arms, much was done to extend British power and influence in India. Himself a man of brilliant parts and energetic character, the ruler was aided by his younger and greater brother, Arthur Wellesley, then colonel of the 33rd regiment, who first displayed on Indian soil the qualities which afterwards won him undying fame as duke of Wellington. There was a formidable league of native states against the British in central and southern India. The Peshwa at Poona had become a mere instrument in the hands of Scindia, the actual head of the Mahratta powers. The restless Tippoo, eager for revenge, was in alliance with Napoleon, and the native forces were trained and commanded by French officers. The British element in the governor-general's army, reduced through the requirements of European warfare, was not ready for India 665 the field in the great coming struggle, and the Company's finances were in a poor way. Panic arose at Madras and Calcutta, but the two Wellesleys faced the position with combined courage and wisdom. Diplomacy staved off the outbreak of war while our preparations were being made. The Nizam of the Deccan was seduced from the French to the British cause. In March, 1799, Mysore was invaded by 40,000 British and Sipahis, under General Harris and Sir David Baird, and they were joined by the Nizam's troops, to which Colonel Wellesley's regiment was attached. On May 4th, after some previous fighting, Seringapatam was stormed in brilliant style, and the brave Tippoo's body was found among the slain. All his terri- tories were divided amongst the British, the Nizam, and a descendant of the old ruling house, displaced by Haidar. There were thus added to the British territories 20,000 square miles in southern India, including the coast of Canara, the formidable passes of the Ghats, leading into Mysore, and the city of Seringapatam. Colonel Wellesley, as governor, was engaged for some years in organising, with consummate skill, the civil and military*administration of the new province. In 1800, under the "subsidiary system" steadily carried out by Lord Wellesley, by which a military force, under British command, was maintained at the expense of a native ruler, and the control of state-affairs lay with a British " Resident," the Nizam ceded all his Mysore territories in exchange for British pro- tection and aid. In 1801 the Nabob of Arcot, the Subahdar (viceroy) of Oudh, and the Peshwa became " protected allies " in this fashion, one which had then and afterwards a vast effect in the extension of British influence in India. The next task of the Governor-General was that of dealing with the Mahrattas aroused against him by French influence. The five Mahratta chiefs, including Scindia and Holkar, controlled a population of 40,000,000 in the rich provinces extending southwards from Delhi to the Krishna, and from the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf of Cambay. They could place in the field 300,000 men, including 100,000 horse. In September and November, 1803, Sir Arthur Wellesley's brilliant victories at Assaye and Argaum shattered the power of the Mahrattas, and the strong fortresses of Ahmednuggur, east of Bombay, x\seerghur, and Burhampoor were taken. A treaty concluded in December made Scindia and the Raja of Berar dependent allies on the system above described, and they agreed to exclude from their territories all non-British Europeans. Meanwhile, General Lake had been doing good work against the same foes in northern India. In 666 A History of the World September, 1803, the fortress of Alighur was stormed. Agra had already yielded on the first fire of our siege-batteries. Delhi was taken after a great defeat of Scindia's troops on the banks of the Jumna. Lake, in November, won his peerage" by the great victory of Laswari, near Agra. Delhi, Agra, and other provinces were ceded, and British influence became finally predominant in the great peninsula. In 1804 and 1805 there was some turn of the tide in warfare against Holkar and a vast force of ferocious freebooters called Pindarees. Lord Lake was victorious in the field, but he failed to capture, after five separate assaults, the immensely strong fortress of Bhurtpore. Our power was, however, too strongly estab- lished to be seriously shaken, and in December, 1805, Holkar made peace on the usual terms of excluding the French from his dominions. The Mahratta power was broken, though it was not yet wholly subdued, under Lord Wellesley"s administration, our rule being advanced far from Calcutta towards the north-west. Bengal and Madras Presidencies were united by the annexation of Cuttack, and the western seaboard was in British possession. This great Governor-General had also raised British influence by his steady assumption that British supremacy in India, and not mere trade, with a good dividend for the Company's shareholders, was the main reason of our presence in a region where we had committed to our charge the task of securing the happiness of many millions of people by permanent improvements of the territory, by the development of natural resources, and by a vigorous and pure system of rule. He first taught the civil servants of the Company to regard themselves in their proper light as magistrates, judges, ambassadors, and rulers of provinces, men invested with high, responsible, and serious functions. Under the earl of Minto, who was in power from 1807 to 18 13, British diplomacy went beyond the borders of the Indian Empire in missions to the Shah of Persia and the Amir of Kabul, and friendly relations were established with Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh kingdom, afterwards famous as the " Lion of the Punjab," the Sutlej being accepted as the southern boundary of his dominions. On the renewal of the Company's charter in 1813, for the period of 20 years, a material change was made in their commercial position, by the throwing open of the trade to India in favour of all British subjects. At the same time, the territorial and commercial departments of affairs were separated, and the Crown was empowered to recognise Christianity in India by the appointment of a bishop with three archdeacons, to be paid from the funds of the Company. Under India 667 Lord Moira (marquis of Hastings), Governor-General from 1814 to 1823, important warlike events occurred. ^The brave, lithe, active Ghoorkhas (Gurkhas) of Nipal (Nepaul), now so valuable in our Indian army, were beaten after fierce fighting in 18 15 and 1816, and some of their territory was annexed. In the latter year the troublesome Pindaree freebooters of central India invaded our territory, west of Madras, and did much damage. They were found to be acting in secret alliance with the Mahratta princes, and the Governor-General, on special instructions from home, adopted vigorous measures. In September, 181 7, he took the field, with Sir John Malcolm, in great force, and in a few months the Pindarees were utterly destroyed or finally dispersed, hunted down at last to ruin. The Mahrattas, under Holkar, were routed at Maheidpoor, north-west of Indore, by Malcolm, and the Mahratta power was suppressed, with great enlargement of the Bombay Presidency. Under Lord Amherst (1823-1828) British arms were carried beyond the Bay of Bengal. The Burmese, a warlike people of Mongolian race, had founded, before the middle of the 18th century, the kingdoms of Siam, Pegu, Ava, Aracan, and others, on the penin- sula between the Bengal and China seas. The modern empire of Burma was established by an able warrior named Alompra at the time when Clive was winning his victories in Bengal. Many years later, the British and Burmese frontiers, ever advancing, the one from the Ganges, the other from the Irawaddi, came into contact, and war ensued in 1823 owing to Burmese insolence and aggression. In April, 1824, the Bengal army embarked for and captured Rangoon, and for three months, in the great pagoda and the smaller temples, the captors repulsed all attacks made by a vast Burmese force. In December the enemy were finally driven off into the jungle after a week's severe fighting. In February, 1825, General Campbell pro- ceeded, by land and water, up the Irawaddi, and the British shells and rockets soon gave command of the whole river. Prome was occupied in April, and then came rest during the rainy season. More battles, with rout to the Burmese, followed, and early in 1826, after further fighting on our march to Ava, the arrogant " Lord of the White Elephant " succumbed. A treaty gave us possession of Assam, Aracan, Tenasserim, and other territory; conceded the residence of a British minister at Ava, the capital ; and opened the Burmese dominions to trading British subjects. The contest was remarkable for the courage and endurance displayed by the British troops and their Sipahi comrades under the most formidable 668 A History of the World difficulties and dangers due to climate, country, and hosts of brave well-armed foes. In this war steam-ships were for the first time employed. In January, 1826, the capture of Bhurtpore by Lord Combermere, formerly Sir Stapleton Cotton, a famous cavalry-officer in the Penin- sular War, atoned for the failures of Lord Lake, and made a great impression on the native mind. The siege-guns made some breaches in the thick mud-walls, and an angle of the fortress was blown out by the explosion of an enormous mine. The place was then stormed in the usual way, and the destruction of the works once more showed the natives of India that nothing could resist the countrymen of Coote and Give. The rule of Lord William Bentinck (1828- 1 835) was ennobled by successful efforts in the cause of humanity. During a wise, upright, and paternal administration, the custom of sati (suttee), or widow-burning, was abolished ; the secret society of robbers and assassins known as Thugs was suppressed ; European education, with the aid of Macaulay, a member of Council at Calcutta, was introduced ; the freedom of the press was maintained ; and many judicial, financial, and administrative reforms were effected. It was at this time that Macaulay — orator, essayist, poet, historian, jurist in one — had the chief part in framing the Criminal Code adopted 30 years later with eminent success in the whole of our Indian dominions. In 1833 the renewal of the Company's charter for 20 years was attended by the opening of the China trade. Their commercial monopoly in the East thus came to an end. At the same time, Europeans were freely admitted to India, and no native, or subject of the Crown in the country, was excluded from office by religion, colour, descent, or place of birth. Slavery was at once mitigated, and very soon abolished. The North-Western Provinces were separated from Bengal, and placed in charge of a lieutenant- governor. The administration of Lord Auckland (1 836-1 842) was marked by the great disaster and disgrace in Afghanistan due to unwise interference in the internal affairs of that turbulent country, and then to the imbecility and positive cowardice of some of the civil officials and military commanders. Few particulars can here be given. After an occupation of Kabul from August, 1839, to the end of 1 84 1, the place was evacuated in the depth of winter, and during the retreat towards India, in the early days of January, 1842, the military force of 4,500 British and Sipahi troops, with 12,000 camp- followers all perished (save a small party of officers, ladies, and India 669 children who oecame prisoners and were afterwards rescued) from the enemy's attacks, fatigue, and cold in the Khoord-Kabul and Jugdulluck passes. On January 13th Dr. Brydon, the sole survivor except the above, reached Jelalabad, clinging exhausted to his staggering pony's neck. Under competent leadership, both at the outset and the close of this first Afghan war, our arms won due credit. Ghazni was stormed in July, 1839, Havelock and Outram being among the officers in the invading army. Jelalabad, during the last months of 1841, was gallantly held by Sir Robert Sale. Ghazni was retaken by the Afghans after the retreat from Kabul, but Kandahar was well maintained against all attacks by General Nott. Early in 1842 Lord Auckland was replaced by Lord Ellen- borough, and then General Pollock, forcing his way through the Khyber Pass, with the storming of the heights on both sides, reached Kabul, along with Nott's army from Kandahar, in September, 1842, and left his mark there in the utter destruction of the great bazaar, a splendid building. Ghazni had been retaken, and the troops evacuated the country after so far vindicating the honour of our arms. The annexation of the province of Sind (Scinde) in 1843, after brilliant victories at Meanee and Hyderabad, was due to Sir Charles Napier, a Peninsular veteran. In a governorship of four years' duration the conqueror did something to make amends for our somewhat lawless aggression by the development of the resources of the country, the construction of great public works, and the establishment of a beneficial system of rule. A revival of Mahratta power was finally crushed in December, 1843, by Sir Hugh Gough, accompanied by Lord Ellenborough, in the great battle of Maharaj- poor, near Gwalior, and by the rout of another Mahratta force, on the same day, at Punniar. A British governor ruled in Gwalior, and the Mahrattas never again broke the peace in India. Under the rule of Sir Henry (Viscount) Hardinge (1844-1848), a Peninsular veteran, occurred the first Sikh war, a contest with the bravest and best-trained soldiers ever encountered by our forces in India, men whose descendants are now the most loyal and efficient supporters of our rule in their own country and in our East African territories. The Sikhs are almost a unique instance of a nation sprung from a religious sect, one founded early in the 16th century by a pious Hindoo named Nanak Shah, a native of the province of Lahore. His faith was monotheistic, his life pure, his teaching benevolent, elevating, and free from fanaticism. After his death Nanak's writings were collected into a Sikh " Bible," and 670 A History of the World persecution by Brahmanical Hindus and by Mohammedans soon turned his followers into warriors defending their creed, their honour, and their lives. A great ruler, legislator, and commander named Govind Singh, who died in 1708, was the founder of the Sikh state, with abolition of caste, and equality of rights for all subjects. After his death the Mohammedans in the Punjab prevailed for a time, but the Sikhs, refusing to renounce their faith and practice, made their way to mountain-refuges, and in the middle of the 18th century, during the anarchy which followed Nadir Shah's invasion, they came forth from their seclusion in conquering strength, and subdued the province of Lahore. They were ultimately united, after an interval of civil strife, under the rule of the famous Ranjit Singh, whose realm was the one great power in India beyond the range of British sway and influence. On his death in 1839 the court of Lahore became a scene of strife between rival ministers, generals, and queens. The one solid centre of power in the Punjab was the army of 125,000 men, a truly formidable force, full of warlike ardour and religious zeal, drilled by French officers, and provided with some hundreds of heavy cannon, cast in British foundries, and served by steady, well-trained gunners. This body of soldiers, in a fit of arrogance, got rid of their French generals, Court and Avitabile, and appointed officers under the control of small committees of privates. The Sikh minister at Lahore, Lai Singh, and the commander, Tej Singh, in regard for their own safety, turned the arms of these fierce warriors against the British dominions, which were thought to be an easy prey after the disaster in Afghanistan. In December, 1845, a Sikh army of 50,000 men, with 100 guns of large calibre, crossed the Sutlej into British territory. The campaign of eight weeks' duration included four battles, all severe, and in one instance, that of Ferozeshah, perilously near a defeat for our forces. On December 18th the enemy were repulsed at Mudki, south-east of Lahore, where the British commander, Sir Robert Sale, to the great grief of his comrades and his country's loss, received a mortal wound. On the 21st, Hardinge, serving as a volunteer second-in-command under Sir Hugh Gough, took part in the fearful struggle at Ferozeshah, where the enemy's strong lines of works were, with great loss, only partly captured on the first day. On the second day, at the bayonet's point, the work was being finished, when a fresh Sikh army appeared on the field, and destruction seemed imminent for our men. A flank movement of our cavalry fortunately caused a panic and the retreat of the enemy. A few days later, at Aliwal, near Mudki, in another India 671 fortified position, the Sikhs were smartly beaten by Sir Harry Smith, who stormed their camp, took all the guns and stores, and drove the enemy beyond the Sutlej. At Sobraon, on that river, on February 10th, 1846, the united forces of Gough and Smith, with heavy guns from the Delhi arsenal, won a decisive victory. The Sikh works were stormed, and the breaking of the boat-bridge in the enemy's rear, during their retreat, caused heavy loss. Their army was lessened by 13,000 men, and about 70 guns were taken. Ten days later the Sikh capital, Lahore, was entered by the victors, and the young Raja, Dhulip Singh, made peace with the cession of the eastern Punjab, and admitted a British Resident to Lahore. Lord Dalhousie (1848-1856) was one of the greatest of Indian rulers, a man full of energy, insight, courage, and power to influence his subordinates in carrying out his policy. His great career in the East was marked by a series of enforced and peaceful annexations ; by the execution of great public works ; and by administrative changes which amounted to the construction of a new Indian empire. He really laid down his life in the work, and left behind him an India started on a new path of progress towards a higher degree of civilisation. A second Sikh war arose through troubles due to mutinous Sikh troops at the fortress-town of Mooltan. In November, 1848, Lord Gough took the field with 20,000 men and nearly 100 guns, and his rash generalship, which ever trusted to the " cold steel " rather than to cautious tactics and the use of artillery to save the lives of brave infantry, caused severe and need- less loss. A check was incurred at Ramnuggur, on the Chenab, in an attack on strong entrenchments, on November 22nd, but renewed efforts drove away the Sikhs, and they were defeated ten days later in a battle of some detached forces. In January, 1849, Mooltan, after severe bombardment and the explosion of the chief magazine, was stormed by the British troops under General Whish, and then, on January 13th, came our virtual defeat at Chillianwallah, on the left bank of the Jhelum, near the scene of Alexander's battle. The whole Sikh army was strongly entrenched, and Gough, annoyed by the Sikh guns when his troops arrived before the works after a long march, made an immediate attack. Our men were driven back in confusion, and two cavalry-regiments, one British, one of Bengal, fairly " bolted," the former, it is believed, through a mistaken bugle-sound, the latter in sheer panic. The whole loss to our forces exceeded 2,000 men ; the Sikhs, on the following day, retired unmolested. On February 20th, after Gough, unknown to himself, 44 672 A History of the World had been superseded by orders issued in London, the hot-headed Irish hero, become prudent from sharp lessons, redeemed his fame and ended the war. Strongly reinforced by Whish from Mooltan, and provided with an ample artillery, Gough attacked the Sikhs at Goojerat, east of Chillianwallah, and won a splendid victory in "the battle of the guns." The British cannon first crushed the enemy's fire, and then the Europeans and Sipahis advanced with the bayonet, and, showing heroic courage in a fight of seven hours, drove 40,000 Sikhs from every position. The cavalry made a rout of the foe, and 53 guns out of 60 were captured, with all the ammunition and baggage. The British loss, on this occasion, was but 100 slain and a few hundreds wounded. A close pursuit broke up the military power of the Sikhs, and those brave men, recognising stern facts, made a complete submission, piling arms at Rawal Pindi and surrendering all remaining cannon on March 12th. The whole Punjab then became an integral part of British-Indian territory. The young Raja, Dhulip Singh, was brought to England for education ; adopted the Christian faith ; received an ample pension from the Government, and took his place in society as a Norfolk " squire." The spoils of Lahore included the famous diamond styled " Koh-i- noor," or Mountain of Light, which was an attractive object in the Great Exhibition of 185 1, and has now, much reduced in size by cutting, been worn as a brooch for many years, on state-occasions, by Queen Victoria. The conquered territory w r as placed in charge of Sir Henry Lawrence, his brother John (the late Lord) Lawrence, and other able officials, and an excellent system of government was established. The best of the Sikh soldiers freely entered our service, with results honourable to both parties concerned. In 1852 a second Burmese war was caused by a long series of injurious and insulting acts towards British merchants in Burma. Our Resident at Ava had long been withdrawn, under Burmese bad treatment, and Lord Dalhousie, exactly the man for the time, resolved to administer a sharp lesson. In April, 1^52, a naval and military force, well equipped in every respect for the climate and the scene of action, entered the Irawaddi. Martaban was soon taken, and Rangoon was stormed, against vast odds, in the most "heroic style, with the rout of the Burmese " Immortals," picked warriors sworn to die at their posts. In the autumn Prome was seized, and the way up the river to Ava lay open. The Burmese king would make no terms, and in December Lord Dalhousie annexed the province of Pegu or Lower Burma, with the best results India 673 for the people. In 40 years from that time the population of Ran- goon had grown fifteen-fold, and the annual value of the trade had risen from ^2,000,000 to ^14,000,000. A great territory, ruined by its sovereign's misrule, has thus been changed into a very prosperous and progressive dominion. One of Lord Dalhousie's last acts, in February, 1856, was the annexation of the province of Oudh, after many fruitless warnings, spread over many years, to the worthless sovereign who had made the country a scene of misery and disorder. In 1853 the last renewal of the East India Company's charter was attended by an arrangement which placed Bengal under a Lieutenant- Governor, for the relief of the Governor-General. The British dominions had so greatly increased towards the north-west that the chief military force was moved from Calcutta and Bengal towards the northern and central provinces, and Simla became, for a great part of the year, the centre of power as the residence of the Governor- General and his council. It was Dalhousie who devised the system of railways and telegraphs which now cover the country, with the virtual tripling of our military strength in rapidity of news and movement, and to the great advantage of trade and the people. New roads, canals, and public offices in every province ; cheap (halfpenny) postage ; and a complete graduated system of public instruction, were among the many benefits of civilisation conferred upon India by the great man who returned to England in the spring of 1856. Stupendous events quickly followed the assumption of power by Lord Canning, governor-general from 1856 to 1858. The great outbreak known as the Indian Mutiny, or Sepoy Mutiny, or Sepoy War, beginning at Meerut in June, 1857, has a literature of its own. The causes were complex — conspiracy of Mohammedan princes, Hindu credulity and fanaticism in connection with the issue to the troops of cartridges greased with ox-fat, the annexations under Lord Dalhousie, the small numbers of British troops in India. The events are well known to readers of British history. It was the loyalty of the Sikh troops in the Punjab, and the able management of affairs in that province by Sir John Lawrence and his colleagues, combined with the general fidelity of the Sipahis in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, and the adherence to our cause of the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior, of the Nizam of Hyderabad, of Holkar of Indore, and of the Nipalese princes Gholab Sing and Jung Bahadoor, that enabled us, at the outset of the struggle, to maintain a precarious hold on northern India until the arrival of large reinforcements 674 A History of the World from home. The chief incidents were the two massacres of Cawnpore in June and July, 1857 ; the victorious march of General Havelock to Cawnpore and Lucknow ; the siege of the Lucknow Residency and its relief in November by Sir Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) ; the siege of Delhi, held by the mutineers, and its capture by our troops in September ; the final capture of Lucknow by Lord Clyde in March, 1858 ; and the brilliant campaign of Sir Hugh Rose (Lord Strathnairn) in central India, in May and June of the same year. On December 20th, 1858, Lord Clyde was able to announce to the Governor-General that " the last remnant of the mutineers and insurgents had been hopelessly driven across the mountains into Nipal." A change of rule in India followed the suppression of the great revolt. The East India Company, by an Act passed in August, 1858, was abolished as a political power, and India came under the direct rule of the Crown, represented in Great Britain by a new Secretary of State, with a new council of 15 members, in place of the suppressed Board of Control. The " Governor-General " became a " Viceroy," with a Council, and was invested with supreme power in India, subject to the Secretary of State in England. At the same time, posts in the Civil Service of India were thrown open to candidates at competitive examinations. The naval and military forces of the Company passed into the Queen's service. The Company continued to exist as a body managing their " East India Stock" until June 1st, 1874, when, after the "redeeming" of the dividends on the capital stock under an Act of 1873, its long, chequered, and, on the whole, glorious history came to an end. On November 1st, 1858, the Queen was proclaimed as sovereign of India, in a document issued in various languages, breathing a noble spirit of benevolence and religious toleration. For 20 years the country was at peace, save for some border-warfare with turbulent tribes, under the rule of Lord Canning (viceroy from 1858 to 1862); Lord Elgin, who died in November, 1863; Sir John (Lord) Lawrence (1863-1869); Lord Mayo, an able financier, unhappily murdered by a native fanatical convict at Port Blair, in the Andaman Isles, in February, 1872; and Lord Northbrook (1872-1876). In 1866 there was a fearful famine in Orissa, due to lack of rain for the rice-crop, and like calamities occurred in 1868-69 in Bundelkhand and Upper Hindustan. In 1874 a famine in Lower Bengal and Behar was met by the officials with such energy and skill that, with 3,000,000 persons supported by the government, few deaths from starvation occurred. In 1875-76 the visit and tour India 675 of the Prince of Wales elicited a loyal welcome from many of the chief native princes, who had come to understand that their own interests and those of their peoples were closely bound up with the maintenance of British supremacy. A change of policy came with the entry upon office as viceroy of Lord Lytton, son of the novelist and statesman, in 1876. Lord Beaconsfield, formerly known as Benjamin Disraeli, had his own ideas of foreign policy in India as regarded Russian advance towards our frontier, and in pursuance of his views a new attitude was adopted. Under an Act, on January 1st, 1877, the Queen was proclaimed by Lord Lytton, at a magnificent Durbar (or Darbar, Persian for " court," " audience ") held at Delhi, as " Empress of India," in presence of the chief native princes, and with the grant of many new titles and distinctions dear to the Oriental mind. We may note, by the way, that this proceeding was followed by a fearful famine in southern and central India, causing a loss, in spite of the utmost efforts and the expenditure of ^11,000,000 sterling in measures of relief, of at least 5,000,000 lives in 1877 and 1878. In this latter year a quarrel was picked with the ruler of Afghanistan, Shere Ali, on the ground that he had received a Russian and had declined to admit a British envoy. His country was invaded at three points by our troops ; battle after battle was won ; Kabul and Kandahar were occupied ; Shere Ali fled to Turkestan and died ; and in May, 1879, the Treaty of Gundamuk, concluded with his son and successor, Yakub Khan, bound the Afghan ruler to admit a British Resident at Kabul, and to follow the viceroy's advice in foreign affairs. Sir Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, son of an Italian who had been a devoted friend of the French emperor, Napoleon III., became our minister at Kabul. Within a month of the arrival of himself and suite they were all massacred in a rising of the mutinous and bigoted Afghan troops in the capital. This tragical event was followed by another invasion ; several victories ; the occupation of Kabul ; the punishment of the murderers of the British mission ; the abdication of Yakub Khan ; a general rebellion of the Afghans ; brilliant and victorious operations under Sir Frederick Roberts around Kabul ; the defeat of the enemy at Ghazni by General Stewart in March, 1880 ; the destruction of a large part of a British and Sipahi force on July 27th at Maiwand, 50 miles from Kandahar, by Ayub Khan, a son of Shere Ali ; the march of Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar, and his utter defeat of Ayub outside that city. These matters ended in the restoration of peace, and the 676 A History of the World establishment of Abdur Rahman Khan, a grandson of the former Amir, Dost Mahommed, of Lord Auckland's time, as ruler of Afghanistan. He has remained loyal to British interests, so far as our government is aware of the facts, in receipt of a yearly subsidy of ^£i 20,000. In 1880 the marquis of Ripon became viceroy, and did good work in internal reforms, especially in the development of agriculture and of popular education. On January 1st, 1886, under the vice- royalty of the accomplished Lord Dufferin, and on the special instructions of Lord Randolph Churchill, then Secretary of State for India, the tipsy tyrant, Thebau, who was then king of Burma, was deposed for ill-treatment of British traders, and the whole of Upper Burma was annexed. After some years of trouble with dacoits, the new territory was reduced to a peaceful condition, and has since been prospering under British rule. In 1887 a new frontier was marked out between Russian territory and Afghanistan, with a view to the preservation of peace, rudely disturbed in March, 1885, by a perfidious, cowardly, murderous, and, in every point, disgraceful outrage perpetrated by Russians under General Alikhanoff on Afghan forces stationed at Penjdeh, on their own territory. Abdur Rahman's men, with rude muskets, had no chance against breechloaders, and some thousands perished under a wanton attack. The act was a deliberate insult to Great Britain, and should have been followed by an immediate declaration of war. Mr. Gladstone, however, was Prime Minister, and Lord Granville was Foreign Secretary, and the matter was settled by "explanations." It should be observed that this monstrous deed was done, by choice, at the very time when the Amir of Afghanistan was the guest of the Kritish viceroy, Lord Dufferin, at Rawal Pindi, in the Punjab. It is pleasant to note that, in the critical position of affairs after the conflict at Penjdeh, native princes in India came forward with the greatest zeal, offering aid to the viceroy in men and money, some desiring to place the whole of their forces under British command, others asking permission to pay the whole expenses of their troops if they fought with the Indian army against Russia. Other rulers, not having trained troops at their disposal, offered stores of food and means of transport. It is needless to dwell upon the significance and importance of this demonstration. In 1887 Queen Victoria's first Jubilee was celebrated with the utmost loyalty throughout her Indian dominions, and many native princes attended the service in Westminster Abbey. Under Lord Lans- j.o.i-^-r — r > n„- _/--^ <^«*-o V ALCUTTof^Vj K*-? X V^'w"iv^^Vr~^VJ" c \i t r a tr^j^ \ l\ 20 PAr «\ < ^psJ^ff) ^-^/ / x^y^r = i Vj \ b A rIm a ) 1 S ~T~-—t--£L^-. \ J R O V 5 j^v /,rr t J OF r^o* '"' V \ ( L e A.vSrV~ S\r >^ «.™M ^v 1 LA +\\ 8 AY or \ BAS5Lfl. BEN GAL 4j •'z o v ^.S| o I NIC08ARli\ % XT '- COLOHBOT u- J ~o l * c > MAlOiVE is C^-->, Si \ 'S \ \ ^ V ^-v x S7. 1 1 V A ~-^-J^JLl_AJ^ C E A N \ "7 ' /o 70 90 THE BRITISH INDIAN EMPIRE, \i [fi. 676. Persia, Mediaeval and Modern 677 downe (1888- 1893) much advance was made in the development of local government through municipal councils and district-boards on a system arranged by Lord Ripon. The natives of India, as represented by their ablest and most cultured fellow-countrymen, are thus made sharers, as to local matters, as they have long been for higher affairs, in the government of a vast population. In 1894 Lord Lansdowne was succeeded as viceroy by the earl of Elgin, son of the former ruler. Among the latest events have been the warfare in Chitral and on the north-western frontier, connected with the " forward policy " dear to some military members of the viceregal council, the merits or demerits of which we cannot here discuss. In 1896-97 another serious famine, due to drought, occurred in north-west and central India. No great loss of life occurred, owing to energetic measures of relief, aided by a " Lord Mayor's Fund " in London which furnished about ,£550,000. At the same time there were very fatal outbreaks of Oriental "plague" in and near Bombay, and in June, 1897, an earthquake of rare severity for India did much damage in Calcutta, and caused serious loss of life and property in Assam. Chapter III. — Persia, Arabia, Mediaeval and Modern; Sia.m. Of Persia, in mediaeval times, something has been seen incidentally in connection with the Roman (Western) and Byzantine (Greek or Eastern) Empires. On the downfall of the Parthian realm in a.d. 226, a new Persian empire, embracing much of central Asia, was founded, as we have seen, by a Persian named Ardashir Babigan, or Artaxerxes I., of the dynasty called the Sassanidae from his grand- father Sassan, which held rule for over four centuries. A high point of power and prosperity was attained. Among the chief sovereigns were Sapor I. (240-271), who waged war successfully with the Roman empire, capturing Antioch and other towns, and making a prisoner for life of the emperor Valerian ; Sapor II., styled " the Great," who reigned, it is said, from 310 to 381, extending his power over Tartar tribes to the east, warring with the Roman emperor Julian, recovering several provinces from Rome, and conquering Armenia; and Chosroes I. (531-579), the greatest of the Sassanid kings, who fought victoriously with the Byzantine emperors, the Turks, and the Arabs, and extended his dominions from the Indus to the Mediterranean, and from the Jaxartes (Sihun or Syr-Daria) to Arabia and the borders of Egypt. In a treaty concluded between 6 7 : A History of the World Persia and the Eastern (Greek) Empire in 563 we note with interest that Christianity was to be tolerated in Persia, and that disputes between the contracting powers were to be referred to arbitration. Under this able ruler the administration of affairs was much improved. Frequent " progresses " enabled him to exercise supervision as to provincial rule ; a fixed land-tax was established, and the collectors were placed under the control of the priests ; irrigation was ex- tended, learning was encouraged, and foreigners were protected. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius, as we have seen, after being reduced to great straits by Persian conquest under Chosroes II. (589-628), crushed his foe in a battle at Nineveh, in 627, and the Persian king was then murdered at Ctesiphon by mutinous troops. This event was quickly followed by the downfall of the Sassanid dynasty under Arab conquest. In 633 a Persian defeat placed the whole territory west of the Euphrates in possession of the Arabs ; in 636, at the four days' battle- of Kadesia, near the Tigris, the royal Persian standard was lost to the Caliph (Khalif) Omar; in the following year Mesopotamia was invaded, Ctesiphon taken, ,and the Persians suffered another defeat. The end drew near in 639 when the Arabs entered Susiana and Persia proper. It was then that the brave and virtuous Omar displayed his noble character in good faith to a conquered foe who outwitted him. A Persian general, Harmosan, brought a captive before the Caliph, begged for a cup of water before he died. Hesitating to taste it, in fear of poison or a sudden stab, he was assured by his conqueror that he should have no harm until he had quaffed the contents of the cup. He instantly dashed the goblet down on the sand, and claimed his life. In a modern poet's words — " For a moment stood the caliph, as by doubtful passions stirred, Then exclaimed, ' For ever sacred must remain a monarch's word ! Bring another cup and straightway to the noble P.ersian give : Drink, I said before, and perish — now I bid thee drink, and live.' " By a supreme effort, the last of the Sassanidae, Yezdigerd III., gathered an army of 150,000 men, but at the battle of Nahavend (the " victory of victories "), in 641, he was utterly beaten, and Persia became for more than 150 years a province of the caliphate. Under the Abbaside dynasty, which came into power in 750, Bagdad became the capital, and Khorassan was the favourite province, Persia being regarded as the centre of the caliphate. After the Arab conquest, the old Persian religion was abandoned for Persia, Mediaeval and Modern 679 the faith of Islam, the Guebres or Parsis alone adhering to the creed of Zoroaster. Early in the 9th century numerous small states began to arise in the Persian territories, and the history has little of interest or importance. We have seen, in the history of India, a Sultan Mahmud as conquering in the Punjab, and Afghan sultans of Ghor. These sovereigns belonged to some of the many dynasties which arose. The Seljuk Turks held sway from the Hellespont to Afghanistan in part of the nth and 12th centuries, and succumbed, in their turn, to the Mongols under Genghis Khan. The Perso- Mongol dynasty ruled from 1253 to 1335, and at the end of the 14th century all the old and mediaeval Persian empire became subject to Timour or Tamerlane. When the Mongol power in Persia ended, in the 15 th century, the Turkomans had the mastery, and they were succeeded, in 1501, by the Sufi dynasty in western Persia, founded by a prince Ismail, the descendant of a long line of saints and devotees, and head of a number of Turkish tribes. These rulers were in power until 1736. Ismail is revered by the modern Persians as the restorer of the empire and as the founder of the Shiah form of Mohammedanism which is their national religion. Shah Abbas I., or Abbas the Great (1 587-1628), was the chief Eastern ruler of his day. His bravery and vigour restored internal peace; repelled Turkoman invaders; defeated the Turks in 1605 so completely as to recover the lost territory of Kurdistan, Diarbekir and Mosul ; and took Kandahar from the Mughal emperor of India. His army was disciplined in the European style by two British officers, and supplied with good artillery. Ruling as an absolute monarch, and master of the cities of Bagdad and Bassora, part of his conquests from the Turks, Shah Abbas made Ispahan his capital, and distinguished himself by the justice and strictness of his government, by great and beneficial public works, and by religious tolerance. Under his successors the monarchy declined, having another brief period of power under the usurper Nadir Shah, whom we have seen as the captor and ravager of Delhi. His death in 1747 was followed by terrible anarchy and civil war, and, in a division of the territories, Afghanistan and Beluchist in were finally lost. An excellent ruler named Kerim Khan, just, wise, and warlike, was master of the whole of western Iran or modern Persia from 1755 until his death in 1779, and then, after another period of strife, Aga Mohammed, a Turkoman chief of great qualities, became the first sovereign of the present dynasty. The losses to Russia early in the 19th century have been already noted. In 1848 68o A History of the World Nasr-ed-din succeeded his father Mohammed Shah, and reigned for nearly half a century. Many reforms were promised, but not effected, and misrule caused frequent insurrections. Persia had been recently brought into close connection with Great Britain by some warfare which, in 1838, prevented Mohammed Shah from annexing Herat, and by a commercial treaty concluded in 1841. The hankering of Persian governments for Herat broke out again in 1852, when the town and territory were annexed by Persia, but British interference compelled their cession, and the Shah, in 1853, bound himself not to interfere further in that direction. Under Russian influence and intrigue, this promise was soon violated, and an Anglo-Persian war was the result. In October, 1856, Persian forces occupied Herat, and a British expedition was promptly dispatched from India. The fortified town of Bushire, in the Persian Gulf, was seized, and the traffic in slaves was abolished. Some battles on land, with the destruction of Persian infantry, in squares, by our cavalry, were gained by our men, and in March, 1857, the Shah was compelled to acknowledge the independence of Herat, and to abstain from all interference in Afghan affairs. No other events of note have occurred. The Shah visited Europe in 1873 and 1889, staying in the British Isles for short periods during his lengthy tours, and aroused much interest in his personality as a combination of civilisa- tion and semi-barbarism — a love of sport and adventure, of art and literature, the tastes and accomplishments of a hunter, a marksman, and a mountaineer, a delight in splendour and sumptuous living. In his own capital, Teheran, where he dwelt in a palace of marvellous beauty, the Shah led an active life, rising early for state- business, dispensing with some of the stricter court-etiquette, and giving many audiences to foreign ministers. On his return to Persia from the first visit to Europe, the Teheran Gazette was allowed to publish the monarch's remarkable diary describing the marvels which he had seen. On May 1st, 1896, Nasr-ed-din met his death at Teheran by assassination, with a pistol-shot in the heart, at the hands of a member of a secret society, and was succeeded by Muzaffer-ed-din, his second son. The Arabs have been' largely seen in their foreign conquests and civilisation. In the great Arabian peninsula itself, for a thousand years after Mohammed, there were few events of interest. The country included several independent principalities. Early in the 1 6th century the Turks subdued Hejaz and Yemen, retaining the former to the present day, but losing the latter for the period Si am 68 1 between 1630 and 187 1. In the east, Oman became independent of the caliphs in the 8th century, and was a well-organised kingdom. Between 1507 and 1659 its capital, Muscat, was in the hands of the Portuguese. Then the Dutch held many important places on the coast, and the Persians, under Nadir Shah, were in possession of Oman for a short time, being driven out in 1759 by a native prince, who became Sultan, and extended his power over some of the opposite Persian coast and the adjacent islands. About the middle of the 1 8th century we have the appearance of the Wahabis, a sect of Mohammedans founded by Abd-el-Wahab, an excellent scholar, eager to restore the primitive faith and practice of Islam. These Puritans of Mohammedanism became powerful under their leader's first important convert and son-in-law, Prince Saood, whose sword gave them rule from the frontiers of Mecca to the Persian Gulf. Under his successors, Mecca and Medina were added to the Wahabi dominion, and numerous tribes of Bedouins were conquered and converted. The political power of the "Wahabis disappeared, early in the 19th century, under the conquests made in Arabia by Mehemet Ali of Egypt. In 1863 the distinguished traveller William Gifford Palgrave found that the Wahabi power had revived and reached a higher point than ever. Oman has become independent under the Sultan of Muscat, and Great Britain has exercised considerable influence in southern Arabia since her occupation of Aden in 1839. Siam is an Asiatic country which has, in recent years, acquired interest and importance. We have no authentic history until 1357, when Ayuthia, on the Menam, was founded as capital. Cambodia was made tributary in 1532. In the latter half of the 17th century there was a flourishing period under the influence of the monarch's chief minister, a Cephalonian Greek. In 1768 the capital was plundered and burnt in a Burmese invasion, the enemy being at last driven out by a commander of Chino-Siamese race, who made Bangkok the capital and became king. The present dynasty was founded in 1782. The former system of having "first" and " second " kings having been abolished, the present sole sovereign is Chulalongkorn I., born in 1 853, who succeeded in 1868. This excellent, amiable, and intelligent monarch, a master of the English tongue, has done much for the progress of his country, in the abolition of slavery and the introduction of British education and British government-officials, and of various points of Western civilisation. In the summer of 1897 he visited Europe, arriving in 682 A History of the World England in August, and paying visits to Edinburgh and other great towns. He displayed a rare acquaintance with and interest in British history, and won all hearts by his tender regard for the sick children in the Edinburgh hospitals. Many Siamese boys and girls have been under instruction in England, making good progress in various branches of education. The king of Siam has further shown his appreciation of this country's position in the world by making the crown prince a pupil at Harrow School. Chapter IV. — Asiatic Possessions of Great Britain and other European Nations, apart from India, Burma, and Central Asia. The beautiful and fertile island of Ceylon, called Lunka in Sanskrit, Singhala by the natives, and Taprobane by the Greeks, has its British name from Marco Polo's Sailan, a corruption of Sihalam l the Pali form of Sinhala, meaning " the place of lions." Native records, covering a period from 543 B.C. to the middle of the 18th century, describe the foundation of an Aryan realm in the 6th century b.c. and the introduction of Buddhism by Gautama. An early civilisation produced cities whose stupendous remains are found buried in tropical foliage, with bell-shaped shrines, temples, and great "tanks" or reservoirs for irrigation. Malabars or Tamils from the mainland of India began a series of invasions, anarchy, and civil strife, ended in the nth century a.d. by the founding of a strong monarchy under native rulers, the most eminent of whom was Prakrama Bahu, in the 12th century, a promoter of religion and of tillage, as shown by his construction of many temples and of tanks called "the seas of Prakrama." After his age the whole island was conquered by the Malabars. The Portuguese first made European settlements in 15 17, erecting a "factory" or trading-post near Colombo, by permission of a native king, and then constructing armed works and holding their ground against native attacks. In course of time, the Portuguese held the coasts and part of the north, arousing much hostility, by tyrannous conduct, among the Singhalese. In 1602 the Dutch made their first appearance as traders, and formed an alliance with the native king of Kandy. In 1638 the Dutch attacked the Portuguese posts, and finally drove their rivals out by the seizure of their capital, Colombo. The natives fared no better at the hands of the new-comers, and warfare ended in the Singhalese being driven for refuge to the interior hills Ceylon — Malay Territories 683 and forests. The Dutch, during a century and a half of occupation, improved communication by making canals and roads, and developed a great trade in cinnamon, pearls, and cocoa-nut oil. At the close of the 1 8th century British forces, during the great European war, appeared on the scene, and an expedition from Madras seized Colombo, Trincomali, and other towns on the coast. The Peace of Amiens, in 1802, confirmed our conquest, which soon became a separate colony, after annexation for some years to the Madras Presidency. There was much trouble at first with the natives of the interior, but in 18 15 the king of Kandy, a detestable specimen of the Oriental despot, was deposed, and the whole island came under British rule, with religious freedom for the Buddhist popula- tion. In 181 7 a native rebellion was suppressed in a two-years' struggle, and the restoration of order was followed by the construc- tion of a system of military roads, due to the initiative of an excellent governor, Sir Edward Barnes, and especially to the skill and energy of Major Skinner, " Tom Skinner," as he was popularly called, who was at work from 1819 until 1867. In this last year there were nearly 3,000 miles of roads in the island, one-fifth being first- class metalled highways, and another fifth good gravelled work. The resources of the island have of late years been greatly developed through the construction and restoration of irrigation-works, and the introduction of a most profitable cultivation of excellent tea, after the failure of the coffee-plants under the attacks of disease. Turning next to the Malay territories, we find Penang, or Prince of Wales Island, and the strip of coast called Wellesley Peninsula, ceded to the British Crown, by purchase from a native raja, towards the end of the r8th century, the acquisition being soon followed by the suppression of the Malay pirates who, in their swift - sailing prahus ox proas, had long been a pest to traders in those seas. Malacca, the largest of the " Straits Settlements," became a Portuguese colony in 15 n, under the famous Albuquerque, and was conquered by the Dutch in 1641. After being held by British forces from 1795 till 1818, and then restored to the Dutch, it became ours by exchange for Bencoolen, in Sumatra, in 1824. Singapore, in British hands, has become the seat of an enormous trade. Its foundation was due to the able and enterprising Sir Stamford Raffles, Lieutenant-governor of Java during our possession of that island from 181 1 till 1816. He was then chosen to form a new settlement in the island of Singapore, with the purpose of establishing a commercial rivalry with the Dutch, and of checking the Malay pirates who harassed the 684 A History of the World China trade of the East India Company. The town was founded in the year of Queen Victoria's birth, and the island, five years later, was purchased from the Sultan of Johore, the ruler of the opposite mainland. In other parts of south-eastern Asia, the acquisition of Hong-Kong has been already recorded. The island of Labuan, on the north-west coast of Borneo, mainly in Dutch possession, was ceded to Great Britain in 1846 by the Sultan of Brunei, who desired our aid in suppressing Malay piracy. British North Borneo, a territory as large as Scotland, in the extreme north of that vast island, was founded as a colony in 1881 by a chartered company, and seven years later became a British " Protectorate." The Pro- tectorates of Brunei and Sarawak, adjacent to North Borneo, were established in 1888, the latter state having been founded by the famous Sir James (or " Raja ") Brooke, an adventurous man born at Benares, a veteran of the first Burmese war, and then a pioneer of British civilisation in the Eastern Archipelago. His aid against rebels obtained for him the title and position of " Raja and Governor of Sarawak," in 1841, from a Bornese Sultan, and he did good work against piracy, winning a knighthood of the Bath from the Queen seven years later. The Malay States of Johore, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, and others, were "federated " in July, 1896, under British control wielded by a " Resident-General " subject to the High Commissioner at Singapore, and the peace, order, and prosperity which had for 20 years been in progress under British influence have been thereby confirmed and secured. The Dutch have for nearly three centuries been the holders of a great colonial dominion in the East Indies — in Java and Sumatra, Banca and Billiton, Borneo and Celebes, the Moluccas, the Timor Archipelago, and other islands. Little that can be called history attaches to their tenure of these vast possessions, having an area of about 740,000 square miles, and a population of 35,000,000 or seven times that of the mother country. A tragical event of distant date occurred in Amboyna, the chief of the Moluccas or Spice Islands, taken by the Dutch from the Portuguese in 1605. The British settlement was destroyed by the Hollanders in the " Amboyna massacre" of 1623. It is significant that the Stuart kings, James I. and Charles I., took little heed of this outrage, and that no com- pensation was exacted until 1654, when the British Isles were under the rule of that great Englishman, " Protector " Cromwell. The island of Amboyna, held by British forces from 1796 to 1802, became finally a Dutch possession in 1814. Java has been a most Sumatra — Philippine Islands — Tongking 685 profitable source of income to Holland, under a system of rule which, with little regard to the interests of the natives, compels them to cultivate the soil for staple articles of trade, and deliver the produce at a fixed price to the government-magazines. An " Agrarian Law " of 1870 has now done something to promote the establishment of private plantations. Sumatra, a great region under Hindu influence before the 7th century, became Mohammedan in the 13th century. First introduced to European notice in 1508, by the Portuguese, who soon founded coast-settlements for trade, the island came into Dutch possession at the end of the 16th century. In 1620 the Dutch East India Company began to settle the coast, but even that part of the island was not completely occupied by Europeans until recent years, and much of the interior is still un- explored. In north Sumatra there was an independent Malay state called Atcheen, which was a powerful sultanate during the earlier part of the 17th century. Its independence, after a decline of power, was reserved in a treaty between Great Britain and Holland in 1824, but in 1873 a long and severe struggle began between the Dutch and the bold, active, treacherous, bloodthirsty Atcheenese, with great cost to the military and financial resources of the European state. In 1874 the capital, Atcheen, was stormed by the Dutch troops, but the country was not nominally subdued until 1879, and has even now been hardly quite pacified. Spain, conspicuous among European nations for ignominious failure as a colonising power and a ruler of dependencies, the Spain whose atrocious misrule of Cuba brought her in April, 1898, into war with the United States, has for over three centuries held the Philippine Islands. Discovered in 152 1 by Magellan, who was killed in that year on one of the islets, the Philippines, named from the bigot and miscreant who then ruled Spain, were formally annexed in 1569. Manilla, the capital, was founded in 157 1, and, becoming famous, and dear to smokers, in course of time, for admirable cigars and cheroots, has been further distinguished by liability to destruc- tive earthquakes. In 1863 the great town, with a population of 250,000, was nearly destroyed. The seismographs of the government- observatory are in almost incessant vibration, and in 1872 and 18S0 there were disastrous convulsions in various parts of the great archi- pelago. In 1896 and 1897 the Spanish government had to deal, as in Cuba, with persistent rebellion. Tongking (Tonquin or Tonkin), in the north-east of the Indo Chinese peninsula, came before the world prominently in 1883, 45 686 A History of the World when French colonial ambition led to warfare. In the 15th century Annam, of which Tongking forms part, became independent of China, and early in the 16th century the Portuguese entered the country, being followed by the Dutch, who founded a trading-town at Hanoi. In 1789, with French aid, the emperor of Annam brought Tongking and Cochin-China under his rule. In 1861 the province of Saigon was annexed by France, and in 1862 a treaty established "French Cochin-China." In 1882 Hanoi, the capital of Tongking, was captured by the French, and held with great difficulty, until the arrival of strong reinforcements in the following year, against Chinese attempts to retake it. Admiral Courbet was in charge of a newly formed naval brigade, and in December, 1883, after desperate fighting, the town of Son-tai, the military " key " of Tongking, was gallantly stormed by the French troops, giving the Europeans firm possession of the country. In 1884 Annam, which may be regarded as the southern part of Cochin-China, acknowledged the suzerainty of France, and her right to regulate her relations with foreign powers. In 1885 China recognised this state of affairs, and the whole peninsula is now practically a dependency of France. Section V. AFRICA, MEDI/EVAL AND MODERN. Chapter I. — Northern Africa. The spread of Islam in this region has been already recorded. Up to the 15th century much was done to make Mauritania, Soudan, and the Sahara known to the world, through the work of Arab (Moorish) explorers and writers. As regards Egypt, we have seen that the country became part of the Eastern (Greek or Byzantine) Empire, and then, by Mohammedan conquest, a province of the Caliph Omar. Arab governors, in the 9th and 10th centuries, became practically independent, and then the country was conquered by a line of Fatimi caliphs, heretical (Shi'ah) rulers descended from Ali and Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. They founded modern Cairo in 969, with its famous University and some of the chief mosques. In 1 169 the dynasty was deposed by the Kurd commander Salah- ed-din, the renowned Saladin of the Crusades, who fortified Cairo and built the citadel. We have seen the fortunes of the country in the Crusade period. The bodyguard of the last prince of Saladin's line was composed of the celebrated Mamelukes (Mamluks), mean- ing " white slaves," introduced by him from the Caucasus and Asia Minor. It was they who played the chief part in repelling the French invasion, with the capture of St. Louis (Louis IX.) in 1249, and in the following year, on their sultan's death, they usurped supreme power, and founded the line of " slave-kings," Turkish and Circassian Mamelukes, which ruled Egypt for over 250 years. The succession was not hereditary, but by choice of these Moslem " praetorians," on the ground of personal courage, strength, and achievement. Much of the land was held by the troops on a kind of feudal tenure, and there were frequent conflicts between the 687 688 A History of the World supporters of rival lords or commanders. These Mameluke rulers of Egypt were very remarkable for their display of military violence and superficial semi-barbarism combined with a high degree of civilisation in government, luxury, and patronage of literature and art. Fighting fiercely in Palestine against Mongol hosts, in order to preserve the " holy places," they had diplomatic intercourse with Venice and France, and with Persia in the East. Tyrannical in rule, and cruel to all opponents, they were more enlightened in their methods of administration, and in promoting high culture, than any holders of power in Egypt since the Pharaohs, or, at least, since the time of Alexander the Great. Refined in their domestic life, they adorned Cairo with its fairest mosques ; maintained a court of surpassing splendour ; decorated their palaces with exquisite works in brass, engraved and inlaid, in ivory and wood-carvings, tile and stone-work, mosaic pavements, and enamelled glass. The judicial, legal, educational, and police arrangements ; the naval and military systems ; the postal service, engineering, and irrigation-works, were far in advance of the age, and they rank, as Turks of really civilised tastes and performances, among the surprising things^ of history. It was a grievous matter for Egypt when the Ottoman Turks, under Selim I., became masters of the country in 15 17. Corrupt pashas were then in nominal power, with Mameluke beys holding real rule in the provinces, until 1798, when the Mamelukes, in their last gleam of glory, fought bravely against Napoleon's soldiers. The British occupation of the country, and its restoration to the Porte, have been recorded. A revival came with the pashaship of Mo- hammed (Mehemet) AH in 1805. The country was disturbed by the contests of rival Mameluke commanders, and the energetic new ruler resolved to be rid of the whole body. A portion were massacred in 1805. A British expedition in 1807, under General Fraser, aimed at restoring the supremacy of the rest, then at open war in Upper Egypt against the Pasha, at a time when Great Britain was engaged in hostilities with Turkey. When he heard of the landing of the British, the pasha at once patched up a peace with the Mamelukes and marched northwards. Alexandria had sur- rendered to a force of 5,000 men embarked at Messina, and then Rosetta was entered by Fraser with 1,500 men, who were repulsed with great loss by firing from the house-tops and windows. Another force, under General Stewart, of 2,500 men, was compelled to retreat with severe loss, and the matter ended with the evacua- Northern Africa 689 tion of the country by Fraser, and the surrender of the British prisoners. It had been arranged with the Mamelukes that the whole corps should reside at Cairo, and most of them fixed their residence at Gizeh, near the city. They then intrigued with the Pasha of Acre for an attack on Mohammed Ali and the remnant of his troops, when the main Egyptian army, at the command of his suzerain, the Turkish Sultan, should have started on an expedi- tion against the Wahabis in Arabia, who had, as we have seen, seized Mecca and Medina. The Pasha was, however, aware of the plot through the bought treachery of a confidant of the Mameluke commander, and he craftily laid his plans for punishment. In March, 181 1, at a festivity to which the Mamelukes had been invited in Cairo citadel, they were suddenly assailed in a narrow way, between the outer and inner walls of the fortress, by infantry- fire at close quarters from the walls, and the survivors who surrendered were at once beheaded. Nearly the whole body perished there and, in the course of the month, at various towns and villages in Upper Egypt. Twenty-four heads of beys and other chief men were sent to Constantinople. Under Mohammed Ali's rule a regular Egyptian army was formed, irrigation was improved, and some elements of European civilisation arose. His son Ibrahim conquered part of Arabia in 1816, and in 1820 Nubia and part of the Soudan were annexed. We have noted the part taken by Egyptian troops in Greece during the war of liberation, and the destruction of the fleet at Navarino in 1827. Ibrahim evacuated the Morea in the following year, and then, in pursuance of his father's ambitious schemes against the Sultan, he undertook the conquest of Syria, routing the Ottoman forces, and advancing through Asia Minor to the Bosphorus. Peace came through the intervention of the Powers, and Mohammed Ali held Syria for some years as a fief from the Sultan. In 1839 the Turkish troops employed to reconquer Syria were defeated by Ibrahim at Nisib, on the Euphrates, in a battle remarkable for the presence, on the beaten side, of Captain von Moltke, afterwards the illustrious strategist of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-German wars. He was on the staff of the Turkish general as military adviser, but at the critical moment his words were unheeded. A rout ensued in which von Moltke and two Prussian officers had to ride for their lives. The Turkish fleet, through the treachery of its commander, came into Mohammed Ali's possession, and the Pasha of Egypt seemed likely to dethrone and succeed the Sultan ; but 690 A History of the World the Powers intervened, and British and Austrian naval operations on the Syrian coast, with the seizure of St. Jean d'Acre by the British, compelled the withdrawal of Mohammed Ali from his conquest, with the retention of only the pashaship of Egypt as hereditary, under the Porte as suzerain. His abdication from mental imbecility in 1848, and the almost immediate death of his son and successor Ibrahim, brought to the throne his grandson Abbas Pasha, succeeded in 1854 by Mohammed Ali's youngest son Sa'id Pasha. M". de Lesseps was then enabled to undertake the construction of the Suez Canal, completed in 1869 under Ismail Pasha, son of Ibrahim. Ismail, succeeding his uncle Sa'id in 1863, had purchased from the Sultan the hereditary title of "Khedive" (sovereign) in 1866, with direct succession of power from father to son, instead of by the Turkish law of descent to the eldest male of the family. In this secure position, Ismail plunged into vast expenses for the advancement of the country. The completion of the Suez Canal ; the increase of telegraphs and railways ; the construction of roads, lighthouses, and bridges ; a new postal service ; the improvement of harbours at Port Said, Suez, and Alexandria ; the spread of education, and other schemes of internal reform, piled up a great debt in loans, and caused, in 1875, tne sa ' e to Great Britain of about half the shares in the Suez Canal. The dominions were extended southwards by the annexation ot Dar-Ffir in 1874, and by further conquests, and attempts were made to suppress the slave-trade through the action of Sir Samuel Baker and Charles Gordon, successive governors in the Soudan. It was the financial difficulty which started the " Egyptian question," still before the political and diplomatic world. The Khedive, in his distress, applied to the British government to aid him with loans, but no good security was forthcoming, and, after inquiries into the condition of affairs by various British and French financiers, a "dual control" exercised by Great Britain and France brought Egyptian revenue and expenditure under proper management. Further misrule caused Ismail's deposition by the Sultan, at the instance of the two Western Powers, in 1879, a pd his eldest son, Prince Tewfik, became Khedive. European intervention caused the rise of a hostile native party, and in 1881 the military revolt under Arabi Pasha brought events know n from British history. In June, 1882, a rising against foreigners, and the slaughter of English and French residents at Alexandria, was followed by the bombard- ment of the forts by a British fleet, the firing of the city by the mob, Northern Africa 691 the murder of about 2,000 Europeans, the restoration of order by British sailors and marines, and the occupation of Egypt by British forces. Sir Garnet (Lord) Wolseley won the battles of Kassassin and Tel-el- Kebir, and the surrender of Cairo and capture of Arabi sent him an exile to Ceylon. The rule of the country has since, to the great advantage of the people, been put on a new basis by Lord Cromer (Sir Evelyn Baring) and able coadjutors. Tunis, having many bays and ports suitable for Mediterranean commerce and naval enterprise, was invaded and occupied by French and Navarrese forces in 1270, but little use was made of the acquisition, and it was soon again in Moorish possession, and became a centre of corsair-raids, under the famous Barbarossa, early in the 16th century. The expedition of Charles V. placed it in Christian hands for a time, but in 1575 the country was wholly subdued by the Ottoman Turks, and the beys, at first high officials under the pashas, and then hereditary sovereigns, enriched them- selves by piracy on Christian vessels. Their insolence, and the apathy of the great European governments, in the 18th century, appear almost incredible in these days. A French consul, in 1740 ; a British envoy, in 1762 ; and the government of Austria, in 1784 ; made ignominious submission, in servile dread, to the demands of these marauders, and Spain, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and the United States, at the very end of that century, were tributaries of the beys, paying sums of money for treaties to secure their mercantile vessels from attack. Lord Exmouth, afterwards the victor of Algiers, was the first to deal firmly with the government of Tunis, forcing the bey, by threats of hostilities, to sign a treaty, in 1816, for the abolition of Christian slavery throughout his dominions. After the great bombardment of Algiers, piracy began to cease in the Medi- terranean, and Tunis made great progress under some enlightened and reforming sovereigns. In 1881 the country was invaded, on a frivolous pretence, by French troops, and a " protectorate " was established, followed by the virtual annexation of the territory, now administered by the French Foreign Office. Tripoli, conquered by the Arabs in the 8th century, annexed for a time by Spain in 1510, and held by the Knights of St. John, on their expulsion by the Turks from Rhodes, from 1523 till 155 1, was then finally conquered by Turkey. The ports were, like many others in the Barbary States, the centres of the piracy which preyed upon maritime Christendom down to the earlier years of the 19th century. In 17 15 a pasha, assuming the title of "bey" ("lord"), made the 692 A History of the World country semi-independent of Turkey, and his successors, for more than a century, were mere impudent pirates and blackmailers of commerce. In 1801 the Tripolitan ruler, after shameless demands for money and cannon and small-arms from the United States government, as the price of immunity for American ships, chopped down the flagstaff of the American Consulate at Tripoli. The United States took up the scoundrel's challenge, and sent men-of-war to the Mediterranean. After some delays, from various causes, and the loss of the frigate Philadelphia, 36 guns, by running ashore, under hostile fire, on the Tripoli coast, an American squadron, in July, 1804, bombarded Tripoli, and then maintained a blockade, forcing the bey to satisfactory terms in June, 1805. In 1816 Lord Exmouth compelled the bey to abolish Christian slavery, and the piratical state came again under full Turkish authority in 1835. About the middle of the 19th century a "prophet" named Senusi arose, and on his death in i860 his son, styling himself the " Mahdi " ("the guided, well-directed, one "), or Moslem Messiah for the restoration of all things, gained a large following in northern Africa, com- posed of austere fanatics banded in hostility to foreign and infidel influences. Algeria, the capital of which was built early in the 10th century by an Arab chief, was split up into many small territories late in the 13th century, after being long ruled by the Almohades dynasty whom we have met in Spanish history. Its career as a piratical state began, early in the 16th century, after the expulsion from Spain of the Moors and Jews, who settled in Algeria, and avenged them- selves by preying on the commerce of Christians. The city was taken by Ferdinand of Spain ; on his death it was occupied by the famous corsair Barbarossa, who left it in 1535 to become High Admiral of the Ottoman Empire. His successors Dragut, Sinan, and others kept up the game of piracy with great success, encouraged by the utter failure of Charles V.'s great expedition in 1541. Under the rule of Pashas or Ueys, subject to the Porte at Constan- tinople, the audacious sea-robbery continued, to the disgrace of the European nations — the British, Dutch, Spaniards, and French — whose commercial interests were most concerned, until Lord Ex- mouth, as we have seen, inflicted a heavy blow in 18 16. Even then Algerine piracy was not wholly stayed, and its end came only with French conquest. In 1829 the Dey, after a two-years' blockade of Algiers by a French squadron, dismissed a French envoy and fired upon his ship as he sailed away under a flag of truce. Open Northern Africa 693 war was inevitable after such an outrage, and in May, 1830, a large fleet sailed from Toulon, with over 40,000 men aboard, including cavalry and artillery. Landing with little opposition, the invaders severely defeated an army of Arabs and Kabyles, a branch of the great Berber race of northern Africa, and forced the surrender of the city of Algiers, after a bombardment, early in July. The Dey, with his family, suite, and goods, sailed for Naples in a French frigate, and Algeria saw no more of Mohammedan rule. The story of French conquest cannot be given in detail. It is one not to the credit of the conquerors, being marked on their part by incapacity, cruelty, and perfidy seldom equalled in history. One famous commander after another, as Clausel and D'Erlon, failed in the attempt to subdue the tribes of the interior, roused by the " Marabouts " (devotees or ascetics) to a " holy war," in which a leading part was played by Abd-el-Kadr, emir of the Arab tribes of the province of Oran, and one of the noblest characters of modern history. With grand persistence and great strategical ability, this hero of Islam, from 1832 to 1847, fought the French, rallying swiftly after defeat, and baffling his foes by rapidity of movement. In June, 1835, he severely defeated a large French army at the river Maska, and won another brilliant victory in May, 1837, in the plain of the Metija. In spite of every effort, Abd-el-Kadr was compelled, by overwhelming numbers, sweeping the country in movable columns, to retire, in 1841, into Morocco. Emerging thence with fresh armies, in 1843 and 1844, he was defeated by the Due dAumale and by General Bugeaud, and, in December, 1847, recognising the inevitable, and desirous of ending useless bloodshed, the brave leader surrendered himself to General Lamoriciere, becoming a captive in France for five years, in direct violation of the terms of capitulation ; liberated in 1852 by Louis Napoleon, with a large life-pension ; earning the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour for his signal services in defending Christians during the Damascus massacres of i860 ; and ending his days at that city in 1883. After the departure of Abd-el-Kadr, Algeria served the French, in many years of wretched guerilla-contests, as a school of warfare for armies under Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, MacMahon, and other com- manders afterwards distinguished in nobler scenes of action. The French rulers could not or would not conciliate ; the French people cannot, in the true sense, colonise ; and Algeria has always been, as it remains, a costly possession. In 1870, under the Third Republic in France, a step forward was made by the abolition of the old 694 A History of the World military government, and the country now enjoys peace and some degree of prosperity. Morocco, a country inhabited by the most fanatical of all adhe- rents of Islam, was formed into one empire in 1692 under Muley (Mulai, "my Lord") Ismail, after being subject to many successive dynasties since the 8th century, with almost continuous civil and foreign wars and revolutions. This most backward of semi-civilised countries, freed from Christian slavery and government-piracy since 1822, has still piratical subjects, and a slave-trade in full vigour, with negroes openly sold in the streets of the ports and in the market-towns of the interior. In 1859 war with Spain arose through the attacks of Moorish mountain-tribes on Spanish fortified posts on the Mediterranean shores, as Ceuta (opposite to Gibraltar), taken by Spain in 1580, Melilla, and Alhucemas. The Spanish forces, under Marshal O'Donnell and General Prim, landed at Ceuta at the end of the year, after the place had been subject to many attacks of the enemy, and the Spanish troops there had suffered severe loss from desultory fighting, and from cholera and other disease. In the first days of i860, during an advance southwards on Tetuan, the Moors were defeated at Castillejos, and on February 4th a strong position in front of Tetuan, held by 30,000 men, was brilliantly stormed by the Spaniards, and the town was occupied three days later. The enemy then began to negotiate, really preparing to renew the struggle, and at the end of March fighting, successful for the invaders, took place to the south-west of Tetuan, the Moors being driven, after an obstinate resistance — sabre to bayonet — from strong heights dotted with villages. Peace was then concluded with the payment of ,£4,000,000 war-indemnity to Spain, and some surrender of territory. Chapter II. — Soudan ; Abyssinia. The British war in the Soudan was the direct consequence of our occupation of Egypt, and the assumption of responsibility in that region. Nubia, formerly a part of Ethiopia, and extending on both sides of the Nile from Egypt to Abyssinia, and between the Red Sea in the east and the desert on the west, has of late been styled " Egyptian Soudan," a term applied to Nubia in its widest sense, from Assouan to Uongola, and thence to equatorial Africa. The country, now occupied by mixed Arab and negro people, was conquered by Arabs in the 14th century. The various tribes, mostly active and warlike, are Mohammedans in religion, and till Soudan 695 1820 were ruled by their own chiefs. During the next half-century Egypt gained control of the provinces lying west and south of Khartoum. In 1874-75 Dar-Fur was annexed, and insurrections there were crushed in succession by General Gordon and by Gessi, an Italian officer, in 1877-79. In 1882 a new revolt occurred under the leadership of another " Mahdi," Mohammed Ahmed, born in Dongola about 1842, who was once in the civil service of Egypt, and then became a trader and a slave-dealer. The eastern Soudan was stirred by the call of a man who, at the prophetic age of 40, after 15 years of fasting and retirement, came forward as a " Messiah " whose mission it was to free Islam from external foes, and to restore the pure original faith. Early in 1883 he seized El'-Obeyd, the chief city of Kordofan, as his capital, and in November of that year he utterly destroyed an army of Egyptian troops commanded by the English " Hicks Pasha," an officer in the service of the Khedive. The Egyptian garrisons in the Soudan, at Dongola, Sinkat, and other places, were then in imminent danger. In January, 1884, General Gordon went out, at the instance of the British government, to arrange with the Mahdi for the peaceful withdrawal of the garrisons, as the Khedive had agreed to give up all the Soudan territory except the Red Sea coast. No terms could be made, and Gordon, with the Egyptian garrison, became closely beleaguered at Khartoum by the Mahdi's forces. In the eastern Soudan three Egyptian armies were routed by the Soudanese forces near Suakin, and at El-Teb and Tamanieh, but these disasters were retrieved by the victories of a British force under General Graham early in 1884, and Suakin, on the Red Sea, was permanently garrisoned. The expedition sent out in August, 1884, under Lord Wolseley, making its way up the Nile, and then, as it crossed the desert by a short cut, winning the desperate battles of Abu-Klea and Metammeh, in January, 1885, was too late, by three days, to save Gordon. Treachery inside Khartoum had been his ruin, and he was murdered two days before the steamers, fighting their way up against the batteries, reached the town where the Mahdi's flag was seen floating over the walls. This disaster has been generally attributed to the vacillations of a divided Cabinet. The Arab spearmen, in their charges against our troops, armed with the breechloader, and aided by Gatling guns, showed themselves as the bravest and most athletic warriors that ever put British courage and skill to the test. Among incidents of the warfare were the fall, at Abu-Klea, of Colonel " Burnaby of the Blues," the hero of the 696 A History of the World " ride to Khiva," fighting as a volunteer ; the fatal wounding of General Sir Herbert Stewart at Metammeh ; and the breaking, in the battle of Tamasi, in the eastern Soudan, of a British square by a fierce rush of the Arabs, an occurrence followed by the skilful and successful use of the bayonet on the part of our young soldiers. The Mahdi died in 1885, and the Soudan became, for many years, a scene of horrible tyranny and bloodshed under his successor Osman Digna. The fall of Khartoum ended for the time all Egyptian power to the south of Assouan. Eleven years later an advance of Egyptian forces took place, under the command of the able Sir Herbert Kitchener, " Sirdar " of the Khedive's army. It was thought well to demonstrate the new military strength of Egypt under British rule, with a view to a moral effect in various quarters, and to the ultimate reoccupation of Khartoum, the fall of which, in the face of British efforts at relief, had acted badly for us on the minds of Mohammedan subjects in India. The campaign was opened in the spring of 1896, closely following on the utter defeat of General Baratieri, the Italian commander in Abyssinia, by a native force, another event baneful to European influence in Africa. It was also desirable to secure the upper Nile valley against the raids of the "Dervishes," the Mahdist followers of Osman Digna. A railway had been made from Wadi Haifa to Sarras, 35 miles southwards, and this was to be pushed on to Akasha, as an advanced base of operations. The force was composed solely of Soudanese and Egyptian battalions, under British officers, and these men, on June. 7th, 1896, well directed by Kitchener and his subordinates, attacked the Dervishes at Ferkeh, 18 miles south of Akasha, and won a complete victory. The large village, extending for a mile along the Nile bank, was stormed in fine style by the infantry, bayonet in hand, with a loss to the enemy of about 50 emirs and 2,000 men. A close pursuit gave the victors possession of Suarda, nearly 40 miles south of Ferkeh, and on September 23rd Dongola was occupied without resistance. The next step was to follow up the re-conquest of Dongola province with an advance on Khartoum. In the campaign of 1897 Abu Hamed was gallantly taken by the Soudanese and Egyptian troops, under General Hunter, and this success was followed by the occupation of Berber, the retreat of the Dervishes to Metammeh, the revival of trade, the joy of natives released from Dervish despotism, the reopening of the route between Suakin and Berber, and the advance of the railway southwards through the desert, in Abyssinia 697 preparation for another campaign. Before the year 1898 opened, several minor defeats had been inflicted on the enemy, and the news of great Dervish preparations caused the dispatch of some British regiments to the front. In the first days of January, 1898, battalions of the Royal Warwickshire, the Lincolnshire, and of the Cameron and the Seaforth Highlanders, were sent forward, with the 21st Lancers and a good supply of Maxims and field-guns. The enemy advanced from Metammeh to the Atbara river, which runs into the Nile about 25 miles south of Berber, and took up a position on the northern bank within entrenchments three miles in length, with rifle-pits constructed round a hill. After some sharp cavalry-work, and vain attempts to entice the enemy out of their works by shelling, Sir Herbert Kitchener resolved to attack. On Good Friday, April 8th, 1898, the strong position, after two hours' shelling, was stormed in the most brilliant manner, with a loss to the defeated of 3,000 killed, 4,000 prisoners, and the capture of the emir Mahmud, one of the chief commanders, and of all the cannon, flags, and ammunition. The total loss of the victors at this " battle of the Atbara," in a force composed of 3,500 British and 14,000 Soudanese and Egyptian troops, was over 500, of whom in were British, including three officers killed, and about 15 wounded. This great success ended the operations on the approach of the terrible summer-heat in that region, the troops returning into quarters northwards until the rise of the Nile in the autumn should enable gunboats, heavily armed, to act against the formidable works at Omdurman and Khartoum. Abyssinia has, in the 19th century, aroused much interest. This ancient empire includes the territories of Tigre, in the north-east ; Amhara, in the west and centre ; and Shoa, in the south, which have been, at various times, separate kingdoms. Since the introduction of Christianity in the 4th century, the people have been members of the Alexandrian Church, with a head (Abuna) consecrated by the patriarch of that communion. An empire or kingdom of Axum, the ruined capital of which now lies in the modern province of Tigre, became great and prosperous in the 6th century, with the rule of all Abyssinia, and of Yemen and Saba in Arabia, and the control of the Red Sea. The empire was the farthest point south- ward reached by Greek civilisation, and also the outermost post of Christianity in that age. Mohammedan conquest confined the Abyssinians to the interior tableland, and cut them off for a long period from intercourse with the rest of the world. The capital 698 A History of the World was removed from Axum to Gondar, and the monarchs then assumed a tide {Negus, with a lengthy affix) meaning " king of kings of Ethiopia." In the 16th century, warlike Galla tribes from inner Africa began a series of devastating raids, and in course of time the monarchy was broken up into several independent realms. About 1850 an able adventurer arose in Amhara, and in the course of five years overcame various native potentates, and was crowned by the Abuna, or head of the Church, as " Negus of Abyssinia," by the name of Theodore. After the conquest of Shoa he was master of the whole country, and ruled with wisdom for some time under the guidance of two British residents, Mr. Plowden and Mr. Bell, the former of whom was consul. In i860 they perished by the arms of a rebel chief, and Theodore soon became tyrannical, sup- ported by an immense army, the cost of which caused oppressive taxation. Rebellions in the provinces were crushed with the utmost cruelty, and the monarch's enmity to Europeans was aroused by his failure to obtain British and French aid against Moslem hostile neighbours in the Soudan. Captain Cameron, British consul at Massowah, on the Red Sea, received from the emperor, in 1862, a letter addressed to Queen Victoria. It was duly transmitted to Lord John Russell, then Foreign Secretary, placed in a " pigeon- hole," and forgotten. This piece of neglect was costly to the state. Theodore was enraged at what he deemed to be insulting treatment, and made prisoners of Cameron and other consuls, "with the mis- sionaries and other foreign residents, following this up by the seizure of an envoy, Mr. Rassam, sent by our government, in 1864, from Aden, to treat for the release of the captives. Negotiation, backed by presents, was a failure, and the prisoners were all shut up in the strong rock-fortress of Magdala. The matter was much discussed in the Indian bazaars, and when remonstrances and threats were futile, forcible measures were adopted. Sir Robert Napier, a dis- tinguished officer of engineers, who had done good service in the Sepoy war, took 16,000 men of all arms, with as many of the transport-service and camp-followers, from Bombay, and landed them at Annesley Bay in the early spring of 1868. The expedition was a triumph of organisation and good management. There was little fighting, as the people of the country, hating the tyrant, welcomed the invaders, and the only difficulties, and those great ones, were presented by a march of 400 miles through a very mountainous and rugged country, with the necessity of storing and guarding provisions at various points, and of keeping up communi- -' British and other European Possessions in Africa 699 cation with the sea-base of operations. At the Arogee Pass, on April 10th, some thousands of gaily clad Abyssinian horsemen rushed down upon a detached body of the British, to be slaughtered in heaps and quickly driven off under the fire of breechloaders. The panic caused by this defeat caused the prompt surrender of the prisoners ; but Napier, resolved to complete his work, still marched on Magdala, which was taken with little resistance. The dead body of Theodore, slain by a pistol-shot from his own hand, lay inside the gate. The victor became Lord Napier of Magdala, rose to be commander-in-chief in India, and died in 1890 Governor of the Tower. The cost of the expedition reached about ^9,000,000 sterling. The death of Theodore was followed by struggles for supremacy among rival chieftains. A prince of Tigre became emperor in 1872, and was at war with Egypt in 1875, the contest continuing in a desultory way until the evacuation of the Soudan in 1882. Italy began to aspire to territorial possession in that part of the world, and occupied Massowah in 1885. Warfare with the Abyssinians, with alternate success, ensued, and in May, 1889, a treaty was made by which the Italians, in their interpretation, constituted Abyssinia a "protectorate." On the death of the "Negus," John II., in the same year, Menelek II., king of Shoa, became supreme ruler. Certain territories, in 1891, were surrendered to the Italians, who constituted their possessions on the Red Sea, between 1890 and 1894, as the "colony of Eritrea." In 1893 King Menelek "de- nounced" the treaty concerning an Abyssinian protectorate, and war ensued. On March 1st, 1896, the native forces under Italian officers were almost destroyed in a battle near Adowa, and a treaty then recognised the complete independence of Abyssinia. Chapter III. — British and other European Possessions in Africa. Until the 19th century the interior of Africa was almost unknown to the rest of the world. Modern exploration in the vast dark continent began with James Bruce, who discovered one source of the " Blue " Nile in Abyssinia in 1780, and aroused the spirit which sent Ledyard, Mungo Park, and other adventurous travellers to the basin of the Niger. In the third ani fourth decades of the 19th century Denham, an old Peninsular officer, Clapperton, of the royal navy, Dr. Oudney, and the brothers Richard and John Lander, in the Sahara and Soudan, discovered Lake Tchad and 7chons, 84 Arcot, 662 Ardys, 50 Areopagus, 85 Areopagus, Court of, 99 Ares, 75 Argentine Republic (Argen- tina), 754, 756 Argolis, 71, 73 Argonautic voyage, 71 Argos, 83, 84, 96 Ariminum, 132 Ariovistus, 161 Aristides, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98 Aristodemus, 83 Aristomenes, 83 Aristophanes, 102 Aiistotle, in, 120, 180, 238 Arius (the " heretic "), 173 Arkansas (U.S.), 735, 739 Armagh, 200 Armenia, Armenians, 61, 64, 65, 66, 67, 150, 151, 643, 677 Arminians, 1 he, 447 Arminius (see Herman), 161, 162, 164, 446 Army-reform, 585 Arndt (poet), 503 Arpad, 24 Arpad dynasty (Hungary), 3 2 7 Arran, Earl of, 113, 414 Arsaces I., 60 Arsaces II., 60 Arsaces III., 60 Arsacidae, The, 61, 65 Art (architecture), 374 Art (mediaeval), 372, 373 Artabanus, 6c, 69 Artabanus V., 68 Artaphernes, 57, 88 Artaxata, 151 Artaxerxes I. of Persia (Longimaii'-s), 57, 100, 677 Artaxerxes II., 58 Artaxerxes III., 58 Artaxerxes Mnemon, 14 Artaxerxes Ochus, 43 Artemis, 75 A'temisium, 96 Arteveldt, Jacob and Philip van, 319 Arthur (Duke of Brittany), 270 Arthur (son of Henry VII.), 393 Arthur, President (U.S.), 747 Articles, Forty-two (Anglican Church), 411 Articles, Thirty T -nine (Angli- can Church), 412 Artois, Count of, 537 Arundel, Archbishop, 307,308 Aryan migration, 3 Aryans, The, 3, 26, 69, 70, 654 Asa, 13 Asaba, 704 Ascalon 252 Ascension (isle), 387 A--culum, 150 Aseerghur, 665 Ashantis, The, 702, 703 Ashburton, Lord, 730 Ashtoreth (Astarte), 40 Asia, Central, 35s, 356 Asia Minor, 55, 70, m, 113, 145, 175, 244, 357, 358 Asoka, 655 Assam, 667, 677 "Assembly of the Notables" (France), 527 Asshurbanipal, 50 Asshurbanipal V. (Sardana- palus), 26, 27, 43, 50 Asshurnazirpal, 23 Assur, 2, 22 Assyrians, 19, 21, 28 Asturias, 240 Astyages, 53, 51, 53 Asuncion, 756 Atahualpa of Peru, 385 Atchei n (Sumatra), 685 Athaliah, Queen, 31 Athanasius, St., 263 Athelney, Isle of, 220 Athelstan, King, 22], 222 Athena 1'olias, 75, 76 Athens, Athenians, 58, 74, 80, 84, 86 88, 94, 96-98, 101, 103, 105-110, 114, 115, 117-122, 150, 166 Atlanta (U.S.), 742, 743 - Atlantic cable, 745 Attalus III. of Pergamus, 145 Attica, 57, 71-73, 87, 101, T02 Attila the Hun, 177, 178, 183, 246 Auckland, Lord (India), 663, 669 Augsburg, 290 Augsburg, Confession of, 403 Augsburg, Diet of, 392, 403,404 Augsburg, League of, 492 Augurs (Rome), 129 "Augustan Age,'' The, 159 Augustine of Canterbury (Austin, St.), 182, 202 Augustine, St., 263 Augustus Caesar, Emperor, 65, 145, 157-159, 2 45 Augustus II. of Poland, 499 Aulic Council,The (Germany), 39 2 Aurangzeb, Emperor (India), 657-659 Aurelian, Emperor, 169 Aurelius, Emperor, 76 Australasia, 762 Australia, 763 Index 69 Australia, South, 763 Australia, Western, 763 Austral an colonies, 576 Austrasia, 191 Austria, 213, 2?8, 330, 334, 501, 506, 507, 510, 513, 539, 540, 543-545, 554, 555, 561, 562, 574, 606, 607, 609, 6io, 614, 617, 621, 641, 734 Austria, House of, 331, 332 Ava, 667, 672 Avars, The, 187, 188, 212 Averroes, 238 Avesta, The, 52 Avicenna, 238 Avidius Cassius, 67 Avignon, 295, 337, 489 Aviz, House of (Portugal), 464 Axum, Kingdom of (Abys- sinia), 697 Ayub Khan, 675 Azov, Sea of, 505 Aztecs, The (Mexico), 383 B. Baal, 40 Baber, 656 Babylon, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 54, 55, 56, 5 8 Babylonia, 20, 32, 55, 60, 61, 66, 67, 112 Bacchiadae, The, 80 Bacon, Roger, 264 Bactra (Zariaspa), 52 Bactria, Bactrians (Bokhara), 52, 53, 54, 60, ii2, 113 Bad by, John, 308 Baden, 457, 555, 599, 609, 610, 611 Baffin, 514 Bagdad, 61, 238, 356, 678, 679 Bahamas, 752 Bahia, 758 Baird, Sir David, 665 Baker, Sir Samuel, 690, 700 B.ildwin, Count of P'landers, 253, 285 Balearic Isles, 49, 246 Baliol, John, 299, 300 Balkan States, 642 Balmaceda, President, of Chili, 729 Baltic Canal, 613 Baltic Sea, 49, 363 Baltimore, 729 Baner, General, 455, 456 Bangalore, 664 Bangkok, 681 Bantu race, 709 Baptists, 48c Baratieri, General, 696 Barbados, 751 Barbarossa, 252. See Frede- rick I. of Germany Barbarossa (the corsair), 407, 472, 691, 692 Barbary piracy, 577 Barbary States, 691 Barca, 45 Bards, 192, 276 Barnes, Sir Edward, 683 Barneveldt, Jan van Olden, 445> 446, 447, 448 Barras, 543 Barri, Comtesse du, 526 Bartholomew Diaz, 353, 354 Bartholomew's, St., Day, 424 Basil II. of Greek Empire, 243 Basra (Bassora), 238, 679 Bassein, 658, 662 Bastille, Storming of, 537 Basutos, 709 Batavi, The, 161 Batavian Republic, 243, 543, _ 546, 552 Batory, Stephen, of Poland, 467 Batoum, 641 Battenberg, Prince Henry of, 7°3 Battle Abbey, 226 Battles : — Aboukir (or Alexandria), 546 Abu-Klea, 6 5 Actium, 157 Adowa, 699 Adrianople, 176 iEgates Islands, 139 yEgospotami, 106 Aescesdun, 219 Agincourt, 308 Aix (Basque) Roads, 567 Alarcos, 2S2 Albuera, 559 Alexandria, Bombardment of, 690 Algiers, Bombardment of, 577 Aliual, 670 Allia, 134 Alma, 640 Amoaful, 703 Angora, 3-9 Aqua; Sextise (Aix), 149 Arbela, 112 Areola, 544 Arcot (siege), 660 Argaum, 665 Arginusae, 106 Arminius and Varus, 162 Arnee, 663 Arogee Pass, 699 Arques, 426 Arretium, 136 Artemisium, 96 Asculum, 137 Aspern, 561 Aspromonte, 624 Assaye, 665 Atbara, 697 Athlone, 478 Auerstadt, 556 Aughrim, 478 Augsburg (siege), 456 Austerlitz, 555 Ayacucho, 753 Badajoz (siege), 560 Bannockburn, 302 Bapaume, 602 Barnet, 313 Bautzen, 563 Beachy Head, 492 Beaumont, 600 Belfort (siege), 602 Beneventum, 137 Bergen-op-Zoom (siege), 44! Bhurtpore (siege), first, 666 second, 668 Blenheim, 497 Bornhoved, 364 Battles {continued) : — Borodino, 562 Bosworth, 314 Bothwell Bridge, 476 Bouvines, 272, 279, 280, 318 Breitenfeld, first, 454 ; second, 456 Brunanburh, 221 Buckersdorf, 513 Buena Vista, 736 Bull Run (or Manassas), 739 Bunker's Hill, 534 Busaco, 559 Buxar, 660 Byzantium (siege), no Camperdown, 549 Cannae, 140 Carthage (siege), 143-145 Castiglione, 544 Castillejos, 694 Castillon, 323 Cerro Gordo, 737 Chaeronea, no Chalons, 178 Chancellorsville, 742 Chattanooga, 742 Chillianwallah, 671 Chocim, 467 Churubusco, 737 Ciudad Rodrigo (siege), 560 Clontarf, 228 Cnidus, 107 Constantinople (siege), 360 Copenhagen, first, 549 ; second, 558 Coronea, 107 Corte Nuova, 292 Corufia, 559 Courcelles (Colombey- Nouilly), 600 Courtrai, 319 Covadonga, 209 Crannon, 114 Crecy, 303, 304 Cuddalore. See Porto Novo Culloden, 4" Cunaxa, 58 Custozza, 624 Cynoscephalae, 116 Delhi (siege), 674 Delium, 103 Denain, 497 Dessau, Bridge of, 452 Dettingen, 509 Dorylseum, 250 Douro, The, 559 Dresden, 564 Dreux, 423 Drumclog, 476 Dunbar, 475 Dunes, The, 475, 484 Dunkirk (siege), 475 Durazzo (siege), 284 Eckmuhl, 561 Ecnomus, 138 El-Teb, 695 Essling, 561 Ethandun, 220 Eurymtdon, 99 Eylau, 556 Falkirk, 300 Fehrbellin, 499 Ferozeshah, Fleurus, 543 Flodden, 394 Forbach, 600 7/0 Index Battles (continued) : — Frederikshall (siege), 500 Friedland, 556 Fuentes d'Onoro, 559 Gallipoli, 341 Gembloux, 442 Genoa (siege), 546 Geok-Tepe (siege), 638 Gettysburg, 742 Ghazni (siege), 669 "Glorious First of June'' (Lord Howe's), 549 Goojerat, 672 Granada (siege), 347 Granicus, in Granson, 334 Gravelotte (St. Privat), 600 Haarlem (siege), 440 Halidon Hill, 303 Harfleur (siege), 308 Harlaw, 315 Hastings. See Senlac Hedgeley Moor, 313 Heiligerlee, 439 Heraclea, 137 Herrings, Of the, 322 Hexham, 313 Hippo Regius (siege), 176 Hochkirchen, 511 Hohenlinden, 546 Homildon Hill, 314 Hyderabad, 669 Inkermann, 640 Isandula (Isandhlvvana), 711 Issus, 44, III Ivry, 427 Jargeau, 323 Jarnac, 423 Jemminghem, 439 Jena, 556 Kadesia, 678 Kars (siegt), 641 " Kassassin, 691 Katzbach, The, 564 Killiecrankie, 478 Kolin, 510 Koniggratz (or Sadovva), 610 Kriigersdorp, 712 Kunersdorf, 512 La Hogue, 493 Lade, 57 Landen (or Neerwinden), _ 493 Largs, 275 Las Navas de Tolosa, 283 Le Mans, 602 Lech, The, 454 Legnano, 289 Leipzig, 564 Lepanto, 441, 473 Leuctra, ic8 Leuthen, 511 Lewes, 273 Lexington, 534 Leyden (siege), 440 Liegnitz, 512 Ligny, 565 Lissa, 624 Lodi, 544 Londonderry (siege), 478 Loudon Hill, 300 Lowositz, 510 Lundy's Lane, 722 Lutter, 452 Lutzen, first, 455 ; second, S63 Battles (continued) : — Maciejowice, 507 Maestricht (siege), 442 Magdeburg (siege), 453 Magenta, 623 Maharajpoor, 669 Maheidpoor, 667 Maiwand, 675 Malaga (siege), 346 Malplaquet, 496 Malta (siege), 472 Manzikert, 244 Marathon, 57, 88-93 Marchfeld, 330 Marengo, 546 Marignano, 3Q2 Marsaglia, 493 Marston Moor, 460 Maska River, 693 Maxen, 512 Meanee, 669 Megiddo, 10 Meissen, 512 Memphis, 12 Mentana, 624 Metaurus, 141 Metemmeh, 695 Metija, 693 Metz (siege), 602 Minden, 512 Missolonghi (siege), 6^8 Mohacs, first, 470; second, 501 Mohi, 3S5 Moncontour, 423 lilonitor and Merritnac, 741, 742 Mont-Cassel, 488 Montebello, 623 Montl'hery, 324 Mookerheyde, 440 Morgarten, 333 Mortimer's Cioss, 311 Mouzon, 600 Mudki, 670 Mii hi berg, 404 Muhldorf, 330 Munda, 156 Murten (Morat), 334 Mycale, 98 Mylae, 138 Nafels, 334 Nahavend, 678 Nancy, 334 Narva, 499 Naseby, 460 Navarino, 629 Nectansmere, 197 Neville's Cross, 303 New Orleans, 729 Nicopolis, 358 Nieuport, 445 Nile (Aboukir Bay), 545 Nineveh, 678 Nisib, 689 Nive, 560 Nivelle, 560 Nordlingen, first, 455 ; second, 456 Northampton, 310 Notium, 106 Novara, 6.1 Orleans (siege), 321 Orthez, 561 O-tcnd (siege), 445 Otterburn (orChev y Chase), 3'4 Battles (continued) : — Oudenarde, 496 Ourique (Orik), 353 Palo Alto, 736 Panipat, first, 656; second, 657 ; third, 658 Paris (siege), first, 601, 602 ; second, 604 Patay, 323 Pavia, 405 Penjdeh, 676 Pharsalus, 155, 156 Philippi, 157 Ping Yang, 653 Pinkie, 414 Pirot, 642 Plassey, 660 Plataea, 95, 97 Plevna (siege), 641 Poitiers, 304 Pollilore, 663 Populonia, 136 Porto Novo (or Cuddalore), 662 Prague, 510 Preston, 4^0 Pultowa, 499 Punniar, 669 Pydna, 109 Pyramids, The, 545 Pyrenees, The, 560 Quatre Bras, 565 Ouebec, 524 Queenston Heights, 721 Ramillies, 496 Ramnuggur, 671 Ravenna, 390 Resaca, 736 Rivoli, 544 Rochelle, La (siege), 461 Rocroy, 456 Rodney and Comte de Grasse (West Indies), 534 Rolica, 559 Rome (siege), 622 Rorke's Drift, 711 Roosbeke, 319 Rosbach, 511 Sadowa. See Koniggratz St. Albans, first, 310; second, 311 St. Eustache, 722 St. Gothard, 488 St. Jacques (St. Jacob), 334 St. Jean d'Acre (siege), 545 St. Pierre, 560 St. Quentin, first, 421 ; second, 602 St. Vincent, first, 534; second, 549 Salamanca, 560 Salamis, 96 Salamis in Cyprus, 100 San Sebastian (siege), 560 Saragossa (siege), 559 Saratoga, 534 Sauchieburn, 315 Sebastopol (siege), 622, Sedan, 600 Sellasia, 115 Sempach, 333 Ssnef, 488 Senlac (or Hastings) Sentinum, 136 Seringapatam (siege), 5 ShannonandChesapeake,72g Index 771 Battles (continued) 1 . — Shiloh, 743 Shrewsbury, 308 Silistria, 243 Silistria (siege), 640 Slivnitza, 642 Sluys, 303 Sobraon, 671 Solferino, 625 Solway Moss, 413 Staffarde, 493 Stamford Bridge, 226 Standard, The (Northaller- ton), 268 Steinkirk, 493 Stirling Bridge, 300 Stralsund (siege), 452 Syracuse (siege), 141 Talavera, 559 Talikot, 656 Tamanieh, 695 Tamasi, 696 Tannenberg, 336 Tchernaya (Traktir Bridge), 622 Tel-el-Kebir, 691 Tewkesbury, 131 Thapsus, 155 Thermopylae, 96 Ticinus, 140 Tinchebrai, 267 Torgau, 512 Toulouse, 561 Tours, 210 Towton, 312 Trafalgar, 556 Trasimene Lake, 140 Trebbia, The, 140 Tyre (siege), 44 Vadimonian Lake, first, 135 ; second, 136 Val-es-dunes, 225 Valmy, 540 Varaville, 226 Veii (siege), 134 Vercellas (Vercelli), 149 Verona, 180 Vienna (siege), 501 Vimiera, 559 Villa Viciosa, 488 Vinegar Hill, 552 Vionville, 600 Vittoria, 560 Wagram, 561 Waterloo, 565 Weissenberg, 451 Weissenburg, 600 Wilderness (U.S.), 742 Worcester, 475 Worth, 600 Xeres de la Frontera, 209 Yorktown, 534 Zama, 142 Zenta, 501 Zorndorf, 511 Zutphen, 444 Bavaria, Bavarians, 212, 231, 288, 509, SSS, 567, 599. 609, 610, 61 t Bayard, Chevalier de, 390, 404 Bayeux, 217 Bayezid (Bajazel), 358 Bazaine, Marshal, 600 Beaconsfield, Lord (Benjamin Disraeli), 675 Beaton, Cardinal, 414, 415 Beaufort, Cardinal, 309 Beauharnais, Eugene, 554, 561 Beauharnois, Marquis de, 519 Beauregard, General, 740 Bee, 369 Bee, Abbey of, 226 Bechuanaland, British, 712 Bechuanas, 709 Becket, Thomas, 269 Bedford, Duke of, 309, 321, 323 Behar, 656, 661, 674 Behring Sea Arbitration, 733 Belfast, 5s r, 592 Belgium, 317, 566, 569, 615, 616 Belgrade, 328, 361 Belisarius, 181, 185 Belize, 752 Belshazzar, 20, 54 Beluchistan, 679 Ben Musa, 239 Benbow, 404 Benedek, General, 609 Benedict, St., 263 Benedict XIV., Pope, 532 Benedictines, 263 Bengal, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 656, 66 4, 673, 674 Benin, Capture of, 705 Benin coast, 701 Benin massacre, 705 Benito, Juarez, of Mexico, 747. 748 Bentham, Jeremy. 583 Bentinck, Lord William, 668 Berar, 658 Berber, Berbers, 207, 209, 236, 240 ; 241, 696 Berbice, 759 Berengaria of Navarre, 252 Beresford, Marshal, 559, 620, 7S4 Berezina, Passage of, 562 Bergen, 364 herlaimont, Count de, 437, 438 Berlin, 511, 512, 513, 556 Berlin, Congress of, 641 Berlin Decree, 557 Bermudas, 751 Bern, 334, 615 Bernadotte, Marshal, 568, 618 Bernard, St., 251 Bernard of Clairvaux, 258 Bernard Palissy, 422 Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, 454. 455. 456 Bertha, 202 Bertrand du Guesclin, 304 Berwick, 300 Berwick, Duke of, 492, 494 Berytus (Beyrout), 39, 41, 255 Bessarion, 370 Bhonslas of Nagpur, 658 Bida, 734 Biscay, 210, 240 Bismarck, Prince, 598, 599, 609, 610, 613 Bithynia, 50, 113, 150, 286 "Black Death," The, 303, 369 Black Friars, 264. See Domi- nicans "Black Prince," The, 261, 304 Blake, Admiral, 475 B'anche of Castile, 282 "Bkod-bath of Stockholm," 419 Bliicher, Marshal, 564, 565 Boabdil, 346, 347 Boadicea, 192 Board of Admiralty, 394 Board of Control (India), 663, 674 Board Schools (British Isles), T 584 Boccaccio, 368, 370, 373 Bceotia, 71, 97 Boeotian League, 108 Boers, 715 Boers, Dutch, at Cape, 710 Boethius, 180 Bohemia, Bohemians, 230, 288, 2 9°. 335. 337. 4 50, 45 1 . 45 2 , 508, 509, 510, 607 Bohemond of Tarentum, 250 Bokhara, 238, 355, 356, 637,656 Bolivia, 753, 754 Bologna, 294, 368, 375 Bombay, 659, 660, 673 Bonaparte, Jerome, 557 Bonaparte, Joseph, 554, 556, 559 Bonaparte, Louis, 554, 556, 59 6 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 545,546, 552, 553, 75° Bonaventura, St., 264, 369 Boniface, Marquis of Mont- ferrat, 253, 286 Boniface, St., 183 Boniface VIII., Pope, 320, 337 Bonn, 492 Bonner, Bishopof London, 411 Book of Discipline, Second (Scotland), 417 Bordeaux, 209, 323, 561, 601, 603 Borgia, Cesare, 390 Borgu, 704 Borneo, 684 Borsippa, 19, 27 Boscawen, Admiral, 522 Bosnia, 361, 614, 639, 641 Bossuet, 484, 532 Boston (Massachusetts), 518, 522, 533 Botany Bay, 761 Botticelli, 372 Bouftlers, Marshal, 493 Boulogne, 554, 555 Bourbaki, General, 602, 603 Bourbon, Anton de, of Na varre, 422, 423 Bourbon, Cardinal de, 426 Bourbon, Constable, 392, 405 Bourbon, House of, 426, 533, 567 Bourdaloue, 484 Bourgeoisie, The (France), 324 Boyer, President of Haiti, 750 Brabant, 319, 438, 448 Braddock, General, 520 Bradwardine, Archbishop, 369 Braganza, House of, 465 Bragg, General, 742 Brahmans, 654, 655 Brandenburg, 455, 457, 498 Brandenburg, Elector 0^497 Brandenburg, House of, 450 Brandt, Sebastian, 374 Brasidas, 82, 102 Brazil, 379, 558, 755, 756, 757, 758 Breda, 445, 418 Brederode, De, 438 it Index Bremen, 364, 366, 562, 566, 610, 611 Bresiau, 511 Brest, 485, 549 Bretons, 212 Brian Boroimhe (Brian Boru), 227, 228 Bridge of Sighs, 340 Brigantes, The, 192 Brill (Briel), 240 Bristol, 579 Britain, Ancient, 49, 166, 192, 193 Britain, Great, 498, 510, 534, 54', 545. 553. 554. 556, 558, 561, 562, 566, 569, 573, 598, 616, 630, 637, 640, 643, 649, 651, 680, 681, 684, 688, 690, 701, 702, 730, 733, 734, 739, 745. 748. 753. 762. 763 British Central Africa Pro- tectorate, 713 British Columbia, 724, 726 British Isles, 191, 392, 459, 475, 547. 577 British North America Act, 724 British South Africa Com- pany, 712, 713 Brittany, 218, 226 Brock, Sir Isaac, 721 Brooke, Sir James, 684 Brougham, Lord, 578 Brown, Marshal, 510 Brown's, John, raid, 738 Bruce, Edward (bi other of Robert Bruce), 315 Bruce, James, 699 Eruce, Robert, 300 Bruges, 318, 319, 320, 364 Brumaire i&ti'i (trance), 545 Brundusium (Brindisi), 132 Brunei, Sultan of, 684 Bruno, Leonardo, 370 Brunswick, 288, 510, 557, 606, 610 Brunswick, Duke of, 540 Brunswick, House of, 480 Brusa (Broussa), 356, 358, 359 Brussels, 439, 441, 444 Bruttii, 124, 136 Brutus, 156, 157 Buccaneers, The, 749 Buchanan, George, 372 Buchanan, James, President, 738 Buda or Buda-Pesth, 327, 329, 470, 501, 607 Buddhism, 645, 650, 682 Buenos Ayres, 754, 755 Bulawayo, 713, 714 Bulgaria, Bulgarians, 208, 242, 286, 355, 358, 569, 639, 641, 642, 643 Bundelkhand, 674 Burgoyne, General, 534 Burgundy, Burgundians, 169, 174, 177. 190, 214, 332 Burgundy, Duke of (grandson of Louis XIV.), 493, 497 Burgundy, Kingdom ol, 290 Burhampoor, 665 Burial Laws Amendment Act, 582 Burma, 655, 667 Burma, Upper, 676 Burnaby, Colonel, 695 Burton, Captain, 700 Bury St. Edmunds, 219 Bushire, 680 Bushmen, 709 Bute, Lord, 512 Butlers, The (Earls of Or- mond, Ireland), 395 Butt, Isaac, 588 Byblus, 40, 44 Byron, Lord, 627, 628 Byzantine (or Greek) Empire, 179, 180, 183, 18S, 283, 287 Byzantium (see also Constan- tinople), 173, J 78 Cabots, The, 379 Cabral, 353, 757 Caceres, General (of Peru), 754 Cade's, Jack, rising, 309 Cadiz, 41, 436, 549, 555, 619 Cadmus, 72 Caen, 309 Caerleol (Carlisle), 197 Caernarvon, 299 Caesar, Julius, 154, 155, 156 263 Caesarea, 36 Cairo, 238, 356, 545, 546, 687, 688, 691 Cajetan, 400 Calabria, 124 Calais, 303 Calcutta, 660, 665, 673, 677 Calder, Sir Rooert, 555 Caledonians, 200 Calhoun, John C, 739 Calicut, 387 California, 384, 737 Caligula, 37, 164 Caliphs (or Khalifs, Califs), 206 Callao Castle, 757 Callimachus, 90, 91, 92, 94 Calmar, Union of, 419 Calonne, 527 Calvert, Sir George (Lord Baltimore), 727 Calvin, Calvinists, 409, 412, 414, 428, 432, 438, 446, 447, 467 Camalodunum, 192, 194 Cambodia, 681 Cambray, League of, 390 Cambridge, 368 Cambyses, 45, 51, 55 Cameron, Captain, 698 Cameroons, The, 701 Camisards, 491 Camoens, 352, 387 Campania, 124 Campbell, General, 667 Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), 674 Canaanites, 29 Canada, 513, 518, 519, 524, 574, 720, 721-726, 730 Canadian Pacific Railwav, 725 Canadians, French, 722, 723 Canary Islands, 353, 719 Candia. See Crete Canning, George, 558, 629, 734 Canning, Lord, 673, 674 Canossa, 235 Canovas del Castillo, 619 Canrobert, 693 Canterbury, 219, 266 Canton, 647, 648, 649 Canute. See Cnut Cape Breton Island, 514, 519, , 522, 564 Cape Coast Castle, 354, 702, 703 Cape Colony, 709, 71 1, 712, 715 Cape of Good Hope, 354 Cape Town, 710, 711 Cape Verd Isles, 719 Capet, Hugh, 218 Capetian dynasty, 218 Cappadocia, 151 Capreas (Capri), 163 Capua, 132, 140, 141, 624 Caracalla, 68, 168 Caracas, 753 Caradoc (Caractacus). 192 Carbonari, The (Italy), 621 Caria, 73 Caribbean Sea ("Spanish Main "), 749 Carinthia, 330, 331, 332 Carleton, Sir Guy (Lord Dorchester), 721 Carlos, Don (Spain), 618, 619 Carnatic, The, 663 Carniola, 330, 332 Carnot, 541, 543 Carolina, North and South, 5'7, 739, 742, 743 Caroline, Queen (wife of George IV.), 578 Carolingian (or Carlovingian) dynasty, 191 Carrington, Sir Frederick, 713 Carrhae, 63 Carthage, Carthaginians, 41, 44, 49, !38, 139, Mi, 142, 143, 146, 177 Carthusians, 263 Carder, Jacques, 514 Casimirs of Poland, 326, 467 Cassander, 114 Cassiodorus, 180 Cassiterides, The, 41 Cassius, 156, 157 Castile, 240, 283, 342, 462 Castilla, Ramon, of Peru, 754 Ca tharine of Bragan 7.8,465, 659 Catharine II. of Russia, 505, 513 Cathcart, Sir George, 711 Catholic Association (Ire- land), 586 Catholic Emancipation Act 581 Catholic League, 450, 452 Catholic Reaction. The, 430 •'Catholics, Old," 626 Catiline, 153 Catinat, 493, 495 Catoof Utica, 153, 155 Cato Street Conspiracy, 578 Cato the Censor, 143 Catulus, 149 Caucasian race, 1,3 Caucasus, The, 633 Caudine Forks, 135 Cavalier, Jean, 491, 492 Cavalier, Robert, 516 Cavendish, Lord Frederick, Ind ex US Cavour, Count, 622, 624 Cawnpore, Massacres of, 674 Caxton, 375 Cayenne, 759, 760 Cecrops, 72 Celts, 67, 70. See Kelts Cenemagni (or Iceni), 191 Censors, Census (Rome;, 126 Cerameicus (Athens), 93 Cerdic, 202 Cervantes, 473 Cetewayo, 711, 715 Ceuta, 694 Ceylon, 552, 654, 655, 659, 682 Chad, St. (Ceadda), 201 Chaka (Zulu chief), 714 Chalcis, 87 Chaldaea, Chaldaeans, 16, 17, 21-23 Chalmers, Dr., 593 Chamillart, 495, 496 Champiain, Lake, 519, 523 Champlain, Samuelde, 515, 516 Chandernagore, 659, 662 Chandra-gupta, 655 Channel Islands, 270 Chanzy, General, 601, 602 Chateau Gaillard, 270 Charles, Archduke, of Austria, 543. 544. 545. 5*i Charles the Bald, 214, 217 Charles the Bold of Bur- gundy, 313, 320, 324, 334 Charles I. of England, 448, 459. 460, 461, 516 Charles II. of England, 46s, 475. 476, 487. 5'8 Charles IV. of France, 321 Charles VI. of France, 309, 319. 34i Charles VII. of trance, 321, 323 Charles VIII. of France, 324, 389 Charles IX. of France, 421 Charles X. of France, 594 Charles Albert of Germany, 509 Charles IV. of Germany, 330 Charles V. of Germany, 258, 380, 384, 391, 392, 401-408, 410, 422, 433-435, 45o, 47°, 471. 691, 692 Charles VI., 496, 502 Charles, Prince, of Hohen- zollern, 640 Charles I. of Portugal, 620 Charles, Prince, of Koumania, 642 Charles Albert of Sardinia, 621 Charles Emmanuel I. of Savoy , 466 Charles II. of Spain, 494 Charles III. of Spain, 528 Charles IV. of Spain, 558 Charles IX. of Sweden, 421 Charles X. of Sweden, 498 Charles XI. of Sweden, 498 Charles XII. of Sweden, 49 500 Charles XIII. of Sweden, 568 Charles XIV. of Sweden, 618 Charles Martel, 191 Charles the Simple, 217 Charleston (U.S.), 737, 743 51 " Charlie, Bonnie Prince," 480 Charlotte, Princess, 578 Charter, Great (Magna Cliarta), 272^ 273, 301 Chartres, Fort (North America), 720 Chatti, The, 160 Chaucer, 306, 374 Chaumette, 543 Cherbourg, 323 Cherusci, The, 162 Chicago, 745 Chichester, Sir Arthur, 460 Chili, 753, 754. 757 China, Chinese, 355, 644, 645, 646, 648, 649, 655, 686 Chios, 628 Chivalry, 260, 261 Chlodovech (Chlodwig or Clovis), 189, 190 Choiseul, Due de, 526 Chosroes I. of Persia, 677 Chosroes II. of Persia, 678 Christian of Brunswick, 451 45 2 Christian I. of Denmark, 419 Christian II. of Denmark, 419 Christian III. of Denmark, 470 Christian IV. of Denmark, 451, 452. 5°° Christian IX. of Denmark, 617 Christian of Oldenburg, 419 Christianity, Ancient, 164, 165, 167, 170, 171 193 Christianity, Introduction of, into Britain, 198; in Scot- land, 201 Christianity in Bohemia, 335 ; in Russia, 325 Christina, Queen, of Spain, 619 Christina, Queen, of Sweden, 498 Christophe, Henri, of Haiti, 750 Chulalongkorn I. of Siam. 681 Churchill, Lord Randolph, 676 Church-rates, 581 Cicero, 153, 154, 157 Cid, The (Spain), 241 Cilicia, 150, 151, 153, 154 Cimbri, The, 148, 149 Cimmerians, The, 50 Cinna, 151 Cintra, Convention of, 559 Circassians, 505 Cisalpine Gaul, 132, 139, 140 Cisalpine Republic, 544, 546 Cistercians, 263 Clan-na-Gael, The, 589 Clarence, Duke of (brother of Edward IV.), 313 Clarendon, Assize of, 268 Clarendon, Constitutions of, 269 Clarkson, Thomas, 567 Claudius, Emperor, 36, 164 Claudius Nero, Consul, 141 Claverhouse, Graham of (Viscount Dundee), 476, 477, 478 Clay, Henry (U.S.), 736 Cleisthenes, 87 Clement IV., Pope, 292 Clement V., Pope, 259, 320, 337, 339 Clement VII., Pope, 405, 406, 407, 410 Clement XL, Pope, 532 Clement XIII., Pope, 532 Clement XIV., Pope, 532 Cleombrotus, 108 Cleomenes, 115 Cleon, 182, 183 Cleopatra, 155 Cleveland, President (U.S.) 747 Clive, Robert, Lord, 66i Clothild, 190 Clovis. See Chlodovech Clugny (or Cluni), 249, 263 Cnidus, 73 Cnut (Canute), 223, 224, 229, 230 Coalition, Second, against Napoleon, 545 ; Third, 554 ; Fifth, 561 ; Sixth, 562 Cochin-China, 686 Cochrane, Lord (Earl of Duu- donald), 567, 753, 757 Code Napoleon, The, 539, 553 Coercion Acts (Ireland), 590, 59i Cohorn (military engineer), 493 Coimbra, 351 Colbert, 484, 485, 489, 516 Colborne, Sir John, 722 Colenso, Dr., 715 Colet, Dean, 371, 394, 410 Coligny, Admiral, 422, 423, 424, 5*4 Collingwood, Lord, 549, 555 Collot d'Herbois, 541 Cologne, 290, 363, 365, 375 Colombo, 682, 683 Colonnas, The, 295 Colosseum (Rome), 165 Columba, St., 199, 2ji Columban, St., 182 Columbia, 743, 753 Columbus, 377, 378, 379, 749, 752 Combermere, Lord,TjC8 Comines, Philippe de, 374 Comitia Centuriata (Rome), 126, 127, 129 Comitia Tributa (Rome), 127, 128, 129, 144, 146 Committee of Public Safety (France), 541, 542 Commodus, Emperor, 167, 168 Commons, House of, 273, 274, 311, 478, 480, 550, 579, 580 Commune, The (Paris), 603 Concordat (Austria), 614 Conde, Prince de, 423, 456, 487, 488 Condorcet, 536 Confederate States (America), 586, 732, 735, 738, 739, 741, 742. 745 Confederation, North Ger- man, 610, 611 Confederation of the Rhine, 555 Confession of Faith (Scotland), 417 Confirmation of the Charters, 301 Confucius, 644, 645 Congo, 700 774 Index Congo Free (or Independent) State, 701, 716 Connaught, 200, 227, 228, 315 Connecticut, 517 Conon, 107 Conrad II. of Germany, 233 Conrad 111. of Germany, 251, 287 Conrad of Sicily, 292 Conradin of Sicily, 292 Constance, Council of, 307, 33 1 . 335. ^38 Constans II., Emperor, 207 Constantine the Great, 172, !73i 175 Constantine IV., 207 Constantine V., 242 Constantine VI., 242 Constantine XI., 360 Constantine (last Greek em- peror), 361 Const' itine, Grand Duke, of Russia, 631, 633 Constantinople, 173, 175, 181, 186, 188, 207, 208, 230, 284, 285, 286, 325, 338, 340, 356, 3S-> 361- See Byzantium Constitutional Act (Canada), 721 Consulares (Rome), 126 Consulate (France), 545 " Continental System," 557, 558, 561, 562 Conventions. See Treaties Conway (Wales), 299 Cook, Captain, 523, 726, 760, 762, 763 Co-operation, 573, 574 Coote, Sir Eyre, 660, 662, 663 Copenhagen, 364, 365 Cora'is (Koraes), 627 Corbulo, 65 Corcyra (Cot/n), 80, 101 Cordova, 211, 236, 237, 238, 240, 283 Corfinium, 150 Corinth, 71, 73,8^,83,104, no, Corn Laws, 591 Corneille, 484 Cornwallis, Lord, 534, 663, 664 Coromandel (India), 659 Corporation and Test Acts, 481, 581 Corsairs, Barbary.348,472, 531 Corsica, 49, 139, 526, 531 Cortereal, 379 Cortes, Hernando, 380, 381- 384, 4°7 Cosimo (Cosmo) de Medici, 296 Cossacks of the Ukraine, 467, 468, 469 Costa Rica, 753 Cotton Famine, The, 586 Council of Ten (Venice), 339, 34o, S3i Couthon, 541, 543 Covenant, First (Scotland), 416 Covenanters (Scotland), 477 Cranmer, 411 Crassus, 62, 63, 64, 153, 154 Cremona, 139 Crete, 71, 73, 153, 242, 258, 285, 488, 529, 530, 630 Crimea, 362, 505 Croatia, 355, 608, 613 Crcesus, 51 Cromer, Lord (Sir Evelyn Baring), 691 Cromwell, Oliver, 460,475, 484, 684 Cromwell, Thomas (Earl of Essex), 410 Crotnwellian Settlement, The (Ireland), 476 Croton (Crotona), 125 Crown Point (U.S.), 520, 523, 534 Crowther, Bishop, 704 Crusades, 248-261 ; First, 251 ; Second, 251 ; Third, 251, 253, 258 ; Fourth, 253, 255, 284; Fifth. 253; Sixth, 254; Seventh, 254 Ctesiphon, 61, 66, 67, 68 Cuba, 483, 525, 746, 749 Cumberland, 222 Cumberland, Duke of (son of George II.), 480, 510 Cumberland, Duke of (son of George III.), 606 Cumbria, 196, 197 Cunobelin, 192 Curius Dentatus, 137 Cushites (Hamites), 17 Cuthbert, St., 201, 202 Cut tack, 666 Cuzco, 385 Cybele, 49, 52, 75 Cyme, 73 Cyprus, 41, 58, 71, 252, 257, 258, 284, 342, 473 Cyrene, 45, 73 Cyrus the Great, 20, 32, 51, 53. 55 Cyrus the "\ ounger, 58 Cythera, 102 Czartoryski, Prince Adam, 633 Czechs, The, 230, 335 Dacca, 660 Dacia, 66, 165, 169, 174, 175 Dahomey, 706, 707, 709 Daimios (Japan), 651, 652 Dalecarlia, 317, 420 Dalhousie, Earl of (Canada), 722 Dalhousie, Lord (India), 671, 672, 673 Dalmatia, 355, 566 Dalriada, 200 Damascus, 24 Damietta, 254 Damnonia, 192, 196 Dampier, 760 Dandolo, Henry (Doge), 253, 285 Danegeld, 223 Danelagh, 220, 223 Danes (or Northmen, Norse- men), 200, 201, 203, 212, 219, 220, 221, 222, 227, 228 Dante, 373 Danton, 538, 540, 541, 543 Danzig, 364, 566 Dardanelles, 640 Darfur, 690, 69s Darien, Isthmus of, 379, 515 Darius I. of Persia, 55 58, 88, 89 Darius II. (Nothus), 58 Darius III. (Codomanus), 58, in, 112 " Dark Ages," 179 Darnley, Lord, 417 Datis, 57, 88, 91, 92 Daun, Marshal, 510-513 David, King of Israel, 12, 30 David I. of Scotland, 275 David II. of Scotland, 303 David, St;, 202 Davis, Jefferson, 738, 744 Davout, Marshal, 554, 556 De Burghs (Burkes), 315 De Ruyter, 487, 488 Deak, Francis, 607 Deccan (India), 657, 658 Decebalus, 165 Decelea, 105, io&- Decemviri (Korae), 128 Decius, 168 Decius Mus, 136 Declaration of Independence (U S.), 534 Declarations of Indulgence. 477 Deioces, 53 Delatores (Rome), 163 Delaware, 516 Delft, 443 Delhi, 656, 657, 658, 666, 675 Del os, 98, 99 Delos, Confederacy of, 98 Delphi, and Oracle of, 76, 78, 97, ii7 Demeter, 75 Democracy, Modern, 572-574 Democrats (U.S.), 737 Demosthenes (Athenian general), 105 Demosth- nes (the orator), 109, no, 114, 121 D'r nghien, Due, 554 Denman, Lord, 578 Denmark, 229, 26, 317, 419, 420, 498, 500, 549, 558, 568, 573. 574, 609, 616, 617 Derby, 579 Dervishes (Sudan), 696 Desiderius, Kiner, 183, 212 Desmond, Earl of, 41 S Desmond faction (Ireland), 418 Desir.oulins, Camille, 538, 543 Despensers, The, 302 Dessalines, J. J., 750, 751 Dewey, George, 748 Dhulip Singh, 671, 672 Diadochi, The, 114 Diaz de Solis, 379 Diaz, President (Mexico), 748 Dictator (Rome), 126 Diderot, 536 Diebitsch, Marshal, 639 Dieppe, 602 Dingaan (Zulu chief), 715 Diniz (Denis), King of Por- tugal, 351, 462 Diniz Diaz, navigator, of Portugal, 354 Diocletian, Emperor, 170-172 Dionysos, Dionvsia, 75 Dionysius of Syracuse, 46 Index 775 Directory, The (France), 543- 545 Disraeli, Benjamin (Lord Beaconsfield), 675 Dmitri, The false, of Russia, 468 Dodds, General, 707, 708 Dodona Oracle, 78 Domesday Book, 266 Dominic, St., 264, 281 Dominican Order, 264, 282 Domitian, Emperor, 165, 193 Donelson, Fort, 740 Dongolo, 695, 6q6 Doria, Andrea, of Genoa, 406, 407 Dorians, Dorian migration, 72, 73, 74, 80 Dort, Synod of, 447 Douai, 486 Douglas, Earl, 314 Douglases, The (Scotland), 413 Dozsa, George, 469 Dragonnades, The (France), 490 Dragut, 258 Drake, 449, 5-5, 726 "Dred-Scottcase" (U.S.), 738 Drogheda, 476 Drogheda, Statute of, 395 Druidism, 192 Drusus (Roman tribune), 149 Dryburgh, 413 Du Guesclin, 321 Dual Control (Egypt), 690 Dublin, 200, 274 Dubois, Cardinal, 525 Dufferin, Lord, 676, 724 Duilius, 138 Dumbarton, 199 Dunbar, 300 Duncan, Admiral, 549 Dundee, 476 Dunedin, 201 Dunkeld, 201 Dunkirk, 484. 497 Dunois, 321, 322 Duns Scotus, 264, 369 Dunstan, 222 Dupleix, 660 Duquesne, 485, 488, 523 Duquesne, Fort, 520, 522 Durban, 715 D'Urban, Sir Benjamin, 710, 711 Durham, Earl of, 723 Dur-Sharrukin, 25 Dur-Yakin, 25 Dutch, The, 682, 683, 684, 686, 702, 7c 9 Dyrrhachium, 155 Ealdorman, 222 East India Company, 647,659, 660, 661, 663, 665, 666, 673, 674, 719 Easto lings, 363 Eastern (Greek) Empire, 242, 678, 687 " Eastern Question," 255, 425, 505, 639, 642 Eboracum (York), 168, 172, 194 Eccelino, 295 Ecclesia (Athens), 85, ic6 Eck, 403 Ecuador, 753 Edessa, 251 Edgar, King, 222' Edgar the yEtheling, 225, 226 "Edict of Restitution, 452, 454, 455 Edinburgh, 2:1, 227, 275, 300, 476 Edmund the Elder, 221 Edmund " Ironside," 223 Edmund, King of East Anglia, 219 Edward the Black Prince, 303 Edward the Confessor, 224- 226 Edward, Prince (son of Henry VI.), 310 Edward, Duke of Kent, 578 Edward the Elder, 221 Edward I. of England, 255, 273, 298-301 Edward II. of England, 273, 299, 301, 302 Edward III. of England, 274, 3°i, 3°3. 304, 3 C 8, 316, 363 Edward IV. of England, 313, 3", 313 Edward V. of England, 313 Edward VI. of England, 411, 413, 416 Edwin of Northumbria, 197, 201 Egbert, 198, 202, 203 Egesta, 46 Eginhard, 213 Egmount, Count, 437, 438, 439 Egypt, Egyptians, 6-16, 33, 45, 58, 113, .158, 471, 544. 546, 687, 691, 694, 695, 696, 699 Eira, 83 Elagabalus, Emperor, 168 Elatn, 27 Elamites, 19 Elba, 49, 553, 564 Electors ol Germany, 330 Electricity, 570 Elerin, Lord, 651, 674 Elgin, Lord (another), 677, 723 Elijah, 40 Eliott, General (Lord Heath- field), 535 Elis, 71, 83 Elizabeth, daughter of James I . 45i Elizabeth of York, 314 Elizabeth, Queen, of England, 312, 412, 416, 425, 429, 436, 439- 441, 442, 444. 447 Elizabeth ot Russia, 505, 512 Ellenborough, Lord, 669 Elmina, 354, 702, 703 El-Obeyd, 695 Ely, 219 Emancipation Act, 586 Emigre's (France), 540, 553, 564 Emmanuel (Manoel) " the Fortunate " of Portugal, 462 Encumbered Estates Act (Ire- land), 591 Encyclopedic, Encyclope- distes, 536 Engilenheim flngelheim), 212 England, 195, i y 6, 321, 437, 439, 449, 45°, 465, 487, 494, 5 433. 442, 445, 446, 448, 483, 486, 487, 492, 494. 5°9. 534, 54i, 549> 553, 556, 562, 566, 574, 615, 685, 702, 762 Holstein, 419, 452, 456, 609, 617 " Holy Alliance," lhe, 733, 734 " Holy Brotherhood," The (Spain), 344 Holy Island, 201. See Lin- disfarne " Holy League," The, 390, 394, 405, 425 " Holy Roman Empire, "Th", 214, 231, 23?, 287, 401, 457, 555 "Home Rule '(Ireland), 587- Honduras, British, 752, 753 Hong-Kong, 648, 684 Honolulu, 764 Honorius, Emperor, 176 Hood, Admiral Sir Samuel, 534 Hood, General (L'.S ). 742 Hooker, General (U.S ), 742 Hooper, Bishop, 411 Horace (the poet), 159 Horatius, Consul (Rome), 129 Horn, Count, 437-439 Horn, General, 455 Hospitallers, Knights, 257 Hottentots, 709 Hovas, The (Madagascar), 717 Howard, Lord, 449 Howe, Admiral Lord, 549 Howe, Elias (U.S.), 747 Hubert de Burgh, 272, 273 Hubert Walter, 270 Hudson Bay, 518 Hudson Bay Company, 498, 725 Hudson Bay Territory, 518 Hudson, Henry, 514, 516 Hugh, 659 Hugo of Vermandois, 250 Huguenots, 422426, 429, 461, 490, 491, 517, 700 " Humanists," The, 371 Humbert I. (Italy), 625 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 563 " Hundred Days," The, 565 Hungary, Hungarians, 231, 253, 326, 327, 329, 355, 469, 470. 489, 5°i> 5<2, 508, 574, 607, 608, 610, 613 Huniades (Hunyadi Janos), 328, 36 ~, 361 Huns, The, 70, 174, 175, 177, 178, 183, 246 Hunter, General (Sudan war), 696 Huntly, Earl of, 417 Hurons, The (North America), 515 Hus, John (Huss), 331, 335, 336 Hutchinson, General, 546 Hydaspes, The, 60, 112 Hyksos, The ("Shepherd Kings " Egypt), 9 Hyperides (orator), 114 Hyrcania, Hyrcanians, 54, 55, 60, 112 Iberians, 124 Ibrahim Pasha, 628, 629, 689, 690 Iceland, 216, 229 Iconium, 250, 356 Iconoclastic contest (Church), 242 " Iconoclasts," The (Nether- lands), 438 Ignatius de Loyola, 429, 431 Illinois (U.S.), 734 Illyrians, Illyria, m, 566 Ilorin (West Africa), 704 Incas (Peru), 385 Indemnity, Act of, 481 Independents (or Congrega- tionalists), 481 India, 112, 113, 355, 483, 654, 655. 674, 675 India Act (1784), 663 Indies, West, 379, 748 752 Indo-European race, 70 Indulgences, 391 Ine (Ina), 197, 198 Innocent II., Pope, 264 Innocent III., Pope, 253, 264, 271, 272, 281, 282, 290 Innocent IV., Pope, 292 Innocent X., Pope, 457 Innocent XL, Pope, 489, 532 Inquisition, The, 259, 264, 281, 344, 348, 428, 463, 620, 658 Interdict, 271 International Working-Men's Association, 572 Inverness, 275, 476 Investiture, 234, 235, 236, 267 " Invincibles, ' The, 588 Iona, 201 Ionian Isles, 286, 544, 630 Ionians, Ancient, 71-74, 98 Iowa (U.S.), 735 Iphicrates, 14 Ipsambul, 11 Irawaddi river, 667, 672 Ireland, 198, 199, 274, 275, 315, 418, 421, 460, 476, 550, 586- 592, 627 Irene, Empress, 242 Irish Church Disestablish- ment Act, 592 Irish Land Question and Acts, 589-591 Irish Parliament, 478, 551 " Ironsides," The, 460 Iroquois, The (North America), 515-517 Isabella of Castile,343-347, 378, 618, 619 Isabella of France (wife of Edward II.), 302, 303 Isabella, daughter of Philip II. of Spain, 445 Isaiah, 31 Islam, 203 Ispahan, 679 Israel, 30 Isthmian Games (or Festival), 76, 77, 116 Italy, 179, 230, 244, 293, 297, 372-375, 3 8 9> 4°5, 4c6, 421, 465, 529, 533, 545, 556, 566, 569, 574, 609, 625, 7. 1 " Italy, Young," 621 Ithobal (Eth-baal), 43 Ithome, 83 Ivan III. of Russia, 325, 326 Ivan IV. of Russia, 468 "Jack Straw," 305 Jackson, Andrew (U.S.), 736 Jackson, General " Stone- wall," 739, 740, 742 Jackson, Port (Australia), 761 Jacob, 29 Jacobins, The (France), 538, 539,. 54i, 543 Jacobites, 478 Jacqueline of Hainault, 319 Jacqncrie, The (France), 321 Jaffa, 252 Jagiello or Jagellon dynasty (Poland), 326, 466 Jamaica, 379, 475, 751, 752 James, Apostle, 36 James I. of England, 412, 446, 459. See James VI. of Scotland James II. of England, 477,494 James 1. of Scotland, 314 James II. of Scotland, 315 James III. of Scotland, 315 James IV. of Scotland, 393, 394 James V. of Scotland, 412 413, 414 James VI. ot Scotland, 417. See James I. of England James Stuart (elder Pre- tender, 494 " Jameson Raid," The, 712 Janissaries, 357, 359, 361, 472, Jansenists, The, 532 Japan, Japanese, 647, 649653, 655 Java, 684 Jeanne d'Albret, 423 Jeanne Dare, 322, 323 Jefferson, Thomas (U.S.), 728 Jeffreys, Judge, 477 Jehan, Shah (India), 657, 659 Jehangir, Sultan (India), 657, 659 Ind Jehoahaz, 14 Jehoiachin, 32 Jehoiakim, 14 Jehoshaphat, 31 Jehu, 23 Jelalabad, 669 eroboam, 12 Jerome of Prague, 335, 336 Jerusalem, 20, 30-33, 35, 38, 188, 250, 251, 254, 257, 258 Jervis, Sir John (Earl St. Vincent), 523, 549 Jesuits, Order of, 429, 430, 431, 450, 463, 467, 532, 611, 620, 621, 658, 716, 756 Jews, 28-38, 344, 462, 581, 692 Jezebel, 31, 43 Joab, 30 Joan of Arc. See Jeanne Dare Joanna of Spain, 392 John, Archduke, of Austria, 546 John, Don, of Austria, 441, 442, 473 John Ball, 305 John the Baptist, 36 John, King, of England, 270, 271, 275, 276 John, King, of France, 261 John of Gaunt, 303, 308 John Hyrcanus, 35 John I. (the Great) of Portu- ? al , 35', 352, 462 John II. of Portugal, 352, 354 John III. of Portugal, 463 John IV. of Portugal, 465 John VI. of Portugal, 620 John II., Emperor, 284 John V., Greek Emperor, 358 John Cantacuzenus, Emperor, 3S8 John Paleologus, Emperor, 358 John VII., Emperor, 359, 360 John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 4^3 John Zimisces, 243 Johnson, Sir William (Can- ada), 520, 525 Johnston, Sir Harry (Africa), 713 Johnston, General Joseph (U.S.), 740, 743 Johnston, General Sidney (U.S.), 74* Joseph I., Emperor, of Ger- many, 495, 496 Joseph II., Emperor, of Ger- many, 502, 513 Joseph I. of Portugal, 528 Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, 560 Josephine, Empress, 561 Joseph (patriarch), 9 Joshua, 20 Josiah, King, 14, 32 Jourdan, Marshal, 543, 545, 554, 56° Judah, 30, 31 Judas Maccabaeus, 34 Judea, 37, 38, 58, 164 Jugurtha, 149 Julian Calendar, 156 Julian, Emperor (•' the Apos- tate"), 173, 194, 677 Julius Agricola, 192 ex Julius Caesar, 161. See Caesar Julius II., Pope, 390, 391, 393 Jung Bahadoor, 673 Junot, Marshal, 558 Jus intcrccssionis (Rome), 128 Justiciar, The, 270 Justinian, Emperor, 181, 184- 187 Jutes, Jutland, 195 Juvenal, 159 K. Kabul, 668, 669, 675 Kabyles (Algeria.), 673 Kadesh, n Kaffirs (Caffres), 709-711, 716 Kaffraria, British, 711 Kairwan/207 Kalah (Nimrud), 22, 23 Kamarina, 46 Kanaris, Constantine, 628 Kandahar, 669, 675, 679 Kandy (Ceylon), 682, 683 Kansas (U.S.), 737 Karkhemish, 11, 14, 23, 24 Karl the Fat, 217 Karl the Great (Charlemagne), 183, 202, 211-214, 218, 245, 318, 332, 364 Karl Martel, 210. See Charles Martel Karnak, n Kars, 639, 640 Kashmir, 657 Katane, 47 Katharine of Aragon, 393, 410 Katharine of France (wife of Henry V.), 309, 314 Kearney, General (U.S.), 736 Keith, Marshal, 512 Kellermann, Marshal, 554 Kelso, 413 Kelts, 124. See Celts Kent, 195, 197, 203 Kentigern (St. Mungo), 201 Kentucky, 728, 739 Kerim Khan, 679 Khafra (Cephrenes), 8 Khartum, 695, 696 Kherson, 505 Khita, The (Hittitesl, 11 Khiva, 3ss, 356, 637, 638 Khokand, 637, 638 Khoord-Kabul Pass, 669 Khorassan, 678 Khorsabad, 25 Khufu (Cheops), 8 Khyber Pass, 669 Kieff (Kiev), 324 Kildare, Earls of (Ireland), „ 3i6, 395, 39 6 Kilkenny, 476 Kilkenn}-, Statute of, 316, 395 Kimon, 99 Kingston (Canada), 522, 723 Kinsale, 419 Kitchener, Sir Herbert, 696, 6 ?7 „ Kleber, General, 546 Klondike, 725 Knights Hospitallers. See Knights of St. John Knights of St. John, 257, 258, 259, 35°, 529, 545, 553, 69 1 779 Knights of Malta. See Knights of St. John Knights Templars, 259, 283, 350 Knox, John, 372, 415-417 Koffee Kalkalli, 702 Koln (Cologne), 233, 331 Kolokotronis, Theodoros, 628 Koran, The, 204 Kordofan, 695 Kosciusko, 506, 597 Kossuth, Louis, 6 7 Kriiger, Paul, 712 Kublai Khan, 646 Kumassi, 702, 703 Kurush (Kei Khosroo), Cyrus of Persia, 54 Kush, 27 Kyaxares, 27, 50, 53 Kypselus, 80 La Hire, 321, 322 La Bourdonnais, 660, 718 Labienus, 155, 156 Labuan, 684 Lacedaemonians {Periaci), 81 Lachine (Canada), 516 Laconia, 71, 73 Lafayette, 537, 53P, 54c, 594 Lagos, 701, 703 Lahore, 656, 671, 672 Lainez, 430 Lake, General (Lord), 552, 665, 666 Lamachus, 104 Lamoriciere, General, 693 Lancastrian kings, 308 Lander, Richard and John, 699 Lanfranc, 226, 266 Langahbalele, 715 Langland, 306 Langobardi (Langobards), 174, 213. See Lombards Langside, 417 Langton, Archbishop Ste- phen, 271 Languedoc, 280, 281 Lannes, Marshal, 554 Lansdowne, Lord, 077 Lao-Tsze, 645 Larsam (Larsa), 18, 19 Lascaris, Constantine and John, 370 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 572 Lateran Council, 236 Latimer, Bishop, 411 » Latin Empire (Constanti- nople), 285, 286, 287 Latin League, 125, 135 Latins, 125 Laud, Archbishop, 459, 460 Lauderdale, Duke of, 476 Laudohn (or Loudon), Mar- shal, 511, 512 Laurium, 86, 95 Lawrence, Sir Henry, 672 Lawrence, Sir John (Lord), 672-674 Laws of Twelve Tables (Rome), 128 Le Mans, 602 Lebanon, 39 ;8o Index Ledyard (African traveller), 699 Lee, General Robert, 740-744 Legate (Rome), 158 Leghorn, 625 Leinster, 200, 227 Leipzig, 369 Leith, 416 Lenaea, The (Attica), 75 Leo L, Greek Emperor, 183 Leo III., Greek Emperor, 183 Leo the Armenian, 242 Leo the Isaurian, 207, 208, 242, 247 Leo the Great, Pope, 182 Leo III., Pope, 213 Leo VIII. , Pope, 232 Leo X., Pope, 371,391, 404, 411 Leo XII., Pope, 626 Leo XIII., Pope, 577, 6n, 627 Leofwin, Earl, 224 Leon, Kingdom of, 237, 240, 241, 283 Leonardo da Vinci, 372 Leonidas, 96 Leopold of Austria, 333 Leopold II. of Austria, 539 Leopold I. of Belgium, 616 Leopold II. of Belgium, 616 Leopold I. of Germany, 487, 494, 5 01 Leopold II. of Germany, 533 l.epidus 157 Lerma, Duke of, 445, 461, 465 Lesbos, 73, 102, 105 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 605, 690 Levis, De (Canada), 520, 521, 524 Lex Julia (Rome), 150 Leyden, 446 ' Libel Act, 550 Liberia, 701 Libcrum veto (Poland), 467 Licensing Act, 478 Licinian laws (Rome), 129 Liciors (Rome), 126 Ligurians, 124 Lille, 486, 497 Lilybaion (Lilybasum), 47, 48 Lima, 385, 754 Limerick, 200, 227 Linacre, Thomas, 371 Lincoln, President Abraham, 586, 731, 739 et seq. Lindisfarne, 201, 202. See Holy Island Lindum (Lincoln), 194 "Lion's mouth, "The (Venice), 340 Lisbon, 350, 351, 462, 463, 528, 529 Lithuania, 467 Liudprand, 183 Livingstone, Dr., 700 Livius, Consul (Rome), 142 Livonia, 467, 500 Llewellyns of Wales, 276, 299 Lo Bengula, 713 Local Government Act (1858), 583 Local Government Act (1888), 583. Locris, 116 Lokoja (West Africa), 704 Lollards, The, 306, 308 Lombard League, 292, 295 Lombardo - Venetian king- dom, 566 Lombards, Lombardy, 181,183, 187, 212, 231, 235, 289, 295, 390, 404, 544, 621, 623 Lombardus (Peter Lombard), , 36 9, London, 193, 219, 220, 225, 266, 305, 311, 363 Long Parliament, 460 Longobardi (Langobardi), 161, 247. See Lombards Lopez, President (Paraguay), 756 " Lords of Snowdon," 276 " Lords of the Congregation " (Scotland), 416 Lorraine, 290, 324, 526 Lothar, 214 Lotharingia (Lorraine), 231 Lothian, 200, 229, 227 Louis, Port (Mauritius), 718, 719 Louis VI. of France, 278, 279 Louis VII. of France, 251, 279 Louis IX. of France, 254, 282, 687 Louis Xl. of France, 324, 334 Louis XII. of France, 390, 391 Louis XIII. of France, 461 Louis XIV. of France, 478, 482-489, 49 I "499i 5 2 5» 5 2 9, 6 5 6 Louis XV. of France, 525, 529 Louis XVI. of France, 526, 537, 539, 540, 541 Louis XVII. of France, 564 Louis XVIII. of France, 564, 565. 593 Louis Philippe of France, 594- 59 6 Louis II. of Hungarv, 470 Louis the Great of Hungary, 327 Louisa, Oueen, of Prussia, 556. Louisiana, 516, 525, 546, 729, t 739 k Louisbourg, 519, 520, 522 Louvain, 442 Louvois, 485, 492, 493 Louvre Gallery (Paris), 553 " Loyalists," The (Canada), 722 Loyola, Ignatius, 430 Lilbeck, 361, 365, 366, 562, 566, 610, 611 Luoania, 124, 136, 140, 150 Lucca, 294, 296, 566 Lucerne, 334 Lucian, 167 Lucknow, 674 Lucretius, 120 Lucullus, 150, 151 Lucumos (htruria), 124 " Luddites," The, 577 Ludwig IV. of Germany, 330 Ludwig the Pious. 214 Luis I. of Portugal, 620 Lutatius Catulus, 139 Luther, Martin, Lutheians, 399, 4°i-4°5> 4". 428, 432, 438, 457 Luxembourg, Marshal, Duke of, 487, 488, 493 " Luxemburg question," The, 616 Lycia, 164 Lycurgus, 81-83, "5, "6 Lydia, Lvdians, 49-51, 73 Lynedoch, Lord, 560. See Graham, Sir Thomas Lysander, 82, 106, 107 Lytton, Lord (Viceroy of India) 675 M. MacAlpin, Kenneth (Scot- land), 201, 227 MacArthur, Captain (Austra- lia), 761 Macartney, Lord, 647 Macaulay, Lord, 668 Maccabees, The, 34 MacCarthy, Sir Cnarles, 702 Macdonald, Marshal, 564 Macedonia, 44, 71, 109, 114, 116, 286, 358, 630 Machiavelli, 406 Mack, General, 555 Mackenzie, Alexander (ex- plorer), 518 Mackenzie, William Lyon (Canada), 722, 723 Mackintosh, Sir James, 584 MacMahon, Marshal, 600, 604, 605, 693 Macrinus, Emperor (Rome), 68 Macro, Emperor (Rome), 164 Madagascar, 701, 717, 718 Madeiras, The, 353, 719 Madison, President (U.S.), 729 Madras, 659, 665, 666, 673 Madrid, 559, 56a Maecenas, 159 Maestricht, 441 Magdala, 698, 699 Magalhaes (Magellan), 319, 463, 685 Magi, The, 53, 63 Magna Graecxa (Italy), 124 Magnus of Norway, 278 Magyars, The, 243 Mahdi, The (Soudan), 695,696 Mahmud, Emir (Soudan war), 697 Mahmud of Ghazni, 656 Mahmud of India, Sultan, 679 Mahrattas, The (India), 657, 658, 660, 662-665, 667, 669 Maine (France), 218, 226, 267, 268, 270, 324 Maine (U. S.), 734 A/a/ne (battleship), 748 Maintenon, Mine, de, 489, 490, 495 Mainz (Mayence), 183, 233, 290, 330, 454, 492. 542 Maitland of Lethington (Scot- land), 372 Majestas, Law of (Rome), 163 Majorca, 239 Malabars, The (or Tamils) (Indial, 682 Malacca, 683 Malachy, King (Ireland), 227, Malaga, 345 Malay pirates, 683 Index 781 Malay States, 684 Malcolm of Scotland, 221 Malcolm II. of Scotland, 227 Malcolm III. of Scotland (Can more), 227 Malcolm, Sir John (India), 667 Malta, 41, 258, 545, 553. 566 Mamluk rulers ot Egypt, 688 Mamluks, The, 471, 545, 687, 688, 689 Man, Isle of, 229 Manasseh, King, 31 Manetho, 8 Manfred of Sicily, 292 Manilla 685 Manin, Daniel, 622 Manitoba (Red River Settle- ment), 724, 725, 726 Mannheim, 492 Manning, Cardinal, 593 Mansfeld, Count Ernest of, 45i, 452- Mansfield, Lord, Chief Jus- tice, 550, 567 Mantua, 544, 623 Manuel Chrysoloras, 370 Manuel the Fortunate of Portugal, 386 Manuel Paleologus, Emperor, 359 Manuel Pardo of Peru, 754 Marat, 538, 541 Marathus, 39 Marcellus, 140, 141 Marco Polo, 646, 651, 717 Marcomanni, The, 160, 167, 169 Marcos Bozzaris, 628 Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, 120, 166, 167 Mardonius 88, 97 Marduk (Merodach), 22 Margaret of Anjou, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313 Margaret of Denmark, 277, 278 Margaret, sister of Edgar jEtheling, wife of Malcolm Canmore, 227, 267 Margaret of Norway, 299, 315 Margaret, Duchess of Parma, 436, 437, 439 Margiana, 64 Margraves, 213 Maria da Gloria of Portugal, 620 Maria Louisa, Empress, 561 Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 502, 508, 5-9 Marie Antoinette, 526, 537, S42 Marie Christina of Spain, 618 Mariner's compass, 373 Maritz (South Africa), 715 Marius, 149, 15^ 151 Marlborough, Duke of, 494, 495, 496, 497 Marmont Marshal, 550, 563 Marnix, Philip van, 438 Marriage Act, ";8i Marsh, Adam (deMarisco),273 Marsi, The, 135 Marsin, Marshal, 495, 497 Martaban, 672 Martial, 189 Martin V., Pope, 307, 331, 338 Marx, Karl, 572 Mary of Burgundy, 320, 332, 392. 433 Mary I. of England, 411, 416, 418 Mary II. of England, 477 Mary of Guise, 413, 414, 416 Mary Stuart, 413, 416, 417, 421, 43° Maryland (U.S.), 516, 517 'Mas Aniello (Naples), 531 Mashonaland, 712, 713 Masinissa, Kinsr, 143 Massachusetts (U.S.), 516, 517, 5i8, 533 Massena, Marshal, 545, 546, 554, 559 Massilia (Marseilles), 155 Massillon, 484 Massowah, 698, 699 Matabele, The, 709 Matabeleland, 712, 713 Mathias, Archduke of Aus- tria, 442 Mathias, Emperor, 450 Matilda (Maud), wife of Henry I., 267 Matilda (Maud), Empress, 268 Matteo Visconti, 295 Matthias Corvinus of Hun- gary, 328, 329, 331, 361, 470 Maurice, Prince, of Nassau, 445-448 Maurice, Duke, ofSaxony, 404 Mauritania (Morocco), 164, 209, 216, 687 Mauritius, 718, 719 Maurocordatos (Mavrocor- dato) ; Alexander, 628 Maximilian I., Emperor, 320, 390, 392 Maximilian II., Emperor, 450 Maximilian of Mexico, 748 Mayenne, Due de (France), 426 Mayo, Lord (Viceroy of India), 674 "Mayors ot the Palace" (France), 191 Mazarin, Cardinal, 4S3, 484 Mazeppa, 499 Mazzini (Italy), 621 McClellan, General (U.S.\ 742 McKinley, President (U.S.), 747 Meade, General (U.S.), 742 Meath, 200, 228, 315 Mecca, 204, 205, 68i, 6S9 Mechlin, 438, 444 Mecklenburgs, 290, 610 Media, Medians (Medes), 26, 27, 53, 55, 60, 65, 6g Medici, The (Italy), 296, 390, 406, 407 Medici, Catharine de', 421, 423- 425 Medici, Giovanni de', 391 Medici, Giuliano de', 297 Medici, Lorenzo de', 297, 370 Medici, Marie de', 428, 461 Medina, 205, 681, 689 Mediolanum (Milan), 171 Meerut, 673 Megabyzus, 57 Megara, 80, 84, 117 Megaris, 73 Megalopolis, 108 Megiddo, 14, 32 Mehemet All of Egvpt, 639, 681 Meistcrsinger, The (Germany), ,374 Melanchthon, 400, 403, 410 Melas, General, 546 Melbourne (Australia), 761 Melinde, 716 Melkarth, 40 Melos, 103 Melrose, 413 Melville, Andrew, 372, 417 Memnon of Rhodes, 111 Memphis, 8, 13-15 Mendoza (Mexico), 384 Mendoza, Cardinal, 343, 345 Menelek II. of Abyssinia, 699 Menephthah, 11 Menkaura (Mycerinus), 8 Mercia, 195, 197, 2:3, 223, 223, 224 Meri, Lake (Mceris), 9 Mermnadae, The, 49, 51 Merodach, 25 Merodach-baladan II., 20 Merodach-baladan III., 25 Merowingian kings, 190, 191 Merv, 355, 638 Mesopotamia, 64, 66, 67, 68 Messalina, 164 Messana, 48 Messenia, 71, 73, 83, 84, 108 Metammeh, 6. 96, 697 Methodism (Wesleyan move- ment), 481 Meteeci (Sparta), 86, 87 Metternich, Prince, 6c6, 607, 631 Metz, 4?4, 4C8, 457, 486, 601, 603 Mexicans (Aztecs), 380 Mexico (city), 381, 382, 383, 736, 748 Mexico (country), 380, 735, 736, 749 Miaulis, Andreas, 628, 629 Michel-Angelo, 406 Michigan, 735 Middleburg, 440 Middleton, Major-General, 725 Miguel, Dom, 620 Mikados (Japan), 650, 651, 652, 653 Milan, 172, 176, 289, 294, 297, 389, 533, 544, 546, 625 Milan, Decrees of, 557 Milan, Duchy of, 296 Milan I. of Servia, 642 Milanese terri'ory, 404, 566 Miletus, 51, 57, 73, 105 Milford Haven, 314 Milner, Sir Alfred, 714 Miltiades, 90-94 Minnesota, 737 Minorca, 498, 534, 535 Minorites (Lesser Brethren), 264 Minto, Earl of (India), 666 Mirabeau, 537, 539 Miramon, General, 747 Misenum, 159 Mississippi (river), 515, 517 74i Mississippi (state), 734, 739 Missolonghi, 628, 629 Missouri Compromise, The (U.S.), 735, 738 Missouri (river), 515 Missouri (state), 734, 739 782 Index Mithra, 53 Mithradates I., 60, 61 Mithradates II., 61, 62 Mithradates of Pontus, 62, 150, M'na (Menes), 8 Mobile, 742 Mocenigo (Doge), 341 Modena, 294, 295, 533, 544, 566, 621, 623 Modena, Mary d'Este of, 477 Moffat, Robert (missionary), 700 Mohammed Aga of Persia, 679 Mohammed (Mehemet), 203, 204, 206, 688 Mohammed (Mehemet) Ali (Egypt), 689, 690 Mohammed (son of Bajazet), 359 Mohammed II. of Turkej', 360, 362 Mohammed III. ot Turkey, 473 Mohammedanism, 203 Moldavia, 467, 639, 640 Moliere, 484 Moloch, 40 Moltke, Marshal von, 599, 600, 602, 603, 609, 689 Monasticism, 262-265 Monck, Duke of Albemarle, 475, 477 Monck, Lord (Canada), 724 Mongol khanates in Russia, 325. 363 Mongolian race, 1, 2 Mongols, 258, 325, 326, 354, 355. 35<5. 358, 646, 679 Monmouth, Duke of, 477 Monro, Sir Hector (lndial, 662 Monroe Doctrine, The (U.S.), 733, 734 Monroe, James (U.S.), 733 Mons, 493, 496 Montcalm, Marquis de, 520, _52i, 52^, 524 Montecuculli, 487, 488 Montenegro. 569, 641 Montesquieu, 536 Montevideo, 755, 756 Montezuma of Mexico, 381, 382, 383 Montmorenci, Anne de (Con- stable of France), 422 Montmorency Falls (Canada 1 , 524 Montpellier, 368, 491 Montreal, 516, 517, 524, 723, 725 Montrose, Marquis of, 460 Mooltan, 671 Moore, Sir John, 559 Moors, 207, 241, 246, 692 Moors in Spain, 209-211, 236- 241, 283, 342, 314, 347, 348, 465 Moray, T^arl of, 417 More, Sir Thomas, 37 r, 394, 410 Morea (Peloponnesus), 70, 530, 531, 6i8, 629, 689 Moreau, General, 543, 554 Moriscos (Spain), 348, 462 Morocco, 464, 693, 694. See Mauritania Morosine, Francesco, of Venice, 529, 530 Mortimer, Roger, 302, 303 Morton, John, Archbishop, 371, 393 Moscow, 468. 504, 562, 325 " Mountain " party, The (France), 539, 541, 543 Mozambique, 701, 717 Mughal (Mogul) Empire (India), 657, 658, 660 Mughal emperors, 658 Mummius, Consul (Rome 1 , 117 Mungo Park, 699 Municipal Corporation Act, 583 Municipal reform, 582 Munster 200, 227, 228, 315 Murad 1. (or Amuralh) of Turkey, 358 359 Murad II. ot Turkey, 359, 361, 362 Murad III. of Turkey, 473 Murad IV. of Turkey, 474 Murat, Marshal, King of Naples, 565 Murcia, 283 Muscat, 681 Mutina, 139 Mysore, 662, 663, 665 Mytilene, 102 N. Nabonassar, 20 Nabopolassar, 20, 27, 28 Nabu-naid (Nabonidus), 23 Nadir Shah (Peisia), 658, 679, 681 Nagasaki, 651 Namur, 493 Nanak Shah, 669 Nanking, 647, 648, 649 Nantes, Edict of, 426, 461, 709 Nantes, Revocation of Edict of, 49 3 Napier, Sir Charles, 669 Napier, Sir Robert (Lord), of Magdala, 698, 699 Naples, 368, 389, 498, 533, 544, 556, 567, 624, 625 Napoleon Bonaparte, 542-544, 553-557) 55 8 -507, 596, 664 Napoleon, Louis (Napoleon III.), Emperorofthe French, 596, 597, 598, 599, 6oo, 616, 622, 623, 748 Narses, 181 Narvaez, Marshal (Spain), 619 Nasr-ed-din, Shah 01 Persia, 68 d Nassau (Bahamas), 752 Nassau, Adolphus o*', 439 Nassau, Frederick Henry of, 448 Nassau, Louis of, 438, 439, 440 Natal, 714, 715 National Assembly (France), 537, 539 NationalConvention (France), 54 1 , 543 National Land League (Ire- land), 591 Navarre, 211, 237, 240, 282, 343, Navigation Acts, 475, 517, 533, 584 Navigators' Islands, 763 Naxos, 88 Neapolis (Naples), 124, 339, 405, 406, 408 Nearchus, 112 Nebraska (U.S.), 736, 744 Nebuchadnezzar, 13, 20, 32, 43, 5^ Necho (Neco or Neku), 13, 20, 32,56 Necker, 527, 536, 537 Negropont, 342 Nehemiah, 33 Nelson, Dr. Wolfred(Canada), 722 Nelson, Lord, 545, 549, 554, 555, 752 Nemean games, 77 Nergal, 22 Nero, Emperor, 38,65,164,165 Nerva, Emperor, 165 Netherlands, 317, 319, 332, 365, 408, 433, 435-44°, 565, 569 Netherlands, Austrian, 498, 544 Netherlands, Kingdom of, 566 Netherlands, Spanish, 444 Netherlands, United, 457 Neustria, 191, 214, 217 Neutrality, Armed, or North- ern Convention, 549 Nevada (U.S.), 744 New Amsterdam, 516 New Brunswick, 524, 724 New Caledonia, 762 New England, 518 New Granada, 753 New Guinea, 762 New Hampshire (U.S.), 517 New Hebiides, 763 New Jersey (U.S.), 516 New Mexico, 736 "New monarchy," The (in England), 312 New Orleans, 525, 740 New South Wales, 761, 762 New Sweden, 516 New York, 516, 517 New Zealand, 764 Newcomen (engineer), 569 Newfoundland, 379, 498, 514, 515, 518, 525, 726 Newman, Cardinal, 593 Ney, Marshal, 554, 559, 565 Niagara, Fort, 520, 523 Nicaea, 250, 286, 356, 359 Nicaea, Council of, 173 Nicaragua, 753 Nice, 407, 466, 493, 544, 623 Nicephorus Phocas, Em- peror, 243 Nicholas I. of Russia, 631, 632, 633, 634, 637, 640 Nicholas II. ot Russia, 636 Nicholas II., Pope, 234 Nicholas V., Pope, 338, 339, 360, 367, 372 Nicias (Athens), 103-105 Nicomedes, 150 Nicomedia, 171 Niebelttngenlied, The (Ger- many), 293 Niger Coast Protectorate, 705 Niger (river), 699, 700 Index 733 Niger territory, 701, 704, 705 Nihilism, 635 Nile, 6, 7 Nile, Upper, 700 Nineb (Nineveh), 22, 23, 26, 66 Ningpo (China), 648 Ninian, St., 201 "Ninth Thermidor," The (France), 543 Nipal (Nepaul), 667 Nisibis, 6f, 68 Nizam of the Deccan (Hyder- abad), 658, 660, 664, 665, 675 Nizza(Nice). See Nice Nonconformists, 476, 481, 581, 582 Nore, The, 549 Noricum, 160 Norman Conquest, 224, 266 Normandy, Duchy of, 218, 268 Normans, 218, 253, 283 North Briton, The (news- paper), 550 Northampton, Assize of, 269 Northbrook, Lord (Viceroy of India), 674 "Northerners," The (U.S)., 739 Northmen in Ireland, 200, 227. See Danes. Northmen (Norsemen, Nor- mans), 215, 216, 217, 229 Northumbria, 195, 197, 203, 219, 220, 224 North-West Fur Company (America), 518, 725 North- West Territories (Can- ada). 724, 725 Nortb- Western Provinces (In- dia), 668 Norway, 229, 276, 278, 419, 420, 568, 618 Norwich, 266 Nott, General, 669 Nottingham, 579 Nova Carthago (Spain), 141 Nova Scotia (or Acadie), 498, 517, 518, 524, 724 Novgorod, 229, 324, 325, 363 Novi Homines (Rome), 129 Nubia, 689, 694 Numidia, 148 Nunez de Balboa, 379 NunoTristao, 354 Nupe, Sultan of (West Africa), 704, 705 Nilrnberg (Nuremberg), 290 Niirnberg, " Religious Peace " of, 403 Nyassaland, 712 O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, 396 Occam (Ockham, William), 264 O'Connell, Daniel, 586, 5^7 Octaviinus, 157, 158. See Augustus Caesar Odaenathus, 169 O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel, 460 O'Donnell, Marshal (Spain), ^694 O'Donnells, The, 315 Odovaker (Odoacer), 178, 180 Odysseus, 71 Offa, King of Mercia, 197, 202 Offa's Dyke, 197 Ohio (Wabash) river, 516 Oil Rivers (West Africa), 701, 7°S Olat II. of Norway, 230, 277 Olaf Tryggveson of Norway, 230 Oldcastle, Sir John (Lord Cobham), 308 Oldenburg, 610 Olivarez (Spain), 462, 465 OlmiHzconference(Germanv), 6.8 Olympia, 76 Olympiads, 76 Olympian Festival (Olympic Games), 76, 77 Olynthiac orations, The (Demosthenes), icg Ol} nthus, 1C9 Oman (Arabia), 681 Omar, Caliph, 206, 207, 678, 687 O'Neill, Hugh (Earl ol Ty- rone), 419 O'Neills, The (Earls cf Tyrone), 227, 315, 396 Ontario (lake), 722, 723 O^hir, 42 Oporto, 528, SS9 Optimalcs, The (Rome), 129 Oracle of Delphi, 51 Orange Free State (Africa), 7°i. 715 Orders m Council (British), _ 557. 729 Orders of Knighthood, 257 Ordovices, The, 192 Oregon (U.S.), 737 Oribe, General (Buenos Ayres), 755 Orissa (India), 661, 674 Orkhan, Sultan, 357 Orkneys, 216, 223, 229, 315, 413 Orleans, 177, 323, 602 Ormond, Duke of, 476 Ormond, Earl of, 396 Ormonde, The (Ireland), 315, 3*6, 317 Orodcs I., 62, 64, 65 Orseolo II. (LiOj.e), 248 Orsini family, The, 295 Orsini, Felice, 622 Oscar II of Sweden, 577, 618 Osman Digna (Soudan;, 696 Ostia, 156 Ostraci-m (Athens), 87 Ostrogoths, The, 174, 175, 180, 181, 184 Oswald of Northumbria, 197, 201 Oswego, Fort (North America), 520 Oswin of Northumbria, 197 Othman, Sultan, 207, 356, 358 Otho, Emperor (Rome), 165 Otho of Greece, 630 Ottawa (Canada), 723 Otto I. of Germany, 231 Otto II. of Germany, 246 Olto IV. of Germany, 271, 290 Ottocar, King of Bohemia, 33 > Ottoman Turks, 356, 357, 358, 529, 691 Oudh (India), 665, 673 Oudney (African traveller), 699 Outram, Sir James (India), 669 Ovid (poet), 159 Oxenstierna (Swedish states- man), 4ss Oxford, 368, 481 ' ' Oxford Movement," The, 593 Oxford, University of, 371 Pacific Railway (U.S.), 745 Pacorus of Parthia, 65 Pactolus (river), 49 Padua, 247, 295, 341, 368 Pakenham, General, 729 Palatinate, Rhenish or Lower, 45ii 457, 49 2 Palatine Hill (Rome), 165 Pale, The (IrtLnd), 315, 317, 394-396 Paleologus, Michael (Greek emperor), 287 Palestine, 67 Palmerston, Lord, 731 Palmyra, 163 Palos (Spain), 379 Panatlicnaca, The (Athens), 76 Pannonia, 160, 173, 181 Panormus 'Palermo), 45 Paoli (Corsica), 526, 532 Papal State?, 532, 547, 562, 624 Paphlagonia, 50 Papineau (Canada), 722 Paraguav, 755. 756 Paramaribo, 759 Paris, 218, 368, 538, 540, 603, 604 Parish Councils Act (1894), 583 Parker, Admiral Sir Hyde, $49 Parma (city and state), 533, 544, 566, 621, 623 Parliament, Full power of British, 480 Parma, Prince (Duke) of 426, 442, 445, 449, 473. See Parn- ese, Alexander Parnassus, Mount, 76 Parnell, Chai les Stewart, 588, 589, 59i Paropamisus (Hindu Kusli) mountains, 52 Parsis, The, 52, 679 Parthenon, Ihe (Athens), 76, 530 Parthenopaean Republic, The (Naples), 345 Parthia, Panhians, 55, 58-69, 112 " Partition of Africa," 701 Parysatis, Queen (Persia), 58 Paschal II., Pope, 235, 257 Paskevitch, Marshal, 633, 639 Passau, Convention of, 404 Patna, 660 Patricians, The (Rome), 125 Patrick, St., 199 Paul, St., 37, 160 Paul III., Pope, 403, 407, 414, 428 Paul IV., Pope, 458 Paul V., Pope, 465 Paul I. of Russia, 545, 549 Paulinus, Bishop, 202 7 8 4 Index Paulus Diaconus, 213 Pausanias (antiquary), 93 Pausanias (Spartan general), 97 Pavia, 295, 406 Pazzi plot, The (Florence), 297 "Peace, Religious," The (Germany), 404. See Augs- burg Peaces. See Treaties Pedro II. of Brazil, 620, 75s Pedro II. of Portugal, 528 Pedro V. of Portugal, 620 Pedro, Dom, I. of Portugal, 758 Peel, Sir Robert, 584, 730 " Peep-o'-Day Boys " (Ire- land), 551 Pegu, 667, 672 Peisistratus, 86 Pekin, 646, 649 Pelasgians (Pelasgi), 72 Pelaya (Pelagius), 209 Pelissier, Marshal, 693 Pelopidas, 107, 108 Peloponnesus, Peloponne- sians, 71, 73, 106, 108, no, in Penang (Prince of Wales Island), 683 Penda, King of Merc'a, 197 Pennsylvania, 517, 742 Pentelicus, Mount, 92 Pepin (Pipin), 183 Pepin of Heristal, 191, 210, 211 Pepin the Small, 191 Peraea, 36 Percies of Northumberland, 308 Percy, Earl of Northumber- land, 314 Percy " Hotspur," 314 Perestrello (navigator), 353 Pergamus, 113, 185 Periander, 380 Pericles, 94, 99, 102, 118 Pericles, Age of, 99, 100 Periaci, The (Sparta), 81 Peripatetic School, 120 Persepolis, 56, in, 112 Perseus of Macedonia, 116 Persia, Ancient, Persians, 15, 53-58, 60, 169 Persia, Mediaeval, 186, 187, 207, 677, 678 Pers a, Modern, 504, 679, 681 Persian Gulf, 112 Perth, 201 Peru, Peruvians, 385, 386, 753, 754 Perugia, 296 Peschiera, 623 Peshawur, 656 Pes/iwas, The (India), 658, 662, 664, 665 Pesth, 469, 613 Peter the Great of Russia, 499, 5co, 502, 504 Peter III. of Russia, 513 "Peter the Hermit" of Amiens, 249 Peter des Roches, 273 Peterborough, 210 " Peterloo," Field of (Man Chester), 578 Peter's, St. (Rome), 391 " Peter's Pence." 224 Petersburg (U.S.), 743 Petition of Right, 459 Petrarch, 368, 370, 373 Pharisees, Tne, 35 Pharos (Alexandria), 113 Phidias, 76, 94, 117 Philadelphia (Asia Minor), 358 Philadelphia (U.S.), 533, 728, 745 Philip, Captain (Australia), 761 Philip of Anjou, 494. See Philip V. of Spa'n Philip of Burgundy, 319, 320, 392 Philip Augustus of France, 252, 27^, 271, 279, 280, 318 Philip IV. of France (le Bel), 259, 3°i. 3191 320, 321, 337 Philip VI. of France, 321 Philip, Count of Hesse (Elec- tor of Saxony), 402-404 Philip II. of Macedon, 58, 1 8, 109, no Philip V. of Macedon, 116 Philip of the Netherlands, 433 Philip, Duke of Orleans (Re- gent) 525 Philip II. of Spain, 408, 421, 423, 425, 426, 429, 433-437, 438-445. 449i 462. 465 Philip II 1 ol Spain, 445, 461, 465 Philip IV. of Spain, 462, 465 PhilipV. of Spain, 494, 497, 527 Philippa of Hainault, 303 " Philippe Egalite " Duke of Orleans, 595 Philippi, 160 Philippics, The, of Cicero, 157; of Demosthenes, 109 Philippine Isles, 380, 483, 6-5, 762 Philistines, The, 29 Philopoemen of Megalopolis, 115, 116 Phocis, 71, 76, 1C9 Phocaea, 73 Phoenicia, Phoenicians, The, 17, 38-44. 58. 64 Phormio (Athenian general), 102 Photius, Patriarch ot Con- stantinople, 243 Phraates II. of Parthia, 61, 65 Phraortes (Fravartish) of Media, 27 Phrygia, 51, 52 Piacenza, 294 Picenum, 124 Picton, General, 752 Picts, The, 193, 200, 201 Piedmont, 466, 531, 533, 553, 621 Pierce, President, 737 Piers Gaveston, 302 Pietermaritzburg, 715 " Pilgrimage of Grace," The, 410 Pindar, 77, in, 121 Pindarees, The (India), 666, 667 Pinzon (or Pincon) (navi- gato ), 379, 757 Piraeus, The (Athens), 95, 98, 99, 102, 106 Pisa, Pisans, 245, 246, 251, 253, 256, 294, 296, 375, 388, 389 Pitt, William, the Elder (Fail of Chatham), 480, 512, 521- 523 Pitt, William, the Younger, 548, 55i. 552, 554, 555 Pittsburg (U.S.), 523 Pius IV., Pope, 429 Pius V., Pope, 407, 429 Pius VI., Pope, 514, 533, 545 Pius VII., Pope, 546, 554, 564, 625 Pius VIII , Pope, 626 Pius IX., Pope, 611, 621, 622, 626 Pizarro, 385 Placentia, 132, 139 Plantagenet kings, 268, 274 Plataea, Plataeans, 88, 91, 92, 94, 96. 97, !02, 117 Plato, 118, 119 Pla itus, 159 Plebeians (Rome), 125 Podesta, The (Italy), 295 Poggio Bracciolini, 370 Poitou, 271, 304 Poland, 326, 466, 467, 499, 5"5, 506, 566, 633, 634 Polemarchus (Archon) (Athens) 84 Polignac, Prince de, 594 Polk, President (U.S ), 736 Pollock, Genera) (India), 669 Polotsk, 325 Polycarp, 177 Polygnotus, 94 Polynesia, 762 Pomare, Queen (Tahiti), 763 Pombal, Marquis de, 528, 529, 758 Pomerania, 290, 326, 363, 456, 457, 566 Pompadour, Marquise de, 525, 526 Pompeii, 165 Pompey (Pompeius Magnus), 35, 62, 151-155 Pomptine (Pontine) Marshes (Italy), 156 Ponce de Leon, 379 Pondicherry, 659, 66c, 662 Poniatowski, Pnnce Joseph, 5"6, 507 Ponteiract (Pomfret) Castle, 305, 410 Pontiac (Indian chief), 720 Pontifcx Maximus, The (Rome), 130 Pontius Pilate, 37 Pontius ol Samnium, 135, 136 Pontus, 150, 151 Poona, 658 Popes, The, 178, 181 Porcius Festus, 37 Port Royal (Annapolis) (Nova Scotia), 518 Porto Rico, 751 Portugal, Portuguese, 349, 350, 388, 462, 465, 494, 528, 558, 559, 56i, 620, 659, 681, 682, 685, 686, 701, 719, 757, 758 Porus, King (India), 112 Index 785 Posen, 566 Potidaea, 109 Poynings, Sir Edward (Ire- land), 395 Poynings' Laws or Acts, 395, 55i Praetor, The (Rome), 126, 127 Praetorians, Praetorian Guards (Rome), 163, 164, 168 Pragmatic Sanction, The, 508, 5°9 Prague, 330, 335, 336, 368 Pratt, Chiel-Justice (Lord Camden), 550 Pretender, Elder (Stuart), 480 Prim, General (Spain), 619, 694 Printing, 375 Probus, Emperor (Rome), 169 Prome (Burma), 667, 672 Propontis (Sea of Marmara), 357 Proprae'ors (Rome), 127 Protestant Union (Germany), 45o, 45i Protestants, Protestantism, 39 8 > 403. 417. 420, 450 Provence, 214, 324 Provisions of Oxford, 273 Prudentius, 189 Prusias, King of Bithynia, 142 Prussia, 259, 500, 506, 507, 509, S39. 540, S43> 549, 55°, 557, 560, 562, 563, 566, 569, 606, 608, 610, 611, 617, 734 Psamatik (Psammitichus) I. (Egypt), 13, 27, 50 Psamatik (Psammitichus) II. (Egypt), 14 Ptolemies, The (Egypt), 113 Ptolemy Soter (Egypt), 33 Ptolemy I. (Egypt), 113 Ptolemy II. (Egypt), 113 Public Health Act, 583 Publicani, The, 127 Puebla (Mexico), 748 Punjab, The, 60, 112, 655, 656, 670, 672, 673 Puritans, The, 412, 460, 476 Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, 48, 136, i37 Pythian Festival, The (Greece), 76, 77 Q- " Ouadrilateral,' The (Italy), 624 Onaestors (Rome), 127 Quakers (or Society ol Friends), 481 Quebec, 515, 516, 518-521, 523, 524, 720 Quebec Act, The, 72^, 721 Quebec (province), 723 Queen Anne's Bounty, 479 Queensland, 761 Quintilian, 189 R. Racine, 484 Radama I. of Madagascar, 717 Radicals, 577 Raetia, 160 Raffles Sir Stamford, 683 Railroads, 569 Rajputana, 657 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 418, 459, 515, 743, 759 Ramessu (Ramesses II ), 11, 14, 56 Ramessu (Ramesses III.), 12 Ranjit Singh, 666, 670 Rangoon, 667, 672, 673 Ravaillac, 428 Ravenna, 119, 180, 181, 183 Raymond of Toulouse, 250 Raymond VI. of Toulouse, 281 Raymond VII. of Toulouse, 281 Rebellion of 1641 (Ireland), 461 Rebellion of i798(lreland), 551 Reconstruction Act (U.S.), 744 Red Republicans (Paris), 603 Red River rebellion, 726 Reform Act, First, 579 Reform Act, Second, 579 Reform Act, Third, 580 Reformation, The, 233, 366, 397-404, 408, 409, 410, 418, 421, 434 Regensburg (Ratisbon), 290 Regulating Act of 1773 (India), 661 Rehoboam, 12, 31 Reichstadt, Duke of, 561 " Reign of Terror" (Fiance), 541-543 Remigius, 190 Renaissance (Revival of Learning), 367, 376 Republic, Second, in France, 595 Republic, Third, in France, 601 , 693 Republic of the Seven Ionian Isles, 567 Republicans (U.S.), 737 Requesens, 440, 441 Retief, Peter (South Africa), 715 Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, 58 Reuchlin, John, 372 Revolution, French (First), 536, 571, 627 Revolution of July (France), 594 Revolution, French (Third), 595 R volutwnary Tribunal (Paris), 541 Rheims, 190, 323 Rhine, Confederacy of, 556 Rhode Island, 517 Rhodes, 73, 257,466, 691. See Knights of St. John Rhodes, Cecil J., 712 Rhodesia, 712, 713 Rhyddlan Castle (Wales), 299 Rialto, The, 246, 247 " Ribbonmen " (Ireland), 590 Richard I. of England (Cjeur de Lion), 251,* 252, 253, 258, 270 Richard II. of England, 305, .3 I 6 Richard III. of England (Duke of Gloucester), 313 Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, 274 Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, 310, 313, 317 Richelieu, 233, 448, 453, 455, 456, 458, 461, 483 Richmond (Virginia), 740, 741, 742, 743 Ridley, Bishop, 411 Riel, Louis (Canada), 725, 726 Rienzi (Nicoio de), 295 Riga, 364 Rights, Bill of, 478 Rimini, 183 Rio de Janeiro, 620, 758 Rio de la Plata, 379 Ripon, Marquis of (Viceroyof India), 676, 677 Ripuarian Franks, 190 " Ritualists," 593 Rizzio, 417 Robert, Duke of Normandy, 250, 267 Robert Fitz-Stephen, 274 Robert Grosseteste, 273 Robert II. of Scotland, 314 Robert III. of Scotland, 314 Roberts, Sir Frederick (Lord ), 675 Robespierre, 538, 541. 542, 543 Robinson, Sir Hercules (Lord Rosmead), 713 Rochefort, 485 Rochelle, La, 423, 425 Rochester, 266 Roderick the Goth, 208, 209 Rodney, Sir George, 534 Rodrigo (Ruy Diaz), 241 Rollo of Normandy (Rolf the Ganger), 2r7, 218 Roman Empire, 158, 178 Roman Republic, 122, 125 Roman Republic, Decline and fall, 146-158 Roman Republic, Modern, 545 Romance Languages, The, 178 Romanoff, Michael, of Russia, 469 Rome, Ancient, 45, 59, 116, 134, 164, 176, 177, 180, 193 Rome, Ancient (army), 133, i37 Rome, Anc.ent (buildings), 132 Rome, Ancient (camps), 134 Rome, Ancient (haracter), 131, 132 Rome, Ancient (public works and roads), 132, 133, 194 Rome (religion), 130, 131 "Rome, King of" (Reich- stadt, Due de), 561, 596 Rome, Mediaeval, 295, 405 Rome, Modern, 545, 621, 624 Rome, Sack of, 406 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 584 Roncesvalles, 212 Rooke, Sir George, 495, 499 Roon, Count von, 6:9 Rosas, J uan, of Buenos Ayres, 755 Rose, Sir Hugh (Lord Strath- nairn), 674 Rouen, 217, 309, 323, 602 Roumania, 569, 04r, 642 Roumelia, Eastern, 641, 642 Rousseau, 536 Rowan (Irish patriot), 551 786 Index Roxburgh, 413 Royal Burghs (Scotland), 275 Royal Niger Company, 704 Rubicon (river), 155 Rudolf II. of Germany, 450, 451 Rudolf of Hapsburg, 292, 330 "Running the blockade" (U.S.), 740 Rupert, Prince, 460, 477, 518 Russell, Lord John, 698 Russell, Lord William, 476 Russell, Sir Charles (Lord), 733 Russia, 313, 324, 325, 354, 364, 467, 468, 469, 472, 473, 50 ,503, 506, 507, 510, 549, 554, 556, 566, 568, 606, 631 643, 651, 652, 679, 734 Rutupise (Richborough), 192, 194 Ruyter, Admiral de, 475 S. Sabines, 125 "Sacred Band," The ( Thebes), 101, no Sadducees, 35 Sadi-Carnot, President (France), 605 Saguntum (Spain), 139 Sahara, The, 689, 699, 7 1 Said, Port, 690 Saigon, 686 St. Arnaud, Marshal, 693 St. David, Fort (India;, 659 St. Domingo (Haiti), 543. See Haiti St. George, Fort (India), 659, 665 St. Helena, 719 St. Jean d'Acre, 690 St. John's (Newfoundland), 727 St. Just (France), 541, 543 St. Lawrence (river and gulf), 379. 5i4, 5i7, 518, 524, 525 St. Paul de Loanda, 716 St. Petersburg, 5 4, 635 Sais, 13 Salah-ed-din (Saladin), 251, 252, 687 Salamanca, 369 Salamis, Isle of, 84 Sale, Sir Robert, 669, 670 SalernOj 235 Salian i ranks, The, 189 Salic law, 321 Salisbury, Earl of, 322 Salisbury, Lord, 589 Salonica, 641 Salvador, San, 753 Salzburg, 566 Samaria, 24,37, 38 Samarkand, 355, 638, 656 Samnites, 48, 124, 136, 140, 150 Samoa, 763 Samos, 73, 100 Sampson, W. T., 749 Samuel (the prophet), 29 San Domingo (Haiti), 379 San Francisco, 736, 745 Sancho of Navarre, 240 Sancho 1. of Portugal, 350 Sancho "the Valiant" of Castile, 342 Sanctuary, Right of, 265 Sandili (South Africa), 711 Sandwich Islands, 763 Sanitary reform 583 Santa Anna, President (Mexico), 735, 736, 747 Santa Cruz, 475 Santa Domingo (republic), 75i, 752 Santarem, 351, 462 Santiago (Chili), 757 Sapor I. (Persia), 169, 677 Sapor II. (the Great) (Persia), 677 Sappho, 121 Saracenic art, 239 Saracens, 145, 188, 233, 207, 208, 239, 212, 243, 246, 251, 254 Sarawak, 684 Sardinia, 139, 498, 531, 533, 544, 565, 566, 623 Sardis, 49, 50, 51, 56, 57 Sarepta, 41 Sargon, 24, 25, 31 Sarmatae, 167 Sassanian dynasty (Persia), 207 Sassanidae (Persia), 677, 678 Saul, King, 33 Saunders, Admira 1 , 523 Sautre, William, 308 Savannah, 743 Savonarola, 298, 389 Savoy, 466, 494, 497, 531, 544, 56s, 623 Savoy, Duke of, 492 Savoy, House of, 533 Savoy Palace (London), 305 Savoy, Prince Eugene of, 493, 494, 495. 496 Saxe-Coburg, 610 Saxe-Coburg, Prince Leopold of, 578 Saxon pirates, 193 Saxons, 16-^, 174, 195, 201, 212 Saxony, 51^, 556, 566, 567, 599, 606, 609, 610, 611 * Scanderbeg, 36r, 362 Scandinavia, Scandinavians, 161, 215, 229, 317 Scania (Sweden), 363, 365, 421 Scharnhorst, Baron von, 562, 563 Schleswig, 195, 419, 456, 609 Schleswig-Holstein, 610, 616 Schleswig-Holstein question, 617 Schmalkaldic League, The, 4°3 " Schoolmen," The, 369, 370 Schwarzenberg, Prince, 6.>8 Schweidnitz, 512, 513 Schwerin, Marshal, 510 Schwyz, 332 Scindia, 664, 665 Scipio, Publius Cornelius (Afncanus), 141, 142 Scipio, Publius (Africanus Minor), 144, 145 Scone, 201, 275, 300 Scoti, The, 198, 200 Scotland, 274, 275, 299-302, 412, 417, 459, 47S, 478, 480, 53°, 583, 592 Scots, 193, 230, 201 Scott, General (U.S.), 736 "Scramble for Africa," The, 700 Scut age, 269 Scyths (Scythians^, 26, 27, 50, 57 Sebastian del Cano, 380 Sebastian of Portugal, 464, 465 Sebastiano del Piombo, 373 "Sections," The (Paris), 541, 543 Seditious Meetings Act, 548 Segesta, 48 Sejanus (Rome), 163 Selden, John, 460 Seleucia, 61, 66, 67, 114 Seleucidae, The, 44, 49, 114 Seleucus, 114 Selim I. of Turkey, 471, 688 Selinus, 46 Seljuk Turks, 244, 250, 283, 286, 356 358 Selkirk, Earl of, 725, 726 Semiramis, 20 Semitic race, The, 3 Senegal, The, 702 Senegambia, 706 Sennacherib, 22, 25, 26, 31, 43 Sepharvaim (two Sippars), 18 September massacres (Paris), 540 Septimania, 209 SeptimiusSeverus, Emperor, 67, 168 Sergul (Calneh), 19 Seringapatam, 663, 664 Servetus, 409 Servia, Servians, 284, 353, 358, 361, 569, 641, 642 Seti I. (Sethos), 10, n, 14 Settlement, Act of, 478 " Seven Bishops," The, 477 Seven United Provinces, 442, 444. See Holland Seville, 283 Sextus Pompeius, 155 Sforzas, The, 296, 297, 407 Shabak (Sabaco), 13 Shatter, W. R., 749 Stialmaneser L, 22 Shalmaneser 11., 23 Shalmaneser IV., 24, 43 Shamyl (Circassia), 632, 633 Shanghai, 648 Sharp, Archbishop, of St. Andrews, 476 Sharp, Granville, 567 Shere Ali (Afghanistan), 675 Sheridan, General (U.S.), 744 Sherman, General (U.S.), 742, 744 Shetlands, The, 223, 229, 315, 413 Shintoism (Japan), 650 Shire-moot, 222 Shishak, 12, 31 Shogun (Tycoon) (Japan), 653, 651, 652 Shrewsbury, 197, 276 Shumir, People of, 16, 19 Shushan (Susa), 19, 27, 56, 112 Siam, 489, 655, 667, 681 S beria, 468 Sicilian expedition (Athens) 103 Index 787 Sicily, 49, 104, 138, 139, 185, 243, 291, 339, 497, 531, 533, 545, 567 Sicyon, 80, 83 Sidney, Algernon, 476 Sidney, Sir Henry, 418 Sidney, Sir Philip, 444 Sidon, Sidonians, 24, 39 41, 4?, 43, 44, 255 Siena, 296, 375 Sierra Leone, 701, 702, 704 Sieur de la Salle, 516 Sigismund, Emperor of Ger- many, 327 331, 335, 337, 401 Sigismund I. ot Poland, 466 Sigismund II. of Poland, 466 Sigismund III. of Poland, 467 Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, 228 Sikhs, 1 he, 666, 669-673 Silesia, 5^9, 511, 512, 513 Silistria, 639 Silures, The, 192 Simla, 673 Simnel, Lambert, 393, 394 Simon de Montfort, 273, 281 Simon of Sudbury, 305 Sind (Scinde), 655, 656, 657, 669 Sindhia of Gwalior, 658 Singapore, 683, 684 Singhalese, The, 682, 683, 684 Sinope, 362 Sipahis (Sepoys), 672, 673 Sippar, 18, 27 Sirmium, 171 Sivaji (India), 657 Six Acts (1819), 578 Sixtus IV., Pope, 297, 344 Sixtus V., Pope, 429 " Skalds," The, 230 Skeffington, Sir William, 356 Skinner, Major, 683 Skobeleff, General, 638, 641 Slavs, 70, 187, 188, 212, 229 Smerwick, 418 Smith, Sir Harry, 710, 711 Smolensk, 324, 363 Smyrna, 73 356, 358 Sobieski, John, King of Po- land, 492, 501 Sobor, The (Russia), 469, 5^4 Socialism, 572 Socialism (Germany), 611 Society of Jesus, 413, 431, 532. See Jesuits Socrates, 103, 107, 118, 119 Sokoto (Africa), 701, 704 Solemn League and Cove- nant, 460 Soliman of Turkey, 358, 470, 471 Solomon, King, 12, 30 Solon, 84, 85, 86, 87, 107 Somers, Sir George, 751 Somerset, Duke of, 310 Somerset, Protector, 414 Sonderbitnd, The (Switzer land), 614 Son-tai, 686 Sophocles, 97 Soubise, Marshal, 511 Soudan, The, 687, 689, 69-', 695, 696, 699, 701 Soudan, Eastern, 695 Soulouque, Emperor of Haiti, 75i Soult, Marshal, 554, 559, 561 Spain, 139, 141, 142, 179, 185, 1S6, 188, 2j8, 342, 343, 368, 421, 424, 445, 446, 462, 463, 465, 475, 483, 486, 525, 528, 534, 535, 541, 543, 546, 549, 554, 561, 618, 685, 692, 701, 728, 748, 749, 757, 762 Spanish Armada, 449 "Spanish Fury," The (Ant- werp) 441 Sparta, Spartans, 74, 80, 82-84, 88, 90, 96-98, 101, 105, 107, 1 ->8, no, 115, 116 Spartacus (Rome), 152 Spartiatae, The (Spaita), 8o, 81^ 82, q6 ; 115 Speier (Spires), 290, 492 Speier, Diet at, 402 Speke, Captain, 700 Sphacteria, 102, 1 15 Spinola, 445-448, 451 Stadacona, 514 Stanley, H. M., 700 Star-Chamber, The, 460 " State-Rights " (U.S.), 738 States of the Church (ltaly\ 466, 567 States-General (France), 461, 527, 536 Steam-engine, 569 Stein, Baron von (Prussia), 562, 563 Stephen of England, 268 Stephen, St., of Hungary, 326, 327 Stephen III., Pope, 191 Stephenson, George, 570 Stettin, 500 Stewart, General Sir Herbert, 696 Stiiicho, 176 Stirling, 275, 310 Stoa Poikile, The (Athens), 94, 120 Stockholm, 419, 423 Stoic school, 120 S rachan, Sir Richard, 567 Strafford, Earl of, 41 Straits Settlements, 683 Strasburg, 486, 488, 494, 6.1, 603 Strategi (Athens), 87 Stratticiyde (Scotland), 197, 2DI Stuart, James Edward (elder " Pretender "), 480 Stuart line of Scotland, 314 Stuart, General (Confede- rate), 740 Stukeley, Sir Thomas, 465 Styria, 330, 332 Suakin, 695, 696 Suevi, The, 16:,, 173, 176, 189 Suez Canal, 585, 6.5, 690 Siiffetcs, The (Carthage), 48 Suffolk, Earl of, 322 Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, 279 Suliotes, The, of Epirus, 627, 628 Sulla, 62, 150, 152 Sully, Duke of, 427, 461 Sumatra, 683-685 Sumner, Charles (U S.), 731 Sumter, Fort (U.S.), 739 Supremacy, Act of, 418 Suraj-ud-Daula (Surajah Dovvlah) (Bengal), 660 Surat, 659 Surenas (Parthia), 62, 63 Surinam, 759 Susiana, 60 Sutlej (river) (Punjab), 666, 670 Suwarof (or Suwarrow), Marshal, 505, 507, 545 Swabia, 231 Sweden, 229, 277, 317, 420, 456, 458, 467, 487, 499, 5°°, 549, 554, 558, 562, 568, 574, 618 Sweyn (Svend) of Denmark, 223, 224, 229 Swiss Confederation, 566 Switzerland, 392,408, 445, 457, 566, 574, 614 Switzerland, Rise of, 332-334 Sybaris, 125 Sydney (Australia), 761 Symington (engineer), 569 Syracuse, 47, 8p, 103, 104 Syria, 6d, 6r, 62, 64, 67, 113, 151, 206, 355, 545, 689 T. Tacitus, 159, 163, 192 Taharka, 27 Tahiti, 672 Tahiti Archipelago, 763 Tai-ping revolt (China), 648 Tait, Archbishop, of Canter- bury, 582 Taku forts (China), 649 Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 323 fallard, Marshal, 497 Tamerlane (or Timour Tartar), 359, 637, 656, 679 Tancred, 217, 250 Tanganyika, Lake, 700 Tanis (Egypt), 12, 13 Tara (Ireland), 228 Tarentum, 125, 136, 137 Tarif(Tarifa), 208 Tarik, 208, 209 Tarsus, 160 Tartars, 505, 646 Tartars Manchoo, 647 Tashkend, 638 Tasmania, 762 Taunton, 198 Taurus Mountains, 52 Taylor, General Zachary (US.), 736 Tchad, Lake, 699 Tegea, 84 Teheran, 680 Tehrak (Tirhakal, 13 Tekke-Turkomans, 638 Temple Church (London), 259 Temple, Sir William, 487 Tenasserim, 667 Tennes, 43 Tennessee (U.S.), 728, 739, 742 "Tenth of August " (Paris), 54o Terence, 159 Terentius Varro (Consul) (Rome), 140 "Terrorists,' The (Russia), 6 35> 636 788 Index Test Act, 481 Tetzel, John, 399, 400 Teutoburger-wald, 162 Teutonic Knights, 259, 260, 326, 336, 363 Teutonic peoples, 148, i6:>, 174 Teutons, The, 70, 148, 149 Tewfik of Egypt, 690 Texas, 736, 739 Texel, 549 " Theatines," The, 428 Thebans (Greek), 87, 96 Thebau of Burma, 676 Thebes (Egypt), 8, 9, 11, 13, 1 Si 27, Thebes (Greece), 97, 104, 107- iii Thegns (Thanes), 195 Themistocles, 90, 91, 94, 97, 9 9 , 99 Theobald, King of Navarre, 254 Theocritus, 114 Theoderic, 177, 178 Theoderic the Great, 180 Theodora, Empress, 184, 185 Theodore of Abyssinia, 698, 699 Theodore Gaza, 370 Theodore of Tarsus, 181, 202 Theodosian Code (or Digest), 186 Theodosiu«, Emperor, 176 Theodosius II., Emperor, 183 Thera, 73 Thesmothetae, The (Athens), 84 Thespiae, 96 Thessalians, 108 Thessalonica, 176, 359 Thessaly, 71, 72, 74, 94, 109, 116, 286, 358, 630 Thiers, President (France), 597, 604, 605 "Thirteenth Vendemiaire " .(Paris), 543 Thirty 'lyrants (at Athens), 106 Thoniond, Earl of (Ireland), 396 Thompson, Charles Powlett (Lord Sydenham), 723 Thotmes I., 10 Thotmes II., 10 Thotmes III., 1 , n Thrace (Thraci ), 57, 109, 150, 164, 358 Thrasybulus (Athens), 107 Three Rivers (Canada), 516 Thucydides, 102, 121 Thugs (India), 668 Tiber (river), 125 Tiberius, Emperor, 65, 159, 161, 163 Tiberius Gracchus (Rome), 148 Tibet, 644, 647, 655 Tibur (ITvoli), 166 Ticonderoga, 520, 521, 523, 534 Tientsin, 649 Tiers e'tat (Prance), 321, 537 Tiglath-pileser I., 22 Tiglath-pileser 11., 24, 43 Tiglath-pileser III., 20 Tigranes, 62, 150, 151 Tigris, 61 Tilly, Count, 45!, 452, 453, 454 Timbuktu, 706 Timoleon of Corinth, 47 Tippoo (India), 663, 664, 665 Tiridates, 60 Tissaphernes, 105 Titian, 373 Titus, Emperor, 38, 65, 192 Tlaxcalla (Mexico), 381 Tlaxcallans, 382, 383 JTmolus Mountains, 49 Todleben, General, 641 Tokio (Yedo) ( lapan), 652 Toledo, 209, 236 Toleration Act, 481 Tolosa (Toulouse), 176 Tonga, 763 Tongking (Tonquin or Ton- kin), 685, 686 Torquemada, 344 Torres Vedras, Lines of, 559 Torstenson, General, 456 Toul, 404, 408, 457, 601 Toulon, 485, 542, 554 Toulouse, 209, 250, 282, 368. See Tolosa Touraine, 268, 270 Tournai, 438 Tours, 6di Tourville, Admiral, 492 Toussaint (1'Ouverture), 750 " Tracts for the Times," 593 Trades-unions, 575 Traitorous Correspondence Act, 548 Trajan, Emperor, 66, 165 Transvaal, 711 Transvaal Republic, 701 Transylvania, 501, 608, 613 Treasonable Practices Act, 548 Treaties, Peaces, Conven- tions : — Abo, 500 Amboise, 423 Aix-la-Chapelle, 483, 487, 5'9> 5i9 Amiens, 552, 6S3, 710 Antalcidas, 107 " Asiento " Treaty, 498 Augsburg, 457 " Barrier " Treaty, 497 Basle, 543 Berlin, 614, 630, 643 Breda, 7-2, 759 Bretigny, 304 Bucharest, 568, 638 Cambrav, 4 6 Campo Formio, 544, 555 Carlovitz, 501, 530 Cateau-Cambresis, 421, 466 Constance, 289 Dover, 487 Dresden, 5^9 Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 603 Ghent, 730 Gundamuk, 675 Hubertusburg, 513 Hunkiar-Skelessi, 639 J assy, 5-5 Kainardji, 505 Kl jster-Zeven, Convention of, 511 London (1832), 630 London (1841), 640 Luneville, 546 \ Treaties, etc. {continued) : — Madrid, 405 Methuen, 528 Munster, 449, 483 Nanking, 648 Nicias, Peace of ("Fifty Years' Truce "), 103 Nimeguen, 488 Northampton, 302 Oregon, 730 Paris (1763), 524, 727 Paris (1814), 719 Paris (1815), 565 Paris (1856), 640 Passarowitz, 531 Passau, 457 Pekin, 649 Pillnitz, 539 Prague, 455, 610 > Pyrenees, 484 Reciprocity Treaty (U.S. and Canada), 723 Ryswick, 493, 517 St. Germain-en-Laye, 423, 516 Stralsund, 365 Tilsit, 556, 558 Tientsin, 649 Troyes, 309 Utrecht, 497, 498, 518, 527, 531 Verdun, 214 Versailles, 535, 663, 702, 721, 727, 728, 752 Vervins, 427, 436 Vienna, 561, 617 Villafranca, 623 Wallingford, 268 Washington, 732, 745 Wedmore, 220 Westphalia, 456, 458 Windsor, 351 Zurich, 623 Trebizond, 362 Trent, Council ot, 403, 428, 437 Treviso, 341 Tribonian, 186 Tiibunate (Rome), 128 Trier(Treves),i7i,23o, 233, 290 Trincomali, 683 Trinidad, 379, 552, 752 " Trinity House," The, 394 Trinobantes, The, 191 Triple Alliance, 487, 611 Tripoli (Africa), 185, 258, 356, 475- 485. 53 1 , 577. 691 692 Tripolis (Phoenicia), 41, 44 Tristao da Cunha, 387 Triumvirate, First (Rome), 154 Triumvirate, Second, 157 Tromp, Admiral van, 448, 475 Trondhjem, 229 " Troubles, Council of" (or " Council of Blood ' ) (Netherlands), 439 Tudor Age, 392 Tudor, Owen, 314 Tudor sovereigns, 311 Tugendbund (" League of Virtue ") (Germany), 563 Tuileries, 540 Tunis, 254, 255, 356, 407, 475, 53i, 577. 691, 701 Turanians, 19, 69 Turenne, Marshal, 456, 484, 486, 487, 488 Index 789 Turgot, 527 Turin, 466, 624 Turkestan, 637, 638 Turkey (after 1453), 362, 466, 4671 473, 474! 502, 504, 505, 5i3i 53°i S3ii 568, 630, 631, 638, 639, 641. 691 Turkomans, 637, 679 Turks (Ottoman), 356, 362, 688. See Turkey Turks (Seljuk), 244, 356, 679 Turks, 258, 287, 341 Tuscany, 533, 562, 623 Tuscany, Duchy of, 566 Tyrants, The (Greece), 80 Tyre, Tynans, 10, 20, 24, 39, 41-44. 255 Tyrol, 330, 544, 555, 561, 566 Tyrone, Earl of (Ireland), 396 Tyrtaeus (poet), 82, 83 U. Uganda, 714 " Uitlanders '' (Outlanders) (South Africa), 712 Ujiji (Africa), 700 Ukraine, 499 Ulm, 290, 555 Ulpian, 168 Ulster, 200, 419, 460, 461, 551, 5T, 59 2 Umbria, Umbrians, 124, 135, 136 " Unigenitus," Papal "bull," 532 Union Act (Canada), 723 Union Act (Ireland), 552, 587 Union of Calmar, 277, 278, 317 Union of England and Scot- land, 479 United L in pi re Loyalists (Canada), 721 " United Irishmen," 551 United States, 558, 569, 576, 692, 721, 727-747. See also America Unterwalden, 332 Upsala, 277 Ur, 18, 19 Ur-bahu, 19 Urban II., Pope, 249 Uri, 332 Uruguay, 755 Usurtasen 111., 9 Utah (U.S.), 737 Utica, 45, 48 Utrecht, Union of, 442 Uzbegs (rurco-tartars), 637 V. Valdivia, 757 Valencia, 283 Valenciennes, 43S, 439, 542 Valentinian I., Emperor, 175 Valerian, 168, 169, 677 Valerius, Consul (Rome), 129 Valois, House of, 321, 425, 426 Valparaiso, 757 Van Buren, President, 736 Vancouver, Captain, 726, 763 Vancouver Island, 724, 726 Vandals, The, 169, 170, 173, 175, 176, 177, 185, 186 Varangian Guard, The (Con- stantinople), 230 Varennes (France), 539 Varus, Consul (Rome), 161, 162 Vasco da Gama, 352, 3S7, 714, 716 Vatican, The, 339 Vatican Council, 626 Vauban, 485, 486, 487, 488, 49?, 493 Vaudreuil, De (Canada), 518, 519, 524 Vendee, La (France), 543 Venetia, 621, 624 Venetian Republic, 544 Venezuela, 753 Venice, Venetians, 246, 247, 251, 256, 260, 284, 285, 287, 339, 340, 34i, 342, 3S3, 359, 372, 375, 388, 390, 465, 466, 529, 53i, 544- 566, 622 Venta Belgarum (Winches- ter), 194 Vendome, Marshal, Duke of, 49-1, 495 Vera Cruz, 381, 747, 748 Verdun, 404, 408 Verendryes, Les (explorers) 518 Vermont (U.S.), 728 Verona, i8->, 295, 341 Verres, Proconsul (Rome), i54 Versailles, 489, 526, 537, 604, 611, 633, 670 " Version, Authorised " (Bible), 412 Verulamium (St. Albans), 194 Vespasian, Emperor, 38, 105, 192 Vespucci, Amerigo, 387 Vestal Virgins (Rome), 131 Vesuvius, Mount, 165 Veto Act (Scotland, 1834), 593 Vezelay, Council of, 251 Vicenza, 295, 341 Vicksburg (U.S.), 741, 742 Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy, 493, 531 Victor Emmanuel II (Ital}), 621 627 Victoria (Austral'a\ 761 Victoria Nyanza, Lake, 700 Victoria, Queen, 578, 579, 676, 731 Victorian Age, The, 584 Vienna, 329, 392, 555, 561, 607 Vienna, Congress of, 564, 607, 615, 620 Vigo, 494 Vikings, The 215 Villars, Marshal, 491, 496, 497 Villehardouin, 374 Villeneuve, Admiral, 554, 555 Vi : leroi, Marshal, 493, 495 Villon (poeO, 374 Vindelicia, 160 Virgil, 159 Virginia, 515, 516, 517, 520, 533, 739, 74°, 744 Visconti, The, family (Milan), 295, 296 Visigoths (West Goths), 174, 175, 176, 182, 189, 2.8 Vitellius, Emperor, 165 Vitiges (Witigis), King of Ostrogoths, 181 Vladislaus of Hungary, 469, 470 Voiogases I. of Parthia, 65 Vologases II. of Parthia, 67 Volscians, The, 134 Voltaire, 233, 536 W. Wadai, 701 Wadi-Halfa, 696 Wahabis, lhe, 681, 689 Waiblings (Ghibeliines), 287, 294 Walcheren expedition, 567 Waldemar I. of Denmark, 276 Waldemar II. of Denmark, 276 Waldemar IV. of Denmark, 364, 365 Waldemar of Sweden, 277 Waldenses (Vaudois), 475 Wales, 196, 275, 2 99 Wales, hrince of (son of Victoria), 675, 731 Wales, Statute of, 299 Wallace, William, 300 Wallachia, 467, 639, 640 Wallenstein, 452-455 Walloon country, 317 Walpole, Sir Rodert, 481: WarbecK, Perkin, 393 Wars : — Afghan, First, 669 Afghan, Second, 675 Alexandrine, 155 American Revolutionary, 483 Anglo-Persian, 6S0 Antony and Octavianus, 157 Austrian Succession, 482, 525> 533, 66a Austro-Prussian, or Seven Weeks' War, 600, 624 Boer War, 712 Burmese War, First, 667 Burmese War, Second, 672 Caucasus, 632 Chioggia, War of, 341 China War, First (''Opium War"), 648 China War, Second, 649 China War, Third, 649 Chitral, 677 Chrysanthemums, War o the (Japan), 650 Civil War, United States, 587, 73i, 738 Crimean, 640 England and United States (1812-181.5), 721, 729 Franco-Austrian, 623 Franco-Dahomey, 707, 708 Franco-German, 599-603 French and Algiers, 693 Fronde, The (France), 483 Graeco-Persian War, First, 57 Graeco- Persian War, Second and Third, 88-100 Huguenots in Fiance, 423- 426 " Hundred Years' War," 303 79° Index Wars (continued) : — Indian Mutiny (or Sepoy Mutiny, or Sepoy War), 673 Japano-Chinese, 653 Kaffir Wars, 710, 711 King George's War (North America), 519 King William's War (North America), 518 Lamian War, 114 Liberation War in Germany, 562 Macedonian Wars (Rome and Macedon), 116 Marius and Sulla, 15T, 152 Matabele Wars, 712 Messenian Wars, 83 Mithradatic War, 150 Napoleonic Wars, 553-567 " Opium " (First Chinese) War, 648 Peloponnesian, 101-106 Peninsular, 558-561 Peru and Chili, 753 Polish Succession, 525 Pontiac War (North America), 525 Punic War, First, 138 Punic War, Second, 139-143 Punic War, Third, 143-145 Queen Anne's War (North America), 517 Roses, Wars of the, 309, 310, 314 Russo-Turkish War (1877), 641-643 Samnite War, First (Latin), 135 Samnite War, Second, 135 Samnite War, Third, 135, 136 Servile Wars (Sicily), 152 Seven Years' War, 483, 513, 660 Sikh War, First, 670, 671 Sikh War, Second, 671, 672 Social Wars (Italian), 149. 150 Soudan War (British), 694 Spain and Morocco, 694 Spanish Succession, 482, 494-497 Thirty Years' War, 450-458 " Three Henries," The (France), 426 Turco-Greek War (1897), 630 United States and Mexico, 755 United States and Spain, 747 William III. and Louis XIV., 492, 493 Zulu War, 711 Warsaw, 467, 634 Warwick, Earl of, 310, 312, 313 Washington (city), 728, 729, 743 Washington, George, 520, 522, , 533, 534, 728 Wat Tyler, 305 Waterford, 200, 274 Watt, James, 569 Webster, Daniel, 736 Welfs (Guelfs), 287, 288, 294 Wellington, Duke of, 559, 56.-1, 565, 578, 579, 664, 665, 666, 734 Wends (Slavs), 229, 230, 231, 259, 276 Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 459. 461 Wenzel (Wenceslaus) of Bo- hemia, 331 Werder, General von, 602 Wesley, Charles, 481 Wesley, John, 4*1, 482 Wesleyans (Methodists), 482 Wessex, 195, 197,202,203, 219, 220, 223, 224 West India Isles (British), 751 West Indies, 494, 750 Westminster Abbey, 225 Westphalia, 288 Westphalia, Kingdom of, 562, 566, 567 Wexford, 200, 274, 476 Whish, General, 671 Whitby, Synod of, 202 " White Terror "(France), 593 Whitefield, George, 481 Whitelock, General, 745, 755 Whitney, Eli (U.S.), 728 Wilberforce, William, 567 Wilfrith (St. Wilfred), 182 Wilhelmina of Holland, 616 Wilkes, John, 550 Willibrod (Willbrord), 182 William, Duke of Normandy (I. of England), 225,226, 227, 265, 275 William II. of England (Ru- fus), 267, 276 William III. of England (Prince of Orange), 477, 478, 482, 487, 488, 491, 492, 493, 494 William IV. of England, 579 William, Fort (Calcutta), 659 William I. of Germany, 612 William II. of Germany, 612 William I. of Holland, 566, 616 William III. of Holland, 616 William the Lion (Scotland), 270, 275 William of Longchamps, 270 William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, 272 William of Ockham, 264 William 1., King of Prussia (Emperor of Germany), 599, 609, 611 William " the Silent" (Prince of Orange), 436-444 William of Wykeham, 371 Wilmington (U.S.), 742 Winchester, 371 Winchester, Statute of, 301 Windsor, 266 Windsor Castle, 308 Winfried (Winfrith), St., 182 Winnipeg (Canada), 726 Wisby, 363, 364,365 Wisconsin (U.S.), 736 Wiseman, Cardinal, 626 Wishart, George, 414, 415 H'i/aii, The, 105, 222, 225, 272 Witigis, 181. See Vitiges Witt, Cornelius de, 487 .Witt, John de, 487 Wittenberg, 399, 400, 403 Wolfe, General James, 522- ,. 524 - Woile Tone ("Ireland), 551 Wolseley, Lord, 691, 695, 702, 726 Wolsey, Cardinal, 394, 396 " Women's kights,' 746 Worms, 290, 401 Worms, Concordat of, 236 Worms, Diet of, 392, 401 Worms, Edict of, 402 Wulfila (or Ulphilas), 175 Wiirtemberg, 457, 555, 567, 599, 609, 610, 611 Wyclif, John, 306, 307, 308, 331, 335, 374 Xenophon, 58, 119, 121 Xerxes of Persia, 57, 96, 97 Ximenes, Cardinal, 348 Y. Yakub Khan, 675 Yedo (Japan), 651, 652 Yokohama (Japan), 651 York, 410. See Eboracum York, Duke of (son of George HI.), 579 Yorubas (West Africa), 704 " Young Ireland " party, 587 Z. 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