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THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
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ELEMENTS 
 
 V 
 
 OP 
 
 « 
 
 UNIVERSAL HISTORY, 
 
 ON A 
 
 NEW AND SYSTEMATIC PLAN; 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE TREATY OF VIENNA. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED, 
 
 A SUMMARY OF THE LEADING EVENTS SINCE THAT PERIOD. 
 
 BY H. WHITE, B.A., 
 
 # 
 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 WITH ADDITIONS, 
 
 BY JOHN S. HART, A.M. 
 
 Principal of the Philadelphia High School, and Professor 
 of Moral and Mental Science, Member of the 
 American Philosophical Society, See. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 W. A. LEARY & CO. 
 
 No. 138 NORTH SECOND STREET. 
 
 1850 . 
 
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 
 
 LEA AND BLANCHARD, 
 
 in the clerk’s office of the district court of the United States in and for the 
 
 the eastern district of Pennsylvania. 
 
 J. Fagan, Stereotyper. 
 
' ' 
 
 on 
 
 v 
 
 
 4 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 
 
 
 In presenting to the American public this excel¬ 
 lent compend of Universal History, the original 
 work is given entire, without abridgement or altera¬ 
 tion. It has been thought advisable, however, to 
 add a few pages to that part of the history which 
 relates to the discovery and settlement of North 
 America. The portions thus added are distinguished 
 from the rest of the book by being enclosed in 
 brackets. Numerous questions have been prepared 
 for the purpose of facilitating its use as a Text¬ 
 book in schools 
 
 Philadelphia, January, 1844. 
 
 I 
 
 ( 3 ) 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '4 
 
 I . « 
 
 r 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 This Volume contains a brief narrative of the principal events 
 ^in the History of the World, from the earliest ages to the present 
 ^ time. With the view of facilitating the researches of the student, 
 as well as of rendering the work more available for the purposes 
 J of tuition, the compiler has adopted the novel arrangement of a 
 division into periods of centuries. This plan appeared to him 
 x likely to simplify the study of history, by its enabling the unprac- 
 tised reader to synchronize facts, to group round one common 
 centre the events occurring at the same time in various and some- 
 ^ times widely distant countries, and to prevent that confusion of 
 
 v dates and occurrences so common with those who have read his- 
 
 * -■». , 
 
 5 tory in detached portions. As an initiatory work, he trusts that 
 it will be found valuable in promoting a knowledge of one of the 
 most useful branches of learning; and it is accordingly presented 
 
 t to the Public, not without hope of indulgence and approbation. 
 
 The writer lays no claim to originality: if he shall be pro- 
 - l nounced fortunate in the choice and condensation of his materials, 
 he will have attained the object of his wishes. He has consulted 
 ^ the best works in the English language, and acknowledges his 
 - great obligations to several of the more recent French and German 
 "V writers. The references introduced into the body of the work 
 * serve to indicate the main sources from which his information has 
 been derived; and it is hoped they will also be serviceable to the 
 ^ student, by directing the course of his further researches, as well 
 as inducing him to continue them in a more extended field. 
 
 As Jo the method to be pursued in using this manual for the 
 purposes of tuition, the compiler deems it unnecessary to offer any 
 lengthened directions; the experienced teacher will readily adopt 
 c\J that best suited to the capacities of those under his charge. The 
 
 6 work may be used simply as a reading-book; but a certain por¬ 
 tion should be given out for the attentive study of the pupil, after 
 which he should be questioned closely, not only as to the more 
 
 1* (V) 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 general facts, but also the most trivial circumstances recorded. 
 With this view, he might be required occasionally to return writ¬ 
 ten answers to a series of questions somewhat like the following, 
 which are selected from a list the Compiler has drawn up for the 
 use of his own classes: — Origin of the Wars of the.Roses, de¬ 
 scribing also the principal events ?—Attacks on the power of the 
 English and Scotch aristocracy from 1450 to 1513?—Obstacles 
 that Henry VII. encountered on ascending the throne?—Number 
 of wars between Charles V. and Francis I., with their principal 
 events? — Causes that led to and favoured Reformation in Ger¬ 
 many ?—Defects and good qualities of Elizabeth’s administration ! 
 and similar subjects. In these exercises, the pupil will of course 
 be aided by the explanations and directions of the teacher, with 
 reference to the authorities to be consulted. 
 
 The importance of combining geographical with historical in¬ 
 formation, will be readily appreciated, and the pupils should at all 
 times be able to give at least a general description of the various 
 countries and cities mentioned under each century. Those more 
 advanced may from time to time be required to construct maps 
 of—1. The world, immediately after the dispersion, indicating the 
 parts settled by the sons of Noah and their descendants; 2. Em¬ 
 pire of Alexander ; 3. Roman Empire under Augustus ; 4. Roman 
 Empire at period of Barbarian Invasion; 5. V^orld in time of 
 Charlemagne; 6. Europe at Ottoman Invasion; 7. Europe at 
 breaking out of French Revolution. They may also be advan¬ 
 tageously employed in forming synoptical tables, as indicated in 
 the body of the Work. These may be increased or diminished 
 at the option of the teacher; but the design should ever be to 
 make the scholar his own historian, and so to interest and exer¬ 
 cise him in the study, as to impress the facts and dates perma¬ 
 nently on his memory. 
 
 January, 1843. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, Page II. 
 
 PART FIRST.—ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 FROM THE CREATION, 4004 B. C., 
 
 EMPIRE, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 41st Century b. c. 
 
 Creation of the World.13 
 
 Sth Century b. c. 
 
 Death of Abel—Posterity of Adam 
 —Seth born.14 
 
 24th Century b. c. 
 
 Universal Deluge.ib. 
 
 23d Century b. c. 
 
 Sacred History.15 
 
 China.16 
 
 Formation of Nations.ib. 
 
 22d Century b. c. 
 
 Egypt — Beginning of Genuine 
 History.17 
 
 20th Century b. c. 
 
 Sacred History.19 
 
 19th Century b. c. 
 
 Egypt.20 
 
 18th Century b. c. 
 
 Sacred History.21 
 
 Egypt.ib. 
 
 17th Century b. c. 
 
 Sacre/cJ History.22 
 
 Greece—Origin of the Greek Na¬ 
 tions.ib. 
 
 16th Century b. c. 
 
 Sacred History.23 
 
 Greece.24 
 
 PO THE FALL OF THE WESTERN 
 A. D. 476. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 15th Century b. c. 
 
 Sacred History. 25 
 
 Egypt..27 
 
 Phoenicia.ib. 
 
 Greece.28 
 
 14th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea.29 
 
 Greece.ib. 
 
 13th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea.30 
 
 Greece.ib. 
 
 12th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea.31 
 
 Greece.32 
 
 11th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea.33 
 
 Greece. 35 
 
 Grecian Colonies.36 
 
 10th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea. 37 
 
 Greece. 39 
 
 Syria.40 
 
 9th Century b. c. 
 
 Judsea. 41 
 
 Greece. 43 
 
 Carthage.44 
 
 Macedonia.45 
 
 8 th Century b.c. 
 
 Judsea. 45 
 
 Greece.47 
 
 (viO 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 y 
 
 Vlll 
 
 \ 
 
 . . PAGE 
 
 Assyria. 43 
 
 Lydia.5i 
 
 Rome — Origin of the Roman 
 
 People. 52 
 
 7 th Century b. c. 
 
 Judaea. 53 
 
 Assyria. 54 
 
 Media. 55 
 
 Persia. 56 
 
 Egypt. 57 
 
 Greece. 53 
 
 Rome. 00 
 
 6th Century b. c. 
 
 Judaea. 61 
 
 Assyria. 62 
 
 Persia. 64 
 
 Egypt. 66 
 
 Greece. 67 
 
 Rome. 69 
 
 China.. 70 
 
 5 th Century b. c. 
 
 Judaea. 71 
 
 Greece. ib. 
 
 Persia. 77 
 
 Rome. 78 
 
 Carthage. 81 
 
 4 th Century b. c. 
 
 Greece. 82 
 
 Arts, Literature and Science among 
 
 the Greeks. 89 
 
 Rome. 91 
 
 Judaea. 93 
 
 Persia. 94 
 
 3 d Century b. c. 
 
 Rome. 95 
 
 Greece and Macedon. 98 
 
 Egypt. 99 
 
 Parthia.100 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2d Century b.c. 
 
 Rome.. 
 
 Judaea and Syria.no 
 
 1st Century b.c. 
 
 Rome ... 
 
 Second Literary Era.122 
 
 Judaea. ib. 
 
 CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 1st Century a. d. 
 
 Rome. 124 
 
 Judaea.123 
 
 History of the Church. 131 
 
 Britain. 133 
 
 2 d Century a. d. 
 
 Rome.. 
 
 The Church.137 
 
 3 d Century a.d. 
 
 Pome.139 
 
 Palmyra.143 
 
 Persia. ib. 
 
 Barbarian Invasions. 144 
 
 The Church. ib. 
 
 4 th Century a. d. 
 
 Rome. ]47 
 
 Eastern Empire. 151 
 
 Western Empire. 152 
 
 Barbaric Migrations. 153 
 
 The Church... 154 
 
 5 th Century a. d. 
 
 Division of the Empire. 158 
 
 Eastern Empire. 159 
 
 Western Empire. . ... 160 
 
 Venice. 165 
 
 Gaul. ib. 
 
 Britain. 166 
 
 The Church.ib. 
 
 Appendix to Part First—History 
 
 of Literature... 168 
 
 PART SECOND_HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE, A.D. 476, TO THE ERA OF THE 
 REFORMATION, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 6 th Century a. d. 
 
 Greek Empire.174 
 
 Persia.177 
 
 Italy...178 
 
 France.180 
 
 Spain.183 
 
 Britain.184 
 
 The Church...185 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7th Century a.d. 
 
 Greek Empire...186 
 
 Persia.188 
 
 Arabia.189 
 
 Italy.194 
 
 France.195 
 
 Spain.198 
 
 The Church. ib. 
 
 8th Century a. d. 
 
 Greek Empire.199 
 
 Arabia.200 
 
 Spain.202 
 
 Italy. ' _204 
 
 France.205 
 
 The World in the time of Charle¬ 
 magne. 208 
 
 The Church. \ .209 
 
 Appendix to Eighth Century— 
 Fine Arts, from the Fail of 
 Rome to Charlemagne.211 
 
 9th Century a. d. 
 
 Greek Empire.212 
 
 Arabia.214 
 
 Spain.215 
 
 France.216 
 
 The Northmen.218 
 
 Germany.219 
 
 Italy.220 
 
 Britain.222 
 
 The Church.224 
 
 10th Century a.d. 
 
 Greek Empire.225 
 
 Italy.226 
 
 France.227 
 
 Germany.229 
 
 Britain.231 
 
 Spain.232 
 
 Arabian Empire.233 
 
 The Church.234 
 
 The World at the End of the 
 
 Tenth Century.235 
 
 11th Century a.d. 
 
 Greek Empire.236 
 
 Italy.238 
 
 Germany.239 
 
 France...242 
 
 Spain.243 
 
 Arabian Empire.244 
 
 page 
 
 Britain.254 
 
 The Church.249 
 
 The Crusades.251 
 
 State of the World at the Epoch 
 of the Crusades, from 1096 
 to 1273. 254 
 
 12th Century a.d. 
 
 Greek Empire...255 
 
 The East. ...257 
 
 Italy.. ib. 
 
 Germany.258 
 
 France.260 
 
 Spain.261 
 
 Britain. ib. 
 
 The Church.264 
 
 13 th Century a. d. 
 
 Greek Empire.266 
 
 Germany.268 
 
 Italy.270 
 
 France...275 
 
 Britain.278 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.279 
 
 The East.281 
 
 The Church.282 
 
 Crusades.-.284 
 
 14th Century a. d. 
 
 Greek Empire.286 
 
 The East.287 
 
 Germany.288 
 
 Italian Peninsula.291 
 
 France. 295 
 
 Britain.299 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.303 
 
 The Church.304 
 
 Inventions, &c.306 
 
 15th Century a.d. 
 
 Greek Empire.307 
 
 Ottoman Empire and Turkey. .. 308 
 
 Germany.311 
 
 France.315 
 
 Britain.321 
 
 Italian Peninsula.330 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.334 
 
 Discoveries and Colonies.339 
 
 The Church.341 
 
 Appendix to Part Second—Com¬ 
 merce, the Progress of Learn¬ 
 ing, Discoveries, &c.343 
 
PART THIRD.—MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 FROM THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 16th Century a. d. 
 
 Britain....351 
 
 Ireland.361 
 
 France.362 
 
 Italian Peninsula.369 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.374 
 
 The Netherlands.376 
 
 Germany.378 
 
 Hungary and Bohemia.383 
 
 Poland and Russia.384 
 
 Denmark, Sweden and Norway. . 386 
 Ottoman Empire and the East... 387 
 
 Colonies and Discoveries.391 
 
 Discoveries and Settlements in 
 
 North America.392 
 
 The Church.395 
 
 Letters, Arts and Sciences.398 
 
 17th Century a. d. 
 
 Great Britain.401 
 
 France.407 
 
 Spain and Portugal.410 
 
 Italian Peninsula.411 
 
 Germany. .412 
 
 Holland.414 
 
 Denmark.416 
 
 Sweden.417 
 
 Poland.419 
 
 Russia.421 
 
 Ottoman Empire.422 
 
 The East.423 
 
 Colonies.425 
 
 Settlement of the United States. . 426 
 
 The Church.430 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences.... ib. 
 
 18th Century a. d. 
 
 Great Britain.433 
 
 France.440 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Spain.449 
 
 Portugal.452 
 
 Italian Peninsula.453 
 
 Germany..455 
 
 Holland.459 
 
 Denmark.461 
 
 Sweden.463 
 
 Poland.465 
 
 Prussia.468 
 
 Russia.471 
 
 Turkey.474 
 
 Persia.476 
 
 India. 477 
 
 United States.481 
 
 Hayti.484 
 
 The Church.486 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences.... 487 
 
 19 th Century a.d. 
 
 Great Britain.491 
 
 France.496 
 
 Spain.504 
 
 Portugal.506 
 
 Italy.507 
 
 Germany. 508 
 
 Holland.509 
 
 Denmark. ib. 
 
 Sweden.510 
 
 Prussia. ib. 
 
 Russia.511 
 
 Turkey.512 
 
 British India.513 
 
 United States.515 
 
 Brazil..517 
 
 Spanish Colonies. ib. 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences. ... 518 
 Conclusion.520 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 t 
 
 Universal History is commonly divided into three portions:— 
 
 I. Ancient History, which, beginning with the creation of the 
 world, 4004 b. c., terminates a, d. 476, in the destruction of the 
 Roman empire. 
 
 II. The Middle Ages, which extend from the fall of Rome, a. d. 
 476, to the discovery of America, a. d. 1492. 
 
 III. Modern History, which commences at the latter epoch, 
 and, if we do not distinguish it from Contemporaneous History, 
 is continued to the present time. 
 
 The events which mark the separation between the First and 
 Second periods, are the Irruption of the Barbarians, the conse¬ 
 quent fall of the Western Empire, and the foundation of the 
 modern European states; between the Second and the Third are 
 the extension of learning by the invention of printing, the taking 
 of Constantinople, the maritime discoveries of Spain and Portu¬ 
 gal, with the more extensive use of fire-arms. 
 
 I. Ancient History may be subdivided into four periods :— 
 
 1. The Antediluvian , comprising the creation, the fall of man 
 with its immediate train of consequences, and ending with the 
 general deluge, 2348 b. c. 
 
 2. The Heroic , commencing with the establishment of the eai 
 liest empires and most ancient cities, and including the fabulous 
 ages of Greece. 
 
 3. The Historic , which begins with the first Olympiad, 776 b. c., 
 nearly synchronous with the foundation of Rome, 753 b. c., and 
 comprises the legislative eras of Lycurgus and Solon, the rise 
 and fall of the Persian monarchy, and the earlier part of Roman 
 history to the end of the Punic wars. 
 
 4. The Roman , from the fall of Carthage, 146 b. c., to that of 
 Rome, a. d. 476. 
 
 II. The Middle Ages may be conveniently arranged in the fol¬ 
 lowing six periods:— 
 
 1. The foundation of the modern states of Western Europe, a. d. 
 476-622, when the Saxons invaded Britain, 449; the Visigoths 
 settled in Spain, 507; the Ostrogoths in Italy, 489; and the Franks 
 began the formation of the French monarchy, a. d. 481. 
 
 (*i) 
 
Xll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 2. The second comprehends the age of Mohammed, with the 
 propagation of his creed and the establishment of the states which 
 embraced his religion, a. d. 622-800. 
 
 3. The third embraces the period when the empire of the West 
 was partially restored in the Franko-Germanic dominions of 
 Charlemagne, 800-936. 
 
 4. The fourth is the interesting period of the dark ages, 936- 
 1100, during which the monarchy of Charlemagne fell to ruin, the 
 Capetian dynasty began to reign in France, Italy was parcelled 
 out among a number of petty princes; while in Germany Otho 
 commenced the long-continued struggle against feudalism. 
 
 5. The fifth is the romantic or heroic period of the Crusades, 
 1096-1273, in which the Roman legal code, the foundation of 
 great part of modern jurisprudence, began to be studied. 
 
 6. The sixth beheld the revival of the Fine Arts in Italy, the 
 taking of Constantinople and consequent diffusion of its learned 
 men, the revival of letters, the discovery of America, 1492, and 
 the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, 1497. 
 
 III. Modern History may be conveniently divided into six 
 portions:— 
 
 1. The period of the Reformation, from its commencement by 
 Luther in 1517, till the termination of the long series of Italian 
 wars in 1559. 
 
 2. The period of the' religious wars, particularly in France, 
 from 1559 to the peace of Westphalia in 1648, which produced 
 many important changes in Europe. 
 
 3. The period from 1648 to the death of Louis XIV. in 1715, 
 during which Russia entered into the European commonwealth, 
 and Great Britain began to assume preponderating influence on 
 the Continent. 
 
 4. The fourth period terminates with the peace of Versailles, 
 1783, which established the independence of the United States, 
 and during which Prussia became a first-rate power. 
 
 5. The French Revolution, from the meeting of the States- 
 general in 1789, to the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. 
 
 6. The period from the battle of Waterloo, 1815, to the present 
 
 day. 
 
I 
 
 ELEMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 % 
 
 UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 FROM THE CREATION 4004, B. C. TO THE FALL OF THE WESTERN 
 
 EMPIRE, 476 A. D. 
 
 FORTY-FIRST CENTURY 
 
 4004, Creation of the World. 
 
 Creation, 4004 b. c. —“ In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth,” and by the power of his word, gave to a rude chaotic 
 mass the admirable beauty and variety which n< v everywhere salute 
 the eye. Man was formed the last and best of his works, in the image 
 of his Maker, upright and happy, with powers of understanding and 
 will. With his companion Eve, miraculously framed out of his own 
 substance, be dwelt in the garden of Eden, where, yielding to the sug¬ 
 gestions of the Tempter, he transgressed the divine commands, and 
 incurred all the penalties due to the violation of a positive law. Sin 
 with its mournful train entered into the world; and though the Messiah 
 was graciously promised, our first parents, being driven from Paradise, 
 were condemned to a life of toil and to the forfeiture of immortality. 
 
 Geologists assign a period to the earth far exceeding that given in the Mosaic 
 records, and trace the various stages through which it is supposed to have 
 passed from the time when the will of God called its rude germs into existence 
 until the creation of man. Water first enveloped the nucleus of the earth ; a 
 few shell-fish and plants composed the animal and vegetable Kfe. To these, 
 after successive revolutions, were added the mollusca, fishes, and amphibious 
 animals. These again made way for the sea-horses, whales, and others, whose 
 huge carcasses were in their turn added to the solid matter of the globe, which 
 was now beginning to produce vegetable substances adapted to the use and 
 support of land-animals. The monsters of creation, such as the mammoth, 
 were next called into existence, to disappear after an appointed period, when 
 the present race of animals and man himself were to succeed. Such is the 
 progress of creation as imagined by the persevering geologists of the last fifty 
 years, which, far from contradicting the narrative of Moses, confirms our faith 
 
14 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 THIRTY-NINTH CENTURY. 
 
 875, Death of Abel—Posterity of Adam—Seth, born 3874. 
 
 Abel.— After his fall, Adam had two sons, Cain and Aoel; the one 
 a husbandman, the other a shepherd, and each as different from tne 
 other in temper as in occupation. Filled with rage and jealousy at the 
 acceptance of his brother’s sacrifice, Cain put forth his hand and mur¬ 
 dered him, 3875. Thus our first parent beheld the fruits of his disobe¬ 
 dience, not only in the presence of death, till then unknown, but in his 
 first-born becoming the minister of vengeance. The descendants of his 
 third son, Seth, were as distinguished for piety, as those of Cain- for 
 irreligion; the former were in consequence denominated the sons of God, 
 the latter the sons of men. 
 
 In the new world population rapidly increased; fields were cultivated, cattle 
 bred, and their skins used for clothing; Jabal made the first tents; musical 
 instruments were the invention of Jubal; and Tubal-Cain (supposed by some 
 to be the Vulcan of Pagan mythology).discovered the art of working in metals. 
 Already the strong began to assume authority over the weak. The offering 
 of expiatory sacrifices and the sanctification of the sabbath originated in this 
 early period. 
 
 TWENTY-FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 2348, Universal Deluge. 
 
 Deluge.— The death of Adam (3074,) the translation of Enoch (3017,) 
 the feebleness of the other patriarchs, and the luxuriant abundance of 
 the earth, filled man’s heart with presumption and guilt. Impiety made 
 rapid progress, and like a contagious pestilence infected all the mass of 
 society. In the midst of the general depravity one individual alone 
 found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In the year of the world 1G56, the 
 whole of the human race was destroyed by a deluge, the only survivors 
 being Noah and his family, in all eight persons, who were preserved in 
 an ark built in obedience to the divine command, 2348 b. c. On the 
 subsiding of the waters, this vessel rested on Mount Ararat, in Arme¬ 
 nia,* whence all the earth was again progressively peopled. The rain¬ 
 bow was then appointed as a covenant between God and man, that 
 there should not be any more flood to destroy the earth. 
 
 One of the most remarkable effects of the Deluge was the rapid decrease 
 of the duration of human life. The ten antediluvian patriarchs lived on an 
 average 850 years each, while their immediate successors did not exceed 320. 
 But under a favourable climate and with an increasing population, the arts 
 soon reached a high state of perfection. The longevity of the postdiluvian 
 patriarchs had the effect of maintaining the natural authority of the parent, 
 while it also tended to repress the fickle passions of youth. When God’s 
 more immediate protection w T as removed, the span of life w r as contracted ; and 
 
 * This celebrated mountain is situated in 3£P 42' N. 44° 18' E. nearly in the centre 
 between the southern extremities of the Euxine and the Caspian seas, and is visible at 
 the distance of 180 or 200 miles. Spreading its broad base along the plain of the Araxes, 
 it rises in majestic grandeur 17,260 feet above the level of the sea, the whole of its upper 
 region being covered with perpetual snow, it is regarded with the greatest veneration 
 by the natives, who have many religious establishments in its vicinity. 
 
TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY B. C. 
 
 15 
 
 now its very brevity gives vigour to all the efforts of society, and the rapid 
 change of actors inspires each with a hope of excelling in his own brief stage.* 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY. 
 
 Sacred History. —Dispersion of Mankind—Formation of Nations—2247, 
 Babel—Nimrod founds the Chaldean Monarchy, 2234. 
 
 China. —First dynasty : Fohi, 2207. 
 
 Sacred History . 
 
 The Dispersion.— The distribution of the world among the children 
 of Noah was not made at random ; for as early as the third generation 
 ■ifter the Flood, it was arranged by the patriarch under the immediate 
 direction of God. By this division Europe and Northern Asia fell to 
 Japhet; Central Asia to Shem; and to Ham were assigned the distant 
 regions of Africa. But violence was early used to derange this parti¬ 
 tion; Nimrod, the Belus of profane writers, expelled Ashur from the 
 land of Shinar, and Canaan, the son of Ham, seized upon Palestine, 
 which belonged to Shem. In the subsequent expulsion of the Canaan- 
 ites by the Hebrews, we behold the certain though tardy retribution of 
 the Almighty. 
 
 Babel, 2247.—The descendants of Cush, who had refused to follow 
 the rest of the children of Ham into Africa, seized upon the fertile plains 
 of Shinar, where under Nimrod they began to build the tower of Babel, 
 and lay the foundation of a permanent monarchy. But, lest the pro¬ 
 gress of the infant society of the world should be crushed by an oppres¬ 
 sive despotism, God confounded their language and scattered them over 
 the face of the earth. Around that remarkable edifice| the magnificent 
 city of Babylon was afterwards raised (32° 25' N. 44° E.) 
 
 Assyria and Babylon. — Rejecting the narratives of the Greeks, 
 which appear to have no better basis than a vague and popular tradition, 
 we learn from the Scripture history that Ashur, being supplanted by 
 Nimrod, retired towards the mountains, and built a city of defence on 
 the left bank of the Tigris, which afterwards, under the appellation of 
 Nineveh, became the seat of empire about the year 2234. Incessam 
 
 ♦There is much difference of opinion as to the precise epoch of the Deluge. It is 
 fixed by the learned authors of VArt de verifier les Dates at 3308 b. c., by the Septuagint 
 text at 3246, both of which nearly concur with the beginning of the Hindoo Kali Yug, 
 3101 b. c. The period assigned to the creation is equally unsettled; and more than 200 
 dates have been collected by Desvignoles, ranging from 6984 to 3483, b. o. 
 
 fThe remains of the Tower of Babel are supposed still to exist in the Birs Nemroud 
 on the western bank of the Euphrates, about six miles to the south-west of Hillah. Mr. 
 Rich describes this venerable ruin as a prodigious mound, nearly half a mile in circum¬ 
 ference and 198 feet in height; on its summit is a solid pile of brick, 37 feet high by 28 
 in breadth, shattered at the top, and rent by a large fissure. Around it lie immense frag¬ 
 ments of brick work, of no determinate figure, and converted into solid vitrified masses, 
 as if they had undergone the action of the fiercest fire. Nebuchadnezzar, about 600 b. c 
 formed it into that celebrated tower, which was reckoned among the wonders of the 
 world. When Alexander the Great undertook to restore it to its former splendour, 10 000 
 men were occupied two months in clearing away the ruins caused by the devastations 
 of Xerxes. The building was probably intended for a fire-tower , on which to offer sacri 
 fices to the Sun (Bel or Baal). 
 
16 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 hostility prevailed for centuries between the Babylonians and Assyrians, 
 who had not all left the plains of Shinar (Mesopotamia.) The name 
 of Babylon does not again occur in authentic history until the 8th 
 century b. c., shortly before the time of Nebuchadnezzar, under whom 
 it became the capital of an extensive monarchy. The Chasdim (descend¬ 
 ants of Cush) who still remained, were known as the Chaldeans, pro¬ 
 bably a caste of priests, renowned for their scientific attainments. 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 Fohi.— Though it is difficult to assign a fixed epoch for the com¬ 
 mencement of Chinese history, we must reject the exaggerated state¬ 
 ments which give a duration to the empire of nearly 280,000 years. It 
 is probable that the Eastern parts of Asia were visited early, and that 
 the immediate posterity of Noah descended from the central mountains 
 to those fertile plains which are traversed from west to east by the 
 Hoang-Ho and the Kiang, and laid the foundations of a regular society 
 under the celebrated Fohi, 2207. By him the people were divided into 
 a hundred families, each having, as at present, a particular name; the 
 sacred rites of marriage were enforced ; the land was cultivated, cattle 
 bred, and metals forged. He died in the 115th year of his reign. 
 
 The existence of Fohi, and the chronological list of his successors given by 
 Chinese writers down to the third century b. c.. are questioned by the critics 
 of modern days, who treat as fables every thing that is transmitted in the 
 national annals before that period. Fohi is supposed by some to be only 
 another name for Noah. 
 
 Formation of Nations. 
 
 All the various races that people the earth’s surface spring from the three 
 sons of Noah, and are divided into three corresponding branches. 
 
 I. Japhet may be regarded as the parent of the White or Caucasian branch, 
 which spread over most part of Europe, S. Asia, and N. Africa. It admits of 
 three subdivisions:— 
 
 a. —The Arameans, a race dwelling between the Euphrates and the Medi¬ 
 terranean, including the Arabs, Egyptians, and Abyssinians ; 
 
 b. -— Indians, Pelasgians, and Germans, from whom are descended the 
 inhabitants of India, and of great part of Europe ; 
 
 c. —Scythians and Tartars , or the people bordering on the Caspian Sea, 
 among whom are the Turks, Hungarians, and Finns. 
 
 II. Shem is the parent stock of the tawny, olive, or Mongol race, which 
 admits of six divisions:— 
 
 a. —The Mantchoos in Central Asia; 
 
 b. —The Chinese in China and Japan ; 
 
 c. —The Hyperboreans, who peopled the extreme north of Europe, Asia, and 
 America, such as the Laplanders, Samoeids and Esquimaux. 
 
 d. —The Malays in Malacca, and those islands comprehended in the term 
 Malasia, the chief of which are Sumatra, Borneo, and Celebes. 
 
 e. —The Oceanians, differing little from the preceding, inhabit the numerous 
 small islands lying in a S. E. direction between Japan and the equator, with 
 New Zealand, the Sandwich, and the Society Islands. 
 
 f. — Americans, or copper coloured Indians, who composed the primitive 
 population of the New World. 
 
 III. Ham was the father of the black race, which may be subdivided into,- 
 
 a. —The Ethiopians in Central Africa ; 
 
 b. —The Caffres on the south-eastern coast, 
 
 c The Hottentots of the South of Africa. 
 
TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 17 
 
 Both tradition and history point to the remote East as the storehouse of the 
 human race. From the table-land in the vicinity of Balkh, in more recent 
 times, issued the Huns, Avars, Magyars, Mongols, and Turks; and modern 
 researches derive the Hindoos from the same locality. 
 
 Traces of three primeval languages may also be found : — 1. The Arabic or 
 Chaldee , from which spring the dialects used by the Assyrians, Arabs, and 
 Jews:—2. From the Sanscrit , radically different from the Arabic, spring the 
 Greek, Latin, and Celtic dialects, the Persian, Armenian, and old Egyptian: 
 — 3. From the Slavonic or Tartarian , essentially different from the two pre¬ 
 ceding, are formed the various dialects of northern Asia and north-eastern 
 Europe. The Hindoos preserve a tradition that there were originally eighteen 
 languages. 
 
 Modern naturalists, confining their view to the animal nature of man and 
 taking no account of language or of the minor and superficial varieties in the 
 exterior, admit at present of jive races:—Caucasian, Negro, Tartar, American, 
 Malay. 
 
 Consult: Buffon’s Natural History, vol. i. 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 Egypt. —2188, Menes—Beginning of Genuine History. 
 
 Preliminary Observations. 
 
 Great obscurity covers the early part of Egyptian history; the account 
 given by Moses has reference merely to his own age; and the information 
 derived from Herodotus, Manetho, and others, tends rather to confuse than 
 enlighten us. The sacred island of Meroe, formed by the confluence of the 
 Astaboras and the Astapus (the Tacazze and the Blue River) with the Nile, 
 appears to have been the centre of commercial and religious resort. Thence 
 the primitive civilizers of mankind, bearing with them the worship of Ammon 
 and Osiris, the arts of life, the habits of trade, and, above all, the science and 
 implements of agriculture, gradually spread their industrious colonies down the 
 Nile. In some parts they found a rude race already settled (probably some 
 pastoral Arab tribes who had come round by the way of the isthmus), and over 
 whom they assumed the ascendant of superior civilisation, and formed a higher 
 caste. At an early period the mountains which skirt the fertile plains of Thebes, 
 were excavated into dwellings for themselves and their gods; whence, gra¬ 
 dually spreading over the intervening plain, they laid the foundations of the 
 “ hundred-gated city.” Sacerdotal colonies, forming separate nomes, gradually 
 fixed themselves in all places suited for agriculture or traffic; the temple, col¬ 
 lege, and mart, became a new city, and perhaps a kingdom. Almost every 
 ancient city bore the name of its god, as Diospolis (Thebes), Heliopolis (On), 
 Hephaistopolis (Memphis), and many others. 
 
 Menes.— Egyptian history, properly so called, begins with this sove¬ 
 reign, when the sacerdotal form of government was changed into the 
 monarchical, or the reign of the gods gave way to that of men. This 
 first mortal king has been identified by many chronologers, on insuffi¬ 
 cient grounds, with the Mizraim of the Scriptures. Others have sup¬ 
 posed him to be the same as Osiris, Osymandyas, Uchoreus, and Mccris 
 Of Menes or of his age we have only a few vague traditions. Herodotus* 
 ascribes to him the construction of a vast dam or mound, by which the 
 course of the Nile was altered and confined and Memphis secured against 
 inundation. Diodorus says that he taught the people to worship the 
 gods and offer sacrifice, and that he introduced luxury and a sumptuous 
 style of living. From Menes, to Moeris in the eighteenth dynasty, there 
 2 * 
 
18 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 is a wide chasm, feebly supplied by the scattered notices in the Penta¬ 
 teuch. The priests read to Herodotus a fabulous roll of 330 inglorious 
 monarchs, eighteen of whom were Ethiopians, with one queen, named 
 Nitocris. 
 
 Religion. —The main doctrine of the Egyptian religion was the transmigra¬ 
 tions of souls to an inferior or superior state of being, according as a man 
 pursued vice or virtue during his life. The principal divinities of Egypt were 
 Kneph , the creator of the universe, represented under the figure of a serpent; 
 PhtJia, the vivifying power of nature, whom, owing to his symbol, fire, the 
 Greeks confounded with Vulcan; Osiris, or the Sun; and Isis, or the Moon. 
 The heavenly bodies were regarded as the great causes of nutrition~and genera¬ 
 tion. Terrestrial and mortal divinities were also worshipped, many of whom 
 had been kings, and were thus honoured as gods, for the benefits they conferred 
 on their subjects during life. Baby or Typhon was detested as the murderer 
 of Osiris and the scourge of his family and nation. Horus, Thoth, Serapis, and 
 Anubis were other of their deities. The religious extravagance of the Egyp¬ 
 tians accorded divine honours to many animals and vegetables. Cats were held 
 especially sacred, and their death was mourned by shaving the eyebrows. The 
 preservation of this animal during a conflagration was of more importance than 
 that of a house ; and for having killed one undesignedly, a soldier in the army 
 of Antony was torn in pieces by the enraged multitude. The bull Apis was 
 worshipped in a magnificent temple, and by the noblest priests. His death was 
 considered a national calamity, and the installation of his successor at Memphis 
 was a universal holiday. By their long residence in Egypt the Israelites had 
 gradually acquired many of the religious notions peculiar to the country ; hence 
 the molten calf set up in the desert, and the golden calves worshipped at Bethel 
 arid Dan, under Jeroboam, were representations of the Egyptian Apis. 
 
 Government. —The 30,000 years of the reign of the Sun, the 3984 of the 
 twelve gods, and 217 of the demigods, are either an allegory or an astronomical 
 problem converted into history. The earliest form of government of which we 
 can speak with any certaint}' was sacerdotal, which was followed by the regal. 
 The population was divided into castes, as in Hindostan at the present day ; the 
 priesthood were in the first rank, the soldiers in the second, then followed the 
 nusbandmen, traders, and artificers ; sailors and shepherds formed the lowest. 
 The country was originally divided into nomes or districts, each so distinguished 
 from the others by various local usages and objects of worship, as to lead to the 
 conjecture that they once formed permanent and independent states. The four 
 principal dynasties were those of Tanis, Memphis, Thebes, and This. 
 
 Arts and Sciences. —The Egyptians, at an early period, had made astonish¬ 
 ing progress in certain sciences. The contention of the necromancers with 
 Moses shows the great advances they had made in natural magic,— namely* 
 physics and chemistry. Geometry was rendered necessary by the destruction 
 of the landmarks in the annual inundation of the Nile. Architecture was car¬ 
 ried to great perfection ; the construction of the arch was not unknown, and 
 Mr. (now Sir J. G.) Wilkinson places its introduction so far back as 1540 b. c., 
 coeval with the eighteenth dynasty; and the stupendous pyramids, while they 
 astonish the traveller by their magnitude, attest the astronomical skill of their 
 builders. Each side of the base of the great pyramid, multiplied by 500, pro¬ 
 duces a geographical degree. Some writers are of opinion that these monu¬ 
 ments were built before the Flood. It is not improbable that they were erected 
 to gratify the pride, or satisfy the superstition of the Egyptian monarchs. The 
 temples and palaces of Thebes are colossal, but ill proportioned; the ground is 
 in many places strewed with massy obelisks formed of a single stone ; and 
 ^venues of sphinxes still direct to the centre of religious worship. The walls 
 and ceilings of public and private buildings are covered with paintings, as fresh 
 as when first executed; but the four simple and unmixed colours which are 
 used declare the infancy of the art. 
 
 Hieroglyphics. —The sanguine anticipations of the learned appear to be dis¬ 
 appointed by the meagre results obtained from deciphering the Egyptian writ¬ 
 ings, whether on stone or papyrus. The hieroglyphs (sacred engraved characters) 
 
TWENTIETH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 19 
 
 are a kind of allegorical picture-writing, in which the signs borrowed from natural 
 objects serve partly to represent sounds, and partly to express ideas. There 
 are two other species of writing:—-the hieratic , confined to the priests ; and the 
 demotic , used in common life—both apparently running hands derived from the 
 hieroglyphic system. 
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY. 
 
 ✓ 
 
 Sacred History.— 1921, Call of Abraham—Destruction of Sodom.— 
 1968, Ninus supposed to reign in Assyria. 
 
 Abraham, of the race of Shem, was born in Ur of the Chaldees. 
 Although connected with the idolatrous fire-worship of his native coun¬ 
 try, he possessed some knowledge of the true God, for he obeyed the 
 divine command without hesitation, and moved westward to Haran , that 
 Charrae famous for the defeat and death of Crassus. Passing the 
 Euphrates, he at last, after various wanderings, settled in the Promised 
 Land. The kings of the Pentapolis having revolted against Chedor- 
 laomer, king of Elam (Elymais,) that monarch was obliged to take up 
 arms against them, in order to preserve the fidelity of the adjoining 
 states He defeated the allied army and captured Lot, the nephew of 
 Abraham, by whom he was shortly after rescued, 1913. Returning 
 from his victory over the Elamites, he was met by Melchizedek king of 
 Salem, priest of the Most High, who blessed him and received in return 
 a tithe of the spoil, as an offering to the God who had crowned the 
 undertaking with success. But the piety of the patriarch was unable to 
 avert the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, 1897. Jehovah rained 
 down fire and brimstone from heaven, and the Dead Sea now covers the 
 ruins of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboirn. On the birth of 
 Isaac (1896,) the mother urged Abraham to drive out Hagar with the 
 child Ishmael, which she had born him, lest he should share the paternal 
 heritage. The two exiles retired to the desert, where the youth married 
 an Egyptian woman, and his descendants are, to this day, a living wit¬ 
 ness to the truth of the prophecy of the angel ,—he will be a wild man , 
 his hand will be against every man , and every mail's hand against him ,— 
 Persians, Greeks and Romans, Mongols and Tartars, having vainly 
 endeavoured to subdue them. The Hejazite kings of Arabia, to whose 
 dynasty Mohammed belonged, reckon the son of Hagar among their 
 ancestors. 
 
 When Isaac was little more than twenty years of age, God demanded 
 him as a burnt-sacrifice; but the faith of the patriarch prevented the 
 consummation of the painful duty, and the covenant made before Abra¬ 
 ham quitted Chaldea was renewed in stronger terms, 187*2. This father 
 of the faithful expired at the age of 175, b. c. 1821, leaving behind him 
 a numerous family. Besides the Israelites and Ishmaelites, he was, by 
 his second wife Keturah, the ancestor of the Midianites and several 
 other Arab tribes. 
 
20 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Character of Abraham. 
 
 In whatever light we view the patriarch, we remark traits of grandeur that 
 place him beside the great heroes of antiquity. He was a despotic king over 
 his descendants and slaves, without the inconvenient title and ceremonies 
 Princes sought his alliance, as their equal; like a modern sheik , he made peace 
 or war as he pleased. Possessing countless herds, the only riches of the age, 
 he lived in abundance, rejecting all presents, lest any should boast that he had 
 enriched himself by them. As a religious man, he had the most implicit con¬ 
 fidence in the promises of God, and was always resigned to his commands, 
 even to the sacrifice of his only son. As soon as the Almighty spoke, he 
 believed against all appearances, hoped even against hope, and obeyed in spite 
 of the strongest affections of our nature. He was a man of divine mould, the 
 model as well as the father of all true believers. 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Egypt.— Invasion of the Shepherds. 
 
 Greece. —1856, Kingdom of Argos founded by Inachus. 
 
 Shepherd Kings. —The invasion of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings 
 is an event of great importance in Egyptian history, but much uncer¬ 
 tainty exists as to the period when it took place. We learn that, in the 
 reign of Timaos (Thammuz), Egypt was invaded by a pastoral tribe, 
 who, after subduing the lower country, extended their ravages to the 
 Thebais, which, however, they could not reduce, and where a native 
 dynasty long continued to reign. They are said to have made Memphis 
 their capital, and to have established a fortified camp at Abaris (Pelu- 
 sium,) in the Saitic nome, where they stationed 240,000 men. These 
 invaders are represented on the monuments with tattooed limbs and skin 
 garments, and as preserving their wild habits and rudeness until their 
 expulsion. This event took place under the first of the eighteenth 
 dynasty of Thebes, 260 years after the inroad. Amosis, or Thoutmosis, 
 raised the country from its prostrate state, and formed one compact king¬ 
 dom with Thebes for its capital. 
 
 This period of Egyptian history is greatly confused, as much from the want 
 of information as from contradictory accounts. Heeren places the Shepherd 
 dominion between 1800 and 1600 b. c. contemporary with Moses and the 
 Exodus; he also supposes a number of successive invasions. Dr. Hales 
 assigns 2159 b. c. for the epoch of the Pastoral Kings, and supposes them to 
 have been expelled about 27 years before the commencement of Joseph’s 
 administration. The authors of the Universal History, following Josephus, 
 give a duration of more than 500 years to this dynasty. Rollin places them 
 between 2084 and 1825 b. c., and makes Abraham visit Egypt under one o r 
 these foreign kings. The Jewish annalist maintains that these exterminating 
 invaders are merely the 70 peaceful members who formed the family of his 
 ancestor Jacob. The red hair and blue eyes of the Hyksos seem to indicate 
 a northern and probably a Scythian origin; they certainly have nothing of the 
 Arabian character. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 21 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Sacred History.— 1837, 6. Esau and Jacob—1728, Joseph in Egypt.— 
 
 1706, Israelites settled in Goshen. 
 
 Egypt. —Foreign Intercourse. 
 
 Sacred History . 
 
 The life of Isaac was not eventful. He dwelt within the borders of 
 the Promised Land, where he practised agriculture, and became so 
 wealthy as to excite the jealousy of the neighbouring princes. By his 
 prudence he averted the calamities of war, and renewed the treaty that 
 had been concluded between his father and Abimelech. His two sons, 
 Esau and Jacob, were men of different characters: the elder applied 
 himself to the cultivation of the soil, and by the active pleasures of the 
 chase acquired a hardy frame of body; Jacob, on account of his mild 
 and peaceful manners, was the object of his mother’s peculiar affection. 
 The latter defrauded Esau of his father’s benediction, and was obliged 
 to flee from his just resentment. In his journey toward Mesopotamia, 
 1760, he was visited by God in his sleep, who promised him a numerous 
 posterity, as well as the possession of the land of Canaan. On the 
 death of Isaac, at the age of 180 years, the two brothers divided the 
 inheritance; the younger remained in the land of Canaan, while the 
 other returned to the country 'which had derived from him the name of 
 Edom {red.) His numerous posterity occupied that part of Idumea 
 called Amalekitis , from a descendant of Ham, or, according to some, from 
 Amalek, the grandson of Esau. 
 
 Joseph.— The twelve sons of Jacob did not all imitate the piety of 
 their father. One of the number, Joseph, became the victim of their 
 jealousy, and at the age of seventeen was sold by them to a caravan of 
 Ishmaelites who were on their way to Egypt, 1728. Here he speedily 
 rose to honour, became the minister of Thoutmosis , the reigning pharaoh, 
 and by his foresight he preserved the country from famine during seven 
 years of sterility. He strengthened the royal power, and secured the 
 comforts of the people, by establishing a fixed land-tax or rent of one- 
 fifth of the produce instead of the previous arbitrary exactions. His 
 own influence was confirmed by a marriage with the daughter of the 
 priest of On; and the government, which had been theocratic and mili¬ 
 tary, now became entirely sacerdotal. Jacob, with all his family, were 
 soon after settled in the land of Goshen, 1706, which not only afforded 
 excellent pasture, but was separated by its remoteness from the Egyp¬ 
 tians, who had recently suffered too much from the Shepherd Kings to 
 associate readily with those who followed the same occupation. By this 
 means also the exposed frontier was confided to the protection of a hardy 
 and warlike race. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 The state of Memphis, in which Joseph resided, comprised at this 
 period Middle and Low'er Egypt; and the Mosaic records prove that it 
 contained a brilliant court, with its castes of priests and w’arriors. 
 . Thoutmosis reigned twenty-five years after the expulsion of the Shep 
 
22 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 herd dynasty. Among’ his successors is reckoned Mceris, who is said to 
 have excavated the great lake which bears his name. 
 
 This century witnessed the first communication between the Hebrews, 
 Greeks, and Egyptians. Joseph and the twelve patriarchs on the one 
 side, a King of Thessaly and the Titans on the other, sought an asylum 
 in Egypt. The Israelites were then a mere nomad tribe, like the Arabs 
 at the present day; the Greeks were Scythians or Pelasgians; both 
 were new people: while the Chaldeans, the Sidonians, and the Egyp¬ 
 tians, were skilled in astronomy and navigation, and learned in theology, 
 morals, politics, the art of war, and maritime commerce. During their 
 stay in Egypt, the Greeks and Hebrews derived from a common source 
 their first learning, subject to the various influences of the climate and 
 superstitions of the countries to which they removed. 
 
 Read: Russel’s Ancient and Modern Egypt in the Edinburgh Cabinet 
 Library, and Wilkinson’s Manners of the Egyptians. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Sacked History.— 1635, Death of Joseph. 
 
 Greece. —The Pelasgi—Sicyon. 
 
 Sacred History . 
 
 The settlement of the Jewish people in Egypt tended in some degree 
 to recall them from their nomad state. The patriarch Jacob lived only 
 seventeen years to enjoy the presence of his son Joseph, and witness the 
 happiness of his family. He died in 1689 b. c., at the age of 147, 
 blessing his children, and foretelling the birth of the Messiah from the 
 race of Judah. His favourite son survived fifty-four years, and saw his 
 descendants in the fourth generation. He expired in 1635, regretted by 
 all Egypt, and with him terminates the history of the book of Genesis, 
 containing a period of 2369 years. In the division of the Promised 
 Land, Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of this patriarch, ranked as 
 heads of tribes, on an equality with the eleven sons of Jacob. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Origin of the Greek Nations . 
 
 The first settlers of Greece were Ionians, a Pelasgic race, who derived 
 their name from Javan (Heb. Ion,) son of Japhet. He is mentioned in 
 Genesis as among those by whom the isles of the Gentiles were divided 
 in their lands , and Greece is called Javan several times in the sacred 
 Scriptures. The Hellenes , if not an offshoot of the Pelasgians, were 
 also of eastern origin, and by these two were the different states of the 
 Archipelago originally formed. There w T as also a continual influx ot 
 the wandering hordes of the north. Scythia then, as in latter times, 
 supplied abundant streams of barbarians, who sought a milder climate 
 and a more fertile soil than their own. These nomad tribes, like the 
 Indians of America, subsisted on the produce of the chase or the wild 
 fruits of the woods ; but we are entirely ignorant of their history, man¬ 
 ners, and religion. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 23 
 
 The Pelasgians have left an imperishable record in the numerous 
 
 uildings that bear their name. In the ruins of the fortifications of 
 Lycosura we see all that remains of the oldest Greek city. Their ma¬ 
 sonry was polygonal, each stone fitting into the other without cement. 
 The Cyclopean walls, often confounded with the Pelasgic, are at least 
 four or five centuries later. 
 
 While these primitive tribes remained in a savage state of ignorance, 
 the arts and sciences were advancing to perfection in the East. The 
 troubles in Egypt, consequent upon the invasion of the shepherd races, 
 compelled great numbers to seek peace and-tranquillity beyond the sea, 
 and by them settlements were formed in Peloponnesus and Northern 
 Greece. Their knowledge was communicated by degrees to the inhab¬ 
 itants of the country, who at last were civilized. The first care of Ina- 
 chus, who arrived in Argolis about 1856 b. c., was to raise a temple to 
 Apollo on Mount Lycaon. Cecrops, from the nome of Sais, pursued a 
 similar course in order to reclaim the uncivilized inhabitants of Attica, 
 1556.* 
 
 Although many of the primitive Greeks had withdrawn into the 
 mountains of Arcadia, as the ancient Britons retired into the fastnesses 
 of Wales, yet they generally adopted the Egyptian laws and institu¬ 
 tions, which they cherished and long preserved with devoted constancy. 
 The paintings still seen on the Egyptian monuments (s eeRosellini) form 
 a complete illustration of the Works and Days of Hesiod. 
 
 The Phoenicians were the next colonists, but with a different object. 
 Their vessels infested the Grecian coasts, ravaging and plundering the 
 adjacent towns, and carrying the inhabitants into slavery. Their very 
 name, among the early Greeks, like the Punic faith of the Romans, was 
 expressive of fraud, deceit, and treachery. 
 
 Consult: Thirlwall’s Hist. Greece, vol. i. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Sacred History.— 1581, Birth of Moses—Job. 
 
 Greece. —1556, Cecrops—Deluge of Deucalion—Amphictyonic Council. 
 
 $ acred History . 
 
 Moses. —After the death of Joseph in 1635, the Israelites increased so 
 rapidly in numbers and in strength as to excite the fears of the reigning 
 monarch. The ordinary modes of diminishing the population proving 
 inefficient, the 'pharaoh commanded all the male children to be slain as 
 soon as born. The affection of Jochebed preserved her son Moses for 
 three months, when the fear of discovery at last compelled her to expose 
 him on the banks of the >. ile, 1571. Here he was providentially seen 
 
 * The reign of Cecrops is the first epoch, 1581, in the Arundelian (or Parian) marbles. 
 These are an Athenian chronicle, graven on marble in Greek capitals, found at the be¬ 
 ginning of the 17th century in the island of Paros, one of the Cyclades, and transported 
 to England by Thomas earl of Arundel, whose grandson presented them to the Univer- 
 Bity of Oxford. The chronicle, the authenticity of which now begins to be questioned, 
 was engraved 264 b. c. It has been frequently printed. 
 
24 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 and rescued by the king’s daughter, Thermutis, who brought him up as 
 her own child, and educated him in all the learning of her country. 
 Having slain an Egyptian who was maltreating a Hebrew, he was 
 compelled to flee for refuge into the land of Midian, near the Red Sea, 
 1531 b. c., where he resided forty years. While tending the flocks of 
 Jethro, his father-in-law, in the desert, he received a summons from the 
 Almighty to return into Egypt, and lead his chosen people from their 
 land of bondage, 1491 b.c. 
 
 Job. —This patriarch, whose name has become a synonym with 
 patience, was born and dwelt in the land of Idumea (Uz.) Reduced to 
 extreme poverty, bereft of all his children in one day, his body covered 
 with sores, and lying on a dunghill, he still put his confidence in God. - 
 Virtue so great could not fail to meet with its reward; hence his tem¬ 
 poral blessings were restored tenfold, and he ended his life in peace and 
 tranquillity. Following the Bible chronology, we have placed the epoch 
 of Job, 1520 b. c., much later than the internal evidence seems to justify. 
 Some make the Idumeans who plundered him to be the Hyksos on their 
 w’ay to Egypt. Dr. Hales, and Dr, Brinkley the late bishop of Cloyne, 
 give the date of 2337 b. c. Ducoutant places him in 2136 b. c., while 
 the learned authors of VJlrt de verifier les Dates make him flourish 
 between 1725 and 1685 b. c.; others bring him lower still, even to 
 894 b. c. 
 
 Consult: Wemyss’ Job and his Times and Russell’s Connection of Sacred 
 and Profane History, vols i. & iii. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 While Argolis advanced in civilization under the family of Inachus, 
 Phegae in Arcadia, Mycenae in Argolis, and Sparta, were founded by the 
 chiefs whose names they bear. In the space of 313 years, four colonies 
 were established in Thessaly and Arcadia, by three different princes 
 known by the same apellation, Pelasgus. The first dynasty of the 
 Shepherd Kings of Egypt becoming extinct in the person of their sixth 
 monarch, the changes which ensued gave birth to many emigrations, 
 among others to that of Ogyges, in whose reign over Attica and Bceotia, 
 the lake Copais burst its banks and destroyed two cities which this 
 monarch had founded near its shores. The remote period, however, at 
 which this event took place, has caused all the traditions of the primi¬ 
 tive ages of Greece to be distinguished by the term Ogygian. In the 
 time of Sylla, a festival was still celebrated at Athens commemorative 
 of the catastrophe. Somewhat later occurred the deluge of Deucalion, 
 which appears to have been confined to Thessaly, and to have been 
 caused by a convulsion of the earth which stopped up the course 
 of the Peneus, as it flowed between Olympus and Ossa, 1529 b. c. The 
 same flood drove the Hellenes from Phocis, whence passing into Thes¬ 
 saly, they expelled the Pelasgi, and afterwards spread through all 
 Greece. 
 
 Amphictyon. —In 1521 b. c., Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion, 
 established the celebrated council which bears his name,—an institution 
 not unlike the modern German Diet,—hy which the various Hellenic 
 states of Greece were united in the bonds of a common alliance, for the 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 25 
 
 purpose of protecting their general interests and guarding against foreign 
 invasion. Tne several deputies bound themselves by oath never to 
 overthrow any of the allied cities, nor to turn aside the running streams, 
 either in peace or in war; and to oppose to the utmost any nation that 
 dared to attempt such things. Their places of meeting were Thermo¬ 
 pylae and Delphi. To Acrisius, sovereign of Argos, is ascribed the 
 formation of its power and laws. The most celebrated exertion of 
 authority on the part of the council respected the town of Crissa, against 
 which it declared war. Hostilities were protracted for more than ten 
 years, when, principally by the advice of Solon, the place was reduced, 
 and the surrounding territory consecrated to the god of the Delphic 
 temple, 595 b. c. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 S/cred History.— 1491, Exodus—1451, Entry into Canaan. 
 
 Egypt. —1473, Conquests of Sesostris. 
 
 Phoenicia. —Foreign Discovery and Trade. 
 
 Greece -Theseus—Court of Areopagus.—1493, Thebes; 1490, Sparta; 
 
 1404. Corinth Founded. 
 
 Sacred History . 
 
 The Exodus. —Moses, after some hesitation to obey the divine com¬ 
 mands, went with his brother Aaron to the court of Pharaoh, to deliver 
 the solemn embassy of the Almighty. The monarch (Amenophis) in 
 return, added to the sufferings of the Israelites; nor did he cease to 
 afflict them until the ten plagues had wearied, though not convinced his 
 haughty spirit. On the 15th Nisan , the Hebrew nation began their 
 joyful march towards the Red Sea, 1491 b. c., each tribe in its proper 
 station, advancing in battle-array. Scarcely had they begun their long 
 journey, when the monarch repented his weakness, and hastily pursuing 
 with a numerous army, overtook them in a narrow defile which opens 
 upon the Arabian Gulf. In their extremity, with the sea before them 
 and implacable enemies behind, the people began to murmur, saying, 
 were there no graces in Egypt, that thou hast taken us away to die in the 
 wilderness? But Jehovah meditated a signal deliverance: the sea divi¬ 
 ded its w?ves before them ; they passed through dryshod; while the 
 returning waters buried Pharaoh’s host, so that none remained to tell 
 the dreadful tale. In the space of 215 years, God had so favoured the 
 descendants of Abraham, that from about 70 persons, the family of 
 Jacob had increased to 600,000 fighting men, or a gross population of 
 more than two millions. 
 
 The Wandering. —The whole period of forty years spent in the 
 desert was signalized by miracles. A deficiency of bread was made up 
 by the manna which lay on the ground covered with the morning 
 dew,—the bitter waters were purified,—a flight, of quails furnished the 
 people with meat,—the hard rock, at the touch of Moses’ rod, gave 
 forth a clear and copious stream of water, the earth opened and swal¬ 
 lowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, 1471,—fire from heaven de¬ 
 stroyed part of the camp,—and a destructive pestilence carried off nearly 
 3 
 
20 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 15,000 of the murmurers. Three months after the departure from 
 Egypt, the God of Jacob appeared on mount Sinai,* and, clothed in 
 majesty, made known the law of the two tables, comprehending the ten 
 commandments. Being unwilling to trust the report of the spies whom 
 M oses had sent to view the Land of Promise, the Israelites were all 
 condemned to perish in the desert, with the exception of Joshua and 
 Caleb, and those who had not yet reached the age of twenty years. 
 In vain did Moab and Midian unite against them,—in vain did the 
 hostile nations seek the aid and purchase the imprecations of Balaam : 
 his curses were converted into blessings. After forty years, their wan¬ 
 derings drew to an end. Moses assembled the tribes; committed the 
 Book of the Law to the priests ; and for the last time publicly addressed 
 the people. When his exhortation was concluded, he went to the top 
 of Mount Pisgah (ten miles north-east of the Dead Sea,) and there died 
 in sight of the promised inheritance, 1451 b. c. 
 
 Character of Moses. 
 
 Considered in a merely human light, Moses is not less celebrated as a poli¬ 
 tician than as a historian and poet. Pagan antiquity, while denying his divine 
 mission, has represented him as a man of profound learning, who rescued the 
 .Tew r s from debasement and slavery, and taught them the knowledge of the one 
 true God. The five books of the Pentateuch are the most ancient wriiings in 
 the world, and no history presents a stronger character of authenticity. " His 
 legislation was promulgated at a time when the word law was unknown to 
 other nations. This code has been divided into five parts: namely, religion, 
 morals, and civil, military, and political affairs. Its real wisdom is proved by 
 its existing still at the end of forty centuries, while the more recent institutes 
 of Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, and Solon have fallen into desuetude. 
 
 It is worth while to observe what progress the arts had made, even among 
 the nomad Jew r s, while Greece w^as yet barbarous. In the description of the 
 building of the Tabernacle w r e read of the founding and working of metals ; of 
 cutting and engraving precious stones ; of the trades of the cabinet-maker, 
 embrovderer, and perfumer. 
 
 Entry into Canaan, —1461 b. c. —Moses, as the civil and religious 
 head of the Wandering Tribes, strictly speaking had no successor. 
 Joshua was appointed military leader to subdue the Land of Canaan, 
 and portion it out among the victors. On the 10th Nisan, he crossed 
 the frontier river, the submissive waters of the Jordan yielding a passage 
 to the Ark of the Covenant which led the way. The ramparts of Jericho 
 miraculously fell before them,—a warning to the devoted nations, and 
 an encouragement to the Israelites. Ai was taken by stratagem; the 
 five allied kings of the Amorites were defeated, the sun itself stopping 
 in its course to aid the chosen people, while a terrible storm of hailstones 
 killed more than had fallen by the sword.j Joshua now divided the 
 portion of the land which he had conquered, and renewed the Covenant 
 with God. The tribe of Levi, which formed a literary and wealthy 
 counterpoise to the aristocratic and democratic part of the state, was not 
 included in this partition, but forty-eight cities were allotted them from 
 
 * Ancient tradition and locality seem to identify Sinai with Mount Serhal (above 
 8000 feet high), the first peak of the chain to those coming from Suez. 
 
 t The Chinese preserve a tradition, that in the time of the Emperor Yao, whom they 
 make contemporary with Joshua, the sun did not set for ten days. The Egyptian priests 
 told Herodotus, that within the period of 341 generations about 11.000 years! the sun 
 bad deviated four times from his usual course. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 27 
 
 the other tribes; a regulation, however, which circumstances prevented 
 beim>’ carried into full effect. On Joshua’s death, 1443 b. c., Caleb 
 succeeded to the government; but the people soon alter turned to the 
 idols of the Canaanites, and drew down upon themselves the anger of 
 God. 
 
 The formation of the Jewish republic was the work of Moses in the desert. 
 Its polity was evidently intended for a season only ; its theology was the 
 simplest of the age. The unity and individuality of the Deity were acknow¬ 
 ledged, while the absence of all direct revelation of a future state was in some 
 measure compensated by blending moral precepts with ritual observances, and 
 the infliction of temporal punishments-for personal or national disobedience. 
 All possible means were exerted to isolate the Jews from the surrounding 
 nations, by prohibiting commerce, emigration, and travelling. But their 
 attachment to external circumstances was so strong, that in spite of the gor¬ 
 geous ceremonies of their own ritual, they were soon found adopting the blood¬ 
 stained idolatry of the Canaanites or the gross superstitions of Egypt. This 
 would probably not have happened if the whole of the ancient inhabitants had 
 been exterminated, according to the intention of Moses, as the worship of the 
 true God would have been thereby rendered the sole religion of the country. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Sesostris. —Sesostris or Rhamses III. the Great, is the hero of early 
 Egyptian history, the founder of a new dynasty (19th,) and the liberator 
 of his country from the Hyksos, who had renewed their invasions in the 
 reign of his father, Amenophis III. Great difference of opinion prevails 
 as to the age of Sesostris, but it seems very probable that he flourished 
 during the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. His conquests 
 extended over Libya, Ethiopia, Media, Persia, Bactria, Scythia, and 
 Asia Minor, from all which countries he levied tribute. The trophies 
 of his victories, in the form of pillars, were found from the Danube to 
 the Ganges, and southward to Ethiopia; and a hundred famous 
 temples were raised from the spoils of his enemies. He divided 
 the country into 36 nomes, at the head of which he placed officers to 
 collect the taxes. He intersected the provinces with canals, and was the 
 first Egyptian monarch who was powerful at sea. Becoming blind, he 
 committed suicide in the 33d year of his reign. The traveller may yet 
 see his names and titles, wars and triumphs, depicted on the walls of 
 palaces and temples at Luxor, Karnac, Thebes, and Nubia. 
 
 PHOENICIA. 
 
 The name Phoenicia is applied to that narrow strip of the Syrian 
 coast (150 miles long, and 24 broad,) which extends from Tyre to 
 Aradus. Sidon was its oldest city, built by the eldest son of Canaan. 
 The inhabitants applied themselves at an early period to commerce, 
 navigation, and manufactures; and first communicated to the people of 
 the West the sciences of Asia. They visited and planted colonies on all 
 the shores of the Mediterranean; ventured as far as the British Isles in 
 search of tin, and navigated the Baltic to procure amber. They 
 embarked at Elath to make the circumnavigation of Africa, and formed 
 settlements eastward of the Persian Gulf. They seem to have disco¬ 
 vered islands beyond the western shore of Africa. They excelled in 
 the manufacture of glass, and the now forgotten art of dyeing purple 
 
28 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 To this people is also attributed the invention of alphabetical characters, 
 and their introduction into Europe. Our knowledge of their history is 
 very slender, for Tyre fell before literature had taken root in the W est, 
 and its writers perished with it. This city is said to have been founded 
 by Agenor, an African prince, about 1*255 b.c., and its line of kings 
 begins with Abical, the contemporary of David, about the year 1050. 
 
 The prosperous period of their history extends from 1000 to 332 b. c. 
 Phoenicia did not constitute one empire, but was formed of several inde¬ 
 pendent states, united as fear or interest prompted them ; and hence 
 arose the supremacy of Tyre, the most powerful of their number. 
 
 Consult: Rollin’s Ancient Hisiory. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Athens was founded by Cecrops in the 16th century, but Theseus 
 formed the state by gathering together the twelve districts or boroughs, 
 which had formerly been independent; by uniting their senates into one 
 body, which met at the capital; and by establishing a common religious 
 festival ( Panathencea ) in honour of Minerva. The court of Areopagus, 
 although it has been attributed to Cecrops, w*as only now instituted ; a 
 body not more celebrated for its antiquity, than for the justice of its 
 decisions. The number of its members, vrho w r ere selected on account 
 of their age, merit, and birth, appears to have varied from 31 to 51, and 
 even to 500. 
 
 Thebes was built by the Phoenician Cadmus, 1493 b. c. He intro¬ 
 duced the fifteen letters of the Grecian alphabet, which go under his 
 name ; they w T ere probably the same as those used in Syria- The 
 oracle of Delphi was the work of his countrymen; and its temple, 
 causing the neglect of the prophetic oak of Dodona, became a central 
 point of union for the different tribes. 
 
 History of the Greek Language . 
 
 The ultimate root of the Greek language is Pelasgic, or a dialect closely 
 allied to the Sanscrit, modified by time and the exigencies of society. The 
 descendants of Hellen, the son of Deucalion, having made themselves masters 
 of the country, introduced their language, which differed from the old tongue 
 only by its inflections, and which became the common speech of Greece. This 
 Hellenic dialect was probably a stronger, as it was also a later, mixture of the 
 Japetic or Western, as the Pelasgic appears to be purer Semitic or Eastern. 
 
 The inland inhabitants of Greece spoke the rough and broad old Doric, from 
 which the language of the JEolians in Bceotia and Peloponnesus did not greatly 
 differ. The progress of civilisation and commerce softened these dialects. The 
 Doric was gradually refined into the beautiful language of Theocritus. The 
 Ionians from Attica settled on the coast of Asia Minor, where, by a close 
 intercourse with their Asiatic neighbours, their language was softened into the 
 harmonious sweetness we admire in Herodotus. The Attic passed through 
 many gradations until it became the polished and elegant medium of com¬ 
 munication adopted by all literary men throughout Greece. 
 
 The following genealogical table of languages will serve at once to assist the 
 memory, and to explain the history which the Greeks themselves credited. 
 
 Deucalion. 
 
 
 Hellen. 
 
 
 r 
 
 Dortjs. 
 
 Xuthus. 
 
 . J 
 
 “*1 
 
 CEolus. 
 
 r 
 
 AcHiEUS. 
 
 
 - —^ 
 
 Ion. 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 29 
 
 Dialects . 
 
 y rOld.—Thucydides; the Tragic poets. 
 
 ‘fj -j Middle.—Aristophanes, Lycias, Fiato, Xenophon. 
 
 < (.New.—iEschines, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Menander. 
 
 • 2 Cold. —Epicharmus, Sophron. 
 
 ^"^New.—Bion, Moschus, Callimachus, Pindar, Theocritus. 
 
 .2 S Old.—Homer, Hesiod. 
 
 Jo New.—Anacreon, Herodotus, Hippocrates. 
 
 iEolic.—Alcaeus, Sappho, Corinna. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 J udjsa.— 1285, Deborah judges Israel—Sisera— 1312, Ruth. 
 
 Greece. —Minos. 
 
 JUD JEA. 
 
 Judges, 1443.—After the death of Joshua, a council of judges ( sho - 
 phetim ,) with nearly the same authority as the consuls at Rome, the 
 kings at Sparta, and the Carthaginian suffetes , was established to govern 
 the people of Israel. Each city had its peculiar magistrates ( shoterim ) 
 and ministers of justice, to the number of twenty-three. Their place 
 of audience w^as at the gates of the cities, as being the most frequented 
 spots. On Joshua’s death the weak tribes became jealous of the stronger, 
 and, as the high-priests had little political influence, the dread of foreign 
 power alone kept them together. 
 
 The history of Judaea, under its new government, presents a long 
 catalogue of wars and captivities, brought on the nation by its wicked¬ 
 ness and idolatry. Seven periods of servitude to the Philistines and 
 others are recorded between the death of Joshua and the election of 
 Saul, 1095 b. c. When Deborah judged Israel, dwelling under a palm- 
 tree on Mount Ephraim, Sisera, the Canaanitish general, was put to 
 death by a woman in whose tent he had sought refuge, 1285 b. c. 
 This signal deliverance from a powerful enemy called forth the fine 
 specimen of lyric poetry which is inserted in the Book of Judges. 
 
 Ruth, 1312. — To this period belongs the pastoral narrative of Ruth. 
 A famine dbliged Elimelech to quit Bethlehem, with his wife Naomi; 
 w T ho, becoming a widow in the country of Moab, eagerly desired to 
 return to her native land. Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, who loved 
 her most affectionately, followed her home ; when want compelling her 
 to glean in the fields of Boaz, he, attracted by the charms and modesty 
 of the fair stranger, married her, and became the father of Obed, from 
 whom descended Jesse, the father of David, the royal progenitor of the 
 Messiah. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Crete. —Minos, who, according to the Parian chronicle, began to 
 reign 1431 b. c., about a century after Amphictyon, is regarded as the 
 first legislator of the Cretans, and his laws are supposed to have been 
 adopted by Lycurgus, in framing the Spartan constitution. All freemen 
 3 * 
 
30 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 were equal; the land was to be cultivated by slaves; and individual 
 rights were merged in those of the community. Minos raised a power¬ 
 ful navy, and cleared the sea of pirates. The ancient mythology makes 
 him and Rhadamanthus, also a native of Crete, judges in the Infernal 
 Regions. r Ihe formation of this kingdom may be regarded as areal 
 event; and the great similarity between its constitution and that of 
 Judaea, may have arisen from the common intercourse of the respective 
 people with Egypt, the source of most of the earlier civilisation of Eu¬ 
 rope. Both have the same leading principle for the preservation of 
 internal tranquillity. As in Lacedaemon, so also here, a people were 
 formed with military habits for defence rather than aggression; they 
 kept themselves apart from other nations; their religious ordinances 
 were founded on divine order; and the property in land was inalienable. 
 
 Minos II., grandson of the first of that name, w 7 as the contemporary 
 of Theseus, and in his reign the celebrated architect Dedalus constructed 
 the labyrinth of Crete. This extraordinary w r ork was used as a prison 
 for the Athenian hostages, and for the Minotaur, a fabulous monster, 
 half-man half-bull. This kino- who is often confounded w*ith his 
 ancestor, the lawgiver, died in Sicily (1320 b. c.,) being suffocated in 
 a bath. 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Jt;d.£a.— 1249, Gideon Judge.—JL235, Jotham’s Parable. 
 
 Greece. —Pelopidse.—126? Argonauts—Theseus.—1230, Ninus founds the 
 
 Assyrian Empire (Herodotus.) 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 This country was again under the iron rod of the oppressor, when 
 Gideon, w r ith a chosen band of 300 men, defeated a numerous army of 
 Midianites by a most remarkable stratagem, 1245 b. c. During forty 
 years he judged Israel, and at his death was succeeded by a natural son, 
 Abimelech, who murdered his legitimate brothers, 1235. Jotham alone 
 of seventy escaped, and he indignantly upbraided the ungrateful She- 
 chemites by the beautiful apologue of the trees choosing a king —the most 
 ancient parable extant. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Pelopid.e.— Corinth is said to have been built by Sisyphus, “ the 
 most crafty of men,” 1404 b. c., whose descendants w T ere driven from 
 the throne by the Pelopidae. These usurpers w 7 ere the family of Pelops , 
 son of Tantalus, w 7 ho had quitted Asia, and settled in Southern Greece, 
 which afterwards bore his name. His sons Atreus and Thyestes were 
 noted for their cruelties and the misfortunes of their children. 
 
 Argonauts, 1263 b. c.—These w 7 ere a company of knight-errants 
 (for this w~as the age of Chivalry in Greece,) w r ho, under the guidance 
 of the Thessalian Jason, braved the dangers of the Symplegades and 
 the tempests of the inhospitable Euxine in search of the Golden Fleece. 
 Castor, Pollux, Orpheus, Hercules, Peleus, and Laertes, w T ere among 
 the number of these daring adventurers. Divested of the fictitious 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 31 
 
 colouring of the poets, this expedition was probably a commercial 
 enterprise to the shores of Colchis for the purpose of turning the profits 
 of its woollen trade to their native country.* 
 
 The conquests of Hercules, and the travels of Theseus and Perseus, 
 belong to this period; whence also may be dated the close connexion 
 in language, religion, manners and consanguinity, which appears to 
 have existed betweeen the heroes engaged in the Trojan war, whether 
 of Asiatic or of European descent. 
 
 Theseus was one of the greatest kings of the heroic age, and the 
 national champion of Athens. With his reign the history of Attica 
 begins to lose much of its mythic character. He was considered the 
 founder of the Athenian constitution, and the introducer of the democratic 
 form of government; but the satisfaction given by the measures which 
 he pursued for establishing a popular constitution, was not very perma¬ 
 nent. A strong party, headed by Menestheus, was formed against him 
 on the pretext that he did not go far enough, when he was driven into 
 exile by the fickle people, as were many of his successors, who became 
 eminent for virtue or talent.f His policy was to destroy the magistrates 
 and courts of justice of the separate Attic towns, and centralize them in 
 the capital. Menestheus, of the royal race, proposed to take away the 
 administration of justice from the nobles and to confer it on the popu¬ 
 lace, making it in their hands a stipendiary duty.—Theseus is said to 
 have given shelter to the descendants of Hercules, who had been 
 expelled from the Peloponnesus; and about the same period the crimes 
 of (E dipus led to the celebrated war of the Seven Chiefs against Thebes , 
 and also to that of the Epigoni , or Descendants , about 1225 b. c. 
 
 Consult: Bulwer’s Athens, book i. chap. iii. Plutarch’s Life of Theseus. 
 
 TWELFTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea. —1188, Jephtha’s Vow.—1117, Death of Samson. 
 
 Greece. —1184, Siege of Troy—Grecian Mythology—Greek Colonies. 
 Inventions, &c. —Mariner’s Compass in China—Buodhism Introduced in 
 
 India. 
 
 JUDAEA. 
 
 Jephtha. —Judaea, in 1188, b. c., was called to witness a remarkable 
 sacrifice. Jephtha, who had been driven from Gilead by the violence 
 
 * M. Rabaut de St. Etienne ingeniously endeavours to explain these heroic allegories 
 by showing that they were intended to represent the motions of the heavenly bodies. 
 Thus the Argonautic expedition exhibits the course of the constellation Aries 'through 
 the sky. Jason is Serpentarius. Scarcely has the Ship Argo begun her ethereal voyage, 
 when Hylas, Aquarius , disappears, and Hercules follows him. All the crew of Jason 
 claim their share in this astronomical voyage. 
 
 f Theseus died and was buried in the island of Scyros. At a later period his supposed 
 remains were transported with great pomp to Athens, in the galley of Cirnon, and wel¬ 
 comed “ as if the living Theseus were come again.” Games were instituted in honour 
 of the event, 469, at which took place those poetical contests, in the first of which 
 Sophocles carried off the prize from Aeschylus. Mr. Fynes Clinton places the Argonautic 
 expedition in 1225, sixteen years before the death of Hercules. This remarkable voyage 
 has been sung by two Greek poets: Apollodorus of Rhodes, and another of uncertain 
 name and age, who brings the heroes to the neighbourhood of the British Isles. 
 
32 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 of his relatives, and put himself at the head of a band of robbers, vowed 
 that if he returned successful from a certain expedition against the 
 Ammonites, he would offer up, as a burnt-sacrifice, the first living being 
 that met him on his return. This was his daughter, his only child, who 
 came out to congratulate her parent on his safety. After a short respite 
 she resolutely yielden herself a victim to her father’s rashness. This 
 event occupies a prominent place in Grecian story. The resemblance 
 between Iphigenia and Jephthagenia (Jephtha’s daughter) is very 
 striking. 
 
 Samson. —During the period of the seventh servitude, which lasted 
 forty years, a new deliverer appeared in the son of Manoah, of the tribe 
 of Dan. By the command of the angel who foretold his birth, he was 
 specially consecrated to the Lord. As he grew 7 in years, he increased 
 in strength; and in various encounters he slew an immense number of 
 Philistines, but fell at last by the artifices of Delilah. During his sleep, 
 the locks on which his strength depended were shorn, and he awoke 
 weak as another man. He again recovered vigour upon the growth of 
 his hair, and proved his renewed powers by tearing down the two 
 pillars which supported the roof of a temple, and burying 3000 Philis¬ 
 tines, with himself, in one undistinguished ruin, 1117 b.c. 
 
 The accounts of Hercules, Rustam in Persia, and Antar in Arabia, seem 
 based on that of Samson. Ancient traditions furnish us with many curious 
 coincidences with the history of Samson’s locks. 
 
 Read : Milton’s Samson Agonistes. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Trojan War. — The history of Troy, a name rendered familiar to all 
 by the genius of Homer, is so intermingled with fable, and its heroes 
 are so confounded with gods and demigods, that it is not possible to 
 arrive at historical truth. Mount Ida was the scene of the Judgment of 
 Paris; the loves of Hero and Leander consecrated the promontories of 
 Sestos and Abydos; the little streams of Simois and Scamander would 
 have been unknown but for the combats of the Greeks. Teucer was the 
 first king; he was succeeded by Dardanus, who brought the palladium 
 from Samothrace. The last monarch was Priam, the richest and greatest 
 potentate of Western Asia, his rule extending over several contiguous 
 nations, as well as the coast of Thrace, and the confines of Thessaly. 
 Prodigies attended the birth of his youngest son, Paris; his youth and 
 manhood were equally eventful. During his travels he eloped with 
 Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age. Her husband, Menelaus, 
 roused all Greece in arms to avenge the violated rites of hospitality, and 
 a fleet of 1200 ships set out for Troy. This town, seated on a gentle 
 eminence at the foot of Ida, overlooking the Hellespont, resisted the 
 efforts of the numerous besiegers during the long period of ten years. 
 At length when the bravest warriors on both sides had fallen, and most 
 of the Trojan allies had been reduced, the place was taken, according to 
 the poets, by the stratagem of a wooden horse.* It was plundered and 
 burnt, and its inhabitants led away captive, 1184 b. c. A few doubtfu' 
 ruins are now all that mark the site of this ancient and celebrated city. 
 
 *Arrestan, in Syria, was taken by a similar stratagem. See below, Seventh Cen 
 tury a. d. 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 33 
 
 Results —The ten years’ war was not confined to unproductive battles 
 iefore the walls of Troy. The towns along the Hellespont were reduced by 
 Vjax; Achilles extended his conquests along the Euxine ; and Menelaus sub¬ 
 jected several states in Phoenicia, Syria, Egypt, and Cyprus. Thus the Greeks 
 lot only proved their superiority in arms, but brought back with them a better 
 knowledge of countries which they had previously been made acquainted with 
 by the reports of a few adventurers. On their return home, however, they 
 found a new race grown up, some occupying the vacant thrones of the absent 
 kings, others attempting to usurp them. In Attica, the children of Theseus 
 and the faction of Menestheus were engaged in sanguinary hostilities. “ The 
 great part,” says Plato, * 4 of those who had escaped the sword of the enemy, 
 perished either by the weapon of the assassin, or by the hardships of a distant 
 exile.” Menestheus died in the isle of Melos; Ulysses had scarcely reached 
 home, after his ten years’ wandering, when he fell in a riot; Agamemnon was 
 murdered by his wife and her paramour, who were both put to death by the 
 hand of his son Orestes. This triumph was of little political advantage to 
 Greece ; but. its civilisation advanced greatly after the long residence of its 
 warriors on the luxurious shore of Asia. The communication between the two 
 countries became more frequent and easy ; commerce was extended ; and the 
 colonies founded by Nestor, Teucer, Idomeneus, Diomede, and other Greek 
 princes banished from their paternal homes, introduced intimate relations 
 between these distant regions. 
 
 ELEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea. —1116, Samuel—Kings.—1093, Saul.—1055, David.—1015, Solomon. 
 
 —1004, Dedication of the Temple. 
 
 Greece. —1104, Return of the Heraclidae—Death of Codrus— Archons. 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 Samuel. —The Jewish republic w 7 as next governed by the hicrh-priest 
 Eli, whose successor, after an administration of twenty years, was 
 Samuel, 1116 b. c. He had, by his mother, been consecrated to God in 
 his infancy, and while yet a child, was made the interpreter of the divine 
 will. He is the first of the prophets properly so called, the chain being 
 preserved in unbroken succession until the death of Malachi, 420 b. c. 
 He was the last of the fifteen judges, and with him, according to some 
 authors, terminates the Jewish theocracy. He died at the age of 98, 
 b. c. 1057. 
 
 Kings. —It was the earnest desire of Moses that the government he 
 established should be perpetual; but, like a wTse legislator, he also 
 made provisions in the event of any change to the regal form, by layincr 
 dow r n the principles on which it should take place (Deut. xvii.). 
 Jehovah was still to be the supreme monarch, the king merely his 
 viceroy. Accordingly, w T hen the Israelites grew tired of the ancient 
 constitution, alleging the bad government of Samuel’s sons as their pre¬ 
 text, they did not select a ruler for themselves, but applied directly to 
 the prophet. Saul was appointed by lot to be the first king; David, 
 the second, was selected by the Almighty; and in his son Solomon, the 
 throne was declared hereditary in the family of Jesse. 
 
 Saul, 1095 b. c. The beginning of Saul’s reign was marked by pru¬ 
 dence and equity; he defeated the Amalekites, and was continually at 
 war with the Philistines. But his pride and anger led him into sin; 
 
34 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 he disobeyed the commands of God ; and although his external penitence 
 was great, he did not escape the judgments of the Almighty. He 
 perished with his three sons in battle against the national enemv on 
 M ount Gilboa, and David, the young shepherd of Bethlehem, was 
 appointed to succeed him, 1055 b. c. Saul was little more than a 
 military leader under the direction of Jehovah, having neither court nor 
 fixed residence. His subjects were still only an agricultural and pas¬ 
 toral race, without wealth or luxury; but in his reign they gradually 
 assumed a warlike character. 
 
 David, the son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, was anointed king by 
 Samuel at an early age. He first signalized himself by his victory over 
 Goliath, and the defeat of the Philistines, 1063. His renown excited 
 the jealousy of Saul, and even endangered his life, but he fortunately 
 escaped the javelin which the king threw" at him. Xor did he succeed 
 to the throne without opposition; for eleven tribes declared in favour of 
 Ishbosheth, Saul’s only surviving son, and Judah alone acknowledged 
 David. Seven years of civil strife intervened before he was generally 
 recognised as sovereign in 1048. He entirely freed Israel from the 
 power of her ancient enemies, and extended the limits of the kingdom 
 from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and from Phoenicia to the Red 
 Sea. By the conquest of Idumea, he became master of Elath and 
 Eziongeber, on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, by means of which ports 
 he extended his commerce into the Southern Ocean. But domestic o-uilt 
 stained all his former glories; although he yielded with humility to the 
 reproof of Nathan, he was destined to reap the bitter fruits of his crimes. 
 Enemies from without began to harass the country ; his own family 
 rebelled against him ; and at length, he died in the 40th year of his 
 reign, and the 70th of his age, 1015 b. c. About twenty years before 
 his death he defeated the kings of Mesopotamia and Syria, who had 
 carried to Babylon a great number of colonists, whom he established 
 near the Euphrates. To these captives the Psalmist makes frequent 
 allusion, particularly in the 137th Psalm,—an elegy intended to arouse 
 the Israelites to the recovery of their unfortunate brethren.* 
 
 In this reign, the Jewish government and nation were completely formed. 
 The worship of Jehovah became the exclusive religion of the people, and 
 Jerusalem w 7 as made the chief sanctuary and the seat of power. David was 
 probably the first who maintained a standing army, twelve corps of 24,000 men 
 each being kept in their turn on monthly service. 
 
 It is the opinion of many learned divines, that, in the various events of his 
 life, this monarch was a type of the Messiah, and predicted his coming, in the 
 Psalms, whose only object is Jesus Christ and his mysteries. Of the whole 
 book which passes under his name, not more than seventy or eighty are sup¬ 
 posed to be his composition, many being certainly of an earlier, others of a 
 more recent date. These divine songs form a most perfect specimen of lyric 
 poetry, and breathe all the sentiments which the tenderest piety can inspire. 
 It should not be forgotten, that early in the eleventh century, before Homer 
 sang, these religious strains were first heard in Palestine ; and that they have 
 ever since been used by the true church to express all the emotions which the 
 changing situations of life bring into action. 
 
 * For this discovery of a Jewish captivity, anterior to that which took place under 
 Nebuchadnezzar, we are indebted to the learned researches of M. Viguier, who, in his 
 work entitled De la Distinction primitive des Psaumes , has fixed the principal epochs of 
 the life of David. 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 35 
 
 Solomon succeeded his father in the year 1015. His reign began 
 with favourable prospects, and by banishing- all infidels; and in seven 
 years and a half he built the celebrated temple, which attests the per¬ 
 fection of the arts and sciences at so remote a period, 1004 b. c. It is 
 estimated to have been raised at an expense of not less than *230 millions 
 of pounds sterling—a sum so enormous as to give rise to suspicion of in¬ 
 correctness in the account transmitted to us. Unfortunately for himself, 
 Solomon married the daughter of the king of Egypt, wiio did not 
 abandon the worship of her countrymen. Before his death, he lapsed into 
 idolatrous practices, and his last moments were embittered by the gloomy 
 prospects which overhung his kingdom. He died in the 60th year of 
 his age, and the 40th of his reign. This monarch was not insensible to 
 the advantages of commerce; and under his direction, Tadmor in the 
 Wilderness (Palmyra) was built, on the caravan route, in order to pro¬ 
 mote the trade w r ith the East (34° 24' N., 38° 20' E.). 
 
 Solomon inherited the poetical talents of his father. He is the author of three 
 works still extant; and the loss of his writings on Natural History is a matter 
 of serious regret. The Book of Proverbs is a treasure of moral and political 
 instruction ; in Ecclesiastes (the Preacher), while he laments his own vices and 
 errors, he gives the most earnest exhortation to his son Rehohoam, and after 
 examining the various systems of happiness, declares that it can only be found 
 in the love of God. and the observance of his commandments; the Song of 
 Songs is a kind of Epithalamium , composed on the occasion of his marriage 
 with the daughter of the king of Egypt, in which profound work, under the 
 semblance of conjugal love, he represents the union of our Saviour with the 
 Church. 
 
 The first temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 588 
 b. c. It was rebuilt by Zerubbabel, 515 b. c. ; plundered and burnt by Antio- 
 chus, 167, and purified, 164 b. c. This temple was restored by Herod the 
 Great, and finished 8 b. c.; it was burnt by Titus a. d. 70. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Return of the Heraclid.se. —The disasters which hefell the Gre¬ 
 cian princes on their return from Troy having loosened the bonds of the 
 general confederation, which had been formed to carry on the war, the 
 sons of Hercules thought the Peloponnesus fitted for the re-establishment 
 of their power. They had taken refuge in Attica from the persecutions 
 of Eurystheus of Argos ; and, with the assistance of the Athenians, were 
 restored, but only to retire again on the visitation of an avenging pesti¬ 
 lence. Misled by an oracle, three unsuccessful attempts were afterwards 
 made to return; hut it was not till the third generation, 1104 b. c. that, 
 aided by the Dorians, TCtolians, and Locrians, they crossed the Corin¬ 
 thian Gulf and established themselves in Peloponnesus. The iEolians, 
 at this time the most powerful tribe of Southern Greece, yielded to their 
 irresistible progress. The Achaeans, on their expulsion, deprived in 
 turn the Ionians of their lands. The barren soil of Attica offered few 
 temptations to military adventurers; but it was an asylum for these 
 unfortunate exiles, by whom the population was so much increased, that 
 change of residence was resorted to as a necessary means of finding 
 support. This was the remote cause of the Ionian emigration, the most 
 celebrated and important of all which issued from Greece. Aristodemus, 
 fifth in descent from Hercules, who died during the expedition, trans- 
 
36 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 mitted his right to the Spartan throne to his twin sons, Procles and 
 Eurysthenes. 
 
 Codrus. —Before the Dorian immigration, the government of Athens 
 was monarchical; and Codrus, the son of a Messenian exile, named 
 Melanthus, was its last king. When the Dorians, jealous of his increas¬ 
 ing power, had invaded his territories, an oracle promised them success, 
 if they spared the sovereign’s life. On hearing this, though he was far 
 advanced in years, he resolved, with all the enthusiasm of youth, to 
 sacrifice himself for his beloved country. Disguised as a wood-cutter, 
 he entered the hostile camp, where, engaging in a quarrel, he fell by 
 the hands of a private soldier, 1095. In the excess of their gratitude, 
 the people would appoint no successor to the regal title, but elected 
 certain responsible governors, named JIrchons , of whom Medon, Codrus’ 
 son, was the first. The office was held for life; but by slow degrees 
 the election became annual, and nine were ultimately chosen instead of 
 one. This rapid succession of governors, the private interests upon 
 which they acted, and the instability of the popular temper, were a 
 cause of internal dissensions which lasted until the sixth century. 
 
 On the death of Codrus, the kingly power was not immediately abolished; 
 but the first step was taken towards it, by withdrawing the splendour of regal 
 state and title from his successor. Then the sovereignty was diminished to ten 
 years, 754, on the death of Alcmaeon; next, the archonship was made annual, 
 684, when the direct line of Codrus became extinct in Eryxias; it was then 
 thrown open to the other houses, then to the rich Eupatridce, and finally to 
 every wealthy free citizen. In a similar manner, in the other Greek cities, and 
 afterwards in Rome, the superior power descended from the king upon prytanes, 
 ephori or consuls of the family to which the sovereign had belonged. The office 
 of archon was one of great influence, and when the Pisistratidse assumed it as 
 a stay of their dominion, it included the right of presiding and propounding all 
 measures in the senate. 
 
 GRECIAN COLONIES. 
 
 Before the invasion of the Dorians and the return of the Heraclidae, the 
 colonization of Greece is inextricably involved in the fictions of mythology ; but 
 after that period it is more distinct, and its course, offering so many points of 
 connexion with modern times, maybe curious and profitable to follow. “ Greek 
 towns,” says Seneca, “have risen in the bosom of the most barbarous coun¬ 
 tries, on the banks of the Indus and in Persia. Achaean cities rule along the 
 coast of the Euxine Sea. Asia was filled with Athenian colonies. All the coast 
 of Italy washed by the Tuscan Sea bore the name of Magna Grecia, and this 
 people found their way even into Gaul.” 
 
 The first, or iEolian colonization, occurred about 1088 b. c., when the Hera¬ 
 clidae and their followers deprived the conquered Pelopidae and their subjects of 
 their lands, and compelled them to seek an asylum in a foreign country. In 
 consequence of the share which the Hellenic tribes took in this invasion, Greece 
 shortly after assumed the general name of Hellas. The exiles, for the most 
 part, crossed to Asia Minor, and built towns, which, from their favourable 
 situation, soon acquired wealth and fame. The most celebrated were Smyrna 
 and Mitylene. 
 
 The great Ionian emigration, about 1068 b. c., was led by Neleus, and other 
 sons of Codrus, the ranks of whose followers were swelled by all whom enter¬ 
 prise, affection for the leaders, or a love of novelty inspired. The Carians, 
 Mygdonians, and Leleges, inhabiting the coast of Asia Minor, were driven to 
 the mountains ; wealthy and populous cities were soon raised, of which Miletus 
 and Ephesus were the chief. These in turn gave birth to others, until their 
 colonies extended over the southern parts of modern Russia, and even as far as 
 Bactria. The Ionians maintained their independence against all the efforts o* 
 
TENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 37 
 
 the four first kings of Lydia, of the race of the Mermnadae ; but they weie at 
 last subjugated by Crcesus, the last prince of that family. They still, however, 
 preserved their internal government, and enjoyed the same advantages under 
 the dominion of the Persians.—The Dorian migration occurred a little later 
 than the others, but its history is the same. 
 
 To secure themselves against the barbarians that surrounded them, the 
 Ionians entered into a federative union for their common defence ; and the 
 general congress of their Twelve Cities was held in the temple of the Heli¬ 
 conian Neptune, near the promontory of Mycale. These annual assemblies 
 regulated all matters relative to the public interests, and passed such measures 
 as the common benefit required. The colonies were independent down to the 
 time of the Persian invasion, except perhaps in a religious subjection to the 
 gods of the parent state. To these Greece owes a great portion of her glory 
 and unperishing fame. Homer, Alcseus, and Sappho adorned her with their 
 muse; Archytas, Pythagoras, and Anaximenes improved her with their 
 philosophy; and Pittacus and Thales strengthened her liberties by their 
 legislative wisdom. 
 
 TABLE OF GRECIAN COLONIES. 
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 Thracian Chersonese.—Sestos and Cardia.—Abdera, Amphipolis, Olynthus, 
 &c., by Athenians and Corinthians. —On the Thracian Bosporus, Byzantium. 
 —On the Propontis, Perinthus or Heraclea. 
 
 Italy.—Tarentum (707) and Brundusium ; Sybaris and Crotona (709); Rhe- 
 gium, Cumae, and Neapolis (Naples). 
 
 Islands. — In Sicily , Messana and Syracuse, by Corinthians ; Gela and 
 Agrigentum. by Bhodians. In Sardinia , Caralis and Olbia; — In Corsica , 
 Aleria. by Phoceans; Samos and Chios. 
 
 Gaul.—Massilia (Marseilles) by Phoceans. 
 
 Spain.—Saguntum by Zantiotes. 
 
 ASIA. 
 
 Asia Minor.— Pollans built 12 cities, Cyme, Smyrna, Mitylene, &c. 
 
 Ionians founded Colophon, Ephesus, Miletus, &c. 
 
 Dorians built Cnidus, Halicarnassus, &,c. 
 
 Black Sea, Hellespont, &c.—The principal colonies were Lampsacus, Cyzi- 
 cus, Trapezus, and Chalcedon. 
 
 AFRICA. 
 
 Cyrene, one of the great African marts, founded by Thereans. 
 
 N.B. Prepare a Map of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, marking the 
 site o'' all the colonies mentioned above. 
 
 TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 J\mjjea .— 975, Revolt of the Ten Tribes. — 971, Shishak plunders Jerusalem— 
 
 Elijah and Elisha.—918, Ahab. 
 
 Greece.— Homer and Hesiod flourished. 
 
 Syria.— 940 Benhadad, king of Damascus. 
 
 JUDaEA. 
 
 % 
 
 Revolt of the Ten Tribes. —The expenses of Solomon’s govern¬ 
 ment required a very large revenue, which was raised by a regular 
 system of taxation, imposed directly upon the produce of the cattle and 
 of the land. The accession of Rehoboam (975) afforded some hopes of 
 
38 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 ameliorating the condition of his subjects, instead of which, their bur¬ 
 dens were increased : my father chastised you with whips , I will chastise 
 you with scorpions . This insolent answer of the prince drove the nation 
 to revolt. The kingdom was divided, ten tribes electing Jeroboam, the 
 son of Nebat, who had been recalled from Egypt; Judah and Benjamin 
 alone remained faithful to the lineal heir. The former, together with 
 the tributary nations eastward to the Euphrates, formed the kingdom of 
 Israel, of which the capital was Samaria; while the two remaining 
 tribes, with Philistia and Edom, composed that of Judah, 975 b. c. 
 
 From the epoch of the schism of the ten tribes, we shall find the Hebrew 
 people continually suffering from foreign or intestine war. The two nations, 
 during the short space of 387 years, were governed by 39 monarchs—20 in 
 Judah; the rest in Israel. Although the latter kingdom was more extensive 
 and populous, the former was richer and more important, as well from the 
 possession of the capital and Temple, as from the ancient pre-eminence assigned 
 to the tribe of Judah. But these reciprocal advantages served only to render 
 their struggles more obstinate. In Israel the true religion was maintained 
 under severe persecution ; the number of the prophets increased in proportion 
 as the necessity was felt in times of difficulty of recurring to the oracles of God ; 
 and the hope of a more fortunate era under a mighty king, the expectation of 
 the Messiah and of his temporal reign on earth, became more consistent, as the 
 recollection of the glorious reign of David was an object of continual and fresh 
 regret to the whole nation. Unfortunately the influence of the true prophets, 
 often opposed by the false, could never extinguish the dissensions which 
 separated the two kingdoms. 
 
 Prepare Map of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 
 
 Judah. —In this kingdom the succession continued hereditary, with 
 only two interruptions,—the usurpation of Athaliah and foreign conquest. 
 Rehoboam governed well during three years, and the true religion was 
 maintained by the priests and Levites; but he afterwards sank into 
 idolatry when he was punished by the invasion of his kingdom and the 
 plunder of his capital by Shishak, king of Egypt, 971 b. c.* Abijah 
 succeeded (958), and perpetuated the evil ways of his father. He 
 gained a signal victory over Jeroboam, and recovered many of the towns 
 of Judah which the Israelites had taken. Asa was a minor when he 
 ascended the throne in 955 ; but under the able regency of Maachah, 
 the country enjoyed a peace of ten years. This princess abused her 
 authority by establishing the most abominable superstition of idolatry; 
 but Asa, as soon as he was admitted to the exercise of power, restored 
 the worship of the true God. He defeated Zerah the Ethiopian, who 
 advanced against him at the head of a million of men, 941 b. c. His 
 confidence in the Almighty was not equally firm on another occasion, 
 when war was declared ao-ainst him bv Baasha, king of Israel ; for he 
 sought the aid of Benhadad king of Syria, and imprisoned the prophet 
 Hanani for denouncing his want of faith. Jehoshaphat, 914, endeavoured 
 to expel ignorance, and to change the idolatrous habits of his people; 
 and with this view, judges were appointed according to the Mosaic 
 regulations, and a long peace was the fruit of his zeal, wisdom, and 
 
 * Some chronologers identify Shishak with Sesostris, but Dr. Hales thinks he is rather 
 Cephrenes, brother of that Cheops by whom the great pyramid is said to have been built. 
 A sculpture has been found at Karnac, in which the chiefs of thirty nations are led 
 before the triumphant Sheshonk , among whom appears in legible characters, Joudahn 
 Melek , the king of the Jews. 
 
TENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 39 
 
 piety. He made an unsuccessful attempt to revive the trade to Ophir 
 from the ports of the Red Sea. He formed a league with the kingdom 
 of Israel, and confirmed it by the marriage of his son Jehoram to Atha- 
 liah the daughter of Ahab, — a union fraught with mournful con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Israel. —During his exile at the Egyptian court, Jeroboam had con¬ 
 tracted many infidel ideas; and, on the separation of the kingdom, he 
 erected two golden calves in opposite parts of his territor) r , to prevent 
 his subjects from weakening their allegiance by going three times a-year 
 to worship in Jerusalem, as the law required. Priests were selected 
 from the lowest of the people, for none of the Levites were so hold or so 
 bad as to assume the office. Shechem became the place of royal resi¬ 
 dence. Baasha seized upon the throne, 951, after having murdered 
 Nadab, Jeroboam’s son ; and adopting the wicked policy of the sovereign 
 now named, he erected a fortress at Ramah to intercept those who went 
 to worship on Mount Sion. After his death, the right to the crown was 
 contested in civil strife; but Omri, who had been elected by the army, 
 929, destroyed his rivals, and removed the seat of government from 
 Tirzah to Samaria. He was succeeded by Ahab, his son, 918, who 
 surpassed his ancestors in impiety and vice. His wife, Jezebel, put to 
 death all the prophets of the true God whom she could find ; Elijah and 
 a hundred others were alone miraculously preserved. He twice defeated 
 the armies of Benhadad, but fell at last at Ramoth-Gilead, 897. He 
 was a brave prince, not wicked of himself, hut from the ascendency 
 w’hich his impious queen had over his mind. This Sidonian woman, 
 brought up in the worship of the Phoenician divinities, established the 
 rites of Baal so firmly in Israel, that the successors of Ahab were never 
 able to eradicate them. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Homer and Hesiod flourished about this period. The former is the 
 most ancient Greek poet whose waitings have come down to us, and 
 seven cities contended for the honour of his birth. The Iliad, an epic 
 on the siege of Troy, composed about 150 years after that event, and the 
 Odyssey , containing the adventures of Ulysses on his return, are the 
 noblest of all poems. The lines of Homer were as familiar in the 
 mouths of the people, as those of Tasso are said to have been to the 
 Venetian gondoliers. Modern scepticism has thrown doubts upon his 
 existence and personality, but there appears to be no reasonable ground 
 for such incredulity. Lycurgus first brought his poems into Greece 
 from Asia; and two centuries and a half later, Pisistratus is supposed 
 to have given to them their present form. His son, Hipparchus, first 
 caused portions of them to be recited at the Panathenean Games: but 
 our modern editions are taken from the more complete one prepared by 
 Aristotle for the use of his pupil Alexander. 
 
 Ascra, in Bceotia, was the birthplace of Hesiod. He wrote the earliest 
 didactic poem, The Works cmd Bays , in which, with directions for cul¬ 
 tivating the fields and watching the seasons, he has mingled sage 
 counsels and moral reflections. Virgil frequently imitates him in his 
 Georgies. The Theogony is a precious relic of the mythology of the 
 ancients, treating of the origin of the world, and of its mortal and im¬ 
 mortal inhabitants. His poems were committed to meror"— ’• 
 
40 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 young, and were engraved and hung up in the temple of the Muses.— 
 While some critics mention him as a contemporary with the author of 
 the Iliad, others would rank him a century later. The Parian chronicle 
 places Homer 907, and Hesiod 944 b. c. 
 
 Consult: Coleridge, Introduction to Classic Poets. — Bulwer’s Athens, 
 Book I. ch. viii. 
 
 GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 The religion of the Greeks deified nature, and the poems of Homer and 
 Hesiod embodied their faith. According to this ancient belief, an infinite power 
 drew the universe out of chaos and created gods and men. The empire was 
 disputed; Earth fought against Heaven ; the Titans against the Gods. The 
 race of immortals increased and multiplied. Saturn ( Chronos ), born of the Earth 
 and Heaven, had three sons who divided the universe among them. Jupiter 
 {Zeus) governed Heaven ; Neptune ( Poseidon) reigned over the Sea, and Pluto 
 in the Lower Regions. By all the other gods were their orders executed. 
 Vulcan ( Hephaistos ) presided over fire ; Mars {Ares) led the warrior to battle ; 
 Venus {Aphrodite) and Love inspired the tender passions, or allured to pleasure ; 
 Minerva {Athene) gave wisdom ; Mercury {Hermes) conducted the orator to 
 the tribunal, and the shades to Tartarus; Themis held the balance of justice ; 
 Jupiter hurled his thunderbolts to frighten crime, and by his oracles announced 
 the future; his court, the centre of eternal light, was the abode of happiness. 
 Each river had its divinity; the Naiad refreshed the wearied traveller at her 
 limpid fountain; and the Dryad cooled him with the shade of her groves. 
 Bacchus {Dionysus) animated the festivity of the vintager ; the Graces {Charites) 
 spread their charms at once over the external form and the effusions of the 
 mind; Apollo and the Muses inspired with talent; Vulcan forged the celestial 
 arms of Jove ; and Gayety was protected by Momus. Diana {Artemis) guided 
 the dogs in the ardent chase, and by her rays dispelled the obscurity of the 
 night; while, soothed by the poppies of Morpheus, wearied mortals forgot 
 their labours, their fatigues, and all their pains, save those of remorse. Heaven 
 had its festivals and banquets; youth, embodied in the charming Hebe, dis¬ 
 tributed ambrosia and poured out the nectar for the gods; and the Olympian 
 vaults resounded with the lyre of Apollo. In the morning, the rosy-fingered 
 Aurora {Eous) opened the gates of heaven, and spread over earth and air the 
 double perfume of Flora, the goddess of flowers, and of Pomona, who presided 
 over the fruits. Phoebus mounting the chariot of the sun, poured floods of light 
 upon the earth; and when iEolus, the god of winds, had again collected the 
 furious storms in their mountain cave and rocky isle, the brilliant messenger 
 of Juno, light-footed Iris, by the traces of her many-coloured steps, announced 
 to the world the return of a season of calm weather. Other deities were more 
 immediately connected with man. Hymen guarded the sanctity of the mar¬ 
 riage vows; Lucina presided over births, while Libitina had the charge of 
 funerals. Death and the Fates (Parcae), one with his inexorable scythe, and 
 the others, with their merciless scissors, cut the thread of his destiny. The 
 bark of Charon bore him across the Styx, and placed him on the gloomy shores 
 of Pluto; Minos, gEacus, and Rhadamanthus, judged him at their inflexible 
 tribunal; and he was led away to the groves of Elysium or committed to the 
 power of the avenging Nemesis; the black Furies lashed him with their 
 scourges, tore him with their serpents, dragged him to the caverns of Avernus, 
 and there delivered him to the most cruel torture 
 
 Consult: Keightley’s Mythology ; or Lempriere’s Dictionary. 
 
 SYRIA. 
 
 This country, like Phoenicia, did not form a single state, but consisted 
 of several cities, such as Damascus and Hamath, each possessing a 
 separate territory, and having its own chief. Tne first of these was an 
 
NINTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 41 
 
 important place in the time of Abraham ; but it was Rehob, first king ot 
 Zobah, and contemporary of Saul, who laid the foundation of its great 
 ness. His son Hadarezer, who endeavoured to subject the whole ot 
 Syria to his power, was fortunate in all his enterprises, till he turned his 
 arms against David, when he was defeated in two battles and slain. 
 The Hebrew monarch became master of the country as far as the 
 Euphrates; but in the time of Solomon, Rezon, who had formerly been 
 a slave, made himself independent, and united to his dominion the 
 ancient monarchies of Hamath and Geshur. Its boundaries were after¬ 
 wards increased at the expense of the divided kingdoms of Israel and 
 Judah. Benhadad I. who was sovereign about 940, formed a league 
 with Baasha, king of Israel, against the King of Judah ; but Asa, by his 
 numerous and valuable presents, was so fortunate as to detach him from 
 the alliance, and to persuade him to attack his former confederate. In a 
 short space of time, the Syrian monarch had overrun and reduced Dan, 
 Abion, Abela, and all the country bordering on the Lake of Gennesareth. 
 Hazael ascended the throne in 885, after the murder of his predecessor, 
 Benhadad II. He ravaged Israel in retaliation of the attack which 
 Jehoram had made on his territories, and shortly after captured Jeru¬ 
 salem, putting the inhabitants to the sword. By the cruelties he 
 exercised on the people of God, he appears to have accomplished the 
 mournful predictions of the prophets, who had announced him as the 
 scourge of the Almighty. At his death he was decreed divine honours 
 by his subjects. Under Rezin, in 740 h. c., the kingdom was over¬ 
 thrown by Tiglath-Pileser. 
 
 NINTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea.— 889, Translation of Elijah.— 884, Jehu—Athaliah — Jonah, Hosea, 
 
 and Amos flourished. 
 
 Greece.— 884, Lycurgus—Iphitus in Elis. 
 
 Macedonia.— 813, Caranus, First King. 
 
 Carthage. — 890, Dido emigrates from Phoenicia. 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 Judah. —Towards the end of the reign of Jehoshaphat, his kingdom 
 was invaded by an army of Moabites, Edomites, and Arabians from 
 Mount Seir. They pitched their camp at Engaddi, about forty miles 
 from Jerusalem. In this pressing danger the king ordered a public fast 
 and solemn prayers. The vows he addressed to Heaven were heard : 
 dissension spread among the hostile forces, and they turned their arms 
 against each other, 895 b. c. The scene of this deliverance was after¬ 
 wards known as the Valley of Blessing. Jehoshaphat, now become 
 the terror of his enemies, enjoyed the profoundest peace until his death. 
 Tehoram succeeded at the age of thirty-five, 889. During the four pre¬ 
 ceding years he had been associated with his father on the throne, — a 
 circumstance by no means rare in the East, particularly in Persia. 
 When a monarch went on any dangerous or distant expedition, he 
 generally took the precaution of naming his successor, and giving him 
 4 * 
 
42 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 the title of king before his departure. He murdered his six brothers, 
 and their fate was shared by many of the princes of Judah whom his 
 predecessor had honoured. Being influenced by his wife Athaliah, the 
 daughter of Ahab, a princess as nearly allied to the infamous Jezebel in 
 character as in blood, he imitated the impiety of the kings of Israel. 
 To punish this apostasy, the Ammonites and Philistines invading his 
 dominions plundered his capital; and he was struck with an incurable 
 malady, which at last deprived him of life, after two years of most 
 dreadful sufferings, 885 b. c. Idumea was entirely separated from 
 Judah in this reign, and thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaac in 
 favour of his eldest son: ‘ when thou shalt have the dominion, thou 
 shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.’ Ahaziah perished by the 
 hands of Jehu, in the first year of his reign; after which, his mother 
 Athaliah put to death all the royal family, and seized upon the throne. 
 Joash, who alone was saved from the carnage, was secretly educated in 
 the temple; and when six years had expired, Jehoiada, the high-priest, 
 bringing him before the people, he was placed upon the throne, the 
 queen having been killed by the populace, 878 b. c. Joash, guided by 
 the advice of his protector, was a model of piety and justice. He 
 restored the worship of God ; but when Jehoiada was dead, he listened 
 to evil counsellors, persecuted the prophets, who denounced his aban¬ 
 donment of the true religion, and saw, in consequence, his capital 
 twice besieged and plundered by the Syrians. He was slain in 838, 
 and buried in the city of David, but not in the tomb of the kings. Nor 
 was this the only occasion in which the honour of royal sepulture was 
 refused to those monarchs who had shown themselves unworthy of that 
 mark of posthumous respect. Amaziah put to death the murderers of 
 his parent, and signalized the course of his reign by acts of piety and 
 justice. He defeated the Idumeans and took Petra, but was not equally 
 successful against Jehoash, king of Israel, by whom Jerusalem itself 
 was sacked, 826 b. c. 
 
 Israel. —Ahaziah, 897, not less wicked than the impious Ahab, main¬ 
 tained the idolatrous worship of Baal and of the goddess Astarte, 
 established by his mother,— but the divine vengeance soon overtook 
 him : he was killed by falling from a window of his palace. Jehoram, 
 the brother of Ahaziah, began his reign (896) by destroying the statues 
 of Baal erected by his father; but his subsequent conduct belied this 
 first act of fidelity. He was soon compelled to march against the King 
 of Moab to enforce his tribute; and forming an alliance with Jehosha- 
 phat and the sovereign of Idumea, he advanced into the desert, where, 
 as the combined armies were nigh perishing with thirst, Elisha obtained 
 a miraculous supply of water. The Moabites were defeated, their 
 country laid waste, and the capital invested, when the despairing 
 monarch brought his son on the walls, and, in sight of his enemies, 
 offered him a living sacrifice to Moloch. Upon this the siege was 
 broken up in horror. Jehoram’s reign was signalized by the long 
 blockade of Samaria by Benhadad, when severe famine drove mothers 
 to devour their own children. The miraculous disappearance of the 
 army soon afterwards verified Elisha’s prophecy. Jehu ascended the 
 throne, after murdering his predecessor, 884. He exterminated the 
 family of Ahab and the priests of Baal, although he did not himself 
 
NINTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 43 
 
 forsake idolatry; and by retaining the golden calves erected by Jero¬ 
 boam, he showed that his former religious zeal was principally directed 
 by selfish motives. This culpable toleration did not escape unpunished, 
 for the lands beyond Jordan were wrested from his dominion by Hazael 
 king of Syria. Jehoahaz, his son, who succeeded him in 856, could 
 not be induced by the misfortunes which both he and his subjects 
 experienced from the Syrians, to resign his foolish idolatry. Jehoash 
 (839) imitated the impiety of his father; but being more successful 
 against his enemies, he repaired, in great measure, the losses which his 
 kingdom had suffered during the reign of his two immediate predeces¬ 
 sors. The aged prophet Elisha, on his death-bed, promised the king 
 three successive victories over Benhadad; he therefore declared war 
 against him, defeated his forces in three battles, and retook several 
 cities. He died 825 e. c., and was succeeded by his son Jeroboam II., 
 a valiant prince, who restored the dominions of Israel to their ancient 
 limits. The prophets Jonah, Hosea, and Amos, flourished in this 
 reign. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Lycurgus, 884 b. c.* —From the epoch of the Dorian migration, 
 Sparta had been governed by two kings at one time. Lycurgus, who 
 was regent during the minority of his nephew Charilaus, feeling the 
 necessity of some code of legislation to regulate the disorders of the 
 state, travelled to Crete, where he had family connexions, to study the 
 laws of Minos. He next visited Lesser Asia and Egypt, when, being 
 suddenly recalled after an absence of eighteen years, he entirely changed 
 the government, and bound the nation by an oath to observe his regula¬ 
 tions until he should return from his travels. He left with the intention 
 of never visiting Sparta again. His institutions were not committed to 
 writing until 130 years after his death, but conveyed in apophthegms, 
 which were confirmed by the oracle at Delphi. It may be remarked, 
 that a great part of the regulations which he comprised in his laws were 
 not new, but derived from the usages of the Dorians, or Cretans who 
 were themselves of Doric race. This great man had without doubt 
 reflected deeply on the tragical fate of the royal lines sprung from Cad¬ 
 mus, Danaus, and Pelops, and on the calamities which, on several occa¬ 
 sions, had ravaged their country. He wished to save the Heraclidae 
 from a similar catastrophe, and to protect the fertile plains of Laconia 
 from the inroads of some adventurous or warlike race. He ensured this 
 twofold design, by confirming the hereditary honours of the kings, with 
 a limited but acknowledged power; and by forming a nation of brave 
 and incorruptible men, in whom patriotism and the warlike virtues 
 should be the predominant passions. 
 
 Constitution .—Lycurgus wrought no change in the religious system 
 of Sparta, except that all the gods and goddesses were clad in armour. 
 No splendid monument was raised over those who fell in battle; and 
 all murmurs for their loss were forbidden. Two kings governed con¬ 
 jointly, while twenty-eight senators held the balance between them and 
 the people. All the lands were divided into equal portions : 9000 shares 
 
 * Mr. Fynes Clinton, the most laborious and profound of modern ehronologers, makes 
 Lycurgus contemporary with Homer, and places both after the Return of the Hera* 
 clidrp 
 
44 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 were assigned to the Spartans, 30,000 to the Laconians, the whole being 
 cultivated by Helots. The only coins were of iron. The Spartans fed 
 at a common table; the children were the property of the state; those 
 who were born deformed were not permitted to live. The training of 
 the boys was such as to excite in their hearts a taste for war, contempt 
 of death, obedience, and the practice of the austerer virtues. They 
 went barefooted, and throughout the year wore only a single garment. 
 Theft was encouraged, that the youths might become fitted for the 
 stratagems of war; and when detected, they were severely punished 
 for their clumsiness. Their education, strictly so called, finished at the 
 age of twenty; in literature, they committed to memory a few patriotic 
 songs, and learned to express themselves laconically , that is, with 
 brevity and precision. 
 
 Read : Laws of Lycurgus, in Anacharsis, vol. iv. ch. 48. 
 
 The great defect of all Dorian legislation was its tendency to maintain a 
 warlike character—to oppress the slave population—-and to render war a more 
 natural state than peace. In Laconia there were three classes: Lords , or Spar¬ 
 tans ; Perioeci, or Lacedemonians, inhabitants of the country, who paid tribute 
 and gave military service ; and Helots. The cultivation of the soil fell to the 
 last alone. The Spartans of the capital were the ruling lords ; the Periceci 
 were probably the fh ingle d offspring of Dorian marriages, or native Acheans. 
 The third class were the inhabitants of Helos, reduced to slavery as a punish¬ 
 ment for their continual insurrections. The chief authority was in the hands 
 of the two kings, the five ephori , and the senate of twenty-eight; the popular 
 assembly had no other privilege than that of electing the senators, who held 
 their places for life. The government was therefore far from being a demo¬ 
 cracy. The power of the king was supreme in war, but inferior to that of the 
 ephori in peace. These magistrates, originally created as a check alike upon 
 the sovereign and the senate, gradually usurped excessive power. The dread¬ 
 ful massacre of their slaves ( crypteia ), and the dissolute manners arising from 
 certain regulations concerning the intercourse of the sexes, are well known. 
 The Spartan women were reckoned a disgrace to their sex, and Aristotle 
 imputes the disorders which ruined the nation to their want of modesty. The 
 Germans, with their habitual love of paradox, have lately started and as ably 
 defended a theory that the*Dorian states, including Sparta, were the first in 
 arts, literature, and arms. But in this community there were no authors ; the 
 arts, which form the charm and ornament of life were unknown ; and for all 
 memorials of the virtue of the republic we are indebted to the Athenians. 
 
 Consult: Mitford’s History of Greece ; Bulwer’s Athens, Book I. ch. vi. 
 $ 5, &c. 
 
 CARTHAGE. 
 
 Dido, 890* b. c. — Carthage on the northern coast of Africa, was 
 founded by Elisa or Dido, sister of Pygmalion king of Tyre, though 
 others place its foundation so early as 1223 b. c. It would be wrong 
 to take the account transmitted to us in its literal sense. It is probable 
 that political commotions in the mother city induced a party of the dis¬ 
 affected to emigrate, who proceeded to Africa, along whose northern 
 coast Utica and other Phoenician colonies had already been settled. 
 After the decease of Dido there is a void in the history of more than 
 three centuries. In the time of Cyrus, Camhyses, and Darius, the 
 republic was formidable by land and sea (550-480). About the same 
 period they defeated a fleet of the Phoceans, then the most powerful 
 
 * Petav. Ration. Temp. 1. ii. c. 13. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 45 
 
 maritime state. To the same epoch must be referred their great vic¬ 
 tories over their African neighbours, and the first treaty with Rome, 
 509 b. c. 
 
 The constitution of Carthage was aristocratic, administered by two judges 
 (, suffeles ), a senate of 100 members, and an assembly of the people. The 
 judges were annually chosen from the oldest and most opulent families; and 
 the popular assembly was appealed to only when the opinions of the senate 
 and the council of five (the assistants of the suffetes) were divided. Aristotle 
 ranks this republic among those most esteemed by the ancients. The Cartha¬ 
 ginian religion was of the mother-country: the heavenly bodies were wor¬ 
 shipped, and the blood-stained rites of Moloch held in great honour. In times 
 of public distress, 300 noble youths were placed alive in his blazing arms. 
 Carthage was pre-eminently a commercial city ; all its power and consequence 
 were derived from trade; its fleets covered the seas ; and its colonies or fac¬ 
 tories were on every shore. The mines of Old Spain were worked, and with 
 the gold thence procured, Spanish, Ligurian, and Italian soldiers were hired to 
 form its armies. The Carthaginians held Sicily, Malta, the Balearic Isles, 
 Sardinia, and Corsica ; they frequented the west of Africa as far as the Guinea 
 coast, and visited Britain; but the passage to the Canaries was forbidden. 
 Their caravans travelled eastward to Egypt, and southward to Fe^zan, or 
 even further. 
 
 MACEDONIA. 
 
 Towards the end of this century, a Hellenic colony from Argos, under 
 Caranus(813,) settled in Emathia, and laid the feeble foundations of the 
 Macedonian empire. Its early history, however, is obscure, and little 
 more is known than that its princes gradually extended their territory 
 by subjecting or expelling the neighbouring tribes. They were deli¬ 
 vered from the Persian yoke, imposed in 510, by the victories of the 
 Greeks; and their independence was restored by the battle of Plataea, 
 479, although it was not distinctly acknowledged by their former masters. 
 It was scarcely considered a Grecian state until the reign of Philip, the 
 father of Alexander. 
 
 EIGHTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea. —721, Captivity of the Ten Tribes—Isaiah, Habakkuk, Nahum fl. 
 
 Greece. —776, First Olympiad.—743, First Messenian War. 
 
 Assyria. —759, Sardanapalus, d. —747, iEra of Nabonassar.—714, 
 
 Sennacherib. 
 
 Rome. —753. Foundation of Rome—Senate. 
 
 Lydia. —727, Gyges. 
 
 JUDAEA. 
 
 Judah. —In 810 b.c., Amaziah was succeeded by Uzziah, also called 
 Azariah, who served the Lord so long as the prophet Zechariah lived, 
 and all his enterprises therefore succeeded. The Arabians, Ammonites, 
 and Philistines, became his tributaries; and having formed an alliance 
 with Jeroboam II. of Israel, he overcame the Syrians, and recovered the 
 cities of Hamath and Damascus. He retook Elath from the Idumeans, 
 and re-established the ancient commerce of the Jews on the Red Sea ; 
 but intoxicated with success, he forgot what he owed to the God of 
 
46 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Jacob. On a day of solemn festival, he presumed, in defiance of the 
 high-priest, to offer incense in the temple, when he was immediately 
 struck with leprosy, of which he died 753 b. c. Jotham, who had been 
 appointed regent during the life of his father, received the reward of his 
 piety in great successes over his enemies; though from the portrait of 
 this age left us by Isaiah, we learn that the manners of the people were 
 very corrupted. Micah, who began to prophesy about this time, pre¬ 
 dicted the misfortunes of Samaria, the birth of the Messiah at Bethlehem, 
 the conversion of the Gentiles, and the dispersion of the Jews. The 
 righteous Jotham was succeeded by his son Ahaz, 742, who restored 
 the worship of Baal, offered sacrifice to the idols of the neighbouring 
 nations, and burnt incense on all the high places. The instruments 
 chosen by the Almighty to punish this impiety were Rezin king of 
 Syria, and Pekah king of Israel, whose united forces, after devastating 
 the country, blockaded Ahaz in Jerusalem, with the design of extermi¬ 
 nating the house of David and changing the order of succession. In 
 this pressing danger the prophet Isaiah restored the waning confidence 
 of the monarch ; the siege was raised, and the two kino-s retired without 
 any important conquest. Ahaz, far from being touched by so marked 
 an interposition of Heaven, passed his own son through the fire to 
 Moloch.* In the next year, being defeated by the King of Israel, he 
 purchased the assistance of Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, with all 
 the gold and silver found in the temple, or in the royal treasury, 740 
 b. c. Elath became .the prize of his ally, and the great commerce of 
 the East was for ever taken away from Jerusalem. When Ahaz was 
 threatened by the Assyrians, he indulged in the greatest excess of 
 idolatry, in the hope of propitiating the divinities of his enemies, to 
 whom he attributed all the misfortunes which had befallen him. 
 Hezekiah, one of the mo§t righteous kings that ever filled the throne 
 of Judah, consecrated the beginning of his reign to the destruction of 
 idols, and the restoration of the true worship, 726 b. c. He celebrated 
 the Passover with great solemnity; repaired many of the losses which 
 his people had suffered in preceding reigns ; and even ventured to shake 
 off the Assyrian yoke. Shalmaneser was diverted from attacking his 
 kingdom, after the subjugation of Israel, by an anxiety to reduce the 
 Phoenician states; but Sennacherib, his successor, renewing the claim, 
 shortly after entered Judsea with a powerful army; nor did he retire 
 until Hezekiah had submitted, and consented to pay an annual tribute 
 of 300 talents of silver, and 30 of gold, 713 b. c. In an expedition des¬ 
 tined against Egypt, the Assyrian monarch again appeared before 
 
 * Moloch was a Phoenician god, whose statue and temple were in the valley of Hin- 
 nom, at the foot of Mount Sion. The place derived its name of Tophet from the musical 
 instruments ( tuph ) used to drown the cries of the children who were sacrificed. Hence 
 also the names of Tophet, Gehinnom or Ge-henna, given to the place of eternal 
 torments. 
 
 “ Mdioch, horrid king, besmeared with blood 
 Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears; 
 
 Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud 
 Their children’s cries unheard, that passed through fire, 
 
 To his grim idol.”—M ilton. 
 
 t 
 
 The high places mentioned above were those in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
 had sacrificed to the true God, and for which the people always preserved a great 
 respect. Here they persisted in offering sacrifices in spite of the prohibition whic 
 confined such religious service to the temple alone. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 4 
 
 Jerusalem, in which was the prophet Isaiah. But during the night a 
 pestilence sent from heaven destroyed the principal officers of his army 
 with 185,000 men, 710 b. c; upon which he returned in haste to Nine¬ 
 veh, where he was assassinated by his own sons. Shortly before, the 
 King of Judah had been attacked with a mortal disease; but on his 
 humble prayer, Isaiah was commanded to predict his recovery as well 
 as the prolongation of his life; and to confirm this prophecy the shadow 
 of the sun went back ten degrees upon the dial of Ahaz. Hezekiah 
 passed the rest of his days in tranquillity; and having embellished 
 Jerusalem, built aqueducts, and other public works, he died 698 b. c. 
 
 Israel. —A turbulent interregnum of twelve years followed the death 
 of Jeroboam II.; and his son Zechariah, who was murdered in the first 
 year of his reign, 772, was the last of the house of Jehu, which had 
 given five kings to Israel. The regicide Shallum, after a reign of one 
 month, was, in his turn, assassinated by Menahem, who governed ten 
 years, to 761 b. c., and under him took place the first invasion of the 
 Assyrians led by Pul. Little is recorded of Pekahiah who was slain 
 by Pekah, one of his generals, and his successor (759.) This monarch, 
 being joined by Rezin^king of Damascus, invaded Judah, and carried 
 aw r ay 200,000 prisoners, whom, in obedience to the remonstrances of the 
 prophet Obed, he restored to their country. An interregnum of nine 
 years followed his assassination (739,) during which period of confu¬ 
 sion Tiglath-Pileser ravaged the districts beyond the Jordan. The 
 cup of iniquity was now full, and God resolved to execute his judgments. 
 By an alliance with the Egytian Sahacus or So, Hoshea endeavoured to 
 shake off the Assyrian yoke; but Shalmaneser invaded his territories 
 with an overwhelming force, conquered Samaria, and, in 721 b. c., put 
 an end to the kingdom of Israel, 254 years after the defection from 
 Judah. The inhabitants were transported into Media, to provinces 
 which had lately been depopulated in consequence of the fall of the first 
 Assyrian empire, and to Babylon. The Israelites were replaced by 
 Medians and Assyrians, who forsook their idolatry, erected a temple on 
 Mount Gerizim, and instituted ceremonies similar to those of Jerusalem. 
 These new colonists were afterwards termed Samaritans, and differed 
 from the Jews only in their schism. 
 
 Prepare : Table of contemporaneous kings of Israel and Judah. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Olympiads, 776 b. c.— With the establishment of Olympiads Grecian 
 history begins to assume a less fabulous appearance. The name is 
 derived from the Games , held every four years, near the city of Olympia, 
 on the banks of the Alpheus, and their commencement is placed as high 
 as 1354 b. c. They were re-established by Iphitus of Elis in conjunc 
 tion with Lycurgus, and Oleosthenes of Pisa, about 884; but a centur 
 elapsed before the names of the victors were inscribed in the gymnasium. 
 The first year of the First Olympiad begins with July, 776 b. c.* 
 
 * To reduce the Olympiads to the common era, multiply the Olympiad immediately 
 preceding the one in question by 4, and add the number of years to the ?iven Olympiad 
 If b. c. subtract the amount from 777 ; if a. d. subtract 776 from the amount. Thus 146 
 01. 2 is 95 b. c. and 222 01 2. is 110 a. d. The Olympic year commenced with the new 
 moon nearest to the summer solstice, 
 
45 
 
 anciejnIt history. 
 
 The four most celebrated of the public games of Greece were the Nemean, 
 held in Argolis; the Isthmian, in Corinth; the Pythian, at Delphi; and the 
 Olympic ; in which a simple wreath of laurel or of olive was given to the suc¬ 
 cessful competitors. The value of the prize was enhanced by its being awarded 
 in the presence of the whole Greek nation, and by the honours which his 
 native city paid to the victor who had contributed to its glory. If an Athenian, 
 he was entitled to a seat in the Prytaneum; if a Spartan, to the chief post in 
 battle. 
 
 The Eleans were the sole managers of the Olympic games, and during their 
 celebration a kind of sacred truce was preserved. The first contentions were 
 in the foot-race alone ; afterwards were added wrestling, leaping, throwing the 
 quoit and javelin, boxing, with horse and chariot racing. In the Pentathlon 
 five gymnastic exercises were combined. At Olympia were read fragments of 
 the history of Herodotus, and while listening to his enchanting legends, Thu¬ 
 cydides caught that inspiration which led him not only to excel his master, but 
 to attain a point of great excellence. Here also Lysias recited his harangue on 
 the fall of the tyrant Dionysius. Such exhibitions had the effect of transform¬ 
 ing social pleasures into intellectual enjoyments. 
 
 ASSYRIA. 
 
 The annals of the first Assyrian empire are involved in obscurity not 
 less difficult to remove than that of Egypt; for the notices respecting 
 the origin of the latter power as well as of Babylon, which are furnished 
 in the Bible, are not sufficient to complete a continuous history. At the 
 epoch of the Dispersion, Ashur w T as established in Shinar ( Babylonia ) , 
 but soon after, advancing northward, he founded the cities of Nineveh, 
 Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. About the same time, or perhaps a little 
 earlier, Nimrod settled in Babylonia, from which he is supposed by 
 many historians to have expelled Ashur. He converted the tower of 
 Babel into a fortress, by surrounding it with strong walls, from whence 
 he kept the neighbouring country in subjection. He next passed into 
 Assyria, and confined Ashur within a narrower territory. In the rab¬ 
 binical books Nimrod is represented as the inventor of fire-worships, 
 and the first persecutor of the religion of the true God. 
 
 After this conqueror we have no certain information of the govern¬ 
 ment of the Assyrians; and the period intervening between him and 
 Ninus is filled by some writers with a list of thirteen kings, divided into 
 two dynasties. Of these, Evechous, the son and successor of Nimrod, 
 is the first; Chomas-Bel, the next, is perhaps the same as Bel-chamas, 
 the second of the Babylonian divinities; Por or Pong is considered to 
 be Baal-Peor or Belphegor. The name of Chinzir, the seventh king, 
 closes the first series. After a reign of forty-five years he w T as dethroned 
 by the Arabs, and his monarchy being dismembered, was formed into 
 the kingdoms of Shinar, Elam, Ellasar, and some others mentioned in 
 the Book of Genesis, in connexion with the history of Abraham.—The 
 second dynasty, composed of six Arabian kings, occupied the throne 215 
 years; and the last sovereign of this race was Nabonadius, dethrored 
 by Belus, who had already governed part of Assyria during thirty years. 
 He reigned twenty-five years longer over the united kingdom, and 
 dying, was succeeded by his son Ninus, 1968 b. c. (PJlrl de verifier le* 
 Dates'). 
 
 The first conquests of Ninus were over the Babylonians, whose cities 
 he easily reduced. After Media and Armenia had submitted to his 
 arms, he experienced little opposition in the rest of Asia, except 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 49 
 
 the Bactrians, who were at last subdued in consequence of the wise 
 suggestions of his wife Semiramis. The history of the early life of this 
 remarkable woman is mingled with fable; and her elevation to the 
 imperial throne can only be compared to that of Catherine I. of Russia. 
 She had no sooner succeeded her husband than she endeavoured to 
 eclipse his glory; and as he had rebuilt in a very magnificent manner, 
 the ancient city of Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris, she determined 
 that Babylon should surpass it in splendour. In the execution of her 
 great project, two millions of workmen were employed, and the city, 
 finished in the space of two years, was ever after considered one of the 
 wonders of the world. Nor did she limit her cares to this city alone; 
 many others were built or improved on the banks of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates. In all parts of her dominions she formed aqueducts, so 
 valuable in hot countries, pierced or levelled mountains, filled up valleys, 
 and opened highways in every direction. Even at the present day the 
 communication between Bagdad and Hamadan is maintained through 
 one of the roads constructed by this celebrated queen. After a reig.* r i 
 forty-two years, and at the age of sixty-two, Semiramis resigned rhe 
 sceptre to her son Ninyas, who, it is said, spent his life in indolence 
 and retirement,—a course imitated by all his successors till the reign of 
 Sardanapalus. One circumstance alone breaks through the silence of 
 this long interval. Tentamus, the twentieth successor of Ninyas, sent 
 assistance to Priam; and Plato, from whom we learn this fact, adds 
 that Troy was a* dependency of Assyria. The conquests of Sesostris 
 king of Egypt, occurred probably under the government of these de¬ 
 scendants of Ninyas ; he contented himself with levying heavy tributes, 
 leaving the sovereign power as he found it. 
 
 Sardanapalus, with whom the first Assyrian empire terminated, sur¬ 
 passed all his predecessors in luxury and voluptuousness. His excesses 
 rendered him contemptible in the eyes of his subjects, and inspired 
 thoughts of revolt in the mind of Belesis, a priest of Babylon, who 
 associated with him in his plot Arbaces, the governor of Media. At the 
 first news of the projected insurrection, the king concealed himself in 
 the most retired chambers of his palace; but soon regaining courage, he 
 collected an army of faithful soldiers, and defeated the insurgents in 
 three desperate battles. He was at last compelled to return to Nineveh, 
 which held out during two years; when the Tigris, swollen by unusual 
 rains, overflowed its banks and destroyed great part of the walls. To 
 prevent his falling into the hands of the enemy, and to efface the memory 
 of a shameful life by a vainglorious death, he caused a vast pile to be 
 raised, on which he burnt himself, together with his wives and treasures, 
 759 b. c. 
 
 Three empires shared the vast dominions of the successors of Ninus : 
 —1, The Assyrian monarchy of Babylon founded by Belesis, which, 
 after lasting about 220 years, was conquered by Cyrus, 538 b. c. ;— 2, 
 The ancient kingdom of the Ninevite Assyrians, perpetuated by Pul, 
 and which, in little more than 130 years, was reunited to Babylon;— 
 3, The state of the Medes, indebted for its independence to Arbaces, and 
 which, becoming monarchical under Deioces, continued about 220 years, 
 and was at last united to the vast empire of Persia. 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 It has been thought, and not without sufficient reason, that the enterprise of 
 Belesis and Arbaces has been confounded with that of Nabopolassar and 
 Cyaxares against Chynaladan king of Assyria, and which will be treated of in 
 the seventh century. It is certain that the revolution which destroyed Sarda- 
 napalus, called also Empacmes or Eupalis, did not entirely destroy the Assyrian 
 empire ; and that it scarcely did more than cause the dismemberment of several 
 provinces, the chief of which were Babylon and Media. It would be useless to 
 endeavour to reconcile the contradictory accounts which the ancients have 
 transmitted to us of the last days of Sardanapalus. It seems, however, to be 
 established by modern critics,* that there were two persons of that name ; 
 that Nineveh was not destroyed; and even that Sardanapalus, surviving his 
 degradation, resigned the government to the hands of his son Pul, and passed 
 the remainder of his days in luxurious retirement. 
 
 Second Empire of Nineveh. —Pul, the first king of the new empire 
 of Assyria, was the son of Sardanapalus, and is known to have inter¬ 
 fered in the civil dissensions of the kingdom of Israel. His successors 
 were steady in his course of policy, which was destined at no distant 
 period to open the road to Egypt. He has been thought to be the Eel us 
 cf profane history, and the founder of the Assyrian monarchy. Tiglath- 
 Pileser, his son and successor, 747 b. c., a warlike prince, endeavoured 
 to repair the losses which his territories had suffered during the last 
 revolution; and, with this view, he invaded Palestine, destroyed the 
 kingdom of Damascus, and transported the unfortunate inhabitants of 
 that city into his own states, 740. Ahaz also, king of Judah, was com¬ 
 pelled to pay him tribute. He died after a reign of nineteen years, and 
 was succeeded oy Shalmaneser (728) who surpassed the exploits of his 
 father. Having completed the conquest of Israel, he led Hoshea into 
 captivity, the ",ast sovereign of that schismatical kingdom; and after 
 reducing the various states of Phoenicia, he compelled their inhabitants 
 to pay tribute. He died in 714, and was followed on the throne by his 
 son Sennacherib, the Sargon of Isaiah. He began his reign by the 
 invasion of Judea; but, while threatening Jerusalem, his army was 
 smitten with pestilence or by the simoom (“ the angel of death,” as it is 
 called by the Arabs), and 185,000 men perished in a single night. 
 Rendered ferocious by his disgrace, he exercised the cruelest tyranny 
 on his subjects. The Jews were particularly exposed to his anger. He 
 daily massacred great numbers of them, and left their bodies in the 
 fields without sepulture. Becoming odious to his family his two elder 
 sons conspired and slew him, 707 b. c. ; but fleeing into Armenia, they 
 left the throne to the youngest, Esarhaddon. 
 
 Second Empire of Babylon. — Nothing is more obscure than the 
 beginning of this empire, which, until the year 721, had no communica¬ 
 tion with the Jewish people. Belesis, generally considered as the first 
 king of this new monarchy, was, according to Diodorus, merely governor 
 of Babylon under Arbaces the Median. It is contended by many mo 
 dern historians that he and his successor Nabonassar are one and the 
 same person; an opinion which is scarcely tenable. The name of 
 Belesis is not found in the list of Babylonian kings given by Ptolemy. 
 Some writers believe that he formed the province into a sort of republic, 
 with himself at its head, but dependent on the King of Nineveh. The 
 actions of Nabonassar are entirely unknown, except that he is reported 
 
 * See vol. xxi. of the Memoires de VAcademic des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 51 
 
 ,0 have destroyed the monuments of his predecessors in the foolish hope 
 of passing - for the first king of the Babylonian nation. The epoch which 
 bears his name, and which was adopted on the introduction of the 
 Egyptian year, begins with 747 b. c.* Beyond their names we know 
 but little of the next four kings, Nadius, Chinzirus, Porus, and Jugeus. 
 These were succeeded in 721 by Merodach-Baladan, who formed an 
 alliance with the king of Judah. After the disasters of Sennacherib, 
 Merodach endeavoured to rescue his kingdom from its state of depend¬ 
 ence on Assyria; but in this he was unsuccessful, if we may judge by 
 the weakness and disorder of the monarchy during the reigns of his five 
 successors in the short space of seventeen years. 
 
 LYDIA. 
 
 The Lydians were a Pelasgian race, originally called Maeonians, 
 from their first monarch Maeon, the epoch of whose reign has been fixed 
 at 1545 b. c. Three dynasties occupied in succession the throne of 
 Lydia: the Atyades, the Heraclidee, and the Mermnadae. The traditions 
 of mythology had placed a portion of the adventures of Hercules in that 
 country ; and assigned it as the birthplace of Marsyas, Tantalus, Pelops, 
 Niobe, Arachne, and Omphale. A branch of the Heraclidae succeeded 
 the Atyades in 1232, and about 727 b. c. they were followed by the 
 Mermnadae, of whom Gyges, grandson of Mermnas, was the first, who 
 dethroned and murdered Candaules. The history of the kingdom now 
 began to separate from fable, as it gradually increased in riches and 
 importance; and after the expulsion of the Scythians, who in the 7th 
 century had invaded and temporarily possessed it, Alyattes ruled over 
 the greater part of Asia Minor. A war soon afterwards arose between 
 Media and Lydia, during which Babylon remained neuter, and acted as 
 mediator in the contest. A memorable battle between the two nations 
 was interrupted by a total eclipse of the sun, 30th September 601 b. c. 
 Croesus, before ascending the throne, had been associated with his father 
 in the government. Wise but ambitious, he greatly extended the power 
 of the kingdom, and reduced all the Greek colonies of Asia. Solon the 
 philosopher, about 575, and the fabulist A3sop, were entertained at his 
 court.| He declared -war against the celebrated Cyrus, who had united 
 the Median and Persian monarchies, 559 b. c. ; but although assisted 
 by Egypt and Babylon, he w r as unsuccessful; his capital, Sardis, w r as 
 taken, and himself made prisoner, 546 b.c. The wdiole of the Lydian 
 dominions fell into the hands of the conqueror, and the nation never 
 recovered its independence. 
 
 Tradition ascribes to the Lydians the invention of coined money, formed 
 from the gold dust of the river Pactolus. They were celebrated for their purple 
 garments, their skill in working metal, and their slave markets. 
 
 *The reign of Nabonassar forms an important era in chronology. It was, according 
 to Ptolemy, the beginning of the astronomical observations of the Chaldeans. Hence, 
 it fixes the date of what is commonly called Ptolemy’s Astronomical Canon. The 
 method of reducing the years of this era to that employed by Christian nations, will be 
 found in the Companion to the Almanac, 1830. 
 
 fThe chronological objections to the celebrated interview between Croesus and Solon 
 may be removed, if we suppose with Mr. Fynes Clinton, that Croesus reigned jointly 
 with his father Alyattes. See also Larcher’s Note 73, lib. i. of his translation of 
 Hex )dotus. 
 
52 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 # 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Origin of the Roman people. 
 
 At the period when history begins to throw a few rays of light upon the con 
 dition of Italy, we find it occupied by various tribes, speaking different lan¬ 
 guages, and in different degrees of civilisation. The Umbrians , who are 
 supposed to have come from Illyria, had penetrated to the Tiber, and occupied 
 both its banks at a very remote era. Between them and the mouth of the 
 river, lay the Sicilians; while in the Apennine chain, near Mount Velino, and 
 at the Lake Fucino, dwelt a rude and barbarous people, known by the name 
 of Casci or Aborigines (primitive inhabitants). To the east of these were the 
 Sabines , whose original abode was the Abruzzi, on the summits of the Apen¬ 
 nines. These people seized on the Umbrian territory, and, in lapse of time, 
 extended their frontiers as far as Rome. At this epoch, long before the date 
 of the fall of Troy, the Aborigines settled on the south of Umbria, and there 
 built cities and towns. The Siculans and these mountaineers were continually 
 at war; and after long and terrible combats, the Aborigines, assisted by some 
 Pelasgian colonists under Evander, vanquished the Sieulans, and compelled 
 them to take refuge in Trinacria, which afterwards bore the name of Sicily. 
 The Pelasgians received their share of the conquered lands; but were in their 
 turn subdued and nearly exterminated about the middle of the 12th century 
 B. c. The Aborigines remained sole masters of the country, and were the 
 primitive source of the Latin people. They were called Latins , from their king 
 Latinus. The poetical traditions relate that JEneas, who had escaped the flames 
 of Troy, married Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, and founded Lavinium. 
 His son Ascanius is said to have built Alba Longa. Twelve princes reigned 
 after him : Procas was the last. His sons Numitor and Amulius made war 
 upon each other, and the latter triumphed; but he was driven from the throne 
 by the two grandsons of Numitor. Romulus and Remus, whom the Romans 
 supposed to be the offspring of Mars and the vestal Rhea Sylvia. 
 
 The researches of Beaufort and Niebuhr have shaken the credibility of the 
 early annals of Rome. But critical scepticism may be carried too far; for the 
 science of history consists not only in the knowledge of truths, but in familiarity 
 with all that has been related of the various nations which have figured in the 
 world. An acquaintance with what the Romans themselves believed of the 
 origin of the city is necessary to enable us to form a correct estimate of their 
 character. 
 
 Consult: Arnold’s History of Rome. 
 
 Romulus, 753. — The founder of Rome had been a shepherd in his 
 youth. After having restored his grandfather Numitor to the throne, he 
 settled, with some of his early companions, at a little distance from 
 Alba, on the Palatine Hill, and probably on the ruins of a more ancient 
 city. By making the new city an asylum for murderers and runaway 
 slaves, the population increased. He established laws, divided the 
 people into two classes— Patricians and Plebeians , and appointed a senate. 
 At the close of a disastrous war with the Sabines, he was compelled to 
 share his crown with Tatius, their king, though he soon became sole 
 monarch again. After a reign of thirt) T -seven years he was murdered by 
 the senators, who, fearful of the revenge of the populace, gave origin to 
 the report that he had been carried up to heaven, and a temple was 
 erected to him on the Quirinal hill. Romulus had the good sense to 
 adopt many Sabine customs. The Romans always imitated this example 
 with respect to the nations they conquered, and it was not the least cause 
 of their renown. No people indeed ever rose to pre-eminent greatness 
 with smaller pretensions to originality. They were indebted to the 
 Greeks for every thing except their martial and republican spirit; whi. 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 53 
 
 many of their laws, customs, and religious ceremonies, together with 
 their system of notation, were borrowed from the Etruscans. 
 
 Numa.— An interregnum of a year followed the death of Romulus, 
 after which the senate, fearing to hold the supreme authority any longer, 
 chose a Sabine, named Numa Pompilius, for their king. As the former 
 had made his people warriors, the latter taught them the arts of peace, 
 framed a code of laws modelled on that of Lycurgus, and regulated the 
 ceremonies of religious worship. He died after a reign of forty-three 
 years, 672 b. c. 
 
 SEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 J udjea. —698, Manasseh.—641, Josiah.—611, Egyptian War.—606, The Cap 
 tivity. 
 
 Assyria. — 667, Nabuchodonosor.—656, Holofernes slain.—607, Nebuchad¬ 
 nezzar’s Campaigns. 
 
 Media and Persia. —733, Deioces.—655, Phraortes defeated at Ragau.— 
 648, Scythian Invasion. Zoroaster. 
 
 Egypt. — 671, Dodecarchy. — 656, Psammetichus.—617, Necho—Africa cir¬ 
 cumnavigated. 
 
 Greece. —685, Second Messenian War.—624, Draco— Ephori. 
 
 Rome. — 667, Horatii and Curiatii.—640, Ancus Martius.—616, Tarquin the 
 Elder. 
 
 Literature. —Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.—680, Tyrtaeus.—600, Archilochus, 
 Alcaeus, Sappho, Epimenides. 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 End of the Kingdom of Judah. — Manasseh (698), a youth of 
 twelve years of age, subverted all the wise institutions of his father 
 Hezekiah ; he adored Baal and Moloch, and by his orders Isaiah was 
 sawn asunder. During his long reign the Mosaic Law and the worship 
 of Jehovah fell into contempt; and he thereby brought the heaviest mis¬ 
 fortunes on himself and his people. Many prophets appeared, and 
 vainly warned the nation of its impending ruin. Esarhaddon at length 
 dragged him a prisoner to Babylon, 676, as Hoshea king of Israel, 
 forty-five years before, had been led to Nineveh. After a captivity of 
 one year (or of seven years, according to some critics), he was restored 
 to his throne, to become the perfect model of a penitent king; for he 
 purified the temple, destroyed all idols, and re-established the worship 
 of the true God. In 656 Nebuchadnezzar I. gave Holofernes the com¬ 
 mand of a numerous army, destined to punish the Jews for refusing 
 their assistance against the Medes. But his conquests were arrested by 
 the hand of a woman; for while blockading the small hill-fortress of 
 Bethulia, he was slain by the enthusiastic Judith. Amon, the wicked 
 son of Manasseh, perished by assassination, 641, after a reign of two 
 years, and was succeeded by Josiah at the age of eight. Even in child¬ 
 hood this monarch was an example of piety, and he had scarcely com¬ 
 pleted his sixteenth year, when he assumed the government which had 
 been administered by his mother Idida. In his time the high-priest 
 5 * 
 
54 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Hilkiah discovered the original manuscript of the Law, written by the 
 hand of the great legislator himself. To fulfil the engagements he made 
 with his people at the public reading of this book, he destroyed every 
 vestige of idolatry both in Israel and Judah; and when he had thus 
 purified his land, he celebrated the Passover with great solemnity, 6*23 
 b. c. The misfortunes of the country recommenced with the death of 
 Josiah, who was killed in battle at Megiddo while opposing Necho king 
 of Egypt, who being at war with the Assyrians, resolved to pass through 
 Palestine. The prophet Jeremiah composed a funeral elegy on his 
 death, which continued long afterwards to be sung by the choir in 
 certain religious ceremonies. With this prince terminated the glory 
 and happiness of the Jewish nation. The people raised Jehoahaz, one 
 of his younger sons, to the throne ; but he was deposed by the victorious 
 Necho, and led prisoner into Egypt. Eliakim, who was appointed in 
 his stead, under the name of Jehoiakim, 610, was a weak and irreligious 
 ruler; his only virtue being the fidelity with which he paid a heavy 
 tribute to the sovereign from whom he had received the crown. Deaf 
 to the warnings of Jeremiah and Habakkuk, who announced to Judaea 
 the coming danger, he threw the prophecy of the former into the fire, 
 and condemned both to die. They escaped his fury by taking refuge in 
 a cavern. In 606 Nebuchadnezzar II. took Jerusalem for the first time, 
 and imprisoned, but afterwards released, its monarch. He plundered 
 the temple of great part of its sacred vessels, and among his captives 
 we read the names of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This 
 year, 606, is the first of the Seventy Years' Captivity announced by 
 Jeremiah. 
 
 ASSYRIA. 
 
 Second Empire of Nineveh.— Esarhaddon, the third son of Senna¬ 
 cherib, ascended the throne on the murder of his father, 707 b. c.; and 
 he restored to the Assyrian monarchy the strength and glory which it 
 had lost during the misfortunes of the previous reigns. Taking advan¬ 
 tage of the civil troubles which divided the Babylonians, he reunited 
 them to his empire in 680, and until 647 they were governed by Nine- 
 vite viceroys. He reduced Judaea, and led Manasseh into captivity; 
 but, as already mentioned, after twelve months he restored him to liberty 
 and to a kingdom now nearly depopulated. After a reign of forty-two 
 years, marked by glorious conquests over Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and 
 Ethiopia, he left the sceptre to his son Saosduchin, the Nebuchadnezzar 
 or Nabuchodonosor of the book of Judith. In the twelfth year of his 
 reign he was attacked by Phraortes, king of the Medes, whom he 
 defeated and slew with his own hand, 655. He sent an army of 130,000 
 men into Judaea, under the command of Holofernes, who, we have seen, 
 perished by the hand of Judith. From this time Saosduchin experienced 
 nothing but reverses, and the year preceding his death, he was besieged 
 in Nineveh by Cyaxares. He died in the twenty-second year of his 
 reign, leaving a tottering throne to his son and successor. 
 
 The vices and cowardice of Saracus (Chynaladanus) produced greater 
 trouble and confusion in his dominions. Nabopolassar made himself 
 independent at Babylon, where he reigned twenty-one years, and to pre¬ 
 serve his power he formed an alliance with the Medes. The united 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 55 
 
 armies besieged Nineveh, and completely destroyed it, upon which 
 Babylon became the sole capital of the Assyrian empire, 6*25 b. c. 
 
 Second Empire of Babylon. — On the death of Mesessi Mordacus, 
 the last of the live obscure successors of Merodach Baladan, the metro¬ 
 polis was, for eight years, a prey to all the evils of anarchy. This 
 opportunity was not neglected by the victorious Esarhaddon, and in 680 
 he reunited the Babylonian monarchy to that of Nineveh, which had 
 now become the most formidable in all Asia. But this preponderance, 
 founded on the humiliation of Babylon, was not of long duration; for 
 thirty-three years after, Nabopolassar the Chaldean, aided by Cyaxares 
 the Mede, vindicated the honour of his country on the smoking ruins of 
 Nineveh, and his empire became in its turn the queen of the east. The 
 conqueror (625), after the death of Saracus, reunited under his govern¬ 
 ment all the provinces with most of the satrapies that had been depend¬ 
 ent on Nineveh. Such prosperity excited the jealousy of Necho, who 
 marched toward the Euphrates with the design of wresting from the 
 Assyrian monarch all the country situated on the western bank of that 
 river. He was particularly successful, and took the important city of 
 Carchemish, with several other strong places. This encouraged the 
 Syrians and the Jews in their attempts to throw off the Babylonian 
 yoke; when Nabopolassar, too far advanced in years to take the field in 
 person against the rebels, committed the important charge to his son 
 Nebuchadnezzar the Great, whom he had already associated with him 
 in the government. This young prince, who had received from nature 
 all the qualities of a conqueror, justified the confidence of his father. 
 Proceeding against the Egyptian king, he gained a complete victory, 
 and recovered all that the other had reduced in the preceding years. 
 While laying siege to Jerusalem, which he was destined to capture 
 thrice in the course of his reign, he was informed of his parent’s death. 
 He returned to Babylon to assume the crown, carrying with him a 
 numerous train of Jewish captives. 
 
 MEDIA. 
 
 Deioces, 733 b. c.— Media is a fertile though mountainous country, 
 lying between Persia, the Caspian Sea, Assyria, Parthia, and Armenia. 
 Its capital was Ecbatana (now Hamadan). Powerful monarchies 
 appear to have existed in those parts, but, owing to an inconsistent and 
 arbitrary chronology, they can scarcely enter into general history. 
 Bactria, by its geographical position, appears marked out for the great 
 emporium of south-eastern Asia, and in proportion as we penetrate into 
 ancient times, w~e become convinced that, like Babylon, it was one of 
 the earliest seats of international commerce, and one of the cradles of 
 civilisation. The term Media comprehended this country as it was 
 applied generally to the nations between the Tigris and the Indus. 
 
 From the earliest period the Medes had been subject to Assyria, when, 
 in 759, under the command of Arbaces, they revolted against Sardana- 
 palus, and recovered their independence. But their liberty degenerated 
 into anarchy, until a sense of the necessity of public order induced 
 them, in the year 733, to place Deioces on the throne. During his 
 
 t lorious reign of fifty-three years, he united the six tribes, of which the 
 lagi were the chief, and founded an independent sovereignty. Phraortes 
 
56 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 (probably the Arphaxad of the book of Judith), who succeeded him in 
 680, reduced Persia, and conquered all the country north of the Taurus 
 as far as the river Halys. He was defeated and killed by Nebuchad¬ 
 nezzar I. (Saosduchin) in his war against Assyria, 655. Cyaxares I. 
 undertook to avenge his father’s death, and w^as on the point of captur¬ 
 ing Nineveh, when he was obliged to turn his arms against a more 
 terrible enemy, the Scythians, who, having overrun Asia, had reached 
 the borders of Egypt, 648. It took twenty-eight years to expel them, 
 after which he declared war against the Lydian Alyattes, for having 
 received and protected some of the chiefs who had escaped from the 
 general massacre of their comrades. A battle fought on the banks of 
 the Halys, was terminated by an eclipse of the sun, 601 b. c.* The 
 Medes had now regained their importance, for, united with the Baby¬ 
 lonian Nabopolassar, they had destroyed Nineveh, 625, and reduced the 
 Persians to subjection. Cyaxares I. died in 595, in the sixty-first year 
 of his reign, leaving to his son Astyages the greatest and most powerful 
 monarchy in Asia. In his time the history of Media becomes confused 
 with that of Persia and of Cyrus. 
 
 We may here observe that the frequent revolutions in Asia, both of ancient 
 and modern times, were never beneficial to the people. Governments often 
 changed hands, but the form was always the same; and all except that effected 
 by Alexander were the work of powerful nomad tribes. Impelled by fortui¬ 
 tous circumstances or by necessity, they quitted their wild abodes to subjugate 
 the fertile plains of Southern Asia, until, enervated by the luxury and effe¬ 
 minacy of their new subjects, they were themselves conquered in the same 
 manner. This consideration on the common origin of the great empires of the 
 East, accounts for their vast extent, their rapid increase, and brief duration. 
 The internal constitution of these states was everywhere the same: an 
 unlimited despotism which, springing from the rights of conquest, was per¬ 
 petuated, because the very extent of the empire required, for the interests of 
 the prince at least, a similar government to preserve the unity of the state. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Persia, called Elam in the Scriptures, received its name from the 
 eldest son of Shem. Its history is a blank down to the reign of Che- 
 dorlaomer, who, about a century before the presumed time in which 
 Ninus laid the foundations of Assyrian greatness, had already carried 
 his victorious arms towards the Mediterranean, in the western provinces 
 of Asia. The power of the Elamites yielded to that of Ninus and 
 Semiramis, and the country became a province of the vast empire of 
 Assyria. They aided the Medians and Babylonians in their attempts 
 to overthrow the government of Sardanapalus, but were still dependent 
 on the two newly-formed monarchies. The ten tribes of Israel were 
 distributed amon^ the Persians and Medes; and although the extensive 
 dominion of Nebuchadnezzar II. embraced the former people within its 
 limits, the bonds of subjection do not appear to have been very oppres¬ 
 sive. Under the rule of the Medes the condition of Persia was very 
 little changed. Eastern writers have endeavoured to fill up the void in 
 
 * The period of this eclipse is by no means a settled point, and the compiler had to 
 select from six different dates: 607; 603; 601, the date assigned by Usher; 597, very 
 often given ; 585, total over the whole Hellespont, and not improbably that mentioned 
 by Herodotus- and 531 b. c. 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 57 
 
 its earlv history ; but their works, composed in the twelfth and thir¬ 
 teenth centuries a. d., are little more than a web of fabulous traditions. 
 Their testimony can have no weight in the balance of historical criti¬ 
 cism, and in all their annals the only personage who appears to be 
 really historical is Jemsheed or Giamschid, probably the Achaemenes 
 whom the Greeks counted among the ancestors # of Cyrus. 
 
 At the epoch of their subjection to the Medes, the Persians were a 
 mountain race, divided into ten castes or tribes. The most considerable 
 were the Pasargadae, the Maraphiaris, and Maspians, all composed of 
 nobles and warriors; and the first, of whom the Achaemenidae were a 
 branch, were always in possession of the government. Of the other 
 tribes, three were composed of labourers and four of shepherds. 
 
 Being descended from Shem, the Elamites preserved longer their 
 ancient religion. They built no temples, but worshipped, in the open 
 air and on the tops of mountains, the sun (. Miihras ) or fire, as an 
 emblem of the Supreme Being. They also venerated the stars and 
 planets. The adoration of the heavenly bodies ( Sabaism ) is supposed 
 to have been a corruption of the Magian doctrines : both however appear 
 to have been known to Job. The former is perpetuated in Asia by the 
 Parsees and Ghebers. 
 
 The Magian doctrine endeavoured to account for the existence of evil, 
 by the notion (afterwards adopted by the Manichees) of two first causes, 
 principles or gods, of Good and Evil. The name is derived from the 
 Magi, a sacerdotal caste of the Medes, who introduced their peculiar 
 opinions into Persia. This doctrine was reformed by Zoroaster or Zer- 
 dusht. Four persons of this name are mentioned in ancient authors; 
 but the best known, and perhaps the only one who ever existed, was 
 born in Media about the same time as Cyrus. Sent in early life to 
 Judaea, he studied the books of Moses and Solomon, and became 
 acquainted with the prophecies concerning Cyrus. Returning to his 
 own country, he retired to a lonely cavern, in which he wrote the Jivesta, 
 or as it is generally called, the Zendavesta, from being written in the 
 Zend language, the sacred dialect of the Parsees. In this work, which 
 contains tenets of the highest wisdom and the p.urest morals, the Two 
 Principles are reduced to the rank of subordinate angels, and the exist¬ 
 ence of one independent and self-existing deity is acknowledged, as also 
 the salvation of man by faith from the power of Arimanes or Satan. 
 These doctrines appear to have been adopted in Persia by the nobler 
 tribes alone. The magi preserved the sacred fire which Zoroaster 
 brought to Media, and which he is said to have received from heaven. 
 His favourite maxim was, that evil followed good, as the shadow the 
 substance. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Psammetichus. —The period between the sixteenth and tenth centu¬ 
 ries, although disturbed by anarchy, was the most prosperous in the 
 history of this kingdom. In the Holy Scriptures we find a few scattered 
 notices of Egyptian atfairs, such as the marriage of Solomon with the 
 king’s daughter, and the invasion of Judaea by Shishak in 971, b. c. 
 The tide of conquest now rolled down the Nile, the Ethiopians under 
 Sabacus "ose to great power, 770, and a dynasty of three kings reigned 
 if succession on the united throne of Egypt and Ethiopia. Yarioua 
 
58 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 revolutions followed, until Psammetichus of Sais obtained the supreme 
 power, about 656 b. c. He had been a member of the dodecarcfiy , or 
 government of twelve sovereign princes, among whom the country had 
 been divided, 671. Quarrels springing up among them, they expelled 
 him, but he soon after returned, and, aided by Greek mercenaries, put 
 his rivals to flight. In consideration of the fidelity and military services 
 of the strangers who had helped him to his throne, he kept many of 
 them about him as a standing army, and honoured them with his confi¬ 
 dence. At this the warrior-caste took umbrage, and, to the number of 
 200,000, retired into Ethiopia. In his reign commerce flourished, and 
 strangers were allowed freely to visit the Egyptian ports. 
 
 The accession of Psammetichus to the sole sovereignty of Egypt is an im¬ 
 portant epoch, and the termination of historical uncertainty. Greek writers 
 now furnish us with a detailed history of the country, no longer founded on 
 figurative inscriptions or allegorical traditions; and henceforward the Scrip - ures 
 also give us the names and characters of the Egyptian princes, whom we easily 
 recognise in the Greek narratives. In this reign the interpreters became a 
 distinct class, alphabetical writing came into general use, and the science of 
 hieroglyphics was gradually forgotten. Egypt now became and continued a 
 single empire, with its seat of government at Memphis. Down to this time, 
 no Egyptian king, with the exception of Sesostris, had appeared animated with 
 a military spirit; but after Psammetichus, the various princes felt the necessity 
 of becoming warriors and creating a maritime power. The enlightened 
 administration of Psammetichus made Egypt flourish without overloading the 
 people with taxes. He was partial to the Greeks, and formed an alliance with 
 the Athenians. Although his subjects, blinded by prejudice, did not second 
 his extended views, he is not the less one of the most estimable sovereigns that 
 ever governed the nation. 
 
 Pharaoh-Necho, 617-601.—The son and successor of Psammetichus 
 would have been an extraordinary ruler in any age. He formed exten¬ 
 sive plans of conquest; subdued all Asia, as far as the Euphrates; took 
 Catchemish ( Circesium ,) the key of Syria and Palestine, and placed in 
 it a strong garrison (610.) His march through Judah was opposed by 
 Josiah, who w r as slain in battle, and his kingdom treated as a subject 
 country. He attempted to join the Nile to the Red Sea by a canal, 
 ninety-six miles in length ; in which unsuccessful labour 120,000 work¬ 
 men are said to have perished.* At his command a Phoenician fleet 
 sailed from the Arabian Gulf, circumnavigated Africa, and returned in 
 three years by the Straits of Gibraltar, twenty-one centuries before 
 Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope (1497 a. d.) In 606 
 Nebuchadnezzar II. defeated and pursued the Egyptian monarch, when 
 all his conquests beyond the frontiers were lost. Necho died after a 
 reign of sixteen years, leaving the throne to his son Psammis, 601 b.c 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Draco. —The example of Sparta, and their own internal dissensions 
 inspired the Athenians with a desire for a regular constitution, the 
 framing of which was committed to the hands of Draco, chief archon 
 
 *This work was completed by the Persians, but turned out to be of little practical 
 benefit. Many learned men have doubted the existence of a communication by water 
 between the two seas; but the testimony of ancient writers is too positive against 
 them. Attempts have been made, at various times, down to the present day, to cleac 
 out the bed of the canal, which is still visible. 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 59 
 
 that year (6*24,) a man as rigidly severe as he was inflexibly just. The 
 code he drew up was said to be written in blood, death being the penalty 
 of the lowest as well as of the highest crimes. It naturally fell into 
 contempt and desuetude, when at length the contests of the aristocratic 
 parties, and the better regulation of the religious worship hy the Cretan 
 Epimenides, prepared the way for Solon, f'rom the three classes, which 
 existed in the time of Theseus, the nobles, labourers, and artizans, 
 appear to have been derived the same number of political factions which 
 now divided Athens. The mountaineers or Diacrians advocated an 
 absolute democracy; the rich inhabitants of the plains, or Pedians, 
 desired an aristocracy; while the Paralians, who dwelt along the shores, 
 favoured a mixed government, in which the people had the right of 
 suffrage, and the executive power was placed in the hands of a few 
 individuals. The intolerable abuses of the magistracy, and the rapacity 
 of their own creditors, drove the people at last into insurrection. They 
 elected a chief, threw open the prisons, and with arms in their hands 
 demanded a partition of the land, the abolition of all debts, and a new 
 order of government. Civil war was on the point of breaking out, 
 when Solon was chosen archon, and appointed supreme arbiter and 
 legislator of the republic, 594 b. c. 
 
 Messenian Wars. — A trifling quarrel between the Spartans and 
 Messenians, who had been long at variance with each other, gave rise 
 in 743 to the First War of twenty years, which ended to the disadvan¬ 
 tage of the latter. Messenia, lying in the south-west of the Pelopon¬ 
 nesus, was a fertile country with great maritime advantages. The 
 wise Nestor is supposed to have ruled in one of its cities; and his 
 descendants were driven from the throne by the Dorian followers of the 
 Heraclidae. The people were a simple, agricultural race, but not defi¬ 
 cient in warlike virtues. In the year 773, an insult offered to a band 
 of Spartan virgins by some Messenian youths, led to the first serious 
 misunderstanding between the respective states. Hostilities did not 
 break out until thirty years after, when Polychares, indignant that 
 punishment had not been inflicted on the murderer of his son, in a wild 
 spirit of retaliation killed several Lacedaemonians, 743. In the early 
 part of the war, fortune was on the side of Messenia, Aristodemus hav¬ 
 ing restored Jhe fainting spirits of his countrymen by the sacrifice of his 
 daughter. Shortly after the battle of Ithome, 730, he was elected to 
 the vacant throne, and made frequent and destructive incursions into the 
 Laconian territory. In 725, the Spartans prepared for a decisive strug¬ 
 gle, but it was prolonged until 723, when Aristodemus had fallen by 
 his own hand on the tomb of his immolated child. Ithome was taken 
 and rased to the ground; the Messenians were condemned to a yearly 
 tribute of half their crops, and to be present in deep mourning at the 
 interment of the Spartan kings. For thirty-nine years they remained in 
 subjection, when the Second W"ar broke out, 685, under the conduct of 
 the famous Aristomenes, whose adventures are so romantic as to throw 
 doubt upon the whole history of his campaigns. The Spartans, headed 
 by the lame Athenian schoolmaster Tyrtaeus, and cheered by his songs 
 were eventually successful, after besieging the stronghold of Ira during 
 eleven years ; and the Messenians who did not abandon their country, 
 made a numerous addition to the Helots or Laconian slaves. Aristo¬ 
 menes escaped, and died at Rhodes. He was the worthy precursor of 
 
60 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORI. 
 
 Epaminondas, and we can scarcely find in history two nobler and purer 
 characters than these two great men. The Third Messenian war 
 occurred in the fifth century b. c., and was terminated by the surrender 
 of Ithome. 
 
 Read : Bulwer’s Athens, book I. chap. vi. § 16 ; and Travels of Anacharsis, 
 ch. xi. 
 
 The colony of Tarentum in Italy was founded shortly after the first Mes¬ 
 senian war, by the Partheni<z from Sparta, 707, a mixed race of Spartan and 
 Lacedaemonian blood, who had revolted because their legal illegitimacy 
 excluded them from citizenship. 
 
 In Lacedaemon, during these wars, the Ephori had been created as 
 vicegerents of the kings, and it is worthy of note, that while the sove¬ 
 reignties of Judah and Israel were falling into ruin, the states of Greece 
 were gradually preparing for their glorious course of mental and physi¬ 
 cal greatness. At this time Massilia (Marseilles), Byzantium, and 
 Cyrene, were founded; and the Gauls established themselves in Northern 
 Italy. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Horatii and Curiatii, b. c. 667.—Numa was succeeded by Tullus 
 Hostilius (67*2), who sought to rival the military glory of Romulus. 
 In a war against the Albans took place the celebrated combat between 
 the champions of Rome and those of Alba, the three Horatii and the 
 three Curiatii. The former were victorious, the city of Alba was laid 
 waste, and the population transferred to Rome, which thus became the 
 capital of the united nations. On the death of Hostilius, which was 
 occasioned by lightning, Ancus Martius was elected king, 640 b. c. 
 He was the grandson of Numa, whose religious institutions he attempted 
 to revive; and although not unsuccessful in war, he derived the title of 
 
 the Good ” from his works of peace. He raised temples, instituted the 
 fetial law, fortified the city, enlarged its territorial possessions, dug 
 quarries, formed salt-works, built the port of Ostia at the mouth of the 
 Tiber, and laid the foundations of the Roman commerce and maritime 
 power. 
 
 Tarquin the Elder, or Prisons , 616 b. c., was an Etrurian of Greek 
 extraction; and his genius, education, and wealth, were the cause of his 
 election to the throne of Ancus. He defeated the Latins and Sabines, 
 the inveterate enemies of early Rome, and first assumed the regal fasces 
 and purple robe. He also increased the number of the senate to 300. 
 Among his public works are the vast sewers, which exist uninjured to 
 the present day. He laid out the Circus and the Forum, and began to 
 surround the city with a wall of massy stones. He died a violent death, 
 578 b. c. 
 
 Observation. — Although the personal existence of Romulus may be 
 rejected, and the history of Numa doubted, there are some things in that of 
 Tullus Hostilius which bear the mark of truth, however disguised by their 
 legendary form. Alba was destroyed by the Latins, with whom the Romans, 
 as living in the Latin territory, may have been allied. The tribe Luceres was 
 added to the patrician body, as distinct from the plebeian estate. With Ancus, 
 a new order of citizens, the Plebs. appears — a class of men personally inde¬ 
 pendent, but not sharing in the government. 
 
SIXTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 6i 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea. —536, End of the Captivity.—515, Second Temple built. 
 
 Assyria f^04, Nebuchadnezzar.—570, Loses his Reason.—538, Belshazzar— 
 an£ j j End of the kingdom of Babylon. 
 
 Persia ^ 561, Cyrus e l ecte d King.—559, Aids Cyaxares.—538, Babylon 
 taken.—529, Cambyses.—521, Darius. 
 
 Egypt.— 594, Apries.—569, Amasis.—525, Psammenitus, last native king. 
 
 Greece.— 594, Solon, archon.— 560, Pisistratus.— 514, Harmodius and Aris- 
 togiton. 
 
 Rome.—578, Servius Tullius.—534, Tarquin II.—509, Consuls—Constitution 
 of Rome. 
 
 China.— 550, Confucius born. 
 
 Literature.—The Seven Wise Men ; Mimnermus, Thespis, iEsop, Theog- 
 nis, Pythagoras, Anacreon. 
 
 Discoveries.— Geographical Maps ; Terrestrial Globes , by Anaximander.— 
 560, Marble employed (at Athens) for Statues. —540, Monochord, Terrestrial 
 Revolution, by Pythagoras.— 552, Corinthian Capital, by Callimachus.— 
 520, Sun-dials, by Anaximenes of Miletus. 
 
 JUDAEA. 
 
 In 603, Jehoiakim, relying upon the support of the Egyptian monarch, 
 revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, who immediately sent an army into 
 Judaea. He followed in person in 599, when die killed the king as a 
 rebel, and threw his body into the fields unburied ; thus fulfilling the 
 prediction of Jeremiah, xxii. 19. Jehoiachin was then placed on the 
 throne, from which he was dragged at the end of three months, and led 
 captive to Babylon, together with more than 10,000 companions in mis¬ 
 fortune, the strength and the hope of the nation. Ezekiel was now a 
 second time carried away into bondage; Jeremiah remained behind to 
 console, but in vain, the remnant of the people. Zedekiah, the uncle 
 of the deposed prince, was chosen to fill his place, but he proved more 
 wicked than his predecessors. In 590, being the ninth year of his 
 reign, he revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, and refused to pay the 
 tribute imposed by this conqueror. His alliance with Pharaoh-Hophra 
 proved of no avail: the Egyptian ruler retired before the Assyrian army, 
 which immediately blockaded Jerusalem. The denunciations of Jere¬ 
 miah, which had filled the city with consternation, could not ward off 
 the impending fate; and after the city had endured the worst calamities 
 of hunger, it was taken in a night-attack, and given up to fire and sword, 
 588 b. c. The degraded king, having seen his wives and children slain 
 before his face, had his eyes put out, and in that miserable condition 
 was sent to a foreign prison, to be a living testimony of the truth of 
 prophecy. [Jerem. xxiv. 8; xxvii. 12. Ezekiel, xii. 13.] All the 
 Jewish people were transported to Babylon, the poorest class alone 
 being left to cultivate the land. During fifty-two years, the sacred 
 metropolis remained in the state in which Nebuzar-adan had left it; 
 that is, until it was rebuilt by the Jews, who were allowed to return 
 under the decree of Cyrus, 536. 
 
 6 
 
62 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Second Temple.— In the first year of his reign, the Persian con¬ 
 queror allowed a colony of Jews, under Zerubbabel, of the family of 
 David, to return to the land of their forefathers, 536 b. c. They did not 
 exceed 50,000, the more wealthy portion preferring to remain in tran¬ 
 quillity and ease in Babylon, where they had become very numerous. 
 The building of the temple, which occupied many years, was violently 
 opposed by the Samaritans, to whom the colony was a source of 
 expense. But it was completed in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, 
 515. 
 
 The Babylonian captivity entirely cured the descendants of Jacob of 
 their idolatrous propensities, and they never after swerved from the 
 worship of the true God. From this period Hebrew ceased to be the 
 spoken language of the Jews, having been displaced by the Chaldee , 
 varying little from it, and in which part of the Book of Daniel is 
 written. This gradually changed into the Syro-Chaldaic, the Jewish 
 tongue mentioned in the New Testament. 
 
 Remarks. —In examining the conduct of God towards his chosen people, we 
 shall find continually fresh subjects of admiration. After having renewed to 
 Abraham the promise which he had made to our general father Adam ; after 
 having announced to the holy patriarch, as the recompense of his faith and 
 virtue, that from him and his son Isaac should one day be born that holy Being 
 —the expectation of his posterity and the Saviour of the World ; after having 
 multiplied the race of Israel, God selected from the tribe of Judah the house 
 of Jesse, the father of David, as that from which the Messiah was to spring. 
 In spite of the deplorable revolution which separated the ten rebel tribes from 
 that of Judah ; in spite of the backslidings of most of the kings who succeeded 
 Rehoboam ; in spite of the calamities which God inflicted upon them, and 
 which seemed to threaten the complete extinction of their house, the family of 
 David still survived on the throne, while that of Israel was continually occu¬ 
 pied by new families. A still more admirable sight is that alternation of glory 
 and humiliation, of rewards and punishments, the almost invariable accompani¬ 
 ments of the good or bad conduct of the monarch and people of Judah. Thus 
 the proceedings of that Providence which, often with profound and secret 
 views, is hidden from our eyes, are made a continual proof of the watchfulness 
 of God over his people, an ever-visible manifestation of his designs toward 
 them and the surrounding nations, and the most striking demonstration of his 
 sovereign power, wisdom, and justice. 
 
 Mordecai and Esther. —Ahasuerus, king of Persia (either Xerxes 
 or Artaxerxes Longimanus), divorced his wife Vashti, and supplied her 
 place by the pious and amiable Esther, niece of Mordecai the Jew. As 
 the fortune and credit of the uncle increased, that of Haman the favourite 
 and chief minister declined. He therefore meditated the total destruc¬ 
 tion of the Jewish nation; and their happy deliverance, hy the lirmness 
 of Esther, is still yearly commemorated by the feast of Purim. Haman 
 fell into the snare he had laid for his enemies, and was hung on the 
 gibbet which he had prepared for Mordecai. 
 
 ASSYRIA. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 604-561 b. c. —This monarch’s reign comprehends 
 the most brilliant period of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian empire. This 
 golden head of the prophetic image conquered Palestine, Idumea, 
 Ammon, and Moab, utterly destroyed the Syrian power, and subjugated 
 Persia. He had already taken most of the Phoenician towns, when the 
 Tyrians retired from their city on the mainland to the adjoining islet, on 
 
/ 
 
 SIXTH CENTUKY B. C. 63 
 
 which their more modern capital was built. Among other changes, this 
 people altered their form of government, and appointed judges in the 
 place of a king. Egypt suffered next at the hand of the conqueror; he 
 spread fire and sword from Palestine to the borders of Ethiopia. Re¬ 
 turning to Babylon, he patronised the arts, commerce, and industry; 
 and completed those masterpieces of gigantic architecture, which may 
 with greater probability be attributed to him than to any of his ances¬ 
 tors. During his reign, Daniel prophesied, and acquired great renown 
 by the interpretation of the king’s dream, which the Chaldean astrolo¬ 
 gers could not explain. In accordance with the prediction, for seven 
 years he was afflicted with hypochondriacal madness ( iycanthropy ) ; 
 fancying himself transformed into an ox, he fed on grass in the manner 
 of cattle. His reason returning to him, 563 b. c., he remounted the 
 throne, when, for a short time, he became more powerful than ever; and 
 dying after a reign of forty-three years, he was regarded by the Assy¬ 
 rians as one of the greatest of their kings. But Evil-Merodach, his 
 son, who was weak and tyrannical, soon rendered himself odious by 
 his cruelty and debauchery. While regent during his father’s madness, 
 he committed so many excesses, that the latter, on his recovery, was 
 compelled to imprison him, although without any hope of his being 
 corrected by such chastisement. He was not without some good quali¬ 
 ties, and history records with pleasure one trait of humanity in him — 
 he liberated Jehoiachin from the prison in wfflich he had been confined 
 thirty-seven years. Neriglissar ascended a throne which he had stained 
 by the murder of his brother-in-law, 559. This warlike prince infused 
 new vigour into the Assyrian monarchy. He subdued Hyrcania; 
 carried his victorious arms into Syria and Arabia; and formed an alli¬ 
 ance with Croesus against the rising power of Media. He fell in a 
 battle which he waged w T ith Cyrus, and w 7 as succeeded by his son, 
 Laborasoarchad, 555, who was slain by his subjects after a reign of nine 
 months. The royal line was restored in the person of Labynetus, 
 known also as Nabonadius, Naboandel, and Belshazzar. While the 
 king gave himself up to luxury and pleasure, his mother, the wise 
 Nitocris, the true Semiramis, held the reins of government with a firm 
 nand. By her management, Babylon was fortified against the attacks 
 of the Medes, and an alliance renewed with the king of Lydia against 
 the menacing progress of the Persian prince. They collected an army 
 of 420,000 men, which was defeated at Thymbra, 545. About five 
 vears later, Babylon was invested by Cyrus, and taken by a remarkable 
 stratagem, on that fatal night when the mysterious writing on the wall 
 told that the “ kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Per¬ 
 sians,” fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 The history of the last of the Babylonian kings is not without difficulty. 
 The name of Belshazzar not occurring in profane history, it has been applied 
 to many different sovereigns. Evil-Merodach, and not Neriglissar, is said to 
 have fallen in battle against the Medes; and Belshazzar was his immediate 
 successor. Hales disputes the statement which makes Babylon to have been 
 taken by the Medes and Persians on the same night that Belshazzar was slain, 
 and considers that he fell in a conspiracy ; and that, on the death of his son 
 Laborasoarchad, nine months after, the dynasty became extinct, and Darius 
 the Mede (Cyaxares) peaceably succeeded. Nabonadius had been appointed 
 viceroy; he revolted against Cyrus, 551, who, otherwise occupied, deferred 
 his attack on Babylon until 536, which he then took by a remarkable stratagem. 
 
64 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Cyrus the Great.— After the taking of Babylon,* Cyaxares IT. 
 (Darias the Mede}) divided his vast states into a hundred and twenty 
 satrapies, and made them accountable to three ministers, of whom 
 Daniel was one. The Persian and Median nobles, jealous of the eleva¬ 
 tion of a foreigner, endeavoured to destroy him by that plot which ended 
 by his being thrown into the lions’ den, and his miraculous deliverance 
 from the fury of the hungry beasts. This striking testimony of Al¬ 
 mighty power was followed by a decree, in which the monarch acknow¬ 
 ledged the God of the prophet. This act was the precursor of the edict 
 which his successor published in favour of the Jews, in the first year 
 of his reign, Cyaxares died in 536, leaving all his dominions to his 
 nephew Cyrus, who inherited about the same time the sceptre of his 
 father Cambyses, king of Persia. 
 
 The first year of his reign was marked by the termination of the 
 Jewish captivity, when Zerubbabel, as prince of Judah, returned to 
 Palestine, accompanied with about 50,000 of the tribes of Judah, Ben¬ 
 jamin, and Levi. Cyrus reigned seven years over all Asia, and died 
 530 b. c. His military and political career began about 560, when he 
 first quitted Persia with the command of an army.—Thus far the testi¬ 
 mony of Scripture has been followed; the blanks remain to be filled up 
 from the contradictory accounts of the Greek historians 
 
 Astyages, the son and successor of Cyaxares I., king of the Medes, 
 was an indolent, superstitious, and cruel prince. His grandson Cyrus, 
 by his daughter Mandane, was ordered to be exposed, to prevent the 
 fulfilment of an oracle ; but the future monarch of Asia was, like another 
 Paris or CEdipus, preserved by the humanity of a shepherd. Arrived at 
 maturity, he threw off the Median yoke and defeated Croesus, who had 
 taken up arms in behalf of the dethroned prince. He afterwards made 
 rapid conquests in Upper Asia, and took Babylon after a siege of two 
 years, by turning the current of the river, and entering by its exhausted 
 channel.}: Previously to his marching against the Scythians, he nomi- 
 
 * [On that fatal night in which the mysterious writing appeared on the wall, Belshazzar 
 was killed according to the general account, by Cyrus, who then succeeded by his 
 famous stratagem in entering Babylon. There is, however, another account of the 
 matter supported by the authority of Dr. Hales, and followed apparently by this 
 author. According to this theory, Belshazzar, on that night, was slain in a domestic 
 conspiracy, and was succeeded by his son. His son died after a reign of nine months, 
 and with him the dynasty became extinct. Cyaxares I., or Darius the Mede, suc¬ 
 ceeded peaceably to the throne. He was succeeded by Astyages, and Astyages by 
 Cyaxares II., also called Darius the Mede, under whose reign Daniel continued to 
 flourish. This Cyaxares II., on his death, willed his dominions to his nephew Cyrus, 
 but appointed a viceroy to administer affairs until Cyrus should himself take possession 
 of the throne. The viceroy revolted, and it was in reducing him to subjection that 
 Cyrus executed his famous stratagem for entering Babylon.—A m. Ed.] 
 
 f Darius, in Hebrew, Darawesh , is not a proper name, but, like Pharaoh, a title of 
 dignity. It is derived from Dara, which in Persian signifies a king. 
 
 I The walls of Babylon were 87 feet broad, 350 feet high, and 60 miles in circumfer 
 ence. To reconcile the accounts of sacred and profane history of the foundation and 
 improvement of this wonder of the world, we may suppose that it was founded by 
 Nimrod and enlarged by Belus; that Semiramis improved and adorned it with beautiful 
 buildings ; and that Nebuchadnezzar the Great raised it to its latter state of astonishing 
 magnificence. 
 
SIXTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 65 
 
 nated his son Cambyses to succeed him. and admitted him to a share of 
 the regal power. After a few partial successes, he perished in battle, 
 and his dead body was mutilated by order of the Scythian queen, 
 Tomyris. 
 
 Three Greek historians have furnished us with the particulars of the life 
 of the Great Cyrus, namely, Herodotus, born about 484 b. c. ; Ctesias, who 
 was, during seventeen years, the chief physician of the mother of Artaxerxes 
 Mnemon; and Xenophon, who fought at Cunaxa under Cyrus the younger. 
 Next to the Scripture narration that of Herodotus has been preferred, from 
 the impossibility of combining their several histories in one complete whole. 
 For instance, Herodotus and Ctesias entirely omit the reign of Cyaxares II., 
 son of Astyages, who is spoken of in Xenophon, and attested by Scripture; 
 C tesias makes no mention of the taking of Babylon, confirmed by Herodotus, 
 Xenophon, and the Old Testament. The biography by Xenophon is generally 
 supposed to be a work of fiction, not unlike the modern historical romance, in 
 which Cyrus is made the vehicle of the lessons of morality intended to be con¬ 
 veyed by the writer. The dominions of this remarkable king extended from 
 the Mediterranean and Egypt to the Indian Ocean, and from Ethiopia to the 
 Euxine and Caspian Seas Brerewood estimates the wealth he acquired by 
 his conquests at 126^ millions sterling. The extraordinary prophecies con¬ 
 cerning him contained in the holy Scriptures, and which were not unknown to 
 him, may not unreasonably be supposed to have had a powerful effect on his 
 mind; and Dr. Hales concludes, that he lived and died the death of the 
 righteous. 
 
 Cambyses (529), the eldest son of Cyrus, succeeded to his father’s 
 throne; Smerdis, the younger, became governor of Bactria. The former 
 invaded and subjugated Egypt in the space of six months. He formed 
 the project of subduing Carthage, conquering Ethiopia, and seizing 
 upon the Temple of Jupiter Ammon; but his expeditions were unfor¬ 
 tunate, and his armies perished in the sand of the deserts. These dis¬ 
 asters irritated a character naturally impetuous; and hence, regardless of 
 the feelings of the Egyptians, he killed with his owm hand the bull 
 Apis, scourged the priests, caused his brother to be assassinated, and 
 inflicted a blow upon his sister, who w T as also his wife, which proved 
 fatal. The end of his reign was menaced by a singular conspiracy. 
 While on his return from Egypt, he heard that the Magi had elevated 
 an impostor, Smerdis, to the throne, as the brother of Cambyses, who 
 bore the same name. Leaping hastily upon his horse as the news was 
 told him, the scabbard fell from his sword, whereby he received a wound 
 in the thigh, of which he died, 521 b. c. The imposture was speedily 
 discovered, the pretender was put to death, and an indiscriminate mas¬ 
 sacre of the Magi took place. We must be careful how we give credit 
 to all that is related of Cambyses, since our information is derived 
 chiefly from his enemies, the Egyptian priests. , 
 
 Darius I. Hystaspes, 521.—When this member of the family of the 
 Achaemenides succeeded to the throne, his seven coadjutors, in the 
 destruction of Smerdis, the usurping magian, received the most dis¬ 
 tinguished honours. They were allowed free access to the king; they 
 wore distinctive caps, and had the priority of speeech in council. 
 Darius, who was a prince of great political wisdom, inferior to Cyrus 
 alone of all the Persian kings, favoured the Jews, and allowed the Tem¬ 
 ple to be completed, 515. Babylon, which had revolted, was recovered 
 after a long siege by the devotion of Zopyrus. He broke up the Ionian 
 confederation, established his sovereignty over Thrace and Macedonia, 
 6 * 
 
66 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 in Western India, and in Africa, but was defeated in his Scythian inva¬ 
 sion, 513. In Greece, his troops were overthrown on the celebrated 
 field of Marathon, 490. 
 
 During this reign, the Persians forsook their nomad life, and con¬ 
 tinued the building of the Persepolitan palace, which was begun by 
 Cyrus and completed by Xerxes. Although Darius weakened the 
 empire by his foreign wars, he improved its internal organisation by 
 dividing it into twenty satrapies , corresponding with the various tribu¬ 
 tary races, and by imposing a regular tax instead of the voluntary gifts 
 which each province had hitherto contributed.* He expired 485 b. c., 
 after nominating for his successor, Xerxes I., grandson of Cyrus, and 
 son of his second wife, the celebrated Atossa. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Psammis, who had ascended the throne on the death of Necho (601), 
 perished in the sixth year of his reign, immediately after an expedition 
 into Ethiopia. His successor Apries, the Pharaoh-Hophra of Scripture, 
 planned the conquest of Asia, besieged Sidon, fought a naval battle 
 with the Tyrians, reduced nearly all Phoenicia and Palestine, but failed 
 in his expedition against Cyrene. His subjects being averse to foreign 
 wars carried on by mercenary troops, revolted against him, and offered 
 the crown to Amasis, an officer alike popular with the people and the 
 army. The king retired to Upper Egypt, where he long maintained his 
 power, while the usurper was acknowledged by the rest of the country. 
 Availing himself of this civil war, Nebuchadnezzar II. invaded and 
 devastated Egypt, which did not recover from the effects of his ravages 
 during the next forty years. Apries was at last defeated, and taken 
 prisoner, when he was strangled by order of the conqueror. With 
 him terminated the family of Psammetichus, 569 b. c. [See Ezekiel, 
 xxix.] Amasis contrived by conciliating the priests to strengthen him¬ 
 self on the throne. He married a Greek woman, and permitted her 
 countrymen to establish a factory at Naucratis, on the Canopic branch 
 of the Nile. _ He contributed largely to the rebuilding of the Temple 
 of Delphi, and was the only Egyptian king who subdued Cyprus. 
 Pythagoras, Solon, and Thales, are supposed to have visited the banks 
 of the Nile during this reign; and assuredly, that country was never 
 more happy than under his government. He restored the division into 
 nomes revived many ancient regulations, which had fallen into neglect 
 during the preceding troubles ; and instituted a yearly census of all his 
 subjects. He reigned forty-four years, and died just as Cambyses was 
 preparing to invade his kingdom. 
 
 Six months after Psammenitus had ascended the throne, 525, a Per¬ 
 sian army invaded the districts on both sides of the Nile. A single 
 battle before Pelusium decided the fate of Egypt, and the king shortly 
 after falling into the hands of the conqueror, was put to death. With 
 
 * The taxes paid in money, and collected by the satraps for the king’s privy-purse, 
 amounted to nearly three millions and a half of sterling money. Besides which, the pro¬ 
 vinces had to pay the king’s household, maintain the troops, and all the expenses of the 
 government. The royal treasures w r ere deposited in various cities, called Gaza ; such 
 were Persepolis, Susa, and Pasargada. The gold and silver amassed in the form of 
 Sngots, were coined as occasion required. The principal gold piece was the Daric 
 from the name of the first king, Darius, who had caused it to be struck. 
 
I 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 67 
 
 him perished the 26th royal race that had governed the country since 
 Menes. It remained subject to Persia, with few exceptions, until the 
 conquests of Alexander, on whose death a new monarchy arose, founded 
 by Ptolemy, son of Lagus, 323 b. c., which subsisted until the death 
 of Cleopatra, 30 b. c., when Egypt was made a Roman province. Thus 
 was the prophecy of Ezekiel fulfilled— there shall he no more a prince of 
 the land of Egypt. It has ever since been governed by foreign rulers, 
 —Romans, Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Solon of Salamis, who was elected archon of Athens, 594 b. c., had 
 the difficult, task of reconciling opposing factions, and of restoring tran¬ 
 quillity to the state. He divided the people into four classes, accord¬ 
 ing to their property, and laid the foundations of that democracy which 
 was afterwards the cause of so much unmingled evil. The thetes , or 
 lowest class, occupy a more conspicuous station in history than the 
 higher ones, for the sovereignty of the state resided in their assemblies, 
 and they filled nearly every office in the courts of justice. The checks 
 on the mischief incidental to all popular meetings were the Senate of 
 400 (afterwards 500), and the court of Areopagus; the first consisting 
 of aged, wealthy, and respectable citizens ; the other forming the true 
 aristocracy of Athens, whose degradation by Ephialtes, in the time of 
 Pericles, was considered by Isocrates as the principal cause of all th6 
 demoralization which subsequently took place in the state. 
 
 Solon began with the abolition of all debts, the reduction of the rate of 
 interest to 12 per cent., and by enacting that the insolvent debtor should neither 
 be reduced to slavery by his creditors, nor be compelled to sell his children. 
 He next declared the sovereign power to reside in the assemblies of the people, 
 which alone had the power of declaring war and making peace, of forming 
 alliances, of electing generals and magistrates, and of controlling them in the 
 execution of their respective duties. — The citizens were divided into four 
 classes: the first comprehended those whose estates were of the yearly value 
 of about £500 [pentakosiomedimni) ; the second were the knights who possessed 
 a yearly revenue of £300; the zeugita , who had a yoke of oxen , formed the 
 third class; the fourth, and most numerous, comprised all of inferior property. 
 The seventy-four cantons (< demi ) were still united into six tribes, and each tribe 
 into three curia, to one of which every Athenian must belong. The popula¬ 
 tion of Athens, though scarcely exceeding 60,000, contained nearly 10,000 
 strangers, who, like the citizens, were called upon for military service, and 
 paid an annual tribute. The slaves were better treated in Attica than in any 
 other part of Greece, in consequence of which, although their number exceeded 
 40,000, they never revolted, as in Sparta, to recover their liberty. The hatred 
 which the lower classes of Greece and Rome bore to the rich, must, in a great 
 measure, be attributed to the existence of slavery, which prevented these two 
 extremes in the social scale from having common interests. The wealthy pos¬ 
 sessor of slaves could dispense with the labour of the poor, who derived no 
 advantage from the fortune of their fellow-citizen. Together with the aboli¬ 
 tion of slavery, Christianity has extinguished the hatred between the different 
 orders of society. 
 
 Consult: Gillies’s History of Greece;—Travels of Anacharsis ;—Boeckh’s 
 Economy of Athens. 
 
 Pisjstratus.— When Solon returned to Athens, after an absence of 
 twenty years, he found it still agitated by its former dissensions, which 
 did not cease until Pisistratus, a descendant of Codrus, found himself 
 
68 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 able to seize upon the chief power, 560 b. c. He had previously dis¬ 
 tinguished himself at the taking of Salamis ;*and hy his eloquence and 
 affability he gained all hearts, in despite of the violent opposition of the 
 lawgiver. He increased the body-guard which the confiding people had 
 granted him, got possession of the citadel, and drove out his antagonists. 
 After five or six years, this leader of the mountain-faction was expelled 
 oy Lycurgus, the head of the wealthy nobles of the plains, in union 
 with the exiled Alcmaeonidae. But he returned about 554 b. c., more 
 powerful than before, having fonned an alliance with Megacles, the 
 chief of the moderate party on the coast. His second tyranny lasted 
 scarcely a year, when he was again compelled to flee by the insulted 
 family of his wife, 553 ; but making a second appearance about 54*2, he 
 strengthened himself by alliances, money, and auxiliary troops. He 
 was a good ruler, and Athens flourished under his government; hence 
 Solon remarked of him, that he wa? the best of tyrants,* and without 
 a vice, save ambition, He ended his days peaceably in the thirty-third 
 year of his power, 527, after having patronised letters, founded a library 
 for the use of the public, laid out the gardens of the Lyceum, and pub¬ 
 lished the scattered poems of Homer. Thespis first exhibited his rude 
 tragedies in 535. 
 
 Harmodius and Aristogiton -Pisistratus left three sons, Hippar¬ 
 chus, Hippias, and Thessalus. The first was a virtuous ruler ; he pro¬ 
 tected the arts, and entertained Anacreon and Simonides at his court. 
 Private revenge stimulated the political feelings of Harmodius and 
 Aristogiton; and Hipparchus, who, as Plato said, recalled the days of 
 Saturn, fell beneath their daggers at a public festival, 514. Hippias, 
 the second brother, now reigned by terror; and the Athenians, applying 
 to the Spartans for assistance, succeeded in restoring the exiled Alc¬ 
 maeonidae, 510. The tyrant was deposed, and fled to Persia, which 
 event was the proximate cause of a war with that nation. 
 
 Remarks. —The Athenians paid the greatest honours to the memory of 
 Harmodius and Aristogiton; they were revered as demigods; and at all public 
 festivals, songs were sung in their honour. But religion and morality unite in 
 condemning the exaggerated eulogiums which have been passed on these two 
 “ victims of tyranny and martyrs of liberty,” as they have been called, for 
 neither of these honourable titles belongs to them. A personal insult, an 
 infamous jealousy, armed these two friends against Hipparchus; it was in the 
 legitimate exercise of the right of self-defence that Harmodius was slain by the 
 guards of the unfortunate Hipparchus; and it was as an avenger of his mur 
 dered brother, and a vindicator of the laws that Aristogiton was put to death. 
 If we descend to the details of this transaction, we shall see the sword of the 
 assassin perfidiously concealed with wreaths of myrtle, and Aristogiton denounc¬ 
 ing innocent persons. These are acts which we must in justice denominate 
 crimes, in spite of the eloquent commendations of so many ancient and modern 
 authors. Thucydides forms almost the only exception to this inconsiderate 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Athens was now threatened with a fresh servitude from the ambition 
 of Clisthenes and I^agoras. The former having prevailed, 508, the 
 
 * The name of tyrant was applied by the ancient Greeks to those kings who had 
 usurped the throne or the supreme power, to the prejudice of the legitimate heir, or 
 contrary to the will of the people. In modern ages it is appropriated to cruel and 
 unjust monarchs, and is become a term of the greatest ignominy and detestation. 
 Richard III. of England was a tyrant in both the ancient and modern significations 
 of the word. 
 
SIXTH CENTUKY B. C. 
 
 69 
 
 state was laid at the mercy of an unprincipled populace, by dividing 
 the original four tribes into ten, which were again subdivided into 100 
 (or 170) demes. The number of the Senate was also increased to 500; 
 many new citizens were made; aliens were admitted; and slaves were 
 freed. By Clisthenes, the vote by ostracism was introduced. Isagoras 
 appealed to Sparta, but without success, and the Assembly remained 
 triumphant,—a democracy, not composed of sober, simple-minded hus¬ 
 bandmen, as Solon contemplated, but of uninstructed and desperate 
 masses of men, ready at the beck of every seditious demagogue to indulge ' 
 in violence and tumult. 
 
 In the space of a few years, Athens, freed from the yoke of its 
 tyrants, humbled the pride of Thebes, punished the insolence of the 
 Chalcidians, contended not ingloriously with the people of iEgina, and 
 braved the jealousy of Lacedaemon, at the same time that, enriched by 
 the spoils of its enemies, the city was embellished with new monu¬ 
 ments, and preserved in the northern parts of Greece the influence which 
 the Pisistratidae had begun to enjoy there by means of the establish¬ 
 ments on the Hellespont. The family of Miltiades reigned at Cardia, 
 in the Thracian Chersonese, and taught the barbarians to respect the 
 name of his country. 
 
 Lacedaemon during this period was far from acting so great a pa#. 
 The brave but unscrupulous Cleomenes, at the beginning of his reign, 
 515, conquered the Argives in a bloody battle, and set on fire a sacred 
 wood in which the fugitives had taken refuge. The capital of Argos 
 was saved by the skilful defence of Telesilla, not less celebrated for 
 her courage than for her poetical talents. The different campaigns 
 which Cleomenes conducted in Attica, at one time as the ally, at 
 another as the enemy of the Pisistratidae, are some years posterior to 
 the disgraceful expedition against Argos. 
 
 Seven Wise Men.— Solon, the legislator, was one of the famous wise men 
 of Greece. The rest were Thales of Miletus, 586 ; Bias of Priene, 586 • 
 Chilo of Lacedaemon, 586 ; Pittacus of Mitylene, 569 ; Cleobulus of Rhodes- 
 586 ; Periander of Corinth, 585. The last of these had no claim to that 
 honourable title, except the merit of having patronised men of genius and 
 virtue. The number is sometimes increased by the addition of the Scythian 
 Anacharsis, and the Cretan Epimenides. 
 
 Read: Bulwer’s Athens, book I. ch. viii. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Servius Tullius (578 b. c.), an Etrurian captain of mercenaries, was 
 successful in several battles against his native country. He was in 
 many respects the most deserving of the kings, and placed Rome at the 
 head of the Latin confederacy, confirming her position by common 
 religious ceremonies. He extended and completed the stone walls of 
 the city, divided the territory into districts, each with its proper magis¬ 
 trate, instituted the census , and arranged the people into Jive great classes , 
 according to their wealth, which were again subdivided into centuries. 
 The necessity of this measure demonstrates the increasing power of the 
 citizens, and by it the frame-work of the republic was completed. He 
 fell a victim to the ambition of his daughter, Tullia, and her husband. 
 
 Tarquin the Proud seized upon the kingdom without waiting for 
 the approbation of the senate, 534 b. c. He enacted many oppressive 
 
70 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 laws against the plebeians, and, protected by a strong body-guard, 
 tyrannized also over the patricians; he nevertheless upheld the dignity 
 of the Roman state, and all Latium acknowledged its supremacy. He 
 built a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, on the summit of the 
 Capitoline hill, in which were deposited the sacred treasures with the 
 mysterious books of the Sibyl. The unbridled passions of his son 
 Sextus caused the expulsion of the dynasty and the abolition of the 
 kingly power, at about the same period in which the Pisistratidae were 
 driven from Athens, 509 b. c. 
 
 Note. —The history of the last Tarquin is by no means free from difficulty. 
 The story of Lucretia’s misfortune, and the consequent expulsion of the royal 
 family, is not confirmed by other facts in history, and is in direct opposition to 
 the account of the Treaty of the first Consuls with Carthage. The circum- 
 stances attending the change of government at Athens, on the death of Codrus, 
 may throw some light on the present events. The list of Roman kings is 
 evidently imperfect. It is not likely that seven kings, four of whom met with 
 a violent death, should reign on an average more than thirty-four years. Ro¬ 
 mulus and Numa are probably mythical; the five others, the remnants of a 
 longer list, presenting the most remarkable names. The stupendous sewers 
 still existing in their pristine strength, “ and the building of the Capitol, attest 
 with unquestionable evidence, that the Rome of the later kings was the chief 
 of a great state.” 
 
 Consult: Niebuhr’s Roman History, vol. i. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. 
 
 The municipal constitution of Rome was doubtless copied from the mother 
 city. The senate was a deliberative body of 300, the heads of the ten gentes 
 (houses) into which each of the thirty curias, was divided. The patricians were 
 a hereditary nobility, who alone had the privilege of administering the sacred 
 affairs, and who formed a strong political party in opposition to the plebeians , 
 not unlike the state of freemen and ordinary residents in a close city. Besides 
 the original division into tribes and curiae , another, according to property, was 
 subsequently introduced, the classes and centuries , out of which arose the two 
 assemblies ( comitia ) called acuriata and centuriata. The religious institutions 
 were closely connected with the state, and few important undertakings were 
 ever begun without first having the sanction of the gods. The discipline and 
 subordination so remarkable in the Roman people, partly originated in the 
 mutual relations of patron and client , a mitigated form of feudalism ; in the 
 regulations about marriage ; and in the unlimited authority of the parent. To 
 these things, and to the spirit which they generated, they were indebted for all 
 the glories which they subsequently obtained. 
 
 Consult: Heeren’s Manual of Ancient History. 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 Confucius or Con-fu-tsee was born about 550 b. c. ; and from this 
 celebrated man was descended the only hereditary Chinese nobility. 
 He successively passed through all the ranks and honours of the state, 
 and was not less celebrated as a reformer than as a philosopher. He 
 supposed that men were naturally good and possessed of celestial rea¬ 
 son, but that its place, when lost, was supplied by a worldly substitute. 
 Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius, flourished at nearly the same 
 period. 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C 
 
 71 
 
 FIFTH CENTURY. 
 
 Judjea.— 457, Ezra.—445, Nehemiah.—420, Malachi, d. 
 
 Persia.— 499, Sardis burnt.—401, Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 
 
 Greece.— 490, Marathon.—480, Salamis.—471, Themistocles exiled.—466 
 Victory,at the Eurymedon.—449, Pericles.—440, Samian War; 431, Pelo¬ 
 ponnesian War.—429, The Plague; Death of Pericles. — 415, Sicilian 
 Expedition.—405, Victory at JEgos-Potamos.—404, Death of Alcibiades.— 
 403, Thrasybulus. 
 
 Rome.— 509, Consuls.—498, Dictator, Titus Lartius.—493, Tribunes of the 
 People.—486, Agrarian Law.—452, Decemvirs—Laws of the Twelve Tables 
 —Volscian and Veindne Wars. 
 
 Carthag-e.— 509, Treaty with Rome.-—480, Defeat at Himera.—410, Sicilian 
 Wars. 
 
 Literature.— 490, Pindar; 480, Aeschylus and Sophocles ; 444, Euripides, 
 Herodotus; 429, Hippocrates, Lysias, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Socrates. 
 Discoveries. — 479, Mnemonics by Simonides; 441, Catapult , &c.; 437, 
 Anatomy and Medicine by Hippocrates. 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 Ezra. —The affairs of the Jews were still in a perplexed state. The 
 rebuilding of the temple was completed under Darius Hystaspes, but 
 the Samaritans and others persevered in their opposition to the restora¬ 
 tion of the city walls, during the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. In 
 the seventh year of the reign of the latter prince, 457, Ezra was sent to 
 Jerusalem, with full civil and ecclesiastical powers, and in 445 Nehe¬ 
 miah was appointed governor. During his twelve years’ administra¬ 
 tion, the walls w^ere completed, and the feast of Tabernacles again 
 celebrated. With Malachi, who died 420 b. c., closes the prophetic 
 roll of the Old Testament, the canon of the history terminating with the 
 death of Nehemiah. Bossuet says, that “ God owed it to the majesty 
 of his Son to silence the voices of the prophets during the next 400 
 years, that the nations might hold themselves in expectation of him who 
 was to be the fullfilment of all oracles. 
 
 Judaea was governed by a Persian satrap, but by slow degrees the 
 high priests became the virtual rulers of the nation. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Persian Invasion. —The revolt of the Ionian colonies under Histiaeus 
 was supported by the Athenians, and the flames of Sardis (499) gave 
 rise to the great war. Having subdued the rebellious colonists, Darius, 
 at the instigation of the fugitive Hippias, sent into Greece a powerful 
 army of 120,000 men. The invaders were met at Marathon, a small 
 town of Attica, immortalized by a battle in which the Athenians, almost 
 unassisted, routed the Persian host, 29th September, 490 b. c. A long 
 high barrow covers the remains of those who fell, and the peasant still 
 fancies he hears their spectral cavalry sweeping by night across the 
 plain. Miltiades, on whom his fellow-generals had conferred the 
 
72 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 supreme command, was wounded, and Hippias is by some reported to 
 have perished. 
 
 By this victory the power of Mijtiades was raised to its height. He 
 directed the Athenian arms against Paros, having formed the design of 
 rendering his country the mistress of the sea; and on the failure of his 
 expedition, he was capitally impeached by Xantippus, the chief of the 
 Alcmaeonid faction. His principal defence and answer were the names 
 of Marathon and Lemnos; but he was found guilty, and being unable 
 to pay the fine of fifty talents, was thrown into prison, where he died. 
 
 Thermopylae and Salamis. —The history of Athens now becomes, 
 in some measure, that of individuals. Themistocles and Aristides took 
 the reins of government, and were the real authors of the power and 
 glory of the Athenian republic. The former, connected with noble 
 families, united in a remarkable degree all the most brilliant qualities 
 of a statesman; the latter, of distinguished birth, was proverbial for 
 integrity. During the administration of these two great men, a more 
 formidable invasion was headed by Xerxes, the successor of Darius, in 
 person. This monarch, with his numerous host, which had gradually 
 swelled to two millions and a half of warriors, met with no check until 
 he reached the celebrated pass of Thermopylae, where, about 1*2,000 
 men w*ere collected under the Spartan king, Leonidas. After two days’ 
 successful fighting, patriotism was overcome by treason. A Greek 
 named Ephialtes led the Persians across a mountain-path, by which 
 they got to the rear of the opposing army. Dismissing the greater part 
 of his troops, that they might not uselessly perish, he retained only 300 
 Spartans, 400 volunteer Thespians, 100 Thebans, and 80 warriors from 
 Mycenae. These with the Helots, as at Plataea, raised the number to 
 about 2000. All this determined band, save the Thebans, were cut to 
 pieces —non vidi sed vincendo fatigati —and the victor marched to Athens, 
 which he plundered and burnt (b. c. 480), the inhabitants, by advice 
 of Themistocles, having taken refuge in the adjoining islands. From 
 the top of a lofty clilf, the Persian ruler had the mortification of behold¬ 
 ing his numerous fleet of 1000 galleys, each carrying 230 men, defeated 
 by the Greeks with only 380 sail, between the mainland and Salamis. 
 Xerxes fled hastily, leaving Mardonius behind with an army of 300,000 
 men, which was routed the next year at Plataea, by the allied Greeks 
 under Pausanias and Aristides. On the same day (20th October), the 
 remnant of the Persian fleet w*as utterly destroyed off Mycale, in Asia 
 Minor. The day of Thermopylae (4th August) had also been rendered 
 doubly illustrious by a seafight with the same enemy, near Artemisium, 
 a promontory of Euboea. It is a pithy remark made by the historian 
 Justin, that the troops of the eastern king wanted nothing but a leader. 
 
 The victory of Salamis operated an entire change in the position of the 
 Greeks, both abroad and at home. From being attacked, they became the 
 assailants, and the liberation of their Asiatic compatriots was the motive or the 
 pretext by which they justified the continuance of an advantageous war. in 
 which Sparta preserved the administration. But the treason and fall of Pausa- 
 nias, who died of famine in the temple to which he had fled for refuse, changed 
 the situation of affairs. The supreme influence passed from the Spartans to 
 the Athenians, who profited by it to form a kind of military confederation of 
 the inferior states. From this epoch dates the jealousy of the two republics, 
 previous to which the numerous petty governments were incessantly armed 
 against each other. Separated thus by mistaken interests, they could perform 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 73 
 
 nothing great, and external pressure was necessary to develop their forces in 
 behalf of the common safety of Greece. The Persian wars laid the foundation 
 of Grecian, and particularly of Athenian grandeur. While Athens was rising 
 to an ascendancy over her neighbours, she was extending a silent but more 
 certain and beneficial influence by her literary men. ^Eschylus fought at 
 Salamis ; Euripides was born on the very day of the battle, and Sophocles was 
 seventeen years old. 
 
 Exile of Themistocles. —Themistocles, vanquisher of the Persians 
 at Salamis, used his influence to persuade the Athenians of the necessity 
 of maintaining their superiority by means of a powerful navy. In spite 
 of the jealous opposition of the Spartans, the walls of Athens were 
 raised, the Piraeus was built, and funds were voted for the yearly con¬ 
 struction of new vessels. These services of the patriotic leader were 
 badly requited. He was accused of participating in the conspiracy of 
 Pausanias; and although nothing was proved against him, he was, by 
 the popular ballot, condemned to exile, in 471. He took refuge at the 
 court of Artaxerxes Longimanus, where he died, whether by poison or 
 disease is uncertain. 
 
 Cimon, the son of Miltiades, now became the prominent actor in the 
 affairs of Greece. This great man w*as said to unite the courage of his 
 father with the prudence of Themistocles and the integrity of Aristides. 
 He had already acquired renowm by his conquests in Thrace, and his 
 successes over the Persians in Asia Minor. At the battles of the Eury- 
 medon, in 466, he utterly defeated the troops of Artaxerxes, both by 
 land and sea; whereby he struck such a blow at the power of that 
 sovereign, that a treaty was concluded, by w 7 hich the freedom of the 
 Ionian cities was guarantied, and no Persian horseman allowed to approach 
 within a day’s journey of the sea. In a subsequent expedition, Cimon 
 recovered the Thracian Chersonese; and by the surrender of Thasos in 
 463, the Athenians obtained the gold-mines on the opposite coasts of 
 Thrace. 
 
 Pericles, son of Xantippus, the conqueror at Mycale, now appeared 
 on the stage of Athenian politics. He joined the popular faction in 
 order to oppose Cimon, who w as at the head of the aristocracy; and 
 the third Messenian war, w hich led to the exile of that chief, left him 
 without a rival, 461. Thebes and Argos, which, during the struggle 
 with Persia, had deserted and betrayed the Greek party 7 , became the 
 cause of a severe contest between Athens and Sparta; the latter declar¬ 
 ing for the Thebans, the former for- the Arrives. On the field of 
 Tanagra, in Boeotia, victory favoured the Spartans (457), but the suc¬ 
 cesses of Myronides shortly after turned the scale. Nearly all the states 
 of Boeotia were revolutionized, and garrisons of friends everywhere 
 established. Faction w*as not, however, quieted, and to preserve the 
 state from ruin, Pericles himself solicited the recall of the banished 
 Cimon, 456. By his intercession, the twm republics w T ere united in a 
 common expedition against Persia, during w r hich this pacificator died, 
 though not until he had seen the conclusion of the war, 449 b. c. 
 
 Revolt of the Helots—Third Messenian War. —While Athens 
 was steadily pursuing her career of aggrandizement, Sparta was almost 
 entirely destroyed by an earthquake, unequalled in horrors, except by 
 that of Lisbon in 1755 a. d. The earth opened into immense chasms, 
 the tops of mountains were cleft, and enormous fragments rolled down 
 7 
 
74 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 into the plains, destroying every thing in their course. In the city, five 
 houses only were left standing, and *20,000 of its inhabitants perished in 
 the mins, 464 b. c. The Helots, taking advantage of this awful 
 catastrophe, rose in rebellion, hoping to emancipate themselves and 
 avenge their wrongs. The prudence of king Archidamus saved Lace¬ 
 daemon ; the Helots were gradually dispersed, and at last blockaded in 
 Ithome, the capital of Messene, which they had fortified. From this 
 circumstance the insurrection is known by the name of the third Mes- 
 senian war. At the outbreak of the revolt, the assistance of Athens 
 was solicited, and granted at the suggestion of Cimon, for which act he 
 was afterwards banished. 
 
 Administration of Pericles. —After the death of Cimon, Pericles 
 became the leading man at Athens. Bold and artful, eloquent and 
 rich, he managed the fickle populace at his will, and principally by 
 flattering them that each individual knew something of the affairs of the 
 state. Abroad he was everywhere triumphant, particularly in the 
 Samian war, 440; and Athens became the Queen of the Sea. During 
 forty years he governed with kingly power, and his reign was one of 
 the most brilliant epochs in the history of civilisation. The arts and 
 sciences, with commerce, made rapid advances; schools of philosophers 
 and orators were formed; and to express one’s thoughts with elegance 
 and perspicuity became an enviable distinction. It is to the patronage 
 of Pericles that Athens owes the glory of being the country of literature 
 and the arts. How great the contrast offered by Lacedaemon, where 
 grossness of manners and severe laws prevented all moral development! 
 Jit Sparta , it was said, men learn to die for their country; at Athens , to 
 live for it. War became inevitable between the rival states. 
 
 Peloponnesian War.— The assistance furnished by the Athenians to 
 the Coreyreans, who were at war with Corinth the mother city, was the 
 pretext of a war which lasted twenty-seven years. The real cause was 
 the mutual dislike of the Athenian democracy and the Spartan aristo¬ 
 cracy. Fortune alternately favoured each party; Athens, the mistress 
 of the sea, was supported by tributary confederates, whom fear attached 
 to her, while Sparta, as a land-power, and seconded by the greater part 
 of Greece, seemed to represent the cause of liberty. Thus the whole 
 nation was divided into two parties—the Lacedaemonian and Athenian, 
 or the Doric and Ionian. 
 
 On the Athenian side were— 
 
 Isles—The Archipelago (except Thera, 
 Samos, and Medos) 
 
 Chios 
 
 Corcyra 
 
 Lesbos 
 
 Cephallenia 
 
 Zacynthus, with 
 
 Messenia 
 
 Caria 
 
 Thrace, &c. 
 
 On the side of Sparta were— 
 Ambracia 
 Anactorium 
 Bceotia (except Plataea) 
 Leucas, Isle 
 Locris 
 Megara 
 Peloponnesus 
 Phocis 
 
 Thessaly, in part. 
 
 The great events of this war are:— The devastation of Attica; the battle 
 of Arginusae ,* the defence of Plataea ; the Sicilian expedition ; the battle of 
 JEgos-Potamos ; the siege and taking of Athens . 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 75 
 
 The remarkable persons are :— 
 
 _ „ ., „ ... C Pericles, Alcibiades, Cleon, Nicias, Conon, 
 
 On the sick of Mens £ Lamachus . 
 
 ^ . 7 j. 0 . C Callicratidas. Brasidas, Gylippus, Lysander, 
 
 On the side of Sparta ^ Mindams / 
 
 Consequence .—The defeat of the Athenians, and the supremacy of 
 Lacedaemon. 
 
 Plague of Athens. —During the two first years of the contest, 
 victory seemed to incline to the side of Sparta. . Attica, a prey to the 
 horrors of war, was devastated still more by the scourge of pestilence, 
 which carried off many of the principal men. Pericles, who was con¬ 
 sidered the author of their evils, was deposed and fined ; but he was 
 soon besought by the common voice to resume the cares of government. 
 He did not long enjoy his triumph; he caught the dreadful infection, of 
 which he died, lamented alike by friends and enemies, 429. 
 
 Read : Account of the Plague of Athens, in Anacharsis. 
 
 Sicilian Expedition. —Cleon, a currier, succeeded the great Pericles, 
 and an unregulated democracy was preparing the most lamentable con¬ 
 sequences. Sparta, in her young and valorous general Brasidas, 
 threatened a dangerous rivalry to Athens; but he perished too ear..y, 
 before Amphipolis, a victim to his own courage, 422. A short time 
 previous to this event, Lacedaemon had been the theatre of a terrible 
 domestic tragedy. Under the pretence of enrolling the Helots among 
 the troops destined for the Thracian expedition, 2000 of the flower of 
 the slave population were selected, and while enjoying the festival of 
 their newly gained liberty, wdth the garlands of freedom still encircling 
 their heads, in the emphatic and significant language of the histoiian, 
 they disappeared. 
 
 A truce of fifty years was now concluded by the management of 
 Nicias, but as it displeased all the allies, it could not last. Almost 
 within a year the war was revived by the ambition of Alcibiades. This 
 young man united the advantages of extreme beauty, wealth, and noble 
 birth, with the most eminent talents. He was the pupil of Socrates, 
 and the ward of Pericles, whom he endeavoured to imitate, but without 
 his maturity of judgment. Embracing the popular side, by his well- 
 timed flattery and florid descriptions, he persuaded his countrymen to 
 undertake the fatal expedition to Sicily. Grecian colonies had long 
 been settled in that island ; the principal town, Syracuse, was built by 
 Corinthians in the eighth century. The Carthaginians had endeavoured 
 to obtain its mastery, but they were utterly defeated at Panormus on the 
 day of the battle of Thermopylae. The oppressions exercised by Syra¬ 
 cuse over the weaker towns compelled them to look abroad for aid; 
 Egesta applied to Athens for help, which was readily granted, in despite 
 of the warning voice of Nicias. 
 
 A fleet was equipped, and intrusted to the command, of Alcibiades, 
 with Lamachus and Nicias for his associates, 415 b. c. But scarcely 
 had the armament sailed, when he was accused of sacrilege; and fearing 
 to obey the orders of recall, he fled to Sparta, where he became the 
 enemy of his country. During this time, the fleet and army of the Athe¬ 
 nians were destroyed after the fatal siege of Syracuse, by the counsels 
 and the aid furnished by Gylippus, 413 b. c. 
 
76 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 This rash expedition was a blow to the power of Athens, from which 
 it never recovered. Alcibiades was forthwith recalled, and the period 
 of his second government was the most brilliant of the whole war 
 (411-407). The repeated victories of his countrymen over the Spar¬ 
 tans, commanded by Mindarus (who in his distrust of Tissaphernes, 
 had formed an alliance with Pharnabazus, satrap of Northern Asia 
 Minor), obliged the Lacedaemonians themselves to sue for a peace, 
 which the haughty Athenians unhappily refused. Another great navai 
 victory was gained at Arginusae, between Mitylene and Asia, in which 
 Callicratidas, the admiral, was killed, 406. For not picking up the 
 dead bodies in the stormy weather after the battle, six of the com¬ 
 manders were unjustly put to death, Socrates alone venturing to raise 
 an opposing voice. 
 
 Victory of Lysander.— In the following year, Lysander detached 
 Ephesus from the Athenian party, and made an alliance with Cyrus the 
 younger, governor of Western Asia. Being reinforced by this prince, 
 in 405, he destroyed the enemy’s fleet at iEgos-Potamos, in the Thracian 
 Chersonese, and killed 3000 men, Conon alone, with eight vessels and 
 the sacred ship Paralus, escaping the general havoc. The fate of Athens 
 was now sealed. Lysander proceeded with his victorious squadron to 
 the Piraeus, when the city, closely pressed by land and sea, was com¬ 
 pelled to surrender, 404. Peace was granted on the following hard con¬ 
 ditions :—that the fortifications should be demolished; that all the men- 
 of-war, save twelve, should be given up ; that the tributary cities should 
 be emancipated; that the exiles should be recalled; and that no war 
 should be carried on except under the orders of the Lacedaemonians. 
 Athens, to complete its misfortunes, beheld its government violently 
 changed. The democracy was destroyed, and all authority placed in 
 the hands of thirty archons, known as the Thirty Tyrants. Thus 
 ended the Peloponnesian war. 
 
 “The victory of iEgos-Potamos,” says Muller, “destroyed only the 
 dominion, not the greatness of Athens; an enlightened nation, which does not 
 forget itself, secures a dignity which is independent of the vicissitudes of 
 events.” The consequences of the Peloponnesian war were more injurious to 
 the morals than to the policy of the Greeks. A factious spirit usurped the 
 name of patriotism, and each nation saw a rival or an enemy in the other. 
 Athens lost her preponderance, and was replaced by Sparta; but the bond of 
 unity was broken, and the despotism of the Thirty Tyrants was more burden¬ 
 some to the tributary states than that of independent Athens. It was easy to 
 foresee that Greece would fall a prey to the first foreign power that ventured 
 to attack it. 
 
 It is some feeble consolation, that during this dark and stormy period, Athens 
 was laying the foundation of an empire which Sparta could not destroy, and 
 which the lapse of years has rendered more powerful. Literature and the fine 
 arts attained their highest eminence. iEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and 
 Aristophanes, still delight and form our taste. The ruins of the Parthenon are 
 yet an object of veneration, and from the mutilated sculptures of Phidias the 
 best modern artists have drawn their inspiration. 
 
 After the battle of JEgos-Potamos, Lysander placed a Lacedaemonian 
 governor, with ten archons, in all the cities of Caria, Ionia, the Hellespont, and 
 Thrace. He returned in triumph to Sparta with immense riches, the fruits o^ 
 his conquests. His ambition was not satisfied with his success ; he endeavour¬ 
 ed to seize upon the crown, but on finding himself deserted by his partisans, he 
 was compelled to abandon his pretensions. 
 
 • 
 
 Thrasybulus. —This illustrious Athenian, in company with other 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 77 
 
 exiles, had taken refuge at Thebes from the cruelty of the Thirty 
 Tyrants. Putting himself at the head of 500 soldiers, raised at the 
 expense of the orator Lysias, he succeeded in taking the Piraeus, and in 
 defeating the Thirty, who had hastened thither with their troops, 403. 
 Thus by the wisdom and moderation of a single man, Athens recovered 
 liberty and peace, while the ancient form of government was renewed, 
 in defiance of all the exertions of Lacedaemon. The despots had been 
 replaced by a council of Ten members, not less absolute than their pre¬ 
 decessors. By this body the aid of Lysander and his mercenary army 
 was invoked, but. the victory remained with king Pausanias, who had 
 come to the support of Thrasybulus and his adherents. On the deposi¬ 
 tion of the Ten, the democratic government was restored, and a general 
 amnesty proclaimed. Forms may be easily re-established, but the 
 departed spirit of a nation can never be recalled. 
 
 Death of Alcibiades. —Alcibiades, accused by Thrasybulus of hav¬ 
 ing ruined the Athenian commonwealth, was a second time deprived of 
 the chief command. He at first retired to his Thracian estates, but was 
 compelled to leave them to avoid the machinations of his enemies, and 
 to seek an asylum in Bithynia. The people, in their distress, again 
 turned their thoughts towards him, and agitated his recall; but the 
 Thirty Tyrants counselled Lysander to demand him alive or dead, from 
 the satrap, who was base enough to comply with their wishes; and he 
 accordingly perished beneath the weapons of the barbarians, at the age 
 of forty, 404 b. c. 
 
 Read: Life of Alcibiades, in Anacharsis. 
 
 Ostracism. —In this extraordinary proceeding, each citizen wrote upon a 
 shell or piece of broken ware, the name of the person he desired to banish. 
 Whenever the number amounted to 6000, they were sorted, the man was 
 exiled for ten years whose name was found on the majority, although no crime 
 might have been alleged, and no defence was allowed. A similar custom 
 existed at Argos, and also in Sicily, under the name of Petalism. Athens 
 spared neither the lives nor fortunes of her heroes. Miltiades, the conqueror 
 at Marathon, died in prison; Aristides the Just, and the benevolent Cimon, 
 who fought at Eurymedon, were banished. Paches, the conqueror of Mitylene, 
 committed suicide to avoid the results of an unjust accusation. Themistocles 
 saved his life by fleeing to Persia; Herodotus the historian found an asylum in 
 Southern Italy ; Thucydides fled from the jealousy of the demagogue Cleon; 
 the amiable Xenophon was driven into exile ; Socrates was poisoned ; Timo- 
 theus the son of Conon, who had rebuilt the walls of Athens, died of extreme 
 want; Iphicrates and Chabrias withdrew to avoid a similar fate ; Phocion was 
 condemned to die at the advanced age of eighty-four; Demetrius of Phalerae 
 sought refuge in Egypt; and even in more recent days, the father of the his 
 torian Chalcondylas, met with no return for his services but ingratitude. 
 
 N. B. Let the student give the particulars from Plutarch’s Lives, Lempriere’s 
 Dictionary, or any other authentic source. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Xerxes I., 485.—The last days of Darius were embittered by dis¬ 
 putes between his sons about the succession; until at length Xerxes, 
 born to him by his second wife, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, was 
 declared heir. He marched against the Egyptian rebels, and placed the 
 subject country under the severe treatment of his brother, the Satrap 
 Achaemenes He is the Ahasuerus — a title, not a proper name — who 
 7 * 
 
78 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 confirmed the Jews in all the privileges granted by his father, and forced 
 the Samaritans to contribute to the building of the temple. His cruel¬ 
 ties and dissolute life were terminated by assassination; his murderers 
 gave out that he fell by the hands of his son Darius, 465, who shortly 
 afterwards perished in a similar manner. The results of the invasion 
 of Greece have been mentioned in another place. 
 
 Artaxerxes I. Longimanus, on his accession, 465, found the pro¬ 
 vinces in rebellion. His brother Hystaspes, in Bactria, was subdued 
 after two battles; and Egypt, whose submission was neither certain 
 nor durable, was recovered, though not without difficulty, in 455. The 
 Greeks, meanwhile, retaliated upon Persia the evils inflicted by Mar- 
 donius. The kindred cities of Ionia were re-established, and Cimon, 
 having in one day destroyed both ships and army at the Eurymedon, 
 466, compelled the great king to accede to an inglorious peace. No 
 Persian governor was to reside within three days’ journey of the Medi¬ 
 terranean, and none of his war-vessels were to sail between Palestine 
 and the Chersonese. 
 
 Retreat of the Ten Thousand, 401.—Rapid and violent revolutions, 
 with rebellions in the provinces, particularly in Egypt, 414, under Darius 
 II. Nothus, led to the reign of Artaxerxes II. Mnemon, 405. He had 
 scarcely ascended the throne when he was compelled to defend it against 
 his brother Cyrus the younger, governor of Asia Minor, who claimed 
 the throne from being the first bnrn after his father's accession. His 
 army of 100,000 barbarians under Ariaeus was reinforced by 13,000 
 Grecian volunteers, commanded by Clearchus. The hostile armies met 
 at Cunaxa, about twenty leagues from Babylon, where Cyrus, engaging 
 in battle with his brother, who had 1*20,000 men under his command, 
 lost his life, 401. The Greeks maintained the reputation of their coun¬ 
 try not only in this fight, but in that memorable retreat, in which, at 
 the end of fifteen months, after having overcome every obstacle of nature, 
 and triumphed over all the attacks of the nations on their route, they 
 again beheld their native shores. The Anabasis of Xenophon, their 
 general, has immortalized this unexampled march. 
 
 Sketch a Map of the March to Cunaxa and of the Retreat. 
 
 Read: Retreat of the Ten Thousand, in Rollin or in Anacharsis. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 The Consuls. —On the abolition of royalty, the power of the kings 
 was transferred to two consuls, annually elected, of Whom Brutus and 
 Collatinus were the first, 509. A conspiracy was formed to restore the 
 exiled sovereign, and among its members were two sons of Brutus; but 
 the plot being discovered, the criminals were apprehended. The father 
 himself presided on the trial, and condemned his children to the scourge 
 and the axe. Such heartlessness and cruelty, not required by any state 
 of society, is too frequently held out as an example worthy of imitation. 
 Ambition and stoical pride could alone have excited a parent to pursue 
 a line of conduct which would now meet with universal execration. 
 Tarquin’s only remaining resource was arms; and, assisted by the 
 Etruscan Porsenna, he overran the country, defeated the Romans, com¬ 
 pelled them to surrender a third part of their territory, and to give hos- 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 79 
 
 tages from their noblest families. The deposed dynasty was not, how¬ 
 ever, restored, and the king, after many adventures, and having outlived 
 all his children, died at Cumae, b. c. 494. The most important monu¬ 
 ment of the authenticity of early Roman history is the first commercial 
 treaty wdth Carthage, 509, in which Rome, although a free state, does 
 not appear as the head of Latium. 
 
 The first consuls were of the family of Tarquin, the name and not the power 
 erf the supreme ruler being changed. They were first called praetors, the name 
 of consul being given after the decemvirate. 
 
 Dictator. —Scarcely had Rome been freed from the regal yoke, when 
 the people began to suffer from patrician tyranny. The equitable con¬ 
 stitution of Servius being laid aside, the office of dictator was created, 
 498, and Lartius was the first who filled this office. The law of appeat 
 established by Valerius Poplicola was by this means evaded, and 
 unlimited authority was exercised over the commonalty. The oppres¬ 
 sion of the nobles was principally manifested in withdrawing the elec¬ 
 tion of the consuls from the centuries, and by reducing their unfortunate 
 debtors to the rank of slaves (next). An accident drove the commons 
 ( plebs) into sedition; the legions deserted their generals and retired to 
 the Sacred Mount, while the plebeians occupied the Aventine and 
 Esquiline Hills. After long resistance, the Valerian laws were restored, 
 and all debtors set at liberty. The fable of Menenius Agrippa (the belly 
 and the members) refers to this period, 493 b. c. 
 
 Tribunes. —The sole purpose of these officers (who owe their creation 
 to the preceding disturbances) was to uphold the Valerian laws and 
 check the consular power. At first they were a plebeian , afterwards a 
 national magistracy, and their number was increased from two to ten. 
 Coriolanus, who had distinguished himself against the Volsci, obstinately 
 resisted the right they claimed of summoning patricians before the tribu¬ 
 nal of the commons. Being driven into exile (475), he headed a band 
 of Romans in a like situation with himself, and nearly endangered the 
 existence of his native city. The tears of a mother availed more than 
 the entreaties of the Senate. He concluded a glorious peace, and when 
 he died, at an advanced age, among the Volscians, the Roman matrons 
 mourned him during a whole year, and he was justly honoured as an 
 upright patriot.—In acknowledgment of the service rendered by Veturia, 
 a temple was erected at Rome to Female Fortune. 
 
 Agrarian Laws. —These famous laws concerned the public lands 
 alone, setting no limit to the landed property of any class or individual. 
 When a hostile territory was subdued, one-third was appropriated for 
 the benefit of the people generally; and the quantity to be held by each 
 man was limited, the commons having generally five acres, subject to 
 all assessments. The patricians managed to hold much larger portions, 
 and as these lands were the only pay of the legionary soldiers, the con¬ 
 querors were not unfrequently compelled to give up their booty to the 
 public treasury. The dispute, in which the commonalty finally prevailed, 
 w T as, whether they should have an equitable share, or the aristocracy 
 possess the whole. Spurius Cassius, one of the wisest of Roman states¬ 
 men, in his third consulate proposed an Agrarian law, by which he 
 hoped to attach the plebeians firmly to the state; but means were taken 
 to evadfe the execution of this statute, and he himself suffered death as a 
 
80 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 traitor, 484. The call for these laws, however, did not cease: the 
 people refused to serve in the legions, and when drawn up in battle, 
 allowed themselves to be defeated without a blow. At last, to settle the 
 differences, ten men ( decem-viri ) were appointed to draw up a code, 
 which should unite the commons and the patricians, by placing them on 
 an equal footing: a supreme magistracy was also to be instituted in 
 place of the consulate. The first decemvirs were worthy men, but their 
 successors abandoned themselves to cruelty, avarice, and licentiousness; 
 hence the support shown to them by the patriciate excited the indigna¬ 
 tion of the people. Among their victims was Sicinius Dentatus, whom 
 Niebuhr styles the Roman Roland . The brutal outrage of Appius 
 against Virginia caused the abolition of the decemvirate, and the restora- 
 tion of the tribunes, b. c. 449.* Amid various disputes, and the alterna¬ 
 tion of tribunitial and consular power, the rights of the people were 
 advancing; and freedom was secured by reviving old or framing new 
 laws. The prohibition of intermarriages between the patricians and 
 plebeians raised an insurmountable barrier between the two classes; 
 but this regulation was repealed in 445. The struggle for the admission 
 of the commons to the consulate continued eighty years. The jealousy 
 of the privileged orders was provoked by the generosity of Spurius 
 Maelius, who expended a large fortune in supporting the people during 
 a period of famine. To avert the supposed danger, the well-known 
 Cincinnatus was a second time chosen dictator; and in full assembly of 
 the people, the benefactor of his miserable fellow-citizens was bar¬ 
 barously murdered (440 b. c.), a victim to a cruel and ruthless 
 faction.f 
 
 Rome, as the head of the Latin confederation, was engaged in con¬ 
 tinual wars with those states that felt or imagined themselves to be 
 oppressed by her rule. Though insignificant feuds in themselves, they 
 were the means by which Rome became a conquering nation, and which 
 laid the foundation of the senatorial power. Among the most important 
 was the last war against Veil, 404-395. 
 
 Volscian and Veientine Wars. —The A3quian war is included by 
 Gellius in his list of memorable epochs. The AEquian and Volscian 
 armies were composed of picked men, bound by awful oaths to fight til] 
 death. On the 18th June, they were attacked by the dictator Tubertus, 
 and defeated after a bloody conflict. The Veientines, an Etrurian 
 people, long maintained a powerful opposition against the Romans, and 
 nearly took their city. But fortune changed; Veii was in its turn 
 blockaded, and taken by Camillus, 396 b. c., after a protracted siege, 
 though the manner of its capture is apocryphal. This war was signalized 
 by the devotion of the Fabian family, who raised an intrenched camp 
 on the Cremera, as the Spartans did at Deceleia, whence they ravaged the 
 Veientine territory. They all, but one man, perished by stratagem, 
 within sight of a Roman force. These wars first introduced the system 
 of winter campaigns, and of paying the soldiers, thus gradually forming 
 a standing army. 
 
 * Appius and M. Claudius found imitators in the Duke of Fronsac and others of the 
 same cast, in the reign of Louis XV. 
 
 f Niebuhr, vol. ii. 
 
FIFTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 81 
 
 On the laws of the Twelve Tables. 
 
 The Grecian origin of these laws has been unreasonably questioned; ana 
 although it is not probable that the haughty patriciate of Rome would con¬ 
 descend to copy the Athenian democracy, still the pre-eminence of Athens 
 under Pericles, might have justified an examination into her codes. The casual 
 resemblances to be found in the legislative enactments of Solon and the Decem¬ 
 virs may also be discovered in the first efforts of all people in the infancy of 
 their civilisation. The Twelve Tables inculcated the soundest principles of 
 government and morals; they were learnt by schoolboys, and were the 
 favourite meditation of their fathers. They were soon overloaded b 5 7 a multi¬ 
 tude of new statutes, when Augustus conferred the legislative authority on the 
 senate. The edicts of the Praetors furnished the salutary means of perpetually 
 harmonizing the several codes with the spirit of the times. The Praetors were 
 the true organs of the public mind; their regulations were framed according to 
 the opinions of the great lawyers of the day. Laws were rarely enacted con¬ 
 trary to the provisions of the Twelve Tables, which, by certain fictions, existing 
 alike in ail nations, were brought into accordance with the necessities of the 
 age. These variable edicts at length comprehended the whole of the Roman 
 legislation, and became the basis of the jurisprudence contained in the digest 
 of Justinian. 
 
 CARTHAGE. 
 
 The progress of this nation was< slow, but at the close of the fifth 
 century it was the first power in Africa, and possessed many extensive 
 foreign settlements. The principal islands in the Mediterranean, and it 
 is supposed the Canaries and Madeira, were occupied by her adventur¬ 
 ous citizens. Mago, with his two sons and six grandsons, had the glory 
 of extending the territory, and establishing the dominion of Carthage in 
 Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, 550-480. About the same period this 
 republic became connected with the Persian monarchy,—had met and 
 fought the Phocean navy,—extended its colonies along the shores of the 
 Atlantic, 539,—and concluded its first treaty with Rome, 509. The 
 great object of its policy was now the possession of the fertile island of 
 Sicily ; but the alliance with Xerxes in his attack upon Greece led to 
 the dreadful rout and disgraceful peace of Himera, 480. This great 
 battle was fought on the same day as that of Salamis, and one of the 
 conditions of the treaty which followed it is highly honourable to the 
 victor Gelo: he insisted on the cessation of human sacrifices at the 
 shrines of the Punic divinities. For seventy years Carthage dreaded 
 the arms of Greece, and her name is scarcely met with in history; but 
 the accession of Dionysius I. renewed the war, 406 b. c., each party at 
 the conclusion retaining its conquests. The second commercial treaty 
 with Rome was formed about this period. The contest with Sicily 
 continued until the breaking out of the Punic wars, which were the 
 necessary consequence of the aggrandizing ambition of two powerful 
 nations. Rome was the aggressor; yet her own safety was scarcely 
 compatible with the dominion of her rivals in Sicily. 
 
 Read: Heeren’s African Nations. 
 
82 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greece. —399, Death of Socrates.—394, Battle of Coronea.—387, Peace of 
 Antalcidas.—371, Leuctra.—362, Mantinea.—338, Chaeronea.—331, Arbela. 
 —323, Alexander, d. —312, JE ra of the Seleuckhe. 
 
 Rome, —396, Veii taken.—390, Rome taken by the Gauls.—366, Plebeian 
 consuls.—343, Samnite Wars.—321, Candine Forks. 
 
 Literature, &c. —401, Xenophon; Ctesias; Isocrates, b. 436; Plato; De¬ 
 mosthenes ; Aristotle; Epicurus ; Menander. 
 
 Discoveries. —360, Analysis , by Plato.—333, Encaustic Painting. —306, Sun¬ 
 dial at Rome , by Paririus Cursor.—300, Colossus of Rhodes; Operation for 
 Cataract, by Herophilus. 
 
 GREECE. ' 
 
 Death of Socrates, 399.—This philosopher, one of the most cele¬ 
 brated of antiquity, was bom at Athens. In his early days he pursued 
 .the trade of his father Sophroniscus, who was a sculptor, but abandoned 
 this pursuit for the more enchanting study of mental science. He was 
 a virtuous man, and one of his most characteristic qualities was a tran¬ 
 quillity of mind, which could not be shaken by any accident, by any 
 reverse of fortune or insulting language. Even the violent temper of 
 his wife Xantippe, a name become proverbial, never made him forget 
 his patience. He effected a real revolution in Philosophy; he attacked 
 the method of his contemporaries, by laying down self-knowledge as 
 the basis of all inquiries. By this means he substituted the method of 
 observation for that of rash hypothesis; he was in fact the creator of the 
 science of Ethics, and founded his precepts on the conscience. His 
 manner of teaching was novel and attractive; his was no regular 
 method, but each auditor was skilfully conducted by a simple species 
 of interrogation from one truth to another until he arrived at a just con¬ 
 clusion. This mode of reasoning still bears the name of the Sucratic . 
 His virtuous life, his principles of morality, his belief in the existence 
 of a supreme ruler of the universe, and of the immortality of the soul, 
 found as many enemies as disciples. Under the government of the 
 Thirty Tyrants, Melitus, Anytus, and Lycon accused him before the 
 council of Five Hundred, of corrupting the youth, of despising the gods, 
 and of endeavouring to introduce new divinities. The real ground of 
 this charge appears to have been the offence which his intimacy with 
 Caitias and Alcibiades gave to the democratic party. The minds of the 
 populace being easily inflamed by a misrepresentation of his doctrines, 
 he was condemned to drink hemlock, and his death did not belie his 
 principles. A short time afterwards, the Athenians repented of their 
 injustice, and, by way of atonement, condemned Melitus to death, and 
 the others to banishment. A bronze statue, by the celebrated Lysippus, 
 was raised to his honour, and a temple was dedicated to his memory. 
 His actions, conversations, and opinions have been transmitted to us by 
 the two most distinguished of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato. 
 
 Philosophic Sects. 
 
 The Greeks recognised two principal schools of Philosophy ; the Ionian and the 
 Italian. These admit of many subdivisions, from the different principles of 
 their founders. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 83 
 
 Ionian School 
 
 This school, distinguished for its reason and good sense, was founded by 
 Thales of Miletus, 548 e. c. He travelled extensively, learned Geometry in 
 Egypt, and Astronomy in Phoenicia. V* ith him commenced the study of 
 Natural Philosophy. Anaxagoras, the tutor of Pericles (480-450), Socrates, 
 and Plato, belonged to this school. Its chief sects were— 
 
 The Academicians , founded by Plato, one of the greatest geniuses of anti¬ 
 quity. Dion, Aristotle, Isocrates, and Demosthenes, were among his 
 followers. 
 
 The Peripatetics, founded by Aristotle, the preceptor of Alexander the 
 Great, the most voluminous and profound writer of all antiquity. 
 
 The Cynics, founded by Antisthenes, who placed happiness in the practice 
 of virtue, which he taught was the contempt of wealth, and of the enjoyments 
 of life. Diogenes destroyed the reputation of this sect by the excess to which 
 he carried its doctrines. 
 
 The Stoics, a revival of the Cynics by Zeno, w’ho taught the celebrated 
 dogma, that pain is no evil, the only real evils being moral imperfections. He 
 said that we should follow virtue instinctively, and practise benevolence from 
 inclination. Epaminondas, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius, professed the doc¬ 
 trines of the porch. 
 
 Italian School. 
 
 Pythagoras founded this school between 540 and 510 b. c. during the reign 
 of Tarquin the Proud. He quitted Samos, his native country, and after 
 travelling through the East, where he imbibed many of his peculiar doctrines, 
 he settled at Crotona, in Southern Italy, and there effected a complete revolu¬ 
 tion of ideas and manners. He was a great mathematician and'natural philoso¬ 
 pher, and taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. The chief sub¬ 
 divisions of this school were— 
 
 The Sceptics, founded by Pyrrho, 336 b. c. who doubted of every thing. 
 They asserted that no truth or positive knowledge existed which we could 
 attain by our senses or reasoning. The supreme good was placed in ataraxy 
 and apathy, in suspension of judgment and in calmness of soul. 
 
 The Epicureans, whose founder was E«picurus, placed the supreme good in 
 the practice of virtue, and in the pleasurable emotions excited by benevolence. 
 His followers degraded these doctrines by assuming the pleasures of the senses 
 to be the only happiness. Horace, Virgil, Atticus, and Maecenas, belonged 
 to this sect. They appear to have admitted the existence of God, but to have 
 denied a Providence. 
 
 The school of the Eleatics was founded by Xenophanes of Colophon, at 
 Elaea in Western Italy, 538. To it belonged Parmenides, Zeno, and Hera¬ 
 clitus the Ephesian. Their main doctrine taught that God was all in all, and 
 could be represented by no graven image. 
 
 Consult: Enfield’s History of Philosophy; Anacharsis. 
 
 Synoptical Table. 
 
 Names of 
 Philosophers. 
 
 Birthplace. 
 
 Time. 
 
 Sect. 
 
 Particulars. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Agesilaus, king of Sparta, who was as insignificant in person, as he 
 was noble in martial qualities, carried on a successful war against Persia 
 (396-394), but was recalled in the midst of victory to contend against 
 the Athenians and their allies. The Persian court, despairing of safety 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 84 
 
 had adopted the prudent course of subsidizing the Grecian states, and 
 exciting them to take arms against each other. The Athenians, having 
 recovered from the ruinous government of the Thirty Tyrants, had re¬ 
 built the walls of their city, and also, under the guidance of Conon, 395, 
 thrown off the Spartan yoke. Agesilaus checked for a season this 
 returning prosperity, by the disastrous battle of Coronea. The defeat 
 of the Lacedaemonians, in the sea-fight near Cnidus, by Conon, who 
 served with the Persians (b. c. 394), led finally to the peace of Antal- 
 cidas, so called from the name of the Laconian negotiator. The repu¬ 
 tation of Sparta suffered by this disgraceful treaty, which was dictated 
 by the Eastern monarch : the Greek cities of Asia were declared subject 
 to him, though the independence of their states in Europe was acknow¬ 
 ledged. Sixty years before this, Cimon had dictated conditions to 
 Artaxerxes Longimanus; but now the supreme state of Sparta was 
 compelled to accept those of Artaxerxes Mnemon. The treaty was 
 signed 8th August, 387 b. c., and by one of its clauses, Persia engaged 
 to compel the ratification of the treaty by force of arms. Conon was 
 accused of treason for endeavouring to oppose its ratification, and car¬ 
 ried to Susa, where he was poisoned. Thrasybulus, the liberator of 
 Athens, perished in a trifling squabble between his troops and some 
 peasants; and Sparta lost her influence at the very period when the 
 obscure Theban republic began to acquire a name. 
 
 Theban Wa^. —Thebes had hitherto been a blank in Grecian history; 
 but the unjust occupation of the citadel of that town by the Lacedaemo¬ 
 nians called forth the talents of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. The 
 latter liberated the city from its foreign garrison ; while the former 
 asserted the independence of his country, and successfully maintained it 
 on the field of Leuctra, where the flower of the Spartan youth perished, 
 371 b. c. The Lacedaemonians were now in their turn to suffer the 
 horrors of invasion. Epamindos overran the country, and at Mantinea 
 in Arcadia, the Thebans again triumphed, but at the expense of theii 
 brave general’s life, and with him ended their brief supremacy, 36*2 b. c. 
 Both states were weakened and exhausted by the war, and there was 
 no longer a predominating power in Greece. Even Athens had lost a 
 great part of her influence, together with three of her most celebrated 
 commanders. 
 
 Macedon. —The foundations of the Macedonian monarchy were laid 
 in the eighth century b. c., by Caranus, a descendant of Hercules. His 
 successors, and the people over whom they ruled, were long considered 
 as barbarians by the more polished inhabitants of the South ; and dur¬ 
 ing 400 years they were under the protection of Sparta, Athens, or of 
 Thebes. On the death of Amyntas II. (369), civil dissensions agitated 
 the kingdom, which were not appeased until Pelopidas entered the 
 country with a strong army. On his return to Thebes, he led with him 
 numerous hostages, among which was Philip, the brother of King Per- 
 diccas III., whom he succeeded under the title of Philip II. 359 b. c. 
 To strengthen his usurped power, he improved the discipline of the 
 iToops, and formed the celebrated phalanx on the model of the Sacred 
 Battalion of Thebes. He married Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus, 
 king of Epirus, and became the father of Alexander III. stfrnamed the 
 Great (356). 
 
 1. Sacred War, b. c. 359.—The Phocians, who had beer, aned by 
 
FOURTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 85 
 
 the Amphictyonic council for having committed sacrilege by ploughing 
 up some consecrated ground near the fane of Apollo, resisted payment, 
 and seized on the treasures in the temple of Delphi, to support the 
 expenses of the war. After ten years the struggle was brought to a 
 satisfactory conclusion, principally by the intervention of Philip, who 
 was rewarded by the seat in the Amphictyonic council, which had been 
 forfeited by Phocis. A second war led to the disastrous battle of Chae- 
 ronea, 338 b. c., in which the Athenians and their allies were defeated 
 by the Macedonian king, and the country laid prostrate at his feet. 
 While forming new projects for the conquest of Persia, at the head of 
 the confederated army of Greece, he was assassinated by Pausanias, 
 336 b. c. 
 
 Demosthenes the orator was at the head of an Athenian party, which, 
 with greater foresight than their rivals, beheld the subjugation of their 
 native land in the ambitious designs of Philip. But his eloquence was 
 exerted in vain; and like Cassandra, he predicted coming woes only to 
 see his cautions heedlessly rejected. While he was exciting the people 
 to war, Phocion was proclaiming the necessity of peace. Still he did 
 not less exert his military talents in defence of his country, and com¬ 
 pelled the invader to raise the siege of Byzantium. Had he command¬ 
 ed at the battle of Chaeronea, the fortune of the day might have been 
 changed. 
 
 Consult: Leland’s History of Philip of Macedon. 
 
 Alexander *he Great.— Alexander and his unfortunate antagonist 
 Darius ascended the throne in the same year, 336 b. c. Taking courage 
 from the youth of the new monarch, who was only twenty years old, 
 the Blyrians, Triballians, and other barbarous tribes reduced by Philip, 
 endeavoured to recover their independence; but with an impetuosity 
 and speed which 1 affled calculation, Alexander crushed his various 
 antagonists with almost a single blow. A false report of his death 
 having reached Thebes, the people rose and massacred the Macedonian 
 garrison, and organized an extensive revolution. These plans were 
 thwarted by the rapid movements of the king, who, before two weeks 
 elapsed, reached Bceotia at the head of an army flushed with victory. 
 The capital was taken by assault, and all the horrors that could be prac¬ 
 tised by an unrestrained soldiery befell the inhabitants. Every house 
 was rased to the ground, the surviving women and children were sold 
 into slavery, and its territory was allotted to the victorious allies; but 
 the dwelling of Pindar, and of all connected by blood with the poet, 
 were saved in the general ruin. There is reason to believe that the 
 melancholy catastrophe of Thebes took place without the authority of 
 Alexander, as general in chief of the Amphictjmnic council. Athens 
 and other states who had favoured her views, now sent embassies, and 
 submitted to the conqueror. ' 
 
 Having thus successfully defeated every opposition which had assail¬ 
 ed his throne, he prepared to carry into effect the projects of his father, 
 by the invasion of Asia. In the spring of 334, he began his march at 
 the head of 30,000 infantry, and about 5000 cavalry. Antipater was 
 left behind to watch over his interests in Greece, while Parmenio, one 
 of Philip’s experienced and valiant generals, was appointed his lieuten¬ 
 ant in the field. After indulging nis ardent imagination by a visit to 
 8 
 
86 
 
 / 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 the scenes described in the Iliad , his favourite poem,* Alexander has¬ 
 tened to join his troops, which had crossed the straits to Abydos. At 
 the passage of the Granicus the first struggle ensued, the king himself 
 dashing into the river, at the head of the companion-cavalry. Disre¬ 
 garding all personal risk, with his own lance he killed the Persian 
 Teader, being himself twice saved by the activity of his friends. The 
 example of the monarch was followed by all his troops, and the rout of 
 the enemy soon became general. All Asia westward of Mount Taurus 
 fell into his hands as he advanced. The rich provinces of Phrygia, 
 Lydia, and Caria, the great cities of Ephesus, Sardis, and Miletus, were 
 compelled to submit to his authority. Darius now appointed Memnon 
 commander-in-chief both of the land and naval forces; but while this 
 prudent soldier was carrying into execution a well-devised plan that 
 would have been fatal to Alexander’s progress, he was suddenly cut off 
 by death. The battle of Issus, in which the Persian ruler commanded 
 in person, soon followed ; but fortune still proving adverse, he was com¬ 
 pelled to flee, leaving his mother, wife, and children, in the power of 
 the victor. 
 
 Syria, with its capital Damascus, and Phoenicia, the cradle of Gre¬ 
 cian literature and tradition, next invited his arms. Sidon readily threw 
 off the Persian yoke, but Tyre, refusing to admit Alexander within her 
 walls, was taken and sacked after a resistance of seven months. This 
 city was no easy capture: it had baffled Shalmaneser, and compelled 
 him to return, after a siege of five years; and during the lapse of thir¬ 
 teen resisted the attacks of Nebuchadnezzar. Egypt next surrendered 
 without a blow; and not limiting his views in that country to ephemeral 
 conquest or vain display, he laid the foundations of a new city, to be 
 called after his own name, and w~hich soon became the capital of the 
 country, the depot of science, and the centre of the commerce of the 
 Eastern world. While he was thus occupied in the south, Darius was 
 preparing for a final and desperate struggle, in the very heart of his 
 dominions. The Grecian army rapidly marched through Syria, crossed 
 the Euphrates and Tigris, which had been left unguarded, and reached 
 Gaugamela or the Camel’s House, so called from the animal w T hich bore 
 Darius Hystaspes from his Scythian expedition. Here Alexander found 
 himself in front of 600,000 men, of all tribes and nations, hastily col¬ 
 lected from various provinces. So great a host being weak in propor¬ 
 tion to its numbers, the confusion produced by the first charge of the 
 Macedonians could not be*recovered; and after a brief conflict, the 
 great king once more became a fugitive, 331 b. c. From Arbela, by 
 which name this victory is generally known, the conqueror proceeded 
 to Babylon and Susa (Shusham of Scripture), when the accumulated 
 treasures of a lono- race of monarchs fell into his hands. The march 
 to Persepolis, the capital of Ancient Persia, was not effected without 
 obstruction and dano-er; but the city was at length reached in time to 
 save the treasures from plunder by the retreating soldiers. The palace 
 is said to have been afterwards reduced to ashes in mere wantonness, at 
 the instigation of the beautiful Lais.f 
 
 * Et, voyageur arme pour conqu6rir la terre, 
 
 Alexandre en Asie emporta son Homer e.—Lebrun. 
 
 f Other accounts say that the destruction of the palace was an act of stern retalia¬ 
 tion for the demolition of the Grecian temples by Xerxes. The Persian writers make 
 
FOURTH CENTURY JB. C. 87 
 
 After his defeat, Darius had fled into Media, where he hoped to 
 organize such resistance as might arrest the progress of the invader. 
 In Greece, too, events were occurring which might have materially 
 injured the cause of Alexander. Lacedaemon was at the head of the 
 disaffected party, and Demosthenes was endeavouring to excite the 
 Athenians to share in the intrigues. Antipater, however, was not want¬ 
 ing in vigour during this emergency, and in a battle which shortly after 
 ensued, the hopes of Spartan supremacy were frustrated, their troops 
 defeated, and King Agis slain, while fifty of her principal citizens were 
 compelled to become hostages for her future conduct. Probably being 
 informed of this unexpected change in the affairs of Greece, Darius fled 
 from Ecbatana towards the Caucasus, accompanied with not more than 
 10,000 men. Actively pursued by Alexander, he was killed by the 
 sword of one of his own officers before the conqueror could overtake 
 him; and Bessus, the murderer, who had assumed the regal title, fell 
 shortly after into the hands of the King of Macedon, by whom he was 
 scourged and mutilated, 330 b. c. 
 
 About this time the conqueror learnt that Philotas, the son of Par- 
 menio, had entertained designs against his life; and the offender, with 
 his father, suffered death, according to the decision of a tribunal of their 
 countrymen. Clitus, who had saved his prince’s life at the Granicus, 
 and had been appointed to the companion-cavalry after the execution of 
 Philotas, was, in a fit of ungoverned passion or of intoxication, stabbed 
 by him to the heart. Nothing for a time could allay the bitter regret 
 which Alexander felt, and at the moment he could scarcely be restrained 
 from plunging the bloody weapon into his own bosom. 
 
 In becoming the sovereign of Asia, the Macedonian aimed at per¬ 
 manency of dominion, and with this view assumed the Median dress, 
 married Roxana, a Persian lady of high rank, and in his internal policy 
 contemplated the prosperity of his new empire. But all his enemies 
 were not yet subdued, and the victorious leader next carried his arms, 
 with his wonted fortune, beyond the Indus, and was meditating an 
 expedition as far as the Ganges. During his progress in India, \ he 
 carried into execution his plans for promoting a communication between 
 that country and Greece; and a fleet under Nearchus was fitted out to 
 gain the desired information, by exploring the coasts of the Indian 
 Ocean and Persian Gulf. Returning from these distant scenes of con¬ 
 quest, he reached Susa once more, where Barcine or Statira, the beauti¬ 
 ful daughter of Darius, became his wife. Proceeding thence to Ecba¬ 
 tana, he offered magnificent sacrifices, followed by festive games, in 
 gratitude for his long-continued success. It was here that he lost his 
 early and dearest friend, Hepheestion. He now returned to Babylon, 
 
 no mention of this circumstance, or of the death of Beetis, Clitus, Callisthenes, and the 
 other acts of debauchery, pride, and cruelty, with which the Greeks and their Latin 
 copyists have loaded the memory of Alexander. These historians represent him, on 
 the contrary, as a model of public and private virtues. This difference is supposed to 
 arise from the protection afforded by the king to the vanquished against the exactions 
 of the victors, who desired nothing better than to sit down and enjoy their conquests 
 at their ease. Before they could divide the immense spoils, it was necessary to be freed 
 from his presence, and his actions were calumniated that his death might be the less 
 regretted. The Greeks were all king-haters, and the Macedonian sovereigns who had 
 subjugated them were particularly the objects of their abhorrence. They listened with 
 an easy belief to all the scandalous tales which were brought from the East, and com 
 mitted them to an imperishable memorial in their writings. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 258 
 
 regardless of the warnings said to have been given by the Chaldean 
 seers, and of the various omens that had preceded his entry into that 
 city. Here, while engaged in plans for improving his future capital, 
 and for restoring to the ancient Assyrian empire its former supremacy 
 m arms and commerce, he was attacked by a fatal disease, of which he 
 died on the eleventh day of his illness, 323 b. c. He was cut olf in the 
 flower of his age, when much might have been expected from the 
 maturer years of one whose youth had given such brilliant promise: he 
 died in the midst of his grand designs, at the moment when a career of 
 usefulness appeared to be opening before him. But although our minds 
 cannot fathom the designs of Infinite Intelligence in thus removing him 
 at the most important period of his life, we are not to conclude that all 
 is the result of chance. In the words of the historian, we may add, 
 that “ not without especial purpose of the deity was such a man given 
 to the world, to whom none has ever yet been equal.” 
 
 Partition of the Empire. —The death of the illustrious conqueror 
 became the signal of discord, and his vast empire a theatre of war and 
 revolution: but from the multitude of candidates who aspired simul¬ 
 taneously to the supreme command, the history of this period is thrown 
 into almost inextricable confusion.—Perdiccas by general consent w T as 
 appointed regent, and the kingdom divided into thirty-three provinces, 
 corresponding to the number of generals. This distinguished leader fell 
 shortly after by the hand of an assassin, and Antipater succeeded to his 
 office : disorder continued to reiom among the numerous successors of 
 Alexander, and each party was by turns victorious or defeated. 
 
 Lamian War.—T aking advantage of these disturbances, the Athe- 
 nians, excited by Demosthenes, in opposition to the counsels' of Phocion, 
 entered into a league to throw off the Macedonian yoke. Leosthenes, 
 the generalissimo of the allies, gained two victories over Antipater, by 
 which the Greeks were quite intoxicated; but at Cranon these advan¬ 
 tages were lost, and Athens itself was with difficulty preserved. The 
 orator was compelled to flee and take refuge in the temple of Neptune 
 at Calauria, when, being reduced to the last extremity, he swallowed 
 poison and died, 322 b. c. 
 
 Another revolution placed the regency in the hands of Polysperchon, 
 who, desirous of the support of the Greeks, re-established the govern¬ 
 ment of their cities, 319 b. c. Athens made an unjust use of the restora¬ 
 tion of her democracy, in the accusation of Phocion and his condemnation 
 without being allowed the privilege of defence. He suffered like many 
 of his illustrious predecessors; and even after death, the fury of the 
 populace forbade the interment of his corpse. Probity was the charac¬ 
 teristic of this great man; he was elected general forty-five times, was 
 always victorious and always poor. Although compelled to perform 
 the duties of domestic life, generally intrusted to the slaves, he refused 
 a hundred talents which Alexander wished to force upon him. Deme¬ 
 trius Phalerius, a wise and learned person, whom Cassander some time 
 after (318) appointed his lieutenant, met with a fate different from that 
 of Phocion. Three hundred and sixty statues were erected in gratitude 
 for his skilful administration ; but they were, with true Athenian fic¬ 
 kleness, as suddenly thrown down as they had been raised. He retired 
 to Egypt, and consoled himself with literary pursuits at the court of 
 Ptoleni) Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, w T ho had delivered Athens 
 
FOURTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 89 
 
 
 and nearly all Greece (307), was appointed generalissimo in 302, and 
 four years after driven into banishment. He gained the epithet of 
 Po/iorcetes, or vanquisher of cities , by his great success in the reduction 
 of fortified places. 
 
 Ambitious, and jealous of each other, the generals of Alexander had 
 never ceased to contend for the spoils of his vast empire. At last, after 
 a long alternation of success and reverses, the united army of Ptolemy, 
 Cassander, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, gained at Ipsus in Phrygia a 
 decisive victory over Antigonus and his son Poliorcetes. The father 
 perished on the field, while tlm other not without difficulty escaped to 
 Greece with the fleet and a remnant of his army, 301 b. c. The 
 dominions of the son of Philip were now divided into four large king¬ 
 doms :* Macedon and Greece, and the viestern parts, under Cassander; 
 Thrace, Bithynia, and the northern parts, under Lysimachus; Egypt, 
 and the south, under Ptolemy, son of Lagus ; and Syria, with the east, 
 under Seleucus. With the establishment of this last king at Babylon 
 commences the Era of the Seleucidas I - (312 b. c.), which was in use 
 until 65 b. c. 
 
 Arts, Literature, and Science among the Greeks. 
 
 The Greeks cultivated Letters and the Arts with a perfection that places 
 them in the first rank of civilised nations, and the monuments the) have left in 
 every branch have shed a glory upon their country that almost obscures their 
 military fame. It is in the period beginning with Solon and terminating with 
 Alexander, that most of the great men flourished who brought such renown on 
 the Grecian name. 
 
 Architecture.— During the administration of Pericles, architecture sprang 
 from rude forms to perfection. From the Greeks we derive three orders or 
 styles, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian ; from the Romans, the Tus¬ 
 can and the Composite ; from the Goths, the Gothic, in which most of our 
 ancient cathedrals are constructed. The Tuscan order is the simplest and least 
 ornamented. The essential character of the Doric is solidity; of the Ionic, 
 delicacy and elegance; of the Corinthian, nobility and grace. The Composite 
 is, as its name indicates, a mixture of Ionic and Corinthian. The temple of 
 Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis was built in the Doric manner; that of Diana 
 at Ephesus and of Apollo at Miletus, in the Ionic ; the temple of the Olympian 
 Jupiter at Athens, in the Corinthian ; the column of Trajan at Rome, in the 
 Tuscan; and the Pantheon in the Composite. 
 
 Sculpture. —The ancient sculptors made use of wood, stone, marble, ivory, 
 precious stones, as the agate, several metals, as gold, silver, copper, brass, and 
 different other plastic substances, such as clay, plaster, and wax. The most 
 celebrated statuaries were Phidias, Polycletus, Myro, Lysippus, and Praxiteles. 
 The Elgin marbles in the British Museum are supposed to have been carved 
 under the direction of Phidias, part being the work of his own hand ; the famous 
 horses of Venice are said to be the production of Lysippus. 
 
 Painting. —We have no specimens to show that this elegant art was carried 
 to so high a degree of perfection as sculpture. The Greeks made use of only 
 four colours, black, white, red, and yellow. Down to the age of Nero, paint¬ 
 ings were executed chiefly on wood: at this period canvass began to be 
 employed, but it seems clearly demonstrated that the ancients were entirely 
 unacquainted with oil-painting. They wrought in distemper and in fresco ; the 
 
 * This partition of the empire of Alexander remarkably fulfils the prophecy of Daniel 
 (chap, viii.): “The great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones, 
 toward the four winds of heaven.” 
 
 tUsed in the East by Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Mahoinmedans,—called Era of 
 Contracts bv the Jews. 
 
 8 * 
 
\ 
 
 90 * ANCIENT HISTORY. ✓ 
 
 former, on wooden tablets, with colours mingled with gum-water; the latter, 
 on walls covered with fresh and undried plaster. They practised also painting 
 in various kinds of wax, in miniature, enamel, and mosaic. The most celebrated 
 artists of antiquity were, Polygnotus, Apollodorus, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Pam- 
 philus, Timanthes, Apelles, Aristides, Protogenes, and Pausias, almost all 
 fellow-countrymen and contemporaries of the sculptors named above. 
 
 Music.—The object of music among the Greeks was to elevate the mind 
 rather than charm the ear ; it excited to courage in battle, softened the manners 
 of the savage, and thus contributed to the progress of civilisation. Music hav¬ 
 ing there a political end, was cultivated with great care, and formed in a certain 
 measure part of their national education. In Sparta, every innovation in the 
 art was strictly forbidden, and a musician was banished who had ventured to 
 increase the number of the strings of the lyre. 
 
 Poetry. —Thespis, of Attic birth, is the reputed inventor of the dramatic art, 
 595 b. c. iEschylus, who lived in the time of Xerxes, and shared with his 
 brother Cynaegirus the dangers of the Persian wars, distinguished himself as 
 an author in that department. The battle off Salamis, at which he was present, 
 forms the subject of one of his tragedies. Sophocles surpassed him in purity 
 and simplicity : of his numerous compositions only seven remain. Euripides, 
 the rival of Sophocles, carried, in the opinion of the eminent critic Aristotle, 
 the pathetic power of tragedy to its greatest height. 
 
 Susarion of Megara, a contemporary of Thespis, is said to have been the 
 inventor of comedy ; Aristophanes, unequalled for his wit and genius, both too 
 frequently defiled by the grossness of his time, introduced the living manners 
 on the stage. The political aims of his comedies can scarcely be accurately 
 appreciated by the moderns. Menander, the predecessor of the Roman 
 Terence, made ideal characters the vehicle of his sentiments and of his 
 story. 
 
 In lyric poetry we meet with the name of Simonides and of the unrivalled 
 Pindar, who devoted their genius to the celebration of the victors at the Public 
 Games, about 390 b. c. Anacreon confined his muse to Epicurean and comic 
 strains; Alcaeus, Sappho, and Archilochus sang the pleasures and the pangs 
 of love. 
 
 Writing. —In the first ages of the world, writing was confined to characters 
 graven on stone or plates of metal. Palm-leaves came subsequently into use, 
 and then the inner bark {liber) of certain trees; soon afterwards, canvass and 
 tablets covered with wax were employed. Paper was introduced in the age of 
 Alexander; it was fabricated from the papyrus , a plant still growing on the 
 banks of the Nile and in Sicily. Eumenes, king of Pergamus, was the inventor 
 of parchment, and gave it the name it bears. 
 
 Eloquence. —Eloquence could not fail to be in great esteem among the 
 Greeks, with whom it was the principal instrument of polity and the mainspring 
 of government. Pericles was the first who gained any lasting reputation by 
 this popular talent; he was followed by Isocrates, Demades, Aeschines, Lysias, 
 Aristides,—all of whom were greatly surpassed by Demosthenes. 
 
 History. —History, according to the ideas of the ancients, had a close, con¬ 
 nexion with oratory. They were satisfied with the narrative, provided it con 
 tained long speeches gratuitously put into the mouths of actual personages. 
 Herodotus, surnamed the Father of History, is at the head of the list; Thucy¬ 
 dides, the most perfect of all, was the model adopted by Tacitus: Xenophon 
 was the author of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and of’the Cyropaedia. 
 Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Diodorus Siculus appeared sub 
 sequently. 
 
 Philosophy. —Greece gave birth to a great number of men, who, under the 
 name of philosophers, were occupied chiefly with the first principles of civil 
 polity and the duties of society. They were divided into a great number of 
 sects, the chief of which have been enumerated above, page 83. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 91 
 
 Remarks on the History of Alexander. 
 
 With the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea (362), and of Agesilaus in his 
 return from Egypt, terminates the history of the Greek commonwealths. 
 Their era was completed; that of the Macedonians was beginning. All the 
 republics united around three centres — Sparta, Thebes, Athens; but their 
 energies were exhausted when Philip appeared on the scene. His son per¬ 
 severed in his father’s course, though on a much larger theatre. Mind was 
 marching to the conquest of matter; despotism was about to yield to liberty. 
 Greece restored to the East the knowledge she had received from it. “ Thus,” 
 says Michelet, “this little imprisoned world declared eternal war against all 
 the relics of natural life in the oriental tribes. This form, by which the Pelasgi 
 had imitated Asia in Europe, was effaced by Athens and by Rome. In this 
 contest were strongly characterized the three epochs of Greece; she attacked 
 Asia in the Trojan War, — repelled her at Salamis,—subdued her under 
 Alexander.” 
 
 We should not regard this hero as a mere warrior sighing for fresh worlds 
 to conquer; he is to be admired rather for his sagacity and discrimination, 
 evinced in the political regulations of the various states which were subjected 
 to his authority. He was the messenger of the Almighty sent forth to work 
 his predicted ends; to effect no transient conquests, but to open the path into 
 the remote East; to introduce the Grecian language, the medium of civilisation 
 and Christianity, into those countries; and to prepare secretly yet power¬ 
 fully the way for that dispensation, which “in the fulness of time” was to 
 enlighten the countries he traversed as a conqueror. “ The fortune of Alexan¬ 
 der was indeed the overruling providence of God.” 
 
 Measured by years, his life was short; long, if we reckon it by events. How 
 great was his progress in a few months ! He was no longer King of Macedon, 
 but the conqueror of the world ; at his death it remained without a master. 
 His generals were brave, sagacious, enterprising, and successful, so long as 
 they fought under his eye. When he was no more, disunion and dissension 
 followed ; and the capital of the world was removed to Rome. “ She enclosed 
 within her walls two cities and two races, Tuscan and Sabine ; sacerdotal and 
 military ; eastern and western ; patrician and plebeian; landed property and 
 personal; stability and progression ; nature and liberty. It was now her turn 
 to rule.” From these apparently discordant materials, we shall soon perceive 
 how Rome became, even in consequence of them, the mistress of the world. 
 
 Consult: Williams’ Life of Alexander. 
 
 Prepare : A Map of the World after the division of Alexander’s Empire. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Preliminary Observations on the Gauls. 
 
 The Gauls or Celts now first appeared in history. They were a warlike 
 people, who, about two centuries before this period, had crossed the Alps under 
 the command of Bellovesus, and settled in the north of Italy, or Hither Gaul, 
 having exterminated the whole population. Their chief pursuits were pasturage 
 and war: the form of government was a hereditary monarchy : their religion, 
 Druidical. The strength of their armies consisted in cavalry or in chariots; 
 and the huge bodies wild features, and shaggy hair of the men, struck terror 
 into their enemies. They were badly equipped ; armour was rare, their shields 
 were small, their swords long, thin, and brittle. They hung the heads of the 
 slain to their horses’ manes, and in many of their houses might be seen, nailed 
 up as an heirloom, the skull of some person of rank who had fallen before them 
 in battle. Their towns were few, their habitations mean and comfortless 
 They betrayed an extreme passion for golden ornaments, which they ever 
 wore in battle. Their cloaks shone with all the hues of the rainbow, like the 
 picturesque dresses of the Highlanders. 
 
92 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Capture of Rome, 390 b. c.— Allured by the luxuries and climate of 
 Italy, successive invaders pushed farther south, crossed the Apennines, 
 and appeared before Clusium, where first they attracted the attention of 
 Rome, and whither ambassadors were sent to ascertain who these 
 foreigners were. The envoys having improperly taken part in a battle, 
 the Gauls demanded that they should be given up. The senate con¬ 
 sented, but the people refused; upon which the invading army, 70,000 
 strong, under Brennus, marched towards the city. They were met on 
 the banks of the Allia by 40,000 men, who were defeated with terrible 
 slaughter, and before nightfall the enemy were at the gates of Rome 
 The town was deserted, but the Capitol was held by about 1000 despe¬ 
 rate combatants. During several days the city was given up to plunder, 
 and, with a few exceptions, all the houses were burned to the ground. 
 Part of the conquering army now continued their advance, and the 
 remainder almost succeeded in taking the Capitol, the defenders of 
 which were reduced to the last extremities by famine. Brennus, after 
 remaining seven months, was induced to accept a thousand pounds 
 weight of gold as the price of quitting Rome and her territories, upon 
 which he led his people home without encountering opposition. The 
 story of their subsequent defeat by Camillus is a fiction of Roman vanity. 
 
 It was now proposed that the seat of government should be removed 
 to Yeii, a town equal to Rome in magnitude and beauty, when the lucky 
 omen of a word decided the question, and within a year a new city rose 
 from the ashes of the former. Fresh wars ensued; Roman fortune 
 again prevailed; the Sabines, Etrurians, Latins, iEqui, and Volsci, 
 were successively defeated, and the Gauls, who had attempted a second 
 invasion, were routed with great slaughter. But Rome still suffered 
 much from the former assault of that fierce people; though this, which 
 elsewhere was a deathblow to liberty, raised the constitution nearly to a 
 perfect state. The oppressive rate of interest, the power which the 
 creditor still possessed, and not unfrequentiy exercised, of life and death 
 over the debtor, had reduced the lower orders to desperation. Manlius, 
 the preserver of the Capitol, took pity on the helpless people. On the 
 retreat of the invaders, he had found himself neglected, while all civil 
 and military honours were heaped upon his enemy Camillus. His first 
 actions, which resulted from the pure feelings of humanity, led him to 
 become the patron of the commonalty. The measures by which he 
 proposed to alleviate the public distress excited the anger of the patri¬ 
 cians, who charged him with aiming at despotic power, and committed 
 him to prison, from which he was soon afterwards released. He was 
 again accused by the tribunes, with the design of driving him into exile, 
 but he was unanimously acquitted. Still thirsting for his blood, the 
 public prosecutors once more arraigned him ; he was on this accusation 
 condemned to death, and a slave treacherously pushed him down the 
 fatal Tarpeian rock, 384 b. c. 
 
 Licinian Laws. —The universal distress had now reached the highest 
 pitch, and Rome was on the point of degenerating into a miserable 
 oligarchy,-when two men appeared who changed the fate of their coun¬ 
 try and that of the world. In the year 376 b. c., Licinius Stolo and L. 
 Sextius were chosen tribunes. The celebrated rogations , which they 
 brought forward, produced a violent opposition between the two parties 
 of the state, which lasted six years. Though the country was fortu- 
 
FOURTH CENTURY B. C. 
 
 93 
 
 nately at peace, such a condition of affairs was unsafe; and at length, 
 Camillus mediating between the patricians and the commonalty, tho 
 rogations passed the senate. By these, the consuls, one of whom was 
 to°be a plebeian, replaced the military tribunes; the laws of debtor and 
 creditor were altered; an Agrarian law was enacted, limiting the shares 
 of the public lands to 500 acres and the taxes to be raised upon them, 
 and enjoining that free labourers should be employed in their cultivation. 
 The consular power was however diminished by committing judicial 
 affairs to a praetor, and by the appointment of curule aediles, 366 b. c. 
 L. Sextius Lateranus was the first plebeian consul; and the commons 
 having once made good their claim to this high office, were not long 
 before they participated in the others. They were admitted to the dic¬ 
 tatorship, 359; the censorship, 351; the praetorship, 337 ; and the priest¬ 
 hood, 301 b. c. A second commercial treaty with Carthage (348) shows 
 that the Roman navy was at this time far from contemptible; and though 
 it appears to have been merely piratical, squadrons were equipped and 
 sent from their ports before the close of the century. 
 
 Samnite Wars, 343 b. c. —The Samnites inhabited the mountains 
 towards the kingdom of Naples, and had spread still farther to the 
 south, when the Campanians, with whom they were at war, applied to 
 Rome for assistance, which was readily granted. The former made a 
 long and vigorous resistance; but being at last routed by Decius, 30,000 
 of them were left dead on the field. The Roman arms were now turned 
 against the Latins, who had long been their allies. A war, which dif¬ 
 fered little from a civil contest, broke out; and in a conflict at the foot 
 of Vesuvius, the Latin and Samnite forces would have conquered, but 
 for the patriotic sacrifice of Decius, who, clad in magnificent robes, 
 rushed into the ranks of the enemy, where he fell under a thousand 
 wounds. A cruel revenge was taken by the victors, and Latium was 
 rendered for ever incapable of opposing their power, 338 b. c. A signal 
 disgrace, it is true, was inflicted on their army at the Caudine Forks, 
 321 b.c. ; but it was soon effaced, and Samnium reduced to submission, 
 after a struggle of more than fifty years, 290 b. c. These wars opened 
 a way to the subjugation of Italy, and laid the foundation of Roman 
 greatness. A new species of tactics was learnt; the relations with 
 neighbouring states were more firmly established ; and the influence of 
 Rome extended to the most distant parts of the Peninsula. 
 
 The internal discords of the city were ended about this period in con¬ 
 sequence of three laws introduced by Publilius Philo, the dictator:^ 
 1st, The office of censor was made common to the two orders; 2d, The 
 veto was taken away from the curiae; 3d, The plebiscita, or decrees of 
 the people, were rendered binding on the whole state; the distinction 
 between patricians and commons being now merely nominal. Thus 
 was the constitution completed, and Rome rapidly advanced to universal 
 empire, 286 b. c. 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 Judaea now became part of the Syrian prefecture, under the heads of 
 the priesthood, subject to the civil and military control of the Persian 
 satraps, 373 b. c. The meagre annals of this period record but one 
 remarkable event, and that an atrocious crime, perpetrated by the high 
 priest Jonathan, who, suspecting his brother Joshua of intriguing with 
 
94 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Bagosess the imperial governor, slew him within the precincts of the 
 temple. Bagoses hastened to Jerusalem, forced his way into the holy 
 edifice, and imposed a heavy tax on the sacrifices as a penalty for that 
 outrage. Alexander passed under the walls of the city, which he was 
 induced to spare by the timely submission of the people, while he bow¬ 
 ed in adoration before the name of Jehovah, inscribed on the head-dress 
 of the high priest Jaddua. He was shown the prophecies in which 
 Daniel had foretold his conquest of the Persian empire, at which cir¬ 
 cumstance he was so much pleased, that he took the Jews into par¬ 
 ticular favour, 332 b. c. After his death and the division of his empire, 
 Palestine was regarded as a valuable frontier province both by the 
 Syrian and Egyptian kings. It fell at last into the hands of Ptolemy 
 Soter, who took Jerusalem by treachery on the Sabbath, and led a great 
 multitude of the inhabitants captive into Egypt, 312 b. c. Philadel- 
 phus, on his accession to the throne, released 120,000 of them, and 
 caused the famous translation of the Hebrew Bible, called the Septua - 
 gi?it, to be prepared by seventy learned men. The fables concerning 
 the isolation of these translators and the perfect coincidence of their 
 versions, are utterly unworthy of credit. The high priest Simon the 
 Just, the favourite hero of Jewish traditions, died in 292; an event that 
 is said to have been announced by prodigies, and which the nation had 
 cause to lament, while groaning under his unworthy successors. He 
 completed the Canon of the Ancient Scriptures, which has never since 
 been changed. About this time the sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, 
 and Essenes, assumed their peculiar distinctions. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 The safe retreat of the Ten Thousand, and the subsequent victories 
 of Agesilaus, revealed the weakness of this monarchy: but the union of 
 the Athenian and Persian fleets under Conon, and the defeat of the 
 Spartans near Cnidus, had neutralized those events, when the peace of 
 Antalcidas again restored to Persia its supremacy over Asia, and inflicted 
 on Sparta a deep disgrace. Artaxerxes II. failed in recovering Egypt 
 (374), so little could his barbarian hosts achieve without Grecian troops 
 and generals. The court was under the control of women; each 
 
 o 7 
 
 satrap was at war with his neighbour; and disputes about the succes¬ 
 sion had nearly produced the downfal of the empire thirty years before 
 the battle of Arbela. Ochus mounted the throne and assumed the name 
 of his father, 358 e. c. ; and though insurrections in Asia Minor and 
 extensive rebellions in Phoenicia, Egypt, and Cyprus, disturbed his 
 reign, he nevertheless, with the help of Greek mercenaries, reduced 
 Egypt once more to a Persian province (350). Returning to his own 
 capital, he resigned himself to luxury, as if desirous to allay the pang? 
 of conscience; for he had scarcely assumed the regal tiara before he 
 massacred one hundred and fifty of his relations, besides a great numbei 
 of the nobility. He was himself poisoned by his favourite, Bagoas, 
 who promoted the king’s youngest son to the throne, 338, but soon afte r 
 murdering him with all his family, he set up in his place the unfortunate 
 Darius III. Codomannus, by whom the invasion of Alexander was ably 
 opposed. After several bloody battles, the last of which was fought on 
 the well-known field of Arbela (331 b. c.), the destiny of the empire 
 was sealed, and Darius, whose virtues entitled him to a better fate, 
 shortly afterwards perished by assassination. 
 
THIRD CENTURY B. C. 
 
 95 
 
 THIRD CENTURY. 
 
 Rome.— 280, Pyrrhus.—264, First Punic War.—256, Regulus in Africa.— 
 218, Second Punic War.—216, Cannae.—202, Zama. 
 
 Greece. —280, Achaean League.—279, Gallic Invasion.—226, Cleomenes.— 
 206, Philopoemen. 
 
 Macedon. —294, Demetrius Poliorcetes.—286, Lysimachus.—221, Philip V. 
 Egypt. —283, Ptolemy Philadelphus.—270, Septuagint Translation of the He¬ 
 brew Scriptures.—256, Parthia—Arsaces. 
 
 Inventions, &c. —269, First silver money coined at Rome.—264, The Parian 
 Chronicle.—263, Parchment.—250, Clepsydra.—220, Burning-glasses. 
 Literature, &c. —Euclid, Archimedes, Theocritus, Manetho—Plautus, d. 183. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Pyrrhus, 280-275 b. c. — After subjugating the Latins and Samnites, 
 the Romans turned their arms against the Tarentines, who, unable to 
 defend themselves, applied to the King of Epirus for assistance. Taren- 
 tum was a Lacedaemonian colony of the eighth century b. c., established 
 at the same period with many other towns in the southern parts of the 
 Italian peninsula, hence called Magna Graecia. These cities, which 
 had made rapid advances in wealth and power, had also attained some 
 eminence in science, literature, and philosophy. Crotona was immor¬ 
 talized by the presence and instructions of Pythagoras, to whom the 
 real system of the universe was not unknown; while Herodotus and 
 Lysias were among the founders of Thurium. The Eleatic school of 
 philosophy, the parent of so much genius and virtue, was first formed 
 in Magna Graecia, where history and poetry were cultivated with an 
 ardour worthy of their birth. The celebrated laws of Zaleucus of Locris 
 continued in force two centuries; but the progress of the Tarentines in 
 luxury, which led to their ruin, was not less rapid than their advances 
 in literature and refinement. Involved in a contest with the Romans, 
 they demanded the aid of the military talents of Pyrrhus. He came to 
 their assistance with 30,000 men, and success at first crowned his efforts 
 on the fields of Heraclea and Asculum, but after six years he was com¬ 
 pelled to yield to the ascendency of Rome. Leaving the Tarentines to 
 their own resources, he returned to his native country, where he perished 
 by an unworthy death, 272. The fall of their capital in the following 
 year decided the fate of Southern Italy. 
 
 Punic Wars, 264 b. c. — Seven years after the reduction of Magna 
 Graecia, the First Punic War broke out, and Sicily became the theatre 
 of the earliest struggle between Rome and Carthage. Syracuse, the 
 capital of the island, was of Corinthian origin,—the most celebrated of 
 all the cities that were founded by the Greeks. It had reached the 
 height of political and literary renown about a century previous to the 
 breaking out of the Punic Wars. The single name of Archimedes 
 would have immortalized it. Epicharmus was the model of Plautus, 
 and Theocritus, the first of pastoral poets, has been closely imitated by 
 Virgil. So great, indeed, was the estimation in which learning was 
 held, that even the tyrant Dionysius was its patron, and a competitor 
 tor its envied honours. The First Punic War was begun in defence of 
 
96 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 an act of flagrant injustice, and to protect a band of murderous savages 
 The Mamertines, a mercenary body of Italian soldiers, after serving n 
 the armies of Agathocles, had taken forcible possession of the city of 
 Messana, and put all the inhabitants to the sword, *280. The Syracusans 
 and the Carthaginians united to punish them, upon which the terrified 
 criminals applied to the Romans for support. The pretext for war was 
 eagerly seized on, as, independently of the hatred existing between the 
 rival republics, it was necessary to remove a powerful enemy from the 
 neighbourhood of Southern Italy, which had been so recently conquered. 
 
 Preliminary Observations. 
 
 The defeat of Pyrrhus and the subjugation of Magna Greecia, with the 
 definitive submission of Samnium and Etruria, had reduced beneath the Roman 
 sway all Italy from the Arno to the Straits of Messina. The Roman name 
 began to attract attention and to be treated with respect; the constitution was 
 in its utmost vigour; and a chain of military colonies, the nurseries of hardy 
 and experienced soldiers, held the conquered nations in awe from north to south. 
 Such was the state of Rome: nor was that of Carthage in any respect inferior 
 at the breaking out of these celebrated wars—called Punic , from the Po&ni. or 
 Phoenicians, from whom the Carthaginians were descended. They are three 
 in number:— 
 
 First, 264^241 b. c., by which the Carthaginians were compelled to evacuate 
 Sicily and the Italian Isles. They suffered still more by the total exhaustion 
 of their finances, and a civil commotion of three years and a half (240-237), 
 terminated only by the heroism of Hamilcar, who sought the aid of the demo¬ 
 cracy against the power of the senate. 
 
 Second , 218-202 b. c. Signalised by the rivalry of Hannibal and Scipio. The 
 Romans conquered Spain, and Carthage was deprived of all her possessions 
 out of Africa. 
 
 Third , 149-146 b. c. Scipio iEmilianus, surnamed Africanus II., took and 
 destroyed Carthage. 
 
 First Punic War, 264-241 b. c.—The great obstacle to carrying 
 on this war was the want of a fleet, which the ingenuity of the Romans 
 soon supplied ; and, strange to relate, in the first naval battle, the consul 
 Duillius defeated a nation long the mistress of the seas, 260. Scipio 
 expelled the Carthaginians from Corsica, while Regulus transferred the 
 seat of war from Sicily to Africa, where he was defeated, and taken 
 prisoner by the superior skill of Xantippus, a Lacedaemonian general. 
 The torments inflicted on the captive are said to be imaginary, and were 
 invented solely to extenuate the Roman cruelty towards their prisoners, 
 and to make it appear an act of retaliation. After various successes, in 
 one of which off Drepanum (Trapani) the Romans lost ninety galleys, 
 and 28,000 men killed or made prisoners, the Carthaginians met with a 
 signal defeat on the western coast of Sicily, which terminated the war, 
 241. The conditions of peace were the surrender of that island and the 
 payment of 2200 talents. 
 
 The temple of Janus was now shut for the first time since the reign 
 of Numa, 235 b. c. 
 
 Second Punic War, 218-202 b. c. —The issue of the preceding war, 
 while it exalted the Roman state and extended its influence abroad, 
 increased also the power of the senate. Little breathing time was 
 allowed to this warlike people. Their powerful navy was next employed 
 in destroying the Illyrian pirates under a queen called Teuta; and thus, 
 while their maritime superiority was preserved, their first political rela¬ 
 tions with Greece were formed. A dreadful war of six years next 
 
THIRD CENTURY B. C. 
 
 97 
 
 ensued with the Transalpine Gauls, to oppose whom was levied an 
 army said to amount to the almost incredible number of 700,000 infantry 
 and 70,000 cavalry. The invaders had entered Etruria and cut to pieces 
 50,000 men near Clusium,-when the victory near Telamo (225) saved 
 Rome. Northern Italy was soon after compelled to submit, and the 
 conquest of Istria and Illyria, in 219, opened the way to Greece. 
 
 This war had scarcely ceased when the Romans were called upon to 
 defend their country against one of the most remarkable generals of 
 ancient times. Hannibal was the sw T orn enemy of Rome, even from his 
 youth. He succeeded in the command of the army in Spain, to his 
 father, the great Hamilcar, and to Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s son-in-law. 
 At the age of twenty-six, he captured the city of Saguntum in alliance 
 with the Romans, and in a short time completed the conquest of the 
 Peninsula. A second war between the tw T o nations now broke out, in 
 which Hannibal, adopting the policy of the enemy, carried the war into 
 the heart of their country. By a rapid march he crossed the Pyrenees, 
 the Rhone, and the Alps,* and with little more than 30,000 men, defeated 
 the consul Scipio at the Ticinus. Again at the Trebia he vanquished 
 Sempronius; at the lake Trasimenus he routed Flaminius; and so 
 eagerly were the combatants engaged that a great earthquake, which 
 overthrew many cities in Italy, was by them quite unperceivecL At the 
 great battle of Cannae, 216, he was again victorious, and left 70,000 of 
 the enemy dead on the field. This triumph threw all the south of Italy 
 into his hands; but Rome was too powerful to be overthrown even by 
 such a terrible reverse. While the Carthaginian army was wintering 
 in the luxurious Capua, the senate was occupied in raising new troops, 
 conciliating allies, and carrying on a successful war in Sicily, Spain, 
 Sardinia, and Greece. Marcellus inflicted two severe checks upon Han¬ 
 nibal near Nola, and the latter, shortly after, while menacing Rome, 
 lost Capua and Tarentum, 209. His brother Hasdrubal, marching to his 
 assistance with 60,000 men, was worsted and slain near the Metaurus; 
 and after keeping possession of Italy fifteen years, during which neither 
 money nor assistance reached him from home, he was recalled to oppose 
 the armies of Scipio. The fate of Carthage was sealed at Zama, where 
 Hannibal was defeated. Rigorous terms of peace were imposed on the 
 vanquished city : all her foreign possessions were to be given up,—her 
 munitions and ships of war to be surrendered, — a tribute of 10,000 
 talents to be paid in fifty years, and she was bound to engage in no war 
 without the consent of Rome, 202 b. c. 
 
 Hannibal, on his return, was placed as supreme magistrate at the 
 head of the republic ; and so great were the reforms he introduced into 
 the finances, that ten years had scarcely elapsed before Carthage was 
 enabled to furnish at once the whole of the tribute which she had 
 engaged to pay by instalments. The Barcine faction to which he be¬ 
 longed was dominant; that of Hanno was powerless. Already he 
 meditated a vast confederacy of the world against Rome, when he was 
 demanded by her ambassadors. Compelled to flee from his native 
 
 * Hannibal’s inarch across the Alps has called forth nearly a hundred different accounts. 
 The most probable routes are those of the Little St. Bernard, Mount Genevre, or Mount 
 Cenis. The dissertation of Messrs. Cramer and Wickham appear to prove that the first 
 must claim the honour of Hannibal’s passage. The reader will smile at the account of 
 the softening the rocks by the joint action of fire and vinegar, or esteem it an extra 
 vagant metaphor, expressive of the ardour and impetuosity of the invading army. 
 
 9 
 
98 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 country, he took refuge with Antiochus of Syria; he afterwards retired 
 to Crete, and then to Bithynia, where, finding that Prusias the king was 
 about to betray him to his enemies, he took poison, of which he died, 
 183 b. c., in the 65th year of his age. About the same period Scipio, his 
 great rival, expired in retirement at Linternum. 
 
 The conquest of Magna Grtecia, and the intercourse with Sicily, brought 
 Rome into contact with the philosophy and literature of Greece at a period 
 when they had reached their highest perfection. A rapid and almost unparal¬ 
 leled improvement was the consequence. An immediate change took place in 
 the language ; its barbarisms suddenly disappeared, and Latin became a com¬ 
 paratively polished tongue. The power of Rome was also greatly increased by 
 the result of the Punic War. Her dominion extended over foreign countries, 
 and the destruction of the Carthaginian navy left her without a rival on the sea. 
 She had now become also a great military republic, and began henceforward 
 to aspire to universal dominion,—an object rendered easier by the degeneracy 
 of the people in foreign states. 
 
 State of Europe and Asia at the end of the First Funic War. 
 
 The Roman dominion and influence prevailed from the north to the south 
 of Italy, in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and on all the northern coast of Africa, 
 and began to be felt also in Greece and in the East. At this epoch there were 
 only three powers capable of making a vigorous resistance against the con¬ 
 querors of Carthage. These were— 
 
 1. Greece, in which these various nations still formed a strong barrier : The 
 fierce JEtolians . the members of the Achcean League , and the Boeotians. 
 
 2. Macedonia, defended by its lofty mountains, and formidable on account 
 of its courageous and active population. 
 
 3. Syria , the most powerful of the kingdoms which rose upon the ruins of 
 Alexander’s empire ; but the kings posterior to Seleucus passed an effeminate 
 life; the example spread from the court to the army, and even the Romans 
 were tainted by it during their war with Antiochus. 
 
 Prepare : Map of the Roman dominions. 
 
 Trace : Rout of Hannibal and his campaigns from the siege of Saguntum 
 till he quitted Italy. 
 
 GREECE AND MACEDON. 
 
 The extensive ank rapid victories of Alexander terminated in the 
 murder of all his family, and the usurpation of his throne. The battle 
 of Ipsus in Phrygia decided the fate of the various competitors. Mace- 
 don fell to the share of Cassander, but he enjoyed his sovereignty only 
 three years; and he was shortly after followed to the tomb by Philip, 
 his successor. The two remaining sons disputed the throne, when 
 Antipater murdered his own mother Thessalonice, for the partiality she 
 manifested towards his younger brother. Each now applied to foreign¬ 
 ers for help: Antipater to his father-in-father law Lysimachus of 
 Thrace, and Alexander to Demetrius Poliorcetes, by whom he was 
 shortly afterwards put to death. The army proclaimed Demetrius king, 
 and in his person the house of Antigonus ascended the throne of Mace¬ 
 donia. His seven years’ government was a constant series of wars; 
 and being dethroned by Pyrrhus, he died a prisoner in the hands of his 
 son-in-law Seleucus, 283 b. c. Lysimachus of Thrace expelled the 
 ruler of Epirus after a brief reign of one year; but he was soon involved 
 in a war with Seleucus Nicator in wdiich he lost his life, 281. The 
 monarch of Asia now r assumed the title of kino- of Macedonia ; but 
 
 o 
 
 shortly after he had crossed over to his new dominions, he fell !y the 
 
THIRD CENTURY B. C. 
 
 99 
 
 nand of Ceraunus, brother of the Egyptian sovereign. The assassin 
 ’.ad scarcely secured the throne before he lost his life in battle against 
 the invading Gauls, 279. Antigonus Gonatas, son of Poliorcetes, who 
 now assumed the vacant, throne, was deposed by Pyrrhus ; but after his 
 death, he recovered his dominions, which he and his family possessed 
 until the Roman conquest. He died in his eightieth year, and was suc¬ 
 ceeded by his son, Demetrius II., 243. Philip V. ascended the throne 
 after the usurpation of Doson, 221. At the early age of sixteen he 
 displayed many of tiie qualities that form a great prince; he participated 
 in the war between the htltolian and Achaean leagues; and ratified a 
 treaty with Hannibal against the Romans. Many things concurred to 
 prevent both parties from acting upon this agreement, and finally a 
 general peace was concluded in 204. 
 
 During this century the Gauls or Celts, who had established them¬ 
 selves in Pannunia 300 years before, threatened Greece with invasion. 
 Two expeditions were unsuccessful, but the third, under Brennus II., 
 overran Macedonia, and penetrated as far as Delphi, where a dreadful 
 storm having thrown their army into confusion, they were attacked and 
 routed by the Greeks. Another party, continuing their march towards 
 the East, supported the claims of Nicornedes to the throne of Bithynia, 
 and settled in the province called from them Galatia, or Gallo-Graecia. 
 
 Athens, on the death of Alexander, made some vain endeavours to 
 recover her liberty, which ended in the imposition of a more grievous 
 yoke. To regain their freedom the cities of Achaea revived the ancient 
 confederacy, named the 
 
 Ach-«an League, — a union of several small republics in Achaia, 
 bound together on the footing of perfect equality. Their constitution 
 was so renowned as to be adopted by several other Grecian cities. This 
 coalition was dissolved in the commotions subsequent to the death of 
 Alexander. In 280, it was partially revived, but did not become formi¬ 
 dable till the accession of foreign states (243-229). Many great names 
 appear in connexion with it; such as the virtuous Aratus, Philopcemen, 
 and Lycortas. The Romans endeavoured to excite quarrels between 
 the different members, with the view of checking their rising power; yet 
 Philopcemen, the last of the Greeks , maintained their dignity, at the very 
 time when the Romans presumed to speak as arbitrators. He was 
 taken prisoner by the Messenians, and poisoned at the age of seventy; 
 and the venal Callicrates who could hear unmoved 44 the very boys in 
 the streets taunt him with treachery,” became his successor. The 
 conquest of Macedonia led to the destruction of the Achaean League. 
 Above 1000 of the most eminent members were summoned to Rome, 
 167, and kept in prison seventeen years without a hearing; and when at 
 length they were allowed to return home, they excited a war against 
 the common enemy. Their heroic efforts proved vain against dishonesty 
 within and the powerful arms of Rome without. With the taking of 
 Corinth vanished the last hopes of Grecian independence, and under 
 the title of Achaia the country lost even its name, 146 b. c. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 The Ptolemies. —Ptolemy I., 323 b.c., the son of Lagus and sup¬ 
 posed brother of Alexander, was governor of Egypt, which title he 
 
100 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 changed for that of king after the battle of Ipsus, 301. He wished to 
 form a state on the model of Greece, and with that design beautified 
 
 ' O 
 
 Alexandria, and laid the foundations of its celebrated library. His 
 empire increased every day in wealth, learning, and civilisation. It is 
 said of him that he never went to war without neceSvsity, and that he 
 was always successful. He was named Soter (Deliverer) by the Rho¬ 
 dians, whom he had protected against the attacks of Demetrius Polior- 
 cetes, 304. His son, the second of the name, who had ascended the 
 throne in 286 as joint-king, became sole monarch two years after. It 
 was in irony that he was styled Philadelphus, having put one brother to 
 death and banished another. In the patronage he bestowed upon learn¬ 
 ing, he excelled even his father: at his court were entertained the 
 astronomer-poet Aratus; the grammarians Aristophanes and Aristarchus ; 
 Theocritus, and Lycophron the celebrated commentator; the historian 
 Manetho; the mathematicians Conon, Euclid, and Hipparchus; Calli¬ 
 machus and Zenodotus, the latter famous for his notes on Homer. By 
 his order the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was pre¬ 
 pared ; the lighthouse of the Pharos erected; and the canal between the 
 Nile and the Red Sea cleared out. Ptolemy III., 246, trod in the steps 
 of his father and grandfather; his grateful subjects styled him Euergetes 
 (the Benefactor). Before his death in 221, his government extended to 
 Cyrene, as well as over Ccele-Syria, Phoenicia, Lycia, Caria, and 
 Cyprus in the north. Egypt was singularly fortunate in having three 
 great kings in succession. The change which ensued was produced in 
 the natural course of events, for it was impossible that a prosperous court 
 should remain untainted by luxury. Ptolemy IV. Philopator, a de¬ 
 bauched and cruel monarch, was ruled by crafty favourites, who like¬ 
 wise endeavoured to maintain their power during the early part of the 
 reign of the youthful Ptolemy V. surnamed Epiphanes; but the nation, 
 to avoid the dangers impending from the attacks of the Macedonian and 
 Syrian monarchs, intrusted the regency to the senate of Rome, 202. 
 
 The internal government of Egypt appears latterly to have been in most 
 respects similar to that of ancient times. The division into nomes continued ; 
 the regal power was limited; the priestly caste with their ancient forms of 
 religion still existed. Under Ptolemy II. Egypt was inferior to Rome alone. 
 Theocritus, probably with the exaggeration of a poet, speaks of its 33,000 
 citjes; at all events, it was the greatest mercantile nation then existing. By 
 its caravans and its fleet of merchant-ships, it collected in its warehouses the 
 silks and spices of India, the purple of Phoenicia, the precious metals of Spain 
 and Thrace, and the ivory of Ethiopia. The revenue, without including the 
 corn-tax, which was paid in kind, amounted to 14,800 silver talents (about four 
 millions sterling). 
 
 Consult: Sharpe’s Egypt under the Ptolemies. 
 
 PARTHIA 
 
 Lies between Media and Aria, southward from Hyrcania. The 
 tyranny of the Syrian viceroy, Agathocles, drove the inhabitants into 
 rebellion. Arsaces, by his military talents, raised himself to power, 
 and with him begins the numerous family of the Arsacidae, 256 b. c. 
 The Euphrates, the Indus, and the Caspian Sea soon became the boun¬ 
 daries of the kingdom, remarkable in history for little more than its 
 obstinate wars against the Romans, in one of which Crassus was 
 defeated and killed, 53 b. c. His death was avenged some years after- 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 101 
 
 wards by the consul Ventidius; but Julian the Apostate,'despising the 
 lessons of experience, invaded the country and perished with a numerous 
 army. The regal power was extinguished by the Sassanides, a. d. 226 . 
 
 This empire was divided into satrapies, and contained several small 
 tributary kingdoms, with some Grseco-Macedonian settlements. The 
 constitution was monarchical and aristocratic. The supremacy of the 
 Parthians, a people jealous of all strangers, interrupted the commerce 
 between the East and West, until a new route was opened by Palmyra 
 and Alexandria. 
 
 SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 Rome.— 197, Battle of Cynoscephalae.—190, Defeat of Antiochus the Great. 
 —168, Battle of Pydna.—146, Corinth and Carthage burnt.—133, Fall of 
 Numantia.—133 and 121, Gracchi.—111, Jugurthine War.—102, Cimbric 
 War. 
 
 JuDiEA. —166, Judas Maccabaeus. — 130, Independent. — 106, Aristobulus. 
 Inventions, &c. — 190, Pumps by Hero of Alexandria. — 142, Precession of 
 Equinoxes, Latitude and Longitude, Spherical Trigonometry, by Hipparchus. 
 Literature. —Polybius, Aristarchus, Bion and Moschus, Ennius, Terence. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Macedon reduced. —The fortunate conclusion of the Second Punic 
 War had inspired the Romans with a desire of subjugating the world. 
 Hostilities were declared against Philip in spite of the opposition of the 
 tribunes, and the artful Quintius Flamininus was sent against him. 
 Much political ingenuity was displayed by these two commanders, but 
 at length Quintius succeeded in gaining over the Achaean League, 
 assisted by whose cavalry he utterly routed his antagonist at the battle 
 of Cynoscephalae, 197 b. c. The treaty which followed, besides con¬ 
 fining the king to the boundaries of Macedon, imposed a tribute of 1000 
 talents, and stipulated for the surrender of his fleet, as well as for the 
 reduction of his army to 500 men. Roman commissioners now filled 
 the country; but the troops were not withdrawn from the states which 
 had been declared free at the national festival of the Isthmian games. 
 
 Syrian War. —Antiochus III. of Syria was the only remaining enemy 
 in any degree formidable to the Romans. His dominions extended from 
 the east of Persia to Asia Minor, and he was meditating the conquest 
 of Egypt, when the Roman intervention was solicited in favour of 
 Ptolemy V. Some time after, Antiochus undertook to reduce Caria and 
 Lydia, and had crossed the Hellespont to seize on the Thracian Cher¬ 
 sonese. At this time Hannibal, who had fled to him for refuge, offered, 
 at the head of 10,000 men, to transfer the war to Italy. Had this pro¬ 
 posal been adopted, the result of the contest might have been different. 
 To avert the impending danger, Rome gained over to her interest 
 Eumenes of Pergamus, whose fears had been excited by the power of 
 Antiochus. The vanity of the Greeks was flattered more than ever; 
 Philip of Macedon was easily won over; and the fidelity of the Boeo¬ 
 tians and Achaeans was assured. The importance attached to this war 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 was such, that the consul Cornelius forbade the senators to be absent 
 from Rome more than one day at a time. 
 
 Antiochus commanded his army in person. He had been led to expect 
 that all Greece would rise at his approach, but he was joined by only 
 two or three of the smaller tribes. At Thermopylae, Cato, by a bold 
 movement, gained the passage defended by the Syrian army, which was 
 utterly routed, Antiochus himself scarcely halting until he reached the 
 Asiatic continent, 191. His rear was closely pressed by the Roman 
 legions, under the command of L. Scipio, whose brother, Africanus, was 
 then serving as his lieutenant. The defeat at Magnesia in 190, for ever 
 broke the power of the Syrian empire, and the conditions of peace 
 included the evacuation of Asia Minor, the surrender of Hannibal, and 
 the payment of 15,000 talents. The king perished in attempting to 
 plunder the temple of Elymais in Persia, 187 b. c. 
 
 Syria remained a separate kingdom many years, and the throne was 
 frequently an object of violent contention, until Pompey having defeated 
 Mithridates and Tigranes, subdued Antiochus XI., and reduced the coun¬ 
 try to a Roman province, 65 b. c. 
 
 Perseus. —Fresh disputes arose with Macedon, but war did not break 
 out until 172. The two sons of Philip were Demetrius and Perseus, 
 the former of whom had been sent as a hostage to Rome. The policy 
 of the senate succeeded in attaching this vouth to the Roman interest, 
 with the view of causing a disunion between the brothers. Hence 
 Demetrius had hardly returned to Macedon before he was accused of 
 endeavouring to assassinate Perseus. Philip, who had allowed him¬ 
 self to be prejudiced against his son, ordered him to be put to death, 
 and died himself some time after under the tortures of a guilty con¬ 
 science. To ascend the throne by the murder of a prince befriended by 
 Rome, was almost equivalent to a declaration of war against the repub¬ 
 lic. But all the efforts of Roman policy were required to prevent the 
 formation of a powerful confederacy in the East. A deceitful truce was 
 resorted to for gaining time; and at first the war was favourable to 
 Perseus. At length, wearied by the slow progress of hostilities, and 
 contrary to their usual custom, the republicans sent an old general, 
 Paulus iEmilius, against him. The bloody and decisive battle near 
 Pydna, 168 b. c., showed how easily a kingdom may be overturned 
 which has only an army for its support. Perseus, after being led in 
 triumph, was starved in prison: Macedonia was now divided into four 
 governments; and the inhabitants were forbidden to marry, or to pur¬ 
 chase property out of their district, under pain of death. Their gold¬ 
 mines were no longer to be worked, all commerce with foreigners was 
 prohibited, and as if to insult the unfortunate, they were declared free. 
 An adventurer, Andriscus, pretending to be the son of Perseus, placed 
 himself at the head of the disaffected ; but he was overcome by Metel- 
 lus, and the native country of Alexander submitted finally to the arms 
 of Rome, 146 b. c. 
 
 Conquest of Greece. —The Greeks perceived when too late the error 
 they had committed in demanding Roman aid against Macedon. The 
 members of the Achaean league still made head against the ambitious 
 barbarians, but their utmost efforts and heroism proved vain. At Ther¬ 
 mopylae, and again at the Isthmus, the fortune of Italy prevailed. 
 Corinth was taken by Mummius, who, after countenancing the most 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. ^ 103 
 
 revolting cruelties, burnt the city to the ground, 146. Greece now also 
 became a tributary province under the name of Achaia. 
 
 Third Punic War.— This war originated in domestic faction. Cato, 
 envious of the great influence possessed by Scipio Nasica in the senate, 
 was offended by the coldness with which he had been received as 
 ambassador at Carthage; and the disputes with Masinissa were made 
 the pretext for hostilities, 149. The Romans, after claiming all their 
 ships of war, ordered the Carthaginians to quit their city, and build 
 another in the interior. So imperious a command was not obeyed; 
 despair furnished them with arms; the women cut off their hair to 
 weave cordage for the ships, and gave their ornaments as a contribution 
 towards the defence of their country. During three years the devoted 
 city held out; but at length the younger Scipio ^Emilianus obtained a 
 footing within its walls. For six days more the inhabitants maintained 
 an obstinate resistance,— every inch of ground was defended with 
 desperation; and in the end, setting fire to the town, they perished in 
 the ruins. Seventeen days the conflagration continued, and the con¬ 
 queror, it is said, wept at the dreadful sight. Thus perished the mis¬ 
 tress of the sea, the most formidable rival of Rome, 146 b. c. The 
 city was more than twenty miles in circumference, contained 700,000 
 inhabitants, and its wealth may be estimated by the plunder collected 
 by Scipio, amounting to ^61,500,000.* 
 
 Spanish War. —In Spain, also, the Roman arms had proved victo¬ 
 rious. This region was originally possessed by Celts and Iberians, a 
 brave and independent race, whose descendants still survive on the 
 shores of Biscay. The rich mines of gold and silver excited the cupidity 
 of the Romans, but so courageously was the country defended, that 
 seventy years elapsed ere its conquest was effected. Carthage had 
 never possessed more than the coast and Baetica; the interior and the 
 west were protected by the mountains so favourable to that species of 
 warfare in which the Spaniards excel. The contest began with the 
 revolt of the Seditani, 200 b. c. They were soon crushed; and after 
 three years’ tranquillity the senate was alarmed by the news of a general 
 insurrection, and the defeat of the praetor Sempronius. Cato cruelly 
 retaliated by destroying 400 towns in one day; but Paulus ^Emilius, 
 afterwards so famous in Macedon, lost 6000 men, whose fate he 
 revenged by the slaughter of 20,000 Spaniards in the following year. 
 Successive battles under different generals took place, until Sempronius 
 Gracchus, who was four times victorious, concluded a favourable treaty, 
 179. Other successes gained by Posthumius compelled the Lusitanians 
 to lay down their arms. After a long peace, only interrupted by two 
 revolts which were easily quelled, the Celtiberians, now weary of inac¬ 
 tion, defeated Calpurnius Piso, routed A. Fulvius Nobilior, with the 
 loss of 6000 men, and destroyed his army at Numantia, 153. Mum- 
 mius, and the consul Marcellus, were scarcely more fortunate. 
 Alarmed by such repeated misfortunes, the Romans regarded Spain as 
 the tomb of their legions. The victories were dearly purchased ; men 
 refused to be enrolled for this interminable war ; and the province would 
 have been lost but for the courage of Scipio iEmilianus, son of Paulus 
 
 * It has been conjectured that the city of Timbuctoo may have been founded by Car 
 thaginians who escaped from the conflagration of their city. 
 
104 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 dBmilius, and adopted grandchild of Scipio Africanus. Lucullus ana 
 Galba were unsuccessful in all but their plans to enrich themselves 
 the latter, by an atrocious massacre of 30,000 unarmed men, made the 
 name of his country an object of execration throughout the Peninsula. 
 A shepherd, named Viriathus, who had escaped from this slaughter, 
 put himself at the head of a small body of partisans. The fame of his 
 exploits having brought together a numerous army, he defeated the 
 praetor sent against him, 149 b. c. Four generals were successively 
 foiled by this skilful leader; but the temporizing tactics of the consul 
 Fabius iEmilianus proved a match for him. Metellus Macedonicus 
 restored the reputation of the Roman arms in Celtiberia; still in Lusi¬ 
 tania, Viriathus defeated a new proconsul, and afterwards the consul 
 himself near Ituca. The exhaustion of both parties led to a peace, 
 most humiliating on the part of Rome, which was only a snare, as the 
 consul Caepio took up arms as soon as he knew that the allies were 
 separated and their troops disbanded. Viriathus still resisted, when the 
 invader, unable to attain his ends by other means, corrupted two of the 
 officers of that brave commander, who assassinated him in his tent, 141 
 b. c. With his death ended the war in Lusitania, only to break out 
 more fiercely in Celtiberia; it was no longer confined to the mountains, 
 for Numantia became the second terror of the Romans. The consul 
 Mancinus was beaten in every encounter, and obliged to retreat in dis¬ 
 grace, after concluding an ignominious treaty, which the senate, ever 
 unfaithful in such cases, refused to ratify. Scipio JEmilianus, who ten 
 years before had destroyed Carthage, was nominated to conclude this 
 war. He blockaded Numantia, and surrounded it with a double line 
 of fortifications; the one to repel the sallies from the town, the other to 
 oppose any attempts that might be made to raise the siege. At last, 
 reduced by famine and disease to a very small number, the inhabitants 
 set fire to their houses and perished in the flames, 133 b. c., upon which 
 the Romans took possession of a desolate and ruined city.—The reader 
 • will not fail to remark the extraordinary perseverance with which the 
 Spaniards, both in ancient and modern history, have defended their 
 besieged cities. It is unnecessary to mention more than three names,— 
 Saguntum, Numantia, and Saragosa. . In the army of Scipio were two 
 men who soon after became very celebrated, Jugurtha, grandson of 
 Masinissa, king of Numidia, who commanded a body of auxiliaries, 
 and Marius who was destined to vanquish him. 
 
 Conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. —The wars between the Gauls and 
 Romans were at once sudden and destructive; and the senate soon 
 became convinced that they could not safely leave such intrepid enemies 
 in Upper Italy. These barbarians, discovering the error into which 
 they had fallen in not seconding the designs of Hannibal, seized on a 
 favourable moment for reviving the war. In the year 200 b. c., when 
 the general attention was directed to the Macedonian contest, Rome 
 was alarmed by the report of a Gallic tumult , for that was the name 
 peculiarly applied to such invasions. Hamilcar was at the head of the 
 united tribes, who took the town and colony of Placentia, which he 
 burnt to the ground. Cremona was threatened with a similar fate, 
 when the assailants were attacked by the consular army, and routed 
 with the loss of 35,000 men, including their general. Seventy stand 
 a^ds, 200 war-chariots, and all the booty that had been collected ¥ 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 105 
 
 them, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The succeeding years, 
 marked with the usual alternations of success and defeat, produced an 
 excessive loss of life on both sides ; the Romans, however, gained 
 ground, owing to the greater regularity with which they pursued their 
 plans. In 194 b. c., a more vigorous effort was made, but the two 
 consuls were obliged to return unsuccessful. The population of Northern 
 Italy, meanwhile, was gradually decreasing, when a number of the 
 more influential families who bore the Gallic name, submitted to the 
 ronsuls ; one of whom, Q. Flamininus, desirous of pleasing a young 
 friend who had accompanied him from Rome, smote to the ground and 
 stabbed a noble Boian who had fled to him for safety. Eight years 
 elapsed before he was punished for this crime, under the rigorous cen¬ 
 sorship of Cato. 
 
 Many generous efforts were still made by the Brians, although dis¬ 
 united; but in 191 they were defeated by the consul Scipio Nasica, and 
 lost *20,000 men. Proud of his success, he committed the most horrible 
 ravages, and dared to boast, when claiming the honours of a triumph, 
 that he had left none alive of the Boian race except the old men and 
 children. Unable any longer to contend against a cruel enemy, and 
 too proud to live dependent in their native country, they crossed the 
 Norican Alps to seek a refuge on the banks of the Danube, in the year 
 190 b. c. 
 
 Conquest of Liguria.— The Gallic and Ligurian insurrections were 
 the great military schools of the Roman legions. Livy observes that 
 after the destruction of the Boians, the Ligurians appeared reserved by 
 Providence to maintain the discipline of the soldiers during the intervals 
 between the more regular wars. Their resistance lasted thirty years, 
 beginning with the massacre of the praetor’s escort in 189. For several 
 seasons the two consuls were sent into Liguria, one of w r hom, M. Po« 
 pilius Laenas, in 173, besieged Carystum, which surrendered on favour¬ 
 able conditions. These were not, however, respected ; the inhabitants 
 were deprived of their arms, their city was destroyed, themselves sold 
 as slaves, and their goods put up to auction. Even the senate was 
 shocked at this atrocious conduct, and gave orders for the liberation of 
 the people, and the restoration of their property. Popilius disobeyed 
 the decree, and preserving his command as proconsul in the next year, 
 provoked a universal rising of the Ligurian tribes. The indignation at 
 Rome was at its height, and the tribunes of the people, with the con¬ 
 currence of the senate, declared that if on the first of August there re¬ 
 mained one Statiellian unliberated, the author of the crime should be 
 sought opt and punished. The new* consuls replaced Popilius, and he 
 was saved from the menaced judgment by intrigue and influence; yet 
 he had massacred 20,000 innocent persons ! The last struggle, which • 
 soon afterwards began, continued nearly four years. Each summer two 
 armies and two consuls w*ere required, in the words of Florus, “to 
 break that stone on w r hich the Roman people had for so lono - a time 
 sharpened their swords,” 163 b. c. 
 
 Istria, which had been conquered in 221, recovered its liberty during 
 the Second Punic War, but it was again reduced under the yoke of 
 Rome a few years before the subjugation of Liguria. One circumstance 
 alone in the campaign deserves mention, for all these wars against the 
 ^dependent tribes of Gallic or German origin, are but a repetition of 
 
106 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 similar atrocities. iEpulo and the principal Istrian chiefs had been 
 driven from place to place until they took refuge in the strong town of 
 Nesactum. C. Claudius Pulcher immediately laid siege to it. and 
 finding himself impeded in his operations by the river Arsia, which 
 supplied the besieged with water, succeeded in turning it into a new 
 channel. The barbarians, struck with terror at the drying up of the 
 stream, without demanding terms of surrender, killed their wives and 
 children on the ramparts in sight of the enemy, and flung them over 
 into the ditches. In the midst of this frioffitful slaughter the Roman 
 
 cj O_ 
 
 soldiers scaled the wails and penetrated into the city. The king killed 
 himself with his own sword to avoid falling alive into the hands of the 
 enemy; the survivors surrendered or were slain. The possession of 
 Istria secured the dominion over the Adriatic; while the conquest of 
 Sardinia and Corsica gave the Romans two important posts in the 
 Mediterranean. The former island was reduced by Sempronius, the 
 father of the Gracchi; and so great a number of captives was brought 
 to Rome that Sardi venales (Sardinians for sale) became a proverb to 
 designate any considerable quantity of articles for which it was difficult 
 to find purchasers. 
 
 Internal Condition of Rome. 
 
 With the termination of those great wars, which may be said to have com¬ 
 promised the safety of Rome, began the internal dissensions which had been 
 suspended in the presence of a foreign enemy; and that city, now become the 
 mistress of the world, was doomed to be torn asunder by the strife of rival 
 factions. 
 
 After the fall of Carthage, the people, noble and plebeian, enriched by the 
 spoil of empires, were desirous in their turn to taste the luxuries of the East; 
 and hence an unrestrained voluptuousness suddenly appeared in the city, bring¬ 
 ing with it the most frightful depravity. In many of the nobler minds this 
 seduction commenced with the externals of Greek civilisation. Scipio Africa- 
 nus, in particular, affected the Athenian manners, and thus excited the indigna¬ 
 tion of his quaestor Cato. Flamininus, Metellus, iEmilius, Fabius, and other 
 patricians, followed the example of Scipio ; and to defend themselves against 
 the assertors of the ancient manners , they united by adoptions and intermar¬ 
 riages, and thus began that faction which so long controlled the senate itself, 
 and endeavoured to take away many of the popular privileges. Their pride 
 and strength may be gathered from the defence made by Fabius in behalf of 
 his son-in-law, who had been declared guilty of treason:—He is not guilty, for 
 he married my daughter. Cato alone dared to resist, and attacked their chief, 
 having instigated the tribunes to summon him to render an account of the 
 various sums of money he had received. The result of this struggle is unknown; 
 but it appears certain that Africanus, after momentarily triumphing over the 
 tribunitial power, was compelled to retire to Linternum, where he died. 
 
 In 195 the Roman matrons, displeased with the severity of the Oppian law,* 
 succeeded in procuring its abrogation in despite of the exertions of Cato. Ten 
 years after, it became evident that the intercourse with Greece and the East 
 had introduced into Rome many dangerous innovations. Numerous crimes, 
 the work of unknown hands, had excited terror throughout the city, when the 
 senate discovered that an obscure superstition, the orgies of Bacchus, had been 
 mysteriously communicated, and that this worship, whose rites were prostitu¬ 
 tion and the murder of those who refused to submit to infamy, already counted 
 numerous partisans. The greatest precautions were taken to convict the 
 criminals, and many women, who had been initiated into these disgraceftr 
 mysteries, were secretly put to death in their own houses. 
 
 ♦ By the Oppian law women were forbidden to wear more than half an ounce of gold 
 to have party-coloured garments, or to be carried about in any city or town, except in 
 the case of certain festivais. 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 107 
 
 The last effort against the increasing depravity and corruption was the 
 nomination of Cato to the censorship. While in this office he expelled several 
 members of the senate, and among others the Q. Flamininus mentioned above. 
 He established many sumptuary regulations; taxed private carriages, and 
 numerous articles of dress ; cut off all the private conduits which were fed by 
 the public fountains; demolished the buildings which encroached on the public 
 way ; and by his financial changes greatly increased the revenues of the state. 
 
 Luxury at home could only be supported by injustice abroad, and accordingly 
 we find the provinces on all sides appealing to the senate against the exactions 
 of their governors. The Sicilian deputies said they would rather be swallowed 
 up in Etna than have Marcellus a second time to rule over them. Spain, from 
 its containing silver mines, was made a scene of plunder by its numerous prae¬ 
 tors. Greece met with no better fate ; both its temples and private houses 
 being pillaged. When Anicius pacified Epirus and Illyria, 150,000 of the 
 natives were sold into slavery, and all their cities dismantled. 
 
 A thirst of distinction appeared among the great, who disdained to be con¬ 
 founded in the crowd of their fellow-nobles. Victorious generals, assuming the 
 names of the countries they had subdued, were called Africanus, Asiaticus, 
 Macedonicus, and such like. . Public offices were now become so lucrative, 
 that the higher ranks sought them with avidity. The villian law% which fixed 
 the age at which these could be filled; a law passed in 181 against the corrupt 
 practices preceding an election ; the consular law of 159 against bribery,—were 
 nugatory. The Sabinian law of 139 provided for the purity of election. Four 
 new tribunals, under the name of Qucestiones Perpetucc , were established to 
 inquire into all cases of extortion, bribery, or peculation; but the judges parti¬ 
 cipated in the disorders which it was their duty to punish, and shamelessly sold 
 their decisions. 
 
 Before the various public offices were opened to the plebeians, there had 
 been a continual and frequently a bloody struggle between the patricians and 
 the popular leaders; but the plebeian families, which became illustrious from 
 the stations filled by their members, were at last confounded with the higher 
 order, and formed with them an aristocracy so much the more dangerous as it 
 comprehended many whose ancestors had long contended for popular privileges. 
 The plebeians themselves were altered. Decimated by continual wars, the 
 plebs, which now crowded the forum, was a confused medley of Italians and 
 freedmen mingled with the ancient Romans, who had lost all traces of their 
 former dignity by misery and association with those whose bodies were free, 
 but whose minds yet retained the feelings of slaves. Such a populace was little 
 respected or feared by the senate; still, so long as external enemies remained 
 to be encountered, the people were relieved by the founding of numerous 
 colonies. In 197, fifteen hundred families were settled in five towns of Cam¬ 
 pania and Etruria; three years later six new colonies were formed in Lucania 
 and Bruttium; and thirteen others bet ween 192 and 175. Gratuitous distribu¬ 
 tions of corn were made at Rome, and all usury was forbidden by the tribunes 
 
 But the exertions of the senate were not the less directed to the depression of 
 the plebeian influence in the government. In 176, the censors confined the 
 populace to the four lowest tribes ; and eight years afterwards one of these four 
 was made to contain all whose landed possessions were not of the value of 
 30.000 sesterces, about £240 sterling. By degrees the senators usurped the 
 whole executive powers of the government ; and the knights, whom they 
 refused to consider as a new order, were their sole antagonists. The richest 
 Romans formed this class which was open to nobles and plebeians, provided 
 they were possessed of the requisite pecuniary qualification. Placed between 
 the senate and the people, the Equites or Knights meditated a separation from 
 both, and the formation of a distinct order in the state. When almost too late, 
 the senate repented of their alienation from this powerful intermediate body. 
 
 The disorders of the government were increased by the defective harvests of 
 144 and 143, and by the absence of all colonization during more than thirty 
 years, beginning with 168 b. c. The only resource left to the impoverished 
 multitude was to enter the service of the patricians or of the wealthy knights; 
 but these classes preferred slave-labour, and besides, the example of Cato had 
 
108 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 been extensively imitated; arable land was generally changed into pasturage 
 as being more profitable. The poor were now reduced to the alternative of 
 death or of a revolution which might improve but certainly could not asrgcravate 
 their condition. 
 
 Servile War, 134-131.—The demands of the people were preceded 
 by those of the bondmen. Slavery, that scourge of the East, had been 
 extended over all Italy by the conquests of the Romans; for those who 
 had subdued Greece and Carthage disdained the cultivation of the soil. 
 Everywhere slave-labour had replaced that of the freeman; and the land 
 was covered with an infinite number of those unfortunate wretches whom 
 war had deprived of their liberty, or who had been kidnapped on the 
 coasts of Thrace or Asia Minor. As has been ever the case, the 
 severity and cruelty of the proprietors increased with the number of 
 their victims. This led to a revolt, which broke <5ut at Tauromenium, 
 headed by the Syrian Eunus, a pretender to the gift of prophecy. Four 
 praetors were successively defeated by these armed slaves, whose num¬ 
 bers soon increased to *200,000. At last, a consul was sent against 
 them, and the success of Rupilius, aided by his prudent measures, 
 terminated a revolt, which, if it had spread to Italy, might have com¬ 
 promised the safety of Rome. Had the slaves within the city acted in 
 concert with those of Sicily, they easily would have crushed their 
 masters, than whom they are said to have been ten times more 
 numerous.* 
 
 The Gracchi. —The revolt of the slaves menaced the existence of 
 the state; while the revolution attempted by the Gracchi, nearly 
 depriving the nobles of the power they had usurped, transferred it to 
 the hands of the people. The horrible scenes enacted in the battle-field 
 were now to be repeated in the streets of Rome; and we see the just 
 retaliation upon the citizens of all the cruelties they had inflicted on the 
 conquered nations. A warlike people are usually cruel, blood-thirsty, 
 and ignorant of the value of human life. Tiberius Gracchus, grandson 
 of Africanus, distinguished himself in Africa and in Spain, but the 
 senate having refused to sanction his treaty with the Numantines, he 
 placed himself at the head of the populace, and was elected to the 
 tribunate. The deserted condition of Italy, which he had witnessed in 
 his way to Spain, is said to have excited him to put an end to a state 
 of things which threatened to deprive his country of her free inhabi¬ 
 tants, and replace them by slaves. His project, previously entertained 
 by Laelius the friend of Scipio, was to resume the public lands, leaving 
 to the rich, who had usurped them, 500 acres for themselves individual¬ 
 ly, and 250 for each of their children ; besides which, a compensation 
 was to be made for the portion they were to surrender, that it might be 
 
 ♦There is great difficulty in calculating the amount of the slave population in the 
 Roman dominions. Mr. Blair, in his valuable treatise on “ Slavery amongst the Ro¬ 
 mans,” estimates that before the fall of Corinth, the proportion was one slave to every 
 freeman, and from that period to Alexander Severus, as high as three to one. Many 
 rich individuals counted their slaves by thousands. Scaurus possessed upwards of 8000 ; 
 those of Crassus formed the bulk of his property. Their value affords a curious insight 
 into Roman manners. The cook of Apicius was sold for .£772; a fool or jester for 
 jClfil :9:2 ; the slave actor, rendered famous by the pleading of Cicero, for £1614: li :8. 
 He, as well as a good physician, a scribe, or a rhapsodist, was valuable for the emolu¬ 
 ments he brought to his owner. Death was a frequent punishment; on one occasion 
 upwards of 400 were executed because they had not prevented the murder of their rnastt 
 Whips, thongs of bull’s hide, iron collars, and such instruments, supplied the more corn 
 Dion punishments. 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 109 
 
 distributed in equal shares among the indigent citizens. Octavius the 
 tribune put his veto upon this lenient measure of Gracchus, who imme¬ 
 diately appealed to the people to procure the dismissal of the refractory 
 magistrate. The agrarian laws were then carried, and proved, as might 
 have been expected, not only a heavy blow to the senatorial party, but 
 even fatal to the tranquillity of Rome. Tiberius w 7 as accused of aiming 
 at the sovereignty, and was slain together with 300 of his partisans by 
 Scipio Nasica and an armed body of the senators; but although others 
 of his adherents were banished, his party did not cease to be formidable, 
 as it comprised nearly the whole of the people. The partition of the 
 lands was no longer opposed; and Scipio was compelled to leave the 
 city, which he never again revisited. The conqueror of Carthage, sur- 
 named ^Emilianus, was chosen to carry the laws into execution, but he 
 soon became unpopular, T29 b. c. 
 
 Caius Gracchus, untaught by his brother’s fate, pursued the same 
 course of agitation. Not contented with reviving the laws of Tiberius, 
 he wished to extend the freedom of the state to the Italian allies, and 
 thus place the government at the control of any faction that could meet 
 in sufficient numbers to keep possession of the place of assembly. He 
 also attempted to fix a maximum price on corn, ar.d to neutralize the 
 senate by the addition of 600 members. Nor w~ere his exertions con¬ 
 fined to legislative changes: he re-established several colonies, built 
 public granaries, and constructed broad, solid, and commodious roads 
 throughout all Italy. His authority in the senate was almost mon¬ 
 archical ; for beintr admitted to their deliberations, he was often con- 
 suited. His absence at Carthage, where a new city was erecting, 
 furnished his enemies with the means of destroying his power. Com¬ 
 pelled to take arms in self-defence, he with nearly 3000 followers perish¬ 
 ed in the streets, 121 b. c., leaving as a successor C. Marius, formed by 
 birth and education to be the head of the Roman populace. 
 
 Reflections. —The revolution attempted bv the Gracchi was not overcome, 
 it was merely retarded ; and the violence with which the nobles opposed the 
 measures of the reforming party was soon retaliated upon them. The consuls 
 had stood aloof during the contest: the faction of the Great, as Sallust calls it, 
 was superior even to the senate. The laws of the Gracchi were infringed ; the 
 gratuitous distribution of corn from the public granaries was much limited; and 
 soon the agrarian laws themselves were repealed. The privileges of the knights 
 were attacked by this all-powerful body, which between the years 121 and 107 
 B. c. proscribed all the new men, and allowed none to aspire to the consulate or 
 the curule offices who did not belong to their ranks. Such violence provoked 
 a reaction, and prepared the way for the cruelties of Marius, who had himself 
 been a victim of the faction. He had been raised to the tribunate, by his 
 patron Metellus, but finding himself unable to contend at the head of the 
 people against the nobles, he sought elsewhere the credit and influence which 
 he could not obtain at Rome. He was appointed the qusestor of Metellus in 
 the Jugurthine War. 
 
 Jugurthine War, 111 b. c.— Jugmrtha the nephew 7 of Masinissa, 
 havino- seized the throne of Numidia and murdered his cousins, human- 
 ity, not less than policy, compelled the Romans to assist their ancient 
 ally, and the usurper v r as declared a public enemy. His first efforts 
 were successful, more by the influence of gold than the force of arms; 
 but Metellus first drove him out of his kingdom, and Marius, w 7 ho ter- 
 
 10 
 
110 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 minated the war, led him in triumph to a prison, where he was starved 
 to death, 106 b. c. 
 
 Consult: Sallust’s Jugurthine War. 
 
 Cimbric War, 102 b. c.— Scarcely had Marius returned from Numidia, 
 when he was called to save Rome from the greatest perils she had 
 encountered since the time of Hannibal. The Cimbri and the Teutones , 
 issuing from the boundless forests of the North, menaced both Gaul and 
 Italy with invasion. The Romans marched to the protection of their 
 •province, which already extended along the shores of the Gulf of Lyons 
 from the Alps to the Pyrenees. Several consular armies were defeated, 
 and ruin seemed impending over the capital w’hen Marius was elected 
 consul. This elevation, while it protected Rome from enemies without, 
 served only to expose it to more imminent danger from within. His 
 consulate was prolonged for three years, during which time he brought 
 his army into the strictest discipline. Embracing a favourable oppor¬ 
 tunity, he met the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (Aix), and defeated them 
 with terrible slaughter, 102. Hastily recrossing the Alps, he attacked 
 the Cimbri at Vercellae , on the Sessites (Sesia), where victory declared 
 in his favour, and 140,000 of the enemy lay dead on the plain, 101 b. c. 
 
 The honours which Marius received for this triumph prove how great 
 was the consternation at Rome. He was surnamed the Third Romulus; 
 each citizen offered libations in his name; and he himself compared his 
 exploits to those of Bacchus in his Indian campaigns. The conqueror 
 signalized his first government by a very remarkable innovation. Down 
 to this period the proletars , who constituted the lowest tribes, and were 
 exempted on account of their poverty from all contributions to the state, 
 had never been admitted into the Roman armies. Marius enrolled them; 
 and these men, whose only means of support had too frequently been 
 confined to the charity of the rich, now enjoyed a regular pay, and 
 formed part of the military force of the nation. Having no ties to their 
 country, they soon neglected Rome in favour of the chief who supplied 
 them with booty, and from this moment the armies ceased to belong to 
 the republic. 
 
 JUDiEA AND SYRIA. 
 
 The Maccabees. —Judaea successively acknowledged the supremacy 
 of Egypt and Syria; and the battle of Ipsus, 301, in which Antigonus 
 fell, threw it into the hands of Ptolemy Lagus, during whose reign the 
 high priest Simon beautified Jerusalem and surrounded it with walls. 
 It suffered severely in the wars of Antiochus the Great with the Egyp¬ 
 tian monarchs. The Syrian king, surnamed Epiphanes, restrained by 
 the Romans from pursuing his conquests in Egypt, revenged himself on 
 Judaea, took the capital, slew 40,000 of its inhabitants, and led an equal 
 number into captivity, 170 b. c. In 168, he issued a decree of extermi¬ 
 nation against the whole Jewish race, which was acted on by his will¬ 
 ing minister Apollonius. The streets ran with blood, the city was 
 plundered, and as the ceremonies of their religion were denounced, they 
 could not be observed without danger. He next enjoined uniformity of 
 worship, and the most dreadful penalties were inflicted upon those who 
 did not profess the Grecian idolatry. Two mothers were thrown from 
 the wall, with their infants at their necks, for having complied with the 
 commands of the Mosaic Law ; but the firmness inspired by true religion 
 
SECOND CENTURY B. C. 
 
 Ill 
 
 was never more strongly exemplified than during these persecutions. 
 Seven brothers were brought out, and condemned to witness and to suffer 
 in their mother’s presence such tortures as the heart of man could 
 scarcely devise: their tongues were cut out, their limbs mangled, the 
 scalps torn from their heads, before they were consigned to the boiling 
 caldron or the fire. The aged father himself, for Eieazar had passed his 
 90th year, went cheerfully to the torment, u to set an example to youth 
 how to die for the honourable and holy laws.” But when longer for¬ 
 bearance would have been criminal, a race of heroes, the Maccabees,* 
 arose, by whom the Syrians were driven from their country, 166. 
 
 The enterprises of Judas Maccabaeus were eminently successful : 
 Apollonius, the governor of Samaria, was defeated and slain; as was 
 also Seron, satrap of Ccele-Syria. Antiochus hastily prepared to quell 
 the insurrection, and a numerous army was accordingly marched into 
 Judaea under the command of Nicanor, Gorgias, and Ptolemy Macron. 
 Maccabaeus, unable to meet such an overwhelming force, kept his troops 
 in the mountains, from which he continually harassed the enemy by 
 desultory attacks. At last, seizing on a favourable opportunity, he 
 utterly routed Nicanor, divided the rich spoils of his camp among the 
 soldiers, and sold into captivity the slave-merchants, who, calculating 
 on victory, had accompanied the invaders to purchase their prisoners. 
 Two other victories freed Judaea from the Syrians, and the patriotic 
 army entered their deserted capital. The holy places were repaired and 
 purified, public worship was restored, and the feast of the dedication 
 celebrated. Thus did Judas achieve the temporary independence of his 
 country, and rescue his nation from apparently certain destruction. 
 
 Antiochus, dying in 164, was succeeded by his son, surnamed Eupa- 
 tor, who, acting under the advice of Lysias, immediately prepared to 
 make war on Judaea. The Maccabees resisted bravely, but they w T ere 
 forced to a capitulation, the articles of which were instantly violated, 
 and the walls of Jerusalem demolished. Demetrius, the rightful heir 
 to the Syrian crown, now appeared and defeated his rival, who perished 
 with his counsellor Lysias. A treacherous policy distinguished the 
 proceedings of Demetrius towards the Jewish people, until Judas once 
 more took up arms and expelled the tyrant. This gallant patriot, after 
 twice defeating Nicanor, sought to strengthen himself by a Roman 
 alliance; but before the treaty could be made known, the Syrian general 
 Bacchides entered Palestine with so strong a force as to defy all oppo¬ 
 sition. Judas disdained to flee, and encountering the invaders, was 
 overpowered by numbers, when he fell fighting with heroic valour, 
 “ and all Israel made great lamentation for him, and mourned many days, 
 saying, How is the valiant man fallen who delivered Israel /” 161 k. c. 
 
 Jonathan, his younger brother, still maintained the contest of inde¬ 
 pendence, and was eventually successful, becoming master of the coun¬ 
 try almost without a blow. By a treaty with Demetrius, nominating 
 him high priest, he united both the civil and religious authority, and 
 
 * MaUathias, a rich inhabitant of the village of Modin, offered the first resistance 
 to the tyranny of Antiochus ; and when his age and infirm health were no longer able 
 to support the harassing mountain warfare, he transferred the command to another of 
 the Asmonean family, Judas, his third and bravest son. This hero bore on his standard 
 the letters M. C. C. B. J. (Mi Camo-Ca Baalim Jehovah —Who among the gods is like 
 unto thee, O Lord ?). and hence he acquired the name of Maccabee.—See Cotton’s Five 
 Books of the Maccabees, 
 
112 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 was the first of the Asmonean princes. After a pacific reign of several 
 years, he was treacherously seized by the insurgent Tryphon, and 
 cruelly murdered, 143 b. c. His funeral was conducted with great 
 magnificence; and his sepulchre, on a lofty eminence, became a sea¬ 
 mark to the mariners sailing along that coast. One of the first acts of 
 Simon, who succeeded his brother Jonathan, was the reduction of the 
 Syrian garrison on Mount Sion. He not only destroyed the citadel, 
 but, according to Josephus, levelled the hill on which it stood, so that 
 it no longer commanded the temple. Under his wise administration 
 the country prospered, and the fields were cultivated in tranquillity. 
 He was succeeded by his son John, surnamed Hyrcanus, in whose time 
 Judaea was annexed to Syria, but on the death of Antiochus Sidetes, in 
 130, its independence was recovered, and its territories enlarged by the 
 conquest of Samaria and Galilee. Aristobulus, on the death of his 
 father, John Hyrcanus, in 106, assumed the crown and the title of king. 
 During his short reign of one year, he starved his mother to death, com¬ 
 mitted three of his brothers to prison, and caused the fourth to be assas- 
 s ; nated. 
 
 FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Rome. — 88, Social War.— Mithridatic War.— Marius and Sylla.—73, Servile 
 War.—63, Catiline’s Conspiracy.—60, First Triumvirate.—48, Pharsalia.— 
 31, Actium.—30, Egypt a Roman province.—27, Augustus Emperor.— a. m. 
 4004,* Birth of Christ. 
 
 JuDiEA.—68, Civil War between Hyrcanus II. and Aristobulus II. —63, Jeru¬ 
 salem taken by Pompey.— 40, Herod, king of Judaea.— 29, Murder of 
 Mariamne. 
 
 Inventions, &c. — 63, Shorthand, by Cicero.— 60, Flux and Reflux of the 
 Tides, by Posidonius, who endeavours to measure the circumference of the 
 Earth.— 45, Calendar reformed, by Caesar.— 6, Lunar Cycle or Golden 
 Number. 
 
 Literature, &c. —Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Cicero, Caesar, 
 Sallust, Livy, Vitruvius, Nepos, Tibullus, Propertius, Dionysius of Hali¬ 
 carnassus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Marius and Saturninus. —As the danger of barbaric invasion passed 
 away, the gratitude of the people became less intense, and when Marius 
 was a sixth time candidate for the supreme honours, he was warmly 
 opposed by the senate and their favourite Metellus Numidicus. To 
 remove this last, it was necessary that Saturninus, a seditious dema¬ 
 gogue, should be chosen tribune; to effect which, a league was formed 
 between him, Marius, and the praetor Glaucia, a man of depraved cha¬ 
 racter. They resolved to obtain their ends by violence, should all other 
 means fail; and finding the ballot was against them, and the ten tri¬ 
 bunes already nominated, the partisans of Saturninus threw down the 
 
 * The Christian era commences from that year of the world; but our Saviour was 
 born four years before, or, more properly, in the fifth year before the common era. 
 
FIRST CENTURY B. C. 
 
 113 
 
 urns, drove away the tribunes, and killed Nonius, one of their number, 
 in whose place he was chosen on the morrow by an armed body, which 
 filled the hall of election. In virtue of the first law enacted by the new 
 tribune, extensive lands in the north of Italy were distributed among the 
 proletary who had composed the legions of Marius. When the period 
 of the consular elections arrived, Glaucia became a candidate, and, to 
 ensure success, Saturninus caused Memmius, the rival of his friend, to 
 be assassinated. Such a crime excited general indignation, and Marius 
 was compelled to relinquish his former colleagues, who had taken refuge 
 ' in the Capitol. Being soon reduced to surrender, they were cruelly 
 massacred by the people ; the laws of Saturninus were abolished ; Me- 
 tellus returned in triumph from his exile, 99, and Marius retired to Asia. 
 
 The democracy had triumphed in the election of Marius, who was 
 more formidable than the Gracchi, as he united the talents of a great 
 general with the vices of a demagogue. By his elevation to the consu¬ 
 late the aristocracy was humbled, and the path to the highest honours 
 henceforward lay open to the meanest of birth; but by his weakness 
 and incapacity in political arrangements, he was unable to execute his 
 furious plans against the nobles; The masses of the people were, how¬ 
 ever, supreme, and events showed that no man’s life was safe who 
 opposed their sovereign wfill. Livius Drusus, the same who had been 
 employed to destroy the popularity of Caius Gracchus, endeavoured to 
 conciliate all parties and interests. To gain over the people, he pro¬ 
 posed the foundation of new colonies throughout Italy, fresh distributions 
 of corn, an increase in the number of senators by adding to them 300 
 of the noblest equites, and the presentation of the civic freedom to the 
 Italians. All these laws were accepted by the people, but met wfith a 
 violent opposition from the consuls and the knights whose unconstitu¬ 
 tional privileges were attacked. The tribune, w T ho succeeded only by 
 employing violence, was by his victory thrown into the greatest embar¬ 
 rassment. The allies, hy whose assistance he had gained it, called upon 
 him to fulfill his pledges, and to confer the right of citizenship. Find¬ 
 ing him unwilling, or perhaps unable, to keep his promise, they formed 
 a conspiracy for the murder of the hostile consuls, whom Drusus made 
 acquainted with their danger. His antagonists were not equally 
 generous, for a blow from an assassin cut short his projects, 91. The 
 Italian towns did not feel inclined to relinquish their title to a partici¬ 
 pation in civic rights, and the haughty rejection of their petitions was 
 followed by a general revolt. They formed the plan of a separate 
 republic, similar in all respects to the Roman. Corfinium was to be 
 the capital, with its senate, consuls, praetors, and other magis¬ 
 trates. Pompaedius Silo was the chief of the league, in the first rank 
 of which were the Marsians and Samnites. Army after army was 
 defeated, and the war was characterized by the most barbarous cruel¬ 
 ties. At length, when 300,000 lives had been sacrificed, and the 
 resources of both parties were nearly exhausted, the Italians were 
 admitted to all the privileges of Roman citizens, 88 b. c., an act which 
 essentially changed the constitution, and promoted the views of the dis¬ 
 affected. 
 
 Mithridates, king of Pontus, was one of the most formidable ene¬ 
 mies the Romans ever encountered. His dominions, situated on the 
 southern shores of the Black Sea, had long been independent of the 
 10 * 
 
114 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Persian throne ; and having escaped the fate of other Asiatic princes, he 
 became by degrees the supreme ruler in that part of the continent. He 
 was too powerful a neighbour to remain long unmolested. The social 
 war was scarcely terminated, when it was announced that in one day 
 80,000 Romans had been massacred in his provinces, 88 b. c.; and that, 
 driving their armies before him, he had succeeded in extending his 
 authority to the shores of the iEgean Sea. The patrician Sylla, once 
 the lieutenant, now the rival of Marius, was appointed to conduct the 
 war; but the latter had the decree cancelled, and the command con¬ 
 ferred on himself. Sylla, who was besieging Nola, immediately 
 hastened to Rome, and compelled his rival to flee to Africa. He next 
 marched against Mithridates, and after a short but successful campaign 
 in Bceotia and Thessaly, a favourable peace was concluded, 84 b. c., 
 by which the Asiatic monarch lost Greece, Macedonia, Ionia, and other 
 provinces which he had seized, and also a great portion of his fleet. 
 Sylla purchased the support of his legions by distributing them among 
 the wealthy cities of Lesser Asia ; besides which they received regular 
 pay, with food and lodging. 
 
 First Civil War. —Cinna, one of the consuls, availed himself of 
 the victorious general’s absence to strengthen the powers of the Marian 
 party, and even to recall the fugitive himself, who entered Rome almost 
 without opposition, and soon began to glut his revenge. The principal 
 senators were slain, the high priest of Jupiter was murdered at the 
 altar, and the head of the orator Antonius was brought to Marius while 
 he sat at supper. During five days and as many nights, the city was 
 abandoned to the violence of the slaves, until at length Cinna and 
 Sertorius, wearied with the excess of horrors, attacked these assassins 
 in the night, while they were asleep in their camp, and slaughtered 
 them all. Marius was not at ease in the midst of his triumph; the 
 report of Sylla’s victories had reached his ears. To blunt his senses 
 against the thought of impending vengeance, he gave way to dissipation, 
 which carried him off in his seventh consulate, and the seventieth year 
 of his age, 86 b. c. The conqueror hurried towards Rome immediately 
 on the conclusion of peace, and was joined by the majority of the army 
 and all the wealthier orders ; but even when he was at the gates, the 
 Marian party attacked and massacred the senate in the Hostilian curia . 
 The extent of his revenge far exceeded the provocation, for the senate- 
 house resounded with the shrieks of no fewer than 8000 of the opposite 
 party, who were murdered in its vicinity after having surrendered; and 
 the names of 5000 citizens are said to have been published on the pro 
 scription lists. “ Wives shut their doors against their husbands ; chil¬ 
 dren slew their own fathers : death was the only refuge from cruelty.” 
 If blood had flowed in the time of Marius, it now poured in torrents. 
 In these dreadful commotions, 33 consulars, 70 praetors, 60 aediles, *200 
 senators, and 150,000 Roman citizens lost their lives, while thousands 
 more were stripped of their property, and driven forth in beggary. Sylla 
 at once assumed the dictatorship, and desirous of concentrating all 
 power in the hands of the senate, deprived the people of many privi¬ 
 leges, and cancelled the rights of citizenship given to the Italian cities. 
 Twenty-three legions were quartered throughout the peninsula, and 
 Etruria was almost entirely abandoned to his licentious troops. Never¬ 
 theless, he effected many reforms, created four new tribunals, raised the 
 
FIRST CENTURY B. C. 
 
 115 
 
 number of praetors to eight, repressed the exactions of the governors of 
 provinces, and fixed the age and qualifications necessary for each 
 magisterial office. In two years he voluntarily resigned his despotic 
 authority, and retired to Cumae, where his death, the consequence of his 
 vicious habits, soon followed, 78 b. c. 
 
 Sylla’s disdainful abandonment of the dictatorship, an office which he had 
 renewed after the lapse of 120 years, seems less extraordinary when it is con 
 sidered that he left the supreme authority in the hands of his own party, 
 strengthened by the most extensive privileges, and by an army satiated with 
 blood and plunder. But every thing was paving the way for a monarchy. The 
 rivalry of the orders was followed by a contest for universal power, and this in 
 turn for the dominion of Rome. The strife of parties preceded that of indi¬ 
 viduals. Marius and Sylla, Caesar and Pompey, fought in the names of the 
 senate or the people—Antony and Octavianus for the sovereignty of the world. 
 The Roman polity was already so endangered by abuses and the consequence 
 of the Social War, that a military despotism alone could preserve it from 
 anarchy. Sylla did not employ his influence wisely. By destroying the 
 popular power, and by investing the patriciate with the whole authority—the 
 judicial and elective franchise—he laid the foundation of Csesar’s fortune, of 
 that man in whom he saw many Mariuses. 
 
 Sertorian War. —Although the democratic faction had lost their 
 chiefs by proscription and murder, the party still survived with all its 
 wrongs unsatisfied, and was even increased by the law which prevented 
 the tribunes from filling any of the higher offices of the state. Lepidus, 
 and Brutus the father of him who assassinated Caesar, put themselves at 
 the head of the people, but all their exertions proved vain. Their par¬ 
 tisans, and the remnants of the armies they had collected, served to 
 increase the force of Sertorius. This old lieutenant of Marius had long 
 been celebrated for his courage and skill. In a battle against the 
 Cimbri, fought on the banks of the Rhone, and in which 80,000 Romans 
 fell, he escaped almost alone with his sword and buckler. Other cir¬ 
 cumstances had established his reputation in Spain, when he was driven 
 by the legions of the victorious Sylla into Africa, where he remained 
 until invited by the Lusitanians to take the command of their troops. 
 With an army of less than 10,000 men, Italians, Africans, and Span¬ 
 iards, he maintained his ground against four Roman generals at the 
 head of 120,000. Metellus aud Pompey, who were sent against him, 
 sustained a severe defeat near Tarragona. Rome was at last freed from 
 an enemy who had resisted her whole strength during several years, by 
 the treachery of his lieutenant Perpenna, who slew him at a feast. The 
 assassin, however, was punished in a manner worthy of his crime, in 
 the year 72 b. c. 
 
 Servile War. —While Rome was combating Sertorius in Spain, and 
 Mithridates in Asia, a new war of a singular character broke out in 
 Italy, 73. Some Thracian gladiators, discontented with their lot, ran 
 away from their master and seized on a strong fort in the hills near 
 Capua; Spartacus, a man of remarkable bodily strength and courage, 
 being their leader. Their first successes soon increased the number of 
 their little army ; fugitive slaves, shepherds, and others, raised it to 
 70,000 men. All the troops sent against them were worsted until the 
 command was conferred on Crassus. Spartacus was at this time 
 encamped in the peninsula of Rhegium, where he was enclosed by a 
 deep trench and wall fifteen leagues in length, drawn from sea to sea, 
 
116 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 and thus cut off from all assistance by land. The resolute gladiator 
 broke through this line; but although he defeated several lieutenants 
 of Crassus, he soon afterwards fell in a general action, in which his 
 followers were completely routed, 71 b. c. 
 
 Read: Plutarch’s Life of Crassus. 
 
 Pompey. — Crassus had hastened the termination of the war from 
 jealousy of Pompey, who was marching from Spain to his assistance. 
 The latter general, nevertheless, reaped all the glory, for meeting 10,000 
 of the gladiators who had escaped in the last battle, he slew the greater 
 part of them; and in announcing his good fortune to the senate, he 
 wrote, that if Crassus had cut down the tree, he had torn up its roots. 
 The two rivals united in claiming the consulate, but the very moment 
 of their success was the beginning of a lasting dissension. The for¬ 
 tune of Pompey was remarkable. Raised to the rank of general at the 
 age of twenty-three, he levied three legions and marched them to join 
 Sylla. To him alone the terrible dictator was gentle, flattering his 
 vanity by the titles of Magnus and Imperator ; and on the death of that 
 commander he became the champion of the aristocracy. His political 
 conduct was not very decided ; but by the people he was regarded with 
 unqualified enthusiasm and admiration. 
 
 Pompey was entirely gained by the applause universally lavished 
 upon him, and in return, during his consulate, he procured the revoca¬ 
 tion of the tribunitial law of Sylla, and the re-establishment of the tri¬ 
 bunes in their ancient rights. He, moreover, carried an important law, 
 by which the judicial authority was transferred from the senators to the 
 knights, thus effecting a great revolution, and giving to the latter a pre¬ 
 dominance in the state. This change was brought about by the trial of 
 Verres, the unprincipled governor of Sicily. 
 
 Yerres. —This man, whose whole life had been one scene of avarice, 
 debauchery, and cruelty, was accused of crimes that were probably too 
 frequent in the history of Roman proconsuls. Enormous taxes were 
 imposed upon the cities; public money was embezzled ; the navy was 
 neglected; pirates were allowed to enter the port of Syracuse; com¬ 
 manders who were defeated owing to the want of soldiers were cruelly 
 put to death; private houses and temples were pillaged of all their 
 valuable works of art; and two vessels were yearly sent to Rome laden 
 with plunder. When removed from his post, his accusers preceded him 
 on his return to Rome; but he was without fear as to the issue of his 
 trial, for he boasted of having amassed wealth enough to screen him 
 from justice. Cicero was his accuser, and the result of the trial was a 
 voluntary exile, after he had repaid to the Sicilians about one-third part 
 only of what the illustrious orator had claimed. 
 
 Piratical War. —To reward Pompey for the favour conferred upon 
 the knights, they gave him the command of the army in a war against 
 the pirates. These were men of various countries, particularly Cilicia, 
 who, taking advantage of the civil broils, and profiting by the lessons 
 then taught, infested all the coasts of the empire. In many respects 
 they resembled the Buccaneers of America, and so great was their 
 audacity, that no place was safe from their attacks. Legions had been 
 routed, magistrates arrested, and foreign commerce entirely stopped, 
 when Pompey at length thoroughly defeated them, and cleared the seas 
 
FIRST CENTURY B. C. 
 
 117 
 
 in the short space of forty days. He repeopled many deserted cities by 
 settling in them 20,000 prisoners whom he had taken, and restored a 
 town which afterwards bore his name. 
 
 Mithridates had profited by the peace made with Sylla to recruit 
 his army, and increase his kingdom by conquer on the Bosphorus and 
 in Colchis. But the possession of these savage countries did not 
 satisfy him; he still longed to add Cappadocia, the most fertile part of 
 Asia Minor, to his dominions. Thinking the opportunity favourable, 
 he equipped a numerous fleet, and collected an army of 160,000 men. 
 Two consuls were sent against him, 74 b. c. ; one of whom, Cotta, was 
 defeated, and the Roman ships were entirely destroyed. But the other, 
 Lucullus, who had derived his military knowledge from the eloquent 
 pages of Xenophon and Thucydides, exhausted by his prudent manoeu¬ 
 vres the strength of the enemy, and compelled their sovereign to take 
 refuse with Tigranes kino - of Armenia. The success of the victor 
 against these allied monarchs was less decisive owing to the insubordi¬ 
 nation of his troops. Two of his lieutenants being worsted, he was 
 recalled, and Glabrio, who succeeded him, was so completely routed 
 that the whole peninsula of Lesser Asia had nearly fallen into the hands 
 of Mithridates. Pompey, who was next sent against him, overcame 
 every obstacle by the rapidity of his marches; and in a night-attack the 
 enemy’s troops were almost entirely cut to pieces, the king himself 
 escaping with only 800 horsemen. It was now that this daring prince, 
 in his extremity, formed the design of transferring the war into the 
 Roman^territory, raising in his march the barbarous tribes which dwelt 
 between the Tanais and the Alps. Treason cut short this extraordinary 
 project; and being unwilling to survive the ingratitude of his beloved 
 son Pharnaces, poison, administered by his own hand, terminated his 
 eventful life, 63 b. c. During the space of twenty-six years he had 
 sustained a war against the arms of Rome, conducted by her most cele¬ 
 brated generals. Pompey, on returning from his eastern campaign, was 
 honoured with a splendid triumph, when he contributed to the treasury 
 the sum of 20,000 talents. Pharnaces took advantage of the civil war, 
 and endeavoured to recover Armenia and Cappadocia; but Caesar, 
 marching against him from Egypt, defeated his projects. The brief 
 despatch of the conqueror is familiar to all: “Yeni, vidi, vici,”—I 
 came, saw, and conquered. Pontus was declared a Roman province 
 about 36 b. c. After the Crusades, the family of the Comneni estab¬ 
 lished the monarchy of Trebizond (a. d. 1204), which was destroyed 
 by Mohammed II. 
 
 Reflections. —The republic had now reached its highest pitch ; there was 
 no longer any foreign enemy to excite her apprehensions; but the change in 
 her constitution, and the re-establishment of the tribunitial power, endangered 
 her existence, 70. This victory of the democracy led the way to an oppres¬ 
 sive oligarchy, and that to the formation of a terrible conspiracy, which if suc¬ 
 cessful would have placed the power in the hands of the ambitious, the profli¬ 
 gate, and the criminal. 
 
 Catiline’s Conspiracy. —L. Sergius Catilina was of patrician birth, 
 and of a family distinguished for its services to the state, but his ruined 
 fortunes and profligacy tempted him to form the dangerous project of 
 overthrowing the government; to ensure which design, he became a 
 candidate for the consulship. The first time he was rejected; two 
 
118 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 years later, he was defeated by Cicero, in defiance of his violent parti¬ 
 sans. He had no longer any hope of attaining the supreme power but 
 by force; and with this intent an army was collected by Manlius in 
 Etruria, while the traitors at Rome were plotting a general massacre and 
 conflagration. Their designs were discovered: Catiline was boldly 
 accused in the senate, and, to save his life, he fled to the troops which 
 his accomplices had raised. Many of the conspirators who had been 
 left in the city were led to prison and put to death; which proof of 
 resolution so disconcerted the rebels, that they were defeated by the 
 consul Antonius, and their leader fell as bravely as he had lived un¬ 
 worthily, 63 b. c. Cicero was honoured with the title of Father of 
 his Country ; but he did not escape the odium which attends all extra¬ 
 ordinary vigour in the execution of the laws during a time of public 
 confusion. The tribune refused to administer the usual oath when the 
 consul laid down his office; upon which the orator Iwore that he had 
 saved the state, and the shout of the admiring people testified their 
 approbation. He was shortly after driven into exile by Clodius, in 
 virtue of a law recently enacted, which banished all who had put a 
 citizen to death without trial. At his departure 20,000 of the knights, 
 and part'of the senate, wore mourning garments. He was recalled by 
 the influence of Pompey in the subsequent year, 57 b. c. 
 
 First Triumvirate, 60 b. c. —At this period the leading men in Rome 
 were Pompey, who had merited the surname of Great by his victories 
 in Asia—Crassus, who had acquired immense wealth by the proscrip¬ 
 tions of Sylla — and Julius Caesar, in whom were united the highest 
 civil and military talents, and who, during his praetorship in Spain, 
 besides recruiting his ruined fortunes, had ingratiated himself with the 
 army. These three united their influence, and formed that celebrated 
 compact known by the name of the Triumvirate. The powers of the 
 senate were usurped by them, as well as the command of the legions. 
 On the termination of his consulate, Caesar was re-appointed to the 
 government of Gaul for five years. Crassus, led away by his avari¬ 
 cious spirit, took the command of Syria, famed for its luxury and wealth, 
 but was shortly after defeated and put to death at Charrae, 53 b. c. 
 Pompey still remained in Italy. 
 
 At the epoch of the renewal of the first triumvirate the internal con¬ 
 dition of Rome was very deplorable. Offices for the sale of votes were 
 opened in the neighbourhood of the Campus Martius; and to such an 
 extent was this traffic carried, that the rate of interest rose from four to 
 eight per cent. On one occasion the two retiring candidates, Memmius 
 and Gabinius, forged an edict of the senate and the people, which would 
 have conferred their office on two candidates by whom they had been 
 largely bribed. During six months the city remained without its 
 supreme magistrates ; and all eyes were turned towards Pompey, whose 
 indecision prevented him from grasping the dictatorship. The forum 
 became a scene of contention, tti which the rivalry of Clodius and Milo 
 created much confusion. To terminate the disorders which followed the 
 death of the former of these partisans, the consulate was offered to 
 Pompey alone. The senators were now secure in regard to one of the 
 popular leaders; by several wholesome regulations order was re-estab¬ 
 lished; the laws were impartially administered ; and the public places 
 were no longer stained with blood. The great object now was to get 
 
FIRST CENTURY B. C. 119 
 
 id of Caesar, to which measure Pompey was continually excited by the 
 .anguage and insulting conduct of the senate. 
 
 Cesar’s Gallic Campaign, 58 b.c. —Caesar was now beginning a 
 long career of victory. Gaul opened a vast field for his ambition ; it 
 supplied him with the means of keeping a large and well-disciplined 
 army always within a few days’ march of Rome, the southern bounda¬ 
 ries of his province being the Arno and the Rubicon. The brave people 
 who inhabited this country were of Celtic origin, but their disunion 
 proved their ruin. In eight campaigns Caesar entirely overran their 
 territory : he reduced the Helvetii; drove Ariovistus back into Ger¬ 
 many ; and, after frequent revolts, Gaul submitted to his arms. It was 
 during a brief interval of peace that he visited Britain, 55 b. c., but 
 the island was not subdued till the close of the first century after Christ. 
 
 At the termination of the Gallic war the conduct of the victor under¬ 
 went a great change. The last winter he passed beyond the Alps was 
 spent in visiting the various cities. He exercised no violence, but left 
 them entirely free in their internal government, requiring only a contri¬ 
 bution of forty millions of sesterces as pay for his men. The best sol¬ 
 diers of the nation he enrolled in his army, and formed of them the 
 renowned legion Jlfouda . His light troops were composed almost 
 entirely of Gauls from either province. 
 
 The Second Civil War, 49 b. c., had its origin in these circum¬ 
 stances:—The rapid victories of Caesar so roused the jealousy of Pom¬ 
 pey, who had been appointed sole consul, that when the former demanded 
 the prolongation of his government, and to be nominated though absent, 
 he was ordered to disband his legions, to which unjust command he 
 yielded with a slight exception. But the senate, with Pompey at their 
 head, before they could receive his answer, commenced hostile proceed¬ 
 ings against him. The tribunes fled disguised from Rome, and sought 
 refuge in the camp of Caesar, who thus became tne head of the popular 
 party. Nothing but war could now decide the differences of the rival 
 generals. Julius had reached the banks of the Rubicon, a little stream, 
 the boundary of his government, and which it was treason to cross in a 
 hostile manner; an inscription to which purpose, devoting the trans¬ 
 gressor to the infernal deities, may still be seen on the road between 
 Rimini and Cesena. “ On horseback, in the open air, Caesar all night 
 long pondered the weighty question of submission or resistance. At 
 daybreak his anxious soldiers found him still riding to and fro, deep 
 sunk in thought. At length he cried, The die is cast! gave his horse 
 the spur, and sprang across the stream, followed by his troops.” All 
 Italy received him with joy. The senate retired with their army into 
 Greece; and in sixty days the submission of the whole peninsula show¬ 
 ed the emptiness of Pompey’s boast, that with a single stamp of his 
 foot he could raise legions. Entering Rome, the governor of Gaul 
 seized upon the treasury, and, leaving Antony and Lepidus as his lieu¬ 
 tenants, he marched into Spain, where the hostile forces surrendered 
 without a blow. Returning to Marseilles, which had shut her gates 
 upon him, he punished the inhabitants with great severity. Without 
 loss of time, he crossed the sea, and hastened to meet Pompey,* whe 
 
 * Ocior et cseli flammis et tigride feeta : 
 
 Dum se deesse Deis, et non sibi Numina credit. 
 
ANClHJVT HISTORY. 
 
 aad already collected a numerous army, and most of the high-born youth 
 of the day, who had been finishing their education at Athens, enrolled 
 themselves among his troops. But the activity of Caesar deranged his 
 plan of protracting the war; for after some trivial successes, he was 
 utterly defeated at Pharsalia, 48 b. c., and was assassinated on the 
 Egyptian shore, near the mouth of the Nile. Caesar followed up the 
 scattered relics of the party, and reducing Egypt, bestowed it on Cleo¬ 
 patra. Cato the younger, who still dreamt of a republic, had assembled 
 in Africa a small body of men of like sentiments with himself, but 
 being vanquished and reduced to despair, he fell by his own hand. A 
 second campaign in the Spanish peninsula completed the annihilation 
 of Caesar’s enemies, and the conqueror entered Rome in triumph, where 
 he was made perpetual dictator, and saluted with the title of Father of 
 his Country. Statues were erected in his honour, as to a god, and a 
 festival with thanksgiving of forty days was decreed. Four times in 
 the course of one month he appeared in triumphal processions represent¬ 
 ing his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa. Sixty thou¬ 
 sand talents of silver and two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two 
 crowns of gold formed part of the splendid show 7 . Immense largesses 
 in money and land w T ere distributed to his faithful veterans, while public 
 banquets and distributions of corn, meat, and oil, wfith a diminution of 
 their rents, won the hearts of the people. Gladiatorial combats, thea¬ 
 trical representations, races, Trojan games, and military shows, were 
 seen in all parts of the city. But amidst this general intoxication, 
 Caesar did not forget more important cares. He aided in the reform of 
 the Calendar, a work undertaken by Sosigenes; passed laws against 
 treasonable attempts; increased the number of magistrates; colonized 
 many parts of Italy, as well as Carthage and Corinth; and awarded the 
 rights of citizenship to all professors of medicine and of the liberal arts. 
 
 Death of C^dsar. —The peaceful administration of one man, who 
 had triumphed over the great parties in the state, and w 7 ho by his exam¬ 
 ple was advancing the cause of literature and the arts, seemed destined 
 to heal the numerous wounds in the Roman dominions. But false ideas 
 of patriotism, and visionary notions of republican virtue, which nev&r 
 could be realized again in Rome, armed some of the noblest and best 
 of men against Caesar. At their head w 7 ere Brutus and Cassius, w T hom 
 he had generously pardoned. He fell under their daggers in the senate- 
 house, March 15, forty-four years before the Christian era. 44 The 
 tyrant is. dead, but tyranny still lives,” said Tully. The murder of the 
 dictator introduced a new period of anarchy and civil w T ar, during which 
 the v 7 hole w r orld w T as trodden down and desolated by conflicting armies. 
 The conspirators w T ere unable to profit by the advantage which they had 
 obtained. They trembled at the crime they had committed, and talked 
 while they should have acted. 
 
 Character of Caesar. 
 
 Lord Bacon thought Julius Caesar to be the most complete character of all 
 antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as com¬ 
 posed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans them¬ 
 selves. The first general — [he fought 50 battles, in which 1,192,000 men 
 fell] — the only triumphant politician — inferior to none in eloquence — com¬ 
 parable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest 
 commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers, that ever appeared in the 
 
FIRST CENTURA B. C. 
 
 121 
 
 world — an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his 
 travelling carriage — [he wrote as he fought, said Quinctilian] — at one time in 
 a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collect¬ 
 ing a set of good sayings—fighting and making love at the same moment, and 
 willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the fountains 
 of the Nile. Such did Julius Caesar appear to his contemporaries and to those 
 of the subsequent ages who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his 
 fatal genius.—Childe Harold, Note to Canto IV. 
 
 Third Civil War.— Meanwhile, Antony seized upon the contents 
 of the treasury, between five and six millions sterling, and with this 
 money bought many influential men, the veterans and the people. 
 Cicero exhausted the stores of his eloquence in vain, for the other 
 steadily pursued his ambitious course. The senate opposed to him the 
 young Octavianus (afterwards called Augustus), who already possessed 
 all the coolness, subtleness, and relentless determination of purpose 
 which characterized the latter portion of his career.* A war now broke 
 out, and in the course of it Antony had sufficient address to withdraw 
 him from Cicero’s party, and with Lepidus to form the 
 
 Second Triumvirate, 43 b. c.— The horrors of the former triumvirate 
 were far exceeded by this, for 300 senators, 2000 knights, the best and 
 noblest of the citizens, were proscribed. Each sacrificed his own friends 
 to the vengeance of his colleagues, and Cicero, who had long manifest¬ 
 ed a prophetic consciousness of his peril, was among the number. With 
 him fell the liberties of Rome; but it was not so much patriotism that 
 pointed the sword against his life, as the personal vindictiveness of 
 Antony which demanded the victim. The orator had no longer any 
 power to save or destroy the government, for the republic had passed 
 away, and a monarchy alone could succeed. Brutus and Cassius were 
 still at the head of a powerful army; but a doubtful battle at Philippi, 
 followed by the death of the two generals, relieved the triumvirs of all 
 cause of fear, 42 b. c. The unsuccessful expedition of Antony into 
 Asia, with his licentious conduct in Egypt, afforded Octavianus an 
 excuse for declaring him a public enemy. The wily triumvir, armed 
 with the specious authority of the senate, went against his former asso¬ 
 ciate, whom he met and defeated in a sea-fight near Actium, 31 b. c.f 
 
 The defeat of Sextus Pompeius, the resignation of Lepidus, and the 
 death of Antony, placed the whole government in the hands of Caesar 
 Octavianus, now called Augustus, 27 b. c. To supply the want of 
 money, Sylla had introduced the system of military colonies, which the 
 new ruler extended to reward the services of his troops. The Shepherd 
 of Virgil was not the only victim who, in the bitterness of his destitu¬ 
 tion, exclaimed— 
 
 Nos patriae fines, et dulcia linquimus arva : 
 
 Nos patriam fugimus. 
 
 * A recent historian thus describes him :—He was a youth of eighteen, small and deli¬ 
 cate, often sick, frequently halt of one leg, timid, and speaking with such difficulty, that 
 later in life he used to write beforehand what he desired to say to his wife ; so indistinct 
 and feeble was his voice that he was obliged to employ another to speak for him before 
 the people. He wanted not political boldness, for he must have had much to venture to 
 Rome to claim the succession of Ca3sar, as his nephew and heir ; other courage he had 
 none; fearing the thunder, darkness, and the enemy, and implacable tow'ards all who 
 excited his fears. 
 
 | This battle gave occasion to a new era, called the Actian, and used by the Egyp¬ 
 tians. It began with the 29th August 30 b. c., the first day of their year. 
 
 11 
 
122 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Augustus, now emperor, subdued the revolted Spaniards, made peace 
 with Ethiopia, compelled the Parthians to restore the standards they 
 had taken from Crassus and Antony, and Germany was forced to 
 acknowledge his power. The Roman empire at this period included 
 the fairest portion of the world lying around the Mediterranean, enclosed 
 by the Rhine, Danube, Euphrates, and the sandy deserts of Syria and 
 Africa. Victorious by land and sea, its master the third time closed the 
 temple of Janus; and it was in this moment of universal peace that 
 Jesus Christ was born, four years before the common account called a., d. 
 
 SECOND LITERARY ERA — the Augustan. 
 
 The history of Roman literature comprehends a space of seven centuries; 
 from about the middle of the third century before Christ, till the taking of 
 Rome by the Goths. The first period, from the end of the first Punic war, till 
 the death of Sylla (241-78), saw the formation of the Latin language, and the 
 imitation of the imperishable creations of Greek genius. The second period 
 (78 b. c. to a. d. 14), forms the Augustan or Golden age, one of the most me¬ 
 morable epochs in the history of literature. The third period, or Silver age 
 (a. d. 14—117), is remarkable not for the want of genius, but the decline of taste. 
 The names of Tacitus, Quinctilian, the younger Pliny, and Q. Curtius adorn 
 the annals of this century. The fourth period, or the Brazen age, extends till 
 a. d. 410, when Rome was taken by the Goths. Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, 
 and Jerome testify at once to the feebleness of the genius and the depraved 
 taste of these three centuries. 
 
 The genius of Pericles was revived in Augustus; a more impracticable 
 language than the Greek was about to give fresh laws and fresh models to 
 posterity. The emperor had the art to conciliate the literary men of his day, 
 and in their lavish flatteries we almost lose sight of his real character. He was 
 ably seconded by his prime minister, Maecenas, whose name has become a 
 proverb. Among the distinguished writers in this age we may remark, in 
 
 Eloquence: Cicero, d. 43; Hortensius, Caesar. 
 
 Poetry: Lucretius, d. 51; Virgil, d. 27; Tibullus, d. 20; Propertius, d. 
 16; and Horace, d. 8; of whom the last four lost their estates during the civil 
 wars ; Catullus, d. 49 ; Ovid, d. a. d. 17; Lucan, a. d. 65 ; Phaedrus, Petro- 
 nius, d. 67. 
 
 Tragedy: Seneca, d. a. d. 64. 
 
 Comedy: Plautus, 184 b. c. Terence, 159 b. c. 
 
 Satire: Horace, Perseus, a. d. 62; Juvenal, a. d. 128. 
 
 History : Caesar ; C. Nepos, d. 30 ; Sallust, d. 34 ; Livy, d. a. d. 19 ; Cur¬ 
 tius, Tacitus, a. d. 99; Valerius Maximus. 
 
 Philosophy: Cicero, Seneca, Celsus, d. a. d. 20. 
 
 In this sketch, the limits assigned to the x4ugustan era have been exceeded, 
 but with the design of bringing together some of the most celebrated names in 
 Roman history. There are others who wrote in Greek, but who are less 
 worthy of mention, as their works had no direct influence on Latin Letters. 
 They are Polybius (124 b. c.), who was with Scipio when Carthage fell; 
 Diodorus Siculus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus; Strabo; Josephus; and 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Prepare : Map of the Roman Empire. 
 
 JUD7EA. 
 
 Alexander Jann^eus succeeded his brother Aristobulus 105 b. c. 
 He was perpetually engaged in war, and by rashly provoking the king 
 of Egypt, brought his country to the verge of ruin. His enmity to the 
 Pharisees led to an open revolt, which, after various reverses, was 
 quelled by the total defeat of the rebels, whom he punished with 
 
FIRST CENTURY B. C. 
 
 123 
 
 remorseless cruelty. He died in 78, and the government was adminis¬ 
 tered by his widow, Alexandra, who, following her husband’s dying 
 counsels, had become reconciled to the Pharisees. On her death in 69, 
 this sect and the army severally put forward their favourites, Hyrcanus 
 II. and Aristobulus II. A desultory war ensued, which was terminated 
 by the interference of the Romans. Pompey decided in .favour of Hyr¬ 
 canus, and having captured Jerusalem in 63, sent Aristobulus with his 
 family prisoners to Rome. The escape of the deposed monarch and his 
 sons was the signal for another insurrection, which was soon repressed 
 by the vigour of Crassus. Caesar, after defeating his rival Pompey, 
 confirmed the authority of Hyrcanus, or rather of the crafty Idumaean 
 Antipater under his name, who managed to procure the government of 
 Galilee for his son Herod. After the battle of Philippi, Herod used the 
 favour of Antony to strengthen his own power. But he had still to con¬ 
 tend with enemies: Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, renewed the 
 struggle for sovereignty, and compelled Herod to flee to Rome. Here 
 he obtained from Antony and Octavianus the crown of Judaea, 40, and 
 returning to his dominions, accomplished the prophecy of Jacob fore¬ 
 telling the appearance of the Messiah when the sceptre should depart 
 from Judah. 
 
 Herod having overthrown his rival Antigonus, 37 b. c., became con¬ 
 firmed as king of Judaea, and by the friendship of Augustus he after¬ 
 wards added to his dominions Samaria, Galilee, Peraea, Ituraea, and 
 Trachonitis, with Idumaea. He received the title of Great from the 
 magnificence with which he rebuilt the temple; but his reign was so 
 tyrannical and barbarous that he was universally detested. He put to 
 death his beloved wife Mariamne, whose image haunted him continually 
 and brought on temporary derangement. Among his other victims were 
 her mother, brother, grandfather, uncle, and two sons. Our Saviour 
 was born in the last year of his reign. Five days before Herod died, 
 his eldest son Antipater, for attempting to poison him, was put to death ; 
 to Archelaus he assigned Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea; and to Antipas 
 the government of Galilee and Peraea. 
 
 HOUSE OF HEROD. 
 
 m. 1. Doris. 
 
 Antipater d. 43, b. c. 
 
 Herod the Great, d. 3, b. c. 
 2. Mariamne, 
 one of the Maccabees. 
 
 -A- 
 
 3. Many others. 
 
 f - -> 
 
 Antipater Alexander Aristobulus Archelaus, Herod Antipas, Philip, 
 d. 3 B. C. d 6 B C. d . 6 B. C. ethnarch,dep. A D. 8. tetrarch,dep. A. D. 39. tetrarch,d. A. D. 34, 
 
 /■- A -77i. Herodias. 
 
 Herod Agrippa, d. a. d. 44. 
 
 -_A-- 
 
 Herod II. Agrippa, d. a. d. 100. 
 
124 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 
 FIRST CENTURA 
 
 Rome. —9, Defeat of Varus.— Twelve C^sars. —79, First Eruption [recorded] 
 of Vesuvius. 
 
 Britain. —43, Claudius in Britain.—85, Agricola. 
 
 Judjea.— 8, Archelaus banished.—41, Herod Agrippa.—Roman Procurators. 
 —70, Jerusalem destroyed. 
 
 The Church. —30, Crucifixion of Christ. —40, Name of Christians—64, First 
 Persecution—66, Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul.—95, Second Perse 
 cution. 
 
 Inventions, &c. —16, Introduction of Silk Dresses by Tiberius.—60, Load* 
 stone discovered. 
 
 Literature, &c. —Phaedrus, Celsus, Q. Curtius, Persius, Plutarch, Epictetus, 
 Lucan, Martial, Juvenal, Seneca, Quinctilian, Tacitus, Petronius, the two 
 Plinys, Valerius Flaccus, Josephus, Dioscorides. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Augustus. —The Roman empire peaceably submitted to the superior 
 talents and craft of this fortunate soldier. Exhausted by the civil wars 
 which continued nearly a whole century, repose was eagerly sought by 
 all parties, and a population of 120 millions gladly yielded to the 
 dominion of one man. The Roman frontiers, extending from the Atlan¬ 
 tic to the Euphrates, and from the Rhine to the African deserts, were at 
 peace, broken only by a brief war with the Germans, in which Varus 
 and three legions were cut to pieces by Arminius, a. d. 9. Augustus 
 never recovered his serenity of temper after that defeat. By the mild¬ 
 ness of his government he acquired the love of the people, and by his 
 affected submission to the senate he gained their constant support, 
 although he had stript them of nearly all their power. Without either 
 superior genius or extraordinary attainments, he was prudent enough to 
 seize upon all opportunities of advancing his ambitious projects; and 
 his principles improved when the possession of unlimited power rendered 
 crime useless. He was still a hypocritical voluptuary; but the repose 
 which he had procured to the empire, the flourishing state in which he 
 left it, and the mild exercise of his authority, covered or excused his 
 faults. His latter days were not happy. The profligacy of his daughter 
 Julia, the ambition of his wife, and the loss of his adopted child, added 
 poignancy to the stings of a guilty conscience. He died at Nola, a.d. 
 14, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and the forty-first of his reign. 
 
 Read: Blackwell’s Court of Augustus. 
 
 After the battle of Actium and the death of Antony, Augustus was desirous 
 of legitimatizing his power by concealing it under legal forms. To veil his 
 usurpation, he assumed the titles of the principal offices, using his power as 
 rensor to clear the senate of many personal enemies. All the acts of his 
 triumvirate were annulled, as if he wished to show that he was now influenced 
 
FIRST CENTURY A. D. 
 
 125 
 
 by different motives; and his feigned proposal of abdication was earnestly com¬ 
 bated by his friends, who persuaded him to prolong his power during ten more 
 years. To prove his disinterestedness, he shared the administration of the 
 empire with the senate, leaving to it the fair provinces of Italy and Sicily: 
 while he, by his deputies, governed the remainder. He assumed no unusual 
 power; and yet, by the simple means of uniting all offices in his own person, 
 he became entirely autocratical. Corresponding changes in the administration 
 of the state ensued; and although the senate still remained the supreme coun¬ 
 cil, there was another and more important one, composed of his particular 
 friends, such as Maecenas and Agrippa. Towards the end of his life, this body 
 of men assumed the form of a modern cabinet ( consistorium ), being increased 
 by the addition of fifteen senators, and one of each magisterial college. They 
 were afterwards divided into three classes, having in their hands the entire 
 government. The popular assemblies and elections still remained; but they 
 were empty forms, the candidate nominated by the emperor never being rejected. 
 Many salutary laws were enacted ; the public edifices and roads were kept in 
 good repair ; a kind of police and night-watch were established ; and commu¬ 
 nication between distant points was facilitated by the establishment of regular 
 posts for the transmission of the imperial despatches. The finances remained 
 nearly the same ; there were, however, two treasuries, that of the prince ( fis - 
 cus) , the other of the senate ( cerarium ). Besides introducing a regular organi¬ 
 sation into the army., Augustus divided and separated the twenty-five legions, 
 paid them regularly, and compensated their toils by money instead of land. 
 The term of service was also fixed, and the soldiers, instead of being turbulent 
 and insolent, as in the civil wars, became docile and peaceable. The entire 
 body was distributed along the frontiers in stationary camps ; tranquillity was 
 maintained in the interior by praetorian and urban cohorts. Two fleets, one at 
 Ravenna, the other at Misenum, protected the commerce of the Mediterranean; 
 forty vessels guarded the Euxine Sea, and armed boats secured the navigation 
 of the Rhine and Danube. 
 
 3. Tiberius, a. d. 14-37.—The reign of Augustus appears in a more 
 favourable light when contrasted with those of his nearest successors. 
 Tiberius was fifty-six years old when he ascended the throne, professing 
 great unwillingness to take upon him its important cares. The first 
 victim of this despotic emperor was the young Agrippa Posthumus, in 
 whom he feared a rival; and all restraint being now removed, the tyrant 
 gave loose to his cruel and sensual passions. He soon afterwards 
 retired from Rome to Campania, from whose luxurious retreats issued 
 those blood-stained decrees which the senate was so ready to enregister; 
 and we may read in Suetonius and Tacitus of the murders committed 
 by this body, in compliance with the imperial edicts. Sejanus, com¬ 
 mander of the praetorian guards, and favourite of the monarch, dared to 
 raise his thoughts to the highest station; and, to clear his way to the 
 throne, got rid of all those whose claims were nearer than his own. 
 Germanicus, the son of Drusus, was poisoned; his widow, Agrippina, 
 was exiled to Pandataria, an island noted as the place of Julia’s banish¬ 
 ment; his eldest son, Nero, committed suicide to avoid the torture; and 
 Drusus, the second son, perished of hunger in prison. But Tiberius 
 suddenly awoke to the treachery of his minister, and he who had filled 
 all Rome with mourning was surrendered to the popular fury. From 
 this period the emperor, exasperated by the dangers with which he had 
 been threatened, indulged in fresh cruelties. The wealthy inhabitants 
 of Gaul, Spain, and Greece, were condemned to death for the merest 
 trifles, that their riches might augment the royal treasures. His latter 
 years were passed in scenes of infamous debauchery at Capreae, and his 
 death was hastened by the hands of a freedman, a. d. 37. 
 
 11 * 
 
126 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 During this odious reign, Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross 
 his divine mission ; and then arose from Calvary that new and pure 
 gospel which was destined to regenerate the world. 
 
 Foreign Wars.— Tiberius imitated the policy of Augustus by engag¬ 
 ing in no wars unnecessarily. In Gaul, two revolts, the result of 
 excessive taxation, were with difficulty subdued ; while, in the East, the 
 imperial ministers found safety in the troubles they excited among the 
 tributary Persian states. Germany, however, in the days of Augustus, 
 had been the scene of important military operations. The wife and 
 infant son of Arminius ( Hermann ) had fallen into the hands of the 
 Romans, to rescue whom all the neighbouring tribes rose in arms. 
 Germanicus, eager to anticipate the terrible blow impending over his 
 country, assumed the offensive, attacked and defeated several detached 
 bodies of the enemy, and in the end had nearly gained a complete vic¬ 
 tory. A bloody campaign led to no decisive result; the Germans could 
 make no permanent impression on the well-disciplined legions, and the 
 Romans were compelled to retire by sea, when a fearful tempest destroyed 
 a great part of the fleet and army. Shortly after this, Arminius, who 
 has been praised by Tacitus as the liberator of Germany from the domi¬ 
 nion of Rome when in the height of her power, was assassinated at the 
 age of thirty seven, eleven years after his triumph over Varus. 
 
 4. Caligula, a. d. 37-41, began to reign with mildness, but a severe 
 malady at the end of the first year disordered his intellect, after which 
 his cruelty knew no bounds. His excesses can only be excused by 
 supposing his mind to have been affe. ted. He fancied himself at one 
 time a male, at another time a female, deity; raised his wife and his 
 horse to the consulate; and fed his wild beasts with the bodies of 
 citizens and captives. A violent death freed Rome from this frantic 
 monster. 
 
 5. Claudius, a. d, 41-54.— -The senate, immediately upon the demise 
 of Caligula, began to deliberate on the choice of a successor; but the 
 praetorians, amounting to 10,000 men, instituted as a body-guard by 
 Augustus, and kept in various garrisons throughout Italy, now took 
 advantage of their being collected in Rome, to proclaim the supremacy 
 of the army. They elected Claudius, during whose impotent rule 35 
 senators and 300 knights fell by the hand of the executioner. He was 
 quite a puppet under the management of his favourites Messalina and 
 Agrippina, Pallas and Narcissus. In this reign, the conquest of South 
 Britain was partly effected, a. d. 43. 
 
 The first act of Claudius’ government was to publish a general am¬ 
 nesty, from which the murderers of his predecessor were alone excepted. 
 He repealed all Caligula’s edicts, showing the greatest deference for 
 the senate and magistrates. He himself presided daily at the tribunal 
 of justice, enacted many wise laws, annulled the cruel statutes against 
 high-treason, diminished the taxes, checked usury, and encouraged 
 marriage. It is not one of his smallest claims to the title of benefactor 
 of his people, that he abolished in Gaul the blood-stained religion of the 
 Druids. The principal inhabitants of that province were selected to fill 
 the vacant seats in the senate-house, the censorship was re-established, 
 the circumference of Rome enlarged, and a new port constructed at 
 Ostia, for the reception of the African and Egyptian corn-vessels. But 
 
FIRST CENTURY A. D. 
 
 127 
 
 the empire required the firm hand of a master, while Claudius was 
 feeble and uxorious. His death by poison was effected by his second 
 wife and an infamous sorceress Locusta, a. d. 54. 
 
 6. Nero, a. d. 54-68, reigned mildly five years, guided by the ex¬ 
 perience of Burrhus and Seneca, after which he was seized with a 
 hereditary madness. He murdered his mother Agrippina, his brother, 
 his tutor, and the poet Lucan. He set fire to Rome, and, while the city 
 was burning, mounted a lofty tower, where, accompanying the words 
 with the music of the harp, he sung his own poem on the fall of Troy. 
 He appeared as a sinfe| on the public stage, and contended as a herald 
 or crier at Olympia. Tne people at last grew weary of his cruelty and 
 debauchery; and he perished by the sword of his freedman. But his 
 private vices were less dangerous to the state than his exactions in the 
 provinces whence he drew the means of supporting his extravagance, 
 and of keeping his subjects in a continual state of intoxication.* With 
 him the Julian family became extinct; and in consequence of the dis¬ 
 puted succession, four emperors arose in less than two years. 
 
 7. Galba, a. d. 68, 69, was elected to the throne during Nero’s life, 
 but endeavouring to check the licentiousness of the army and praetorians 
 who had raised him to so dangerous an eminence, he was murdered by 
 the soldiers, after a reign of seven months. 
 
 8. Otho, a. d. 69, who had plotted against the life of his predecessor, 
 did not long enjoy the fruits of his treason. This companion of the 
 early debaucheries of Nero had been sent, during that monarch’s life, 
 into the honourable banishment of the Spanish quaetorship, in which 
 office he gained over the army, by whom he was invested with the 
 purple. But he was scarcely acknowledged at Rome before the legions 
 of Germany elected a competitor. Supported only by the praetorians 
 and an undisciplined crowd, he was defeated by Vitellius, his rival, and 
 committed suicide, after reigning three months and five days. 
 
 9. Vitellius, a. d. 69, trod in the steps of his patron Caligula. 
 Although he gave himself up entirely to the pleasures of the table, he 
 was severe toward his enemies. He was put to death while preparing 
 to meet Vespasian, who had been proclaimed emperor by the Syrian 
 army. Thus in the space of a single year, Rome had seen three 
 monarchs elected by the respective armies of Italy, the Rhine, and 
 Spain, and who all met with violent deaths. 
 
 10. Vespasian was declared emperor by the soldiers whom he was 
 leading against the Jews, a. d. 69. This people, excited by false pro 
 phets and oppressed by the severity of their governors, broke out into 
 open revolt. In other parts of the empire the peace was similarly dis¬ 
 turbed ; blood was shed in the streets of Rome in civil tumult; the 
 splendid temple of Jupiter on the Capitol was consumed by fire ; Gaul 
 was in rebellion; the frontiers were threatened by the Germans on the 
 Rhine, and by the Parthians on the Euphrates. Vespasian restored 
 peace to the world, and during nine years used his extensive power with 
 
 * It is a remarkable circumstance that Nero’s memory was long cherished among the 
 lower classes. During many years his tomb was decorated with flowers. His death was 
 considered a fabrication, and no less than three false Neros appeared in the East. At 
 the close of the third and fourth centuries, it was a popular belief that he would appear 
 at the end of the world as Antichrist. 
 
128 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 moderation. Under his orders the Jewish war was terminated ; and his 
 son Titus, whom he had left at the head of the army, utterly destroyed 
 the people of Jerusalem after an obstinate resistance, and rased the city 
 to the ground. A medal was struck commemorative of the event, bear¬ 
 ing on one side a veiled female figure sitting under a palm-tree, with 
 the inscription Judxa Capta . Vespasian died in the midst of many 
 valuable reforms, and left the empire to the cono t ueror of the Jews. 
 
 11. Titus, a. d. 79-81, called The Delight of Mankind , from his 
 amiable and generous disposition, enjoyed a reign of only two years, 
 which was marked by calamities. He was compelled to quit Berenice, 
 a Jewish princess whom he tenderly loved; a great part of Rome was 
 consumed by fire; this was followed by a raging pestilence; and an 
 eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii, 
 and Stabise beneath showers of ashes, August 24, a. d. 79. 
 
 12. Domitian, a. d. 81-96, who succeeded his brother, manifested the 
 disposition of Nero. He embellished the city with magnificent build¬ 
 ings, and engaored in useless and unsuccessful wars ; South Britain was 
 however subdued in his reign by Agricola, 85, whose death he is said 
 to have occasioned. He banished literary men from Rome, degraded 
 the senate, and persecuted all who were noble and good. He arrogated 
 divine honours to himself, put to death many men of rank for the most 
 trifling causes, and at last fell by an assassin’s dagger, a. d. 96. Thus 
 perished the last of the twelve Caesars, of whom only four deserve the 
 respect of posterity : Julius, Augustus, Vespasian, and Titus. 
 
 Gibbon thus characterizes the unworthy successors of Augustus :— 
 “ Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were 
 acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, 
 the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, 
 the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned 
 to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the 
 short and doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign), Rome groaned beneath 
 an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the 
 republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that 
 arose in that unhappy period.” 
 
 JUDiEA. 
 
 Archelaus succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Herod, 
 3 b. c., but his administration was so despotic and unpopular, that he 
 was deposed and banished to Vienne in Gaul, a. d. 8, when Judsea 
 became a Roman province, dependent on the prefecture of Syria, under 
 the procurator Coponius. On one occasion this cruel monarch caused 
 3000 citizens to be massacred in the Temple. Pontius Pilate, who was 
 governor from a. d. 26 to 36, was a man cf stern and inflexible temper, 
 utterly disregarding the religious feelings of the people. Twice he 
 nearly caused a revolt by introducing into the city the Roman ensigns, 
 on which were the images of the emperor, and by the consecration of 
 the golden bucklers in the palace of Herod. The part which he took 
 in the condemnation of our Lord is too well known to rtquire comment. 
 He was soon afterwards recalled, and banished to Vienne, where he is 
 said to have perished by his own hand, a. d. 38. 
 
Domitius Nero, t a. d. 68. 
 
 . Octavia. 2. Popoaea Sabina. 
 
 FIRST CENTURY A. D. 
 
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 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Herod Agrippa.— The Jewish kingdom was again reconstructed from 
 its several tetrarchies by Claudius, and bestowed upon Herod Agrippa, 
 grandson of Herod the Great, a. d. 41. Educated at Rome, he was the 
 friend of the Emperors Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius ; and after 
 many years, full of the most striking vicissitudes of fortune, he became 
 one of the greatest princes of the East, and governed the Jews three 
 years in such a manner as to become extremely popular. His death, 
 which was sudden, may be ascribed to the immediate judgment of God 
 for his impiety. On a day of festival, when he appeared in the theatre 
 of Caesarea, the brilliant light of the sun glancing on ms silver robes 
 struck the people with admiration. Fawning parasites addressed him 
 as a god : — ,4 Be thou merciful unto us, for although we have hitherto 
 received thee only as a man, yet henceforth we shall regard thee as 
 superior to mortal nature. 5 ’ He neither rebuked nor rejected this impi¬ 
 ous flattery, when he was immediately smitten with violent pains in his 
 bowels. Turning to his attendants, he cried, 44 Behold your god is now 
 condemned to die!” Five days he lingered in the most excruciating 
 tortures, when he expired, having attained only the fifty-fourth year of 
 his age, and the seventh of his reign as tetrarch of Galilee. Under the 
 frequent change of governors and prefects, the Jews experienced alter¬ 
 nate changes of gentleness and severity. False Messiahs appeared on 
 every side, and a ferocious sect arose, which, adopting tne opinions of 
 Judas the Gaulonite, put itself in open hostility to the Roman govern¬ 
 ment. Under Claudius Felix, who trembled at the simple truths uttered 
 by St. Paul, the country began to be filled with robbers and murderers. 
 Gessius Florus, a. d. 64, the worst of the Roman governors, was tyran¬ 
 nical, cruel, and insatiably avaricious. He murdered 3000 people in 
 Jerusalem, 20,000 at Caesarea, 2000 at Ptolemais, and 2500 at Ascalon* 
 but when he carried his insolence so far as to attempt to enter the tem¬ 
 ple with his soldiers, the whole inhabitants rose in arms against him. 
 The nation was unfortunately divided into two parties, one proposing 
 submission, the other desirous to continue the revolt. The country now 
 became a scene of bloodshed, and the flame of insurrection spread to 
 Syria, Egypt, and the neighbouring states. Cestius Gallus, prefect of 
 Syria, who endeavoured to recover the capital, was defeated with great 
 loss. The Christians, remembering the prophecy of Christ, took ad¬ 
 vantage of the retreat of the Roman army, and withdrew to Pella, 
 beyond the Jordan, where they lived in peace, free from the horrors of 
 the w T ar raging around the holy city. 
 
 Destruction of Jerusalem, a. d. 70.—Ananus, or Annas, the high 
 priest, was raised to the civil command of Jerusalem, and the historian 
 Josephus was at the head of the armies of Galilee and Gamaia. Ves¬ 
 pasian was sent with 60,000 men to crush the rebellion, a. d. 67. After 
 subduing the revolted provinces, he was spreading his toils around the 
 devoted city, when, as already noticed, he was elected emperor, a. d. 69 ; 
 and departing for Rome, left his son Titus to continue the campaign. 
 The Jews had neglected to profit by this season of delay. The ravages 
 of war without were far less fatal than the murderous rage of the fac¬ 
 tions within the walls. 44 The holy city had become the nest of all 
 uncleanness, a horrid den of robbers, and a hateful cave of murderers.” 
 Eleazar, with a band of Zealots (a horde of robbers who had assumed 
 the name without the principles of the sect), possessed the inner court 
 
FIRST CENTURY A. D. 
 
 131 
 
 of the Temple; while John of Gischala, who had obstinately resisted 
 die Romans in Galilee, occupied the rest of the building, now converted 
 into a fortress. When Titus advanced to the siege, Jerusalem was 
 crowded with people from all quarters, tvho had come up to celebrate 
 the passover; and they soon became a prey to the most horrible famine 
 recorded in history, so that vermin, grass, and leather, were held a 
 luxury, and sold at a high price. From the middle of April to the first 
 of July, not fewer than 115,880 dead bodies were flung out at one gate 
 of the city; the whole number thus disposed of is reckoned at 600,000; 
 and after an unexampled siege of six months, the city was reduced, a. 
 d. 70. “The destruction of Jerusalem exceeded all which God or man 
 ever brought upon the world.” Exclusive of those who perished in 
 caves and woods, and in the vaults of Jerusalem, 1,364,000 are com¬ 
 puted by Lipsius to have fallen in the war; 97,000 were taken prison¬ 
 ers; and 11,000 sullenly starved themselves to death. Titus, we are 
 told, called God to witness that he was not the author of their calami¬ 
 ties. In perusing the melancholy details of Josephus, it is impossible 
 to resist the conviction, that in these awful transactions the hand of the 
 Almighty was punishing a guilty people, and requiring from them the 
 righteous blood of Christ, which they had invoked upon their heads, 
 crying—“ His blood be on us, and on our children !” 
 
 Read: Milman’s History of the Jews ; Hide’s History of the Jews. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Messiah. — During a season of profound peace, in the reign of 
 Augustus, when there was a general expectation that some great per¬ 
 sonage was about to appear, the time arrived for the redemption of the 
 human race,—promised at the fall of man, predicted by all the prophets, 
 typified by all the ceremonies of the ancient law, and earnestly desired 
 by all just men. In the “ fulness of time” Jesus Christ was born at 
 Bethlehem. He escaped from the murderous rage of Herod, and for 
 nearly thirty years lived an obscure life at Nazareth. At length, enter¬ 
 ing on his public ministry, he began to teach, in the reign of Tiberius, 
 throughout all Judaea, confirming his divine mission by the purity of his 
 life, the sublimity of his doctrines, and his miraculous powers. The 
 Jews, who had looked for an earthly conqueror, refused to listen to the 
 lowly Galilean, and procured his condemnation and execution as a 
 criminal, 3d April, a. d. 30. 
 
 After the resurrection and ascension of our Saviour, the Christian 
 religion spread rapidly under the ministry of the apostles and their con¬ 
 verts, They preached throughout all the Roman empire the sublime 
 truths revealed to them by their divine Master, and established churches 
 in three quarters of the world. The name of Christian was first used 
 at Antioch, a. d. 40. The four gospels contain the history of the Re¬ 
 deemer’s life and doctrines, and were written in the order in which they 
 stand, between a. d. 37 and 98. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The first Christian societies or churches were formed, as far as circumstances 
 would permit on the model of the synagogue, were governed by deacons , and 
 sometimes deaconesses , who were charged with the distribution of alms; elders 
 
132 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 (presbyters or priests) exercised a right of censure over private individuals, bu\ 
 their functions originally were not connected with religious instructions; and 
 bishops (episcopi, overseers), the associates in the labours and the successors of 
 the apostles. 1'he bishop administered the sacraments and maintained the dis¬ 
 cipline of the church, superintended the daily increasing religious ceremonies, 
 directed the funds, and arbitrated in the disputes of the faithful.* 
 
 Persecution forced the different communities to unite each round the nearest 
 centre, generally some populous and neighbouring town; such was the origin 
 of a diocese. The same necessity compelled the bishops of the country towns 
 to unite with the capital of the province, and thus a metropolis was formed. 
 This institution confirmed a custom which dates from the end of the second 
 century, that of synods or councils , provincial meetings held in spring and 
 autumn. 
 
 First Persecution, a. d. 64.—The progress of the new doctrines 
 brought down upon their professors the rage of the Jews and the cruel 
 torments of Nero. The year a. d. 64 was an eventful epoch in the 
 Christian Church. The dreadful conflagration which threatened with 
 ruin the Eternal City was considered as the judgment of offended 
 deities, to appease whom the followers of the Christian religion were 
 exposed to the severest tortures. u Some of them (says the pagan Taci¬ 
 tus) were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might 
 be torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified, while others, having 
 been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in 
 the night-time, and thus burnt to death.” The apostles Peter and Paul 
 suffered martyrdom in this persecution, which appears to have been 
 principally confined to the capital, where the latter of these faithful men 
 became the victim of imperial rage, j - 
 
 Second Persecution. —For nearly 30 years after the death of Nero, 
 the Christians were allowed to live undisturbed ; and their numbers had 
 multiplied considerably, when the gloomy tyrant Domitian began the 
 second persecution, a. d. 95. It is probable that the emperor acted 
 through fear, since there is a singular story related of an edict issued by 
 him fc the extermination of the whole family of David. Some de¬ 
 scendants of our Lord’s brethren still survived, and were brought before 
 the tribunal of the procurator of Judaea, but, after examination, they 
 were dismissed as too humble to be dangerous to the authority of Rome. 
 The apprehensions of Domitian were aroused by the appearance of 
 danger from a nearer quarter. One of his cousins-german, the consul 
 Flavius Clemens, being suddenly accused of atheism and Jewish man¬ 
 ners, the common charge against Christians, was put to death, and his 
 wife, Domitilla, the emperor’s niece, was banished. Tertullian relates 
 that St. John was miraculously delivered unhurt from a vessel of flaming 
 oil, into which he had been cast by the orders of the tyrant. He was 
 afterwards banished to the isle of Patinos, on the western coast of Asia 
 Minor, where he committed to writing his sublime Book of Revelation. 
 
 * The apostolic succession of the bishops app°ars to be undeniable, but the extent and 
 nature of their authority are altogether uncertain. It should, moreover, be observed that 
 the term “ successors of the apostles” can be applied to them in a very limited significa¬ 
 tion only. 
 
 t Count Stolberg, a Romanist writer, brings Peter to Rome at the beginning of Nero’s 
 reign, but denies that the apostle founded the Christian church in that city. It is, how¬ 
 ever. more than questionable if St. Peter ever was at Rome. Lightfoot positively asserts 
 that he lived and died in dial laea. Milman endeavours to reconcile testimony and tra¬ 
 dition by the theory of two churches, a Petrine and a Pauline, a Judaising and a Hel 
 lenising community. 
 
FIRST CENTURY A. D. 
 
 33 
 
 Ten great persecutions of the early Christian church are recorded jy msto- 
 rians ; we shall treat of them as they occur, but it may be convenient to arrange 
 their epochs together :— 
 
 3d Persecution, a.d. 106, under Trajan. 
 
 4th Persecution, a. d. 166, under Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 5th Persecution, a. d. 202, under Severus. 
 
 6th Persecution, a. d. 235, under Maximin. 
 
 7th Persecution, a.d. 250, under Decius. 
 
 8th Persecution, a. d. 258, under Valerian. 
 
 9th Persecution, a. d. 272, under Aurelian. 
 
 10th Persecution, a. d. 303, under Diocletian and Maximian. 
 
 Read: Milman’s Hist, of Christianity ; Milner’s Hist, of the Church of Christ 
 
 TABLE OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 | No. of 
 
 Perse¬ 
 
 cution. 
 
 Year. 
 
 In what 
 Countries. 
 
 ' Name of Emperor, 
 &c. 
 
 Principal Sufferers, and 
 when. 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 In the years 55 and 54 b. c., Julius Caesar invaded this island, but his 
 two campaigns were indecisive, and the country maintained its inde¬ 
 pendence until a. d. 43, when the Emperor Claudius in person, and 
 afterwards the generals Plautius and Vespasian, compelled various 
 tribes to acknowledge the majesty of Rome. The last of these com¬ 
 manders fought thirty battles before he could subdue the inhabitants, 
 and Caractacus opposed Plautius during five years with varying suc¬ 
 cess. This brave chief of the Silures being without allies, his army 
 was at last defeated with great slaughter, and he himself taken prisoner 
 and carried to Rome. Suetonius endeavoured to destroy the Druids 
 who had taken refuge in the isle of Anglesey, and quelled a formidable 
 insurrection headed by the celebrated Boadicea, a.d. 61, which cost the 
 lives of 150.000 men. In the course of seven years, 78-85, the power 
 of the empire was firmly established by Agricola: he subdued the 
 natives as far north as the Forth, and also defeated Galgacus and his 
 Caledonians at the foot of their native Grampians. Rutilius has said, 
 with equal beauty and truth, that Rome embraced the w T hole world in 
 her legislative triumphs, causing all to live under a common bond ; that 
 she blended discordant nations into one; and that, by offering to the 
 conquered a full companionship in her privileges, she made the earth 
 one united city. With these principles Agricola endeavoured to civilize 
 the island, by inspiring the barbarians with a love of letters, and by the 
 introduction of the Roman dress, language, and luxurious manners. 
 Four legions w r ere stationed in Britain, and as many great roads facili¬ 
 tated the communication between distant points. 
 
 The most ancient inhabitants of the country appear to have been the 
 Cymrv, from whom the Welsh are descended ; and these w~ere followed 
 12 
 
134 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 by colonies of Celts from Gaul, being themselves, like the first settlers, 
 of Cimmerian origin. But not by rude emigrants alone was the island 
 visited, for the Phoenicians, and after them the Carthaginians, frequented 
 its south-western shores in search of tin. Numerous tribes, of which 
 forty-five have been designated, were spread over its surface; and the 
 Belgae, a people of Gothic origin, occupied the south-eastern coast. 
 They all lived in such a state of primitive simplicity as might be wit¬ 
 nessed at present in the woods of North America, or in New Zealand. 
 Their food was milk and flesh, skins their clothing, and to strike terror 
 into their enemies in battle the exposed limbs were stained blue. Their 
 houses were constructed of timber and reeds; their towns were situated 
 in the depths of forests, the access to which was protected by ditches 
 and barriers of trees. Money was little used, and was commonly rings 
 of iron or copper of a certain weight. Their army was chiefly composed 
 of infantry; but, like the heroes of the Trojan war, their chiefs fought 
 from chariots armed with scythes. Their religion was that of the fierce 
 and sanguinary Druids; a system which is said to have originated in 
 Britain, whence it was introduced into Gaul. Its principal doctrines 
 were the immortality and transmigration of souls; its chief maxims—to 
 worship the gods, to do no evil, and to behave heroically. To appease, 
 by cruel rites, their offended deities, huge images of wickerwork were 
 filled with human victims, who were burned alive, and from their 
 quivering limbs the priests predicted future events. The mistletoe, 
 wherever it was found upon the oak, itself a sacred tree, was cut with 
 great ceremony, and used as a charm to cause fecundity or to counteract 
 poison. The Druidical order was divided into three classes: 1. The 
 Druids, who were their dignitaries; 2. The Bards, poets or musicians; 
 and, 3. The Ouates, the lowest rank of sacrificers and diviners. Of their 
 monuments we have no remains, unless we consider as such the remark¬ 
 able ruins of Stonehenge and Abury. 
 
 Read: Turner’s Anglo-Saxons, book i. chap. iv. 
 
 SECOND CENTURY. 
 
 Rome.— 96, Nerva. — 98, Trajan. — 117, Adrian. — 138-180, The Antonines.^- 
 180, Commodus.—193, Didius Julianus. 
 
 The Church.— Third and Fourth Persecutions. 
 
 Discoveries.— Astronomical System of Ptolemy. 
 
 Literature, &c.— Lucian; Ptolemy; Justin Martyr; Apuleius; Suetonius; 
 Florus ; Justin ; Symmachus ;—The Targurn and Mischnah.* 
 
 ROME. 
 
 The Five Good Emperors. — Nerva, a.d. 96-98, began his short 
 but happy reign by the diminution of taxes. He was of Cretan extrac¬ 
 tion, and elected by the senate at the age of sixty-five to support the 
 
 * The Tarspim is a Chaldee paraphrase of the five books of Moses by Onkelos : its date 
 is uncertain. The Mischnah is a compilation of traditional Jewish laws by Rabbi Judah ; 
 its commentary, the Gemarah , is divided into two parts, viz. 1st, The Talmud of Jerusa¬ 
 lem, compiled in the third century; and 2d, The Talmud of Babylon, compiled in the 
 
SECOND CENTURY A.D. 
 
 135 
 
 state already inclining to its fall. Alarmed at the insurrections excited 
 by his reforms, he adopted the valiant Trajan, then commanding the 
 armies of Lower Germany, a Spaniard by birth, though of Roman 
 descent. The news of his elevation at once quieted all dissensions, and 
 his soldiers, when he returned to Rome as emperor, after the death of 
 Nerva, were never known to give cause for complaint by their insolence 
 or irregularity. Trajan’s palace was open to all, and with the studied 
 modesty of Augustus he visited among his former friends like a private 
 citizen. He introduced order and economy into the imperial household, 
 constructed numerous public monuments, and also formed that great 
 road which traversed the empire from Gaul to the Euxine Sea. These 
 and other peaceful cares did not prevent him from watching the bar¬ 
 barous nations already hovering on the Roman frontiers. He attacked 
 the Dacians, and notwithstanding the skilful tactics of their chief Dece- 
 balus, drove them by repeated defeats to their capital, the ruins of w r hich 
 may still be seen in Transylvania, and compelled them to purchase 
 peace, a. d. 103. The war w r as next transferred to the Euphrates, and 
 Trajan penetrated into Armenia, w T hich he mastered, threatened Parthia, 
 and advanced to the Tigris, always marching on foot at the head of his 
 troops. In another expedition he reached the shores of the Indian 
 Ocean, sighing that his age prevented him from imitating the exploits 
 of Alexander. While he was thus engaged in distant expeditions, a 
 horrible revolt broke out at home. In Gyrene, Cyprus, and Egypt, the 
 Jews rose and murdered all the Romans they could discover, inflicting 
 on them the most frightful tortures. Some were sawn asunder ; others 
 torn to pieces by heated pincers; and, if we may credit the historians, 
 the murderers even devoured the flesh of their victims. In the midst of 
 these events Trajan died, lamenting that his labours for the public good 
 had proved so ineffectual. He was just and upright in his conduct both 
 public and private, and his warlike reign, by exciting in the barbarous 
 nations a sense of Roman vigour, was eminently useful to the empire. 
 His persecution of the Christians is a great blot on his character. 
 Though his life came to a close in Cilicia, his body was conveyed to 
 Rome, and over his tomb was raised the lofty column which still bears 
 his name. For nearly three centuries after his death it was usual to 
 salute each new emperor with a prayer that he might be more fortunate 
 than Augustus, and more virtuous than Trajan. 
 
 Adrian, a. d. 117-138, was in many respects unequal to his great 
 predecessor. Relinquishing the conquests of Trajan, he wisely reduced 
 the empire to the limits sanctioned by the wisdom of Augustus—to the 
 barriers formed by the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean. 
 He travelled through all his dominions to investigate and remedy more 
 promptly the disorders which prevailed. He settled a colony at Jeru¬ 
 salem, rebuilt the walls of that city, and called it JElia Capitolina. 
 Many useful reforms were introduced by him; the annual laws of the 
 praetors were replaced by a perpetual edict, so that the principles of the 
 administration of justice no longer varied with each year. The condi- 
 
 fifth century.—While speaking of eastern writings we may here observe, that the Sacon - 
 tala (translated by Sir W. Jones with the title of the Fatal Ring), and various other 
 Indian dramas and poems by Calvlas , belong to this century. Of greater but uncertain 
 antiquity are the U-King of the Chinese ; the Vedas or sacred books of the Hindoos : the 
 Mahd-bhdrata, the great Hindoo epic ; and the Sanscrit Puranas. 
 
136 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 tion of the slaves was also greatly ameliorated; their masters were no 
 longer allowed to exercise an absolute power of life and death over 
 them, and the private prisons were closed. An insurrection, which 
 broke out under the impostor Barchochebas, who announced that he was 
 the Messiah, was, after two years, extinguished in the blood of many 
 thousand Jews, 135. The latter portion of Adrian’s reign was darkened 
 by the murder of persons suspected of conspiring against him, and he 
 died of a lingering disease, repeating Plato’s well-known lines on the 
 nature of the soul. 
 
 Antoninus Pius, a. d. 138-161, the second Nunia, the father of his 
 country . was a rare combination of virtue and philosophy. His pacific 
 government of twenty-three years is marked by no striking events, the 
 storms and tempests of nature alone attracting the notice of the histo¬ 
 rian.* Bv one celebrated edict he declared all the free inhabitants of 
 %/ 
 
 the empire to he citizens of Rome,—a measure originating as much in 
 political prudence as in a philosophic love of liberty, for they thereby 
 became liable to taxes from which as provincials they were exempted. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, a. d. 161-180, surnamed the Philoso¬ 
 pher, was prevented from treading in the tranquil steps of his predecessor 
 by disturbances on the German and Syrian frontiers. The Parthians 
 were driven back with great loss by his colleague Verus, 165; and he 
 himself defeated the Sarmatians , the Quadi , and the Marcomanni , a. d. 
 174. Famine and the plague desolated several provinces during this 
 reign. The Tiber rose above its banks and swept away all the public 
 granaries situate near it, the loss of which caused the most melancholy 
 sufferings. Britain and Belgium were in confusion; three legions were 
 cut off in the East; the victorious army on its return from the Euphrates 
 brought with it a pestilence which ravaged the whole empire to the 
 shores of the Atlantic, and the city of Rome in particular, so that the 
 dead bodies were carried out promiscuously in wagons. The want of 
 food aggravated the previous miseries; fresh wars broke out simul¬ 
 taneously on all sides, to supply troops for which even the gladiators 
 were enrolled in the legions. The attacks of the barbarians of the north 
 upon the frontier, during this reign, were the first symptom of that great 
 migration of the fierce tribes from the neighbourhood of the Caspian, 
 who ultimately overran the fairest provinces of the empire. 
 
 Commodus, at the death of his father Aurelius, was actively engaged 
 on the banks of the Danube; but growing weary of a military life, he 
 concluded a hasty peace with the barbarians, and returning to Rome, 
 abandoned the reins of government to Perennis, the head of the prae¬ 
 torian guard, that he might better enjoy the luxuries of his station. His 
 life was, however, soon endangered by the jealousy of his sister Lucilla. 
 This plot was followed by another, in which the military chief endea¬ 
 voured to dethrone his master, but was detected and executed. The 
 freedman Oleander, a person of Thracian origin, being next promoted to 
 the rank of favourite, carried his audacity almost to madness, inscribing 
 newly manumitted slaves on the roll of the senate, and electing twenty- 
 five consuls in a single year. He was put to death by the monarch to 
 quiet a sedition of the populace. The mistrust and cruelty of Commo- 
 
 * Another reason for the historical silence may be the loss of the book of Dion Cassius 
 which contained the history of his reign. 
 
SECOND CENTURY A. D. 
 
 137 
 
 dus gradually reached such an excess that he would put confidence in 
 no one; and his chief delight was to descend armed into the public 
 arena and contend with wild beasts, or with gladiators whose only pro¬ 
 tection was a sword of lead. The people were so changed, that while 
 the emperor declared by his edicts that his reign was the age of gold, 
 Rome itself assumed the name of Colonia Commodiana. and the senate 
 that of Commodianus. At length he styled himself the son of Jupiter, 
 the Roman Hercules, and on his coins assumed the name and attributes 
 of this demigod. He perished by assassination, a. d. 193. 
 
 Didius Julianus, a. d. 193.—The praetorian bands, in their camp on 
 the Quirinal Hill, now decided the fate of the world. After the death 
 of Pertinax, who had succeeded Commodus in 193, and whose reign 
 lasted scarcely three months, they exposed the empire to public sale, 
 and it was purchased by a wealthy senator, Didius, who promised a 
 gratuity of more than ,£200 to each soldier. The people were discon¬ 
 tented, and the legions, regretting the loss of a commander who had 
 often led them to victory, refused to ratify the ignominious transaction. 
 The three armies of Britain, Syria, and Pannonia, elected respectively 
 Albinus, Niger, and Severus. The last immediately marched into Italy, 
 when the reigning sovereign, being deserted by the praetorians, was con¬ 
 demned and executed by order of the senate, a. d. 193, after a reign of 
 sixty-six days. 
 
 The misfortunes of Aurelius and the extravagant propensities of Commodus 
 had begun to weaken the empire; still the traces of decay were not strikingly 
 manifest, and in spite of them it maintained a contest with ruin during 200 years. 
 The provinces were not as yet impoverished ; the cities flourished, and foreign 
 and internal commerce spread the luxuries of the East over the Roman domi¬ 
 nions. But had the nation been possessed of moral virtue also, it never would 
 have submitted to the tyranny of Commodus nor to the yoke of the legions. 
 The military despotism of this period was most dangerous to those who relied 
 upon it. It was only by large donatives that the fidelity of the prgetorian guards 
 could be purchased or maintained. Severus well knew their power by the 
 maxim he left to his son—to enrich the soldiers, and hold the rest for nothing. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Although the spread of the Christian religion was opposed by all the 
 power of the idolatrous government, churches were early founded in 
 Rome, Corinth, Crete, Antioch, Asia Minor, Britain, and Spain, and the 
 number of converts daily increased. It was not to be expected that so 
 remarkable a change should escape the notice of the emperors, who 
 providentially, by their moderation and humanity, averted the arm of 
 persecution. The vigorous mind of Trajan appears to have immediately 
 comprehended the nature of the struggle between the gospel and 
 paganism. 
 
 Third Persecution, a. d. 106.—From the younger Pliny, at that 
 time governor of Bithynia, we have an interesting account of this per¬ 
 secution. His letter to Trajan, a. d. 107, shows that death was imme¬ 
 diately inflicted upon every one who was convicted of belonging to the 
 Christian sect. Women were tortured to elicit a confession ; and their 
 meeting at daybreak on the first day of the week, to praise God and to 
 take the sacrament, was reckoned an evil practice. The new belief had 
 already spread like a contagion in city and country, and the temples 
 
 12 * 
 
138 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 began to be deserted. The emperor, in his reply to this epistle, ordered 
 all those who persevered in their faith to be led to execution in obedience 
 to the existing laws, meaning those only who should be brought judi¬ 
 cially before the governor. No new edict was published, and informa¬ 
 tions against believers do not appear to have been countenanced. Adrian 
 prohibited the Christian converts from being proceeded against by cla¬ 
 morous petitions. To the lions with the Christians! had been a populai 
 cry in the time of public shows, till it was thus checked. 
 
 Among the sufferers in this persecution was Simeon, bishop of Jeru¬ 
 salem. At the advanced age of 120 years, he supported the c *uel tor¬ 
 ment of the cross with unflinching courage. Ignatius of Antioch was 
 questioned by Trajan himself, who condemned him to be exposed to 
 wild beasts in the Roman amphitheatre, a. d. 110. 
 
 The Fourth Persecution, a. d. 166, began at Smyrna. The defenders 
 of the Gospel now boldly appealed to the government as well as to the 
 public; and many Apologies were published in its vindication. The 
 most ancient of those which have reached our times is that of Justin 
 Martyr, a philosopher converted at the age of thirty, and who after¬ 
 wards sealed his testimony with his blood. Under the contemplative 
 Marcus Aurelius, the persecutions were renewed with more rigour. 
 The unshaken faithfulness of the sufferers excited the astonishment of 
 the heathen; and even Epictetus, the moralist, was led to ask what 
 were the motives that could change selfishness into charity, and over¬ 
 come the natural desire of life. It is a remarkable circumstance in the 
 early history of the Christian faith that the reign of the wisest and most 
 humane of the heathen emperors was the most fatal to it: Marcus 
 “polluted every year of a long reign with innocent blood.” 
 
 But it must be observed that the position of Christianity with regard 
 to Paganism was much altered. It had spread into every quarter of the 
 empire, and an intimate bond of union was maintained between all the 
 churches, while polytheism was becoming more philosophical under the 
 teaching of a superior class of writers. Believers were found in every 
 rank of society, and in all occupations; slaves were admitted freely into 
 the churches, and by that very act became manumitted. While view¬ 
 ing the rapid progress of the new religion, the Roman people dreaded 
 that the fall of the ancient worship would involve that of their power; 
 and the Christians, by their interpretations of the apocalypse, appeared 
 to justify such an opinion. The doctrine of the millennium, implying 
 the visible throne of Christ, was still generally entertained ; and in the 
 gloomy aspect of the times, the foreign and civil wars, inundations, 
 earthquakes, famine, and pestilence, the affrighted citizens saw the 
 anger of the avenging gods, to propitiate whom the Christians, their 
 avowed enemies, once more became the victims. The principal of these 
 were:—Polycarp of Smyrna, who had been the disciple of St.John, 
 and was burnt alive at the age of 86; Justin Martyr, who was behead¬ 
 ed ; and Pothinus of Lyons, who, on the verge of ninety years, died in 
 prison from the ill usage he had received from the populace. One of 
 the most distinguished of these sufferers was Blandina, a female slave, 
 who, after undergoing the cruelest tortures, was transfixed by a spear. 
 From these and other judicial murders the martyrdom of Vienne has 
 oecome a memorable epoch in the history of the Church. 
 
 Read: Milman’s History of Christianity, book ii. c. 7. 
 
THIRD CENTURY A. D. 
 
 139 
 
 THIRD CENTURY. 
 
 Rome.— 193, Septimius Severus.— 211, Caracalla.— 218, Heliogabalus.—222, 
 Alexander Severus.—235, Maximin.—The Thirty Tyrants.— 273. Aurelian 
 defeats Zenobia.—284, Diocletian.—The Empire invaded by Goths, Franks, 
 and Germans. 
 
 Palmyra. —Odenathus and Zenobia. 
 
 Persia. —226, The Sassanides.—260, Sapor captures Valerian. 
 
 The Church. —Persecutions. 
 
 Literature, &c. —Dion Cassius, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Longinus. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Septimius Severus, a. d. 193-211, who was a native of Africa, had 
 risen steadily to the highest honours. In less than four years he van¬ 
 quished his two competitors, Albinus and Niger, and defeated numerous 
 armies, each of which was equal to his own. Although addicted to 
 craft and dissimulation, he did not neglect the interests of the people ; 
 but the calm of peace and prosperity was accompanied by an increased 
 relaxation of military discipline. The praetorians were augmented four¬ 
 fold, and relying upon the support of these devoted soldiers, Severus 
 destroyed many of the senators and their families. Renewing the cruel¬ 
 ties of Marius and Sylla, he put to death the wife and children of 
 Albinus,—who had killed himself after an ineffectual struggle in Gaul, 
 — and threw their bodies into the Tiber. He then immolated all who 
 had embraced the party of his antagonist, confiscation of their property 
 following in every case. Forty-one senatorial families, men, women, 
 and children, fell by the hand of the executioner. The new^s of an 
 irruption of the Caledonians into the British province hurried him again 
 to the field, when a brief, yet not very successful campaign put an end 
 to the war. He died at York, in the 65th year of his age, and the 18th 
 of his reign, a. d. 211. 
 
 Caracalla, a. d. 211-217, had attempted to shorten his father’s life, 
 and to excite a mutiny among the troops; but the mercy shown to him 
 by the emperor proved fatal to Rome. He commenced his reign by the 
 murder of his brother and colleague Geta, who was slain in the arms 
 of his mother. The stings of a guilty conscience urged him to acts of 
 greater ferocity, and it is computed that 20,000 persons of both sexes 
 perished because they w r ere friends of that prince. Every province of 
 the empire became the scene of his cruelty; the two Gauls especially 
 were ruined in order to pay his troops and purchase a cessation of hos¬ 
 tilities from the barbarians on the frontiers. Many thousands were 
 massacred at Alexandria, by the orders and under the eyes of this 
 “ savage beast of Ausonia.” But he continued a favourite with the 
 army, professing to make the great Alexander his model. At length a 
 centurion of the body-guard* named Martialis stabbed him during an 
 expedition against the Parthians, a. d. 217. 
 
 * The captain of the ppetorian guards became, from the time of Severus, one of the 
 most important officers in the state. To his military command he united the control 
 of the finances and an extensive criminal jurisdiction. 
 
140 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 The brief reign of Macrinus prepared the throne for Heliogabalus, 
 a. d. 218-2*22. This youth, whose character was stained by every kind 
 of vice, had been a priest in the Temple of the Sun at Emesa in Syria. 
 He brought with him to Rome all the luxury and effeminacy of Eastern 
 monarchs; his wife had a place in the senate, and slaves and eunuchs 
 became first ministers. His profligate conduct raised discontents even 
 among a licentious soldiery; hence he perished in a sedition of the 
 guards, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, a. d. 222. The cor¬ 
 rupt lives of the emperors had already sunk the scale of morals to a 
 low degree; but luxury and licentiousness reached their height under 
 this Syrian ruler. 
 
 Alexander Severus, a. d. 222-235, was raised by the praetorians to 
 the throne at the age of 17; and under his wise and moderate adminis¬ 
 tration the Roman world enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. 
 Too young himself to rule, he left the public cares to the skill of his 
 mother Mammaea, and of sixteen ancient senators, among w*hom was 
 the famous lawyer Ulpian, to whose presence in the council we may 
 attribute the greater regularity in the executive, the abolition of many 
 vexatious laws, and the more legal conduct of the government. But 
 this milder sway came too late; the attempt to enforce the laws, for 
 three days filled Rome with civil strife, and devastated the city with 
 fire. Alexander resisted the inroads of the Germans, who had been 
 tempted by the decline of the empire ; but was not equally successful 
 against the Persians. His efforts to revive the military discipline of the 
 republic w~ere fatal to his life. The epithet of Severus, added to his 
 name by the army, shows that the soldiers were not masters of the 
 empire, as they had been under the two preceding monarchs. He 
 proved a feeble support to the declining city; but the fierce barbarians 
 of the North and East were more than a match for the Roman legion¬ 
 aries ; in Persia his armies met only with partial success, and on the 
 Rhine peace was procured by money rather than by the sword. In the 
 meanwhile, the spread of a new religion was uprooting the foundations 
 of polytheism and the state of society founded upon it. 
 
 Maximin, a. d. 235-238, a Thracian peasant, distinguished for his 
 uncommon strength and valour, was elected by the army to the throne, 
 left vacant by the murder of his predecessor. His mind was as uncul¬ 
 tivated as his body was gigantic, for he could scarcely pronounce a few 
 unconnected Latin words, while his dark and sanguinary career was not 
 unworthy of his birth. Confiscation, exile, and death, were considered 
 lenient punishments against those who excited his suspicions or his 
 fears. Some were beaten to death with clubs, others were sewed up in 
 the skins of animals and exposed to wild beasts. Magnus, a senator 
 and 4000 of his supposed accomplices, were put to death in one day 
 The province of Africa having revolted, elected the two Gordians, and 
 »he choice was approved by the senate, who at the same time declared 
 Maximin and his son to be public enemies. The emperor’s lieutenants 
 were successful over his rivals, and the senators were already anticipat¬ 
 ing the execution of his horrible threat that he would slay them all and 
 distribute their property among his soldiers, when they were relieved 
 of their fears by his murder at the siege of Aquileia. The coalition of 
 the opposing parties procured the elevation of an amiable youth, Gor¬ 
 dian III., whose reign lasted six years, 238-244. He ascended the 
 
THIRD CENTURY A. D. 
 
 141 
 
 throne under favourable circumstances; beloved by all good men for 
 his virtues; endeared to the senate by his illustrious birth, for he was 
 the grandson of the elder Gordian, and to the army from his being their 
 adopted child. Aided by the superior talents of his father-in-law Misi- 
 theus, he carried on a successful war against Sapor. 
 
 Philip, the Arabian freebooter, was proclaimed emperor by the army, 
 and the title of Augustus was conferred on him by the senate. He 
 favoured the Christians, and granted them permission to raise temples 
 and exercise their worship in public. He celebrated the secular games, 
 a. d. 248 (April 21), when Rome had attained its thousandth year.— 
 Decius, after a reign of two years and a half, lost his life in battle 
 against the Goths, 251. — Gallus, Hostilian, Volusian, and jEmili- 
 anus, were succeeded by Valerian at the age of sixty years, 253, who 
 associated Gallienus with him in the government. Marching to repel 
 the aggressions of the Persian monarch, he was vanquished and made 
 prisoner, a. d. 260; after wdiich he suffered every indignity, till life 
 sunk under the weight of shame.— Gallienus, a. d. 260-268, the luxu¬ 
 rious son of Valerian, passed his time in the most ridiculous trifling. 
 Pretenders started up in every province; hence this period is usually 
 known as that of the Thirty Tyrants , although the names of nineteen 
 only are recorded. Many of these shortlived monarchs were models of 
 virtue, and possessed vigour and ability; but they were chiefly of 
 obscure birth, and elevated on the field of battle. Not one died a 
 natural death. The servile wars were renewed in Sicily; the streets 
 of Alexandria were polluted with blood; while famine and pestilence, 
 which lasted fifteen years, 250-265, ravaged every section of the Roman 
 empire. Gallienus fell in a nocturnal tumult before the walls of Milan, 
 in which he was besieging Aureolus, the most formidable of his rivals; 
 and the dying wishes of the emperor raised Claudius, a. d. 268, to the 
 throne. By the most signal victories he delivered Italy from the Goths; 
 yet the same pestilence which had thinned the ranks of the barbarians, 
 also carried off their conqueror. His short but glorious reign lasted 
 only two years.— Aurelian, a. d. 270-275, the son of a Pannonian 
 peasant, originally an adventurer and common soldier, repelled the 
 Gothic invaders, chastised the Germans who had entered Italy, recover¬ 
 ed Gaul, Spain, and Britain, from the usurper Tetricus, and destroyed 
 the monarchy which Queen Zenobia had erected in the East on the 
 ruins of the empire, 273. He died by the hands of his officers—regret¬ 
 ted by the army, detested by the senate, but universally acknowledged 
 as a wise and fortunate prince.— Tacitus, a. d. 275, owed his elevation 
 to a friendly contest which had arisen between the army and the senate 
 for the choice of an emperor; and he was elected by the latter from 
 their own number, at the age of 75. He drove the bands of the Alani 
 out of Asia with great slaughter, but sunk under the fatigues of his 
 office, a. d. 276.— Florian yielded to the better fortune of Probus, a. d. 
 276-282, who vanquished the Germans on the Rhine and the Danube, 
 and restored peace and order to every province. To check the invasions 
 of the barbarians, Probus built a stone wall nearly 200 miles in length, 
 from the Danube to the Rhine; recruited the Roman armies from the 
 German nations; settled foreign colonies in various parts of the empire, 
 and taught them the science of agriculture. He perished in a mutiny 
 of his troops. 
 
142 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 With Maximin began the race of Barbarians who successively mounted the 
 imperial throne: with Claudius II. commenced what has been called the mili¬ 
 tary despotism. However glorious the reigns of this monarch and his succes¬ 
 sor Aurelian, they were far from healing the wounds of the state. Though 
 great warriors, and men whom the circumstances of Rome required, they did 
 little more than delay the fail of the empire- In the period between the Anto- 
 nines and Diocletian, it was divided into two great parts, which were almost 
 distinct worlds, the civil and the military. The people, the immense majority 
 of the population, have no share in the history of these times; they paid their 
 taxes, cultivated the soil, and passed their lives without troubling themselves 
 about the occupations of the legions. So profound was this apathy, that not a 
 single revolt took place among the numerous inhabitants of the capital. But 
 in the army all was changed. The soldier-citizen of the republic was unknown ; 
 the ancient discipline was lost; the modern warrior had no home but his camp, 
 and no respect for any authority but that of his officers. As they defended the 
 empire, they claimed the right of nominating its chiefs, and of deposing them 
 at will. Each army insisted upon electing an emperor, whose authority was 
 to be maintained by arms and civil strife. The successful competitor was 
 acknowledged by the senate, and saluted with the usual adulations. With the 
 frequent alterations necessarily resulting from this military despotism, the face 
 of the country varied little ; and but for the excessive contributions raised in 
 the provinces to support the troops, the internal condition of the empire would 
 have been very flourishing. This state of affairs continued to the time of Dio¬ 
 cletian, who introduced some modifications, and to the days of Constantine, 
 who in his turn effected many great reforms. 
 
 Diocletian, a. d. 284-306, who succeeded the shortlived monarchs, 
 Cams, Carinus, and Numerian, was born in an obscure town of Dal¬ 
 matia. On his elevation to the purple, a remarkable change took place 
 in the form of government. Finding that the extent of frontier was 
 too great to be defended by one person against the repeated attacks of 
 daring and enterprising enemies, he selected a colleague in the person 
 of Maximian, to whom he committed the charge of the West, while he 
 retained the East. These two bore the title of Augustus , and each 
 appointed a lieutenant with the title of Caesar . The seat of government 
 was removed from Rome,— Maximian residing at Milan, Diocletian at 
 Nicomedia,— an arrangement which contributed greatly to the support 
 of the empire. Carausius, who had made himself independent in Bri¬ 
 tain, was defeated in 293 ; Gaul was delivered from the Germans; and 
 the Persians were compelled to cede five provinces beyond the Tigris. 
 After a glorious reign of twenty-one years, Diocletian abdicated the 
 throne, a. d. 305, and Maximian resigned at Milan on the same day. 
 
 The abdication of monarchs has always been matter of embarrassment to 
 historians; and the fact of a prince voluntarily divesting himself of supreme 
 power, without any apparent motive, is a phenomenon well worthy of exami¬ 
 nation. Diocletian’s relinquishment of the purple has been variously explain¬ 
 ed ; some pretending that it was in fulfilment of an oath made with Maximian 
 at. his ascension ; others, that he was grieved at his unsuccessful struggle against 
 Christianity; others, that he feared the troubles which he saw impending; and 
 many, that he entertained a supreme contempt for all human grandeur. The 
 last two motives influenced beyond a doubt his resolution ; but his fears, and 
 the threats of Galerius his son-in-law, with his inability to resist him, were the 
 principal causes. At the age of sixty years he retired into private life, and 
 lived esteemed and happy at Salona. His latter days were saddened by the 
 exile and persecution of his wife and daughter, and the ingratitude of those 
 whom he had elevated. 
 
THIRD CENTURY A. D. 
 
 143 
 
 PALMYRA. 
 
 Queen Zenobia was a Jewess by birth, the wife of Odenathus, 
 prince of the Saracens of the Euphrates, who had raised himself to the 
 dominion of the East, and by his victories over the Persian king avenged 
 the injuries of the Romans and become their ally. On his death, hav¬ 
 ing been cut off by domestic treason, his widow filled the vacant throne, 
 and governed Syria with great wisdom. Palmyra (lat. 34° 2(y N., 
 long. 38° 3O' E.), her capital, the Tadmor of Solomon, was situated in 
 an oasis in the midst of a vast desert of sand, on one of the great caravan 
 routes to the Euphrates, and- its magnificent ruins still ornament that 
 portion of the wilderness. Zenobia began her reign by throwing off the 
 protection of the senate and conquering Egypt. Aurelian marched 
 against her, took Antioch, and in a terrible battle in its vicinity routed 
 her mail-clad cavalry and skilful archers. After experiencing a second 
 defeat near Emesa, she sought refuge in her capital, which was besieged 
 by the emperor, and reduced after a long resistance, a. d. 273. Two 
 years afterwards, the unfortunate queen was led in triumph through the 
 streets of Rome. Covered with diamonds, she walked alone before her 
 victor’s car, a slave holding the chain of gold which had been placed on 
 her neck. The name and fate of the critic Longinus both honour her 
 reign and reproach her weakness, if it be true that she exposed him to 
 the vengeance of Aurelian to save her own life. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Sassanides, a. d. 226.—We have seen that Arsaces founded the Par¬ 
 thian kingdom in the third century b. c., and that with him began the 
 line of Arsacidan kings. His valour and genius gained the affections 
 of his people; and his successes against the Romans often terrified the 
 imperial city. The history of the several dynasties is obscure during 
 470 years, till we come to the reign of Artabanus, the last of the family 
 just named, when this formidable power, which had spread from India 
 to Syria, was subverted by Artaxerxes (Jlrdeschir Babegan). He 
 founded the family of the Sassanides , so called from his father Sassan, 
 which governed Persia till the Arab invasion in 632. Artaxerxes was 
 a distinguished soldier, driven to rebellion by royal ingratitude: three 
 times he defeated the Parthians, and their monarch perished in the last 
 battle. In the plain of Ormuz he was saluted by the army with the 
 lofty title of King of Kings . He restored the ancient religion of the 
 Magi , or Fire Worshippers, founded by Zoroaster in the seventh cen¬ 
 tury b. c., re-established the royal authority, and began a successful war 
 against the Romans, a. d. 230. His reign of fourteen years forms a 
 memorable era in the history of the East and of Rome. He was suc¬ 
 ceeded by Sapor, a man of gigantic form, inured from infancy to war, 
 and who preserved the strictest discipline in his army, while he encour¬ 
 aged agriculture as a nursery for hardy soldiers. Eagerly desirous of 
 founding a powerful monarchy, he attacked the Romans, and devastated 
 both sides of the Euphrates, defeating the emperor Valerian, who had 
 marched against him. He next overran Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia, 
 but was compelled to retreat before Odenathus, prince of Palmyra, 
 A. D. 261. 
 
144 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Chosroes, sovereign of Armenia, who had resisted in his native 
 mountains with invincible courage during thirty years, fell at last by 
 the intrigues of the Persian court. The Armenian satraps immediately 
 implored the help of Rome in favour of his son, the young Tiridates; 
 but the imperial city being distant, Sapor soon incorporated this state 
 with his vast dominions. 
 
 Tiridates escaped from the assassins employed by the conqueror to 
 murder him and his father, and was brought up among the Romans. 
 After his country had borne a foreign yoke twenty-six years, he was 
 invested with the monarchy of Armenia by Diocletian. His appearance 
 on the frontier was welcomed with rapture; the nobles and people flew 
 to his standard; but the Persians still maintained their ascendency, and 
 it was not till a. d. 297 that the success of the Roman arms was con¬ 
 firmed by a treaty, which established him on the throne. 
 
 BARBARIAN INVASIONS. 
 
 During this century, the Northern Hive , as it was called, began to 
 pour down its swarms upon the Roman empire. 
 
 The Goths, a. d. 250, passed the Danube and invaded the Roman 
 provinces during the reign of the Emperor Decius. This great nation 
 was of Asiatic origin,—part of the Indo-Teutonic race which had spread 
 irregularly towards the north of Europe. 7'heir migration in that direc¬ 
 tion took place before the period of authentic history; and when they 
 first attract our notice, they form part of the Suevian branch, settled 
 along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic. Their language 
 forms the connecting link between the Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic 
 dialects. Their religion, preserved in the sacred books of the Eddas, 
 was barbarous and sanguinary. Odin, “the Mohammed of the North,’’ 
 was at once their supreme deity and legislator. The daring invasions 
 of these people met with various success, but as yet had produced no 
 lasting effect. 
 
 The province of Gaul was invaded by the Franks or Freemen, a. d. 
 256, a confederation of many German tribes on the Rhine and the 
 Weser.* The former river proved an imperfect barrier to their enter¬ 
 prising spirit. At length they crossed the Pyrenees, and even in the 
 fifth century the ruins of magnificent cities recorded their destructive 
 hostilities. 
 
 The Allemanni, a. d. 259, were formed at the Tencteri and Usipetae 
 (iVestphali ). They were well trained to fight on horseback, and from 
 their renown became a centre around which gathered a multitude of 
 German tribes. This united people are supposed to be included under 
 the different names of Suevi , Marcomanni , and Allemanni. Having 
 invaded Gaul and Italy, they displayed their banners within sight of 
 Rome; but the vigour of the senate compelled them to retreat, though 
 they returned to their own country laden with booty. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 So early as the end of the second century or the beginning of the 
 third, the Christian faith had gradually spread to the middle and highei 
 ranks,—when broke out the 
 
 * The tribes were these:—1. The Chauci; 2. The Sicambri; 3. The Attuari; 4. Bruc 
 teri • 5 The Chamavij ; 6. The Catti ; 7. The Salii and Cherusci. 
 
THIRD CENTURY A. D. 
 
 145 
 
 Fifth Persecution, a. d. 202. — The Emperor Severus was at first 
 not unfavourable to the believers; but probably considering them as 
 much political enemies as religious schismatics, he published his 
 sanguinary edicts against them, which forbade, in a particular manner, 
 all assemblies, public or private. While thus occupied, he celebrated 
 the secular games, which, like most other pagan festivals, were followed 
 by violent explosions of fury against the Christians. In Alexandria 
 especially the persecution raged ; almost all the clergy in that city being 
 massacred or compelled to flee. Origen, as yet quite young, was alone 
 charged with the continuance of the sacred functions ; nor was his office 
 without trouble and danger, since he was more than once on the point 
 of receiving the crown of martyrdom. At Carthage, Rome, and Lyons, 
 the faithful were severely afflicted ; though it should be observed that 
 the traces of this persecution in the West are not distinct. 
 
 Sixth Persecution, a. d. 235. — The church enjoyed a period of 
 repose twenty-four years, but the accession of the brutal Maximin was 
 the signal for new trials. A promiscuous massacre of the Christians, 
 including every rank and both sexes, lasted during the whole of his reign. 
 
 Seventh Persecution, a.d. 250.—The most formidable enemies of 
 the Church were the heretics, who in the second and third centuries 
 were very numerous. The Marcionites, the Manicheans, and the Arians, 
 raised those important questions which long divided the Christian world, 
 and are in some respects perpetuated to our times. 
 
 Philip, the Arabian, among some writers passed for a convert, but his 
 successor Dec-ius, alarmed by the miseries of the empire and his own 
 precarious station, thought that the gods would strengthen his crown if 
 he restored to their deserted altars the honours which had surrounded 
 them in more prosperous days. For this purpose he began a bloody 
 persecution, which extended over the whole empire. Christianity had 
 already gained such strength, and its partisans were so numerous, that 
 the struggle between it and paganism assumed almost the appearance 
 of a civil war. The old creed had still on its side the majority of the 
 population, the army, and the public authorities; but although many 
 Christians apostatized, others were not wanting to seal their testimony 
 with their blood, and fortify by their courage^ the trembling hearts of 
 their brethren. Carthage and Alexandria, in particular, were the scene 
 of much suffering; but Origen escaped, and, in the midst of cruel tor¬ 
 tures prolonged during several days, gloried in the pains which proved 
 his sincerity. 
 
 J 
 
 Eighth Persecution, a.d. 258.—Valerian’s persecution was brief, 
 for he had begun his reign by acts of clemency, and when holding the 
 office of censor, expressed his opinion that Christianity exercised a 
 favourable influence on public morals. His changed conduct must be 
 attributed to the sorcerer Macrianus, who had a complete mastery over 
 his mind. The first edict left the community in peace, but subjected all 
 nonconforming bishops to the penalty of death, as also the confiscation 
 of their churches and endowments. Among the victims were St. Law¬ 
 rence, St. Stephen, and St. Cyprian of Carthage. 
 
 Ninth Persecution, a. d. 272.—Aurelian was arrested in his career 
 —while in the act of signing an edict against the Christians—by the 
 falling of a thunderbolt at his feet. But the end of his reign witnessed 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 many severities against the new sect in consequence of his orders, and 
 St. Denis of France was put to death. 
 
 Tenth Persecution, or the Era of Martyrs, a. d. 285.—A final 
 and vigorous effort was made to crush the new religion by Diocletian, 
 whose wife and daughter are said to have been converted. The first 
 edict against the Christians w 7 as published 24th February 303. By it 
 the churches were ordered to be demolished, and the sacred books to be 
 delivered up, under pain of death, and publicly burnt. All assemblies 
 for religious worship were prohibited, the property of the church was 
 confiscated, and its members w~ere put beyond the protection of the law. 
 In subsequent edicts he declared his intention of abolishing the name of 
 Christian ; but he contributed only to its further propagation. The 
 Caesar Galerius was the instigator of these cruel measures, which w r ere 
 much increased by an accidental fire that broke out in the palace at 
 Nicomedia. Galerius, the most implacable enemy of Christianity, 
 having been raised to the throne of the East in consequence of the 
 abdication of Diocletian, the persecution was continued w r ith unmitigated 
 severity. But the fervent spirit of religion w T as far from yielding to this 
 violent shock. The believers still assembled regularly in private meet¬ 
 ings ; and though they w r ere deprived of the most eminent of their body, 
 their numbers preserved them from extermination. In the seventh year 
 of his reign, Galerius was smitten with a loathsome disease, the lower 
 region of his body being consumed by a fetid ulcer, or in the language 
 of scripture, 44 he was eaten of worms,” like Herod the Great, and, in 
 later times, Philip II. of Spain. Physicians, oracles, and even the god 
 of medicine himself, were applied to in vain; no remedy could diminish 
 the virulence of a malady w 7 hich had already reached the vitals. Ha¬ 
 rassed by the recollection of the tortures he had inflicted, he thought to 
 allay the anguish of his body by recalling the edicts against Christianity, 
 and by allowing the free and public exercise of its ceremonies ; but the 
 hand of death was upon him, and in a few days he expired, 311. The 
 heathens themselves, it is said, were astonished at this signal interposi¬ 
 tion of the Almighty in favour of his worshippers. In the dominions of 
 Maximin the persecution was still continued, nor did it stop until shortly 
 before his decease, w T hen his people had been diminished by famine and 
 pestilence, and his power w r as threatened by Constantine. In the death 
 of this monarch also the Christians of that age beheld the finger of God, 
 for he expired in the most excruciating torments, his body being con¬ 
 sumed by an internal fire, 313. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate the number of victims who perished in 
 this persecution: a whole legion, consisting of six thousand men, are 
 said to have suffered in the valleys of the Alps. 
 
 Diocletian’s fiery sword 
 
 Work’d busy as the lightning : then was Alban tried, 
 
 England’s first martyr. 
 
 A multitude of the believers, who took refuge among the German 
 tribes, w T ere received wffth kindness ; and the Goths wrnre said to have 
 been indebted to a young female captive for their first knowledge of the 
 
 Read: Milman’s History of Christianity, book ii. c. 9. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 147 
 
 FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 Rome. —306, Constantine.—330, Constantinople.—361, Julian.—364, Division 
 of the Empire between Valens and Vaientinian.—378, Battle of Adrianople. 
 —379, Theodosius the Great.—391, Eugenius, Emperor. 
 
 The Church. —Establishment of Christianity.—318, Arian Heresy.—325, Ni- 
 cene Council.—390, Theodosius prohibits Paganism. 
 
 Inventions.— 385, Saddles. — 398, Aerometers by Hypatia.—400, Gothic 
 Architecture (?). 
 
 Literature, &c. — Eusebius, Chrysostom, — L. Lactantius, Augustin, — 
 Claudian. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Constantine, a. d. 306. — After the abdication of Diocletian, Con¬ 
 stantins and Galerius ascended the vacated thrones; the former govern¬ 
 ing, under his new title of emperor, the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and 
 Britain ; the latter retaining those of the East. Two new Caesars were 
 appointed, Maximin and Severus; and according to the arrangement of 
 Diocletian, the latter should have recognised the authority of the Em¬ 
 peror of the West. But he was entirely devoted to Galerius, who, 
 reserving for himself the countries lying between Italy and Syria, 
 exerted an equal influence over him and Maximin, and by their means 
 became master of nearly three-fourths of the empire. 
 
 Constantine, the son of Constantius, was a Dacian by birth, and had 
 attained eighteen years when his father was nominated Caesar. Fie did 
 not immediately profit by this elevation, but followed Diocletian and 
 signalized himself in the Egyptain wars, in which, besides rising to the 
 station of tribune of the first order, he so far enjoyed the good will of 
 the army as to excite the jealousy of Galerius. Proceeding to Britain, 
 he rejoined his father, on whose death at York, in 306, he was pro¬ 
 claimed Augustus by the soldiers, which title however was not confirmed 
 by the emperor, but that of Caesar substituted, with full authority over 
 all the transalpine provinces. Shortly after the elevation of Constantine, 
 an insurrection broke out in Rome on the imposition of additional taxes; 
 when, encouraged by the connivance of the senate and the weakness of 
 the civic guards, the populace elected Maxentius, the son of Maximian, 
 in place of the absent Galerius, almost without opposition. This change 
 drew the father from his retreat to aid Maxentius, by his counsels, and 
 thereby to strengthen his party. Severus, who wished to assert the 
 authority of Galerius, was besieged in Ravenna, and soon afterwards 
 suffered death ; and the latter was forthwith compelled to retire from 
 Italy, which he had unsuccessfully invaded. Licinius was now elevated 
 to the rank of Augustus, with the government of Illyria, while Maximin, 
 envious of those new honours, assumed the same dignity in Africa, 
 when was seen the strange circumstance of six emperors presiding at 
 once over the Roman world.* Maximian was the first to lose the title, 
 his son being unwilling to see the exercise of power controlled by his 
 father. Galerius passed his time in useful improvements throughout his 
 
 * Maximian, Maxentius, Maximin, Licinius, Galerius, and Constantine. 
 
148 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 dominions, having wisely abandoned the design of uniting the empire 
 in his own hands; but scarcely had he expired when the two emperors, 
 whom he had invested with the purple, shared his territory; the pro¬ 
 vinces of Asia falling to Maximin, and those of Europe augmenting the 
 government of Licinius. Maxentius, who had been raised to the purple 
 by the zeal of the senate and people, soon forgot how he had obtained 
 his crown, and conducted himself even in Rome, in a tyrannical 
 manner. His cruelty was especially manifested after the fall of the 
 usurper Alexander, who, having revolted in Africa, was speedily van¬ 
 quished. That province was mercilessly ravaged in punishment for 
 the insurrection, and at home the emperor’s exactions and unjust con¬ 
 demnations were greatly multiplied. Constantine freed Italy from this 
 despot, whom he defeated at the gates of the capital, and who was 
 drowned in the Tiber as he fled from the field of battle, 312.* 
 
 The conqueror entered Rome amid the acclamations of the people and 
 senate, who assigned him by decree the first place among the Jhigusti . 
 Some time after. Licinius, his ally, added new provinces to those he 
 already possessed. Having been attacked by Maximin during the 
 winter of 313, the promptitude and superior skill of Licinius gave him 
 the advantage ; and his enemy, who was defeated, gained more cele¬ 
 brity by the swiftness of his flight than by his courage in the field. 
 Twenty-four hours after his discomfiture, Maximin was seen pale and 
 trembling, and stripped of his imperial ornaments, at Nicomedia, about 
 one hundred and fifty miles from the scene of his ruin. Licinius did 
 not imitate Constantine in the use he made of his victory, but stained it 
 by putting to death men, women, and children, partisans of the van¬ 
 quished prince. The Roman people now had but two masters; yet 
 from the disposition of each it was not possible that there could be any 
 rest until one should be destroyed. Constantine was young, active, and 
 ambitious, and would not have waited for an opportunity to begin the 
 war, even had not the other afforded one by engaging in a conspiracy 
 against him. Two battles lost at Cibalae and Mardia compelled 
 Licinius to yield five provinces, and to be satisfied with Thrace and the 
 East, allowing Illyria to pass over to the victor, 314. Nine years after, 
 he was entirely deprived of his power and banished to Thessalcnica, 
 where he was put to death ; and his rival w r ho had publicly embraced 
 Christianity ten years before, became sole master of the empire, 323. 
 After his victory, the successful monarch had to contend against the 
 Goths and Sarmatians, the former of whom were bound to furnish a body 
 of 40,000 auxiliaries. But one of the most important results of this 
 reign was the foundation of a new capital. A Christian court might 
 seem to be misplaced in Pagan Rome, besides which the necessity of 
 strengthening the frontiers against the Goths and Persians, while it made 
 some change necessary, seemed to indicate the position of Con¬ 
 stantinople. 
 
 The latter part of the life of Constantine was unhappy : his son 
 Crispus was put to death on the accusation of his step-mother Fausta, 
 who was herself not long after convicted of adultery and suffocated in a 
 
 * While Constantine was marching to Rome, previous to the decisive battle iust 
 mentioned, a cross is said to have appeared in the heavens at noon-day, on which was 
 the inscription, In hoc signo vinces In commemoration of this event, the cross or 
 labarum became the sacred standard of the army. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 149 
 
 bath. Two years before his demise the monarch divided the empire 
 among his three sons, Constantine II., Constantius, and Constans. 
 His two nephews Dalmatius and Annibalianus, received, the former 
 the rank of Caesar, the latter a great part of Asia Minor, with the title 
 of king. A short time afterwards, Sapor II., king of Persia, sent to 
 demand of the emperor the provinces which Narses had ceded to Dio¬ 
 cletian. The Roman sovereign replied that he would bear his own 
 answer, and was in the midst of his preparations for war when he fell 
 ill at Nicomedia, and died after receiving baptism by the hands of the 
 Arian bishop Eusebius, 337. 
 
 FAMILY OF CONSTANTINE. 
 
 Constantius I., Chlorus, f 306. 
 m. 1. Helena. 2. Theodora. 
 
 Constantine I. the Great, Constantia. 
 f 337, m. 1. Minervina. || 
 
 2. Fausta. Val. Licinius, 
 
 -*-\ Caesar, |324. 
 
 1 2 ,-*- 
 
 Crispus, Constantine, II., FI. Val. Lici- 
 t 326. f 340. nius, f 326. 
 
 Constantius II., 
 
 13 . 1 . 
 
 Constans, f 350. 
 
 Imperial Administration, 
 
 Constantine was the founder of a new order of things, which Diocletian had 
 endeavoured, although imperfectly, to establish before him : for the previous 
 military despotism he substituted that of the court and of a numerous hierarchy. 
 Henceforward all ambition found a place around the sovereign ; and the gene¬ 
 rals no longer saw an open path by which any of them might advance to the 
 imperial title. The former state of things, which had given rise to so many re¬ 
 volts, was altered : step by step each of the commanders might rise to the foot of 
 the throne, but the power of an hereditary principle checked his farther progress. 
 Besides the court, there was a sacred body of men everywhere present, guiding 
 and influencing all minds. Since the year 313, Constantine had embraced the 
 true faith; but as the church had long previously possessed its hierarchy, he did 
 little more than consecrate and sanction its organization. 
 
 In the regulation of the court the plan of Diocletian was closely followed. 
 The sovereign was no longer visible to his subjects, and access to him was 
 allowed only after a troublesome ceremonial. Below the seven domestics of 
 the court, or rather the great officers of the state, were four classes of nobility, 
 all exempt from the various taxes, except that imposed on land, which was 
 paid by every one, even the emperor. Under the superior generals of the army 
 were the counts and dukes ; the legions were reduced from 6000 to 1500 men, 
 and the whole army was classed in three divisions,—household troops, garri¬ 
 sons for the wealthy cities of the empire, and frontier guards, all of whom were 
 more or less exempted from taxation. But these soldiers were now entirely 
 mercenary ; a law of Diocletian expressly forbidding the enlistment of any mail 
 possessed of twenty-five acres of land. 
 
 Finances. —The taxes payable by Roman citizens were — a poll-tax, a 
 property-taxor census, customs or duties on merchandise imported or exported, 
 varying from one-eighth to one-fortieth ad-valorem , tithes on the farming of the 
 public lands, a legacy-tax, and one-twentieth on all manumissions. The public 
 revenues of the empire have been calculated at nearly forty millions of our 
 money: This amount varied little till the time of Constantine, or rather Dio¬ 
 cletian, who substituted a simple and direct tax, called the Indiction , in the 
 stead of all preceding contributions.* All the lands of the state, including the 
 
 * This annual tax, if not Introduced, was at least entirely regulated under Constan¬ 
 tine, and assessed according to a register of all the landed estates. As this register was 
 
 13 * 
 
 Jul. Constantius. Annibalianus. 
 
 /- A - / - A - > 
 
 If |f Dalmatius, Anniba- 
 
 Galla. Basilina. Caesar, lianus. 
 
 | | | 339. f 338. 
 
 Gallus, Julian, 
 t 354. t 363. 
 
150 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 patrimony of the emperor, were subjected to this impost, and the least prevail 
 cation in the account given in by each proprietor was punishable by death. 
 
 The death of the emperor was the signal for internal disturbances, 
 which were settled for a time by the division of his dominions among 
 the three princes. Constantine, the eldest, obtained Gaul, Spain, and 
 Britain; Constantius ruled over Thrace and the East; and Constans 
 was the sovereign of Italy and Africa. Constantius, 337, was soon 
 called to the Persian war, where he soon found himself unable to resist 
 the skill and valour of Sapor. It is true he succeeded in restoring 
 Chosroes, son of Tiridates to his paternal throne, but this effeminate 
 prince consented, as the price of peace, to pay a heavy tribute, and re¬ 
 store the excluded province of Atropatene. Scarcely three years had 
 elapsed after the partition of the empire, before Constantine became 
 dissatisfied with his share, and crossed the Alps to attack Constans, by 
 whom he was defeated and killed : his possessions were added to those 
 of his conqueror who himself ten years afterwards met with a violent 
 death at the hands of some of the troops of Magnentius. After the demise 
 of his two brothers, Constantius was involved, by the revolutions of the 
 West, in a civil contest with the usurper just named, in which he was 
 ultimately successful, and became sole emperor, 353. The two nephews 
 of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, who, at the death of their uncle, had 
 escaped from the ruin of their family, were long confined in prison, till 
 the emergencies of the state invested the former with the title of Caesar, 
 351. His cruelty and imprudence, together with his mean submission 
 to his blood-thirsty wife Constantina, were the cause of his disgrace and 
 untimely end, 354. Julian now alone survived, and was passing his 
 hours in studious retirement at Athens, when he was unwillingly de¬ 
 clared Caesar, 355, and appointed to the provinces of Gaul. His retired 
 and scholastic education had not disqualified him for more active pur¬ 
 suits. He defeated the Gauls and Franks; made three expeditions 
 beyond the Rhine; and while his victories suspended the inroads of the 
 barbarians, his civil administration alleviated the distresses of the people. 
 Meantime Constantius was feebly making head against the irruptions of 
 Sapor; and to quiet the seditious comparisons between himself and the 
 Caesar, he ordered into the East four legions of the army of Gaul; but 
 his commands were disobeyed, and the discontented soldiers proclaimed 
 Julian emperor. No time was to be lost, and the new monarch, by a 
 hasty march, with a small army of veteran soldiers, took possession of 
 the capital a month after the death of Constantius, 361. 
 
 Julian, surnamed the Apostate from having abandoned the Christian 
 religion in which he was educated, had embraced the mythology of 
 paganism, as subtilized by the New Platonic school; but while he 
 wrote against Christianity, and endeavoured to establish a reformed 
 polytheism in place of the gospels, it would be unjust to deny his 
 tolerant principles. In the year 36*2, desirous of proving the fallacy of 
 the prophecies, he determined to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; but 
 “ horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, rendered the 
 place inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen.” His chief 
 
 reviewed every fifteen years, it gave rise to the Cycle of Indictions, which became the 
 common era, beginning with the first September, a. d. 313.—To find the Indiction, ado 
 3 to the given year, because Christ was born in the year answering to the fourth of 
 this cycle, and divide the sum by 35; the remainder will be the year of the Indiction. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. t>. 
 
 151 
 
 political cares were the punishment of informers, who had been the 
 scourge of the previous reign, and reforming the abuses of the court, in 
 which were to be seen thousands of the most useless menials. He was 
 thus enabled at once to reduce the taxes by one-fifth, and to indulge in 
 greater magnificence in the state ceremonials. Superstitious to excess, 
 he sacrificed on every occasion, and performed with scrupulous anxiety 
 the functions of sovereign pontiff. He had been scarcely six months at 
 Constantinople before he set out on his Persian expedition, in which he 
 w r as at first successful; but, allowing himself to be misled by a deserter, 
 he was surrounded by the army of Sapor, and fell mortally wounded, in 
 the thirty-second year of his age, 363. 
 
 With the accession of Julian paganism was restored throughout the whole 
 extent of the Roman empire. He had been blinded by the prejudices of a mind 
 too much preoccupied to perceive the luminous point to which the world was 
 verging; he erred, and to be mistaken in such a manner, when the destinies 
 of a kingdom depend upon the decision of its ruler, is the greatest of misfor¬ 
 tunes. During a reign of eighteen months, part of which was taken up with 
 his expedition against the Persians, he could not effect all the good or evil that 
 has been attributed to him. He does not appear to have violently opposed 
 Christianity, but, on the contrary, to have allowed its followers full liberty of 
 assembling, and to have permitted entire freedom of conscience. The gravest 
 infraction of religious tolerance that can be attributed to this emperor is the 
 law of 362, forbidding Christians to teach the faculties of rhetoric and belles- 
 lettres.* 
 
 Jovian, a. d. 363, a fervent Christian, succeeded Julian, and by ac¬ 
 cepting the conditions offered by Sapor, was allowed to withdraw the 
 Roman army. All the conquests of Diocletian were restored, and Ar¬ 
 menia was to he entirely abandoned. Eight months after, the new 
 ruler was carried off by disease, and the army then assembled at Nicaea 
 chose, as his successor, Valentinian, who selected Yalens for his 
 colleague, and the empire was divided between them. The latter 
 governed the East, from the Danube to the Persian frontiers; the former 
 reserving to himself the rest of the empire, from the extremity of Greece 
 westward to the ocean. 
 
 EASTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 Yalens, a. d. 364.—The government of this prince was disturbed by 
 the insurrection of Procopius, 365, though the next year witnessed the 
 defeat and death of the rebel. The emperor now began a violent perse¬ 
 cution of the orthodox Christians, and the martyrdom of the venerable 
 Athanasius was one of his first acts. But Yalens did not neglect the 
 commercial interests of his subjects, and in the first year of his reign he 
 reduced the taxes one-fourth. The Persian contest still continued ; 
 Sapor invaded Armenia, and the city of Artageras was taken after a siege 
 of fourteen months, and a loss of nearly 17,000 lives by famine, 369. 
 The conclusion of the Gothic war allowed the eastern emperor to spend 
 several years at Antioch, disturbed only by religious dissensions. But 
 in 375, Bishop Ulphilas, with other ambassadors from the Goths, 
 solicited his assistance against the Huns,—an oriental people, Calmucks 
 or Mongols, closely allied to the Finnish stock. 
 
 * Abridged from the “ Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme by Mr. Arthur Beug- 
 not, which contains a luminous criticism of the character of Julian, enhanced by a 
 vigorous style and extensive learning. 
 
152 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Battle of Adrianople, a. d. 378.—The Goths, to the number of 
 nearly a million, were transported across the Danube, and settled on the 
 southern bank of that river. Roman avarice and treachery drove them 
 to revolt; but they were kept in check by the lieutenants of Valens, and 
 their forces wasted by famine. The emperor hastened in person from 
 the East, and on the 9th August 378, attacked the invaders near Adria¬ 
 nople, where he suffered a terrible defeat, losing two-thirds of an army 
 of 300,000 men. He fled wounded from the field, and took refuge in a 
 peasant’s hut, to which the victors set fire, not knowing that the monarch 
 lay concealed within. The inexperience of the Goths prevented them 
 from taking advantage of their triumph otherwise than by ravaging 
 Thrace, and carrying their predatory expeditions to the walls of Con¬ 
 stantinople. 
 
 When Gratian, the Western Emperor, received the news of these 
 events, he called Theodosius from his estate in Spain, to which he had 
 retired on the death of his father, and raised him to the Eastern throne, 
 as being the only man capable of bearing the heavy weight of power, 
 379. Nor were the general expectations disappointed, for, by his pru¬ 
 dence, he delivered the Roman provinces from the Goths, and taking 
 advantage of their dissensions, compelled them to capitulate, 382, so 
 that, until his death, the empire did not lose a single province. His 
 reign was not less devoted to religion than to politics; for, while he 
 crushed the barbarians, he endeavoured also to eradicate the Arian 
 heresy, even at the price of blood. During the civil wars of the West, 
 he made two campaigns in Italy, where his success was equal to the 
 justice of his cause. After the defeat and death of the usurper Eugeni us, 
 he became sole emperor of the world, a title which he enjoyed only a few 
 months, as he died at Milan in 395. He was the last who ruled over 
 the whole Roman empire, which, torn and distracted as it was, his two 
 sons divided between them. Arcadias, as emperor of the East, reigned 
 at Constantinople; and Honorius in the West preferred Ravenna to the 
 ancient capital of the empire. 
 
 By the moderation which characterized the victories of Theodosius, by the 
 wisdom of his laws, and the success of his arms, he justly merited the title of 
 Great. Friends and enemies, Pagans and Christians, have alike given theii 
 testimony to his talents and virtues. He preserved on the throne the simple 
 manners of his early life, and the splendour of the diadem never made him 
 forget that he was a father, husband, and friend. His good qualities were, how¬ 
 ever, tarnished by his momentary impetuosity and his occasional cruelty when 
 under the influence of excited passion, as in those melancholy instances when 
 the inhabitants of Antioch and of Thessalonica rose in revolt against him. 
 
 WESTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 Valentinian, a. d. 364, preserved a strict impartiality and toleration 
 during this age of religious contention, his mind being occupied by other 
 subjects. The Alemanni invaded and ravaged Gaul, but the brave 
 Jovinus, after a severe conflict, drove them across the Rhine, 366. In 
 Britain the inroads of the Scots and Piets were repeatedly checked by 
 the vigorous exertions of Theodosius, father of the emperor of that name. 
 The same brave general afterwards recovered Africa, which had joined 
 the rebellious standard of Firmus the Moor, 373. The Goths, despising 
 the two obscure princes who were raised to the throne, passed the 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 153 
 
 Danube, to the number of 30,000 men; but after a sanguinary war of 
 three years, they were glad to accept peace. The Quadi followed, with 
 still worse success; and it was while receiving their ambassadors that 
 Valentinian broke into a furious passion which caused his death, 375. 
 
 Gratian ascended the throne on the death of his father. His first 
 exploit in arms was the defeat of the Alemanni who had crossed the 
 Rhine, in 378. Unable to resist alone the tempest of barbarians who 
 threatened to burst over the provinces, he invested Theodosius with the 
 empire of the East, 379. The preference he manifested for his Scythian 
 body-guard naturally excited the discontent of the Roman troops. 
 Maximus, who commanded in Britain, availed himself of these mur¬ 
 murs to assume the purple, and Gratian perished by the hand of an 
 assassin, 383. Not satisfied with possessing the provinces westward 
 of the Alps, the usurper invaded Italy, which was governed by Valen¬ 
 tinian II., a brother of the late monarch. Theodosius supported the 
 Italian prince, and Maximus was defeated and killed at Aquileia, 388; 
 but, notwithstanding, Valentinian perished by the hand of the Frank 
 Arbogastes, before he had completed his twentieth year, 392. The rhe¬ 
 torician Eugenius, secretary of the barbarian general, was raised to the 
 vacant throne, and for tw~o years Theodosius durst not attack him, 
 defended as he was by the skill of his master and the numerous Franks 
 he had collected around him. The battle which, in 394, put an end to 
 the reign and life of Eugenius, was fought by foreigners alone: the 
 troops of Theodosius being Goths, under the command of their native 
 chiefs, and their antagonists Franks and Allemanni. 
 
 The history of the Western Empire now rapidly approaches its close. The 
 luxury which pervaded the cities, and the relaxation of military discipline 
 prepared its fall. Ministers, soldiers, and generals were chosen from the bar¬ 
 barous tributaries of Rome; and the incorporation of the Goths and other tribes 
 was a fatal injury to the internal government of the state. The court was given 
 up to idle pomp and ceremony ; women and eunuchs directed the affairs of the 
 world ; corruption, injustice, and oppression, famine and pestilence, completed 
 the gloomy picture. 
 
 BARBARIC MIGRATIONS. 
 
 The fourth century was marked by an incident of great importance,- 
 the appearance of the Huns in Europe; an event which led to the grea 
 migrations that followed, and finally brought on the destruction of tl e 
 Roman Empire in the West. 
 
 The name of German comprehends all those tribes which, from the 
 time of Julius Caesar, were established between 56° N. latitude and the 
 Danube, and between the Rhine and the Vistula. One of these nations, 
 the Goths, being driven from the mouths of the latter river by others 
 w’ho dw r elt farther to the east, sought refuge on the frontiers of Dacia, 
 where Caracalla found them in 213. Aurelian permitted them to settle 
 along the Euxine Sea, when they became divided into Eastern or Ostro¬ 
 goths—from the Don to the Dniester, and Western or Visigoths—from 
 the Dniester to the Danube. About the year 374 the barbarous horde 
 of the Hiong-nu , or Huns, appeared on the eastern bank of the Don. 
 They w r ere a nomad people who wandered over the mountains and pas¬ 
 ture-grounds of Upper Asia, particularly in the countries lying between 
 Siberia and India. The first historical notice of them is found in 
 
154 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 Chinese documents of the age of Domitian. Their khan or tanjou, 
 Tchun Goei, had founded a powerful empire beyond the northern edge 
 of the desert of Kobi, by whose successors the Manchoos or Eastern 
 Tartars w^ere subdued. The Chinese, who vainly opposed their great 
 wall to check these incursions, were reduced by the Tanjous; but for¬ 
 tune changing, the Emperor Vou-ti expelled them from his country, and 
 the Manchoos also threw off their yoke. A prey to dreadful famine and 
 intestine wars, the Huns abandoned the steppes of Tartary, and in two 
 great bodies marched to the westward. The white Huns, or Nept’na- 
 lites, settled in Transoxiana, whence they annoyed the Persians ; while 
 the other tribes to the north of the Caucasus, and between the Volga 
 and the Don, encountered the Alani, a people almost as savage as them¬ 
 selves. These they carried along with them in their course, and the 
 two hordes, now confounded in one, arrived on the borders of the Ostro¬ 
 goths. They did not force the vanquished inhabitants to quit their 
 lands, but compelled them to supply a certain number of guides to lead 
 them to the attack of the Visigoths. These latter tribes, at the approach 
 of this terrible scourge, fled in multitudes towards the Danube, and sup¬ 
 plicated Valens, 376, to receive and protect them on the right bank; 
 promising that when they were once sheltered by this barrier, they 
 would consecrate their services to the defence of the empire. How the 
 declarations of this million of suppliants were kept, the reader will find 
 detailed elsewhere. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Christian religion, although severely persecuted, resembled the 
 herb that flourishes best when most trodden upon. The blood of the 
 martyrs was the seed of the Church, and hence converts rapidly spread 
 over the empire, and to the remotest parts of the world. Heresy and 
 schism, no doubt, arose simultaneously with the propagation of the 
 Gospel; nevertheless, within three centuries, Paganism was entirely 
 abolished. But the Arian controversy threatened more serious danger 
 than external persecution; the believers were for a long period dis¬ 
 united, and the bond of evangelical brotherhood was broken. W ith the 
 death of Constantine began the two principal innovations which still 
 divide the Catholic (or Universal ) Church, and which have proved the 
 source of all the corruptions that have degraded Christianity: by the 
 one the doctrine was contaminated, and by the other the government of 
 the independent Episcopal churches was destroyed. It ought to be 
 remembered that every church was a society complete in itself, govern¬ 
 ed in all its branches by one episcopal head, who w r as liable to be 
 deposed if he violated the faith,—even the patriarchs of the three royal 
 cities, Antioch, Rome, and Alexandria, with those of Constantinople 
 and Jerusalem, scarcely forming an exception to the general rule. Cer¬ 
 tain large ecclesiastical provinces, such as Persia, Armenia, and Abys¬ 
 sinia, which lay beyond the limits of the empire, had also their patri¬ 
 archs or catholics. Lastly, there were in it a few provinces united with 
 a metropolitan, who took the name of archbishop, as Canterbury in 
 England, Vienne in Gaul, Seville in Spain, and Milan in Italy. As to 
 the bishops or overseers ( episcopi ), their establishment dates from the 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 155 
 
 first ages of Christianity : elected by the people and clergy of their 
 diocese, their spiritual authority was equal to that of the metropolitans 
 and patriarchs, on whom, from the exigencies of the times, the church 
 had conferred certain exterior privileges. Below the bishops were the 
 elders (presbyters or priests), charged by them with the exercise of a 
 spiritual authority over those members of their diocese whom they them¬ 
 selves could not reach. The deacons or servants were destined to per¬ 
 form the humbler functions of the ministry. The equality of this 
 spiritual republic was, nevertheless, modified by its discipline; for the 
 priest was inferior to the bishop, and both to the provincial council in 
 which the metropolitan presided. 
 
 The errors of Arius, 318, convulsed the church during three centuries. 
 Rejecting the plain declaration of the Bible and the evidence of an¬ 
 tiquity, he taught that Jesus Christ was essentially distinct from the 
 Father, and only the first and noblest of created beings. These here¬ 
 tical tenets led to the summoning of the general councils of the bishops 
 and doctors of the church,— at Nice, 325; Constantinople, 381; 
 Ephesus, 431 ; Chalcedon, 451, — by which the opinions of the primi¬ 
 tive Christians were confirmed on the subject of the person of Christ, 
 of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement.* But the savage 
 inroads of the barbarians, the extinction of learning, and an almost 
 universal mental abasement, prepared the way for the establishment of 
 Popery and Mohammedanism—the rival enemies of pure religion in the 
 West and East. 
 
 The church "of Rome began early to assume authority over the others, 
 as well from the number and wealth of its converts as from its position 
 in the capital city. Many circumstances, especially the Athanasian 
 controversy and its results, concurred to augment the influence of its 
 bishop, although his usurpation and ambition were for a time vigorously 
 repelled. Irenaeus of France, in 195 : reproved the presumption of 
 Victor of Rome, who had excommunicated the Asiatic churches which 
 did not observe Easter after his fashion. The Romish mandates were 
 peremptorily rejected by the African church, 250; and Spain a few 
 years afterwards refused to submit to the pontiff. The transference of 
 the seat of power to Constantinople increased the authority of the 
 western church, by conferring the chief magistracy on the bishop. To 
 this must be added the sanction given by Gratian and Valentinian to 
 the custom of appeals to Rome, the frequent pilgrimages to the tombs 
 of St. Peter,f St. Paul, and other martyrs. 
 
 * The Council of Constantinople was convoked by Theodosius the Great, and the 
 patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople presided in succession. St. Gregory of 
 Nazianzuin was among the number. The symbol of the mass, afterwards received by 
 the whole Romish church, was here proposed. The Council of Ephesus was convoked 
 by Theodosius the younger. St. Cyril of Alexandria presided ; the Nestorians and 
 IViagians were condemned The Council of Chalcedon was convoked by the Emperor 
 Mercian. One of the canons then enacted, by which Constantinople ought to enjoy the 
 same advantages as Rome in the ecclesiastical order, was the germ of schism which 
 afterwards separated the Greek from the Western church. 
 
 t 'Hie most magnificent temple in the world was raised over the traditionary tomb of 
 St. Peter ; but whatever may be the decisions of the critics as to his visit to Rome and 
 martyrdom in that city, there can be no reasonable doubt that neither he nor St. Pauk 
 was the founder of the Christian church in that metropolis. 
 
156 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 GENERAL TABLE OF COUNCILS. 
 
 r—- - 
 
 Council. 
 
 Whpn. 
 
 Where. 
 
 By whom 
 Summoned. 
 
 President. 
 
 Why ? 
 
 Results. 
 
 1 
 
 _ 
 
 325 
 
 Nice. 
 
 Constantine. 
 
 Osius. 
 
 To settle 
 the Arian 
 disputes. 
 
 Nicene Creed; re¬ 
 cognition of con- 
 substantiality of the 
 Son of God with 
 God the Father. 
 
 The teacher should furnish the pupil with the particulars from Milner, 
 Mosheim, or any more authentic source. 
 
 Remarks on the Establishment of Christianity by Constantine. 
 
 It is uncertain whether faith or patriotic philanthropy induced the Roman 
 emperor to distribute the ministers of Christ over his dominions, and to assign 
 .hem a territorial revenue. Contemporaneously with this establishment wa 9 
 the progress of a great and general corruption which had arisen from other 
 causes two centuries before. Superstition and ignorance had invested the 
 ecclesiastics with a power which they exerted to their own aggrandizement, 
 supplanting the authority of Scripture by a discipline and doctrine which blind¬ 
 ed the souls of men. In this alone — which the establishment should have 
 restrained and corrected — originated the despotism of priests, and by it they 
 were enabled to rule at will over the consciences of their deluded votaries. In 
 consequence of the new arrangement, the religion of Christ spread from the 
 cities and towns over all the rural districts, and the Pagans (i. e. villagers, in a 
 literal sense) were brought into the Christian fold. An unfailing succession of 
 ministers was thus secured ; a refuge during the dark and stormy ages, already 
 impending over the empire, was prepared ; virtue found a safe retreat ; and 
 learning was sheltered till brighter days arose. The religion of the Gospel 
 could never have perished ; but the sufferings consequent upon the barbarian 
 invasions would have been increased tenfold, and all literature and science 
 would have disappeared in the wreck of the governments. 
 
 Heresies. —The great heresies in the early Christian church may be traced 
 to three sources :—1. Pagan Philosophy; 2. Opinions as to the Nature of Christ; 
 and, 3. Doctrines in regard to the Human Will and Original Sin. 
 
 I. Philosophy. —The Gnostics rejected the law of Moses, with some part 9 
 of the New Testament, and regarded Christ as an intermediate being between 
 God and man, an emanation from the Pleroma, or fulness of the Godhead, sent 
 into the world to deliver the human being from the empire of the genii, and to 
 withdraw souls from the malignant influence of matter. Some abstained from 
 marriage, and by fasting and maceration endeavoured to free the soul from the 
 fleshly prison to which it was confined ; others of the Gnostics indulged in every 
 kind of vice, as they attached no idea of good or evil to any of the different 
 modifications of matter. ^ 
 
 The Manichees derive their name and creed from the Persian Mani. whose 
 belief was a mixture of Christianity and Sabaism. founded on the oriental tra¬ 
 dition of two principles of Good and Evil. He rejected the Old Testament, 
 and published a gospel of his own, meant by him to complete the imperfect 
 revelation of Jesus. He identified the God ot the Old Testament with the evil 
 spirit; rejected all religious ceremonials; and taught the doctrine of the me¬ 
 tempsychosis, with the triple division of human souls. He was put to death by 
 order of Varanes I., after a dispute with the Magians, and his skin, stuffed with 
 straw, was placed over the gate of the city of Shahpoor. 275. His doctrines 
 spread even to Spain ; they were adopted by Priscilian, bishop of Abyla, who 
 suffered as a heretic—the first victim—at Treves, 385. 
 
FOURTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 157 
 
 Carpocrates founded the sect which bears his name. He taught the pre- 
 existence of the soul, and that everything was a matter of indifference, except 
 faith and charity. By this he appears to inculcate the contempt of all laws, and 
 that, as our passions were given us by God, we should satisfy „hem at all risks 
 He added to this licentious doctrine the principle, that excess in debauchery is 
 a more certain, speedy, and, at the same time, a more agreeable method of 
 destroying the burdensome body than the practice of self-mortificati n. His 
 creed was partly Gnostic. 
 
 Nicolas, deacon of Jerusalem, chief of the Nicolaitans, formed a sect which, 
 by an unlimited extension of the community of goods, degraded men to brutes, 
 and sapped the foundations of society. 
 
 A physician, Montanus , desirous of perfecting the moral precepts of Christ, 
 proscribed all pleasures, dress, the arts, and philosophy. Rigorous fasts were 
 enjoined : marriage was tolerated as a necessary evil, but second nuptials were 
 considered an inexpicable sin; and all religion was resolved into an inward 
 emotion. The eloquent Tertullian was one of his proselytes. His followers 
 were called Montanists.—The Valesians and Origenists went to still greater 
 excesses. 
 
 II. Opinions as to the Nature of Christ. —The Macedonians, Sahel - 
 lians. and Monarchists preceded Arius , who denied the proper divinity of the 
 Saviour. This heresy was first taught at Alexandria, in a spirit of opposition 
 to the patriarch; it gradually divided the church, and was formally condemned 
 by the Council of Nice, 325. 
 
 The Nestorians imagined a useless and dangerous distinction between the 
 human and divine nature of Christ. They were condemned by the Council of 
 Ephesus, 431.—The Eutychians, called also Jacobites, fell into the opposite 
 error, and were censured by the Council of Chalcedon, 451. 
 
 III. Doctrines in regard to the Human Will and Original Sin.— 
 Two monks, Pelagius, a Briton, and the Irish Celestius, wholly rejected the 
 doctrine of original sin, and of the influence of divine grace, and asserted the 
 entire freedom of the will. St. Augustin was the great champion of orthodoxy 
 against these opinions. 
 
 The Donatists and Iconoclasts belong to a different class. They did not 
 object to the Nicene creed ; their errors were not doctrinal; they were rather 
 schismatics or rebels. The first sect arose out of the disputes concerning the 
 succession to the bishopric of Carthage. The opinions of Donatus were con¬ 
 demned by the conference at Carthage, 411.—An account of the Iconoclasts 
 is given in the history of the eighth century. 
 
 The preceding brief list of heresies can give but a feeble and imperfect idea 
 of the numberless and unmeasured aberrations into which the passion of dog¬ 
 matizing and the seductions of an unsubstantial glory led away many proud 
 spirits. Who can tell what sufferings these deep wounds inflicted on the church ! 
 The hand of God had supported it during the persecutions of the Pagans; it 
 found in its own ministers men armed with prudence and courage to defend it 
 from internal enemies. At first it opposed to its misled children the authority 
 of the Holy Scriptures and pure tradition only; but when the princes of i he 
 earth had recognised the reign of Christ, the civil power lent its support to the 
 laws of the church. The mere errors of conscience were assimilated to crimes, 
 and often met with the same punishment. 
 
 14 
 
158 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 FIFTH CENTURY. 
 
 FOUNDATION OF MODERN STATES. 
 
 Eastern Empire. — 395, Alaric.—408, Theodosias II.—420, Persia' 
 War.- -450, Marcian.—457, Leo the Great.—491, Anastasius. 
 
 Ro^e J I Vester * Empire .— 408, Britain relinquished. — 410, Visigoths at Rome 
 —Vandals, Alani, and Suevi.—414, Franks, Burgundians, &c., in 
 Gaul. 452, Attila.—476, Fall of the Western Empire — 
 Odoacer and Theodoric. 
 
 Venice. —452, Commencement of the Republic. 
 
 Gaul. —420, Pharamond.—428, Clodion.—448, Merovens.—486, Clovis. 
 
 The Church. —Monachism—Conversion of the Barbarians. 
 
 DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 Each empire was now divided into two prefectures ; these into two dioceses, 
 and subdivided into provinces. The cities with their dependencies formed the 
 lowest division in this political scale. 
 
 Prefectures. 
 
 r 
 
 Dioceses. 
 
 cd 
 
 i—i 
 
 Ph 
 
 £ 
 
 w 
 
 £ 
 
 Pd 
 
 w 
 
 GQ 
 
 <J 
 
 w 
 
 fl. East. 
 
 2. Egypt. 
 
 I. 
 
 East. 
 
 < 
 
 II. 
 
 Illyria . 
 ("Eastern).^ 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 r 3 Palestmes, Phoenicia. 
 
 •? 2 Syrias, Cyprus, Arabia. 
 
 (.2 Cilicias, Mesopotamia. 
 
 C Egypt Proper, Thebais. 
 
 £2 Lybias, Augustamnica. 
 
 { Pamphilia, Hellespont. 
 
 Lydia, Lycaonia, 2 Phrygias. 
 
 Lycia, Caria, the Isles. 
 
 { 2 Galatias, Bithvnia, Pontus. 
 
 2 Cappadocias, *Paphlagonia. 
 
 2 Armenias, Helenopontus, Polemonium. 
 .. mi C Europe, Thrace, Rhodope. 
 
 . 1 race. £ Haemus, 2d Moesia, Scythia. 
 
 ~ rAchaea, Macedonia. 
 
 fl. Macedonia. Crete, Thessaly. 
 
 (.Epirus (old and new). 
 
 C Dacia (Interior and Ripuarian ). 
 
 
 W 
 
 Pd 
 
 w 
 
 Pd 
 
 H 
 
 E- 
 
 W 
 
 £ 
 
 i. 
 
 Italy. K 
 
 < 
 
 II. 
 
 Gaul. 
 
 • q r*\ • A 1/ aLia \Ji fi/LC'i tut uiiu 
 
 uacia. ^ist Moesia, Dardania, Proevalis. 
 r l. Italy (sub- fVenice, Liguria, 2 Picentums. 
 divided into Tuscany and Umbria, Campania. 
 the Dioceses \ Sicily, Apulia, Calabria. 
 of Italy and S Lucania and Bruttium, Cottian Alps. 
 
 Rome.) ! 2 Rhaetias, Samnium, Valeria, Sardinia, Cor- 
 
 L sica. 
 
 C2 Pannonias, Savia. 
 
 ^Dalmatia, Noricum. 
 
 CTripolis, Byzacium. 
 
 £ Numidia, 2 Mauritanias. 
 
 ^-Boetica, Lusitania, Galicia. 
 
 .2 Tarraconensis, Carthaginiensis. 
 
 (.Balearic Isles, Tingitania (Africa). 
 f Narbonnensis (2), Vienne, 
 
 • Alps (Maritime and Pennine). 
 y 3 Aquitaines, 5 Lyonnais, 
 
 (JBelgica (2), Germany (2). 
 r 2 Britains 
 
 2. Illyria 
 ( Western). 
 
 3. Africa. 
 
 r \. Spain. 
 
 2. Gaul. 
 
 
 3. Britain. 
 
 (.F4avia ia Caesariensis, Valcntia. 
 Prepare: Maps of the two empires with the preceding divisions. 
 
FIFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 159 
 
 EASTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 Invasion of Alaric. —Arcadius, the eldest son of the great Theodo¬ 
 sius, seemed to impress his own feebleness on that empire whose history 
 begins with his reign, a. d. 395. He ruled over Thrace, Asia Minor, 
 Syria, Egypt, Dacia, and Macedonia. The obscure but clever Gascon 
 Rufinus, who owed his elevation to the father, preserved his influence 
 over the son; but his fall and death were brought on by his cruelties in 
 the East, and by the marriage of the sovereign. He was succeeded by 
 Eutropius, who shortly after incurred a similar fate. Gainas, the leader 
 of the barbarian auxiliaries, dissatisfied at the frequent changes in the 
 state, and probably moved by ambition, meditated the destruction of the 
 Greek monarchy, by delivering up its capital into the hands of his 
 fellow-countrymen; but the plot being discovered, he was compelled to 
 withdraw beyond the Danube, where he perished in battle against the 
 Huns. The empire escaped from these dangers only to encounter still 
 greater. The Visigoths, on the refusal of Arcadius to pay the annual 
 tribute, poured their wild bands into Thrace and Pannonia, following 
 the guidance of Alaric, a chief of the ancient Balti. From the Adriatic 
 to the Bosphorus, everything was devastated; and the Goths penetrated 
 as far as Athens, the walls of which were vainly defended by the shade 
 of Achilles and the powerful aegis of Minerva. They escaped from 
 Stilicho, the minister of Honorius, who was sent against them, when 
 the feeble counsels of Arcadius promoted the invader to the title of 
 Prefect of Illyricum, 398. 
 
 Pulcheria. —The intrigues and conspiracies of the Eastern court are 
 too numerous and too similar to deserve particular notice ; but they con¬ 
 tributed to the distress of the country by the consequent impossibility 
 of employing the resources of the empire against the Barbarians. 
 Pulcheria, scarcely fifteen years of age, was put at the head of affairs, 
 and intrusted with the education of her young brother, Theodosius II., 
 408. During this minority the empire enjoyed internal as well as 
 foreign peace; and its frontiers were extended by the addition of part 
 of Armenia in 441. Theodosius, celebrated for the oldest collection of 
 the Roman law which has come down to our time, was succeeded by 
 Marcian, a soldier of great merit, who was invested with the purple 
 when he received the hand of Pulcheria, 450. He braved the menaces 
 of Attila, and by his firmness restored the peace of the church. With 
 the death of his wife, in the year 453, the family of Theodosius became 
 extinct. 
 
 The successor of Marcian was Leo the Great, a. d. 457. Proclaimed 
 by the people, the army, and the senate, and crowned for the first time 
 by the patriarch, this simple Thracian soldier appeared to revive the 
 long-disused military elections of the empire. The Isaurian guard had 
 for some time displaced the praetorians, whose privileges they now 
 seemed desirous of assuming. On the death of Leo, they invested his 
 son-in-law, their general Zeno, with the imperial dignity. A revolution 
 placed Basiliscus on the throne, who quitted his pleasures only to 
 terminate by an edict of union the quarrels of the Orthodox and the 
 Eutychians. 
 
 On the death of Zeno, Ariadne, the mother of Leo II., married a 
 heretic, Anastasius the Silentiary, who attained the sceptre in 491. 
 
160 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 His character may be learnt from the flattering shout which greeted his 
 accession—Reign as you have lived ! His excessive intolerance towards 
 the orthodox was atoned for by the removal of many oppressive taxes, 
 the abolition of the sale of offices, the prohibition of combats between 
 men and animals, the banishment of the seditious Isaurians, and other 
 beneflcial measures. He built Dara in Armenia to cover the frontiers 
 on the side of Persia, and erected a wall fifty-four miles in length from 
 the Euxine to the Propontis, for the defence of Constantinople. His 
 long reign was agitated by religious quarrels, which in one instance 
 cost the lives of 100,000 inhabitants of the capital. He was succeeded 
 by Justin I., a Thracian peasant, 518, whose throne, nine years after¬ 
 wards, was occupied by his celebrated nephew Justinian. 
 
 WESTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 Battle of Pollentia.— Honorius was eleven years of age when he 
 succeeded to the government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, Britain, 
 Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, in 395. His minister, the intrepid 
 and sagacious Stilicho, himself of Vandal origin, supported the dignity 
 of the Roman name in the West. After the revolt in Africa was quelled, 
 398, he was sent against Alaric, at that time ravaging Greece; but he 
 was soon called to defend the sacred soil of Italy itself against that 
 daring barbarian, 402. The Visigoths, after insulting Milan, and being 
 almost shut up in their camp at Pollentia, were defeated in two battles, 
 and compelled to leave in the hands of their conquerors a great part of 
 the booty which they had collected in Greece. Honorius enjoyed, in 
 Rome, the triumphal honours due to his successful general; and after¬ 
 wards transferred the imperial residence to Ravenna, trusting for safety 
 rather to the waters of the Adriatic than to the arms of his soldiers. 
 Alaric retired into Pannonia, but the season of calm, which the Western 
 Empire enjoyed, was of brief duration. Italy was again overrun by 
 Radagaisus, who had served under that adventurer, and Rome threatened; 
 but the manoeuvres of Stilicho shut him up in the mountains, near 
 Faesulse, where the united forces of the Goths and Huns were starved 
 into surrender, and the leader himself beheaded, 406. Meantime Gaul 
 was desolated by the Vandals from modern Lusatia, by the Suevi from 
 between the Maine and the Neckar, and by the Alani from the banks of 
 the Danube. It was defended by Constantine, who had usurped the 
 imperial power, and whose lieutenant Constans administered the affairs 
 of Spain. 
 
 Capture of Rome. — Stilicho fell a victim to the intrigues of 
 Olympius, an officer of the palace, who inspired the feeble Honorius 
 with the determination of getting rid of a powerful minister, who was 
 said to meditate the placing of his own son on the imperial throne. 
 Thus the only general who was capable of defending Italy was put to 
 death in 408. Alaric immediately resumed his projects against it, 
 ostensibly to revenge the wrongs of his principal adversary; but 
 neglecting Ravenna, he marched to Rome, which, since the time of 
 Hannibal, more than six hundred years, had seen no enemy before its 
 gates. A close blockade soon forced it to capitulate, on condition of 
 paying 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 4000 silk dresses, 3000 
 pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and 3000 pounds of pepper, the last an 
 
FIFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 161 
 
 article held in the greatest esteem. The obstinacy and treachery of 
 Honorius compelled Alaric to march a third time against the capital. 
 
 At midnight a band of slaves in his interest opened the Salarian gate, 
 and the inhabitants were roused from their slumbers by the sound of the 
 Gothic trumpet in their streets. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years 
 after its foundation, Rome, which had subdued the greatest part of the 
 earth, was given up for six days to the fury of Scythians and Ger¬ 
 mans, 410. The piety of these recently converted barbarians respected 
 the basilics of St. Peter and St. Paul. Marching to the south, de¬ 
 vastating every thing upon which he set his foot, Alaric was surprised 
 by death in the course of a few months at Consentia ( Cosenza ), while 
 meditating an expedition to Africa.—He was succeeded by Ataulphus, 
 with whom the emperor made peace by giving to him his sister Placidia 
 in marriage. In return, he led his followers against the usurpers Con¬ 
 stantine, Gerontius, Jovinus, and Sebastian, who were disputing the 
 sovereignty of Gaul. The first was made prisoner at Arles and capitally 
 punished; the second put himself to death; the other two were con¬ 
 quered by the Visigoths, and perished on the scaffold at Narbonne. 
 Before the demise of Honorius in 424, several barbarian kingdoms had 
 been established : the Burgundian in 413 ; the Suevian in Galicia, and 
 the Visigoths in the south of France, 419. The main object of his 
 government was the extirpation of heresy and paganism; he declared 
 all noncomformers inadmissible to public offices, destroyed the temples 
 with their idols, and endeavoured to abolish all gladiatorial shows. 
 
 Kingdom of Carthage, a. d. 439.—Honorius leaving no children, 
 the inheritance reverted to Theodosius II., his nephew; but the union 
 of the crowns of the East and West was no longer possible, and the em¬ 
 peror wisely transferred his rights to Valentinian III., the son of 
 Placidia, 424. This princess defeated John the Secretary, who had 
 usurped the Italian throne, and took the reins of state, while Pulcheria, 
 sister of Theodosius, ruled in the east in the name of her brother. Under 
 the new reign the dismemberment of the empire proceeded rapidly. 
 Boniface, the governor of Africa, when on the point of falling a victim 
 to the intrigues of the powerful minister, iEtius, proposed to Genseric the 
 Vandal, in return for his assistance, a partition of the wealthy province 
 of Africa, and that Mauritania should be his share. The court of Ra¬ 
 venna exerted itself in support of the governor, but he was unable to 
 defend his province, and in 435, Valentinian, that he might save Car¬ 
 thage, ceded all Roman Africa. Genseric, four years later, became 
 master of this great and populous city, plundered the treasures of the 
 Catholic churches, and being installed in his new capital, assumed the 
 title of King of the Earth, of the Sea, and of the Islands. His formi¬ 
 dable navy had reduced Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, the Balearic Isles, 
 ravaged the northern coast of the Mediterranean, and threatened 
 Constantinople. 
 
 Attila. —The tribes of Huns established in the countries from whence 
 they had expelled the Goths, between the Don, the Theiss, and the 
 Volga, were united under this single chief, denominated the Scourge of 
 God. The Byzantine court having refused the payment of the stipulated 
 subsidy to his people, these barbarians crossed the frontiers, ravaged 
 Thrace and Illyria, and forced Theodosius not only to pay the arrears, 
 but to abandon the right bank of the Danube, 446. The emperor did 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 not long survive this humiliation. His successor Marcian opposed the 
 pretensions of Attila with a firmness not unbecoming the Romans of an 
 earlier age, and the barbarian was compelled to turn his views towards 
 the West. In 451, he marched up the left bank of the Danube, and 
 arrived at Basle, on the Rhine, with an army of 500,000 men. At the 
 news of this irruption, .Etius endeavoured to preserve Gaul for his em¬ 
 pire : but in vain did the Burgundians dispute the passage of the river. 
 Attila descending its left bank as far as Mentz, plundered Treves and 
 Metz ; after which leading his troops into the heart of Gaul, he pitched 
 his camp before Orleans. At the very moment that he was entering 
 that city by one gate, through another was advancing the army of 
 Etius, with Theodoric and his Visigoths, and Meroveus with the 
 Franks. The Huns were driven out and in the plains of Croisette, 
 near Chalons on the Marne, a sanguinary battle was fought, in which 
 160,000 men were left dead upon the field, and the invader compelled to 
 return to Germany. The next year he marched on Italy, destroyed 
 Aquileia, took Pavia and Milan, and ravaged the north-eastern parts of 
 the peninsula. He entered Ravenna through a breach in the walls, 
 which the people had beeen obliged to make in token of their submission 
 to his will, and hither the venerable pontiff Leo brought presents to 
 conciliate the ferocious conqueror. The wrath of the latter was as¬ 
 suaged, and he retired from Italy loaded with the plunder of an hundred 
 unfortunate cities. His death, in 453, was not less extraordinary than 
 his life. Having espoused, in addition to a multitude of wives, the 
 beautiful Hildichunde, he perished in the night of his marriage—intoxi¬ 
 cated, and slain in a drunken fray, according to one account; a sacrifice 
 to female craft, according to Agnellus; but most probably of apoplexy. 
 The custom of primogeniture being unknown, the estates of the conqueror 
 were divided by lot among all his sons.* 
 
 Taking of Rome by Genseric, a. d. 455.— Maximus having procured 
 the murder of Valentinian III. and married his widow Eudoxia, had 
 reigned three months, when the fleet of Genseric entered the port of 
 Ostia to take vengeance on the guilty emperor, who was torn in pieces 
 by the exasperated populace, while the injuries of ancient Carthage 
 were avenged by its new citizens. Rome, which in forty-five years had 
 recovered its magnificence and forgotten the depredations of Alaric, was 
 given up during fourteen days to the license of the invaders. On the 
 abolition of paganism, the capitol had been abandoned, but the statues 
 of the gods and heroes which adorned it were respected; all of which, 
 with the celebrated roof of gilded bronze, fell into the hands of Genseric. 
 The golden table and candlestick, brought from Jerusalem several cen¬ 
 turies before, were transported to Carthage by a barbarian who drew his 
 first breath on the shores of the Baltic. The Christian churches and the 
 treasures of the imperial palace offered a rich booty; but the vessel loaded 
 with the spoils of the capitol, the most precious objects of art, foundered 
 
 * Attila was buried in a wide plain in a coffin enclosed in one of gold, another of 
 silver, and a third of iron. With his body was interred an immense amount of booty, 
 and that the spot might be for ever unknown, all those who had assisted at the burial 
 were deprived of life. The Goths acted nearly in a similar manner on the death of 
 Alaric in 410. They turned aside a small river in Calabria, and buried him in a grave 
 formed in the midst of the channel. After restoring the stream to its coarse, they put 
 to death all those who had been concerned in the formation of so singular « Dlao° of se¬ 
 pulture. 
 
FIFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 163 
 
 on its passage. Thousands of Romans of both sexes whose charms or 
 talents might contribute to the pleasures of their masters, were removed 
 to Africa, where they furnished Deogratias, bishop of Carthage, with the 
 opportunity of exercising his boundless charity. Eudoxia herself, who 
 was plundered of her jewels while hastening to meet her liberator and 
 ally, also followed the Vandal into a captivity which was shared by her 
 daughters. 
 
 Genseric during twenty years was the terror of the East and West. 
 With his numerous fleet, which he always commanded in person, he 
 desolated all the coasts of the Mediterranean. After his death, 477, the 
 Vandal kingdom was incessantly agitated by religious persecutions or 
 harassed by the Moors, until Belisarius reduced Africa once more under 
 the Byzantine dominion, 534. 
 
 End of the Western Empire. — During the twenty years which 
 elapsed from the death of Valentinian in 455, Italy had acknowledged 
 the rule of nine successive emperors. Most of them were mere puppets, 
 managed by Ricimer, the commander of the barbarian mercenaries in 
 the pay of Rome, and who was too prudent to assume in his own person 
 the title of Augustus. Of all these, Majorian was the only one who 
 merited title and station. He enacted many wise laws, reformed the 
 imposition and collection of taxes, and endeavoured to preserve the 
 monuments of the city from destruction at the hands of its own inhabi¬ 
 tants. Nor while thus peacefully occupied, did he neglect the external 
 relations of the state. The Vandals and Moors were defeated at the 
 mouth of the Liris, and Genseric’s brother-in-law was amono-st the 
 slain. With a brave and disciplined army, the active monarch crossed 
 the Alps in the middle of winter, marching on foot at the head of his 
 legions, sounding the depth of the snow and encouragingby his example, 
 the barbarians, who complained of the severity of the cold. His inten¬ 
 tion w T as to pass through Gaul and Spain into Numidia, and to overthrow 
 the Vandal domination. Gaul submitted to his arms, Spain again 
 recognised the authority of the empire, and a fleet of three hundred 
 galleys was constructed to menace the African shores. But Majorian 
 saw all his prospects blighted; his ships were surprised and burnt in 
 the port of Oarthagena, and he himself perished by the hands of his own 
 soldiers, 460. The murderers conferred the supreme dignity successively 
 on three senators —Severus III., Anthemius and Olybrius, all equally 
 undeserving of the throne. These w T ere followed by Glycerius and 
 Julius Nepos, w T ho were deposed in their turn, and ended their career, 
 *he one in the honours of a bishopric, the other in the retirement of 
 Salona. The patrician Orestes, master-general of the army of Italy, 
 after having been the minister of Attila, invested his son Romulus 
 Augustulus with the purple which he had stripped from Nepos. But 
 the barbarians in the service of the empire, under the name of fede¬ 
 rates, not succeeding in their demand for one-third of the lands of Italy, 
 revolted under the Herulean Odoacer. Orestes was defeated and killed 
 at Pavia, and the youthful emperor w'as banished to Lucullanum in 
 Campania, where he soon after died. 
 
 Odoacer, a. d. 476, received from his troops the title of King of 
 Italy; but fearful of exciting jealousy, he never assumed either the pur¬ 
 ple or diadem. His offlce was without power; for in case of attack he 
 could not rely on the zeal of the population whom he had despoiled ; 
 
164 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY* 
 
 while his army, composed of men of every race and tribe, without any 
 national tie, and enervated by a long sojourn in the luxurious peninsula, 
 was unable to defend the country against invasion. Although pro¬ 
 fessing the Arian doctrines, he tolerated orthodox believers ; he strictly 
 enforced the laws; caused ancient institutions to be respected; re¬ 
 established the consulate; and, by promoting agriculture, endeavoured 
 to obviate those frequent famines which devastated the cities of Italy,— 
 a necessary consequence of their entire reliance on supplies from Africa 
 and Egypt. After reigning fourteen years, he was attacked by Theo- 
 doric the Ostrogoth, and being three times defeated, was driven into 
 Ravenna, where he was blockaded nearly three years. He was at last 
 compelled to surrender, but his rival, not very scrupulous about his 
 plighted word, caused him and his faithful companions to be massacred 
 in the midst of a banquet, 493. 
 
 Reflections. —With the banishment of Augustulus, a. d. 476, ended the 
 Roman empire, 1228 years from its foundation. Its decline was the necessary 
 consequence of its immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principles of 
 decay, which were to be found in the licentiousness of the soldiery, the weak¬ 
 ness of the government, and the irruptions of the barbarians. The Queen of 
 Nations fell by the hands of a tribe unknown, even by name, in the days of 
 her pride. Her fall made no noise ; it was the last sigh of a victim expiring 
 under a tedious and incurable malady. Her monarchy was no more than a 
 name. Britain was independent; in Gaul a few provinces only remained faith¬ 
 ful ; Goths and Suevi disputed Spain; the Vandals governed Africa; Italy was 
 crowded with foreign legions ; and Germany was daily sending forth her swarms 
 to prey on the riches of the West. 
 
 The history of the world took another form. Christianity became the domi¬ 
 nant religion, threatened indeed for a time by the furious invasion of Islam. 
 No mighty empire now threw its shadow over the whole world ; the monarchies 
 were limited in extent and power ; feudalism gave rise to a new order of ideas 
 and feelings; and the usurpations of ecclesiastical authority, while they pro¬ 
 moted peace and encouraged the arts, stifled that freedom of thought which is 
 the birthright of every reasonable being. 
 
 Construct: Synoptical Table of Barbaric Invasions. 
 
 Date of 
 Invasion. 
 
 People. 
 
 Chief. 
 
 Origin. 
 
 Conquests. 
 
 Manners, &c. 
 Laws, &.c. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 j 
 
 A. D. 
 
 365, Allemanni invade Gaul. 
 
 402, Goths invade Italy, under Alaric. 
 
 409, Suevi, Vandals, Alani, and other barbarians invade Spain. 
 
 419, Burgundians settled in Gaul. 
 
 449, Saxons invade Britain. 
 
 451, Huns, under Attila, invade Gaul and Italy. 
 
 The prophet Daniel, about 550 b. c. foretold the destruction of the Roman 
 empire, and its division into ten kingdoms. Machiavelli, a most unprejudiced 
 authority, gives us the following list1. Huns (Hungary) a. d. 356.—2. Gstro 
 goths (Mcesia, Italy) 377.—3. Visigoths (Pannonia) 378.~4. Franks (Gaul) 40/, 
 
FIFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 165 
 
 —5. Vandals (Africa) 407.—6. Suevi (Spain) 407.— 
 407.—8. HeruU(Italy) 476.—9. Saxons (Britain) 476 
 483 ; (in Lombardy) 526. 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 Burgundians (Burgundy} 
 •10. Longobards (Danube) 
 
 The destructive campaigns of Attila laid the foundation of one of the 
 most commercial and enterprising cities of the Middle Ages. The 
 inhabitants of the Roman province of Venetia, of which the principal 
 cities were Aquileia and Padua, fled from the swords of the Huns, 452, 
 and found an asylum in the midst of the Adriatic islands, on a point 
 named Rialto. The danger over, many continued to inhabit the spot, 
 which, for a long period, was ruled by consuls nominated at Padua. In 
 709, the Rialto and the adjoining isles began to be governed by their 
 own magistrates; they became independent of the Paduan authorities, 
 and considered themselves a republic. This is the epoch of their first 
 doge, Anafesto, a tribune of the people elected by the citizens. Heraclea 
 was the seat of this republic until the death of their third president. 
 
 Consult: Daru’s Venice.— Sketches of Venetian History, in the Family 
 Library. 
 
 GAUL. 
 
 Gaul was inhabited in remote antiquity by two nations:—the Gauls from the 
 north of Europe, who filled the country as far as the mountains of Auvergne; 
 and the Aquitanians, from the south, by way of Spain, who lived between the 
 Pyrenees and the Garonne. At a very early period the Ligurians from Spain 
 occupied the district from the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Arno. A Grecian 
 colony of Phocaeans settled near the mouths of the Rhone, and founded the 
 city of Marseilles. About 600 b. c., the Cymri, driven by other tribes from the 
 shores of the Black Sea, advanced along the Danube, crossed the Rhine, and 
 forcibly established themselves in that part of Gaul which lies between the 
 Loire and the Seine. This invasion was the cause of the irruption of the Gauls 
 into Italy, where they established themselves in what was afterwards named 
 Gallia Cisalpina. The great Julius formed the whole country into an integral 
 part of the empire, from which period it shared the destinies of Rome. 
 
 In the fifth century, with the rest of the Western Empire, Gaul suf¬ 
 fered from the ravages of the Northern barbarians. In 406, the Suevi, 
 Vandals, and Alani ravaged it; and in 412, after the death of Alaric, 
 his successor Ataulphus led the Visigoths along the coast of the Medi¬ 
 terranean into Spain. Aquitaine and all the country between the Loire 
 and the Pyrenees formed one kingdom, with Toulouse for its capital. 
 Besides this people, at the end of the reign of Honorius we find two 
 others firmly established in Gaul. The Burgundians, of Teutonic 
 origin, from the banks of the Oder and the Vistula, were first settled 
 near the head of the Maine; but about the year 414, they occupied 
 Alsace and the western parts of Switzerland. Another Teutonic race, 
 the Franks, had emigrated from the Lower Rhine and the Weser, and 
 in 358 were allowed by Julian to settle in Toxandria (Brabant), where 
 for a time they became the guardians of the Rhine, and the defenders 
 of Gaul. Pharamond, son of Marcomir, an unknown and perhaps 
 fabulous prince, has no title to be regarded as the founder of the French 
 monarchy. This honour belongs rather to Clodion, who crossed the 
 Rhine and made incursions as far as the banks of the Somme, where he 
 was defeated by ^Etius.* On his decease, a prince of his family, 
 
 * Clodion wore long hair, a mark of distinction introduced from Germany ; hence the 
 race of long-haired monarchs. Meroveus is said not to have been a son of Clodion.— 
 Thierry's Letters, 
 
166 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 named Meroveus, was raised on the buckler by the Salian Franks in 
 448, and gave his name to the first or Merovingian line of kings. His 
 son Childeric, at first expelled for his debauchery, was afterwards recall¬ 
 ed by the warriors of his tribe, who, during his banishment, had recog¬ 
 nised the authority of ACgidius, the Roman governor of Celtic Gaul. 
 Childeric made war on the Visigoths on the banks of the Loire, while 
 the Ripuarian Franks were forming settlements at Cologne. From his 
 adulterous marriage with Basine, wife of the King of the Thuringians, 
 was descended Chlodwig or Clovis, the real conqueror of Gaul. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 Saxon Invasion. —The Caledonians, celebrated in the wars of Agri¬ 
 cola, a. d. 85, disappear, and their place is supplied by the Piets and 
 Scots. The former are supposed to be the Caledonians under a new 
 name, and were of Scandinavian descent. The latter came from Ire¬ 
 land, then called Scotia, and appear to be a division of the Celtic Cotti , 
 whose language, if it remain that of the Vaudois in the Cottian Alps, 
 was related to the vernacular Irish and Scotch. The barriers which 
 the Romans had built to check the incursions of these fierce tribes, 
 proved unavailing in the feebleness of the empire ; but when the Britons 
 were left to themselves, 408, instead of sinking in unmanly despair, 
 they took arms against their enemies, and drove the Piets from their 
 cities. They had thrown off their foreign yoke and declared their inde¬ 
 pendence, before Honorius sent letters to the respective states exhorting 
 them to protect themselves. Britain was never after this subject to the 
 power of the emperors. The whole southern part of the island during 
 the Roman domination appears to have been divided into thirty-three 
 districts, which were all continued after 410, although each city ( civitas ) 
 claimed and exercised an independent jurisdiction. Vortigern, the pen- 
 dragon —head-king—united some of these communities, and anxious to 
 confirm his contested authority, called to his aid a band of predatory 
 Saxons who had landed in the south of England, 449. Hengist was 
 entirely successful in his battles against the Piets and Scots; but to 
 complete his conquest it was necessary to have an armed force always 
 ready to meet these barbarians. Such soldiers were easily found among 
 his countrymen, who, at his invitation, came over in great numbers. A 
 disagreement which ensued between them and their employers occasion¬ 
 ed a long and sanguinary strife, which terminated in the foundation of 
 the Saxon kingdom of Kent, 455. The strangers, each day reinforced 
 by new adventurers, continued their hostile incursions; but so firmly 
 were they opposed, that Ella could not establish himself as a ruler in 
 Sussex before 491. The entire conquest of the southern part of the 
 island was not completed until 586. 
 
 Consult: Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 « THE CHURCH. 
 
 The history of the Church during this century embraces two im¬ 
 portant subjects :—the commencement of Monastic Institutions and the 
 Conversion of the Barbarians. 
 
 I. Monachism originated in the East, the land of contemplation and 
 indolence, where an absurd antagonism was raised between the soul and 
 
FIFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 1C7 
 
 the body; the mortification of the one being supposed to contribute to 
 the purity of the other. The Jews had their Essenes and Therapeutae , 
 who lived apart from other men, and aspired by the most rigorous 
 practices to attain a superhuman perfection. They abstained from wine, 
 flesh, and marriage, and renounced all business. Egypt, “ the fruitful 
 parent of superstition,” afforded the earliest example of monastic life. 
 Paul of Thebes, about a. d. 250, fleeing from the persecution of Decius, 
 retired to a cavern, in which he passed the greater portion of his life, 
 supporting himself on dates, with palm-leaves for his only garment. 
 Thirty years after him another Egyptian, St. Anthony, lived also in the 
 desert; but around his hut were grouped, at a little distance, othei 
 cabins, in which a number of ascetics dwelt in obedience to his au¬ 
 thority. He thus became the father of the monastic life. This new 
 passion for solitude w r as disregarded in the Western Churches until 
 Athanasius w T ent to Rome, in the year 340, to solicit the aid of the 
 bishop in his contest wuth the Arians. The disciples of Anthony soon 
 spread themselves over the Christian world, and before the end of the 
 century a monastery in Flintshire contained above 2000 members. The 
 same discipline was introduced into Syria by his immediate followers, 
 and at a somewhat later period into the solitudes of Pontus, by St. 
 Basil, v’hile St. Martin w^as establishing in Gaul the first cenobitical 
 community. The rule of the Egyptian monks w*as brought into Pro¬ 
 vence at the beginning of the fifth century, by St. Honoratus and St. 
 Cassianus, who founded two establishments, one at Lerins, the other at 
 Marseilles, whence issued many learned apostles of the faith and 
 monastic life, among w'hom was St. Patrick, the founder of similar 
 colonies in Ireland. These various communities of the West followed 
 each its own rule until that of the Benedictines w r as received throughout 
 the w r hole Latin church. The rapid progress of this system may per¬ 
 haps he attributed to enthusiasm, sympathy, and ambition. Chrysostom 
 presumed that none but monks could be saved, and to these terrors of 
 the church were added those of the barbarians. The emperors, especially 
 Valens, attempted to support the obligations of public and private duties, 
 but such feeble barriers as they opposed were soon swept av T ay b) 7 the 
 torrent of superstition. Freedom of mind w T as destroyed by credulity 
 and submission; and the monks, contracting the habits of slaves, 
 followed the faith and passions of their ecclesiastical tyrants. Their 
 dress, habitations, and manners w’ere equally filthy and disgusting. 
 Athanasius boasts of Anthony’s deep horror at clean water, with which 
 his feet never came in contact, except from dire necessity. Simeon, 
 who died in 451, is immortalized by his penance of thirty years on the 
 summit of a lofty column, whence he gained the name of Stylites. 
 These monastic saints boasted of their miraculous powers; they pre¬ 
 tended to cure inveterate diseases with a touch, to tame the beasts of 
 the forest, to suspend the course of nature, and even to raise men from 
 the dead. The discipline of the Greek Church, which consisted of four 
 fundamental articles,—solitude, manual labour, fasting, and prayer, w as 
 formed by St. Basil. It was long before the follies of the haircloth and 
 flagellation were introduced. 
 
 II. The Conversion of the Barbarians offers a more pleasing pic¬ 
 ture than that w’hich we have just been contemplating. Ulphilas, the 
 apostle of the Goths, translated the Scriptures into their native tongue. 
 
168 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 about the year 360.* At the commencement of the fifth century 
 Christianity was embraced by almost all the barbarians in the Roman 
 empire. The Franks obtained Gaul by their submission to the example 
 of Clovis, 496 ; and the Saxons were converted hy Roman missionaries, 
 although the gospel had been introduced into Britain in the second 
 century. These proselytes displayed an ardent zeal in the propagation 
 of the true faith, and England had the honour of producing the apostle 
 of Germany. An immediate change was effected in the moral condition 
 of these nations. The horrors of war were alleviated ; the insolence of 
 conquest was moderated ; and the institutions of Rome, religious and 
 political, were respected. 
 
 Evangelical truth had been already preached to the Indians, and a 
 bishop governed the Christians of St. Thomas on the spice-bearing 
 shores of Malabar. A church was founded in Ceylon, and missionaries 
 followed in the steps of the caravans even to China and the extremities 
 of Asia. The Abyssinians, an Arabian colony, were drawn from their 
 barbarism by similar means. 
 
 Rapin observes, that in the fifth century Christianity was debased by a vast 
 number of human inventions: the simplicity of its government and discipline 
 was reduced to a system of clerical power ; and its worship was polluted with 
 ceremonies borrowed from the heathen. 
 
 APPENDIX TO PART FIRST. 
 
 History of Literature. 
 
 The invasion of the South of Europe by the barbarians of the North, the 
 great event which separates ancient and modern times, interrupted the down¬ 
 ward course of Greek and Roman civilisation. In the East, the Byzantine 
 emperors still protected their declining literature; in the West, its few relics 
 were received and fostered in the bosom of the church. It is this decline and 
 ruin of learning which composes the entire literary history of the fifth and three 
 following centuries. 
 
 I. Alexandrian School. — In despite of its numerous aberrations, this 
 school rendered the most valuable services to learning, by preserving and ex¬ 
 plaining the masterpieces of ancient literature, and by endeavouring to reconcile 
 the various systems of philosophy. Alexandria, situated at a point where 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa unite, became the focus of all doctrines, and its 
 academy the mental emporium of the world. Ammonius Saccas, originally a 
 porter, about 220, founded the Eclectic school of the New Platonists, which 
 united the different systems of the Socratic school, in order to ally them with 
 the fantastic mysteries of the East,—a bold endeavour to terminate the disputes 
 of the Greek philosophers. Plotinus of Lycopolis, d. 270, Jamblichus ofChal- 
 cis, and Porphyry of Tyre, about 300, added to the splendour of the reformed 
 school; and as they announced their design of propping up the falling altars of 
 polytheism, they naturally became the antagonists of the Christian fathers. 
 
 When the Neo-Platonic school in Rome, as well as that of Alexandria, was 
 shut up by order of Constantine in 324, secret societies were formed through¬ 
 out the provinces, and, until 353, flourished principally in Asia Minor. Here 
 
 * Ulphilas had been compelled to embrace Arianism in order to engage the favour of 
 Valens. He is said to have invented the Gothic characters, and his precious MS. in 
 letters of gold and silver is preserved, under the name of Codex Argenteus , in the library 
 of Upsala. 
 
APPENDIX TO PART FIRST. 
 
 16 ^ 
 
 was continued the “ golden chain of Platonism,” of which Maximus of Epnesus, 
 Chrysanthus of Lydia, and Eusebius of Myndus, were the brightest links. 
 Under the patronage of Julian, 361, the school of Alexandria was re-opened, 
 and a new one founded at Athens. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, filled with 
 honour the chair of Ammonius and Plotinus; but when she had fallen a victim 
 to a furious mob, 415, and the pagan school of Alexandria had perished with 
 her, Athens became the centre of this new philosophy. 
 
 Proclus, who succeeded Syrianus in 450, was a man of varied learning. In 
 his teaching he united the ideas of Plato with the forms of Aristotle; but the 
 necessity of adapting his opinions to the popular taste compelled him to blend 
 his philosophy with oriental myths, orphic revelations, supposed oracles, and 
 mystic reveries. The school lingered a short time after his decease, until it 
 was closed by an edict of Justinian I. in 529. The Neo-Platonists were 
 tolerated, but their sect became extinct with the pagan religion. They were 
 succeeded by the peripatetics, whose opinions prevailed in the church until the 
 rise of the scholastic philosophy in the eighth century. 
 
 II. Sacred Literature. —The necessity of defending the Christian religion 
 against its numerous enemies, and the desire of making proselytes among the 
 enlightened spirits of the times, induced the doctors of the church to study the 
 religion they were so eager to propagate, the idolatry which they were sworn 
 to destroy, and the pagan Philosophy, whose errors must either be exposed or 
 rendered subservient to the doctrines of the gospel. Hence arose Ecclesiastical 
 Literature. The Christian school of Alexandria did not become celebrated 
 until the Stoic Pantaenus. a converted pagan, ascended the professorial chair, 
 at the end of the second century. His successor Clement endeavoured to 
 systematize religion; maintaining, that as God had disseminated the elements 
 of truth among the different philosophic sects, it was a Christian’s duty to unite 
 these scattered fragments, and thus strengthen piety by banishing falsehood. 
 The genius and extensive learning of Origen, d. 254, were employed in defence 
 of this system ; but he defiled the purity of the faith he meant to defend, and 
 introduced a dangerous method, whence afterwards arose that philosophical 
 theology, which, under the name of the Scholastic, played so great a partin the 
 middle ages. 
 
 Justin Martyr, d. 166, and Tertullian, d. 220, rank as the chief defenders of 
 Christianity. They published, the one in Greek and the other in Latin, elo¬ 
 quent and bold Apologies for the new religion. St. Irenaeus led the church 
 back from the doctrines of literal and occult meanings, contending that the 
 interpretation of the Holy Scriptures should always be conformable to tradition. 
 The Old Testament had been early translated into the vulgar tongue; and 
 from the second century we read of versions in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, and 
 Latin, the authors of which are unknown. 
 
 From the third century we meet with works specially consecrated to the 
 explanation of the Christian doctrines. The earliest of these is by St. Gregory 
 Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neo-Caesarea, who lived till 268. St. Cyril of 
 Jerusalem followed him in the next century. While they explained and 
 defended the faith against the attacks of heretics, they endeavoured to render 
 it useful by founding on it a system of evangelical morality. Tertullian, and 
 alter him the learned Cyprian of Carthage, 250, first wrote on the connexion 
 of morals with the religion of our Saviour. The fourth century — from Con¬ 
 stantine to Theodosius—is the Golden Age of ecclesiastical literature. Atha¬ 
 nasius, d. 371, Chrysostom, d. 407, Ambrose, d. 398, and Augustin, d. 430, 
 preached the purest morality in the most eloquent language. Their genius 
 alone rose superior to the fall of the empire, and they were the architects of 
 that great religious edifice which was founded upon its ruins. 
 
 Greek Fathers .—The name of Fathers of the Church has been given to those 
 authors who, from the first ages of Christianity, devoted their talents to the 
 defence and exposition of the faith. The East and the West alike produce d 
 men of genius who, uniting extensive learning to piety and courage, added new 
 glory to the literature of Greece and Rome, while they imagined themselves 
 performing the simple duties of Christians and ministers of the divine word 
 15 
 
170 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 The patronage of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was less efficacious 
 in behalf of his faith than the talents and indefatigable activity of Athanasius, 
 who destroyed the heresy of Arius at the council of Nice. In the bishop’s 
 chair, as well as in exile, he was ever a zealous defender of the Trinitarian doc¬ 
 trine and of religious unity. Eusebius, d . 340, the father of ecclesiastical his¬ 
 tory, although not strictly orthodox, was serviceable to religion by h\s Prepara¬ 
 tion and Evangelical Demonstration. His great work, describing the propaga¬ 
 tion of Christianity, the vicissitudes of the church, the struggles of its teachers, 
 and the miracles of its martyrs, was translated into Latin by Rufhius, the 
 adversary oi Jerome. Basil was called from the deserts of the Thebais to fill 
 the episcopal chair at Caesarea, 350. 't heological disputes occupied the greater 
 part of his life ; his homilies are moral treatises, in which the tenderest sensi¬ 
 bility is conveyed in a style sparkling with images and rich in allegory. His 
 brother, Gregory of Nyssa, by his philosophy and his energy against heretics 
 and schismatics, obtained from his contemporaries the title of Pater Pat rum 
 Gregory of Nazianzum possessed a more elevated genius and more brilliant 
 eloquence. When hatred, excited by his censures and by a domineering spirit, 
 which he could not repress, had raised powerful enemies against him, he re¬ 
 signed his see without regret, but not without pain, and the farewell of the 
 bishop was the masterpiece of the orator. Chrysostom of Antioch, d. 407, by 
 his clear and easy eloquence, by his rich and bold imagery, by his power of 
 reasoning joined to grandeur of ideas and tenderness of sentiment, may be com 
 pared with Demosthenes or Cicero. He is the chief of the orators of that 
 primitive period. Theophilus. patriarch of Alexandria, whose intolerance was 
 so fatal to the arts and philosophy, brought into the bosom of the church Syne- 
 sius of Ptolemais, afterwards bishop of his native city, 430. The latter cele¬ 
 brated in prose and verse the great truths of Christianity, and the beauties of 
 religious morals. Cyril of Jerusalem, d. 386, the most skilful teacher of his 
 age ; Epiphanius of Salamis, who combated the sectarians with more zeal than 
 learning ; Cyril of Alexandria, d. 444, the first doctor of the East, with many 
 others, shed honour on the age of the Theodosian emperors. John of Damas¬ 
 cus, d. 750, who was the last in those parts, monopolized all the literary glory 
 of the eighth century. By his application of the peripatetic forms of demon¬ 
 stration to the Christian doctrines, he became the founder of the Scholastic 
 philosophy. 
 
 Latin Fathers. —Arnobius, and Lactantius, “ the Christian Cicero,” flourish¬ 
 ed in the reign of Constantine ; the one feebly defended his religion against the 
 Pagans, the other acquired just renown by his Divine Institutions. —Hilary of 
 Poitiers was the champion of Athanasius in Gaul. During his Phrygian exile, 
 into which he was driven by an Arian prince, he published his twelve books 
 On the Trinity , in which he combats all the heresies relating to the Son of God 
 and the Holy Ghost.—Ambrose, d. 398, was praetor of Milan, when the uni¬ 
 versal acclamation raised him to the bishopric. He defended with inflexible 
 courage the privilege of Catholic worship against the Arians, who were pro¬ 
 tected by Valentinian II. His virtuous tolerance forbade him to communicate 
 in the Holy Sacrament with the fanatical bishops who had demanded the biood 
 of Priscilian. He taught the chants, of whose use the Latin church had till 
 then been ignorant; but the majestic hymn, Te Deum , which bears his name, 
 is the work of a monk of the sixth century.—Jerome, d. 420, opened at Pome 
 the first asylum frr misery and infirmity ; but his virtues were no protection 
 against calumny. In his retreat at Bethlehem he undertook the translation of 
 the Holy Scriptures, a task for which he was well qualified by his profound 
 study of Hebrew, and his vast knowledge of sacred archaeology. The church 
 adopted his version, known as the Vulgate , and his Commentaries are an 
 authority among divines. He translated and continued the Chronicle ol E tse- 
 bius ; wrote a Biography oi ecclesiastical authors, and the Lives of the Fathers 
 of the Desert. — Augustin, bishop of Hippo, d. 430, successively professor at 
 Carthage, Rome, and Milan, was rescued from his errors by St. Ambrose. He 
 raised himself to the first rank among the Latin Fathers by his City of Cod, 
 an immense repertory of profane and theological erudition, in which the au hor, 
 after having in some measure crushed paganism fragment by fragment, applies* 
 
APPENDIX TO PART FIRST. 
 
 171 
 
 imseli to re-establish by invincible proofs the truth of the Christian religion, 
 [n 411, he defended the doctrines of Original Sin and Divine Grace, against 
 Pelagius —At the court of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, Dionysius the 
 Littie. d. 536, created a new science of Chronology. Ife introduced the com¬ 
 putation of lime from the Incarnation, a mode which was slowly adopted by 
 the whole Christian world. He also, by the publication of a code oi Canons , 
 laid the foundation of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. His book of Pontifical 
 Decretals, or letters, was disfigured by the impostures of the forger Isidore of 
 Seville, 636. The authentic decretals do not commence before the pontificate, 
 of Siricius, 385.—The age to which Boethius and Cassiodorus belong was 
 worthily brought to a close by Pope Gregory, d. 604, and Bishop Fortm.atus 
 of Poitiers. 
 
 III. Profane Learning in the West.—The ruin of learning in the Western 
 Empire was more rapid and entire than in the Eastern, for the complete deso¬ 
 lation of the former by barbarians destroyed both its language and literature. 
 During the Theodosian period, while the poetic riches of the East consisted in 
 miserable epigrams or inscriptions, the West produced Ausonius, 380, Pru- 
 demius, 400, Sidonius Apollinaris, d. 4S8, and others, none of whom was 
 devoid of talent.—Claudian, 395, was the last bard of paganism, superior to all 
 who had preceded him for two centuries, and equalled by none who came after 
 him.—Priscian the grammarian, 380, translated or composed, at Constantino¬ 
 ple, three didactic poems,—on Geography, on Weights and Measures, and on 
 Astronomy.— Fortunatus was the poet laureate of the different Merovingian 
 couris. Eleven works of miscellanies and a translation in hexameter verse of 
 the Life of St. Martin, by Sulpicius Severus, place him at the head of the 
 versifiers of his day. 
 
 History. —Ammianus Marcellinus, 370, was far superior to the inflated com¬ 
 pilers of the Augustan History, and was the last author in the West deserving 
 the name of historian. The chroniclers who come next are the only writers 
 of this period who merit special attention.—Gildas, a fugitive monk who sought 
 refuge in the wilds of Armorica, wrote in a mournful strain, in which truth and 
 fiction are almost inextricably confused, the particulars of the Anglo-Saxon 
 invasion.—Another British monk, the venerable Bede, d. 735, composed the 
 ecclesiastical history of England in Latin, and a long treatise on the Six Ages 
 of the World.—Gregory of Tours, d. 595, completed the annals of the Franks 
 down to 593. 
 
 Philosophy. —The .ast and greatest philosopher of Latin antiquity was a fol¬ 
 lower of the Athenian Platonic school, Boethius, d. 526. He translated the 
 Arithmetic of Nicomachus, the Geometry of Euclid, the Poetics of Aristotle, 
 and various treatises by Archimedes and Plato. His great work, the Co?isola - 
 tion of Philosophy , was the production of his captivity ; it is a dialogue com¬ 
 posed of mingled prose and verse. 
 
 Philology. —While learning became more and more neglected, there were 
 found a few men who devoted their time and abilities to the preservation of the 
 remains of antiquity, to the explanation of its masterpieces, and to the teach¬ 
 ing of a language which soon degenerated into a barbarous idiom. The Satur¬ 
 nalia of Macrobius, 395, in the style of the Attic Nights of Gellius, is a valu¬ 
 able work, although written without method or taste. He compiled a com¬ 
 mentary of great value on the Dream of Scipio. —Servius, the most celebrated 
 of the commentators on Virgil, lived at the beginning of the fifth century.— 
 Cassiodorus wrote on Orthography, and has left a treatise on the Seven Liberal 
 Arts. —The most complete grammar of antiquity is the Eight Parts of Speech, 
 by Priscian of Caesarea, 500. 
 
 IV. Profane Learning in the East. 
 
 Poetry. —Nonnus of Panopolis, 400, the restorer of hexameter verse, com¬ 
 posed an epic poem, the Dionysiacs , on the exploits of Bacchus.—Quintus of 
 Smyrna, surnamed Calaber, from the MS. found in Calabria, wrote a servile 
 imitation of the Iliad, bringing it down to the taking of Troy.—The epigram 
 alone was cultivated with success during the reigns of Justinian and Heraclius. 
 
 Romance. —At the end of the fourth century, fictions similar to our modern 
 romances appear, a kind of writing unknown to classical antiquity, and destined 
 
172 
 
 ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 *o become, in the middle ages and in modern times, the living picture of the 
 manners of the day. The Golden Ass of Apuleius—the epithet is derived from 
 the elegance of its style—was a successful attempt among the Latins. In 390, 
 Heliodorus of Emesa composed the history of Theagenes and Chariclea , far 
 superior to all contemporary works, except the Loves of Daphnis and Chloe , by 
 Longus, the forerunner of Paul and Virginia. Achilles Tatius, 300, wrote 
 the Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe. 
 
 History. —The vast collection of the Byzantine historians contains few works 
 meriting our esteem. Zosimus, 430, in his prejudiced History of the Ccesars, 
 endeavoured to trace the causes of the decline of the empire.—Procopius of 
 Caesarea, 555, wrote a history of his own times in a manner at once clear and 
 precise ; but his elegance of style did not preclude bad taste. 
 
 Geography .— As the Byzantines added nothing to the opinions of the ancients, 
 so they rarely explained them. Stephanus, 500, wrote a kind of Geographical 
 Dictionary, which has not come down to us. 
 
 Philology. —The Greek language which had not yet fallen into decay, did 
 not produce many grammarians. The Grammar of Dionysius of Thrace w r as 
 the class-book of the teachers. At Alexandria, Hesychius published his Glos¬ 
 sary about the end of the fourth century. Stobaeus is the author of a collection 
 of extracts, compiled for the education of his son, and selected from more than 
 500 writers. A few commentaries were written upon the Latin laws of Byzan¬ 
 tium, and the name of Tribonian, 545, occurs among the names of the juris- 
 prudentialists. 
 
 Mathematics. —The exact sciences were cultivated by the Platonists. All 
 our knowledge of the mathematical acquirements of antiquity is due to the 
 school of Alexandria. Hypatia, the learned daughter of Theon, applied the 
 ngorous method of geometry to speculative knowledge. Diophantus first 
 taught the calculation of indeterminate quantities, and thus created Algebra. 
 Proclus wrote on astronomy and the sphere, and composed a commentary on 
 Euclid and Ptolemy. 
 
 END OF PART I.-ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE, A. D. 476 , TO THE ERA OF THE 
 REFORMATION, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The Roman empire had recovered under Theodosius its unity and 
 greatness; but after the death of this prince it began to decline, and 
 finally disappeared in the fall of the capital of Italy. This crisis was 
 brought on as much by accidental circumstances, as by the concurrence 
 and reciprocal action of permanent causes. The despotism of the 
 emperors, a natural consequence of political anarchy and military power, 
 preserved the characters of its twofold origin, namely, corruption and 
 violence. The Antonines had vainly endeavoured to restore national 
 and political virtue; the populace having descended to the lowest degree 
 of abasement, while the philosophy of Epicurus had fixed an indelible 
 slain on the higher ranks. Christianity could alone arrest the almost 
 general licentiousness; but the designs of Providence still exposed it 
 to fiery trials, and its day of triumph had not yet arrived. Diocletian, 
 by his divisions of the sovereignty, and Constantine, by the removal 
 of the seat of empire to Byzantium, prepared the way for the two 
 separate monarchies of the East and the West, and opened the road into 
 Italy for the barbarians. The appearance of the Huns in the north of 
 Europe drove the savage tribes of Germany across the Roman frontiers. 
 These warlike nations braved the power of the emperors under the walls 
 of Rome and Constantinople; imposed on them burdensome tributes; 
 entered in whole tribes into the legions ; and finally dismembering half 
 of the empire, broke up the whole social state with its imperfect civilisa¬ 
 tion, to establish on its ruins the foundations of the existing political 
 system. 
 
 Of the ten centuries embraced in that period of history entitled the 
 Middle Ages, five were occupied by the restless movements of the vari¬ 
 ous barbarians, who were partially checked by the strong hand of 
 Charlemagne. In the sixth age, that is, about a. d. 1000, repose and 
 silence pervaded all Europe; the decay of literature and civilisation 
 extended gradually; while institutions, laws, customs, and languages, 
 began to assume their local peculiarities. Amidst the minute territorial 
 divisions that took place, there was still found one bond of unity in the 
 church, whose members kept up a communication with the remotest 
 districts, all preaching the same doctrines, animating with the same 
 spirit the almost innumerable societies throughout which they were 
 scattered, and combining all nations in one common and holy enterprise. 
 
 15 * (173) 
 
174 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 It was during the crusades that the representatives of every state in 
 Europe, assembling round the tomb of our Saviour, recognised each 
 other as brethren. After the Holy Wars the greater communities began 
 to be remodelled, as their respective sovereigns issued victorious from 
 their contention with feudalism. Then began the rancorous struggle 
 between France and England, the rise of the Spanish monarchies, the 
 destruction of the imperial authority in Germany, the brief splendour 
 and fall of the Italian republics, the revolutions of the Sclavonic and 
 Scandinavian states, and finally, the fall of Constantinople, a. d. 1453, 
 which, by driving the learned Greeks into the centre and west of Europe, 
 contributed in a remarkable degree to the Reformation. 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —527, Justinian.—532, Nika. —557, Earthquake in Syria.—565, 
 Belisarius d. 
 
 Persia. — 528, First War.—531, Nushirvan.—532, Perpetual Treaty. — 540, 
 Second War.—590, Varanes (Bahram).—591, Chosroes II. 
 
 Italy. —493, Theodoric.—552, End of Gothic Empire.—569, Lombards.—584, 
 Autharis. 
 
 France. —511, Clovis d. —Salic Law.—558, Clotaire I. 
 
 Spain. —507, Visigoths enter Spain. 
 
 Britain. —542, King Arthur d. —586, Heptarchy.—596, Saxons converted. 
 
 The Church. —514, Religious War in Constantinople.—519, Jewish Persecu¬ 
 tion.—578, Pelagius the infallible. —590, Gregory I. 
 
 Literature. —580, Latin ceases to be spoken.—Stobseus; Agathias; Cassio* 
 dorus; Boethius; Priscian ; Journandes; Gregory of Tours. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Belisarius. —The Eastern Roman, or, as it was afterwards called, 
 the Greek Empire, began to recover from its lethargy, and to extend its 
 conquests under the celebrated Justinian I., in 527. Belisarius, a 
 Thracian peasant, the African us of new Rome, after passing through 
 the various grades of military service, was appointed general of the 
 East, where Cabades had attacked the imperial workmen employed 
 in building a frontier fortress. The defeated Persians next menaced 
 Armenia and Syria, when the fortune of Belisarius again prevailed. 
 The sudden death of the Persian monarch and the succession of 
 Chosroes, whose throne was in danger from a disinherited brother, 
 changed the politics of the court of Ctesiphon, and the war was 
 suspended by a treaty of perpetual amity in 532, only to break out again 
 eight years after, with results equally indecisive. Justinian, having, 
 formed the design of reconquering the Roman provinces which had fallen 
 into the hands of the barbarians, turned his views first on Africa, and 
 Belisarius was intrusted with the supreme command of the expedition. 
 The Vandals, taken by surprise, vainly strove to make head against his 
 vigour and activity. Carthage surrendered without a blow ; and in the 
 space of three months, the whole of Northern Africa was subdued, Geli- 
 mer, the vanquished sovereign, gracing the captor’s tpunnph, 534. The 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 175 
 
 Gothic war of Italy was the next scene of his glory. After reducing 
 Sicily, Belisarius landed without resistance on the southern shores of 
 the Peninsula. Naples experienced all the horrors of war; and Rome 
 was freed from the tyranny of sixty years without a blow, 536. The victor 
 was in his turn shut up in the imperial city by an army of 150,000 men, 
 under King Vitiges; who, although defeated in various bloody skir¬ 
 mishes, obstinately persevered in the blockade, until forced to retire 
 before the advancing succours headed by Antonina, the warlike consort 
 cf the Byzantine general, 538. His victorious career was checked by 
 the intrigues of the court; he was recalled, and owed his safety to the 
 services of his wife. 
 
 His second command in Italy, 544, was not equally successful with 
 the first. He failed in throwing troops and provisions into Rome, then 
 closely pressed by Totila, and which suffered the horrors of war to such 
 an extent that a parent flung himself despairing into the Tiber in the 
 presence of his five children. Treachery at last opened the gates to 
 nim, 546, when but for the firm remonstrances of Belisarius, the savage 
 conqueror would have changed the city into a pasturage for cattle. By 
 a daring act of valour he recovered the capital with only 1000 horse, 
 and thrice repulsed the Goths in their endeavours to retake it. * After 
 several Fabian campaigns he was recalled, 548; nor were his services 
 again required till Constantinople was threatened by the Bulgarians, 
 who, in alliance with the Southern Sclavonian tribes, had crossed the 
 Danube on the ice, led by the ferocious Zeberkhan. Forty years of 
 military service could not shelter Belisarius from false accusations of 
 conspiracy against the emperor; and his patriotism and devotion were 
 ill requited by the confiscation of his property eight months before his 
 death. He was followed to the grave by his envious master before the 
 close of the same year. 565.* 
 
 Consult: Lord Mahon’s Life of Belisarius. 
 
 Narses. —This rival of the fame of Belisarius had been educated 
 among the females of the palace; but his talents becoming known, he 
 was made the colleague of that general, on whose death he was appointed 
 to the sole command of the Gothic war. He hastened to meet Totila, 
 and after an ineffectual conference, the two armies engaged at Taginae, 
 near Rome, 552. The ardour of the barbarians was overcome by the 
 decision and calmness of Narses; they fled, leaving their general with 
 6000 of his soldiers on the field. The victor had the honour of again 
 sending the keys of Rome to Constantinople, which had been five times 
 taken and recovered in one reign. The triumphal entry of the chamber- 
 lain after the conquest of the Franks and Allemanni, was the last which 
 the imperial city was to witness, 554. His provincial government 
 lasted fifteen years, when he was recalled by Justin II., in compliance 
 vith the demand of the senate, to which body he had become odious on 
 lccount of his cupidity, 568. 
 
 Factions of the Circus. —The peaceful competitions of the circus, 
 
 * The elegant French tale of Belisarius, aided by the well-known picture, has served 
 to keep up the fictitious accounts of the last days of this renowned warrior. The loss of 
 his eyes by the emperor’s orders, and his being reduced to beg his daily bread, in the 
 well-known phrase, Date obolum Belisario , are the inventions of comparatively modern 
 writer*, 
 
176 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 an amusement and excitement to the ancient Romans, degenerated into 
 a mere factious exhibition under the unworthy successors of Augustus; 
 and the bloody contests in their streets were renewed with increased 
 vigour in the Byzantine capital. In 501, the greens treacherously mas¬ 
 sacred 3000 of their blue* adversaries ; and their dissensions were so 
 violent over the whole country, as to threaten the stability of the empire. 
 Neither churches nor private houses were free from their depredations; 
 many victims perished nightly beneath the dagger of the assassin ; and 
 the bonds of society and virtue were universally relaxed. A sedition 
 bearing the name of Nika, was with difficulty suppressed, after a five 
 days’ struggle that nearly involved the city in conflagration, and cost the 
 lives of more than 30,000 individuals. 
 
 To the evils of war, which under Justinian afflicted nearly every pro¬ 
 vince, were added still greater calamities. Earthquakes in 526 and 557 
 occasioned dreadful havoc throughout the empire, and particularly in 
 Syria. The plague devastated Europe and Asia; Constantinople lost 
 more than 400,000 inhabitants; entire countries were depopulated, and 
 left without culture; while famine was added to the severe scourges of 
 war and contagion. The human race was thus considerably diminished. 
 The empire, exhausted of men and of wealth, could not furnish Justinian, 
 in his latter years, with more than 140,000 soldiers instead of 640,000. 
 A new branch of industry commenced in this reign. Silk, which was 
 in general use throughout the civilized world, had become exorbitantly 
 dear, when two Persian monks succeeded in conveying from China to 
 Europe some of the eggs of the silk-worm, which they had concealed in 
 their hollow walking sticks. These they brought to Justinian who suc¬ 
 cessfully established the manufacture of this article of luxury in his 
 southern provinces. 
 
 Justinian Code. —Justinian affected the title of a lover of the arts, and the 
 church of St. Sophia, with about twenty-five others, decorated in a costly 
 manner with marble and gold, were built in his reign ; but the reformation of 
 the Roman law, carried on by his orders, and under the superintendence of the 
 quaestor Tribonian, is his noblest monument. The Roman emperors at various 
 periods published their edicts and their rescripts ; which huge mass of conflicting 
 decisions was first arranged by the Gregorian and Hermogenian Codes, and 
 both united in that of the younger Theodosius, 438. Fourteen months only 
 were occupied by Tribonian and his nine associates in reducing the many thou¬ 
 sands of volumes gradually accumulated during ten centuries into the twelve 
 books or tables forming the Justinian Code, 529. The Pandects or Digest, 
 an employment of three more years, contained the spirit of the civil law, 533. 
 It was a compilation in fifty books of the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theo- 
 dosian Codes, as well as of two thousand treatises on jurisprudence. The 
 Institutes, forming a short elementary treatise on Roman law, divided into 
 four parts, were published about the same time; these, with the Novels, a 
 kind of supplement, constitute the whole body of Roman legislation. 
 
 Justinian reigned thirty-eight years, and the perils of a disputed suc¬ 
 cession were avoided by the promptness with which his nephew Justin 
 II. assumed the purple, 565. He revived the title of consul in his own 
 person, liquidated the debts of his predecessor, and gave signs of a 
 benevolent administration; but the disgrace of the chamberlain Narses 
 
 * These two colours represented the two great religious parties; the Arians wore 
 green , while the blue party were the orthodox believers, and reckoned Justinian among 
 their number. Thus religious fanaticism served to exasperate the quarrels of the circus. 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 177 
 
 left both the Eastern and Western empires exposed to the restless bar¬ 
 barians. About the same period the Avars and Turks sent ambassadors 
 to Constantinople : the alliance proposed by the first be haughtily 
 refused, and formed a league with the Turkish khan against the Persians. 
 By their friendship with this chief, the mighty Disabul, “ sovereign of 
 the seven climates of the earth,” the Romans were enabled to trade 
 throughout all Central Asia. The progress of Chosroes was not, how¬ 
 ever, arrested in Syria ; and at the same time Africa was ravaged, while 
 Italy was lost to the empire. Notwithstanding the purity of Justin’s 
 intentions, his reign was miserable and unfortunate, not so much from 
 his vices as from a physical debility which confined him to the palace, 
 and rendered him a stranger to the wishes and complaints of his people. 
 In 574, he had the magnanimity to associate Tiberius with him in the 
 empire, and after four years of peaceful obscurity he expired. 
 
 His successor showed himself worthy of his station, and in him Con¬ 
 stantinople saw another Trajan. While he was engaged in repelling 
 the Avars in Dacia, his generals gained over the Persians the victories 
 of Melitene and Constantine. Maurice was rewarded with the hand 
 of the daughter of Tiberius, and shortly after ascended the throne of his 
 father-in-law, who on his death-bed had selected him as worthiest of its 
 honours and duties, 582. Maurice, less fortunate as emperor than as 
 general, was unable to maintain his Persian conquests The satrap 
 Varanes (Bahrain), after having conquered the Turks, was penetrating 
 into Asia Minor, when he was defeated by the Grecian troops. Being 
 disgraced in consequence, he revolted against his sovereign, Chosroes 
 II., whom he compelled to seek an asylum in the empire. The generous 
 Maurice restored his enemy, and obtained by treaty the restitution of 
 Varanes’ conquests, 591. He next meditated the destruction of the 
 Avars, whom Priscus defeated in five battles; the victorious army, how¬ 
 ever, revolted, and proclaimed the centurion Phocas, while a faction 
 drove Maurice from his capital, and opened its gates to the usurper, 602. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 This empire had been at peace nearly a century under the Sassanian 
 monarchs, whose domination had succeded, in 226, that of the Parthian 
 or Arsacidan. The vicinity of the Nephthalite Huns settled on the Oxus, 
 was a source of uneasiness to the great kings, and the necessity of 
 checking their incursions turned most of their forces in this direction. 
 This people had assisted Cabades in the recovery of the crown, which 
 had been usurped by one of his brothers ; and not having the means of 
 recompensing their services according to promise, he applied to the 
 Emperor Anastasius for pecuniary aid. The request was insultingly 
 refused, upon which war immediately broke out, and the Persians re¬ 
 duced both Armenia and Colchis. The peace which followed was 
 interrupted by the proceedings of Justin I., who had accepted the 
 submission of the Lazi, a people tributary to Persia. Cabades was 
 succeeded by Chosroes Nushirvan in 531. This great prince, who 
 tranquillized his country, which had been a prey to anarchy and fanati¬ 
 cism, received from his subjects the name of the Just, in consequence 
 of the manner in which he administered the laws. He encouraged 
 agriculture, was a patron of letters, founded a school of medicine near 
 
178 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Susa, and directed the annals of the monarchy to be drawn up. He sent 
 a learned physician, named Bidpai, into India, who brought back with 
 him the fables still current as those of Pilpay, and the game of chess. 
 Nushirvan attracted to his court several of the philosophers of the West. 
 The news of Justinian’s victories, and the discovery of a correspondence 
 by which that prince was exciting the barbarians of the Oxus to invade 
 Persia, induced Chosroes to take up arms, which he carried successfully 
 to the shores of the Levant. On his return, he built a city near Ctesi- 
 phon, in which the Syrian captives beheld the very image of one of 
 their own towns; baths, a circus, and a body of musicians and 
 charioteers, were added to complete its resemblance to a Grecian city. 
 Chosroes transmitted his power to his son Hormisdas (Hormuz) 570, 
 whose violent passions soon brought the empire to the verge of ruin. 
 After a few years’ reign, the tyrant had the effrontery to boast of having 
 tortured to death no fewer than thirteen thousand victims. His trovern- 
 
 o 
 
 ment was weakened by the revolt of several provinces, when the Turks 
 offered their perfidious aid. But a hero appeared to save the falling 
 monarchy. Yaranes, (Bahrain), having collected a body of twelve 
 thousand men, occupied a defile in Hyrcania, where he crushed the 
 Turks. He next marched against the Romans, who were advancing in 
 the direction of the Araxes, but was mined by his own confidence and 
 generosity. Hormisdas, jealous of his first successes, seized this oppor¬ 
 tunity of humbling him, and sent a distaff with a woman’s dress. The 
 soldiers felt not less indignation at this insult than their general, and 
 openly revolted. Bindoes, of the Sassanian family, was brought from 
 the dungeon in which he had been confined by the tyrant’s order, and 
 putting the monarch in chains with his own hands, surrendered him to 
 public judgment—a mode of proceding unknown in the annals of the 
 East. His subjects unanimously condemned him; his eyes were burnt 
 out with a red-hot iron, and his second son, in whose favour he had 
 offered to abdicate, was torn in pieces. Chosroes II. (Khosru Purveez), 
 the eldest prince, was placed on the throne, 590, and endeavoured to 
 mitigate the condition of his father. Hormisdas was removed from his 
 prison, but only to be exposed to the merciless bowstring of the impla¬ 
 cable Bindoes. With the aid of the Emperor Maurice, Chosroes, who 
 had fled to him for protection, was restored to his throne, and Yaranes 
 compelled to take refuge among the Turks, when sorrov T and vexation 
 hastened his death. Public rejoicings and executions marked the rees¬ 
 tablishment of the lawful sovereign, who punished Bindoes, the assassin 
 of his father. The Grecian emperor, was repaid by the cession of 
 Martyropolis, Daria, and all Persarmenia. The Christians hoped that 
 their religion would gain by this change ; but Chosroes remained faithful 
 to the worship of the magi. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Theodoric. —This monarch, who laid the foundation of the kingdom 
 of the Ostrogoths, had been educated as a hostage at the court of Con- 
 stantinople. Having formally received the government of Ita T y from 
 Zeno, he crossed the Alps with a large Gothic army, in 489, and defeated 
 Odoacer near the ruins of Aquileia. He followed up his advantage by 
 attacking Ravenna, to which the latter had fled with 20,000 men; and 
 after a siege of almost three years, became King of Italy on the assassi- 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 17 * 
 
 nation of his unfortunate rival, 493. Following the example of the A atter 
 Caesars, he abode at Ravenna, and had his claim to the regal title 
 formally recognised by the emperor. Little is known of the ieign of 
 Theodoric, but that he preserved internal tranquillity, end was also 
 honoured by the respect of foreign nations. \\ ithout quitting Italy, he 
 added to his kingdom Illyria, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhaetia. The 
 Bavarians became tributary ; and many German tribes sought to be 
 admitted to the privilege of living under his laws. He increased his 
 territories by his war with the Burgundians and the Franks. He rebuilt 
 the walls of Rome, restored the ruined theatre of Pompey, cleared and 
 repaired the aqueducts and public baths, built a cathedral at Ravenna, 
 and palaces at Verona and Pavia. The Roman police, customs, and 
 laws were maintained ; and although himself an Arian, he in no instance 
 oppressed the church which maintained the Nicene faith. The cruel 
 deaths of Symmachus, 525, and Boethius, 526, have left a deep stain 
 upon his character: and at length, after an active life, he sank, con- 
 science-stricken, to the grave, 526, leaving the throne of Italy to 
 Athalaric. under the regency of his mother Amalasontha. The empire 
 of the Goths now fell to pieces ; the Visigoths of Spain refusing to 
 recognise the infant king, elected Amalaric, son of Alaric II., whose 
 power was acknowledged as far as the mouths of the Rhone. 
 
 Totila succeeded to the throne in the year 541, his predecessor 
 Vitiges having been led captive to Constantinople. He successfully 
 resisted the attacks of eleven hostile generals, and even captured Rome, 
 546. He fell in the battle of Taginae, and although Teias with his 
 brother Aligern struggled manfully against their enemies, with him ter¬ 
 minated the Gothic dominion in Italy, which now became a province of 
 the empire, 552. The chamberlain Narses, by a prudent administration 
 promoted, as we have seen, the wealth and tranquillity of the country ; 
 but a fierce nation was rising near the Danube, which in 568 overran 
 the greater part of the peninsula. 
 
 The Lombards. —This German tribe, originally dwelling on the banks 
 of the Oder, had been settled in Pannonia by Justinian in 527, as a 
 barrier against other warlike nations. At the invitation, it is said, of 
 the disgraced Narses, the whole people marched for Italy, and crossed 
 the Julian Alps without resistance, 568. Alboin soon reduced all the 
 country, except Rome, the exarchate of Ravenna, and a part of the 
 eastern coast. Pavia, which he afterwards made the capital of his do¬ 
 minions, resisted his arms during a three years’ blockade. He did not 
 live to reap the fruits of his successful enterprise, as he fell a victim to 
 domestic treason, it was the custom of this savage people, on certain 
 occasions, to quaff from the skulls of the enemies they had slain in 
 battle. One day, when heated with liquor, he sent to "his wife Rosa¬ 
 mond the ski]]' of her father filled with wine, requesting her to drink it. 
 The insulted queen obeyed, but in a short time caused her husband to 
 be assassinated, 573, and rewarded the murderer with her hand in mar¬ 
 riage. After the violent death of Cleph, who had succeeded Alboin, the 
 Lombard dukes allowed the throne to remain vacant, and substituted 
 a federative government; but internal divisions and the necessity of 
 union against the Greeks and Franks, brought them back to monarchical 
 principles. Their kingdom, however, did not acquire stability until 
 Autharis mounted the throne, 584, who, “ touching with his spea: a 
 
180 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 column on the sea-shore of Rhegium, proclaimed that ancient land-mark 
 to stand the immovable boundary of his kingdom but a premature 
 death removed him, 590, before he had time or means to make good this 
 boast. In the reign of Agilulf, whom the widowed queen, Theolinda, 
 had married, the nation enjoyed the sweets of peace for the first time; 
 and the joint exertions of these two sovereigns, aided by Pope Gregory, 
 propagated Christianity among the Lombards, encouraged agriculture, 
 and commenced the civilisation of these savage people. 
 
 Feudality.— The system of feudal polity received its first regular establish¬ 
 ment and legislative provisions from the Lombards of Italy. Alboin had 
 intrusted the command of several conquered districts to thirty-six dukes, who 
 within two years after his death, became so many confederate independent 
 princes. Apprehensive for their safety, when attacked by the Greek emperor 
 and the Franks, they agreed to pay to the king each the half of his revenue, 
 and to provide a body of troops to be placed at his disposal; the duchies being 
 liable to forfeiture for felony, and revertible to the crown if no male heir (a 
 major) were left. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Clovis, a. d. 481.—At the age of fifteen, Clovis (properly Chlodwig 
 or Ludwig , i. e. Louis) inherited the little kingdom of Tournay, in right 
 of his father Childeric, the son of Meroveus. The Franks at this period 
 were divided into Ripuarians and Salians. The country lying between 
 the two streams of the Rhine, from Coblentz to Wesel or Cleves, formed 
 the kingdom of the Ripuarian section, whose chief resided at Cologne 
 The Salians (said by the learned Schoell to deriv- their name from the 
 river Yssel) obeyed several chiefs, whose territories were respectively 
 Terouenne, Tournay, Cambray, and Mans. 
 
 Beauvais, Soissons, Amiens, Troyes, and Rheims with their respective 
 dependencies, were all that belonged to the Romans in Gaul. Syagrius 
 acknowledged, in form only, the supremacy of the Byzantine emperors 
 after Rome had fallen. Alsace and Lorraine belonged to the Allemanni, 
 a Teutonic federation, which occupied also the country between the 
 Rhine and the Moselle, with Sw T abia, Hesse, and a part of Franconia. 
 Armorica, between the Mayenne and the sea, belonged to the Britons 
 who had fled from their country at the approach of the Saxon invaders. 
 The Burgundian establishments had increased, and in addition to 
 W estern Switzerland they occupied the valley of the Rhone as far as 
 the Durance. The kingdom of the Visigoths lay on the left bank of 
 the Loire. 
 
 Clovis first directed his arms against Syagrius, and defeated him, 486, 
 in a battle near Soissons, which city afterwards became the residence 
 of the conqueror. The Roman general, who had sought refuge at the 
 court of Toulouse, was given up by Alaric II. to the vengeance of the 
 royal Frank. In 496, he repulsed the Alemanni with dreadful slaughter 
 at Tolbiac (Zulpich, near Cologne), and compelled the c°ssion of their 
 territories between the Moselle and the Rhine, and on the right bank of 
 the latter river, between the Maine and the Neckar. It was during this 
 battle, when his soldiers were wavering, that he vowed to be baptized, 
 if the God of his Christian wife Clotilda, niece of the Burgundian Gun- 
 debald, should grant him the victory. Policy also was a motive for his 
 conversion, as he thus attached to him by firmer bonds his new Gallic 
 subjects, who were all believers. He was baptized in the cathedral of 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D 
 
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 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Rheims, with his sister and 3000 of his warriors; at which time the 
 celestial oil, still used in the coronation of the kino-s of France, was said 
 
 7 o 7 
 
 to have been brought down from heaven by a snow-white dove. The 
 title of Most Christian Majesty, borne by the French monarchs, was 
 conferred by Pope Anastasius on Clovis, who compelled Gundebald and 
 the Britons of Armorica to pay him tribute. He next crossed the Loire; 
 and the battle of Vougle cost Alaric II. his life, 507. The Visigoths, 
 however, recovered Septimania, which remained long united to the des¬ 
 tinies of Spain; the Franks kept Aquitania, and the Burgundians 
 resumed their ancient frontiers. 
 
 Returning from this expedition, the conqueror fixed his residence at 
 Paris, where he inhabited the palace built by Julian. Here envoys from 
 the Emperor Anastasius brought him the purple mantle and the golden 
 crown, emblems of the patriciate, a title revered by the Gauls, as 
 leo-itimatizing their obedience. On the death of Clovis in 511, his 
 kingdom, like a personal estate, was divided among his four sons. 
 Childebert had Paris; Thierry, Metz; Clodomir, Orleans; and Clo- 
 taire, Soissons, with their respective territories. The history of these 
 princes and their successors is a mournful tale of civil wars and assas¬ 
 sinations, arising chiefly from the partition of the royal power at the 
 death of each monarch. In 558, the supreme authority was re-united 
 for a short period in the hands of Clotaire, whose dominions extended 
 from the Pyrenees to the Bohemian mountains, and from the Zuyder 
 Zee to the Mediterranean. 
 
 Note.—T he whole series of French monarchs has been divided into three 
 races. The first or Merovingians began with Clovis, 481-750; the second or 
 Carlovingians with Pepin, 751-987 ; the third or Capetians with Hugh Capet, 
 987, to which belongs the reigning family of Bourbon-Orleans. 
 
 Brunehaut and Fredegonde. —Clotaire, at his death, 561, left four 
 sons, Sigebert I. king of Ostrasia,* Chilperic I. king of Soissons, Cari- 
 bert of Paris, and Gontran of Orleans and Burgundy. The elements of 
 discord arising from this partition were increased by the death of Cari- 
 bert, whose estates were dismembered by his three brothers. The 
 inequality of the shares occasioned a brief civil war, which terminated 
 in the reconciliation of the inimical princes, and the double marriage of 
 Sigebert with Brunehaut, and Chilperic with Gualsinda daughter of the 
 Visigoth Athanagild. But the King of Soissons having put his wife to 
 death that he might be united to her domestic, the sanguinary Frede¬ 
 gonde, Brunehaut swore to avenge her sister, and to punish the woman 
 who had usurped her place. These hostile feelings gave rise to an 
 intestine war, which, during half a century, desolated France, and filled 
 the royal house with crimes. The Ostrasians defeated the Neustrians 
 at all points, and shut up Chilperic in Tournay. But an emissary of 
 Fredegonde murdered Sigebert at the very moment he was proclaimed 
 king of Neustria. The former prince regained his kingdom ; Brunehaut 
 was detained a prisoner, and her young son Childebert, removed from 
 the vengeance of Fredegonde, was taken back to Ostrasia, when the 
 leudes or nobles were seizing on the government, 575. 
 
 * Ostrasia (commonly written Austrasia) or East France (Oster-reich), was a province 
 adjacent to the Rhine ; Neustria, or New France, containing the kingdoms of Paris, 
 Soissons, and Orleans., extended from Ostrasia to the Loire. A third division, Lorraine, 
 the kingdom of Lothaire ( Lotharii regnuvi) lay between the Rhine, the Meuse, and the 
 Scheldt. 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 183 
 
 Gontran, desirous of arresting the encroachments of Chilperic, adopted 
 Childebert II., who forgot this kindness, and formed an alliance with 
 the King of Soissons. Peace was, nevertheless, concluded; but Fre- 
 degonde, to reign without control, procured the murder of her husband 
 in 584, and governed under the name of her infant son, Clotaire II. 
 The usual disorders and wars ensued, when, to arrange their discordant 
 interests, and to prevent fresh troubles, Gontran, Childebert, and Brune- 
 haut, in concert with their chief officers, drew up the famous treaty of 
 Andelot, by which the King of Burgundy was confirmed in his succes¬ 
 sion to the ruler of Ostrasia. Childebert did not long enjoy his uncle’s 
 inheritance; his two sons, Theodebert II. and Thierry II. 596, separated 
 Ostrasia and Burgundy, so lately united. 
 
 Frank Latvs. 
 
 The Salic laws are supposed to have been drawn up, about 421, by com¬ 
 mand of a monarch of the Salian Franks.* The Ripuarian Franks, dwelling 
 on the bank ( ripa ) of the Rhine, had also their code ; and the Burgundians 
 their law of Gundebald, 502. By the first and most ancient of these laws, 
 which may serve as a specimen of the rest, homicide was punished with fines 
 varying from 50 to 600 pieces of gold. Questions of right and wrong were 
 decided by judicial combats — a practice still subsisting in the modern duel. 
 The conquered territory was equitably divided among the victors; not in per¬ 
 petuity, but yearly, on the condition of bearing arms in the common cause. 
 Thus arose the peculiarity by which females were prohibited from inheriting 
 landed estates, and, by a forced interpretation of its clauses, the crown of 
 France can never descend but to a male heir. The prisoners of war became 
 slaves ; the descendants of the haughty Romans were condemned to cultivate 
 the fields and tend the cattle of their masters, who exercised over them a power 
 of life and death, and made them a subject of traffic.! 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 At the commencement of the fifth century, Spain had been invaded 
 by the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans, who inflicted everywhere the most 
 frightful ravages, so that we hear of the natives being compelled to feed 
 on human flesh. The Suevi and Vandals occupied the ancient Galicia, 
 comprising Old Castile and Leon; hence arose the kingdom of the 
 Suevi under Hermanric, a. d. 409. The Alans were spread over Lusi¬ 
 tania, while another Vandal tribe took possession of Baetica; the Tarra- 
 conensis alone at this time belonging to the Romans. Ataulphus, after 
 the settlement of the Visigoths in France in 412, crossed the Pyrenees 
 two years later, and became the founder of the Gothic monarchy in 
 Spain; but he was unable to subdue these various savage hordes, being 
 stopped in his career by the hand of an assassin, 415. Wallia, having 
 been proclaimed king, continued the plans of his predecessor, and forced 
 the Alans to seek refuge among the Vandals. The Suevi were threaten¬ 
 ed in their turn, but obtained favourable conditions of peace, and were 
 allowed to remain in the north-west of the peninsula. Wallia’s ser¬ 
 vices were rewarded by part of Aquitaine, with the city of Toulouse, 
 which was during the greater part of a century the Visigoth capital. 
 
 * The Salic code begins with the following elaborate eulogy on the people by whom 
 jt was formed: — “ Gens Francorum inclyta, auctore Deo condita, fortis in armis, firma 
 pacis fcedere, profunda in consilio, corpore nobilis et incolumis, candore et forma egregia, 
 audax, velox, aspera,” &c. 
 
 t See Guizot, History Df French Civilisation, p. 333, <Scc. 
 
184 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Theodoric, the next monarch, was killed in battle against Attila at 
 Chalons, 451. By Thorismond the frontiers of the kingdom were 
 extended to the Loire, 456 ; while Euric, the murderer of his brother, 
 expelled the Romans from Spain, and added to his possessions Berry 
 and Auvergne, ceded to him by the Emperor Julius Nepos, and Pro¬ 
 vence, which he obtained from Odoacer, 477. Such was the power of 
 this monarch, that he received ambassadors from the Franks and Bur¬ 
 gundians, from the Ostrogoths encamped in Pannonia, from Odoacer 
 king of Italy, and from the Persian monarch. Under his son and suc¬ 
 cessor Alaric II. the Goths lost, by the defeat near Poitiers in 507, all 
 Gaul with the exception of Septirnania. Gesalic, his natural son, was 
 deposed by Theodoric the Great, the father-in-law of Alaric, who 
 declared himself guardian of his grandchild Amalaric. This monarch 
 reigned from 526 to 531 ; and by his outrageous behaviour to his wife 
 Clotilda, daughter of Clovis, drew upon himself the vengeance of the 
 Franks. Under Recarede, 586, all the people with their sovereign 
 entered the bosom of the Catholic church, and allowed such privileges 
 and influence to the bishops that the national assemblies soon became 
 little more than ecclesiastical synods. About 570, the Suevi also em¬ 
 braced the Christian faith. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 Heptarchy.— The Jutes and Saxons, having once obtained a footing 
 in Britain, were speedily followed by numerous tribes of adventurers; 
 and in a short time England was divided into seven kingdoms, called 
 the Saxon Heptarchy,* which frequently acknowledged the sovereignty 
 of one ruler, called Bret-walda —sovereign of Britain. The ancient 
 inhabitants did not yield without resistance. King Arthur, who died in 
 54*2, ruled over the Cornish Britons, and from his successful struggles 
 against the invaders, became one of the favourite subjects of poetry and 
 romance. The numerous colonies that emigrated to Armorica, to which 
 they gave the name of Bretagne, spread his renown still more widely. 
 But in spite of the services rendered to his countrymen, he was not 
 without enemies among them; the title of king reducing him to the 
 necessity of drawing his sword against the Britons almost as frequently 
 as against the Saxon invaders. He fell mortally wounded in battle 
 against his own nephew, and was buried at Glastonbury. As the cir¬ 
 cumstances of his death were not generally known, his re-appearance 
 was long expected; and for several ages the credulous people in their 
 distress looked for the interposition of their brave deliverer. 
 
 Saint Augustine.— About a. d. 560, the Anglo-Saxon occupation of 
 a great part of Britain was completed, bringing with it the most terrible 
 disasters to the native population. The ferocious conquerors extirpated 
 the arts and religion of the inhabitants, and endeavoured by a promiscu¬ 
 ous slaughter to depopulate the country. The language was entirely 
 changed; civilisation perished ; and the people were fast relapsing into 
 their original barbarism, when Gregory I. was induced to send mis¬ 
 sionaries to convert the Saxons to Christianity, and to establish the 
 supremacy of Rome, 596. St. Augustine failed in obtaining the suh- 
 
 * This term conveys an erroneous idea, as at no one period were there seven distinct 
 and independent kingdoms.—See Palgrave and Turner. 
 
SIXTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 185 
 
 mission of the native clergy to his church, but succeeded in extending 
 the faith throughout all the Saxon tribes. Ethelbert, king of Kent, was 
 baptized, chiefly at the suggestion of his wife Bertha, who w T as a Chris¬ 
 tian, and the majority of the enslaved inhabitants professed the same 
 belief. From the British islands issued, in the seventh and eighth cen- 
 turies, those courageous preachers who perfected in Germany the work 
 commenced by Saint Rupert, bishop of Salzburg. Columba, Kilian, 
 Wilfrid, Willebrod, and Swibert, were the precursors of Winifrid 
 (Boniface), the great apostle of Germany. Winifrid was born in 
 Devonshire, and after extending the temporal as well as spiritual limits 
 of the church, the good bishop, with fifty of the companions of his 
 labour, was put to death at Dokkum, in Friesland, 755. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Among the chief conquests of evangelical truth during this period 
 must be reckoned the conversion of the Franks and Saxons. The par¬ 
 ticulars of the former event have been already given; and to understand 
 fully the account of the latter it will be necessary to subjoin a few 
 remarks. The Anglo-Saxon conquest did not entirely obliterate the 
 Christian faith which had been planted in Britain in the time of Ter- 
 tullian and Origen, and had seen Alban, its proto-martyr, perish in the 
 persecution of Diocletian. At the council of Arles in 314, the Bishops 
 of York and London were present; but war and the influx of barbarians 
 had produced the usual result, which was corrected by the mission of 
 St. Augustine. The Vandals in Spain, the Burgundians in Gaul, and 
 the Lombards in Italy, abandoned Arianism; nevertheless heresy was 
 still flourishing, particularly in the Eastern Empire, where the authority 
 of the councils was exerted in vain. Three writings, known as the 
 Three Chapters, had been published in the time of Nestorius in favour 
 of his heretical opinions. Two of the authors had been present at the 
 synod of Chalcedon; and the third being dead, they had united with 
 their colleagues in condemning the doctrines of Eutyches. The Euty- 
 chians, in the hope of weakening the authority of that council, endea¬ 
 voured to procure the condemnation of the three chapters; but, after 
 numerous debates, another convocation was summoned at Constanti¬ 
 nople, which censured all works really pernicious, and thus avoided 
 any attack upon the assembly at Chalcedon. Its decisions were obeyed 
 with the respect due to the learned men who drew them up, and by gen¬ 
 eral consent the synod was regarded as the fifth general council. 
 
 Gregory I. the Great. —This celebrated pope was sprung from a 
 distinguished family; his grandfather Felix had filled St. Peter’s chair 
 before him, and saints were reckoned amono* the number of his female 
 relatives. While nuncio at the Byzantine court, he boldly assumed a 
 tone of independence, which his subsequent conduct did not belie. 
 Being raised to the pontificate in 590, during more than fourteen years 
 he assiduously watched over and advanced the interests of the church. 
 Pelagius the Infallible had preceded him in 578; but Gregory, far from 
 assuming any presumptuous title, even reproved the Greek patriarch 
 (John the Faster) for calling himself the oecumenical or universal bishop, 
 condemning it as devilish, humbly styling himself the servant of the 
 servants of God. He revised the liturgy; arranged the various details 
 of the religious ceremonies ; and introduced the celebrated chant which 
 16 * 
 
186 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 bears his name. He established the ecclesiastical system by determine 
 ing in a fixed manner the proper ritual, the division of parishes, the 
 calendar of festivals, the service and costume of the priests and deacons, 
 and, finally, hy arranging all the imposing orders of the Romish cere¬ 
 monial. On the other hand, he burnt the Palatine library, and warred 
 against the arts by destroying the temples and mutilating the statues 
 which the Goths had spared. 
 
 Benedictines. —In a. d. 527, St. Benedict of Nursia, in the Apen¬ 
 nines, founded twelve convents near Subiaco in the neighbourhood of 
 Rome, and next year the celebrated monastery of Mount Cassino, in the 
 territory of Naples. Before his time, each fraternity had its peculiar 
 customs; he created the real statutes of the order. His simple and 
 edifying rule, besides prescribing prayer, manual labour, study, and the 
 instruction of youth, enjoined the three vows of poverty, chastity, and 
 obedience. The administration and discipline of each community were 
 intrusted to an abbot, chosen from the society by the free suffrages of 
 the monks. In 595, Gregory accorded the apostolic sanction, permitting 
 the inmates to possess an oratory, and to enjoy the spiritual labours of 
 a priest taken from the bosom of their fraternity. In time, most of the 
 cenobites entered the priesthood, without renouncing their condition. 
 The Nicene council of 787 conferred on the abbots the right of admit¬ 
 ting monks into the inferior orders of the clergy. 
 
 The Benedictines were industrious and charitable men. In the midst 
 of deserts they reared convents, the asylum of misfortune in an age of 
 brutal violence and rapine. The active inhabitants tilled the earth, 
 drained marches, cleared forests; hamlets, villages, and considerable 
 towns sprang up around their walls; and in the convents were deposited 
 the literary treasures of antiquity, which in many instances were indebted 
 to them for preservation. 
 
 SEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —602, Phocas.—610, Heraclius.—622, Chosroes defeated.— 
 672, Constantinople besieged by the Saracens.—685, Justinian II. 
 
 Persia. —618, Chosroes, d. 
 
 Arabia. —570, Mohammed born.—622, Hegira.— Koran; Sonna. —634, Omar. 
 
 —640, Alexandrian Library burnt.—660, Ommiades. 
 
 Italy. —643, Lombard Code.—697, Venice—First sole Doge, Anafesto. 
 France. —613, Clotaire.—678, Pepin.—688, Sluggard Kings—Mayors of the 
 Palace. 
 
 Spain. —600, Christian Religion introduced. 
 
 The Church. —606, Papal Supremacy; (Ecumenical —Image Worship. 
 Literature. —Fortunatus; Isidore of Seville ; Gregory the Great. 
 Inventions. —Quills for writing.—Chess in India. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Phocas, a. d. 602, repulsive in person as well as in character, com¬ 
 menced his tyranny by the massacre of all the imperial family. Maurice 
 was dragged from the sanctuary in which he had taken an* 1 * 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 187 
 
 five son* were murdered before his eyes; after which the heads of the 
 deposed monarch and his children were exposed on the walls of Con¬ 
 stantinople. The wife of the emperor was afterwards decapitated with 
 her three daughters in the place which had witnessed the murder of her 
 husband. Every province was ripe for rebellion, which was encouraged 
 and headed by Priscus, Maurice’s son-in-law, and by Heraclius, exarch 
 of Africa. A fleet from Carthage boldly sailed up to Constantinople, 
 and in a short time the cruel despot, by his death, paid the penalty of his 
 crimes. 
 
 Heraclius, the deliverer of the empire, was elected to the vacant 
 throne, a. d. 610 ; and soon after was compelled to turn his attention to 
 the Persian war. Ciiosroes II. had been forced by internal dissension 
 to take refuge in Constantinople ; but, aided by Narses, he defeated his 
 rivals and recovered his crown, 591. At a later period, simulating dis¬ 
 gust at the crimes of Phocas, he made war upon the Greeks, overran 
 the country westward of the Euphrates, and conquered Syria, 611. 
 Palestine was subdued in 614; and twenty-six thousand Jews, who 
 followed his banners to attack Jerusalem, are said to have massacred 
 ninety thousand Christians. 
 
 The victorious career of the Persian monarch reduced Heraclius to 
 great distress, which was increased by the devastations of the Avars, 
 who nearly succeeded in taking his capital, 619; and in their retreat 
 carried off 270,000 captives. A series of misfortunes had so depressed 
 the spirit of Heraclius that he meditated the removal of the seat of 
 government to Carthage; but the patriarch was opposed to the change, 
 and the empire was saved by the liberality of the clergy. Peace was 
 made with Chosroes on ignominious terms,—the annual payments of 
 1000 talents of gold, and the same amount of silver, silken robes, horses, 
 and fair maidens. Fortune now deserted the Persian arms, when the 
 emperor, in six adventurous campaigns, beginning in 622, retrieved his 
 own honour and that of his country. Boldly carrying the war into the 
 enemy’s territories, he landed a numerous and enthusiastic army in 
 Cilicia, and defeated Chosroes. The vanquished prince was compelled 
 to recall his armies to defend their own country, and the rapid conquests 
 of Heraclius may remind us of Hannibal or Napoleon. The battle of 
 Nineveh, 627, fought on the ground once covered by that remarkable 
 city, was followed next year by an honourable peace, concluded with 
 Siroes, the successor of Chosroes who had been deposed by his subjects, 
 and compelled to witness the murder of his eighteen sons. The return 
 of the conqueror to Europe was one continued triumph. Ambassadors 
 from the Franks and from India came to offer their congratulations; but 
 the empire was exhausted by these victories ; and in order to repay the 
 sums advanced by the church, it was necessary to raise a second time 
 from the devastated provinces the amount of taxes which had been 
 already paid. Two hundred thousand soldiers had perished ; and at the 
 same time there appeared on the frontiers of Syria an enemy more ter¬ 
 rible than any that had hitherto menaced the empire. 
 
 Heraclius, attacked by the Mussulmans in 632, lost Syria and Egypt; 
 and the emperor terminated his reign by a theological discussion and a 
 religious war. His death, in 641, was hastened by intelligence of the 
 capture of Alexandria, which event he survived only a few weeks. 
 Seven rulers of the Heraclian family suc^^siveTy mounted the throne, 
 
188 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 which they stained less by bloodshed than by personal vice. The first 
 was Constantine III., whose hundred days of empire were terminated 
 by poison, and Heracleonas succeeded, only to be deposed, before the 
 year expired, in favour of Constans II., 641. Ascending the throne 
 when scarcely twelve years of age, he thus addressed the senate:— 
 44 By Divine Providence, Martina and her incestuous progeny have been 
 driven out; and I exhort and beseech you to stand forth as the coun¬ 
 sellors and judges of the common safety.” But the murder of his 
 brother Theodosius proved that these sentiments were not very deeply 
 seated. The astonished people and army drove this second Cain into 
 exile, when, odious to himself and mankind, he perished at Syracuse by 
 the hand of a slave, 668. Constantine IV. (Progonatus) put out the 
 eyes of his two brothers, and left the crown to Justinian II., a vicious 
 and foolish boy, who dishonoured his name by his cruelties, and by the 
 choice of the ministers of his pleasures. For ten years he filled the city 
 and country with sounds of horror, when Leontius, who had been 
 released from a tedious imprisonment, and raised to the government of 
 Greece, headed a successful revolt. 44 Christians! to St. Sophia's!” 
 was the cry; and there the patriarch delivered an inflammatory discourse 
 on the text— 44 This is the day of the Lord!” Justinian was deposed, 
 and, after mutilation, exiled to Chersonae, in the Crimea, 695, where he 
 learnt that his successor had been dethroned in his turn, and Tiberias 
 (Jpsimar) elevated in his stead, 698. He therefore renewed his claim 
 to the empire; and, uniting with the Bulgarians, appeared before the 
 capital with 15,000 horse, and was restored without striking a blow. 
 His revenge was sweeping: the Chersonites, who had displeased him 
 during his exile, were devoted to slaughter— 44 All are guilty, and all 
 must equally perish,” being his savage mandate. The nobles were 
 executed at their own doors, drowned in sacks, or killed by pouring 
 molten lead down their throats. Johannicius of Ravenna was permitted 
 to write his will with his own blood: 44 Oh God! deliver us from the 
 tyrant!” was all he wrote, before he dashed his brains out against the 
 wall. The patience of his subjects became exhausted; the troops and 
 provinces renounced their allegiance; Justinian fell by the stroke of an 
 assassin ; and with his son Tiberius, who had vainly taken refuge in a 
 church, perished the family of Heraclius, 711. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Chosroes II. — Under the* pretence of avenging Maurice, Chosroes 
 invaded the Byzantine provinces of Asia, 603. Syria and Palestine 
 yielded to his arms; Pelusium, the key of Egypt, capitulated ; and the 
 Persian trophies were fixed on the ruins of the Greek colony of Cyrene. 
 Another army advanced to the Thracian Bosphorus; Chalcedon was 
 taken after a long siege; and the Persian army encamped for more than 
 ten years in sight of Constantinople. If Chosroes had possessed a fleet 
 it would have been difficult to assign bounds to the progress of his vie 
 torious arms. Yet the difference of manners and language, the intoler 
 ance of the magi and schismatic Christians who followed in his train,- 
 were an inseparable barrier between the conquered and the conquerors, 
 and would soon have shattered to pieces the mightiest empire. .He 
 himself appeared to mistrust the stability of his power, by exhausting 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 189 
 
 the tributary nations with heavy exactions, and transporting into Persia 
 all the riches of the vanquished provinces. 
 
 At the end of six years, Chosroes demanded a large sum as the con¬ 
 dition of abandoning the siege of the Grecian capital; but the inhabitants, 
 finding courage in their despair, resolved to employ their means in com¬ 
 bating rather than in enriching their enemies. The victories of Heraclius 
 have been already described, the results of which were the capture of 
 the Persian treasures, the recovery of three hundred standards, and the 
 delivery of a numerous body of prisoners in 627. The fugitive did not 
 think himself secure until he had placed the Tigris between him and 
 the Romans. But his pride was not yet completely humbled: his 
 obstinacy irritated the Persians ; and Siroes, one of his sons, conspired 
 with the discontented to seize the throne, to the prejudice of his younger 
 brother, who had been appointed successor. Chosroes was deposed ; 
 and, as has been already stated, eighteen of his children were put to 
 death before his eyes; and he himself died in prison at the end of five 
 days, 628. With him ended the glory of the Sassanides. His unna¬ 
 tural son enjoyed the fruits of his crime only eight months; and eight 
 competitors assumed the kingly title within four years. This anarchy 
 continued eight years longer, until the country was subdued by the 
 Arabs. 
 
 To Chosroes belongs the distinction of restoring the ancient limits of 
 the Persian monarchy from the Hellespont to the Nile, and thus con¬ 
 tributing indirectly to the propagation of Mohammedanism. His 
 magnificence rivalled that of Xerxes. Nine hundred and sixty elephants, 
 with 20,000 camels, and 6000 horses, were maintained for the transport 
 of his baggage, or for the pleasures of the chase. Eighteen thousand 
 guards in succession were stationed within and around his palace. 
 Forty thousand plated columns with a thousand golden globes supported 
 the roof of his palace; and a hundred vaults were filled with gold, silver, 
 precious stones, and all the subsidiaries of luxury and refinement. 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 At the beginning of this century the Arabian peninsula became the scene of 
 a remarkable revolution, the effects of which may still be traced over great part 
 of two continents, and some of the fairest portions of Europe. Remote from 
 the civilized world, that country was scarcely known but as the land of spices 
 or of frankincense; and the inhabitants, with few brief exceptions, continued 
 to preserve their independence. They were a hardy, hospitable people, nursed 
 to habits of war by the discipline of a pastoral life. In their native deserts they 
 are invincible ; and the legions of Napoleon as well as those of Augustus found 
 in them an untiring enemy. The various tribes are independent, but unite in 
 periods of emergency under some popular sheik or chief. They, particularly 
 the Bedouins, are robbers by profession ; stranger and enemy being with them, 
 as among the ancient Romans, synonymous terms. Their language is exceed¬ 
 ingly copious; their poems, tales, and proverbs proclaim their wit and fancy. 
 Sabaism, or the worship of the heavenly bodies, was the prevailing superstition ; 
 and the temple or Caaba* of Mecca was known even to the Greek writers. 
 
 * Arabian traditions relate that Ishmael took up his abode and built a temple on the 
 spot where the angel showed the fountain to his wearied mother. This is the famous 
 Caaba , the centre of Mussulman worship, the point to which every Mohammedan turn* 
 at his devotions, in what part soever of the world he may be. The well of Zem-zem, 
 near the temple, is said to be the well of Hagar; and there is still to be seen on a black 
 stone what is called the imprint of Abraham’s feet. Around the Caaba the town of 
 Mecca was formed by the children of Ishmael and the concourse of devotional strangers. 
 
190 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Their altars were sometimes polluted by human sacrifices. The revolutions of 
 surrounding nations had driven many peaceable men to seek the Arabian 
 deserts, in search of that quiet which the Byzantine court was unable to afford 
 them. Six hundred years before Mohammed, Jews had settled in that coun¬ 
 try ; and the Himyarite kings of Yemen had embraced the Jewish religion at 
 the commencement of the fourth century a. d. The Bible was already trans¬ 
 lated into Arabic, and the Christians successively retiring from persecution, 
 carried with them and propagated their peculiar tenets. ' Thus was the way 
 prepared for the daring impostures of the Prophet. 
 
 Of the early history of Arabia little is known: Alexander the Great 
 aspired to its sovereignty, and a Greek colony can yet be traced among 
 the hills in the island of Socotra. The efforts of Augustus and Trajan 
 to subdue it were in vain. About a. d. 50, Mareb, the chief town of the 
 Sabaeans,—the ruins of which may still be seen,—was swept away by 
 the bursting of an artificial lake formed in an elevated valley towards 
 the north-west. In 529, the Negush of Abyssinia invaded and reduced 
 the country, governing it by means of deputies. But Arabia soon 
 recovered from its misfortunes, though their effect is still perceived in 
 Europe. The conquerors introduced the smallpox, which subsequent 
 intercourse propagated through the world. Its visitations at first were 
 dreadful mough rare; and nearly one hundred years elapsed before it 
 reached Italy and Germany. 
 
 Mohammed, a. d. 570, sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the 
 family of Hashem, the hereditary guardians of the Caaba, was the only 
 son of Abdallah and the Jewess Amina. In early life he was bereaved 
 of his parents ; and, after spending many years in the Syrian caravans, 
 at the age of twenty-five he entered the service of the rich widow Cadi- 
 jah, whom he afterwards married. His person was majestic; and, with 
 a countenance that charmed all beholders, he possessed no common vein 
 of eloquence. He was not less an enthusiast than an impostor; and 
 from his early youth had been in the habit of retiring to solitary caverns 
 for the purpose of meditation, where he formed that mighty scheme of 
 fraud, which, under the name of Islamism , he at length proclaimed to 
 the world, 609. His wife and one or two others of his family were his 
 fir&t converts ; three years elapsed before he had increased their number 
 to'fourteen. Twelve years had passed before they were augmented* to 
 six score, when the hostility of the Koreish compelled him to leave 
 Mecca. This “flight” to Yatreb, under the name of the Hegira, be¬ 
 came the memorable epoch of Mohammedan nations, dating from Friday, 
 16th July, a. d. 622.* Acclamations of loyalty and devotion hailed the 
 entry of the prophet into the city, which afterwards received the name 
 of Medina, or the City of the Prophet. Here he began to exercise at 
 once the regal and sacerdotal authority, and to be worshipped as a 
 superior being. “ I have seen,” said an astonished ambassador from 
 Mecca, “ Chosroes of Persia, and the Caesar of Rome, but never did I 
 behold a king among his subjects like Mohammed among his com¬ 
 panions.” War was soon declared against all infidels, and the doctrine 
 
 * To reduce the Mohammedan to the Christian era: — Multiply the years elapsed by 
 970,203 ; cut off 6 decimals ; add G22.54, and the sum will be the year of the Christian 
 era, and decimal of the day following, in old style. 
 
 To reduce the Christian era to the Mohammedan :—Subtract 622 from the current year ; 
 multiply by 1.0307; cut off four decimals, and add .46: the sum will be the year and 
 decimal of the day, old style. 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 191 
 
 proclaimed that the sins of every one who fell in battle would be for¬ 
 given. Blinded by prosperity, he had the audacity to summon the most 
 powerful monarchs of the earth to embrace Islamism; and we are told 
 that when a Roman magistrate in Syria put to death one of his ambas¬ 
 sadors, he did not hesitate to fall upon an army of 30,000 men with a 
 small body of undisciplined troops. With an inconsiderable force he 
 attacked the Koreish, and defeated them in several battles, 625. Four 
 years afterwards, Mecca submitted to his arms, and the whole peninsula 
 shortly after yielded to the “apostle of God.” Nor was the ambition 
 of Mohammed confined to the narrow limits of Arabia, for he was on the 
 point of entering on a new career, when a languishing disease recalled 
 him from the Syrian frontiers. Perceiving the approach of death, he 
 boldly submitted his past life to the scrutiny of his people, saying, “ If 
 there be any man whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own 
 back to the lash.” At the age of sixty-three, the great impostor was 
 removed from the earth, in 632. The caliphs, as his successors were 
 called, in less than one hundred years, spread their conquests and their 
 creed, from India to the Atlantic Ocean,—over Persia, Syria, Egypt, 
 Africa, and Spain. 
 
 The Koran. —The religious doctrines of Mohammed are contained in the 
 Koran. The Book, for such is its title, is filled with stories from the Old Tes¬ 
 tament and parables borrowed from the New. He asserted that it was brought 
 in fragments from heaven by the angel Gabriel, and appealed to the pure 
 classical style of the work as a proof of its divine origin. It comprises a mass 
 of tales, visions, discourses, laws, precepts, and counsels, in which truth and 
 falsehood, the sublime and the ridiculous, meet side by side. Each sura 
 (chapter) bears the superscription—“In the name of the kind and merciful 
 God.” The first verse is always preceded by three mystical initial characters, 
 whose meaning the Moslem theologians dare not penetrate. Mistaken in his 
 opinions of the Trinitarian doctrine, and deluded by the image-worship of the 
 Eastern Christians, the author declaims often against their polytheism and 
 idolatry. “ In what consists Islamism ?” asked an angel in the guise of a Be¬ 
 douin. “ To profess,” replied Mohammed, “ that there is but One God, and 
 that I am his prophet ; to observe strictly the hours of prayer; to give alms ; to 
 fast in the month of Ramadan ; and to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.” “ It 
 is so in truth,” said Gabriel, making himself known. 
 
 Mohammed called his religion Islam (resignation to the will of God), and 
 excluded all others under the pretence that its founder was the last and greatest 
 prophet sent from God ; by whom the law of Moses and of Jesus was perfected 
 and accomplished;—and that as Christ abrogated the Jewish religion, so did 
 the son of Abdallah the Christian. Five times in the twenty-four hours do the 
 Mussulmans ( the saved) repeat their prayers, turning their faces towards Mecca ; 
 and during the monthly fast of the Ramadan they abstain from eating and 
 drinking while the sun is above the horizon. Friday is their day of public 
 worship. The resurrection, the day of judgment, and fatalism are part of their 
 creed. After the day of judgment, the good and bad have to cross a narrow 
 and perilous bridge (aZ Sirat ) over the abyss ; the former being upheld by 
 angels, the latter falling headlong into the first of the seven hells. The right¬ 
 eous, being admitted into the seventh heaven, near the throne of God, will 
 recline on the softest couches, be fed with the most delicious food, clothed in 
 the richest garments, and waited upon, each by seventy-two black-eyed houris 
 of resplendent beauty, youth, and purity. The doctrine of predestination was 
 skilfully employed by Mohammed to advance his designs, encouraging his fol¬ 
 lowers to combat without fear, on the assurance that no caution could avert their 
 fate or prolong their lives one moment. Polygamy was authorized by the 
 Koran, although it reduced within certain limits a custom prevailing in Asia 
 many ages before his time. Besides allowing four legitimate wives, a less 
 formal marriage was also permitted. 
 
192 
 
 MIDDLE AGE3. 
 
 The Arab legislator inculcated tolerance towards the Christians, Jews, and 
 Persian disciples of Zoroaster; but this was always purchased by a kind of 
 capitation-tax. 
 
 Consult: Preface to Sale’s Koran ; Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. 
 
 The Caliphs. — Four caliphs were successively elected to occupy 
 the seat of Mohammed, by the suffrages of the leaders of Islamism. 
 Abubeker, chosen in 63*2, gave the signal for a holy war, in fulfilment 
 of the vow of the prophet, who had summoned all true believers to the 
 conversion of the infidels. Omar, the second caliph, 634, saw the three 
 great countries bordering on Arabia submit to its yoke; in the caliphate 
 of Othman, 644-655, these conquests were made permanent, and the 
 power of the Arabs received a new lustre from their first naval victories. 
 The virtuous Ali seemed destined to put the legislation of the prophet 
 in harmony with the extent of the Mussulman dominion; but the five 
 years of his reign were troubled by civil war, and, like his two prede¬ 
 cessors, he fell beneath the blow of a fanatic, who thus unintentionally 
 confirmed the triumph of the rebel Moawiyah, and the establishment of 
 an hereditary dynasty, 660. 
 
 Conquest of Syria, a. d. 632.—Under the direction of Abubeker, 
 two armies issued from the Arabian peninsula; one of them marched 
 into Syria, the other, under the command of Khaled, surnamed the 
 Sword of God, advanced towards the Euphrates. Abu Obeidah, at the 
 head of the former, crossed the Jordan, and besieged Bostra with the 
 fanatic cry of “ Fight! fight! Paradise ! paradise !” The town fell, and 
 Damascus was attacked. Heraclitus, roused by a sense of danger, 
 ordered an army of 70,000 men to hasten to the defence of this city 
 But these succours were in vain; for, after an obstinate engagement at 
 Aiznadin, the imperial forces were utterly routed, and Damascus was 
 taken after a siege of seventy days, 634. Jerusalem, having been 
 closely blockaded during four months, capitulated, 637, and the conquest 
 of Syria was almost immediately achieved. 
 
 Taking of Arrestan. —This city was reduced by Abu Obeidah, in 
 a manner that will forcibly remind the classical student of the wooden 
 horse by which Troy fell. He requested and obtained leave of the 
 governor to deposit in the citadel some old lumber which impeded the 
 rapidity of his march. Twenty large boxes were filled with men, and 
 carried into the castle: the general then marched away, leaving only 
 Khaled with some chosen troops in the neighbourhood to act in concert 
 with the adventurers. While the Christians were returning thanks for 
 the departure of their enemy, the soldiers removed the sliding bottoms 
 of the chests, and made their way out. The sentries being overpower¬ 
 ed, the great church was surprised and converted into a garrison. 
 Khaled came to their assistance as soon as he heard the appointed 
 signal; and the town was taken without further opposition.* 
 
 Reduction of Egypt, a. d. 638—640.—Amrou, a man of mean birth, 
 but of great ability, was commanded to invade Egypt. Having already 
 distinguished himself in the Syrian campaign, he now boldly, at the 
 head of only 4000 Arabs, took Pelusium and invested Memphis. The 
 siege w r as protracted for seven months, when the city was taken by 
 assault; and on its ruins, or rather on those of the suburb of Babylon 
 
 * Ockley’s History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 185 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 193 
 
 on the eastern bank of the Nile, was built the modern city of Cairo, or 
 the Victory. The submission of the Coptic Christians enabled the 
 invaders to turn their arms against Alexandria, the reduction of which 
 was the most important enterprise in the whole of the Arabian contests. 
 After a siege of fourteen months, and the loss of 23,000 men, the cres¬ 
 cent of Mohammed was raised above the Cross, 640. We are told that 
 Amrou found in the city 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 400 theatres, with 
 40,000 tributary Jews. The lives of the inhabitants were spared ; but 
 in the destruction of the celebrated library, by the express command of 
 Omar, we have to regret the “ irreparable wreck of the learning, the 
 arts, and the genius of antiquity.” The possession of Egypt led to the 
 conquest of Northern Africa; though sickness and want of provisions 
 compelled the Mussulman forces to retreat after a successful expedition 
 in Cyrenaica and Tripolitana. 
 
 Cyprus, Rhodes,* and the Cyclades were conquered, 653; in the 
 East the Mohammedans advanced to the Euphrates, the Tigris, and 
 beyond these barriers even to the Oxus, thus completing the subjugation 
 of Persia, 652. 
 
 Ommiades. —As soon as Ali was proclaimed caliph, a. d. 656, he 
 resolved to subdue the Ommiades, whose ambition had given him 
 umbrage, and displaced Moawiyah, the chief of the family, from the 
 government of Syria. This prince refused obedience to the order, and 
 assuming the title of Emir of the Believers, marched against the legiti¬ 
 mate caliph. During one hundred and ten days, the two armies con¬ 
 tended almost incessantly ; and the victory was yet doubtful, w T hen three 
 fanatics swore to put an end to the civil war by assassinating Ali, 
 Moawiyah, and Amrou. Ali alone perished, and by his death left the 
 sceptre to his rival. His two sons Hassan and Hossein, bore the title 
 of caliphs, and their descendants were regarded by the Mussulmans of 
 Persia as the only legitimate successors of the prophet; but the 
 Ommiades did not the less inherit the power. This revolution was fol¬ 
 lowed by another; and the caliphate became hereditary instead of 
 elective, 660. 
 
 Mohammedan Sects. —The dissension between Ali, the prophet’s son-in- 
 law, and the first three caliphs, gave birth to a schism which yet disturbs the 
 unity of Islam. The one party are called Sonnites , because to the Koran they 
 add the Sonna (tradition), another collection of laws and precepts which fell 
 from the lips of Mohammed.t They respect the memory of Abubeker, 
 Othman, Omar, aud Ali, but assign the lowest degree of sanctity to the last. 
 The Turks belong to this sect. The other party are called Sheeahs (schis¬ 
 matics), recognising the authority of the Koran alone, and consider Ali as the 
 vicar of God. not inferior to the prophet himself. The Arabians and Persians 
 hold the opinions of this sect. 
 
 Moawiyah transferred the seat of empire to Damascus, a. d. 661 , and 
 to gain some popularity to his dynasty, recommenced war against the 
 infidels. The Africans had been already compelled to pay tribute to 
 their conquerors; but when the emperor wished to impose another by 
 
 * The mins of the celebrated Colossus, or statue of Apollo, after they had lain scat* 
 tered on the ground eight centuries, were collected and sold by the Saracens. The 
 weight of the metal is said to have laden 900 camels. 
 
 f The Sonna or oral law was first committed to writing by the pious A1 Bochari, about 
 a. d. 800. In Ockley’s History of the Saracens, the reader will find many pathetic stories 
 of the calamities of Ali and his sons. 
 
 17 
 
194 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 way of fine, the assistance of the Arabs was implored against this 
 tyranny. In 665, the Greeks were defeated and lost eighty thousand 
 men. The Arabs had now begun to form a navy, and were eminently 
 successful in their early maritime expeditions. Six times their fleets 
 appeared before Constantinople, but were as often repelled by the terri¬ 
 ble Greek fire. These armaments having exhausted the resources of 
 the caliphate, Moawiyah solicited peace, which was granted on his con¬ 
 senting to pay a tribute of fifty horses, as many slaves, and three thou¬ 
 sand purses of gold, 677. At his death, three years afterwards, a civil 
 war broke out; but the unity of the empire was re-established by the 
 devotion of the brave Hegiage, who destroyed successively all the ene¬ 
 mies of the house of Ommiyah. Under Abdel Malek, India was con¬ 
 quered; and during the government of his son Walid I. communications 
 were opened with China,—a circumstance that should be kept in mind, 
 since it is probable that from the latter country the Arabs derived part 
 of their knowledge in science and manufactures. The writers of that 
 nation are the first who make mention of a spirit extracted from rice, of 
 tea, porcelain, and other Chinese commodities. 
 
 Africa Reduced. —The unsettled state of affairs interrupted the 4’ar 
 in Africa twenty years ; but in 692, Hassan, governor of Egypt, com¬ 
 menced a series of expeditions, which reduced the whole northern coast; 
 and about the end of the century, the fearless Akbah spurred his horse 
 into the waves of the Atlantic, sighing, like another Alexander, for 
 new worlds to conquer. Carthage fell in 698, and Africa was irre¬ 
 coverably lost to the Greek empire; but the wandering tribes of Bar¬ 
 bary did not submit so easily to a new government which threatened 
 their independence. Their Queen Kahina forced Hassan to retire ; nor 
 was it till the death of this heroine that any advantage was gained by 
 the Arabian forces. Musa completed the conquest of this part of Africa ; 
 and by degrees the inhabitants, deserting Christianity, embraced the 
 religion of a people who, by their similarity of manners, encouraged 
 the belief of a common origin. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 From a. d. 568, the peninsula was divided between the Lombard 
 kingdom and the exarchate of Ravenna, which still acknowledged the 
 authority of the Byzantine emperors.* The Lombard sovereigns were 
 virtuous and able; peace and happiness adorned their government; and 
 Italy began to recover from the devastations of the two preceding cen¬ 
 turies. A brief period of discord led to the accession, in 636, of 
 Rotharis, duke of Brescia, who signalized his reion by his conquests 
 and his code of laws. The prudence of this king w r as shown in his 
 respect to religious affairs ; the Arianism which he professed not making 
 him unjust to his orthodox subjects. After his death in 652, the Lom¬ 
 bard monarchy was agitated by ambitious dukes who coveted or usurped 
 
 * The exarchate, properly so called, contained the cities of Ravenna, Bologna, Imola, 
 Faenza, Ferrara. Adria, Commachio, and Forli. with the Pentapolis, or that territory 
 which included Ancona, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Sinigaglia. It was governed bv an 
 exarch invested with civil and military authority; under him various dukes ruled in 
 Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Syracuse, and other great cities of the Peninsula, Dalmatia, and 
 the Italian Islands. This state of affairs continued until the first half of the eighth 
 century, when the quarrel between the iconoclasts and the ambition of Astolphus 
 wrought important changes in the condition of Italy. 
 
SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 195 
 
 the CiOwn, and threatened by the Emperor Constans II., who wished to 
 re-establish the seat of empire in Italy. 
 
 Doge of Venice.— About a. d. 697, the inhabitants of the Adriatic 
 isles assembled at Heraclea, and elected Paulo Anafesto duke, with the 
 insignia of royalty, without however rejecting the supremacy of Con¬ 
 stantinople. By subsequent limitations, the power of the doge was 
 reduced within very narrow bounds, and his office became a sort of ducal 
 mayoralty for life. In authority he was merely a counsellor; in the 
 city, a prisoner of state, and out of it, only a private person. The 
 great council of 480 citizens was principally composed of men of high 
 birth, and invested with the appointment of their head and all the 
 inferior magistracies. The senate consisted of the sixty Pregadi , the 
 forty judges, the college of Savii, the council of ten, and formed an 
 intermediate body between the nobles and the executive. They imposed 
 taxes, and declared war or concluded peace. The three state inquisi¬ 
 tors were superior to all the citizens, not excepting even the doge. 
 Criminal justice was administered by a tribunal of forty, annually 
 chosen from the great assembly. By the laws of 1296 (the Serratura 
 del Consiglio ), 1298, and 1300, all those who had not been in the great 
 council within the four preceding years, were for ever debarred from 
 election to that assembly, thus establishing an exclusive hereditary 
 aristocracy. Much discontent w r as manifested at these proceedings, and 
 several insurrections took place with the object of framing a more popu¬ 
 lar form of government. Such is a meagre outline of an avowed aris¬ 
 tocracy which governed larger territories and endured a longer period 
 than any other upon record. Already at this early period Venice had 
 its fleets, and these she placed at the service of the Exarch Eutychius, 
 to aid in driving the Lombards from their more recent conquests, by 
 which they became unwelcome neighbours both to the republic and to 
 Rome. 
 
 Read ; Spalding’s Italy and the Italian Islands, 3 vols., in the Edinburgh 
 Cabinet Library. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Clotaire II., a. d. 613.—The disputed succession of Alsace led to 
 a civil war between Thierry and Theodebert, in which the latter, after 
 having been defeated at Tolbiac in 612, was decapitated by order of his 
 brother, by whom he was followed to the grave in the subsequent year. 
 Brunehaut, seconded by the patrician Protadius, vainly endeavoured to 
 maintain one of the sons of Thierry on the throne; for Clotaire gained 
 the ascendency, and won over the Ostrasian leudes, whom the queen 
 had exasperated by her violent opposition to their claims. This aged 
 female was surrendered to the mercy of the son of Fredegunde, and by 
 him put to death with barbarous cruelty. In 613, Clotaire re-united the 
 different members of the monarchy, and by an edict issued from the 
 national assembly held at Paris, he reformed the kingdom, and gave 
 securities for the public peace, which was not again broken during his 
 reign. 
 
 Mayors of the Palace. —The mayor of the palace (major domus ) 
 was originally what his title signified—the chief of the king’s domestics. 
 Under princes of unripe years or feeble character, he easily usurped aL 1 
 the pow T ers of the state. Warnachaire in Burgundy and Radon in Os- 
 
196 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 \ 
 
 trasia had been declared immovable by Clotaire, with the consent of 
 the nobles, who had long had a voice in the nomination of these , 
 ministers, and who appear finally to have had the exclusive power of 
 election. It was not until after the time of Dagobert I. that the govern¬ 
 ment passed entirely into the hands of the mayors. 
 
 Dagobert.— Clotaire II. died in 628, and was succeeded by Dago¬ 
 bert, his son, who had been six years king of Ostrasia. He conferred 
 Aquitaine on his brother Caribert, who reigned three years at Toulouse, 
 and died not long afterwards, when his eldest son was recognised as 
 king. Dagobert, however, caused him to be poisoned, and gave Aqui¬ 
 taine as an hereditary duchy, to another of his nephews, who became the 
 founder of a long line of princes, which terminated, in 1503, in the 
 person of Louis of Armagnac, duke of Nemours, killed at the battle of 
 Cerignole. 
 
 The reign of Dagobert offers no remarkable event, except the invasion 
 of Ostrasia by a Sclavonic tribe, who had elected to the kingly station a 
 Frank merchant named Samon. Some time after, Judicael, duke of 
 Bretagne, whose subjects committed incessant ravages on Western 
 France, came to Clichy soliciting the alliance of the Frank monarch. 
 Dagobert expired in 638, after a reign of some splendour, the honour 
 of which belongs not so much to the sovereign as to the mayors 
 Arnulph, Pepin of Landen, Ega, and to the goldsmith Saint Eloi, 
 who administered the king’s finances and presided over the magnificence 
 of the court. 
 
 Sluggard Kings.* —With Siegbert II. and Clovis II., respectively 
 monarchs of Ostrasia and Neustria, begins the list of Sluggard Kings— 
 for by that name were the ten feeble successors of Dagobert I. charac¬ 
 terized. Forty years after, the right of succession called Thierry III. to 
 the united throne of the triple kingdom, 678 ; when the Ostrasian nobles, 
 indignant at the favour shown to their enemy, the mayor Ebroin, 
 abolished the royal title, and chose their dukes in the persons of Pepin 
 d’Heristal and Martin the grandson of Saint Arnulph. Hostilities ensued 
 with the mayor of Thierry III., in which Martin perished. Pepin, 
 thus left sole duke, became bolder in his designs, and attacking 
 Neustria, ended the war in 687 by the victory of Testry, which placed 
 the chief portion of Western France in his hands. 
 
 Pepin d’Heristal, now become absolute master in the two kingdoms, 
 strengthened his power by the defeat of the tributaries who had as¬ 
 sumed independence during the Frank dissensions. Three times he 
 disposed of the Nuestrian crown, and dying, bequeathed the mayoralty 
 to his grandson Theodobald and his widow Plectrude, passing over his 
 illegitimate son Charles, 715. 
 
 * Michelet remarks of these latter Merovingian kings, that they appear to be a parti¬ 
 cular race of men ; they were all parents at fifteen, and old men at thirty. Few of them 
 attained the latter age: Caribert II. died at the age of twenty five years ; Sigebert II. 
 at twenty-six ; Clovis II. at twenty-three ; Childeric II. at twenty-four; Clotaire III. at 
 eighteen; Dagobert II. at twenty-seven, Sec,—Hist, de France, tome i. p. 280. 
 
Pepin le Bref and Carloman. 
 
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198 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 The two successors of Recardede, Liuva II. and Vitteric, died by 
 assassination. Gondemar gained a few advantages over the Greeks, 
 who were driven out of Spain by Sisebert, 612—620. This prince, cele¬ 
 brated for the composition of a not inelegant Latin poem on the eclipses 
 of the sun and moon, conquered Tangier and Ceuta, as well as part of 
 Mauritania. His son Recardede II. died shortly after his coronation; 
 and his second son Suintilla, was nominated his successor by the 
 bishops ; but was overthrown by Sisenand, governor of Septimania, 
 631. Under this ruler, the fourth council of Toledo declared that no 
 one could ascend the throne without the consent of the prelates and the 
 chief officers of state ; that the king should take oath not to pronounce 
 any judgment on capital matters without the advice of his court; that 
 the bishops might summon to the councils, or exclude from them, any 
 persons whatever; and that, finally, the ecclesiastics should be exempt 
 from charges and taxation. Thus was Spain placed under the control 
 of a sacerdotal aristocracy. 
 
 Chintilla, a. d. 636, expelled the Jews from Spain, in obedience to 
 the orders of the sixth council of Toledo, which further decreed that no 
 election of a successor should take place during the life of the reigning 
 king. Tulga, deposed by the nobles, left his crown to Chindasvind, 
 who associated his son Recesvind with him on the throne. The latter 
 still further augmented the power of the bishops, repelled an invasion 
 of the Gascons, and defended Mauritania against the first attacks of the 
 Arabians. His successor Wamba, 672, had to check the numerous 
 revolts which broke out on every side, and was at length deposed after 
 several successful campaigns against the Mussulmans. The noble 
 Erwiga, instigated by the Archbishop of Toledo, mixed opium in his 
 wine, cut off his hair during sleep, and took away the silver keys, the 
 ensigns of royalty. On his awaking, the sovereign not unwillingly 
 resigned a throne which he had accepted only on compulsion. 
 
 The new king Erwiga was compelled to reward the services of the 
 head of the Spanish church by new concessions, and by the privilege of 
 nominating to the vacant sees. By this act the crown lost almost the 
 only useful prerogative which remained, for the great civil and military 
 dignities having become hereditary, the king had no other means of 
 opposing the nobles than by filling the bishoprics with trusty men. 
 Under Egiza, 687, the Jews formed secret relations with their African 
 brethren, in the hope of receiving protection and aid from the Saracens. 
 The plot having been discovered, the exercise of the Jewish worship 
 was forbidden; children of seven years old and under were taken from 
 their parents to be educated as Christians ; and all who apostatized were 
 deprived of their wealth and liberty. This reign was disturbed by the 
 claims of the Archbishops of Toledo, who were desirous of conducting 
 the affairs of the kingdom by a regency. Witizen beheld the increase 
 of the factions, to which he himself became a victim, 710: being de¬ 
 throned by Roderick, the son of a nobleman whose eyes he had ordered 
 to be torn out. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The true doctrines of Christianity were fast becoming objured in the 
 East, from the ambition of the patriarchs and the subtle spirit of tho 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 199 
 
 people. Heraclius, who was said to have recovered the relics of the 
 True Cross from the hands of the infidels,—a victory still celebrated in 
 the Romish ritual,—did not confine himself to opposing the enemies of 
 the empire, but mingled in theological discussions and controversies on 
 the faith. The Eutychians had modified their opinions to give them 
 new vigour, and the patriarch Sergius openly disseminated their heresy, 
 which tended to confound the divine and human nature of Christ. The 
 empefor published an edict in favour of the Eutychian dogmas, and 
 Pope Honorius, deceived by a letter of Sergius, forbade all discussion 
 of their errors. This disposition to temporize alarmed the orthodox, and 
 Sophronius, bishop of Jerusalem, wrote to inform the Pope of the real 
 state of affairs. John IV., who then occupied St. Peter’s chair, con¬ 
 demned the error, and also the imperial decree which defended it. A 
 short time before his death Heraclius disavowed his edict; but his 
 grandson Constans II. again reasserted it, and deposed the venerable 
 pontiff. Constantine Pogonatus, wishing to restore peace to the church, 
 convoked the sixth general council at Constantinople, 680, at which the 
 papal legate presided. The errors of the monothelites were condemned 
 as well as all their followers, and this heresy became ever after con¬ 
 founded with that of the Eutychians. M 
 
 Triple Crown.— The emperor Anastasius having invested Clovis 
 with the dignity of patrician and consul, sent him a crown of gold; the 
 king of the Franks presented it to Pope Symmachus, 498, and it was 
 the first of those which composed the papal diadem. The second was 
 added by Boniface VIII., who ascended the spiritual throne in-1294; 
 and the third by John XXII., 1316.—The title of pope, it should be 
 observed, was not exclusively applied to those who held the see of Rome 
 until Hildebrand issued a bull to that effect, towards the close of the 
 11th century. Before the time of Sabinianus, 604, they were simply 
 styled bishops. 
 
 EIGHTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —717, Leo III.—Saracens at Constantinople.—726, Iconoclast 
 War.—797, Empress Irene. 
 
 Arabia. —711, Northern Africa and Spain subdued.—749, Abbassides.—786, 
 Haroun al Raschid. 
 
 Spain. —711, Arabians in Spain.—755, Independent Caliphate. 
 
 Italy. —715, Pope Gregory II.—774, End of Lombard Kingdom.—795, Leo 
 III., first Bishop of the West. — 728, Luitprand takes Ravenna. — 749, 
 Astolphus. 
 
 France. —714, Charles Martel.—732, Victory of Tours.—752, Carlovingian 
 Dynasty—Pepin.—768, Charlemagne. 
 
 Church. —720, Dionysian or Vulgar Era introduced.—769, Worship of Images. 
 Literature. — Bede, d. 735; Boniface, Apostle of the Germans, d. 754; 
 Alcuin, d. 804. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Isaurian Dynasty.— A space of six years divided into three short 
 reigns separated the fall of the Heraclian from the rise of the Isaurian 
 Dynasty. Justinian II., put to death in 711, was succeeded by Philip- 
 
200 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 picus Bardanes, a general raised to the throne by the voice of the 
 soldiery; bat this adventurer, after a reign of two years, was over¬ 
 thrown by his secretary Artemius, who governed in the name of Anasta¬ 
 sias II. The revolt of the fleet compelled the latter to take refuge 
 among the Bulgarians ; and a new emperor, Theodosius III., succeeded, 
 only to abdicate the following year in favour of a popular officer, whom 
 the army had already proclaimed. Leo, a native of Isauria, had gradu¬ 
 ally risen from the plebeian rank to the throne, which he had scarcely 
 usurped before his capital was closely besieged by the Arabs. During 
 thirteen months Constantinople was blockaded by land and sea, and 
 was saved only by its lofty walls and the terrible Greek fire. He next 
 quelled a revolt in Sicily, but compromised his success and the peace 
 of the empire by theological disputes. In 7*26, he interdicted the wor¬ 
 ship of images, and, in spite of the discontent manifested by the people, 
 broke all the statues in the churches. The inhabitants of the Cyclades, 
 the Italian Greeks, and above all the Romans, refused to obey the 
 imperial decrees; still Leo, unyielding in his faith and his decisions, 
 enforced their execution at the risk of losing several valuable provinces. 
 
 Constantine V., Copronymus, 741, a dissolute and sanguinary tyrant, 
 showed scarcely less iconoclastic zeal than his father. His reign was 
 celebrated, however, by the recovery of Armenia and Syria from the 
 Arabians ; by the defeat of the Bulgarians; by the redemption of many 
 captives; and by his judicious measures for repeopling the almost 
 deserted Thracian cities. Leo IV., 775, reigned only five years, and 
 left the crown to Constantine VI., Porphyrogenitus , under the regency 
 of his mother Irene. The worship of images was restored in 787, by 
 the resolutions of the second Nicene council, at which three hundred 
 and seventy bishops condemned the impiety of the innovators. Irene, 
 who was as adroit as she was ambitious, endeavoured to withdraw her 
 son from public business; her schemes prospered until he reached his 
 twentieth year, when she was condemned to exile in a palace on the 
 shores of the Propontis. But here by her intrigues she contrived to 
 seduce the affections of the army and the citizens, by whom he was 
 dethroned and deprived of his eyes. The reign of the unnatural mother, 
 now become sole empress, was not unaccompanied by external splen¬ 
 dour ; yet the public indignation being excited, she was dethroned by 
 her treasurer Nicephorus I., 802. In her solitude at Mitylene she 
 earned a scanty subsistence by the labours of her distaff. 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 Walid, a. d. 704, and Soliman I., endeavoured to render themselves 
 masters of Constantinople, but their armies were compelled to retreat 
 with loss. Their want of success in the east of Europe was compensated 
 by the conquest of Spain in the west, 711. Here again they found 
 themselves too weak to contend with the warlike children of the north; 
 for, after the dreadful battle of Tours, the Saracens were driven igno- 
 miniously across the Pyrenees, 732. Internal dissensions now began 
 to prevail: the immense empire of the Caliphs of Damascus, composed 
 of elements so various and so suddenly brought together, had not 
 acquired consistency enough to preserve its unity. In other respects, 
 too, the Omniades had failed to conciliate the affections of their subjects, 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 201 
 
 and all eyes were turned upon the family of the prophet. Of these, the 
 Abbassides, who derive their name from the prophet’s uncle Abbas, 
 were the most numerous and active. A black banner was adopted as 
 their peculiar badge, while their opponents were distinguished by a 
 white one. The East was convulsed by the conflicts of these parties, 
 till, on the banks of the Zab, victory deserted the reigning caliph, and 
 Mervan II., fleeing to Egypt, was pursued and put to death, 750. 
 
 The Abbassides. —Abbas immediately set about confirming his power 
 by destroying every one related to the deposed family. One royal youth 
 with difficulty escaped from those who hunted after his life, and, reach¬ 
 ing Spain, Abdalrahman established the throne of Cordova, whence 
 during 275 years the family of the Omniades governed that peninsula. 
 Almansor, on his accession in 754, had to contend against his uncle 
 Abdallah, who had been proclaimed at Damascus. He conquered his 
 rival after a struggle of five months, and treacherously put him to death. 
 The victor himself was also executed a short time afterwards under the 
 eyes of the caliph, who feared his ambition and his talents. This 
 general, it is said, had sacrificed more than 600,000 persons to the Ab¬ 
 bassides. His death caused an insurrection in Khorassan; and the 
 commander who put it down, being offended at the disproportionate 
 share of booty taken by the caliph, revolted in his turn, seized on Ispa¬ 
 han, and was defeated in Azerbijan. 
 
 To strengthen his throne Almansor was often cruel. The Omniades, 
 with one exception, had been extirpated, but the descendants of Ali still 
 survived. These he persecuted with atrocious violence: wishing to 
 discover the hiding-place of Mohammed and Ibrahim, great-grandsons 
 of Hossein, he shut up their father in a close prison; eleven others of 
 the family expired in a dungeon; one of the Othmans perished under 
 the scourge, and his head was carried into Khorassan and exhibited as 
 that of Mohammed. One of the youths being driven to extremity, at 
 last took up arms, but was defeated and killed with his brother, 762. 
 
 Mohadi, a. d. 774, a prince as magnificent and prodigal as his father, 
 revived the war against the Greeks, in which his son Haroun, afterwards 
 called A1 Raschid (the Just), traversed Bithynia and penetrated to the 
 Bosphorus, whence he menaced Constantinople. By the death of his 
 parent and brother, he was raised to the caliphate in 786, and began the 
 most glorious reign of all the Abbasside dynasty. 
 
 Haroun al Raschid. —An insulting demand made by the Emperor 
 Nicephorus led to a new war along the Byzantine frontier. Haroun 
 entered Asia Minor, devastating the country with fire and sword as far 
 as the walls of Heraclea, whence the approach of winter compelled him 
 to retreat beyond the Taurus. He soon found it necessary to repass 
 these mountains, though covered with snow, to meet his enemy, who 
 w r as secretly advancing at the head of all his forces. At Crasus in 
 Phrygia, the Greeks suffered a terrible defeat; and the emperor was 
 reduced to purchase a cessation of hostilities by the payment of a very 
 large sum of money. It was under the character of opponent to the 
 Greek monarch and to the Caliph of Cordova, that Haroun sent an 
 embassy to Charlemagne in 799. The glory of his reign was tarnished 
 by the cruelty which he practised on the illustrious family of the Barme¬ 
 cides, two of whom, Yahia and his son Jaafar, had the entire manage- 
 
202 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 ment of the affairs of his empire. Their popularity excited the jealousy 
 of Haroun to such a degree, that he put them to death, and exterminated 
 almost all their relations. 
 
 The cultivation of Arabian letters, begun by Almansor, was continued under 
 Haroun with increased brilliancy. The fanatic admirers of the prophet, the 
 successors of the barbarians who had destroyed the library of Alexandria, ap¬ 
 plied themselves to the study of the Greek language and the translation of the 
 treasures which it contained. By this means the Arabs acquired the elements 
 of mathematic?, medicine, astronomy, natural history, and philosophy. The 
 pupils soon becoming instructors, gave to these sciences an extent and develop¬ 
 ment previously unknown. They created, it might almost be said the natural 
 sciences — astronomy, chemistry, medicine, the mathematics, algebra, the 
 mechanical arts; and their progress in these pursuits was attested by the 
 splendour of Bagdad, Ispahan, Kufa, Damascus, and Cordova. 
 
 In the department of literature, the Arabs had their poets and historians, 
 and as metaphysicians they made known the works of Aristotle to the Euro¬ 
 peans. Wherever they settled, numerous schools arose,—even on the shores 
 of Africa, the constant refuge of barbarism. Spain still preserves the memo¬ 
 rials of their magnificence; and while the traveller gazes on the ruins of 
 Moorish architecture, so light and elegant, that everywhere cover her soil, he 
 looks in vain for the 300,000 inhabitants of Seville, and the 200,000 of Toledo. 
 Anciently Cordova was eight leagues in circumference, being only three less 
 than Rome under the emperors, and contained 60,000 palaces, with 283,000 
 private houses. The diocese of Salamanca comprehended 125 cities or towns, 
 where only thirteen are now to be found. In Seville might be counted 60,000 
 looms for silk alone, while, in 1742, entire Spain reckoned only 10,000 for silk 
 and wool. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 Arab Conquest, a. d. 710.—The Goths possessed along the African 
 shore the town of Ceuta and the province of Tingitania, governed by 
 Count Julian, whose treason introduced the Arabs into Spain. Tarik, 
 the lieutenant of the Emir Musa, crossed the straits of Hercules, follow¬ 
 ed by a small army of 5000 men, with whom he took possession of the 
 castle of Algesiras, and of the rock of Calpe which afterwards bore his 
 name, Gebel-al-Tarik or Gibraltar. Roderic the Gothic king, at the first 
 news, hastened to repel the invaders, whom he found in the neighbour¬ 
 hood of Cadiz, increased indeed in numbers, but still vastly inferior to 
 the opposing army. Three successive days were marked by bloody but 
 indecisive skirmishes. On the fourth, however, 16,000 men lay dead 
 on the field of Xeres, and Roderic fled from the battle to perish ignobly 
 in the waters of the Guadalquivir, 712. The victor directed his march 
 to Toledo, which soon fell; and from that centre, Spain, which had 
 resisted the Roman arms two hundred years, was reduced by the Sara¬ 
 cens in fifteen months. In the mountains of Asturias the flame of 
 liberty still burnt, and thence in a later age rolled down that tide which 
 ceased not till the soil of Spain was freed from her infidel invaders, 
 1492. The conquerors manifested great moderation : in all that related 
 to themselves, the Christians were allowed to retain their own laws; 
 they were also permitted to fill certain offices, to serve in the army, to 
 intermarry with the Moslem—their only badge of servitude being a 
 heavy impost. 
 
 After the recall of Musa, and the tragical death of his son, Spain wa9 
 governed by deputies, nominated by the viceroys of Africa. Numerous 
 Asiatic colonies spread over the peninsula, advancing agriculture and 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 203 
 
 commerce, while the natives profited by the advantages of conquest 
 without suffering its disgrace. The Arabs repeatedly invaded France 
 •n maintenance of their claims to the province of Septimania, but they 
 were finally checked by the memorable defeat near Tours, which saved 
 France and Christendom from impending desolation, 732. 
 
 When the house of the Ommiades was deposed by Abul-Abbas, one 
 member of the family alone escaped destruction and fled to Africa. 
 Here he carried on a correspondence with the principal Spanish sheiks, 
 who prepared an insurrection in his favour, and after an exile of four 
 years, Abdalrahman landed in the peninsula, defeated the Abbasside 
 governor Youssef, and was proclaimed Prince of the Faithful at Cor¬ 
 dova. Such was the beginning of the caliphate of the West, in 756. 
 
 Abdalrahman skilfully triumphed over all the opposition raised by the 
 partisans of his enemy, forced the governors of Barcelona and Sara¬ 
 gossa to submission, and consolidated the throne by a victory over the 
 Emir Magreb, who had landed in Spain to support the disaffected sheiks. 
 The expedition of Charlemagne, originating in similar motives, termi¬ 
 nated in the submission of the provinces between the Ebro and the 
 Pyrenees. Internal cares prevented the Ommiadan prince from prose¬ 
 cuting the sacred war w T ith any success. Hashem I. retaliated the 
 Frank invasion by an irruption into Aquitaine, in w T hich the whole 
 country was devastated even to the suburbs of Narbonne, 793; and so 
 great was the spoil that the caliph’s share amounted to forty thousand 
 gold purses. W 7 ith this and the aid of his numerous prisoners he com¬ 
 pleted the great mosque at Cordova, begun by Abdalrahman, and one 
 of the largest of existing edifices. Its length is 600 feet, nearly equal 
 to that of St. Peter’s at Rome, and its width 250, almost double that of 
 the metropolitan church in Paris ; 100 columns of marble or of jasper 
 formed the interior enclosure of the cupola; by means of 993 others it 
 was divided into nineteen naves, all closed by gates of bronze with 
 sculptures in bas-relief, those of the great gate alone being in massive 
 gold ; 4700 lamps illuminated the interior during the night, and con¬ 
 sumed annually 120,000 pounds weight of oil. Hashem also construct¬ 
 ed canals and bridges, founded schools for the Arabic language, forbade 
 the use of Latin, and obliged the Christian to relinquish his vernacular 
 tongue. Learned men and poets were encouraged, and the Caliph of 
 Cordova vied in magnificence with the great Haroun al Raschid. 
 
 Christian Spain. —The peninsula w T as not entirely conquered by the 
 Arabs; there still remained a small number of Christians, who, pre¬ 
 ferring liberty to servitude, had taken refuge in the mountains of As¬ 
 turias. Here, if any credit is to be given to popular tradition in the 
 absence of historical testimony, they elected Pelayo king, 718, from 
 which period commenced, on the banks of the Douro, that series of 
 crusades which terminated in the conquest of Granada. Pelayo reign¬ 
 ed over the kingdom of Oviedo, a region extending to between thirty 
 and forty leagues, and defended by encircling mountains. Alphonso 
 the Catholic took Lugo, Leon, Astorga, and many other Castilian cities, 
 with a large portion of Galicia, including Braga and Porto Calle. His 
 son Fruela vigorously executed the ecclesiastical law 7 s, and compelled 
 the ministers of the church to live in celibacy. Continuing his father’s 
 career, he annihilated, as we are told, an army of 54,000 Saracens that 
 had invaded Galicia, destroyed another in Castile, and with the spoils 
 
204 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 built the city of Oviedo. But he was as cruel as he was brave, and 
 punishing those with death who had refused to follow him, he stabbed 
 one of his brothers with his own hand. He was himself assassinated 
 soon afterwards. Alphonso, his son, having gained a brilliant victory 
 over the Moors near Burgos, received the crown on the field of battle, 
 791. This monarch, surnamed the Chaste, again defeated the Arabs at 
 Lugo, fortified Braga, and plundered Lisbon. He founded the cele¬ 
 brated church Compostella, in which the relics of St. James the Great 
 were said to be preserved. 
 
 The conquests in Spain of the Moors (so called from Mauritania, whence 
 they embarked for the Peninsula) produced many salutary effects in Europe. 
 The taste for letters rapidly spread from the banks of the Euphrates to the 
 Tagus. The schools of Cordova, in which were cultivated many branches of 
 science unknown to the rest of Europe, became the great resort of the learned 
 Christians of the West. The celebrated Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester 
 II., was one of the first who studied in Spain. Agriculture, navigation, and 
 manufactures are greatly indebted to the Arabs: their carpets, gold and silver 
 embroideries, silks, steel-work, and leather, were brought at_ an early perioa 
 to a high degree of perfection; and by their means the arithmetical numerals, 
 cotton-paper, and gunpowder were introduced into Europe. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Origin of the Pontifical Sovereignty.— The earlier part of Luit- 
 p rand’s reign was occupied in reforming the abuses of the Lombard 
 states, and checking the encroachments of the great vassals of the 
 crown; the latter, and far more important part, from its influence on 
 posterity, was passed in religious quarrels, which gave rise to the tem¬ 
 poral power of the popes, and entirely destroyed the imperial supremacy 
 in Italy. Rome, like the Greek cities in the peninsula, was governed 
 by dukes subordinate to the Exarch of Ravenna; but the pontiffs, the 
 spiritual masters of the ancient capital, moderated by the influence of 
 their character the despotism of the imperial officers. An edict of Leo 
 the Iconoclast changed this state of affairs, and disturbed the West, as 
 it had already embroiled the East. Gregory II. protested against the 
 decree, and all the Greeks in Italy, participating in his indignation, 
 expelled their dukes. The inhabitants of Ravenna murdered the Ex¬ 
 arch Paul and opened their gates to Luitprand, who seized on the Pen- 
 tapolis. At the same time, Rome formed itself into a republic, and 
 confided the supreme magistrative authority of the new state to its 
 bishop, whose temporal power extended from Viterbo to Terracina, and 
 from Narni to the mouth of the Tiber. Grego y II., whose fears were 
 excited by the Lombard possession of the exarchate, entered into a 
 secret negotiation with the newly-formed commonwealth of Venice, 
 which lent its fleet to Eutychius, who, after he had expelled the Lom¬ 
 bards from his dominions, formed a treaty with them for the recovery 
 of Rome, 729. Gregory III. ascended the papal chair, 731, without 
 soliciting the permission of the emperor, and issued an anathema against 
 the Iconoclasts. The irritated Leo sent a powerful fleet against him, 
 but it was scattered and destroyed by a tempest in the Adriatic; after 
 which event Rome had nothing more to fear from the Byzantine rulers. 
 The elements of discord, which seemed preparing new misfortunes foi 
 Italy, disappeared with the death of the pope and of the eastern monarch, 
 who both descended to the tomb in the same year, 741, whither Luit* 
 prand soon followed them. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 205 
 
 End of the Lombard Kingdom. —The deposition of Hildebrand, the 
 son of Luitprand, and the abdication of Ratchis who retired to Mount 
 Cassino, raised to the throne Astolphus. He completed the conquest 
 of the exarchate, 752, and summoned Rome to acknowledge him as her 
 lawful sovereign. The citizens hesitated, temporized, and finally im¬ 
 plored the assistance of the Franks, 754. Pepin, their king, after 
 having employed his mediation in vain, raised an army and crossed the 
 Alps. The Lombards were defeated, and the conquered exafchate was 
 bestowed upon the pope, Stephen III., Pepin being rewarded with the 
 title of Patrician. For twenty years their kingdom continued sinking, 
 while the prudence and craft of Adrian I., aided by the genius of 
 Charlemagne, were preparing to overwhelm their expiring monarchy. 
 Desiderius, the last of the Lombard sovereigns, was betrayed into the 
 hands of the Franks, 774, and ended his life in the retirement of the 
 cloister. Charles assumed the Iron Crown and the title of King of the 
 Lombards. Paul Warnefrid, the chancellor of Desiderius, for his fre¬ 
 quent conspiracies to restore the independence of his country, was con¬ 
 demned to lose his eyes and hands, when Charlemagne, imitating the 
 generosity of Caesar, exclaimed, “ Where shall we find hands able to 
 write history as these have done !” The authority of the Frank monarch 
 extended as far as the Garigliano; while the country to the south 
 acknowledged the sovereignty of the dukes of Benevento. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Battle of Tours, a. d. 732.— Charles Martel (the Hammer), son 
 of Pepin, was mayor of the palace in Ostrasia, having succeeded his 
 father in 714. This great man restored and supported the dignity of 
 the throne, successively crushed by his warlike activity the German and 
 Gallic rebels, and saved Europe from the hands of the Saracens. These 
 enthusiasts having conquered Africa, and crossed the Straits, had over¬ 
 run Spain, and were already threatening the destruction of France, 
 when they were opposed by Martel, between Tours and Poitiers, 732. 
 The conflict is reported to have lasted seven days, and the Arabs fled, 
 leaving 300,000 of their number dead on the field. “The victory of 
 Charles,” says Hallam, “has immortalized his name, and may justly 
 be reckoned among those few battles of which a contrary event would 
 have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent 
 scenes—with Marathon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Chalons, and Leipsic.” 
 The victor endeavoured to complete his triumph by driving the Saracens 
 beyond the Pyrenees, and was so far successful that they were able to 
 retain only the towns of Narbonne, Agde, Maguelone, and Beziers. At 
 the death of Thierry IV. in 737, the throne was left vacant, but Charles, 
 under the title of Duke of the Franks, continued for the remainder of his 
 life to exercise all the functions of sovereignty. 
 
 Carlovingians. —On the death of Charles Martel in 741, the Frank 
 dominions were divided amongst his sons. Pepin had Neustria, Bur¬ 
 gundy, and Provence; Carloman received Ostrasia; while Grypho, the 
 third son, obtaining only a trifling share in this partition, conspired with 
 some of the turbulent dukes—to repress whom the, title and authority of 
 a king was found to be necessary. Childeric III. was placed on the 
 throne in 742 : Ostrasia, however, recognised no superior but Carloman, 
 18 
 
206 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 who governed as an independent chief. It was this prince who sum¬ 
 moned the council of Liptines in 743, when the Christian era was intro¬ 
 duced into France. In 746, he retired into a monastery at Cassino, 
 leaving to Pepin his portion of the paternal heritage. Grypho, again 
 irritated at his exclusion, raised the German provinces in his behalf, but 
 was defeated by his eldest brother, who remained sole master of the 
 empire. When the suffrages of the nation, imperfectly represented by 
 the acclamations of the Camp de Mars, had conferred the regal authority 
 on Pepin, it was confirmed by the authority of the church, in the person 
 of Pope Zachary, 752. A grand revolution was now completed, which 
 reunited into one system all the fragments of the Germanic nation dis¬ 
 persed over the continent of Europe, and allied indissolubly the con¬ 
 quering race with the Roman population. The last descendant of Clovis, 
 Childeric III., was deposed, and the Merovingian dynasty was brought 
 to an end after existing 270 years.* 
 
 Pepin, the first king of the Carlovingian dynasty, a. d. 752, taught 
 by experience and by the faults of his predecessors, had learnt the 
 necessity of strengthening the kingly power, and of elevating by every 
 means this safeguard of public tranquillity. He began by causing his 
 person to be consecrated by Boniface of Mentz, and completed his 
 designs by the entire conquest of Gaul. Septimania was reduced in 
 759, and Aquitaine in 768. The country now regaining tranquillity, the 
 national assemblies were regularly held, and no endeavours were spared 
 to remedy the grievances of the preceding reigns. Desirous of preserv¬ 
 ing the crown in his family, and procuring the favour of the church, he 
 readily agreed to the prayer of Stephen III., and not only rescued him 
 from his Lombard enemies, but added the conquered exarchate of Ra¬ 
 venna and Pentapolis to the patrimony of St. Peter. 
 
 Charlemagne, a. d. 768.—In a general assembly of the chiefs of the 
 nation, the inheritance of Pepin was divided between his two sons: 
 Charles had Neustria and Aquitaine; Carloman, Ostrasia and Bur¬ 
 gundy. The two brothers, from the very first, regarded each other with 
 jealousy ; but the death of the latter in 771 prevented the consummation 
 of a rivalry that would have weakened both kingdoms. The entire 
 Frank monarchy was now seized upon by the survivor, to the prejudice 
 of his nephews, who, with their widowed mother, took refuge at the 
 court of Desiderius the Lombard, whose generous reception of Queen 
 Geberge was one cause of the Italian war. 
 
 44 Charlemagne,” says Sismondi, 44 claimed as a saint by the Church ; 
 by the French as their greatest king; by the Germans as a fellow- 
 countryman ; by the Italians as their emperor; is placed, in a measure, 
 at the head of all modern histories.” When the death of his brother 
 had re-established the unity of the Franks, Charles found himself in 
 possession of a power superior to that of any of his predecessors. He 
 began a series of expeditions which had for their object the protection 
 of his kingdom against the invasions of the German tribes on the north, 
 and of the Saracens on the south. He subjugated the Lombard king¬ 
 dom, 774, and next carried his victorious arms against the Saxons, who, 
 
 * The family of Clovis descended to a private station, and it is conjectured that the 
 posterity of the founder of the French monarchy is represented by the noble house of 
 Montesquieu. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 207 
 
 often vanquished by the Franks but always restless under their yoke, 
 had promised Pepin to receive missionaries into their country. The 
 imprudent menaces of St. Libwin having irritated them against 
 Christianity, they burnt the church of Deventer in Holland, which act 
 of violence served as the pretext for hostilities that, with only^some 
 interruptions, endured thirty years. This war is divided into three 
 periods, namely, from 772 to 777; from 778 to 785, terminated by the 
 peace of Horxheim; and from 792 to 803. The ascendency was at 
 length achieved by means which shock every feeling of humanity.* 
 At Verden, in 782, he caused 4500 prisoners to be massacred in cold 
 blood. Witikind, the second Arminius of Germany, the chief of the 
 warlike Saxons, embraced the gospel, and acknowledged the sovereignty 
 of Charlemagne, after which his name disappears from history. 
 
 While engaged in the Saxon war, Charles had promised to restore 
 certain Spanish emirs whom the Caliph Abdalrahman had deposed from 
 their governments. Crossing the Pyrenees, he received the doubtful 
 submission of the people of Biscay and Navarre, destroyed Pampeluna, 
 but suffered defeat before Saragossa. Returning into Gaul, a confederate 
 army of Basques, Saracens, and Asturians attacked him in the valley of 
 Roncesvalles, when his rear-guard was cut in pieces to a man. In this 
 fatal day the hero lost his most illustrious companions : Egghiard, his 
 seneschal; Anselm, warden of the palace; and the famous Roland, 
 warden of the frontier of Bretagne, whom the ties of glory even more 
 than those of blood attached to the person of the monarch.f 
 
 Charlemagne, having visited Rome in order to quell a tumult which 
 had been excited against Pope Leo III. by the nephews of that pontiff’s 
 predecessor, was consecrated Emperor of the Romans by the grateful 
 occupant of the papal chair, a. d. 800. His territorial possessions war¬ 
 ranted him in claiming the additional title of Emperor of the West. 
 All France, with the exception of Brittany,-acknowledged his power; 
 beyond the Pyrenees, the Spanish march, comprising Rousillon and 
 Catalonia, Navarre and Aragon, was subject to his jurisdiction; while 
 in Germany, a line drawn from the Elbe through Magdeburg and Passau 
 would have marked his eastern frontier. Many other nations were his 
 tributaries: indeed, all that part of Europe which lies between the 
 Ebro and the Elbe, the frontiers of modern Naples and the Eyder, sub¬ 
 mitted to his sway. 
 
 The ceremony, which conferred on Charlemagne the imperial title, 
 raised him in the general opinion far above the kingly power, and invest¬ 
 ed him with absolute dominion. It broke the last and feeble links 
 which still united Rome and Constantinople, and introduced new rela¬ 
 tions between the imperial courts. It has been supposed that Leo III. 
 meditated the chimerical design of reuniting the two empires by the 
 
 * Among the severities of Charlemagne was the institution of the Secret Tribunal of 
 Westphalia, a sort of inquisition appointed to prevent the apostasy and rebellion of the 
 Saxons. This terrible system of judicial administration lasted till 1650, when the great 
 elector, Frederick William, shocked at its enormities, effected its formal abolition.—See 
 Coxe’s Letter on the Secret Tribunal of Westphalia. 
 
 fThe exploits of Roland, presented to the imagination of the warriors of the middle 
 ages by the military song that bears his name, and which led the Normans to victory at 
 Hastings, were above all rendered popular by the romantic history of Charlemagne and 
 Roland, ascribed to Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, a.d.773; but which bears internal 
 evidence of having been composed about the time of the First Crusade, in the eleventh 
 century. 
 
208 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 two churches by the marriage of Charles with the Empress Irene, who 
 had just succeeded her son on the Byzantine throne. The Frank 
 monarch expired in 814. 
 
 Observations on the Life of Charlemagne. 
 
 I. Political life. — Independently of those conquests by which Charlemagne 
 acquired two-thirds of the Roman empire, he is worthy of our notice as a irreat 
 legislative reformer. Two national assemblies ( placita ) were held annually, to 
 whi h all the clergy and laity repaired to enact such laws as the public weal 
 required. His cares extended alike over the most distant as the nearest parts 
 of his vast empire, and by his public acts he endeavoured to promote the hap¬ 
 piness of his people. This led him to reform the coinage ; to establish the 
 legal divisions of money; to repair old and construct new roads; to found 
 schools; to collect libraries; to build bridges ; and to facilitate commerce by 
 uniting the ocean with the Black Sea, by cutting a canal from the Rhine to the 
 Danube. The Capitularies of Charlemagne, first collected in 827 , prove that 
 he was not unacquainted with the rights of property, and what was consistent 
 with the liberty of the subject. All weighty matters concerning life or goods 
 were tried before a kind of jury, with an appeal to the sovereign. Special 
 judges ( missi regii) were also appointed to hold assizes from place to place, to 
 inquire into the administration of justice, enforce its execution, and expel those 
 who misconducted themselves in their various judicial offices. 
 
 II. His literary life. — His acquirements were probably not very great, as, 
 until the age of thirty-two, he was ignorant of the first elements of science. 
 It is doubtful if he could write ; and Mabillon says, he had a mark to him¬ 
 self. like an honest, plain-dealing man.” He spoke several languages, and 
 daily received lessons from eminent teachers in the seven liberal arts.* He 
 gathered about him the learned of every country; founded an academy in 
 which he took the name of David, and the accomplished Englishman Alcuin, 
 that of Horace. 
 
 III. His private life exhibits the characteristics of a barbarian and a con¬ 
 queror. He was addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and regardless of 
 human life; but he was affable in conversation, temperate in his repasts, and 
 simple in his dress. A hundred and twenty guards watched every night around 
 his bed, each holding in the one hand a drawn sword, and in the other a burn¬ 
 ing torch. Mr. Hallam thus sums up his character : “ He stands alone like a 
 beacon upon a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His reign affords a solitary 
 resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriving 
 the advantages of contrast both from those of the preceding dynasty, and of a 
 posterity for whom he had formed an empire which they were unworthy and 
 unequal to maintain.” 
 
 THE WORLD IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 End of the Eighth Century. 
 
 Western Empire. 
 
 France. —Charlemagne possessed nearly all France, great part of Germany, 
 the half of Italy, part of Spain, and was the arbiter ot the remainder of the 
 West. The language of the Franks was still Teutonic, and continued so until 
 the middle of the ninth century. 
 
 Eastern Empire. 
 
 Irene, stained with the blood of her son, reigned at Constantinople, and 
 administered justice from the Bosphorus to the Adriatic. Tottering on a throne 
 
 * The sciences had long been divided into two parts, the trivium and quadrivium; the 
 first comprehending grammar (i. e philology), logic, and rhetoric; the second, music, 
 arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Few persons mastered the latter four, and to be 
 perfect in the three former was rare. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 209 
 
 never free from the violence of rebellion and fanaticism, pressed on the north 
 by the Bulgarians, attacked in different quarters by the Mohammedans, this 
 celebrated woman, an extraordinary mixture of great virtues and greater crimes, 
 of talent and weakness still preserved the empire. 
 
 Empire of the Caliphs. 
 
 i 
 
 Haroun al Raschid was master of great part of Asia and all the northern 
 coast of Africa. He was obeyed from the Imaus to Mount Atlas. 
 
 Secondary Powers. 
 
 Denmark resisted the ambitious designs of Charlemagne; and Godfrey, 
 while he closed the entrance to this peninsula against the troops of the Frank 
 conqueror, sent forth from Norway those swarms of warriors which made 
 successive descents upon the Western Empire. 
 
 Sweden and Russia were as yet insignificant powers ; and Poland, already 
 become an elective monarchy, was of little importance. 
 
 Bohemia was the prey of the barbarous Sclavonians, whom the thirst of 
 plunder had attracted into Germany. The Huns, successors of the ferocious 
 "people who had devastated Europe, settled at last in Pannonia, from which 
 country they attacked the frontiers of the Western Empire. Under the name 
 of the Avars they carried terror to the gates of Constantinople. 
 
 Spain presented a great battle-field for the Moors and Christians. The 
 latter, though inferior to their enemies in number, riches, and knowledge, were 
 more warlike and united ; and, by unwearied courage and constancy, gradually 
 enlarged their boundaries. 
 
 The South of Italy was disputed by the Saracens and Greeks. 
 
 Rome, apparently submissive to Charlemagne, favoured the popes, who con¬ 
 stantly endeavoured to extend their influence, temporal and spiritual. 
 
 Venice, placed between two powerful empires, affected to recognise the 
 sovereignty of the one which was too weak to be feared, and thus avoided the 
 yoke of the other. 
 
 England was about to begin her glorious career. The numerous states into 
 which the country was divided were gradually united to the kingdom of the 
 West Saxons. 
 
 Construct: A map of Europe, with the boundaries of the governments as 
 they existed at the end of the eighth century, distinguishing the Mohammedan 
 from the Christian states. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The union between the Greek and Latin churches was threatened at 
 the close of the seventh century by the controversy respecting the wor¬ 
 ship of images, which ended in the revolt of Italy, the temporal power 
 of the popes, and the restoration of the Empire of the West. In reject¬ 
 ing the Pagan creed, many of the early Christians still clung to its 
 superstitions; and the images of the gods and heroes of antiquity, under 
 new names, were still regarded as objects of adoration in the churches. 
 The reproaches of the Jews and Mohammedans, with the victories of 
 the latter, awoke the more rational portion of the Greeks to a sense of 
 their condition. Leo the Iconoclast proscribed the use of images and 
 religious pictures, and the eastern churches were cleansed from idolatry 
 in 726. In a general council held at Constantinople, 754, after six 
 months’ deliberation, it was unanimously agreed that all visible symbols 
 of Christ, except the eucharist, were blasphemous; and that image- 
 worship was not only a corruption of Christianity, but a renewal of 
 Paganism. The imperial edicts founded on this decision were no 
 received without frequent tumults; and the daring malecontents, headeo 
 18 * 
 
210 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 by some unscrupulous monks, endangered the emperor’s person, and 
 even ventured to attack the city. The Bishop of Rome was far from 
 approving of these measures ; and Gregory II., in a letter to the Emperor 
 Leo, had the boldness to maintain that the use of images had descended 
 from the apostolic ages. Carrying his zeal or ambition still further, he 
 excommunicated the Greek emperor, and proceeded to take possession 
 of the exarchate. In the synod of Rome, 769, called the council of the 
 Lateran, it was ordered that images should be honoured according to 
 ancient tradition, and the Greek council of 754 was anathematized; but 
 idolatry was not extirpated in the East. The Empress Irene called a 
 seventh general council — the second of Nice — by which the worship 
 of images was restored, 787, and its decisions were confirmed by Pope 
 Adrian I. 
 
 During the five succeeding reigns the contest was maintained between 
 the two parties with undiminished vigour and varying success. It is 
 honourable to the churches of the West—France, Germany, Spain, and 
 England—that they took a middle course, at once reproving the fury of 
 the Iconoclasts and the superstition of the Greeks. 
 
 All the laws of Charlemagne were favourable to the clergy, at that 
 time the sole depositaries and dispensers of learning; and, in a great 
 number of mixed diets held by this prince, the bishops in concert with 
 the sovereign were anxiously engaged in promoting the spiritual and 
 temporal prosperity of the church. The decrees. of the general council 
 of 787, having been misunderstood by the Gallican clergy, were con¬ 
 demned by three hundred prelates at Frankfort, 794, who did not, how¬ 
 ever, adopt the errors of the Iconoclasts. In this latter council were 
 abjured the heretical doctrines of Felix, bishop of Urgel, who, distin¬ 
 guishing two natures in Jesus Christ, maintained that, considered as a 
 man, the son of Mary was the son of God by adoption only. 
 
 The second general council, held at Constantinople in 381, had caused 
 to be inserted in the Nicene creed the doctrine that the Holy Ghost pro¬ 
 ceeded! from the Father ; to which, in 653, the eighth council of Toledo 
 added “ and the Son” (filioque)—a clause not long after adopted intc 
 the Gallican ritual. Pope Adrian I., alarmed at this innovation, sub¬ 
 mitted it for the examination of the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle, 809, by 
 whom the addition was recognised, and, although rejected by the Greek 
 church, received in a short time the papal approbation. 
 
 The popes were not temporal sovereigns before the invasion of Italy 
 by Pepin, although they doubtlessly exerted considerable political in¬ 
 fluence. They were the subjects of the Greek emperor, and their inter¬ 
 ference with the civil magistrate was confined to mere admonition. 
 The most violent defenders of the papal encroachments have been com¬ 
 pelled to acknowledge as fabulous the pretended donation made by Con¬ 
 stantine to Sylvester I., 314. Those forgeries of Isidore, known by the 
 name of the False Decretals, appeared about the end of this century.* 
 But the ambition of the Frank monarchs led to far more dangerous con* 
 sequences; and the appeal of Pepin to Pope Zachary was assumed as 
 
 * Saint Isidore, archbishop of Seville, who died in 636, had made a collection of all 
 the canons of the Spanish churches which were most favourable to the papal assump¬ 
 tions. Riculf, archbishop of Mentz, brought them into France, and being seconded, it 
 is supposed, by the monk Isidore Mercator or Peccator, disseminated them throughout 
 the country, having previously interpolated several pretended letters of the earliei 
 popes. 
 
EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 211 
 
 a precedent for all the subsequent usurpations of the Vatican. The 
 donation of the exarchate of Ravenna to the Bishop of Rome, and its 
 confirmation by Charlemagne, had a natural tendency to elevate the 
 papal power; and we shall soon be called upon to witness the unbound¬ 
 ed ambition of the Roman pontiffs. 
 
 In the pontificate of Zachary, the court of Germany decided that no 
 metropolitan could enter upon his functions without having previously 
 received the ‘pallium from the pontiff.* This important decision was 
 established by the eighth general council, 869, whereby the popes were 
 gradually invested with the right of confirming or annulling the episcopal 
 elections, and with the means of keeping foreign dignitaries in depend¬ 
 ence on the Roman see. 
 
 APPENDIX TO EIGHTH CENTURY. 
 
 Fine Arts, from the Fall of Rome to Charlemagne. 
 
 Christianity, which afterwards contributed to raise the arts to great perfection, 
 began by inflicting the most grievous injuries. The ardent zeal of many bishops 
 had already demolished temples to build churches, and broken those repre¬ 
 sentations in stone or bronze so much abhorred by Christians, long before 
 Theodosius had published his edict proscribing the pictures and statues of 
 Paganism. Some fine temples had been preserved by appropriating them to 
 the Christian worship. Thus Boniface VI. dedicated the Pantheon of Agrippa 
 to All Saints; and the parthenon of Pericles, without a change of name, was 
 consecrated to the Virgin. The successive invasions of the Germans, Persians, 
 and Arabians caused the greatest injury to the achievements of genius; and 
 among their ruins the productions of art were few and ephemeral. The tri¬ 
 umphal arch of Constantine at Rome ; the golden gate raised at Constantinople 
 by Theodosius the Great; the column erected to his honour by the filial piety 
 of Arcadius; a few remains at Ravenna and Terracina of the age of Theodoric ; 
 the bridge of Salaro over the Anio, rebuilt by Narses, are almost the only 
 architectural monuments of these great men. Theodoric encouraged the arts, 
 and appointed officers to protect the public buildings throughout Italy. The 
 rotunda of Ravenna, whose cupola consists of a single stone cut in the quarries 
 of Istria, belongs to his reign. 
 
 The Gothic, or what is sometimes termed the “ Pointed” style of archi¬ 
 tecture, begins to appear about this time. The ogive, not unknown under 
 Constantine, is found combined with semicircular arcs in the aqueduct of Jus¬ 
 tinian. The last effort of ancient art was the temple of St. Sophia, the work of 
 Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. It is the model of churches built 
 in the form of a Greek cross. Under Charlemagne the skill of the architects 
 was so imperfect that, to raise the cathedral and palace of Aix-la-Chapelle, it 
 was necessary to bring from Ravenna the columns and mosaics which had 
 adorned the residence of the later Roman emperors. Painting declined ; but 
 we have still a few relics of miniature in the marginal drawings that explain and 
 decorate the text of the ancient manuscripts, none of which are earlier than the 
 sixth century. 
 
 By a fatality without example, while the violence of invasion and the confla¬ 
 gration of cities destroyed many copies of the Greek and Latin authors, it 
 happened that in the West as well as in the East, the richest depositories of 
 learning became the prey of the flames. At Constantinople, an accident 
 destroyed the library of the Octagon, 476, founded by Constantine. The fana- 
 
 * The pallium was originally a mantle sent by the Byzantine emperors to the great 
 prelates, for which a stole of white wool was afterwards substituted. Symmachus was 
 the first pope who sent a pallium to St. Csesarius, bishop of Arles and perpetual vicar of 
 the holy chair in Gaul, 513. From vicars and primates the honour passed to metropo* 
 ■itans, to certain bishops, and even to abbots. 
 
212 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 ticism of the Isaurian Leo completed the ruin of what the fire had spared, 730. 
 The library of Alexandria underwent a more melancholy fate. Burnt once by 
 Julius Cassar, condemned with other Pagan monuments by the decree of 
 Theodosius, 390, it was finally destroyed by the fanatic Arabians in 640. One 
 of the successors of Omar, the Caliph Yezid, commanded the destruction of the 
 libraries of Syria, already many times devastated by the ravages of the two 
 Chosroes. In Africa the Cyrenais had become a vast ruin, when the Mussul¬ 
 mans added it to their provinces; but these barbarians overwhelmed the 
 treasures of science under the ruins of Carthage, Hippona, and Tagaste. At 
 Rome, the temple of Apollo Palatinus had preserved from the time of Augustus 
 the masterpieces of classical literature ; but a conflagration reduced them to 
 ashes at the end of the sixth century. 
 
 In the monastic schools, the relics of science found an asylum: there the 
 seven liberal arts were cultivated, and the profane authors studied. Manuscripts 
 were copied, and caligraphy became an art; but frequently ignorant or fanatical 
 monks transcribed litanies or holy legends over the effaced episodes of Virgil or 
 the periods of Cicero. 
 
 NINTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. — 813, Leo the Armenian.—842, Michael III. — 867, Mace¬ 
 donian Dynasty.—*886, Leo VI. 
 
 Arabia. —800, The Aglabites.—813, Almamon.—841, Turkish Guard.—870, 
 Motamed—Mohammedan heresies. 
 
 Spain. —801, Barcelona captured by the Franks.—866, Alphonso the Great.— 
 Moorish literary Era. 
 
 France. — 800, Charlemagne, Emperor.—814, Louis the Debonnaire.—840, 
 Charles the Bald. — 843, Treaty of Verdun. — 887, Charles the Fat, dep.— 
 888, Eudes.—842-886, Norman Ravages. 
 
 Germany. —817, Louis.—846-874, Sclavonian Incursions.—881, Charles the 
 Fat.—888, Arnulph.—899, Louis IV, the Child. 
 
 Italy. — 817, Bernard d. — 844, Louis II. — 893, Berenger of Friuli. — 896, 
 Arnulph, Emperor. 
 
 Britain. —800, Egbert.—832, Danish Invasions.—872, Alfred the Great.— 
 871,878 Battles of Wilton and Edindon.—900, Death of Alfred.—Anglo- 
 Saxon constitution. 
 
 Church. —854, Pope Joan (Benedict II.).—861, Greek Schism—Saint Worship. 
 —867, Adrian II. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 With the reign of Nicephorus I. recommenced the reverses of the 
 empire. His character was stained with the odious vices of avarice 
 and hypocrisy ; nor was his want of virtue redeemed by any superior 
 talents. The Arabs destroyed Heraclea on the Euxine, took Cyprus, 
 devastated Rhodes, and compelled the emperor to pay tribute, a. d. 807. 
 About four years later, the Bulgarians utterly exterminated an imperial 
 army, and slew Nicephorus who commanded in person. Michael I. 
 endeavoured to check these barbarians, but was vanquished at Adriano- 
 ple, and deposed in favour of Leo V. the Armenian, 813, in whose reign 
 also Thrace was ravaged, Adrianople reduced, and 50,000 prisoners 
 transported beyond the Danube. On the death of the Bulgarian chief 
 who had conducted these invasions, Leo penetrated into the heart of his 
 
NINTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 213 
 
 country, and compelled the new khan to conclude a peace for thirty 
 years. This interval of repose, so honourably procured, was employed 
 in restoring the ruined cities, and re-establishing order in the adminis- 
 tration of the empire. Michael, afterwards emperor, who had assisted in 
 investing Leo with the purple, being dissatisfied with the rewards that 
 had been showered upon him, entered into various conspiracies, which 
 were severally detected ; and at last the ungrateful Phrygian was sen¬ 
 tenced to be burned alive in the furnace of the baths. But a brief delay 
 in the execution of this cruel order, cost the emperor his life. On the 
 morning of Christmas-day, a body of conspirators, disguised as priests, 
 with arms beneath their dresses, intruded themselves into his private 
 chapel, and rushed upon him just as he began to chant the first psalm. 
 He long and vigorously defended himself with a weighty cross he had 
 grasped, till a well-aimed blow severed his right arm from his body. 
 As he fell, his cry for pity was savagely answered, “ This is the hour 
 of vengeance, not of mercy !” 820.— Michael II. the Stammerer was 
 carried from his prison to the throne, which he disgraced by his vices. 
 Thomas the Cappadocian disputed his title, and laid siege to the capital; 
 but falling into the power of the monarch, he suffered the mutilation of 
 his hands and feet. 
 
 The Arabs, still continuing their incursions, circumscribed the Greek 
 possessions in Italy to the city of Naples, 820: in 823 they conquered 
 Crete, and Sicily in 827. 
 
 Theophilus the Unfortunate, a just and brave prince, punished the 
 murderers of Leo V., embellished as well as fortified Constantinople, 
 and patronised the arts and sciences. He several times attacked the 
 Arabs, but eventually lost Ancyra, and his native town Amorium. 
 Michael III., 842, ascended the throne at the age of five years, under 
 the regency of his prudent mother Theodora; but as he grew up he threw 
 off her easy yoke, and imitating the vices of Nero and Heliogabalus, 
 became as contemptible as he was odious. The factions of the circus 
 were revived; the safety of the empire was neglected for the result of a 
 horse-race ; and the ceremonies of religion were profaned by his impiety. 
 In this reign began the separation between the Greek and Latin churches, 
 in the excommunication of Photius, whose election to the patriarchate 
 had been disapproved by Nicholas I. The infatuated prince was mur¬ 
 dered in an hour of intoxication, and the sceptre passed to the 
 
 Macedonian Dynasty, a. d. 867.— Basil I. was said to count among 
 his ancestors the Persian Arsacides, the great Constantine, and the 
 Macedonian Alexander. His youth had been spent among the Bulga¬ 
 rians ; but, uniting with some fellow-captives, he boldly made his way to 
 the Grecian capital. Here he gradually rose to the highest offices of 
 state, not more by his great personal merits than by his compliance with 
 the vices of the emperor; and under this founder of the new dynasty the 
 empire began to revive from its decay. He passed the Euphrates, forced 
 several emirs to acknowledge his power, protected Dalmatia and the 
 rising city of Ragusa against the Aglabites, and re-established the throne 
 of Lombardy by expelling the Arabs from Apulia and Calabria. His 
 arms were formidable to the barbarians, while his prudent administration 
 in financial matters replenished an exhausted treasury, and promoted the 
 happiness of his people. He began the revisal of the Justinian code; 
 and the Basilics, completed by his son, are an honour to his genius and 
 
214 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 philanthropy. Accident put an end to his life in a stag-hunt, and he 
 was succeeded by Leo VI. the Philosopher, 886, who trod in the steps 
 of his father. He was not, however, equally successful in his foreign 
 wars, being compelled to yield to the superior valour of the Arabs and 
 Bulgarians. His marriage to a fourth wife, Zoe, caused a schism be¬ 
 tween him and the church. He died in 911. 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 The political decline of the Arabian empire began in the reign of its 
 greatest caliph, Haroun. In 756, Spain became independent; in 789, 
 Fez was built, destined to be the capital of a petty kingdom; and at the 
 end of the century the Aglabite dynasty was founded, which governed 
 a territory extending from Tunis to the Egyptian frontier. It was in 
 combating against a rebel chief in Khorassan that Haroun ai Raschid 
 met his death, 808. 
 
 Almamon, a. d. 813, after several years of internal dissension, raised 
 himself to the throne of his father. He continued the patronage which 
 the other had accorded to literature, eagerly seeking and translating the 
 philosophical writings of Greece. In his reign, a degree of the great 
 circle of the earth was measured, determining the circumference of the 
 globe at *24,000 miles. In the science of medicine, Rhazes and Avi¬ 
 cenna rank with Hippocrates ; and chemistry, though degraded by being 
 connected with alchymy, owes its origin and improvement to the Ara¬ 
 bians. Al Motassem, who had succeeded Almamon, in 833, was 
 recalled from quelling some civil commotions, to face the active Theo- 
 philus, 838. One dearly-purchased battle, followed by the obstinate 
 siege of Amorium, w T hich had fallen into the power of the Greeks, 
 terminated a war in which 200,000 lives were sacrificed. 
 
 Arab Sects. — Motassem was unable to take advantage of his successes; 
 for, while the Greeks were pressing him in the north, he had to contend with 
 formidable internal enemies. Heresies appeared in Islamism almost from its 
 very commencement; in 659 the Karidjies took exception to the doctrines of 
 fatalism, and it was one of this sect that assassinated Ali. In 737, new attacks 
 were made upon several of the dogmas and practices of the Mohammedans. 
 In 742, Djead Ibn Dirkhem impugned the Koran, denying its divine origin, 
 and founded a considerable sect in the East. In 758, Achmet Ravendi preached 
 the Indian tenet of metempsychosis, and pretended that the soul of Adam had 
 been transmitted to the body of the Caliph Almonsor. Seventeen years later, 
 Hakem with the golden mask revived this doctrine and added to its absurdities. 
 When he was besieged in the city to which he had retired, and was on the 
 point of falling into the hands of the orthodox Mussulmans, he set fire to his 
 habitation and flung himself into the midst of the flames, exclaiming, “ I depart 
 for heaven; let him who desires to share in my felicity imitate my example.” 
 His wife, children, and partisans, all precipitated themselves into the burning 
 mass. 
 
 But of all those various heresies, the one which was checked with the greatest 
 amount of human suffering was that of Babek Khourremmi. The Persians 
 had long been regarded as the freest and most civilised people of the East; and, 
 after the Arabs had destroyed their empire, being unable to struggle with their 
 conquerors in the open field, they cunningly sapped the power and religious 
 authority of the caliph by propagating doctrines in opposition to those of the 
 Koran. Their most daring advocate was Babek, m uo proclaimed the indiffer 
 ence of human actions, and a community of goods,—opinions that tended to 
 dissolve all society, civil, political, or religious. So numerous were his follower* 
 
NINTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 215 
 
 that for twenty years he was able to contend against the Caliphs of Bagdad. 
 The quelling of this revolt, which is said to have cost the lives of a million of 
 men, failed to eradicate entirely the doctrines of Babek. 
 
 Motassem, to support his tottering throne, introduced into his armies 
 and palace a body of 50,000 Turks, a warlike Tartar race from beyond 
 the Oxus, 841. These praetorian guards, despising the weakness of 
 their employers, soon provoked the public indignation by their licentious 
 behaviour. Motawakkel, the cruel son of Motassem, was murdered in 
 his palace by these barbarians ; and Montasser, stained with his father’s 
 blood, was placed on the throne in 862. The mercenary soldiers now 
 assumed the right of choosing their sovereign, and the rapid succession 
 of caliphs perplexes the historian. Every province began to shake off 
 its allegiance; new principalities were formed in Syria and Mesopo¬ 
 tamia ; and the caliphate at last was confined to the city of Bagdad. 
 The Emir of Egypt, formerly a Turkish slave, assumed the sovereign 
 power in 869, and founded the dynasty of Thelonides. The Aglabites, 
 as well as the Edrisites, had already made themselves independent in 
 Africa ; both of whom w T ere subdued by the Fatimites in 912. 
 
 Motamed, 870, had to contend not only against revolted chiefs but also 
 against impious sectarians. In the twentieth year of his reign the doctrines of 
 Babek were revived by Abdallah, but they were preached in secret, and only 
 fully revealed to those who had undergone a course of six preparatory tests, 
 and it was not until the seventh of the series that these opinions, subversive of 
 all religion and morality, were clearly developed. One of Abdallah’s mission¬ 
 aries, surnamed Karmath, did not imitate the prudence of his chief; but when 
 he had gained over a certain number of partisans, raised the standard of revolt 
 against the caliph, defeated several generals, and recruited his own army by 
 his successes and the license granted to his soldiers. Mecca was taken by 
 these insurgents, when thirty thousand Islamites perished in defence of the 
 Caaba. A hundred battles were fought before the sect of the Karmathiavss 
 was exterminated. 
 
 Read: Crichton’s History of Arabia, 2 vols, in the Edinburgh Cabinet 
 library. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 The Caliphate. —The reigns of Hashem I. and Hakem I., Abdal- 
 rahman’s successors, were troubled by rivals to the throne, and by the 
 Franks who took Lerida, plundered the environs of Huesca, and laid 
 siege to Barcelona, which, after a lengthened blockade, fell into their 
 hands in 801. To repel these invaders, the caliph, Hakem, established 
 a regular military force, and equipped a numerous fleet, which ravaged 
 the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, but without making any 
 permanent conquest. Four years before his death, a sedition which 
 broke out in the suburbs of Cordova was severely repressed ; three 
 hundred of the rioters were impaled, and the remainder, to the number 
 of fifteen thousand, transported to Africa. The attacks of the Christians 
 of Oviedo, who advanced as far as the Tagus, and the revolts of the 
 Arabian governors under Hakem’s successors, brought premature decay 
 on the caliphate. Still it was at this period that a troop of Spanish 
 Moors became the terror of Italy and Provence. A small party of 
 Saracens took the village of Fraxinet by surprise, and from this almost 
 inaccessible position ravaged the neighbouring country, isolating them¬ 
 selves entirely from the rest of Provence on the landward side, while 
 
216 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 the sea lay before them always exposed to their piratical expedi¬ 
 tions. The destruction of Frejus opened the passes into Italy, of 
 which they instantly took possession, whence they devastated Bur¬ 
 gundy and even Swabia by sudden incursions. They long occupied 
 the fortified monastery of St. Maurice in Transjurane Burgundy; and 
 traces of their establishments may still be seen in Switzerland and 
 Provence. 
 
 Christian Spain. —The Christians had met with almost uninter¬ 
 rupted success until about the middle of this century, when they were 
 checked by internal disorder, and by the ravages of the Northmen on 
 the coast of Biscay. Ordogno I. defeated these barbarians, vanquished 
 the Emir of Saragossa, and extended the frontiers of the kingdom of 
 Leon to the river Tonnes. In 866, Alphonso the Great, who had been 
 expelled from Oviedo by the governor of Galicia, returned after the 
 rebeks death, and conquered the insurgent Count of Alava. He con¬ 
 ducted thirty successful campaigns against the infidels, seized on the 
 country between the Douro and the Minho, and forced the Moors to sue 
 for a truce of six years. But domestic troubles put an end to his con¬ 
 quests ; and as his subjects murmured at the heavy taxes imposed to 
 fortify the frontier towns, he was compelled to abdicate in favour of his 
 son, 910. He died the next year in battle against the Arabs, fighting as 
 general of the army. * 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Origin of Modern France, a. d. 840. — Louis the Debonnaire 
 succeeded his father, 814 ; but the mighty empire of Charlemagne had 
 already begun to decay. It was the misfortune of Louis to mistake 
 petty reforms for a salutary attention to the public good. His life was 
 passed in a long struggle against three sons, who were supported by the 
 clergy in their violation of all filial duties. Alternately victorious and 
 vanquished, he was once actually deposed by Pope Gregory IV. At 
 his death in 840, the kingdoms of Germany and France were for ever 
 separated ; the former being assigned to Louis, the latter to Charles 
 the Bald, while Lothaire inherited the rest of the imperial dominions. 
 The last appears to have entertained a design of universal monarchy, 
 hut his schemes were frustrated by the battle of Fontenay, which, with 
 the alliance of Strasburg, contributed to produce the celebrated treaty of 
 Verdun, 843. Charles had to contend against the Northmen and Bre¬ 
 tons on the banks of the Seine and of the Loire. The people of Aqui- 
 tania took up arms successively in favour of Pepin II. and of Louis of 
 Germany, in order to form an independent kingdom ; but, in the end, 
 they were incorporated with Neustrian France, which maintained over 
 them a nominal supremacy. The deaths of Lothaire and his three sons 
 were the cause of fresh divisions. The kings of Germany and France, 
 by the treaty of Mersen, shared the dominions of Louis II., the emperor; 
 but Charles soon boldly laid hands on the German portion and wrested 
 Provence from his rival. 
 
 The death of Louis II. having created a vacancy in the empire, the 
 King of France hastened to Rome, where he received the diadem from 
 the hands of Pope John VIII., to which was afterwards added the iron 
 crown of Lombardy. After the demise of Charles the Bald, the imperial 
 
NINTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 217 
 
 throne remained unoccupied until 881, during part of which time Louis 
 the Stammerer ruled over France, which he exhausted by his pro¬ 
 digalities. His sons Louis III. and Carloman, who succeeded, aban- 
 doned French Lorraine to the King of Saxony, at the same time that 
 Boson detached the Burgundian provinces from France. By the treaty 
 of Amiens, concluded in 880, the two brothers made a partition of their 
 father’s inheritance : Louis w’as declared king of Neustria, and Carlo- 
 man obtained Aquitaine with a right of Burgundy. 
 
 In the same year, the two French princes met in congress at Gondre- 
 ville with the two kings of Germany, Louis the Saxon, and Charles of 
 Swabia, all being alike interested in the defence of their dominions 
 against the Northmen, and of the Carlovingian legitimacy against a 
 usurping aristocracy. But this royal league attained no better success 
 than those which had preceded it. The wife of Boson held Vienne 
 against the united efforts of three kings; and, though she at length 
 yielded to one of Carloman’s lieutenants, the crown of Provence never¬ 
 theless remained on the head of the usurper. A brilliant victory gained 
 over the Northmen at Saucourt in Vimeux, covered the Neustrian 
 sovereign with a renown that was long celebrated in the popular songs. 
 But Louis III. did not live to realize the hopes that the nation enter¬ 
 tained of him. His death, w T hich happened in 882, reunited the two 
 crowns of France on the head of Carloman, w T ho descended to the tomb 
 in 884. His heir was a posthumous brother, whom the Franks excluded 
 from the throne on account of his youth, and elected Charles the Fat 
 in his place. This monarch, who had previously been crowned emperor, 
 ruled over a territory not less extensive than that of Charlemagne, but 
 his weakness was unable to support the heavy burden, and, under the 
 pretext of his inability to defend the empire against the northern pirates, 
 he was deposed by his vassals, 887. 
 
 Eudes, a. d. 887.—On the deposition of Charles, there was not in 
 France, among the many independent princes, one who was capable of 
 seizing the crown and inspiring due respect for his power. Yet the 
 remembrance of the exploits of Count Eudes, the defender of Paris, 
 induced most of the bishops and nobles of Neustria to proclaim him 
 king. There remained, however, one descendant of Charlemagne, 
 Charles the Simple, who had been excluded on account of his youth 
 from all the Carlovingian thrones to which he had any claim. Eudes 
 had two other competitors, descended from the first emperor of the West 
 by the female side: these were Guy, duke of Spoleto, and Arnulph, 
 king of Germany. But their distance from the scene of action, and the 
 necessity of directing their forces to another quarter, left the new king 
 in undisturbed possession of the crown. The whole of France did not 
 acknowledge this sovereign : the Count of Poitiers, duke of Aquitaine, 
 was independent, and even bore the title of king; the Duke of Brittany 
 assumed the royal authority; as did also the Dukes of Gascony and 
 Burgundy, with the Counts of Flanders, Vermandois, and Anjou. 
 Eudes justified anew the choice of his vassals by delivering Paris from 
 another siege, and defeating in the terrible battle of Montfaucon the 
 Northmen, w T ho lost 19,000 men. Emboldened by this success, he com¬ 
 pelled the discontented princes to acknowledge his authority, and when 
 he died in 898, named Charles III. for his successor. "The mstory 
 19 
 
218 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 of the twelve succeeding years is entirely unknown, except that the 
 ravages of the northern invaders were still continued with their usual 
 ferocity.* 
 
 CARLOVINGIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 * * * * ****** 
 
 6. Eudes, k. 888, f 898 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 8. Robeet I. k. 922, 
 t 923. 
 
 3. Louis III., k. 879, 
 
 t 882. 
 
 11. Lothaire, k. 954 f 986. 
 
 t —- A ~-- 
 
 12. Louis V., k. 986, t 987. 
 
 1. Charles the Bald, 
 k. 840, f 879. 
 
 2. Louis II., the Stammerer, 
 k. 877, f 879. 
 
 5. Charles the Fat, 
 k. 884, f 888. 
 ****** 
 
 9. Rodolph, k. 923, 
 t 936. 
 
 4. Carloman, k. 879, f 884. 7. Charles the Simple, 
 
 k. 893, dep. 923. 
 
 10. Louis IV., Outremer, 
 k. 936, | 954. 
 
 Charles , duke of Basse Lorraine, 
 excluded from the throne. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 The Northmen were originally from the countries now known as Denmark, 
 Norway, and Sweden. This people professed the warlike religion of Odin, 
 who in times beyond the reach of credible history had quitted the banks of the 
 Tanais, and conquered most of the regions on the Baltic. This warrior gave 
 laws to his followers, and established a religious system, perfectly in harmony 
 with their wants, which could only be satisfied by war. He was himself the 
 principal divinity, adored as the father of carnage. His people, whose chief oc¬ 
 cupation appears to have been piracy, infested all the seas of the North until 
 the beginning of the eleventh century, when Christianity had softened their 
 manners, and attached these vagrant adventurers to their native soil. At this 
 period the history of the Scandinavian states assumes an air of greater credibility, 
 without, however, inspiring deeper interest. To know these ancient inhabitants 
 of the north, it will be necessary to follow them beyond the boundaries of their 
 own country. From the fourth century they carried desolation to Rome and 
 even into Africa; and, though restrained by the vigilance of Charlemagne, 
 they found ail the passages open under his successors. Their rude barks, im¬ 
 pelled at once by sails and oars, and bearing each about 100 men, wasted the 
 shores of western Europe, ascended the rivers, arid pillaged all on which they 
 could lay hands. In 843, they entered France by the Seine, and plundered 
 Rouen ; another fleet, sailing up the Loire, devastated Touraine. In the follow¬ 
 ing year, they made simultaneous descents on England, France and Spain. 
 .They afterwards reached Paris, which they burnt in the face of Charles the 
 Bald, who was intrenched at St. Denis. Between 845 and 861, the modern 
 capital of France was thrice ravaged by these daring barbarians. In 886, they 
 reappeared, but met with a vigorous resistance—Eudes, count of Paris, whose 
 valour afterwards raised him to the throne, animating the citizens to repel the 
 invasion by force. He was aided by the courageous Bishop Goslin, who every 
 day, after having given his benediction to the people, placed himself in the 
 breach, with a helmet on his head and a battle-axe in his hand, and planting 
 his crosier on the ramparts, fought heroically in defence of the city. One of 
 the pirate chiefs, Rollo, tired of his wandering life, and desirous of a permanent 
 settlement, obtained the territory which extends from the rivers Andelle and 
 
 * Charles the Bald, 840, is by many considered the first king of France, properly so 
 called ; others date the commencement of the French monarchy and nation from 888, 
 when the people dwelling between the Meuse and the Loire became French; they con¬ 
 sequently reckon Eudes as the first king. France long preserved the limits assigned by 
 the treaty of Verdun, 843, all beyond being derived from the conquests of the fourteenth 
 century. The Romance became the language of the court ; and by gradual changes it 
 formed the polished dialect of Louis XIV. Under the sons of Clovis, the name of Franco 
 appears to have been first used. 
 
NINTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 219 
 
 Aure to the Ooean. To this was afterwards added the country between the 
 Andelle and Epte, with Brittany. In return, the Norman was baptized by the 
 name of Robert, and entering the Christian communion, did homage by the 
 title ol Duke of Normandy, 912. His country afforded greater security than 
 the rest of France: labourers returned, population increased, towns were 
 rebuilt, monasteries and churches repaired, and laws enacted for the punish¬ 
 ment of the evil-doer. Besides the Normans, the Saracens from Africa made 
 frequent incursions into France, and established a colony at Fraxinet (now La 
 Garde) in Provence, where they continued independent for many centuries. 
 
 Read: Crichton’s Scandinavia, Ancient and Modern, 2 vols, in the Edin¬ 
 burgh Cabinet Library. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Louis the German, son of Louis the Debonnaire who received 
 Germany as his heritage, had not only to combat against the Normans, 
 but all the Sclavonic tribes on the eastern frontiers of his dominions. 
 To repel their ravages, it was necessary, in Germany as well as in 
 France, to create officers ( margraves ) charged with the duty of guard¬ 
 ing the frontiers against all invaders. From 846 to 874, the barbarians 
 on the eastern borders were in a state of almost continual insurrection ; 
 in the latter year, however, most of the Sclavonic tribes swore fealty to 
 Louis at the diet of Forcheim. These wars did not prevent the German 
 monarch from observing wffiat was passing in the other Carlovingian 
 states. After the death of Lothaire and his son, to whom Lorraine had 
 been allotted, he divided this province with Charles the Bald; thereby 
 augmenting his kingdom by the cities of Basle, Strasburg, Metz, 
 Cologne, Treves, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle. Louis II., another of 
 Lothaire’s children, who possessed Italy with the title of emperor, dying 
 in 875, Louis the German, as the eldest survivor of the Carlovingian 
 dynasty, was desirous to obtain his dominions; but in this he was an¬ 
 ticipated by the activity of Charles the Bald. 
 
 In the following year, Louis the German expired, leaving three sons 
 to share his dominions. Carloman had Bavaria, with Carinthia, Aus¬ 
 tria, Moravia, and Bohemia; Louis the Young received Eastern 
 France, Thuringia, Saxony, Frisia, and part of Lorraine; and Charles 
 the Fat obtained Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland. But this arrange¬ 
 ment was soon disturbed, first by the death of Carloman, and next by 
 the decease of Louis of Saxony. Charles the Fat, in consequence, 
 reunited without much trouble all the Germanic states, to which he 
 added Italy, with the dignity of the imperial throne. In his reign the 
 Normans ravaged all the country south of the Rhine from the sea to 
 Mentz; Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle with other cities were re luced to 
 ashes; the palace of Charlemagne was converted into a stable, and for 
 eight years remained in that degraded condition. To remove these 
 formidable enemies, Charles raised a numerous army, and besieged 
 them in their camp at Maestrich, but just as they were on the point of 
 surrendering, he offered to give them 2400 pounds of silver to evacuate 
 a position no longer tenable. In 884, his difficulties were increased by 
 the death of Carloman and the offer of the throne of France. But h.nv 
 could he protect his new kingdom, when he had proved himself unaole 
 to maintain the honour of the five other crowns which had fallen to 
 him I The Normans continued their incursions, and besieged Paris, 
 which was nobly defended by Eudes. The imbecility of the emperor 
 
220 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 becoming every day more evident, he was deposed at the diet of Tribui 
 on the Rhine, 887. 
 
 Arnulph was the newly-elected king of Germany. His policy was 
 a continuation of the imperial system : he sought to bring back Italy 
 and Burgundy to his obedience, to revive the homage of the French 
 monarch, and to be crowned emperor. At the diet of Worms in 888, 
 and also in 893, he received the fealty of the various competitors for the 
 crown of France. He made a vigorous resistance to the Norman 
 invaders, and in a battle fought near the Dyle routed them with great 
 slaughter, two kings being killed and thirteen standards captured, 896. 
 The Sclavonians also were reduced to seek peace by the decisive 
 measures of the new sovereign. Of the fruit of his expeditions into 
 Italy he retained little more than the imperial title; and not long after 
 his return to Germany, he expired at Ratisbon, 899, where his tomb 
 may still be seen. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 On the death of Charlemagne, a. d. 814, Bernard the son of Pepin 
 obtained the kingdom of Italy; but rebelling against his uncle Louis, 
 who inherited the empire, he was condemned to lose his eyes,— a pun¬ 
 ishment which was so cruelly inflicted as to cause his death, 817. The 
 son and lieutenant of Lothaire, afterwards Louis II., who kept the 
 Romans in obedience, compelled also the Dukes of Benevento to respect 
 the imperial authority, and drove the Saracens from Apulia. In 844, 
 his father resigned to him the Italian provinces. This peninsula was 
 incessantly menaced by Sclavonian tribes in the direction of Friuli, by 
 the Mohammedans on the southern shores, by the Normans, whose 
 vessels approached even the coasts of Tuscany, and also by the Greeks, 
 who were always ready to support the rebellious dukes of Benevento, 
 Friuli, and Spoleto, the princes of Salerno, or the counts of Capua. 
 The Aglabite Saracens of Africa had possessed Messina and Palermo 
 since the year 832; from which ports they ravaged all maritime Italy, 
 and threatened Rome, the suburbs of which they destroyed by fire. 
 But Gregory IV, fortified against them the city of Ostia, and Leo IV., 
 surrounding with walls the churches of the apostles Peter and Paul on 
 the Vatican mount, formed a new quarter, called by the inhabitants the 
 Leonine city, and which protected Rome on the Tuscan side. Some 
 T ime afterwards, the people of Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, who were 
 enacting on a smaller scale the part which Genoa and Venice performed 
 somewhat later, entered into a league against the infidels, and, by the 
 destruction of their fleet, checked their plundering expeditions for several 
 years. But the Saracens re-appeared more formidable than ever; and 
 when two competitors disputed the duchy of Benevento, Louis, hoping 
 to terminate their differences, divided it between them, giving to one, 
 Benevento with the eastern slope of the Apennines, to the other. Salerno 
 with the western declivity. He thus weakened the only power that 
 could have effectually guarded the shores of Southern Italy. Soon, in 
 fact, all the cities and monasteries were pillaged by the Saracens, who 
 advanced even to the convent of Mount Cassino, the abbot of which 
 was forced to pay a ransom of three thousand gold pieces. In self- 
 defence Louis was compelled to make an appeal to all the military 
 population of Italy; though an alliance with the Greek emperor, who 
 
Adelaide , m 1. Lothaire, k. of Italy. 
 
 2. Otho the Great , k. of Germany. 
 
 NINTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
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 CARL0VINGIAN EMPEBOES AND KINGS 0E ITALI. 
 
222 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 sent him two hundred vessels, was more useful to him. Bari was 
 recovered from the Saracens, and Otranto besieged; but the treachery 
 and rebellion of the Duke of Benevento neutralized this success; and 
 when Louis died in 875, Southern Italy, divided between the Greeks, 
 Saracens, and dukes of Benevento, who had transferred their allegiance 
 to the Byzantine court, was entirely detached from the Frank monarchy. 
 In. the central portion of the peninsula, the pope, who had become a 
 temporal prince in consequence of the donations of Pepin and Charle¬ 
 magne, no longer sought from their successors the confirmation of his 
 election before seating himself in St. Peter’s chair. Lastly, in the 
 northern section were several powerful feudal princes, whose ambition 
 harassed those fine provinces for nearly a century. 
 
 Louis the German, being the eldest surviving prince of the Carlovin- 
 gian dynasty, claimed Italy; but was anticipated by Charles the Bald, 
 who had passed the Alps with a numerous army, and hastened to Rome, 
 where the pope and citizens appeared to be the sole persons invested 
 with the right of conferring the imperial dignity. Subsequent events 
 placed that country, with the rest of the Frank empire, in the hands of 
 Charles the Fat, again to be divided on the deposition of this monarch 
 in 888. Guy, duke of Spoleto, and Berenger, duke of Benevento, dis¬ 
 puted the crown of Italy, the river Adige forming the boundary of their 
 respective dominions. Guy, who was proclaimed king at the diet of 
 Pavia, went to Rome and was crowned Emperor and King of the 
 Romans, having associated his son Lambert in the imperial dignity, 
 891. Arnulph of Germany did not look with indifference on the pro¬ 
 gress of affairs southward of the Alps, and to vindicate his claims to 
 the titles usurped by Guy, crossed the mountains and advanced as far 
 as Piacenza, without gaining the object of his expedition, 894. Two 
 years later he proceeded to Rome, and was consecrated emperor by 
 Pope Formosus. After the retreat of the German, Lambert effected a 
 reconciliation with Berenger, who preserved the title of king, which 
 had been conferred on him by the Lombard nobles, immediately after 
 the death of Charles the Fat. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 From the mission of Augustin to the accession of Egbert, king of 
 Wessex, the history of Britain offers little worthy of the historian’s 
 notice, except the quarrels of the petty rulers, the erection of numerous 
 convents, the frequent pilgrimages to Rome, and the levying of Peter- 
 pence, a tax of one penny on each family to be paid annually to the 
 Roman see. 
 
 Egbert, a. d. 800, who had been elected king of Wessex, added the 
 tributary states of Kent, Essex, Sussex, and East Anglia to his domin¬ 
 ions, and compelled the independent sovereigns of Northumbria and 
 Mercia to pay tribute. From this period England may be considered as 
 forming a single kingdom,— a happy change to a nation which, by its 
 insular position, seemed protected against foreign invasion. But that 
 which might have been considered as an advantage became the primary 
 cause of its ruin; and the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was doomed to sup¬ 
 port in succession the yoke of the Northmen of Denmark and of the 
 Neustrian Normans. The descents of the Danes, begun in 793, were 
 
NINTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 223 
 
 resumed in 83*2, but were checked by the victories of Egbert. These 
 inroads became more terrible and more frequent when, after Ethelwolfs 
 death in 857, the partition of his territory and the quarrels of the several 
 princes exposed this island, like France, to those pirates. Here per¬ 
 manent settlements were founded by the Danes earlier than on the Con¬ 
 tinent; and, supported by the alliances of the Welsh and Scotch, they 
 subjugated at first East Anglia, and finally the whole kingdom. 
 
 Alfred, a. d. 871.— One great man sufficed to check the conquests 
 of the Danes for nearly a century. Alfred, the youngest of Ethel wolf’s 
 sons, carried to the throne all the virtues of a philosopher with the 
 qualities of a hero. Seven years of misfortune taught him wisdom and 
 moderation. After the disastrous result of the battle of Wilton, 871, 
 everything appeared lost, when the victory of Edindon in Wiltshire 
 restored to him the heritage of his brother, then in possession of the 
 foreigner, 878. The Danes of East Anglia and Northumbria recognised 
 his authority and embraced the Christian faith, to which course they 
 were influenced by the example of Gothrun their ruler. The country 
 being now at peace, Alfred turned his mind to the civilisation and 
 security of his people. London, which he enlarged and fortified, became 
 the capital and naval arsenal of the kingdom; and the ships construct¬ 
 ed in its port served to protect the distant coasts and harbours, or were 
 employed in promoting commerce. Prosperity began to reappear under 
 this prince, who was equally capable of maintaining the national peace 
 by his laws and by his sword. To facilitate the administration of jus¬ 
 tice, Alfred introduced or revived the division of the whole kingdom 
 into counties, hundreds, and tithings; the laws of Ina, Offa, and Ethel- 
 bert were collected and remodelled; and the clergy, ashamed of their 
 ignorance, applied to study, that they might gratify a monarch who 
 founded schools and invited the most learned of all nations to his court 
 But his great designs perished with him a. d. 901; and the rival of 
 Charlemagne was not more fortunate than his model. 
 
 Character of Alfred. 
 
 Alfred is celebrated not only for the fifty-six battles which he fought in de¬ 
 fence of his kingdom, but also for the efforts he made to civilize his subjects. 
 In his court were seen Asser, the learned Welshman, Grim bald of Rheims, 
 John Erigena (the Irishman), and Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury. He 
 left several compositions of his own in prose and verse, remarkable for their 
 imagination and that pomp of figure peculiar to the ancient Germanic languages. 
 He translated the Consolations of Philosophy by Boethius, and greatly enhanced 
 the value of the original work by his commentaries ; he also rendered int<r 
 Anglo-Saxon the fables of iEsop, the Ecclesiastical History of the venerable 
 Bede, the Geography of Orosius, to which he annexed much important matter 
 on Germany, and on a voyage towards the Arctic Pole.* In addition to his 
 other accomplishments he cultivated poetry with a success that places him on a 
 level with any of the bards of his own time. His private character has been 
 thus summed up;—“He was humble to all, affable in conversation, mild in 
 transacting business, venerable in aspect, serene in countenance, moderate even 
 in his walk, sincere, upright, calm, temperate, and charitable,” to which may 
 be added the traditional epithet of “truth-teller.” All his life Alfred was oc¬ 
 cupied in devising means for the happiness of his subjects, while his own was 
 almost hourly interrupted by an excruciating pain, which did not quit him from 
 his twentieth year to the day of his death. 
 
 * The mission which Alfred sent to the Christians of India, is of itself a proof of the 
 geographical knowledge of this prince. 
 
224 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Constitution. 
 
 In that form of government instituted by the Saxons may be found the germs 
 of that constitution which has been characterized as the envy and the admiration 
 of the world. This warlike people, jealous to an excess of their liberty, were 
 governed by elective chiefs, who were generally selected from the same family ; 
 but their authority was precarious and controlled by the regulations of the 
 national assembly called the Witenagemot—assembly of wise men. After the 
 introduction of Christianity, the Bishops and abbots became members of these 
 assemblies ; but the vanquished Britons were never allowed to form part of 
 them. The thanes or lords were the highest class ; the ceorls or free men 
 constituted the second ; while the third class or serfs was composed of the 
 ancient inhabitants of the country, of the prisoners of war, and of those Saxons, 
 who had from one cause or another been reduced to slavery. Every free male 
 of twelve years of age was required to be enrolled in some tithing, the members 
 of which were accountable for each other’s conduct (frank-pledge). The prin¬ 
 cipal seat of justice was then the county court: the various members assembled 
 twice a-year, under the presidency of a bishop and an alderman, charged with 
 the civil and military administration. To these was added the sheriff, who re¬ 
 lieved them of part of their duties. The judicial authority did not belong 
 exclusively to these magistrates ; for in certain cases justice was administered 
 by twelve freeholders on oath. Crimes were atoned for by pecuniary penalties, 
 at first given to the plaintiff, but afterwards divided between him and the 
 government. This organization was still imperfect; nevertheless it existed, 
 was recognised, and appealed to by those who violated or protected it. To 
 this the Saxons owed the comparatively mild treatment they received from the 
 Normans, who did not oppress them like the unfortunate Britons. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 While zealous missionaries were disseminating Christianity among 
 the numerous barbarous tribes that still roamed in the wild forests of 
 northern Europe, the clergy were corrupting its simplicity by their im¬ 
 piety and licentious lives. Few of the prelates who sat in St. Peter’s 
 chair were distinguished either for learning or virtue. Monastic insti¬ 
 tutions were then in high esteem, and men of all ranks deserted their 
 proper sphere of duty to take shelter in the gloom and leisure of the 
 cloister. But as such retreats were not free from irregularity, many 
 councils were held to repress their disorders, and to establish the far- 
 famed rule of St. Benedict. The study of the Holy Scriptures almost 
 ceased in the Greek and Latin churches ; while the veneration paid to 
 the fictitious relics of the departed saints, and the multiplication of 
 canonized individuals, proved the ignorance and depravity of the priest¬ 
 hood. 
 
 Greek Schism. —The son of Theodora, led into vicious habits by 
 the example of his uncle Bardas, and irritated by the remonstrances of 
 the patriarch Ignatius, threw this faithful minister into prison, and 
 elevated in his stead the learned Photius, a captain of his guards. This 
 change was approved of by a council, which did not however prevent 
 Pope Nicholas I. from excommunicating the intruder, who in his defence 
 made use of the same spiritual weapon. Soon afterwards, the tragical 
 end of his two protectors left Photius without any support; and Basil, 
 the new emperor, deposed him and restored Ignatius, a proceeding which 
 was ratified by the eighth general council. The death of the latter in 
 877 restored to Photius the patriarchal dignity ; and Pope John VIII. 
 received him into communion, hoping by this means to recover the 
 government of the Bulgarians, which, since its formation in 869, had 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 225 
 
 ♦ 
 
 been under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. His expectations, how¬ 
 ever, were disappointed ; and from this period the division became still 
 wider between the Roman pontiff and the Greek patriarchs, until the 
 complete separation of the two churches in 1054. 
 
 Saint-worship. — One of the greatest corruptions grew out of the 
 reverence paid to the memory of departed saints. “ He whose heart,” 
 says Southey, “is not excited upon the spot which a martyr has sanc¬ 
 tified by his sufferings, or at the grave of one who has largely benefited 
 mankind, must be more inferior to the multitude in his moral, than he 
 can possibly be raised above them in his intellectual nature.” But the 
 best thing are the most easily abused. The prayer was at length 
 offered to the martyr himself, and the remains of his body or the rags of 
 garments, nay, even the instruments of his torture or death, became ob¬ 
 jects of veneration. 
 
 In this century the dangerous doctrine was first established by Adrian 
 II., “ that the pope can release from the obligation of an oath !” Pope 
 Nicholas, also, by his conduct in the divorce of Thietberga, wife of 
 Lothaire II., king of Lorraine, and in the deposition of Rothad, bishop 
 of Soissons, confirmed the principle on which reposes the supremacy of 
 the apostolic chair, namely, that the decrees of the pontiff shall be re¬ 
 ceived as law throughout the church. 
 
 TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —912, Constantine VII.—919, Romanus I.—963, Nicephorus 
 I.—969, John Zimisces. 
 
 Italy. —Papal Disorders.—962, Otho crowned Emperor.—990, Crescentius. 
 France. —912, Normans established by Treaty.—915, Feudal Aristocracy com¬ 
 plete. —987, Hugh Capet. 
 
 Germany. —911, Saxon Line.—919, Henry the Fowler.—936, Otho I.—955, 
 Battle of Augsburg. 
 
 Britain. —901, Edward the Elder.—925, Athelstan.—937, Dunstan. 
 
 Spain.— 912, Abdalrahman’s Conquests—University of Cordova.—932, Madrid 
 taken by the Christians. 
 
 Arabian Empire. —936, Mohammed, Emir al Omra.—Fatimites in Egypt. 
 Church.— 999, Pope Sylvester II. (Gerbert) — Odo of Cluny — Penance. 
 Inventions. —Coats of Arms; 1000, Arabic Numerals; Watches. 
 
 Learned Men. —Suidas, philosopher.—Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.)—Olym- 
 piodorus. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus—born in the purple chamber— 
 ascended the throne at the age of five years, a. d. 912, under the guar¬ 
 dianship of his uncle Alexander, whose death, brought on by dissolute 
 courses, saved the life of his ward. Zoe, who had been banished, was 
 now recalled ; but she and all other competitors for the regency were 
 forced to yield to the daring ambition of Romanus, a low-born soldier, 
 who soon threw aside his mask, and caused himself to be proclaimed, in 
 919, Caesar and Augustus, which titles he bore nearly twenty-five years. 
 
226 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 The lawful monarch escaped the usual fate of deposed princes in that 
 age by his studious habits, mild character, and love of retirement. In 
 945, he was restored to his throne by means of the usurper’s sons, who 
 conspired against their father’s life. His second reio-n lasted fifteen 
 years; and when he died, in 959, the afflicted Greeks at once excused 
 his vices and pitied his misfortunes. During the preceding fifty years, 
 the empire was scarcely ever free from the attacks of the barbarians. 
 The Bulgarians twice besieged Constantinople, in 913 and 916, defeated 
 several of her generals, ravaged Macedonia and Thrace, took Adrianople, 
 and even proclaimed their khan emperor in the suburbs of the Eastern 
 capital, 9*22. The Russians also appeared before the imperial city with 
 a thousand barks, and pillaged all the coasts of Asia Minor. Romanus 
 II., a dissolute prince, appears to have adopted his father’s example 
 rather than to have obeyed his precepts. His death was caused by 
 poison administered by his vicious wife Theophania, in 963. 
 
 Nicephorus II. united, in the popular opinion, the characters of a 
 hero and a saint. In the preceding reign, he had recovered Candia from 
 the Arabs ; and after his accession, which he owed to his marrying the 
 late emperor’s widow, he conquered Cyprus, Cilicia, and Antioch; from 
 which last place he brought home as a trophy the sword of Mohammed. 
 The Byzantine empire now began to recover, as that of the Saracens 
 decayed; and under John I. Zimisces, who had murdered his predeces¬ 
 sor, even the cities beyond the Euphrates were added to his territory. 
 He spent most of his time in the camp, and by his defeat of the 
 Bulgarians and the Russians ensured the safety of the empire. This 
 warlike ruler is said to have met with an untimely death by poison, pre¬ 
 pared for him hy those who dreaded the consequences of some meditated 
 reforms, 976. 
 
 Basil II. was acknowledged sovereign of Constantinople; but the 
 early years of his reign were disturbed by the revolt of two veteran 
 generals, Phocas and Sclerus, who oppressed Asia Minor. These 
 enemies being defeated, he made several successful campaigns against 
 the Saracens; but his most important triumph was the reduction of 
 Bulgaria to a Grecian province,* in 1018. He was greedy, ignorant, 
 and superstitious ; and, after a reign of nearly fifty years, died, neither 
 loved nDr respected, in 1025. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Adelaide. —After the death of Berenger I., the last duke of Friuli, 
 his successors bore no other title than that of King of Italy. The young 
 Lothaire II., who died childless, was succeeded in 950 by his guardian, 
 Berenger II., marquis of Ivrea. This prince demanded for his son the 
 hand of Lothaire’s widow; but on Adelaide’s refusal to accept a deformed 
 husband, he plundered her of her possessions with brutal violence, and 
 confined her in a tower on the Guarda lake : she afterwards escaped by 
 the aid of her almoner, who had contrived to make a secret passage 
 through the base of the building. Disguised in male attire, and accom- 
 panied by the priest, she was conveyed in a fishing-boat to a neighbour- 
 
 * In 1014, Basil gained a decisive victory over the Bulgarians, took fifteen thousand 
 prisoners, who, after their eyes were plucked out, were sent back to their own country 
 Such a terrible spectacle hastened the death of their aged khan. 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 227 
 
 ing forest, where they subsisted some time on fish which was bestowed 
 in charity. At length she found an asylum with a chieftain dependent 
 on the Roman see; and, in 951, married Otho of Germany, who, after 
 beino* called to her assistance in 948, had become a widower. In right 
 of this union, the German sovereigns aspired to the royal and imperial 
 dignities of Italy.* 
 
 Papal Disorders. —The power of the popes was gradually confirmed, 
 at the same time that their vicious lives were bringing the church 
 into contempt. Two sisters of infamous character, Theodora and Ma- 
 rozia, with their mother the Margravine of Tuscia, disposed of the triple 
 crown at their pleasure. John XII., placed in the pontifical chair when 
 only eighteen years of age, was charged with the most revolting crimes. 
 To consolidate his authority, he solicited the assistance of Otho I., whose 
 services, in quelling the sanguinary feuds which harassed Rome, were 
 repaid with the title of emperor, in 96*2. He then assumed the appella¬ 
 tions of Caesar and Augustus, and received the oaths of fidelity tendered 
 by the pope and the Roman nobles. While he w r as occupied in Ifpper 
 Italy in the reduction of a few castles which still held out, he learnt that 
 the pontiff, discontented with the feudal superior whom he had recog¬ 
 nised, w*as labouring to restore the vanquished Berenger. The emperor, 
 hastily returning to Rome, assembled a council to inquire into the state 
 of the papacy; and, by the decision of forty bishops and seventeen car¬ 
 dinals, John was deposed for his scandalous life. He was succeeded 
 by Leo VIII., who acknowledged Otho’s claims to dispose of the crown 
 of Italy as he pleased, to confirm the papal election, and to invest the 
 prelates. But the country was never at peace, and the Romans lost no 
 opportunity of endeavouring to throw off the barbarian yoke. 
 
 Crescentius. —Circio, or Crescentius, on the demise of Otho I., 
 headed an insurrection against the pope, whom he put to death in 974. 
 With the title of consul he was master of Rome, and held the pontiff, 
 whom he had himself appointed, in such subjection, that his holiness 
 urgently solicited the German monarch to come to his relief. Otho III. 
 arrived in Rome in the year 996, when he received the imperial crown, 
 and two years after caused the demagogue to be thrown from the battle¬ 
 ments of St. Angelo. His own death is said to have been caused by 
 poison administered by the widow of Crescentius. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 On the death of Eudes in 898, the crown devolved on Charles the 
 Simple, the legitimate sovereign, the history of the first twelve years 
 of whose reign is entirely unknown, except that the ravages of the Nor¬ 
 mans and Saracens were continued. This feehle prince expected to find 
 an auxiliary in the Norman Rollo against his rebel barons, but this hope 
 failed him when the nobles were excited to revolt, and their suffrages 
 had conferred the crown on Robert, brother of the late king, Eudes, who 
 perished in battle, and Charles, having fallen into the hands of the Count 
 
 * The kingdom of Italy comprised the Italian Alps (except Savoy), the plains of the 
 Po (except Venice), Istria, Tuscany. States of the Church, and the Abruzzi. In the 
 south were the independent principalities of Benevento, Salerno., and Capua ; the dukes 
 of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, suzerains of the Greek emperor; lastly, the territories 
 of Bari, Otranto, arid Calabria, under Grecian officers. The African Saracens held 
 Sicily, except its eastern coast, with Malta, Corsica, and Sardinia. 
 
228 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 of Vermandois, beheld another prince, not of the royal family, seated on 
 
 the throne, 923. This new usurper was Raoul or Rodolph, duke of 
 
 Burgundy, who owed his elevation to the influence of his brother-in-law, 
 
 Hugh the Great, count of Paris. The principal vassals of the South and 
 
 the Norman dukes withheld their homage from Rodolph until 929, when 
 
 Count Herbert of Vermandois had almost succeeded in restoring the 
 
 © 
 
 deposed Charles. But the powerful support of Hugh maintained the 
 interests of Rodolph ; and the necessity of union to repel the Hungarians 
 produced a reconciliation between the vassals and their superior, which 
 led to a defensive treaty between the kings of France, Germany, and 
 Burgundy, in 935. 
 
 Hugh possessed almost regal power during the reign of the succeed¬ 
 ing monarch, Louis IV., who was surnamed Outremer, from his having 
 resided in England. When this king expired, the sovereignty, which 
 w'as not divided, was for the first time transmitted like the fiefs. Lo- 
 thaire in 954, and Louis V. in 986, were the last of the Carlovingians 
 who bore the title of King of France, already become to them an empty 
 honour. 
 
 Hugh Capet. —In 956, Hugh, surnamed Capet, from the kind of hat 
 which he wore, succeeded his father as Count of Paris, and in the power 
 which his vast domains in Picardy and Champagne conferred upon him. 
 While Louis V. was slowfly expiring, of a fatal disease, at the early age 
 of twenty, Hugh assembled his forces, and, seizing on the throne as 
 soon as it became vacant, was crowned at Rheims in 987. His first act 
 was to secure the succession in his family, by the coronation of his son 
 Robert at Orleans ; by uniting to the royal domains the duchies and 
 earldoms which he had hitherto possessed as a vassal; and by declaring 
 those to be hereditary which were in the hands of other feudatories. 
 
 Charles of Lorraine, as son of Louis IV., did not patiently submit to 
 the usurpation of his rights; hut his efforts were unavailing, and a brief 
 struggle was terminated by his confinement in the castle of Orleans, 
 where he died in 994. Those of the great vassals who had declared for 
 the pretender now did homage to Hugh Capet, whose authority, how¬ 
 ever, was still obstinately resisted by many nobles south of the Loire. 
 He died at Paris in 996. 
 
 Robert, surnamed the Wise, ascended his father’s throne without 
 opposition, but experienced a less tranquil reign. He had married, in 
 opposition to the canons of the church, Bertha of Burgundy, widow of 
 the Count of Blois, and his cousin in the fourth degree, for one of whose 
 
 o # 
 
 children he had also stood godfather. Pope Gregory V., a relation of 
 the Emperor Otho III., excommunicated Robert, and laid the kingdom 
 under an interdict. The French king obeyed the papal mandates with 
 deep regret, but shortly after espoused Constance of Toulouse, a 
 frivolous and wicked princess, who corrupted the court, domineered over 
 her good-natured husband, and lighted the first fires against heretics. 
 
 O 7 C 1 O 
 
 Feudal System. — Gaul, after its invasion by the transrhenane tribes, re¬ 
 lapsed into barbarism, and the inhabitants were long without holding any social 
 relation one with another. About the eighth century, order began to appear 
 in the formation of a number of isolated confederacies,—the commencement of 
 feudality, or that system of government which divide d society into two classes, 
 lords and dependants The feudal system was the child of circumstances, and 
 probably originated with the Lombards. Charles Martel, son of Pepin, con- 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 229 
 
 ferred benefices (fiefs), the holders of which were bound to fidelity and to mili¬ 
 tary service. They were called vassals; but they had only temporary posses¬ 
 sion of their fiefs as leudes or antrustions of their suzerain* or lord paramount. 
 Charles the Bald made these benefices hereditary, 877, when they took the 
 name of fiefs (fides,/e). The feudal system now took a different form. The 
 royal authority was prostrated, and the counts usurped their governments as 
 sovereignties, their wives taking the appellation of countess. Feudality still 
 formed a chain of obligations from the king, as lord paramount, down to the 
 meanest of his subjects. The lands under this system were divided into three 
 classes:— 
 
 1. The noble lands, i. e. the fiefs, which were divisible into two species; the 
 simple fiefs, and the fiefs of dignity or the title lands, such as the duchies, earl¬ 
 doms or counties, and baronies. 
 
 2. The rotures, or lands enfranchised from the fiefs, possessed by roturiers, 
 liable to feudality and subject to their seigneurs.t 
 
 3. The allodial lands, which every man possessed in his own right, without 
 owing any rent or service to his superior. 
 
 Each vassal held his fief on conditions of fidelity and homage to his suzerain. 
 There were two classes of them :—1. The great vassals dependent immediately 
 on the crown ;—2. The small vassals subordinate to the great for the fiefs which 
 they held by homage. Each was the liegeman of his superior, i. e. bound 
 (ligatus) in indissoluble allegiance by the duties of his rank. These were,— 
 military service, the defence of his lord from the machinations and arms of his 
 enemies, and attendance in the courts of justice. He was also to pay his lord’s 
 ransom if he were captured, and, in some cases, to be detained as hostage.' 
 The vassals were summoned to the field by the bann and arriere bann ; the 
 one was composed of gentlemen who mounted at the sound of the king’s trum¬ 
 pet ; the latter were the tenants, or coutumiers (serfs) of the bann. But after 
 the establishment of corporations by Louis the Fat, in 1108, the condition of the 
 commons was greatly meliorated. Philip Augustus, the tribune of the nobles, * 
 1180, kept the vassals in due restraint by his large armies; and Louis IX., 1226, 
 destroyed the judicial powers of the seigneurs by establishing regular tribunals 
 of justice. Philip the Fair deprived the barons of their power of coining money ; 
 and thus they lost between 1108 and 1300 the four supports of feudality. Louis 
 Hutin emancipated all the serfs on the royal domains, by a general edict in 
 1315 ; but the fiefs existed till the revolution of 1789; nor was prsedial servitude 
 actually abolished until that period, the peasants being attached to the soil and 
 forbidden to leave it without their lords’ consent. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 House of Saxony. —The connexion between France and Germany 
 was broken by the death of Charles the Fat in 888. Arnulph was the 
 first elected king of the latter country ; and on the death of Louis IV. in 
 911, Conrad, duke of Franconia, was chosen by the general assembly 
 of the eight nations composing the Germanic confederation. His brief 
 reign of eight years was exposed to external enemies, in fighting against 
 whom he received a mortal wound, and, having no male heirs, the crow n 
 was bestowed on Henry the Fowler, duke of Saxony, in whose 
 family it remained till 1024. This able prince began by reducing to 
 subjection his powerful and turbulent vassals. He united Lorraine to 
 the empire ; protected the country against the inroads of the Hungarians; 
 and besides fortifying many of his principal towns, added the march of 
 Misnia to his original territory. To him Germany is farther indebted 
 
 * The leudes and antrustions were men of rank, nobles attendant upon the court. 
 
 f Roiure has been compared with our soccage freehold. 14 We have no word,” says 
 Hallam, ‘ that conveys the full sense of the word roturier. How glorious is this defi¬ 
 ciency in our political language, and how different are the ideas suggested by commoner!” 
 
 20 
 
230 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 for the establishment of its first municipal towns, which, together with 
 the monasteries, was one of the chief means of civilizing the people. 
 
 Otho I., 936, justly named the Great, completed what his father had 
 began. He reconquered Italy, and gave a final blow to the Hungarian 
 power by the victory of Merseburg. In 96*2, he was crowned at Milan, 
 with the iron crown of Lombardy, and at Rome by Pope John XII., 
 with the golden crown of the empire. The discovery of the gold and 
 silver mines of Goslar, and the settlement of the Saxon frontier, rendered 
 that part of his territories the richest and most important under his rule. 
 Otho had the skill to unite all the great governments in his family; but 
 the necessity of resigning his duchy of Saxony, prevented the formation 
 of solid monarchical power in Germany. Nevertheless, repaying the 
 mistrust of his vassals by similar suspicion, he placed them under the 
 inspection of the palatine counts, and also subjected the temporal 
 power of the bishops to the control of certain imperial officers. By 
 these means he checked the progress of feudalism, which, however, 
 proceeded uninterruptedly after his death. 
 
 Otho II. the Bloody,* 973, was allied by marriage to the Byzantine 
 court. His wars in France, and in Lower Italy against the Saracens, 
 were not generally successful. 
 
 Otho III., 983, was scarcely six years of age when he ascended the 
 throne of his father, under the guardianship of his mother Theophania, 
 by whom his education had been intrusted to the learned Gerbert, 
 afterwards Pope Sylvester II. The early portion of this reign was 
 harassed by the continual wars of the great vassals against each other, 
 and by the incursions of the Danes and Sclavonians. Like his predeces¬ 
 sor, he took much interest in all that passed on the south side of the 
 Alps; and to establish his authority in the Italian peninsula and at 
 Rome, was almost the sole occupation of his reign after he was left to 
 his own guidance. He died childless, and was succeeded by Henry 
 duke of Bavaria, the last of the Saxon house, in 1002. 
 
 SAXON LINE. 
 
 The succession of German kings is reckoned from Louis the German. 
 
 Otho , 
 
 d. of Saxony, presumed descended from Witikind 
 m. Hedwige, d. of Emperor Arnulph. 
 
 -.A---. 
 
 ****** 
 
 7. Conrad I. of Franconia 
 emp. 9] 1, f 919. 
 
 8. Henry I. the Fowler, king of Germany, 919, f 936. 
 
 9. Otho the Great, 
 k. of Germany, 936; 
 emp. 962 ; m. 1. Editha, 
 sister of Athelstan. 
 
 2. Adelaide, q. of Italy. 
 
 - -*- 
 
 Tancmar. 
 
 Bruno, archbp. 
 of Cologne, and 
 archduke of 
 Lorraine. 
 
 Three 
 
 daughters. 
 
 Henry, d. 
 of Bavaria, 
 m. Judith of 
 Bavaria, 955. 
 
 10. Otho II. emp. 
 973, m. Theophania 
 of Constantinople. 
 
 Ludolph , d. 
 of Franconia, 
 t 957. 
 
 Three 
 
 daughters. 
 
 William , nat. 
 son of archbp. 
 of Mentz. 
 
 Henry , 995. 
 
 11. Otho III. emp. 983, | 1002. Four daughters. 
 
 12. Henry II. emp. 
 1002, f 1024. 
 
 Note .—A collateral branch con¬ 
 tinued in Saxony until 1111. 
 
 * He derives this epithet from the perfidious massacre of the Roman senators whom he 
 had invited to share his hospitality. 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 231 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 The successors of Alfred persevered in that monarch’s career of con¬ 
 quest. Edward, surnamed the Elder, 901, deprived the Danes of the 
 eastern coast from the mouth of the Thames to the Wash. This king 
 must be ranked among the founders of the English monarchy, as besides 
 securing his people from a Danish domination, he prepared the way for 
 the overthrow of that power in England. Like his father, he paid great 
 attention to education, and his sons received the best instruction that 
 the age could afford, in order to qualify them for the station to which 
 they were born. 
 
 Athelstan, a. d. 925, the grandson of Alfred, was the first monarch 
 really entitled to the name of King of England. As he had attained 
 the age of thirty before he was called to the exercise of royal power, he 
 commenced his reign with the advantage of a matured judgment and 
 extensive experience. Passing the Humber, he took the city of York, 
 and routed at Brunanburgh in Northumbria a numerous army, in which 
 were assembled the principal enemies of the Anglo-Saxon race. He 
 was a prince of very great influence at home and abroad; and his reign, 
 from his connexion with the Continent, is of more importance than those 
 of any of his family. He ravaged Scotland with his troops, while his 
 fleet spread dismay to the extremity of Caithness. The cause of this 
 invasion was the refusal of Constantine, the Scottish King, to perform 
 the conditions of an international treaty. England began now to lose 
 its insular seclusion, and to take part in the transactions of foreign 
 states. The sovereign of Brittany, when driven out by the Normans, 
 had been hospitably received at Athelstan’s court, and there, too, the 
 queen of Charles the Simple, with her son Louis, found a refuge.* 
 Hugh the Great, count of Paris, married Ethilda, one of Athelstan’s 
 sisters, and when Louis Outremer ascended the throne of France, a 
 friendly treaty was made between the two countries, and the English 
 monarch aided his ally with his fleet in 939. Two other sisters of 
 Athelstan were married, one to Otho the Great, the other to a German 
 prince in the emperor’s court. Haco, the son of Harold Harfager of 
 Norway, was educated here, and, by the aid of the king, was placed on 
 his father’s throne. Thus England began, and has ever continued, to 
 be the asylum of the persecuted. Athelstan rebuilt several monastic 
 edifices, and bestowed on them hooks, ornaments, or estates. He did 
 not neglect the poor, and decreed, under a penalty, that each of his 
 bailiffs should feed one pauper, and taxed his own farms to raise the 
 necessary funds. A new invasion, attempted in 946, was repelled by 
 Edred, who succeeded his brother Edmund, and all England, from the 
 Tweed to the Land’s End, was united into one political body. But this 
 state of things was not of long duration. The Danes soon re-appeared 
 in greater numbers, and again commenced their piracies in the reign of 
 Ethelred II., an effeminate prince, who sought to free his kingdom of 
 
 *The presents made to Athelstan afford a curious insight into the manners and civi¬ 
 lisation of England and France. Hugh sent over some brilliant emeralds, many richly 
 caparisoned horses, a beautifully carved and polished vase of onyx, the sword of Con¬ 
 stantine the Great, the spear of Charlemagne, a diadem of gold and jewels, and some 
 venerable relics. At another time, the Norwegian Harold presented a magnificent ship 
 with a golden beak and purple sails, surrounded with shields gilt on their inner surface. 
 —Turner’s Angle-Saxons. 
 
232 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 its invaders by large bribes rather than by courage and decision. The 
 miseries of the Saxons were increased by several years of scarcity, by a 
 contagious disease among the cattle, and by a most fatal dysentery that 
 carried off many thousands of the people. 
 
 Dunstan. — The national tranquillity was interrupted during the 
 middle of this century by the ambition of the monks, who, meddling 
 with public affairs, were on the point of abolishing the secular clergy. 
 Edwy, who succeeded his uncle Edred, 955, had married Elgiva, a 
 princess within the degrees forbidden by the ecclesiastical laws. Dun¬ 
 stan, abbot of Glastonbury, in concert with several of the nobles, offered 
 the most unwarrantable insult to the king on the very day of his corona¬ 
 tion; but although the churchman was compelled to flee in order to 
 avoid his sovereign’s indignation, his party was too powerful to be 
 resisted, and the queen was dragged from the palace by an armed troop, 
 branded in the face with a red-hot iron, and banished to Ireland. Return¬ 
 ing some time after, when her wounds were healed, Elgiva was dis¬ 
 covered and cruelly murdered. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 Moorish Spain. —The effeminacy of the Arabian monarchs of Cor¬ 
 dova cost them part of their empire. Some successful rebels made 
 themselves independent in the states of Toledo, Huesca, and Saragossa, 
 and by their mutual contests endangered the Moorish dominion. Ab- 
 dalrahman III., 912, reduced all these turbulent governors to submis¬ 
 sion, and under his wise rule agriculture, manufactures, and commerce 
 flourished. He extended his dominions by conquests in Africa, but 
 these advantages were counteracted by the terrible defeat at Simancas, 
 in 938, when 80,000 Mussulmans were left dead on the field,—a proof 
 of the fury of the battle and the valour of their antagonists. These 
 losses were, however, after a time skilfully repaired, and more than 
 twenty times Abdalrahman advanced into the very heart of the Christian 
 states. By this emir the first medical school was established in Europe, 
 and its celebrity is attested by the cure of the king, Don Sancho, who 
 had obtained permission to be attended by Arabian physicians. The 
 gdorious reign of this caliph, which terminated in 961, was closely 
 followed by the decay of the Mohammedan power; yet it was maintained 
 during half of the tenth century by the great vizier Almansor, who made 
 fifty-four successful campaigns against the Christians, penetrating even 
 to the sanctuary of Compostella. He was succeeded by his son, who 
 worthily trod in his father’s footsteps. 
 
 Christian Spain. —Meanwhile the Christians, pent up in the Bis¬ 
 cayan mountains, were preparing to contend with their conquerors. 
 Ramires II. took Madrid in 932, threatened Toledo, and after the glori 
 ous victory at Simancas, extended his dominions to the range of hills 
 which separates New from Old Castile. In the year 960, about a cen 
 tury after the foundation of Burgos, may be placed the formation of the 
 kingdom of Castile under Ferdinand Gonzales, who severed it from 
 Leon. But between 982 and 990, the Christian sovereignties were 
 menaced with the greatest peril. The vizier of Cordova drove Bermudes 
 [I. to seek refuge in the wilds of Asturias, and was only compelled to 
 retire by the breaking out of a terrible pestilence among his troops, in 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 233 
 
 997. The presence of the enemy at last reunited the discordant princes 
 of Northern Spain; and the Count of Castile, being placed at the head 
 of the troops of Leon, Navarre, and Castile, destroyed the army of Al- 
 mansor, which had been hitherto victorious. 
 
 ARABIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Emir al Omra. —The decline of the Arabian dominion was rapid and 
 certain; for the Turkish guard held the caliph almost a prisoner in his 
 own palace, while the governors of the provinces threw off their alle¬ 
 giance, contenting themselves with merely acknowledging, in their 
 daily prayers, the existence of their supreme lord, and by the payment 
 of certain unimportant tributes. Al Radhi, 934, the twentieth of the 
 Abbassides, was the last of his order that enjoyed the power and privi¬ 
 leges as well as the splendour of royalty. Even in his reign, Mohammed, 
 a Turk, was appointed to the new office of emir al omra—commander of 
 commanders—which conferred on the possessors unlimited authority 
 in the state, not unlike that of the mayors of the palace in France 
 Violent and ambitious men were always ready to seize upon this office, 
 which, in 944, became hereditary in the family of the Persian governor, 
 and henceforth the caliphs were mere ecclesiastical regents. In this 
 decline of their power they were also condemned to witness the loss of 
 part of their dominions. Between 963 and 975, the Byzantine armies 
 had recovered Syria, crossed the Euphrates, and also subjected all the 
 Ottoman dominions in Europe. 
 
 Fatimites. —Africa was entirely lost to the Abbassides, who had the 
 mortification of beholding a new caliph establish a rival throne. In 908, 
 Obeidallah, one of the Karmathians, all of whom were supposed to have 
 been exterminated, was proclaimed ruler, as a descendant of Ismael, son 
 of Djafar Sadik, the seventh visible Imam. He was soon sufficiently 
 powerful to overthrow the Aglabite dynasty of Kairwan and the Edris- 
 ites of Fez. Mahadia, in Africa, which he founded, became the residence 
 of the Fatimites, a name preferred by the new monarchs to that of Ali, 
 as marking with greater clearness their descent from the prophet’s 
 daughter, Fatima. Sicily and the Arab dominions in Italy soon fell into 
 the power of Obeidallah; and his fourth successor, Al Moez, completed 
 in 960 the conquest of Sardinia and Egypt, in the latter of which he 
 built Cairo, the metropolis of the African caliphate. 
 
 By the reduction of Egypt the Fatimites soon lost their other posses-' 
 sions in Africa, in which independent principalities arose so soon as the 
 seat of government was transferred to the banks of the Nile. The 
 history of this dynasty presents the same vicissitudes as all others of 
 Arabian origin; the sovereigns, who for the most part lived retired in 
 their palaces, were elevated or dethroned according to the interests of 
 ministers, or the caprice of the officers of the body-guard. 
 
 The Ghaznevides.— While the caliphate of Bagdad was thus falling 
 into ruin, a vast monarchy was rising in the East. The Suffarides, 
 established in Khorassan, had been dethroned, after a reign of thirty 
 years’ duration, by the Samanides, a Turkish family, who maintained 
 their power till the end of the century. But in 961, a slave named Alp 
 Tegin, seized on the castle of Ghasna, and founded the dynasty of the 
 Ghaznevides. Mahmoud, 997, who united the reputation of a sage with 
 
 20* is 
 
234 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 the glory of a conqueror, reduced Lahore, Moultan, and Guzerat, extend¬ 
 ing his conquests, and with them the Mussulman faith, far into the 
 Indian peninsula. From these victories arose the Hindostanee , the 
 modern language of India, which has taken the place of the Sanscrit, 
 now become the exclusive idiom of the learned in that country. 
 
 The Turks.— The Turks were a people of Tartar origin, condemned 
 by their first conquerors, the Gevugen, to work in the mines of the 
 Imaus, and to forge arms for their masters. But these victims soon 
 quitted their mountains, overthrew their oppressors in 552, and founded 
 a state which continued until 585. At this epoch they separated: those 
 of the East were reduced by the Chinese in 744; those of the West 
 exhausted their resources by intestine divisions, and by degrees ceased 
 to exist as a formidable nation. In the ninth century, numerous bands 
 of the Western Turks entered into the service of the caliphs, and net 
 long after into that of the Ghanzevide sultans. The chief of the tribe 
 Seljuk, who inhabited Bokhara, was able alone to arm 200,000 men. 
 Mahmoud it is true distributed them among his cities on the banks of 
 the Oxus; but when he died in 1028, they returned to their former pas¬ 
 toral life, supporting themselves chiefly by plunder. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The tenth century is generally characterized as one of the darkest of 
 the dark ages; and in the history of the church there is little to relieve 
 the gloom that overhangs the secular annals of this period. 
 
 The Christian religion had been propagated successfully in the East, 
 beyond the Imaus, and among the barbarians in the north and east of 
 Europe. About the year 720, the Nestorian patriarch appointed metro¬ 
 politans in China and at Samarcand, while in India and Ceylon the 
 gospel appears to have been received much earlier. The Normans were 
 converted about 910, the Poles in 964, and the Russians and Hungarians 
 at the end of the century. In Europe the purity of the doctrines of the 
 church was obscured by the vicious lives of many of the clergy, and the 
 strange opinions every day introduced. The pontiffs are described as 
 monsters rather than men, and the see of Rome has been represented by 
 its own historians as the spoil of profligate women who disposed of it 
 at their pleasure. At the end of the century, the papal chair was ably 
 filled by the learned Gerbert, Sylvester II. Notwithstanding the rapid 
 succession of twenty-five popes, between 905 and 1003, the influence 
 of the church gradually increased, partly by open violence, partly by 
 fraudulent usurpation; and it was now for the first time maintained that 
 “ the authority of the bishops, though divine in its origin, was conveyed 
 to them by St. Peter, the prince of the apostles.” 
 
 The invasions of the Normans were always disastrous to ecclesiastical 
 edifices, which they pillaged and destroyed without mercy. Profound 
 ignorance necessarily followed such havoc, since the cloisters were the 
 sole asylum of learning; and the priests and monks, being suddenly 
 deprived of their means of subsistence, were obliged to seek relief in 
 occupations foreign to their profession. Hence arose negligence of their 
 duties, which became the more palpable as the means of instruction and 
 disciplined were withdrawn. Berno, at Cluny, in 910, commenced the 
 reform of the monasteries in France, by introducing the Benedictines, 
 
TENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 235 
 
 the severity of whose regulations was increased by Odo in the convent 
 of Fleury, whither the body of the founder had been transported from 
 Mount Cassino. This discipline rapidly became popular, and was 
 adopted generally within a very short period. 
 
 During this century, a groundless panic, arising from a false interpre¬ 
 tation of the twentieth chapter of the Revelation of St. John, seized all 
 Europe. Temples and palaces were suffered to fall into decay, and 
 language vainly attempts to describe the confusion and despair that tor¬ 
 mented the minds of the ignorant multitude. The sacerdotal order did 
 not scruple to profit by this delusion. Many charters begin with these 
 words : “ As the world is now drawing to its end;” and an army march¬ 
 ing under Otho I. was so terrified by an eclipse of the sun, which was 
 conceived to announce this consummation, as to disperse hastily on all 
 sides. 
 
 Penance.— St. Augustin gave some countenance to the Manichean ideas of 
 Two Principles, Good and Evil, existing in each individual, and constantly at 
 war as in the struggle between the flesh and the spirit. This doctrine exhibited 
 at once the weakness and strength of human nature : at one time degrading it 
 below the beasts, at another elevating it almost above humanity. Enthusiasts, 
 in order to attain heaven, spent their lives in inflicting the greatest torture on 
 themselves. They disfigured the body by neglect and filth, weakened it by 
 fasting and watching, and tore it with stripes. Linen was proscribed among the 
 monastic orders, and the use of the warm bath ceased, because cleanliness 
 itself was a luxury, and therefore a positive sin. They bound chains round the 
 body, which wore into the flesh ; Arnulph of Villars in Brabant had an under¬ 
 waistcoat of hedgehog skins; St. Dominic the Cuirassier was clothed in an iron 
 dress, and scourged himself with both hands night and day ; and the English 
 saint, Simon Stock, obtained his name from passing many years in a hollow 
 tree. 
 
 THE WORLD AT THE END OF THE TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —At the end of the eighth century the known world was 
 under the control of three great monarchies,—the East , the West , and the 
 Caliphate. Of these, one only now remained ; and the Eastern Empire, lying 
 between the Saracens and Franks, was obliged to have recourse to the assist¬ 
 ance of the latter, and was often tributary to the former. It still however 
 maintained considerable power, though but a shadow of what it had been, and 
 was a continual prey to civil dissensions and external war. 
 
 The Caliphate was parcelled out into a number of petty states, leaving 
 scarcely a trace of its existence except in the pomp which still surrounded the 
 rulers as ministers of religion. 
 
 The Frank Kingdom, at one period the terror of the West, existed in 
 several different sovereignties founded upon its ruins, of which the chief were 
 the kingdoms of France and Germany. These two states at first sight present 
 an equality of force which disappears on a closer examination. 
 
 France was exhausted by anarchy and tyranny ; each province had its inde¬ 
 pendent sovereign, duke or count, one of whom (Hugh Capet) violently seized 
 the crown. Thus we see a king of Burgundy, a duke of Paris or of France, 
 dukes of Aquitaine, Normandy, and Brittany ; counts of Champagne, Flanders, 
 Toulouse, and Anjou,—all of whom reigned as independent princes in their 
 own territories. Under this crowd of masters, mutually jealous of each other 
 and continually at war, the people were always suffering and enslaved. They 
 recognised a sort of hereditary chief, upon whom they conferred the title of 
 king; but this ruler, without authority, money, or arms, was always at the 
 mercy of his powerful vassals. 
 
 Germany was as extensive as France, and its nobles were scarcely less 
 numerous. The sovereignty was elective, but the electors, while they reserved 
 
236 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 the honour of choosing the common master, had the good sense to surrender 
 part of their privileges to give him more authority. Hence the king had fiefs at 
 his disposal, officers at his command, and armies to execute his orders. 
 
 Spain was but little changed. The North, occupied by the Christians, was 
 perpetually at war with the xMoors of the South. In both the states were 
 numerous and feeble; but the former always gained ground, while the Sara¬ 
 cens, equally brave and enlightened, were weakened by civil dissensions. 
 
 England was entirely changed. The seven, or rather eight little kingdoms 
 were now united into a single monarchy; but its powers were still enfeebled 
 by the divisions of the Danish and Saxon inhabitants, who made the island a 
 theatre of revolution and bloodshed. 
 
 Italy, which presented the spectacle of cities overthrown, was oppressed by 
 tyrants, and ruined by anarchy. Venice alone, separated from all others by its 
 peculiar situation and policy, enjoyed a period of calmness and prosperity. 
 
 Rome contained a rising and ambitious power, which threatened to overthrow 
 the ascendency of the Germans. The papal territories were of small size, but 
 no prince had a more extensive power than the pope: by his dominion over 
 men’s consciences he completed the great work of a spiritual monarchy. 
 
 Prepare: A map of the world, and fill up two lateral columns with the ne¬ 
 cessary explanations of the changes that have taken place. 
 
 ELEVENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —1028, Romanus III.—Bulgarian Invasion.—1057, Comneni 
 —1081, Anna Comnena—Varangian Guards. 
 
 Italy. —1046, Norman Kingdom.—1057, Robert Guiscard—Italian Republics. 
 Germany. —1024, Conrad II.—Franconian House.—1073, Investitures—Saxon 
 Wars. 
 
 France. —1031, Henry I.—1060, Philip I.—1095, Synod of Clermont. 
 
 Spain. —1080, New Castile recovered.—1081, Kingdom of Portugal.—The Cid. 
 Arabian Empire.— 1038, Togrul-Beg — Seljukians. — 1050, Invasion of Arme¬ 
 nia.—1063, Alp Arslan.—1074, Malek-Shah—Gelalaean Era.—1076, Jerusa 
 lem taken by the Turks. 
 
 Britain. —1002, Massacre of the Danes.—1017, Danish Dynasty.—1041, Ed¬ 
 ward the Confessor.—1066, Norman Conquest.—1080, Domesday Book.— 
 1087, William Rufus. 
 
 Church. —1027, Truce of God.—1038, Benedict IX. deposed.—1073, Gregory 
 VII.—Investitures—Cistertians and Carthusians—The Holy Lance.—1096, 
 First Crusade. 
 
 Celebrated Men. —Ferdousi, d. 1020; Avicenna 1 ; Guido of Arezzo. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Zoe. —By the death of Basil, in 1025, Constantine VIII. remained 
 sole master of the empire; but he occupied himself little with the 
 government, which his daughters Zoe and Theodora managed, and con¬ 
 tinued to direct, even under his two successors. Romenus III., who 
 had been compelled to repudiate his wife and marry Zoe, Constantine’s 
 eldest daughter, succeeded to the throne in 1028. He met with several 
 disastrous reverses in his campaigns against the Saracens; and by his 
 injudicious attempt to replenish his exchequer, caused successive com- 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 237 
 
 motions, which were aggravated by a dreadful plague, followed by 
 famine and an earthquake. He died of poison administered by his wife, 
 who with criminal haste married Michael IV., 1034. This prince, after 
 defeating the Bulgarians, who had crossed the frontiers of the empire, 
 and rolling back the tide of war into their own forests, divested himself 
 of the purple, and finished his days in a monastery, 1041. 
 
 Michael V., who had been nominated Caesar during his uncle’s reign, 
 caused the empress to be imprisoned; but the people deploring her 
 exile, a formidable tumult of three days terminated in her recall and in 
 the deposition of the sovereign, after a reign of scarcely four months, in 
 1042. The third husband of Zoe, Constantine IX., was now declared 
 emperor, the beginning of whose reign was disquieted by the revolt of 
 ten of his best generals. They were scarcely defeated before Togrul 
 Beg conquered Erzeroum, and 800,000 Bulgarians crossed the Danube 
 on the ice; but, fortunately for the empire, they perished from the com¬ 
 bined effects of war and disease. After the monarch’s death in 1054, 
 Theodora reigned two years, and chose Michael VI. for her successor; 
 but he was dethroned by a conspiracy formed among his most distin¬ 
 guished commanders. 
 
 The Comneni, 1057, were a noble family from the shores of the 
 Euxine, but of Italian origin. Manuel, the first of their line, distin¬ 
 guished himself in the East; while Isaac and John, for their great 
 merits, had been promoted to the highest posts in the army. The sol¬ 
 diery had long viewed with disgust the succession of vicious and feeble 
 emperors who had worn the purple, and on the plains of Phrygia 
 unanimously raised Isaac to the imperial dignity in 1057. After two 
 years, his delicate health determined him to abdicate, and having vainly 
 offered the throne to his brother John, he was succeeded by Constan¬ 
 tine X., Ducas, 1059. Selfish and short-sighted in his policy, this 
 monarch endeavoured to aggrandize his family, while he left the fron¬ 
 tiers unguarded against the inroads of the Turks, who invaded and 
 occupied Iberia and Mesopotamia, as Thrace, Macedon, and Greece 
 were by the Utzes. He was followed by his three sons, governing 
 under the regency of their mother Eudocia, who married, in 1068, Ro- 
 manus IV., Diogenes, by whom Alp Arslan was defeated while his 
 hordes were ravaging Cilicia and Cappadocia. Romanus was taken 
 prisoner in a second campaign, but restored to liberty on promise of a 
 heavy ransom. In the interval, Michael VII., Parapinaces, was raised 
 to the throne, by whom his predecessor was deprived of his eyes, pre¬ 
 viously to his being exiled. In 1074, Soliman conquered Romania 
 (Roum), and chose Nice for his residence. The Greeks now possessed 
 little more of Asia Minor than the seacoast and a few strong towns, 
 while their feebleness was increased by losing those territories in Italy 
 which were seized by the Normans. Wearied of a prince who had 
 abandoned the cares of government to an infamous and incapable 
 minister, the troops proclaimed as emperor their general Nicephorus 
 III., and Michael, divested of his power, received the title of Archbishop 
 of Ephesus. But Alexius I., Comnenus, in 1081, seized on Constan¬ 
 tinople, and obliged Nicephorus to retire into a monastery. For the 
 history of the life of this emperor, we are indebted to the fluent pen of 
 his affectionate daughter Anna. In the disorder of the times, compre¬ 
 hending every calamity which can afflict a declining empire, Alexius 
 
MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 steered the imperial vessel with courage and dexterity. His warlike 
 demonstration alone sufficed to check the incursions of the Turks; but 
 his Norman opponents under Robert Guiscard were more serious anta¬ 
 gonists,* and he was only freed from them by the dissolution of the 
 army on the death of their commander, 1085. Towards the end of the 
 century, the 7'urks again threatened Constantinople; and the supplicatory 
 letters of Alexius to the several princes of Europe were the immediate 
 cause of the crusades. We shall trace their history elsewhere, but it 
 may here be remarked, that the crafty emperor trod in the footsteps of 
 the victorious Franks, and secured to himself those fruits for which they 
 were too impatient to wait. He died in 1118. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Normans. —Some of the armed pilgrims of Normandy, while visiting 
 the Italian shrines, were employed by a Lombard prince of Salerno 
 against the Saracens, a. d. 1016. Their success led to fresh engage¬ 
 ments, and attracted many of the restless spirits of the age to their vic¬ 
 torious standard. By them a great part of Southern Italy and Sicily 
 was torn from the grasp of the infidels; and to indemnify themselves 
 for an unjust division of the spoil, they seized upon Apulia, under the 
 first count, William of the Iron Arm, one of the sons of Tancred de 
 Hauteville, 1046. Leo IX., who did not regard these formidable and 
 unscrupulous neighbours without anxiety, endeavoured by fraud and 
 force to drive them from the peninsula. He did not, however, succeed, 
 but fell into their hands, and the condition of his release was a present 
 of Apulia and Calabria, as a fief of the holy see, 1053. Robert Guis¬ 
 card, another of the twelve sons of Tancred, was the most remarkable 
 of the dukes of Apulia. His ambition led him to aim at the conquest 
 of the Greek empire; and, in 1081, he besieged Dyrrachium (Durazzo) 
 with a resolute army of somewhat less than 30,000 men. The Emperor 
 Alexius marched against him in person, and suffered a disgraceful defeat. 
 The dissensions of Italy recalled Robert; and while preparing a second 
 armament, he engaged in three naval battles with various success against 
 the combined fleet of Venice and Constantinople. An epidemic disease, 
 which attacked him at Corfu, proved fatal next year, and carried him off 
 in the seventieth year of his age, 1085; but the conquest of Sicily was 
 completed by his brother Roger. The latter island, then a prey to civil 
 - discord, was occupied by a number of emirs, who no longer recognised 
 the authority of their sovereigns in Africa, and had divided the country 
 into petty principalities. The chivalrous Norman crossed to Messina, 
 and at the head of only sixty men attacked the Saracens. The spoils 
 he acquired soon attracted others to his standard, and after thirty years 
 he became master of the island, 1090, with the title of grand count. 
 His exploits during the earlier campaigns in Sicily are quite romantic. 
 To strengthen his power, Roger behaved with mildness and toleration 
 towards the vanquished, and the Mussulmans had no reason to complain 
 of a change of masters. Not less skilful as a politician than valiant as 
 
 * In the Greek armies were many English nobles, who, to avoid the oppression of the 
 Norman William, and despairing of the fortunes of their country, had sought refuge at 
 the court of Constantinople. These, under the name of Varangians, proved true and 
 faithful supporters of the Byzantine empire till its fall. 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 239 
 
 a warrior, he had the address to turn to his own advantage all the pre¬ 
 tensions of the pope; and, in order to preserve the right of conferring 
 ecclesiastical benefices, he declared the Sicilian princes to be perpetual 
 and hereditary legates of the holy see. 
 
 Italian Republics. —The origin of these republican states cannot 
 now be precisely ascertained, but we may place them after a. d. 990. 
 Of their history during this century little is known, except that they 
 restored the Roman municipal government, which had never entirely 
 ceased, and were engaged in continual hostilities. The rural nobility 
 were soon brought into subjection, and their fortresses dismantled; the 
 towms were wisely thrown open to all who chose to settle in them ; and 
 the military habits of the populace protected them against the violence 
 of their enemies. But, from a desire of tyrannizing over their neigh¬ 
 bours, they imitated the example of the ancient Greek republics, 44 with 
 all its circumstances of inveterate hatred, unjust ambition, and atrocious 
 retaliation, though with less consummate actors on the scene.” 
 
 Venice had subdued the Istrian pirates, a. d. 939 ; and conquered 
 Dalmatia, in 1000, before any rivals to her commercial power had arisen 
 in the cities of Genoa and Pisa, or any other marts were formed for the 
 merchandise of the East and West. The democracy naturally lost its 
 predominance in the augmented riches of the state ; but lest the supreme 
 power of the doge should be abused, he was reduced to a mere cipher 
 by the annual election of councillors to superintend his conduct, 1002. 
 In the contests against Robert the Norman, the Venetians took part 
 with the Greeks, but were defeated, 1081. The crusades which occur¬ 
 red shortly after paved the way to their subsequent riches, insolence, 
 and power. 
 
 Genoa and Pisa. —These two republics derive their origin from the 
 anarchy that followed the deposition of Charles the Fat, in 888. To 
 this year the Genoese assign the election of their first consuls, the crea¬ 
 tion of their senate, and the assemblies of the people, with all the 
 ancient municipal forms recognised by Berenger II., in his charter of 
 958. Pisa adopted nearly the same institutions in the tenth century; 
 and, like the other, directed all its energies to maritime commerce. The 
 Saracens were the first enemies which these two cities had to contend 
 with; Genoa was pillaged in 936, and Pisa in. 1005. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Henry II. did not receive the crown of Germany in 1002, without 
 opposition; but eventually his claims and authority were recognised in 
 the whole of the duchies and by all the electors. The peace of the 
 kingdom was, however, soon disturbed by the war in Franconia and on 
 the eastern march. Italy was for a time estranged from Germany by 
 the enemies of the Marquis of Ivrea ; and the towns of Lombardy, 
 divided between the partisans of Ardouin and Henry, were a prey to 
 civil strife. In 1012, Henry’s intervention was formally demanded; for 
 the Romans, being formed into two parties in the election of a pontiff, 
 each faction nominated its own candidate; one of whom, Benedict VIII., 
 having been driven out of the city, came to Paderborn in great state, 
 and entreated the assistance of the German monarch to establish him 
 in his dignity. The urgent solicitations of the pope were seconded by 
 
240 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 the complaints preferred by the Archbishop of Milan against Ardouin. 
 In the campaign of 1014, Henry advanced to Rome, where he was 
 crowned emperor. Returning across the Alps, and visiting Burgundy 
 and Lorraine, he stopped at the monastery of Saint Vannes, near Ver¬ 
 dun, where he w~as prevented from embracing a cloistered life only by 
 the good sense and firmness of the superior. 
 
 House of Franconia.—Conrad II., the Salic, descended from Otho 
 the Great, was elected to fill the vacant throne, and^with him began the 
 line of Franconian emperors, a. d. 1024. To secure the crown in his 
 family, he endeavoured to increase its influence by conferring various 
 duchies and principalities on his relatives. His son, Henry III., who 
 succeeded him in 1039, was perhaps the most powerful and absolute of 
 the German rulers. Having defeated the Hungarians, he obtained the 
 cession of all the country between Kahlenberg and the Leitha; and 
 when he had confirmed his power at home, he turned his attention to 
 Italy, where three popes were urging their claims to the triple crown. 
 None of them met with the approbation of the German king, and the 
 Bishop of Bamberg was elected, with the title of Clement II. He also 
 nominated the three successors, who honoured the tiara by their virtues, 
 and commenced the reform of the clergy. Uniting the fief of Franconia 
 to the imperial domain, he bestowed the forfeited duchy on his wife, 
 Agnes,— entirely laying aside the usual forms of popular concurrence 
 which were deemed necessary to various acts of sovereignty. 
 
 H enry IV. was only six years old when his father died in 1056. The 
 care of his minority was assigned to his mother, from whom it was 
 w T rested by the Archbishop of Cologne. Under his new guardian he 
 was allowed to indulge in all kinds of excess, and the Saxons, among 
 whom he resided, soon grew weary of the expenses of the licentious 
 court, and its attacks on their liberties.* To keep this warlike people 
 within their bounds, he constructed a great number of castles in Saxony 
 and Thuringia, compelling the inhabitants to raise with their own hands 
 those fortresses whose garrisons were to be maintained at their expense. 
 His proceedings at last excited a general revolt among them, w r hich he 
 soon quelled, but at a great cost of human life, 1075. 
 
 Lvvestiture.— Henry’s adversary was the celebrated Gregory VII., 
 who desired to free the church from the temporal authority of laymen; 
 that is, to deprive all princes of the power of investing bishops with the 
 ring and crosier, the symbols by which the pope himself conferred the 
 spiritual authority. Gregory’s first attack was violent. In a council 
 held in the Lateran Palace, it was declared that no laics should confer 
 ecclesiastical benefices, or clerks should receive them from a layman, 
 under pain of excommunication. This decree was carried to Henry by 
 four legates, charged with the removal of this annoyance throughout the 
 German church. The king, then occupied with the Saxon war, at first 
 promised them his aid ; but when the insurgents submitted, he forgot 
 his pledge, of which the pope reminded him in a threatening manner. 
 The irritated monarch assembled at Worms the great nobles and prelates 
 of his kingdom, who pronounced Gregory’s deposition, 1076. The reply 
 
 * On the occasion of a quarrel between Henry, and Otho, duke of Bavaria, the latter 
 was deposed, and the duchy conferred on Otho’s son-in-law, Welf or Guelph, from whom 
 descended the Brunswick line, now occupying the British throne. 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 241 
 
 of the Papal See was the excommunication or the king, aecorrq anitd by 
 an act depriving him of his regal dignity, and absolving his subjects 
 from their oaths of allegiance. 
 
 The German aristocracy, oppressed by Henry III., and the Saxons, 
 vanquished by his son, ran to arms, as much to avenge their private 
 injuries, as to enforce the papal encroachments. The rebel chiefs, at 
 whose head were Rodolph of Swabia, and Guelph of Bavaria, met at 
 Tribur, suspended the emperor from his functions, and threatened to de¬ 
 pose him, if he did not procure the retractation of the Romish anathemas. 
 Henry yielded to the storm, and visited Italy, where he became reconciled 
 to the pope, on certain humiliating Conditions, 1077. But he had sub¬ 
 mitted only to gain time, and being encouraged by the fidelity of his 
 Lombard vassals, he broke the treaty to which he had given his assent, 
 and marched against the rebellious Germans, who had already elected 
 Rodolph of Swabia to the throne. The decisive victory of Wolksheim 
 in Thuringia, 1080, was fatal to Rodolph, who perished by the lance of 
 Godfrey of Bouillon, afterwards so distinguished in the First Crusade. 
 In Italy, also, Henry was triumphant; and at the same time, the death 
 of Pope Gregory in exile, 1085, relieved him from much disquietude. 
 But he did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, and his latter days 
 were clouded with increasing misfortunes. First, he had to contend 
 against a new competitor; afterwards against his own son Conrad; 
 while the confessions of his wife Bertha added to his domestic afflictions. 
 But he continued, in despite of all these miseries, to struggle with firm¬ 
 ness, and by his courage effaced at least his earlier faults. When 
 Conrad died, his brother Henry appeared in arms against their father, 
 who was forced to flee before his rebellious child. So great was his 
 distress, that he begged the humble post of reader in a church which he 
 himself had founded, and was refused. Laying himself down on the 
 steps, he died of hunger in 1106, and his body was left without sepul¬ 
 ture, as being that of an excommunicated person.* 
 
 FRANCONIAN DYNASTY. 
 
 13. Conrad II., the Salic, duke of Franconia, elected emp. 1024, m. Oisela, 
 granddaughter of Conrad d. of Bourges, herself of Swabian origin. 
 
 -- - -*---- 
 
 14. Henry III., the Black, emp, 1039, Two daughters, 
 
 m. 1. Qunegunda, d. of Canute the Great; 
 
 2. Agnes of Poitou, afterwards regent. 
 
 / ■— - A - 
 
 15. Henry IV. emp. 1056, Matilda m. Rodolph , Sophia 
 
 m. 1. Bertha of lvrea ; d. of Swabia ; elected m. 1. Solomon , k. of Hungary, 
 
 2. Adelaide of Russia, emp. and killed in 1080. 2. Ladisla.us, k. of Poland. 
 
 Conrad rebels 16. Henry V., emp. 1106, Agnes Adelaide 
 
 m Matilda of m. Matilda of England. m. Frederick of m. Bolcslas III. 
 
 Sicily. Hohenstaufen. k. of Poland. 
 
 *********** 
 
 17. Loth aire II., son of Gerhard of Supplinbourg, 
 d. of Saxony, 1106, emp. 1125, |113? ; m. Richenza, heiress of Henry the Fat, 
 d. of Saxony, and last descendant of Henry the Fowler. 
 
 * Other accounts state that Henry died at Liege in extreme want. On one occasion he 
 was compelled to sell his books to purchase bread ; and shortly before his death he for¬ 
 warded his sword to his son with the brief message : “ Si mihi plus dimisses, plus tibi 
 misissem.” 
 
 21 
 
242 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 In 102*2, Robert shared the regal power with Hugh, his eldest son, 
 who was soon driven to revolt by the harshness of his mother Constance, 
 who required from him, as king, the same implicit obedience which he 
 had given when a child. Robert vanquished and pardoned the rebel. On 
 the demise of Hugh, soon afterwards, the king elevated his third son 
 Henry in his stead. Constance, however, preferred the youngest, named 
 Robert, and, by her ungracious behaviour, drove Henry, as she had be¬ 
 fore compelled his brother, to revolt. But the youthful prince was far 
 from seconding his mother’s projects, and in fact united with his brother 
 against her tyranny. They returned to their duty a short time before 
 the death of their father, which took place at Melun, in the sixty-hrst 
 year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his government, 1031. 
 
 During this reign the Church began to take measures against the heretics, 
 who appeared in great numbers; some of whom pretended to change the doc¬ 
 trines. others to reform the manners, but all were persecuted alike. In a 
 council assembled at Orleans, a multitude of these unfortunate persons were 
 condemned to ihe flames. King Robert and his queen were present at their 
 execution ; when Constance remarking among the victims an ecclesiastic who 
 had been her own confessor, thrust out one of his eyes with an iron rod. 
 
 Robert’s devotion and goodness, the chief qualities that can be praised 
 in him, were not very elevated. His principal occupation was founding 
 churches, chanting with the priests, and correcting the liturgies. Yet 
 this piety, however erroneously directed, was accompanied by an ardent 
 charity that should ever cons-crate the memory of this king. The poor 
 were his friends ; every day he fed three hundred, sometimes a thousand ; 
 on Holy Thursday, kneeling and in sackcloth, he washed their feet, and 
 served them. 
 
 Henry I., 1031, was scarcely seated on the throne before Robert, his 
 brother, was urged to assert his claims to the crown; but the kin or be- 
 ing triumphant, the other was contented to accept the duchy of Burgundy, 
 which his descendants possessed until 1361. Another, but far less suc¬ 
 cessful war, occupied the remainder of his reign. The Duke of Nor¬ 
 mandy, Robert the Devil, by whose aid Henry had been maintained on 
 the throne, having died in 1035, while returning from a pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem, left William the Bastard, afterwards the conqueror of Eng¬ 
 land, to succeed him. The French king took advantage of the minority 
 of the young prince to weaken his power; but no sooner had William 
 reached man’s estate, than he attacked his enemy and defeated him in 
 three battles, 1054. 
 
 Philip I. succeeded his father in 1060, and commenced the longest 
 reign which occurs in the French annals. His personal acts must be 
 carefully separated from those which so highly characterized the chivalry 
 of France during this period. He distinguished himself in several wars, 
 but in his private life indulged in vices that drew upon him the censures 
 of the church and the contempt of his subjects. He trafficked in holy 
 matters, sellincr to the highest bidder the vacant benefices and sees. 
 Gregory VII. menaced him with an interdict, but the pontiff’s severity 
 was exhausted in his German quarrel. He was afterwards successively 
 excommunicated by two popes, at the councils of x\utun and Clermont, 
 on account of his divorce, but was eventually restored by the council of 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 243 
 
 Paris, held in 1104. The latter years of Philip’s reign were passed in 
 all the excitement of the First Crusade. He died in 1108. 
 
 CAPETIAN DYNASTY: Portion!. 
 
 Conrad Welf. 
 
 Robert the Strong , or the Angevin , 
 d. of France, 861-866. 
 
 
 Hugh the Abbot , d. of France 
 
 866-886. 
 
 Eudes, ct. of Paris, d. of France, 886; 
 k., 888-t 898. 
 
 
 Robert I., d. 889 ; k. 922, f 923 
 
 Emma, wife of Rudolph of Burgundy 
 q. of France, 923-936. No issue. 
 
 r- - 
 
 
 Hugh the Great , d. of France, &c., 
 923-956, in. Hedvnge , sister of Otho 
 the Great. 
 
 ---, 
 
 Hugh Capet, d. 956 ; Otho, d. of Bourses, Henry , d. of Bourges, 
 
 k. 987-996. 956-963. ' 965-1002. 
 
 (Both without issue.) 
 
 /-- 
 
 Robert II., k. 996-1031, 
 in. 1. Bertha of Burgundy. 
 
 2. Constance of Toulouse. 
 
 * - ^ --- % 
 
 Henry I., d. of Burgundy, 1015 ; Robert , d. of Burgundy, 1032, stock 
 
 k. 1031-1060 ; m. Anne of Russia. of the first hereditary dukes. 
 
 /- -^ 
 
 Philip I., k. 1060-1108. 
 m. 1. Bertha of Holland. 
 
 2. Bertrade of Mont fort. 
 
 A 
 
 Hugh the Great , ct. of Vermandois 
 and Valois, in right of his wife 
 Adelaide 
 
 (Branch extinct in the sixth generation.) 
 
 r " ^ 
 
 Louis VI., the Fat, k. 1108. 
 
 SPAIN. • 
 
 The Almoravides.— Moorish Spain presented in every quarter the 
 appearance of anarchy and dismemberment, at the very period when its 
 existence was threatened by two formidable enemies : on the one side 
 by Alphonso V., who, after uniting Galicia to the kingdoms of Leon 
 and Castile, took possession of Toledo, Madrid, and Guadalaxara; on 
 the other, by African tribes bent on a war of extermination. 
 
 About the middle of the eleventh century, there appeared in Africa, 
 beyond Mount Atlas, in the deserts of ancient Gaetulia, two tribes of 
 Arab origin, known by the appellations of Gudala and Lamtuna. When 
 these were converted to Islamism, they assumed the name of Murabitins 
 or Almoravides—that is, men of God. Excited by the enthusiasm of 
 their new faith, they crossed the mountains; when the Arabs of the 
 desert, uniting with the new people, founded the city of Morocco. Yus- 
 suf was its first emir, and being summoned by Mohammed, sovereign 
 of Cordova, made three expeditions into Spain; and, on learning the 
 feebleness of all the petty kings, resolved to subject them to his power. 
 In 1094, he succeeded in putting an end to all the Mohammedan states 
 in the peninsula; but soon felt himself incapable of appropriating their 
 territories as he had intended. It is true, however, he gained a few 
 advantages over the Christians, and ravaged Catalonia after a terrible 
 battle, in which, it is said, 30,000 men were slain. 
 
 Christian Spain. —With the death of Bermudes III., in 1037, the 
 dynasty of the Kings of Leon expired, and this ancient sovereignty was 
 united to Castile in the person of Ferdinand of Navarre, son of that 
 
244 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Garcia III. who, notwithstanding- his great valour, was surnamed the 
 Trembler. This family possessed the four Christian thrones of Spain, 
 which were reduced to three, in 1038, by the death of Gonzales of 
 Sobrarva. 
 
 At tiiis time the Moors still possessed Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, 
 part of New Castile, and all the seacoast from Barcelona to the mouth 
 of the Tagus. The war with the infidels was renewed by the new King 
 of Leon and Castile, whose frontiers were even extended to the Mon- 
 dego, and the Arab princes of Saragossa, Toledo, Cordova, and Seville, 
 w’ere compelled to pay him tribute. On Ferdinand’s death in 1065, his 
 kingdom was divided among his three sons: Sancho had Castile; Al- 
 phonso, Leon and the Asturias ; Garcia, a part of Portugal with Galicia. 
 Little variety characterizes the history of these states until 1081, when 
 Henry of Burgundy, a soldier of fortune, received the hand of Theresa, 
 Alphonso’s natural daughter, and, as dowry, whatever he could wrest 
 from the Moors in Portugal. Other French knights were found in the 
 Spanish armies, and on one occasion an auxiliary force crossed the 
 Pyrenees to aid Alphonso, with whose assistance the Moors were driven 
 into Andalusia. 
 
 The Cid. —Although Capmany, with an excess of critical scepticism, 
 throws doubts upon the existence of this warrior, it is not the less 
 necessary to be acquainted with his history. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, 
 surnamed Campeador (the battler), and Cid (chief), illustrated the reign 
 of Ferdinand I., founder of the Castilian monarchy. He was born of 
 a noble and ancient family at Burgos, and aided Don Sancho to deprive 
 the brothers and sisters of the latter of the heritage which Ferdinand 
 had left to them ; but Sancho having, in 1072, been killed at Zamora, 
 his brothers recovered their estates. The Cid shortly after falling into 
 disgrace, retired from court, not to an inactive life, for with his own fol¬ 
 lowers alone he took Alcazar, and maintained himself on a rock near 
 the Guadalaviar, which still bears the name of Pena de el Cid. One of 
 his most remarkable exploits was the siege of Toledo, w r hich lasted 
 twelve months, and attracted many cavaliers from Italy and France. 
 From the number of French families which settled in that town, their 
 privileges derived the name of Franchise. The Cid next conquered 
 Valencia, which he governed with the authority of an independent 
 sovereign. He died in 1099. 
 
 ARABIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Turkish Conquests. —In 1038, an unsuccessful battle terminated the 
 Ghaznevide dynasty, and the choice of the victorious Turks fell on 
 Togrul-beg, founder of the family w r hich bears the name of Seljukian. 
 In the space of sixteen years he conquered Balkh, Carmania, Taberistan, 
 and obeying the summons of the caliph, he overthrew the Bowudes, w hc 
 had long reigned at Ispahan. Togrul next assumed the title of Emir a! 
 Omra: seated behind a black curtain and holding the sceptre of the 
 prophet, the Abbasside invested him with seven robes, gave him seven 
 captives born in the seven climates which obeyed the Arab dominion, 
 presented him the mystic veil, placed two crowms on his head, and girt 
 him with two swords, to show that he was master both of the East and 
 the West. Dying without children, he was succeeded by his nephew, 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 245 
 
 Alp Arslan, in the title and prerogatives of sultan, 1063. The Valiant 
 Lion, for such is the meaning of his name, gallantly attacked the Greek 
 empire, and the provinces of Armenia and Georgia fell in three years. 
 Romanus Diogenes bravely opposed him, but after a few trivial suc¬ 
 cesses, was defeated and made prisoner, 1071. The fairest part of Asia 
 submitted to Arslan; his throne was surrounded by 1200 princes, and 
 guarded by 200,000 hardy warriors. He died in 1073, and on his tomb 
 might be read the following inscription: — “O ye who have seen the 
 glory of Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to Maru, and you 
 will behold it buried in the dust!” 
 
 Malek-Shah, the eldest son of Alp, was victorious over all his com¬ 
 petitors for the sovereignty, and extended his dominions from the Chinese 
 frontier to Arabia and the neighbourhood of Constantinople. Twelve 
 times this active monarch is said to have travelled through his vast 
 kingdom. He embellished the cities of Asia with public buildings; 
 revived and honoured the pursuits of literature; and by his reformation 
 of the calendar, approximated nearly to the accuracy of the Gregorian 
 style. The era named Gelalasan (i. e . glory of the faith), from one of 
 Malek’s titles, is fixed to the 15th of March a. h. 471, a. d. 1079. The 
 shah’s death, in 1092, was preceded by the murder of the vizir Nizam, 
 the wise and virtuous minister of two sovereigns. Thirty years’ faith¬ 
 ful service could not screen him from the attacks of faction, and at the 
 age of ninety-three he fell beneath the dagger of a fanatic — the first 
 victim of Hassan Sebek, the celebrated founder of the Assassins. 
 
 With the son of Alp Arslan disappeared the unity of the empire. 
 Barkiarok succeeded in Persia; but already three separate dynasties 
 reigned in Carmania, Syria, and Iconium, which, though they had 
 obeyed Malek-shah, became nearly independent at his death. The most 
 powerful of these petty kingdoms was Roum, which had been founded 
 by a prince of the royal family in 1084. Towards the end of the tenth 
 century Jerusalem had fallen under the power of the Turks, but access 
 to its holy places was still allowed to the Christians. In 1076, it was 
 taken by the Turks, who insulted and oppressed the citizens and pil¬ 
 grims during the twenty years that their domination lasted. The Caliph 
 of Egypt obtained possession of it in 1096, but three years afterwards it 
 was captured by the crusaders. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 % 
 
 Danish Line.— Ethelred II., in the hope of freeing himself and his 
 subjects from the odious tribute of Danegelt , plotted the massacre of 
 every Dane within his kingdom. At the appointed time, 13th Novem¬ 
 ber 1002, the treacherous design was executed, but failed, as it merited, 
 in its results. Sweyn reappeared with a numerous force, and after 
 some years of hostility, compelled the native sovereign to take refuge in 
 Normandy, and w r as himself proclaimed king of England, 1014. Ed¬ 
 mund Ironside, 1016, struggled manfully for his father’s crown, and was 
 several times victorious over Canute, Sweyn’s successor; but his death 
 established the foreigner on the throne in 1017. This prince, justly 
 named the Great, w T as affable, wise, and virtuous. By his marriage 
 with Emma, Ethelred’s w 7 idow, he conciliated the vanquished, and dis¬ 
 armed the Duke of Normandy, wdiile the powerful Earl Godwin was 
 21 * 
 
246 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 gained over by receiving the hand of his daughter. His reproof of the 
 flatteries addressed to him by his courtiers is well known, and throws a 
 favourable light on his character. Preserving the authority of the laws, 
 he added to their efficiency by other good institutions of his own; and 
 effectually checked the incursions of the Scotch on the northern frontier. 
 He composed songs which were sung alike by Danes and Saxons; and 
 patronized the literature of the monks not less than the wild poems of the 
 scalds. In 1030, he visited Rome as a pilgrim; and after a reign of 
 twenty years, he died with a reputation inferior to no monarch of his 
 age. He was succeeded by his sons Harold, 1036, and Hardicanute, 
 1039 ; on the death of the latter the crown returned to the ancient family, 
 in the person of Edward the Confessor, 1041. The accession of the 
 Danish kings had produced little change in England, since most of their 
 followers had embraced Christianity, and assimilated themselves gradu¬ 
 ally to the natives, whose laws and language were not unlike their own. 
 The mildness of Edward’s character endeared him to his subjects, in 
 spite of his Norman favourites; but his reign was disturbed by the 
 rebellion of Godwin, earl or governor of Kent, which was soon quelled, 
 and by occasional hostilities with the Welsh and Scotch. In 1054, 
 Siward, earl of Northumberland, and Macduff, earl of Fife, led an army 
 against Macbeth, whose usurpation of the northern throne has been im¬ 
 mortalized by the pen of Shakspeare. Edward died in 1066, and was 
 buried in the magnificent church of St. Peter at Westminster, which he 
 had rebuilt from its foundation, his subjects bewailing his loss like that 
 of an affectionate parent. Harold, the son of Godwin, immediately 
 claimed the sceptre, and procuring his election by the witan, to the 
 prejudice of Edgar Etheling, the legitimate heir, was crowned in 1066. 
 Two rivals, the king of Norway, and his own brother Tostig, now 
 appeared to endanger his kingdom, but they were soon defeated. Wil¬ 
 liam, duke of Normandy, proved a more formidable competitor, founding 
 his claim to the crown on the purpose, if not the testament, of Edward, 
 and on the oath which Harold himself had made to promote the duke’s 
 succession to it. The king’s reply was, that the promise had been 
 extorted by violence, and that as he had been elected by the people, he 
 would endeavour to show himself worthy of their choice. 
 
 Each party immediately prepared for war, but it was unfortunate for 
 Harold, that he had meanwhile to march against the Norwegian king, 
 who had landed in the north of England. The two armies met at Stam¬ 
 ford Bridge; and the ranks of the hostile cavalry having been broken, 
 their leader was slain, and his army almost annihilated. In the midst 
 of the rejoicings which followed this victory, the news was announced 
 that the Normans had landed on the coast of Sussex. 
 
 No sooner had William received the answer of Harold, and heard of 
 his coronation, than he began to make vigorous preparations for invading 
 England. Ships were immediately constructed, supplies collected from 
 all the adjacent parts of the Continent, and volunteers from every quarter 
 crowded to his camp at the mouth of the Dive, eager to share in the 
 danger and plunder of the campaign. Unfavourable winds, and the 
 loss of several vessels, depressed for a time the spirit of the adventurers. 
 At length the favourable moment arrived ; and quitting St. Valery wffth 
 seven hundred ships, he landed at Pevensey, 28th September 1066. 
 Thither Harold flew with all the forces he could muster, and at a place 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 247 
 
 cabled Senlac, about nine miles from Hastings, was fought the battle 
 tha decided his fate. From an early hour until sunset the fight was 
 continued with varying success, until the king fell pierced with an arrow 
 and his soldiers fled panic-stricken from the field. 
 
 44 It was ordained (says Turner), by the supreme Director of events, 
 that England should no longer remain insulated from the rest of Europe ; 
 but should for its own benefit and the improvement of mankind, become 
 connected with the affairs of the Continent. The Anglo-Saxon dynasty 
 was therefore terminated; and a sovereign, with great continental pos¬ 
 sessions, was led to the English throne. By the consequences of this 
 revolution, England acquired that interest, and established that influence 
 in the transactions and fortunes of its neighbours, which have continued to 
 the present day, with equal advantages to its inhabitants and to Europe.” 
 
 The Norman Conquest, 1066.— William I. did not even yet succeed 
 to the crown without further struggle. Edgar, surnamed Etheling or 
 the Illustrious, who had been nominated king on the death of Harold, 
 was supported by the Londoners and others; but disunion and disaffec¬ 
 tion prevented them from taking advantage of William’s delay in 
 marching upon the capital. At length, when he appeared before the city, 
 after devastating all the surrounding country, a deputation of the inhabi¬ 
 tants waited upon him with an offer of the crown, which was accepted, 
 and the festival of Christmas appointed for the coronation. 
 
 The Saxon chiefs, Edwin and Morcar, whose fatal retreat into their 
 northern provinces had led to the surrender of London, being now 
 overawed by the additional power which the invader had acquired by 
 his possession of the capital and his title of king, took the custom¬ 
 ary oaths of submission. Meanwhile the Normans were almost wholly 
 engaged in dividing the riches of the conquered territory. Commis¬ 
 sioners overran all the country that was in the power of their army, 
 making inventories of every kind of property, public and private; 
 inscribing and enregistering each article with the greatest care. Parti¬ 
 cular inquiries were made as to the names of the individuals who died 
 in battle under Harold, of such as had survived, as well of those who 
 had been prevented, by w 7 hat cause soever, from joining his standard. 
 All those persons or their heirs were deprived of their possessions ; and 
 the immense proceeds of this universal spoliation w ? ere the pay of the 
 adventurers wiio had been enrolled in William’s host. He himself 
 retained for his own share all the treasures of the ancient kino's, the 
 church-plate, and the most precious of the articles found in the ware¬ 
 houses of the merchants. The barons and knights received vast 
 domains, castles, villages, and even entire towns, while the vassals 
 w r ere rewarded by smaller portions. Towers and strong places arose in 
 every direction; all the natives were disarmed, and compelled to swear 
 obedience to their new sovereign. To overawe the city of London, the 
 conqueror took up his abode in the Tower, w T hich he enlarged and 
 strengthened; here he raised his dreaded banner bearing the three lions, 
 and similar ensigns floated over two new castles towards the west of 
 the city. The name of Saxon became a term of reproach, and during a 
 whole century not one individual of this race was elevated to any civil 
 or ecclesiastical dignity. Even their language and alphabetical charac¬ 
 ters were rejected as barbarous; in the schools, French only was 
 allowed to be taught; the Norman idiom was employed in all legal acts 
 
248 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 until the reign of Edward III.; and some slight traces of it may be 
 found at the present day. 
 
 The victor having thus secured his conquest, returned to his dukedom 
 to receive the felicitations of his Norman subjects; and during his 
 absence, the Saxons, incensed by the arrogant government of his vice¬ 
 roys, rose in arms. Their revolt however was of brief duration; for 
 hastily returning, he attacked Exeter, the stronghold of the insurgents, 
 and took it after a siege of eighteen days. 
 
 While all hopes of independence were thus gradually crushed in the 
 West, the extensive provinces of the North offered an asylum to the 
 friends of liberty. Edgar had early taken refuge with Malcolm Can- 
 more, king of Scotland, by whom he was received as legitimate 
 sovereign, and whose alliance was firmly assured by his marriage with 
 Margaret, the youngest sister of the English prince. William did not 
 wait for his antagonists to begin the campaign, but resolutely marching 
 northwards, defeated all who opposed him, cruelly devastating the 
 whole country, at the cost, it is said, of more than a hundred thousand 
 lives. Malcolm was soon obliored to submit, and consent to hold certain 
 
 O _ 7 
 
 portions of his kingdom as a vassal of the English crown, while Edgar, 
 the last male descendant of Cerdic, was compelled to seek a reconcilia¬ 
 tion with the victor, 1072. 
 
 The conqueror next turned his attention to the organization of his 
 government, and as his power depended on the sword alone, all grants 
 and fiefs were burdened with the condition of furnishing, whenever 
 required, a certain number of horsemen completely armed; and by this 
 regulation, called the knights’ service, the king was enabled to raise in 
 a brief space an army of 60,000 cavalry. The tenants of the crown 
 exacted a similar and proportional service from their dependants. All 
 the followers of William were noble, in right of their victory and foreign 
 birth. After himself, in point of rank, stood the governor of the pro¬ 
 vince, or count; next to him his lieutenant or viscount (vice-count); 
 then came the different ranks of soldiers, namely, barons, knights, and 
 esquires or sergeants. A general survey was made of England, the 
 particulars of which were inserted in the Domesday Book, or Book of 
 Judgment. From this account and other equally credible sources, we 
 learn that the daily revenue amounted to 1061 pounds weight of silver, 
 or nearly one million and a quarter sterling per annum; an enormous 
 sum, when we consider that the value of this metal was perhaps ten 
 times as great as it is at present. 
 
 Robert, William’s eldest son, and the Norman lords, took advantage 
 of the absence of their sovereign to revolt. From 1078 to 1084, the king 
 conducted several expeditions into France, reduced Manceaux, and 
 defeated the prince, 1079; but the latter again took up arms, on the 
 pretence that the duchy of Normandy fell to him immediately upon his 
 father becoming the sovereign of a foreign nation. He w T as supported 
 by the king of France, who could not regard without uneasiness the 
 exaltation of his vassal. This was the origin of a long series of wars 
 between the two countries, during which, as the conqueror was march¬ 
 ing towards Paris, an accident caused his death, 1087. In the previous 
 year, a total failure of the harvest in England, and a malignant disorder, 
 carried off many thousands of the inhabitants. 
 
 William Rufus, 1087, the second son, took possession of his father’s 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 249 
 
 throne, not however without resistance, for revolts broke out in several 
 parts of the country, which were put down by the aid of the Saxons, 
 who flocked to the royal standard. Normandy was at this time in a 
 troubled state, owing to the bad government of Robert, who, after two 
 invasions from England, resigned the administration of his kingdom to 
 his brother for ten thousand marks, with which sum he raised a body of 
 troops and embarked for the Crusades. Rufus governed his subjects 
 with a rod of iron ; and his treasury, soon exhausted by his prodigality, 
 was replenished by the most unscrupulous means. Taxes and fines 
 were imposed on the liberty of hunting, while a transgression of many 
 of the forest-laws was made punishable with death. It was this king, 
 also, who established the 44 benefit of clergy,” by virtue of which, all 
 persons capitally convicted, saved their lives by proving that they could 
 read—a most convincing proof of the rarity of such an accomplishment. 
 William, who had now become odious to his people, was shot in the 
 New Forest of Hampshire, whether accidentally or by design, is un¬ 
 certain, 2d August 1100. 
 
 Malcolm Canmore. —In 1091, William entered Scotland to revenge 
 an invasion by Malcolm, whom he compelled to do homage for the 
 southern counties. The Scottish kin'g and his eldest son perished in 
 battle at the siege of Alnwick castle, 1093, when the throne was seized 
 by Donald Bane, who in a few months was deposed by Duncan, an 
 illegitimate son of Malcolm’s; and he, in his turn, was cut off by Mal- 
 peder, Maormor or Earl of the Mearns. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Roman bishops had long been desirous of extending the Christian 
 religion into the countries occupied by the Mohammedans; but the 
 troubles of Europe prevented them from directing a full share of their 
 attention to that object. A favourable opportunity, however, occurred 
 at the end of this century, and Peter the Hermit preached a holy war 
 throughout Christendom. The papal power and corruption had now 
 nearly attained their height. Benedict IX. was so disorderly in his con¬ 
 duct, that even the Italians degraded him from his office in 1038, and 
 again in 1044. Leo IX., a pope of a different character, was not the 
 least deserving of those who obtained the name of saint. His regula¬ 
 tions for correcting and punishing the enormous vices of the clergy may 
 be held as some criterion of the corrupt state of the church. 
 
 Gregory VII., Hildebrand, who was the first pontiff elected by the 
 college of cardinals, 1073, was a man in every way suited to maintain 
 the cause of the Roman see, his chief object being the attainment of 
 worldly gain and authority. While he disputed with the emperor for 
 power, he contended with human reason in support of the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, and with the clergy for the enforcement of celibacy; 
 a practice that had early been introduced into the Christian church from 
 the Jewish Essenes, and the philosophical sect of the Gnostics. He 
 began by excommunicating some of the ministers of the Emperor Henry 
 IV., on the pretence of simony, and then denied to the sovereign the 
 right of investiture by the ring and crosier ; maintaining that the estates 
 of the bishops might be conferred by a layman, but that those emblems 
 )f spiritual power could only be bestowed by the vicar of Christ. The 
 
250 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 resistance of Henry led to the deposition of the pope by the council of 
 Worms ; when Gregory in his turn excommunicated the king, and re¬ 
 leased his subjects from their allegiance, 1076. His majesty obtained 
 an absolution from this sentence by sitting at the pope’s gate three days 
 barefooted, and clad in coarse woollen. Retreading his steps, he not 
 only subdued the German rebellion, but also banished the refractory 
 pontiff, and commanded himself to be crowned in Rome by the antipope 
 Guibert (Clement III.), 1084. Gregory expired, the year following, at 
 Salerno, saying, “ I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, there¬ 
 fore do I die in exile.” 
 
 Towards the beginning of this century the Hungarians were convert¬ 
 ed, and their king, Stephen, received the title of “Apostolic” from the 
 pope. In France, Berenger, archdeacon of Angers, openly attacked 
 the new opinions on the eucharist, for which he was twice threatened 
 with excommunication : while at Constantinople, the patriarch Ceru- 
 larius resisted the claims of the Bishop of Rome to the chief rank and 
 authority among the faithful, 1053. 
 
 Transubstantiation. —This most astonishing doctrine arose from taking a 
 figure of speech in a literal sense. According to the Romish church, when 
 the words of consecration have been pronounced by the priest, the bread, and 
 every fragment into which it is again broken, become the actual body of flesh 
 and blood in which our Redeemer suffered upon the cross,— remaining bread 
 to the sight, touch, and taste, yet ceasing to be so. Of all the corruptions of 
 pure Christianity, this last was the slowest in being adopted. It was first pro¬ 
 posed in 831 by Radbert, afterwards abbot of Corbey; but it was not declared 
 the doctrine of the church until 1215. When the question was first brought 
 before Hildebrand, he not only inclined to the principle of Berenger, by whom 
 it was opposed, 1079, but pretended to consult the Virgin Mary, who, he 
 asserted, had pronounced against it. It was finally declared by Innocent III. 
 to be a tenet necessary to salvation. 
 
 La Chartreuse. — In the midst of the troubles which at this time agitated 
 the church, there arose a new order of solitaries, who, by holiness of life, 
 mortification, and prayer, at once edified the people and honoured religion. St. 
 Bruno, founder of the order of Chartreuse, was born at Cologne of distinguish¬ 
 ed parents ; and soon became so skilful in theology, that he passed for one of 
 the most learned doctors of the age. While filling a distinguished station in 
 the cathedral of Rheims, he suddenly formed the resolution of withdrawing 
 into solitude. With some of his friends, in whom he had inspired similar feel¬ 
 ings, he retired into the desert of the Chartreuse, in the diocese of Grenoble, 
 whither the report of their sanctity quickly attracted a number of imitators. 
 St. Bruno himself was invited to Rome by Urban II.; but the disorders which 
 he beheld there soon disgusted him, and he retired into Calabria, where he 
 founded a monastery, in which he died. The regulations of the order are still 
 preserved with the same strictness as when first drawn up. Each brother has 
 a separate cell; they live upon the plainest food, and that in small quantifies ; 
 and only the Sabbath is spent in each other’s society. Their clothing is simple 
 and coarse ; sackcloth is worn next the skin ; all gold and silver ornaments are 
 expressly forbidden, even in their religious services, with the exception of a 
 silver chalice used in the sacrament. They observe the strictest silence, com¬ 
 municating only by signs, and support themselves by the labour of their hands. 
 
 Truce of God. —In these ages, when a country was it peace with its neigh¬ 
 bours, it was liable to be disturbed by private wars, individuals taking upon 
 themselves the right of deciding their own quarrels. In consequence of the 
 confusion which this caused, it was enacted by the council of Clermont, that 
 from sunset on Wednesday to sunrise on Monday, in every week, the Truce 
 of God should be observed on pain of excommunication. But the same coun- 
 - cii also published a canon, which has ever since produced the most disastrous 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 251 
 
 effects wherever Romanism is tolerated or established: namely, that “no 
 bishop or priest shall promise upon oath liege obedience to any king or layman.” 
 
 Tradition. —With the decay and corruption of the Latin language, the 
 Latin version of the Holy Scriptures had become useless to the people; and 
 the Roman see exerted its power in proscribing the use of such vernacular 
 translations as existed. This was done in the consciousness that what was 
 then taught as Christianity was not to be found in the written word of God.* 
 Vague unwritten tradition, the artifice of the early heretics, was used instead, 
 on the assumption that many things had been revealed which had not been 
 committed to writing. Thus, like the Pharisees, the Romish clergy corrupted 
 the ritual and faith of the Western Church. Gregory VII. issued the first of 
 these prohibitions, refusing to the Bohemians the liberty of performing the 
 service in Sclavonic. 
 
 THE CRUSADES. 
 
 Peter the Hermit. —During many centuries the devout Christians 
 of all countries had gratified their curiosity or excited their piety by 
 laborious pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the theatre of the mission and 
 sufferings of our Blessed Lord. When at length Palestine fell under 
 the dominion of the Saracens—and still later, when the Turkish hordes 
 overran it,—these visits became more dangerous, and perhaps, on that 
 very account, more numerous. The humble and defenceless palmers 
 were treated with the greatest contumely; and, becoming victims of 
 private rapine or public oppression, they often sank within sight of the 
 object for which they had encountered innumerable perils. Their piteous 
 tale of suffering excited the sympathy of Christendom, when the letters 
 of Alexius and the eloquence of Peter the Hermit set fire “to that in¬ 
 flammable mass of enthusiasm that pervaded Europe.” The zealous 
 apostle of the Holy War had been himself an eyewitness of the suffer¬ 
 ings of the natives and pilgrims of Palestine, j- 
 
 Sylvester II. and Gregory VII. had meditated a European armament 
 against Asia; but the glory of the enterprise was reserved for Urban II. 
 At the council of Clermont, 1095, the listening thousands shouted with 
 one voice, “ it is the will of God,” and impressed on their garments the 
 sign of the cross. Their numbers were increased by the offer of a 
 plenary indulgence, extending to past as well as future crimes. Who 
 would hesitate, when the crown of martyrdom was allotted to those who 
 fell 1 The departure of the expedition had been fixed for the 15th August 
 1096; but before that period arrived, a thoughtless crowd of both sexes 
 issued from France with Peter at their head, and Walter the Penniless 
 as his lieutenant; other bands of enthusiasts followed, one in particular 
 being under the guidance of a goose and a goat.ij: Their earliest exploits 
 
 * The practice of Rome has not changed with the times. In 1817, a papal brief, ad¬ 
 dressed to the Polish primate, was issued against Bible Societies, describing them as a 
 vaferrimum inventum, pestem quoad fieri potest delendam. 
 
 | M. Pouqueville does not consider Peter as a mere enthusiast ; he shows that he was 
 employed by the Frank merchants settled in Palestine, to plead their cause at the court 
 of the French monarch, and point out the danger to which their commerce was exposed 
 from the ferocity of the Seljukian Turks, who had overthrown the Saracenic empire.— 
 Mem. de Plnstitut. tom. x. 
 
 X Mr W. Billings, in his account of the Temple Church (London, 1838), thinks these to 
 be allegorical Manichee or Gnostic standards. “ The goose in Egyptian symbols meant 
 Divine Son, or Son of God. The goat meant Typhon or the Devil. Thus we have the 
 Manichee opposing principles of good and evil as standards, at the head of the ignorant 
 mob of crusading invaders. Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must 
 have been infected with Manichee or Gnostic idolatry ?”—P. 5. 
 
252 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 were against the Jews, thousands of whom along the Rhine and the 
 Moselle weie pillaged and slain. The first party under Walter passed 
 cafe through Hungary; but were attacked, and one-third of their number 
 slain, in Bulgaria. Peter, who followed with 40,000 men, seeing on the 
 walls of Semlin the clothes of sixteen crusaders who had been impaled, 
 took a cruel revenge, massacring all the prisoners he could make. No 
 sooner had they reached Constantinople, and recovered from their 
 fatigues, than their riotous behaviour compelled Alexius to hasten their 
 passage aero s the strait. They soon fell an easy prey to Soliman on 
 the plains of Nice; and 300,000 perished before one single place was 
 rescued from the infidels. 
 
 First Crusade.— A disciplined army was now assembled under God¬ 
 frey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, and Hugh the Great of Ver- 
 mandois ; and breaking up their encampment in 1096, they marched by 
 three different routes for Constantinople, where they all met within nine 
 months. Their numbers and discipline excited the fears of the emperor, 
 who skilfully extricating himself from every difficulty, saw all of them 
 at length across the Bosphorus. At a grand muster on the plains of 
 Bithynia next year, 100,000 armed knights were counted, the flower of 
 European chivalry; and the total number has been raised to 600,000, 
 not including priests, women, and children. The city of Nice, after an 
 obstinate assault, fell into their hands; and one fiercely contested battle 
 at Doryiseum decided the fate of Asia Minor. A fatiguing march under 
 a burning sun, during which they suffered intolerable thirst, conducted 
 those iron-clad warriors to Antioch. The siege being formed about the 
 middle of October, the town yielded to treachery at the end of seven 
 months: but the victors, in their turn, were attacked at once by the 
 garrison in the citadel and by an innumerable army of Turks or Arabians. 
 During twenty-five days, the Christians were on the verge of destruc¬ 
 tion; till, taking courage from despair, they sallied out and annihilated 
 the besieging host, 1098. Famine and pestilence now made deep 
 ravages among them : the Count of Flanders was reduced to beg a 
 dinner, and Duke Geoffrey is said to have borrowed a horse. But the 
 fainting spirits of the army were in due time revived by the cunning of 
 a priest and the policy of the chiefs. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to 
 Peter Bartholomew, for the purpose of revealing the place where the 
 steel head of the lance that pierced the side of our Redeemer lay con¬ 
 cealed. He was told to seek it and use it as a banner, and to assure 
 the leaders of the expedition that under that mystic weapon they could 
 not fail to march to victory. The Holy Lance was discovered, and 
 dazzled the eyes or the imagination of a fanatical multitude. After a 
 delay of ten months, caused by intemperance and distress, the army, 
 diminished to 40,000, began their march to Jerusalem, which was taken 
 after a siege of six weeks, in 1099, about 460 years after its conquest 
 by Omar. Three days were spent in promiscuous slaughter: 70,000 
 Moslems were put to the sword; the Jews were burnt in their syna¬ 
 gogues ; and a multitude of unfortunate captives still remained to gratify 
 the avarice of the conquerors. 44 The holy sepulchre was now free; 
 and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish their vow. Bareheaded 
 and barefooted, with contrite hearts, and in an humble posture, they 
 ascended the Hill of Calvary, amidst the loud anthems of the clergy; 
 kissed the stone which had covered *he Saviour of the world; and 
 
ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. 253 
 
 bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of their redemp¬ 
 tion.” 
 
 The unanimous voice of the army elected Godfrey king of Jerusalem, 
 1099, but he refused to accept the title, or to w T ear a crown of gold in 
 that city in which his Redeemer had been crowned with thorns. He 
 was scarcely seated on the throne, with the title of Baron of the Holy 
 Sepulchre, when he was summoned to the field by the approach of the 
 Sultan of Egypt with an army of more than 300,000 men. The total 
 rout of the latter on the field of Ascalon completely established the 
 Latin kingdom in Syria, which, by the arms of Godfrey and the two 
 Baldwins, soon equalled in extent the dominions of the ancient mon- 
 archs of Judah and Israel. The laws, language, and feudal jurispru¬ 
 dence of the Franks were introduced; the orders of the knights of the 
 Hospital of St.John, and of the Temple of Solomon, were founded — 
 the firmest bulwarks of the Christian pow’er. 
 
 Read: Mill’s History of the Crusades; or, Michaud. 
 
 GENERAL TABLE OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 FIRST CRUSADE. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Kings, Popes, 
 
 &.C. 
 
 Events. 
 
 Remarkable 
 
 Persons. 
 
 Causes. 
 
 Results. 
 
 From 
 
 A. D. — 
 
 to 
 
 A. D. — 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 Prepare: A similar table for each crusade. Particulars may be found in 
 Gibbon, and the authors just named. 
 
 CHIVALRY. 
 
 The extravagances of chivalry long caused the institution itself to be regard¬ 
 ed as an example of the caprice and absurdity of the human mind. The his¬ 
 torian of the order traces its rise to the eleventh century, and to the aggrandize¬ 
 ment of the French barons at the commencement of the third or Capetian race. 
 Every noble in his castle emulated the pomp of his sovereign; in each district 
 the ceremony of a court was maintained, which became a school of manners 
 where the high-born youth received their education. At the age of twenty- 
 one, they were eligible to the honourable distinction of knighthood. Respect 
 for the gentler sex, and the influence of the Christian religion, contributed to 
 form the character of the young knight. He appears as a man actuated by a 
 daring and martial spirit, seeking his reward in the approbation of the ladies, 
 to one of whom, as to a superior being, the object of his early choice, he was 
 bound to communicate every thought and action. The tournaments, mock- 
 fights between selected individuals, date from a very early period, but their 
 lutter form must be ascribed to the regulations of Geoffrey of Preuilli, 10f6. 
 
 Here throngs of knights and barons bold 
 In weeds of peace high triumph hold, 
 
 With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 
 Rain influence, and judge the prize 
 
 Of wit or arms. ' Milton. 
 
 22 
 
Z54 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 The peacock, pheasant, and swan, were regarded as emblems of the parade 
 and pride of chivalry, and reverenced with such religious veneration that the 
 knight was sometimes bound by an oath made to his Creator, to the Virgin, to 
 the ladies, and to one of these birds. But while the laws of chivalry breathed 
 nothing but religion, virtue, honour, and humanity, the times were marked by 
 profligacy, violence, and barbarism. It flourished during these centuries of 
 returning order, having appeared when the worst period of barbarism had gone 
 by, and society was beginning to assume a regular form. It gradually gave 
 way to the chivalry of modern Europe, as mankind became capable of con¬ 
 ducting themselves agreeably to reasonable principles of action. 
 
 STATE OF THE WORLD AT THE EPOCH OF THE 
 CRUSADES, FROM 1096 TO 1273. 
 
 Rome and Germany were the dominant powers of the West: both assumed 
 the right of creating kings, to which the former added that of deposing them. 
 The quarrel of investitures, begun by Henry IV. and Gregory VII., set Europe 
 in flames. The nobles took this opportunity of securing their independence ; 
 anarchy reigned in the cities; and the fields were ravaged by undisciplined 
 bands of armed men. 
 
 France began to assume a more tranquil position, the number of states 
 being greatly diminished; but there still remained several powerful vassals. 
 The Dukes of Normandy, become more formidable since the conquest of 
 England, had subjected the sovereigns of Brittany ; and the Dukes of Aqui- 
 taine reigned over the vast territory lying between the Loire and the Pyrenees, 
 the Cevennes and the Ocean. The greater part of Languedoc obeyed the 
 Counts of Toulouse ; those of Flanders added to their possession of that fertile 
 country the submission of their neighbours; and the Counts of Champagne 
 enjoyed that rich part of France which still bears the name. The Dukes of 
 Burgundy, attached to the monarchy by the closest ties of blood, governed 
 from the banks of the Loire to the Straits of Dover. 
 
 In Spain two kings were the terror of the Moors : Sancho, who united 
 Navarre to Aragon; and Alphonso of Castile, who gradually extended his 
 southern frontier. Meanwhile, the new Count of Portugal planted the bannei 
 of Christianity on the banks of the Tagus. 
 
 England, under the resolute conqueror William, was at once oppressed by 
 his exactions and strengthened by his prudence. 
 
 Bohemia , increased by the conquest of Poland, became a remarkable power, 
 and sided with the Emperor, who had conferred the regal title on its chiefs. 
 Hungary , in a weaker state, supported the interests of the pope, who had 
 given its princes a crown. Poland was one wide scene of confusion, under 
 dukes without talent and without authority. Sweden , Denmark , and Russia 
 were still in obscurity. Apulia , Calabria , and Sicily, reunited under the war¬ 
 like Normans, were respected in the West, being at once the terror of the 
 Greek empire, and the protectors of Italy. 
 
 The Greek Empire, long tending towards its fall, and undermined by all 
 the evils which can destroy a state, was still preserved by the extreme prudence 
 and sagacity of Alexius Comnenus. 
 
 Venice and Genoa were the only maritime powers of the West; but, rivals 
 in navigation and commerce, they began to view each other with jealousy, and 
 to nourish in secret the seeds of those quarrels which eventually proved fatal to 
 both. 
 
 The Caliphs of Bagdad were deprived of all but their sacerdotal power; 
 their empire was under the dominion of the Turks. Five thrones in Asia were 
 filled by these warriors :—1. Persia, whose sultan reigned supreme from Ar¬ 
 menia to the Indus ;—2. Antioch and Syria;—3. Damascus and Palestine;— 
 4. Cilicia and the adjacent provinces ;—5. Nice, the seat of Soliman, governor 
 of Bithynia.—The Caliphs of Cairo with difficulty maintained themselves upon 
 the throne of Egypt ; the Miramolms of Africa were subdued by the Kings of 
 Morocco, who protected the Saracen power in Spain, and were the greatest 
 obstacle to the Castilian monarchs. 
 
 Construct: A map of the world at this period, with the necessary explana¬ 
 tions in lateral columns. 
 
TWELFTH CENTURA A. D. 
 
 255 
 
 TWELFTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. — 1118, Armenia recovered.— 1143, Manuel I.— 1185, House 
 of Angelo.—Mourzoufle. 
 
 The East. — 1117, Sangiar.— 1118, Knights of St. John of Jerusalem—Knights 
 Templars.— 1127, Attabeks.— 1171, Saladin. — 1187, Jerusalem taken by 
 Saladin.— 1191, Crusaders take Acre.— 1191, Old Man of the Mountain. 
 Italy. — 1144, Arnold of Brescia. — 1158, Diet of Roncaglia. — Podesta. — 1174, 
 Battle of Legnano.—Guelfs and Ghibellines.— 1183, Treaty of Constance. 
 Germany. — 1122, Concordat.— 1138, Swabian Line—Guelfs and Ghibellines.— 
 1152, Barbarossa.— 1194, Conquest of Naples. 
 
 France.— 1108, Rise of Civil Corporations.— 1113, Wars with England begun. 
 —1180, Philip Augustus—Parliament. 
 
 Spain. —Alphonso VI. of Castile.— 1139, Alphonso, first king of Portugal— 
 1150, Commoners in the Cortes, Aragon.—Military Orders. 
 
 Britain. — 1100, Henry Beauclerc—First Charter.— 1135, Stephen.— 1138, Bat¬ 
 tle of the Standard.— 1154, Plantagenets.— 1164, Constitutions of Clarendon. 
 —1172, Invasion of Ireland.— 1189, Richard Coeur de Lion. 
 
 Church. — 1154, Adrian IV.—Abbey of Fontevraud.—The Carmelites.— 1147, 
 Second Crasade.— 1189, Third Crusade. 
 
 Literature. — Anna Comnena. — Eustathius. — Chroniclers in England.— 
 Abelard, d. —Bernard of Clairvaux, d. —Peter the Lombard.—University of 
 Cambridge. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Manuel I.— John Comnenus, who had recovered Armenia from the 
 Turks and driven back the Scythians to their deserts, perished by a 
 poisoned arrow, while meditating the extension of his empire to the 
 Euphrates, 1143. He was succeeded by Manuel, whose adventures 
 resemble a tale of knight errantry, and which have caused him to be 
 ranked with the chivalrous Richard of England and Charles of Sweden. 
 His lance and shield could scarcely be lifted by the strongest man. At 
 one time he cut his way alone, without a wound, through a squadron 
 of 500 Turks; and in a battle against the Hungarians he was the first 
 who passed the bridge which separated him from the enemy. In one 
 day he slew forty barbarians with his own hand, and returned to the 
 camp dragging after him four gigantic Turks, fastened to his saddle-bow. 
 But he w^as wanting in sagacity to improve his victories, for though, 
 like Alcibiades, he was in w r ar a pattern of endurance to his soldiers, in 
 peace he spent the time in luxury and licentious pleasure. .Still he so 
 far succeeded in maintaining the dignity of the empire as to reduce the 
 Servians, v T hile he supported the Crusaders in their expedition against 
 Egypt. 
 
 Andronicus.—Alexius II., a minor, who succeeded in 1180, held the 
 sceptre only three years, under the regency of his mother. The state 
 of the frontiers required a vigorous sovereign, and Andronicus was 
 raised to the purple by a successful revolt. This emperor had signal¬ 
 ized himself in the Turkish v r ar by his bravery and remarkable adven¬ 
 tures, but the more interesting part of his life begins wfith his imprison 
 
256 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 ment for a treasonable correspondence with the King of Hungary. 
 Twelve years had passed, when accident discovered a long-forgotten 
 recess into which he crept, when the guards supposed he had fled. His 
 wife being suspected of aiding in his flight, was imprisoned in the same 
 dungeon, and with her he shared his scanty provisions. At length, 
 after one unsuccessful attempt, he escaped from the cell, and found an 
 asylum in Russia. The exile was soon after pardoned and restored to 
 his country, only to be removed to the more honourable banishment of 
 the defence of the Cilician frontier; but, having offended Manuel, he 
 was forced to flee, and finally settled among the Turks of Asia Minor. 
 After a space, however, he obtained leave to throw himself at the feet 
 of his sovereign, who was satisfied with this submission of a brave and 
 
 t 3 7 
 
 haughty spirit. The youth and inexperience of Alexius II., Manuel’s 
 successor, opened a fair field for his ambition; and he was loudly sum¬ 
 moned by the public voice to end the civil war now violently raging ir 
 the streets of the capital, 1183. No sooner was his power confirmed 
 than he began to exhibit a singular contrast of vice and virtue. His 
 personal enemies he persecuted without mercy, while in other respects 
 he was the father of his people. A narrative of his horrid cruelties 
 would be less characteristic of his reign, than the term “ halcyon days” 
 given to a week of peace and happiness. Some have supposed that his 
 severities originated in a deep-laid plan for regenerating the empire, to 
 effect which, it was necessary to exterminate the factious and dissolute 
 nobles of Byzantium. However we may now excuse his tyranny on the 
 plea of necessity, his subjects could make no such calculationand 
 wearied out by their calamities, they burst into sedition, placing Isaac 
 
 II. at their head. 
 
 Andronicus struggled in vain against the infuriated mob ; and soon 
 falling into their hands, he was torn to pieces in 1185. His death was 
 a fatal blow to the Greek empire. Isaac Angelus w T on golden opinions 
 from his subjects by his lenity and moderation; but after being success¬ 
 ful in some of his foreign expeditions, he had to defend his capital 
 against one of his generals, Branas, who was defeated and killed by 
 Conrad of Montferrat. The emperor next directing the whole strength 
 of his army to oppose the march of Frederic Barbarossa, his treacherous 
 conduct met with the fate it deserved, and he was obliged to make peace 
 on dishonourable terms, 1189. While amusing himself with his buf¬ 
 foons, or engaged in the gross delights of the table, his brother, Alexius 
 
 III. was unanimously invested with the purple, 1195; but a change of 
 masters did not bring a change of conduct, for the new monarch equalled 
 his predecessor in dissoluteness of life. 
 
 The son of Isaac had escaped into Italy, and persuaded the leaders of 
 the fourth Crusade to aid in raising him to the throne, engaging to unite 
 the Greek and Roman churches, and to contribute funds for the war. 
 Alexius resisted in vain; Constantinople fell into the hands of the 
 crusaders ; and the blind Isaac was recalled from a prison to a throne, 
 1203. But dissension soon re-appearing, the Greeks and Latins fought 
 three days ; and Alexius V., Mourzoufle, having deposed the empero 
 and his son, shortly after murdered them. In this instance guilt over¬ 
 reached itself, for the crusaders avenged the cause of the late monarch, 
 and Constantinople was given up to pillage in 1204. The misery of 
 the Greeks on the ruin of their city cannot be described; the sanctity 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 257 
 
 of the churches and graves was violated ; the arts have to lament the 
 destruction of the choicest sculptures in marble or in brass; and the 
 scholar to regret the loss of some of the noblest remains of Greek 
 learning. 
 
 THE EAST, 
 
 The Attabeks. —The history of the Mohammedans in this century is 
 almost that of the crusades. The Seljukian dynasty had flourished and 
 was now doomed to perish like its predecessors, for Sangiar was the 
 last of his race, 1117. Meantime the mayors of the palace again ap¬ 
 peared in the East; the Attabeks or father princes, who were governors 
 of towns, made themselves independent in their respective provinces. 
 Zenghi, 1127, fought thirty campaigns with various success; drove the 
 Franks from beyond the Euphrates; and the martial but uncivilized 
 mountain-tribes of Kurdistan were overawed by the governor of Aleppo 
 and Mosul. Noureddin, his son, 1145, reigned from the Tigris to the 
 Nile; and the Latins were compelled to acknowledge the wisdom, courage, 
 and frugality of this faithful servant of the Abbassides. “ O Noureddin,” 
 exclaimed an oppressed man, “ where art thou now J Arise from the 
 dead; arise, to pity and protect us!”—The reconquest of Egypt from 
 the Fatimites was the work of time, as they were assisted by the Frank 
 army of Jerusalem, 1163. Three sanguinary campaigns were shortly 
 after followed by the deposition of the caliphs, and Egypt exchanged the 
 green colour of Ali for the black banner of the Abbassides. The famous 
 Saladin was elected governor of Egypt by the universal acclamations 
 of the army, 1171, and he soon contrived to make himself independent. 
 Before his death he had extended his power beyond the valley of the 
 Nile from Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Armenian mountains to 
 the Indian Ocean. In 1187, he invaded Palestine with an army of 
 80,000 men, gained the decisive victory of Tiberias, and took Jerusalem 
 after a short siege. 
 
 These events gave rise, in less than two years, to the Third Crusade, 
 in which he contended so successfully against the valour of the lion- 
 hearted Richard and the craft of Philip, that he was enabled to negotiate 
 for peace on favourable terms. The reign of this great leader was ter¬ 
 minated by death, and his vast dominions were divided, in the reign of 
 the Caliph Naser, 1193. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 The events of the preceding century had gradually undermined the 
 authority of the emperors in this peninsula, although their title had 
 never ceased to be acknowledged. Frederick Barbarossa, the greatest 
 military commander of the age, was ambitious of regaining all the 
 power and privileges of the Iron Crown.* He appeared in Italy at the 
 head of a well-appointed army to support his claims, and after a brief 
 delay caused by the diet of Roncaglia, 1158, by the hostility of Pope 
 Adrian IV., and by the punishment of a few small rebellious towns, he 
 laid siege to Milan, which he captured and rased to the ground, 1162. 
 
 * The iron crown of Lombardy is described by St. Marc as having the gold bordered 
 with a rim of iron. It was, with two others, presented to the church of Monza, where 
 the first Lombard prince had abjured Arianism, a. d. 591. 
 
 22 * 
 
258 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 The Lombard cities were now subjected to a podesta, always a strangef, 
 and who held his extensive powers during the pleasure of the emperor. 
 But when fortune is at the lowest, it must change for the better: a secret 
 league formed by those communities, encouraged by Alexander III., by 
 Venice, and by the Greek court, overturned the fabric of absolute power, 
 and Frederick fled in disguise from the decisive field of Legnano, 1174. 
 A truce of six years followed, the terms of which were not unfavour¬ 
 able to the allies. On its expiration, the treaty of Constance, 1183, 
 secured the peace and liberty of the Italian republics. Bnt dissension 
 and hatred soon began to appear among the confederated cities ; and the 
 factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines again subjected them to the 
 German sway. 
 
 Arnold of Brescia. —Arnold, the author of what was aptly named 
 the heresy of politicians, after his return from France, where he had 
 studied under the celebrated Abelard, preached at Brescia against the 
 corruption and ambition of the clergy, 1139. Being condemned by the 
 council of the Lateran, he was compelled to retire to Zurich, where he 
 taught without restraint. At the end of five years, he returned trium¬ 
 phant to Rome, within the walls of which he lived protected by the 
 senate, and applauded by the people. At last, to gratify the pontiff, he 
 was delivered up by Frederick in 1155, and expiated at the stake the 
 dangerous errors he had inculcated. 
 
 Venice. —The crusades, which gave such an impulse to all the rest¬ 
 less spirits of the west of Europe, were not unfelt by the Venetians, 
 who sent a fleet of 200 vessels to share in the first of these expeditions. 
 The siege of Jaffa was raised through the dispersion of the Saracens by 
 the Doge Micheli, who, after paying a visit to Jerusalem, distinguished 
 his homeward voyage by the sack of Rhodes, and the temporary occu¬ 
 pation of other isles of the Archipelago. 
 
 Marriage of the Adriatic. —When Frederick Barbarossa attempt¬ 
 ed to subject the rich communities of Lombardy, Pope Alexander took 
 refuge in Venice. The emperor violently demanded that he should be 
 given up, but received a severe defeat from Ziani, who destroyed forty- 
 eight sail of the German fleet in 1177. The pontiff accompanied the 
 triumphal procession which went forth to congratulate the victor. “ Take 
 this ring, Ziani,” said the pope, “and present it to the sea as a testi¬ 
 mony of your dominion over it. Let your successors annually perform 
 the same ceremony, that posterity may know your valour purchased 
 such a prerogative, and subjected this element to you,—as a bridegroom 
 is husband and lord over the bride whom he has chosen.” The donation 
 of a consecrated rose is also said to have crowned these allegorical 
 nuptials. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Henry V.—As soon as Henry mounted the paternal throne in 1106, 
 he declared that he would never abandon the rights of investiture and 
 homage; asserting his pretensions in still plainer terms than those which 
 had led to his father’s melancholy death. Paschal II. wished to decide 
 the question by reducing the church to the poverty of apostolic ages, 
 and by causing the clergy of all ranks to subsist on the alms of the 
 faithful. Such a proposition was treated as heretical by the bishops, 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 259 
 
 /!■ 
 
 and the war recommenced. It was carried on during several years with 
 various changes; but at last Henry, who was shaken by the terrors of 
 excommunication, and the threatening attitude of the German princes, 
 signed with the pope the famous concordat of Worms, 1122, in which 
 the emperor renounced the invesiiture by the ring and crosier, the sym¬ 
 bols of spiritual authority, and retained his right over the temporalities 
 of the several dioceses. Henry expired three years after this transaction. 
 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines. —The Franconian line became extinct with 
 Henry V., and as the Germans were exhausted by their efforts to 
 establish an hereditary monarchy, they raised to the throne a friend of 
 the church, Lothaire, duke of Saxony, 1125. The new emperor, sub¬ 
 missive in all things to the clergy, renounced the prerogatives guaran¬ 
 teed by the diet of Worms. His successor was Conrad, the first of the 
 Swabian family, 1138; and in the disputes which raised him to the 
 crown began the deadly feuds of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. The 
 origin of these famous names is singular. A battle was fought in 1140 
 by the generals of Conrad against Welf, duke of Bavaria, whose name 
 was the w'ar-cry of his army; that of the imperialists was Wibelung, 
 a town in Franconia, whence the emperors of that line are said to have 
 sprung. Hence the corruption Ghibelline came in Germany to signify 
 a partisan of the emperor, and Guelf, an adherent of the great vassals, 
 or in Italy, of the pope. The reigning family of England is descended 
 from this latter house, which traces its ancestry to the reign of Charle¬ 
 magne, and even as far back as to the invasion of Attila. 
 
 O 7 
 
 Barbarossa.— Frederick Barbarossa, 1152, who endeavoured to acquire 
 a real authority in Italy, found two great obstacles—the pope, and the 
 towns of the north which had revived the spirit and political feelings of 
 the Greek republics. At the invitation of his holiness and of many of 
 the smaller Lombard cities, he entered Italy, and punished the Milanese. 
 After restoring Adrian IV., and putting into his hands Arnold of Brescia, 
 who had recalled the shadow of Roman liberty, Frederick, twice master 
 of the imperial city, was crowned emperor in the capitol. His warfare 
 with the republics was carried on with varied success, till at length he 
 made peace with the Lombards on terms most advantageous to them, 
 although in the form of an edict, issued at the diet held at Constance, 
 1183. By this he granted to the towns the rights which they had exer¬ 
 cised, and recognised the validity of all the usages prevailing among 
 them. His career was closed at the head of 150,000 men whom he was 
 leading to the Holy Land. Having conquered all the enemies he met, 
 the way to Syria lay open before him, but when he arrived on the banks 
 of the Selef ( Calycadnus ), impatient to cross the stream, the only narrow 
 bridge over it being blocked up with soldiers, he plunged into the river 
 on horseback. The impetuous torrent carried him away, and when his 
 body was dragged to the shore, life was found extinct, 1190. Henry 
 VI., who had administered the government during his father’s absence 
 in the crusade, conceived the design of declaring the empire hereditary, 
 but was unable to accomplish his object from the violent opposition of 
 the Saxons. His principal wars were against Sicily and Naples, which 
 states he at last joined to the empire, 1194; the pope and the free 
 cities of Northern Italy not perceiving that this dangerous union must 
 destroy the political balance of the peninsula. Thus perished the 
 
260 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Norman race in Italy, a few years before the duchy of Normandy was 
 annexed to the French crown. Frederick II., although elected king of 
 the Romans, was too young to succeed his father, who died in 1197. 
 Two candidates appeared before the electors, Philip, the late emperor’s 
 brother, and Otho of Brunswick, third son of Henry the Lion. Each 
 was nominated by his own party, and hence arose that deplorable 
 anarchy which desolated Germany until the reign of Maximilian. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Louis the Fat, 1108, had to contend at once against the power of 
 Henry I. of England and the lawlessness of the French nobles. With 
 this reign began the protracted wars between the two nations, so glorious 
 yet so unprofitable to the English. This monarch reigned over a territory 
 which, comprising what is called the isle of France and part of the Or- 
 leannais, contained only five out of the eighty-six modern departments. 
 In his struggles against his powerful barons, he received the support of 
 the clergy, so that before his death, in 1137, he had extended his influ¬ 
 ence to the Pyrenees. Louis VII., surnamed the Young, adopted the 
 policy of his father, but rashly joined the crusaders, contrary to the 
 prudent advice of his faithful minister, Suger. On his return, the 
 conduct of his wife, Eleanor, heiress of the great duchy of Guienne, led 
 to a divorce; and she immediately married Henry II. of England, who, 
 already inheriting Anjou from his father, and Normandy from his mother, 
 was sovereign of more than one-third of France. The accession of 
 Philip Augustus, in 1180, entirely changed the scene. His ambition 
 and craft extended the authority of the monarchy, and concentrated its 
 power by the subjection of the three great fiefs of Vermandois and Artois, 
 and by the seizure of Normandy, Anjou, and Maine, under the pretext 
 that King John, his vassal, refused to appear before him as his lord para¬ 
 mount. The battle of Bouvines was gained by Philip over the English, 
 principally by the burgher-militia, which had obeyed the royal summons 
 to repel invasion. In this reign the Jews were expelled from Paris, 
 the king having previously released all Christians in his dominions 
 from their debts to them, with the reserve of one-fifth part for himself. 
 
 CORPORATIONS AND STATES-GENERAL, 1119. 
 
 The forms of civil liberty, the offspring of Frank independence and the 
 Roman municipal law, though never lost in England, were neglected at a very 
 early period in France. Deliberative assemblies, of parliaments of the Champ 
 de Mars, were known under the kings of the first and second race ; and Char¬ 
 lemagne was aided in his legislation by the presence of the peers and bishops. 
 The three brothers, Louis, Charles, and Lothaire, were reconciled in a national 
 assembly ; and by one, similarly convoked, Eudes was elected king, 888; and 
 Hugh Capet about 100 years later. Yet so uncertain and irregular were these 
 meetings, that only thirty-five have been counted between 613 and 1230. Louis 
 the Fat took one of the most likely means that could be devised to elevate the 
 people ; and this was contemporary with the English character of Henry I. 
 
 At his accession the monarchy was feeble and languishing; the aristocracy 
 powerful and enterprising. It was the good fortune of Louis to take advantage 
 of a general movement of the people to forward his designs against the turbulent 
 feudal barons. Then also the commons themselves first appear as a body in 
 history, soon to take their station beside the nobles and the priesthood. He 
 confirmed to each city the right of self-government by its mayors and other 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 261 
 
 magistrates, from which arose those little republics known by the name of 
 commons (corporations), that, in case of war, were to furnish a stated number 
 of soldiers for the king’s army. The great barons soon followed the sovereign’s 
 example, and enfranchised their vassals also. Under Philip the Fair, 1285, the 
 communes became so powerful as to send deputies to the states-geno/al, who 
 were called the third estate {tiers etat). The states-^enerai, a representative 
 body, composed of the three orders of the state ; were first convened in 1302, to 
 support his majesty in his quarrel with Boniface VIII. About the same period 
 a great national impulse was felt in most European states. In Italy the com¬ 
 munes, as we have seen, became republics ; for a brief struggle enabled them 
 to vanquish the few powerful nobles in their vicinity. In France, on the con 
 trary, the power of the commons was soon absorbed by royalty. 
 
 Under Louis VII., the Young., the great vassals assumed the title of peers, 
 and composed the parliament, or judicial tribunal for the arrangement of tho 
 disputes of the nobles, and to which appeals for denials of justice were referred. 
 Its seat was not fixed at Paris till 1302, when great changes were introduced 
 by Philip the Fair; its sittings became regular, and the place of the nobility 
 was gradually supplied by lawyers. It now became celebrated as the supreme 
 judicial court, by which all the royal edicts were registered, and whose mem¬ 
 bers, after 1468, were appointed for life, and by election. These rights it con¬ 
 tinued to exercise till 1788. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 Alphonso VI. of Castile, and Alphonso I. of Aragon, succeeded in 
 all their undertakings against the Moors; and before the close of the 
 century, the province of Aragon, with New Castile and Estremadura, 
 was possessed by the Christians. Under Alphonso VII., the Castilian 
 dominions were extended to the Sierra Morena, 1135; but the power of 
 his kingdom was greatly diminished by its imprudent division into those 
 of Castile and Leon, under his sons Ferdinand and Sancho. Frequent 
 internal wars ensued, till the final coalition of the two branches of the 
 Gothic monarchy in 1238, when Mohammed founded the kingdom of 
 Granada, in the reign of Ferdinand III. 
 
 Portugal, which had hitherto been governed by Castilian lieutenants, 
 was resigned by Alphonso VI., 1095, to his son-in-law Henry of Be- 
 sancon, whose son Alphonso, after the glorious victory over the Moors 
 at Ourique, was saluted king on the field of battle, 1139; but Castile 
 did not willingly allow the assumption of the regal title until the pope 
 had decided in favour of the new monarch. His territory lay between 
 the Minho and the Douro. In 1147, he became master of Lisbon, and, 
 dying in 1185, was succeeded by his son, Sancho I. 
 
 The celebrated Military Orders of Spain date from about this period. 
 The most ancient is that of Alcantara, 1156, fixed at the town of that name, in 
 1219; and the decoration was a green lily-shaped cross. That of Calatrava 
 began in 1158, and was confirmed in 1164 by Pope Alexander III.; it received 
 a red cross, also, in the shape of a lily, as a distinctive mark. The order of St. 
 James of Compostella (Santiago) was founded in 1161, and sanctioned by the 
 pope in 1175; it was distinguished by a red cross in the form of a sword. 
 That of Montesa, 1317, replaced the Templars in Aragon. To the three first 
 orders may, in a great measure, be ascribed the rapid progress of the Christian 
 arms in the subsequent centuries. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 Henry I., Beauclerc, took advantage of the absence of his brother 
 Robert in the Holy Land, and seized the crown, 1100. By his marriage 
 
262 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 with Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III., and niece of Edgar Atheling, he 
 strengthened himself in the affections of his Saxon subjects. He was 
 the first king who granted a general charter to the English people; he 
 remitted all fines due to the exchequer; restored the ancient privileges 
 of the church; removed many of the feudal burdens; gave London a 
 municipal constitution; and declared his intention of restoring the laws 
 of Edward the Confessor. Louis VI. of France, fearing so powerful a 
 rival, continually harassed him, and cordially supported William Clin¬ 
 ton (afterwards Count of Flanders), the son of Robert. The death of 
 Henry’s son, in 1120, struck him with incurable sorrow. He died in 
 1135, and was buried at Reading. The cruel treatment of his brother is 
 not the only indelible stain on the character of this monarch : his cousin, 
 the Earl of Moretoil, he imprisoned and deprived of sight; and he drove 
 the hapless satirist Luke de Barre to the commission of suicide. 
 
 The crown was left to his daughter Matilda; but Stephen of Blois, 
 son of Henry’s sister, who had already gained the pope and the nobility, 
 secured the throne. Having long been popular in England, he now 
 attached the people more firmly to him by the abolition of the Banegelt , 
 and by the restoration of several immunities which had been withheld 
 by his predecessors. Nearly twenty years were spent in civil struggles, 
 with varied success, to the ruin of the people and the prejudice of the 
 crown, when a compromise was made, leaving Stephen in possession of 
 his title, but stipulating that Henry, the son of Matilda, should succeed 
 him. Stephen’s reign presents a condensation of the evils incident to 
 the feudal system. “ The nobles burnt all the towns :—thou mightest 
 go a whole day’s journey and not find a man sitting in a town, nor an 
 acre* of land tilled. Wretched men starved of hunger: to till the ground 
 was to plough the sands of the sea.” 
 
 Henry II., Plantagenet,* mounted the throne in 1154. By inherit¬ 
 ance and marriage he possessed a great part of France, viz. Normandy, 
 Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Guienne, and Poitou, with Saintonge, Au¬ 
 vergne, Perigord, Limousin, and Angoumais. The life of this able king 
 was spent in war both against temporal and spiritual powers. He re¬ 
 pressed the boldness and rapacity of his nobles, who had taken advan¬ 
 tage of the disturbances of the preceding reign; endeavoured to reduce 
 the clergy to subordination, and to check their encroachments, or, as 
 they called them, immunities and privileges. By the “ Constitutions 
 of Clarendon,” 1164, it was declared that priests should be tried before 
 the civil tribunals, without appeal to the pope; and that the consent of 
 the monarch was necessary to the promulgation of any papal edict 
 within the kingdom. The commons, who had profited by the submis 
 sion of the nobles, obtained the re-establishment of trial by jury, and 
 the exemption of their property from the debts of their lords. During 
 the humiliation of the monarch, who had been excommunicated for his 
 supposed share in the murder of the turbulent Becket, the people again 
 profited by having a scutage, or military tax, substituted for personal 
 service. The circuits of the judges were now first appointed. The 
 subjection of South Wales, and the invasion of Ireland, 1172, were the 
 principal events of this reign. The latter days of the king were imbit- 
 
 * So called from the family device, a sprig of broom (planta genista, plante a genet). 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 263 
 
 tered by the rebellion of his sons, supported by the pope and the King 
 of France. 
 
 Richard I., Cceur de Lion, was not reconciled to his father when he 
 was informed that the latter had died in Touraine, 1189. His first act 
 before visiting England was to release his mother Eleanor from prison, 
 and to appoint her regent. His coronation at Westminster was signal¬ 
 ized by a cruel massacre of the Jews; their habitations were pillaged 
 and set on fire, and in the city of York alone five hundred perished who 
 had taken refuge in the castle. After raising large sums of money by 
 the sale of employments, and other means, he set out for Syria, where 
 his daring exploits, with the long captivity he suffered in Germany as 
 he was returning, made his generous subjects forget his errors and his 
 vices.* When he reached home in 1194, he found his kingdom a prey 
 to the greatest troubles. The Bishop of Ely, whom he had left regent, 
 was expelled by the barons, and Prince John had obtained supreme 
 influence in the new administration. All the projects of the disaffected 
 were now disconcerted, and the King of France, who had aided the 
 prince, was immediately attacked. The most brilliant affair in the sub¬ 
 sequent war, which financial difficulties prevented being carried on with 
 any vigour, was the battle of Gisors, in Normandy, in which Philip 
 Augustus narrowly escaped. A peace was concluded in 1198, and the 
 next year Richard died of a wound received before the castle of Chalus 
 near Limoges. 
 
 Ireland was fondly supposed by its antiquarians to have been peopled by 
 Phoenicians. But the songs of the minstrel are an imperfect substitute for 
 genuine history, and sober truth must confess that the green island was little 
 more than a battlefield for its uncivilised inhabitants even long after its invasion 
 by the English. The doctrines of Christianity are said to have been first pro¬ 
 claimed in it by Palladius in 430, and by St. Patrick in 450; but perpetual 
 intestine war among the various chieftains, and the incursions of the Danes, 
 soon checked its progress towards civilisation. About the middle of the twelfth 
 century, the country was divided into the five hostile kingdoms of Leinster, 
 Munster, Ulster, Meath, and Connaught, besides several inferior principalities. 
 One monarch was chosen to preside over a kind of deliberative assembly held 
 at undetermined periods, and which possessed little power. The deposition of 
 the King of Leinster and his flight to England, led to one of the most fortunate 
 events in the history of Ireland. After the successful expedition of Earl Strong- 
 bow, who restored Dermod with an inconsiderable troop of knights and archers, 
 Henry himself landed in 1172, and effectually established the English pale.— 
 Druids existed in Ireland so late as the year 1166. 
 
 Scotland had long and effectually resisted the Roman arms, and spread 
 terror over the adjacent countries of England and Ireland ; but her history is 
 obscure and greatly mingled with fable till the tenth century. The names of 
 Duncan, d. 1039, and Macbeth, d. 1056, will ever attract the attention of the 
 student from their connexion with one of the noblest specimens of dramatic art. 
 Malcolm III., d. 1093, kindly received many hundreds of Saxons who had fled 
 from the tyranny of the first William, and settled them in the Lowlands. These 
 brought with them the civilisation of their homes, and improved the character 
 of the native inhabitants. David I. was defeated at Cutton Moor, near Northal¬ 
 lerton, in the Battle of the Standard, 1138, but, superior to the monarchs of the 
 
 * A chronicle written in England, in 1455, relates that the place of Richard’s confine¬ 
 ment was discovered by Blondel, a French minstrel, who, being near a castle, played an 
 air well known to the king, and heard it repeated by the royal captive. This is probably 
 nothing more than a romantic fiction. The emperor Henry YI. purchased Richard from 
 Duke Leopold of Austria for sixty thousand pounds, speculating on the probability of 
 htaining a larger ransom. 
 
264 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 age, he endeavoured to soften the manners of his people by the establishment 
 wof numerous churches and monasteries, among others, Holyrood in 1128, and 
 Melrose in 1136. William the Lion, who had supported the sons of Henry II. 
 of England in their rebellion against their father, was taken prisoner, 1174 ; 
 and regained his liberty only on the condition of becoming the liegeman of 
 Henry for hi§ territories, which feudal superiority was restored by Richard I. 
 on the payment of 10,000 marks. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Romish Usurpations. —Though the papal power now began to assert 
 its supremacy over all temporalities, the Emperor Henry V. succeeded 
 in the dispute with Paschal II. about investitures, in 1111. Next year, 
 however, Henry was excommunicated ; but the pontiff was finally com¬ 
 pelled to yield by the persevering emperor, whose claims were confirmed 
 by the diet of Worms, in 1122. During several years two popes con¬ 
 tested the chair of St. Peter, and the city of Rome was agitated by a 
 restless party who desired to restore to the senate its former privileges, 
 and to reduce the power as well as the revenues of the pope. Adrian 
 IV., 1154, the only Englishman that ever sat in the papal chair, de¬ 
 clared his intention of preserving the majesty of the church, as well as 
 the authority of the clergy. He compelled the Emperor Barbarossa to 
 hold his stirrup; and by his granting Ireland to Henry II. of England^ 
 he seemed to claim all islands as the property of St. Peter. Another 
 pontiff, Alexander III., is said to have trodden on the neck of the 
 emperor, as he knelt and kissed his foot, 1177. It was this haughty 
 bishop who refused to sanction the wise Constitutions of Clarendon, 
 and absolved Becket from the promise he had made to observe them. 
 Innocent III., who ascended the papal throne in 1198, soon acquired 
 such an independence and supremacy as his predecessors could never 
 have contemplated. He ordained that the doctrine of transubstantiation 
 should be embrac * 1 by the church ; established the formidable tribunal 
 of the inquisition ; the mendicant order of friars was taken under his 
 protection; and auricular confession was enjoined. He even exercised 
 a dispensing power which set at defiance the claims of morality (qui, 
 secundum plenitudinem potestatis, jure possumus supra jus dispensarc). 
 
 Second Crusade, a.d. 1147.—The example and success of the First 
 Crusade led the Christian soldiery of Western Europe again to unite 
 under Conrad III. and Louis VII. This second expedition had been 
 preached by St. Bernard for the delivery of the Latin kingdom of Jeru¬ 
 salem from its Mussulman invaders. The immediate cause of this cru¬ 
 sade was the capture of Edessa by Zenghi, in 1145: this city had been 
 taken in a foolish expedition led by Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, at the 
 beginning of the First Crusade. The armies of the king and the 
 emperor amounted each to 70.000 knights, and their train was increased 
 to the number of 300,000. The Germans marched through Flungary, 
 and after various distresses, augmented by the treachery of the Emperor 
 Manuel, they reached Constantinople, whence they were rapidly carried 
 across the adjoining straits. Louis did not arrive till some time after; 
 and he perceived with regret that the Christians in the eastern parts of 
 Europe were less trustworthy than the infidels. Conrad meanwhile, 
 misled bv his Greek o-uides, advanced through the heart of the Turkish 
 dominions, suffering the extremities of hunger and thirst. Everywhere 
 
TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 265 
 
 exposed to the incessant attacks of the enemy, only one-tenth part, with 
 their commanders, survived, and reached the French army, encamped at 
 Nice in Bithynia. Louis, with his forces, was soon left to pursue his 
 march alone, and narrowly escaped destruction at the fords of the 
 Maeander, in the mountains between Phrygia and Pisidia, 1148. He 
 proceeded from Attalia to Antioch by sea, leaving, under Thierry, count 
 of Flanders, the pilgrims and the sick, not one of whom reached the 
 holy city. From Antioch he marched to Jerusalem, where he met Con¬ 
 rad and his exhausted army. Abandoning the original purpose of the 
 expedition, they proceeded to the relief of Damascus, which had been 
 under the Moslem yoke nearly five centuries. The white cresses of St. 
 John, and the red crosses of the Templars, were ever foremost in the 
 numerous skirmishes that took place; but all their exertions terminated 
 in defeat, and the two Christian monarchs returned to Europe, oppressed 
 with the deepest sorrow, in 1149. 
 
 Third Crusade, a. d. 1189.—The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was 
 overthrown by Saladin in 1187, but its internal condition had long pre¬ 
 pared it for ruin. The city, as Gibbon remarks, was abandoned to the 
 protection of a leper, Baldwin IV.,—a woman, his sister Sybilla,—a 
 child, her son Baldwin V.,—a coward, Guy of Lusignan,—and a traitor, 
 Raymond count of Tripoli. The rapid conquests of the Saracen spread 
 grief and consternation through all Christendom; and, by the orders 
 of Clement III., a new crusade was everywhere preached. Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, Frederick Barbarossa, and Philip Augustus, assumed 
 the cross in 1188. The maritime states on the Mediterranean, and a 
 numerous band of pilgrims from the north of Europe, had already pre¬ 
 ceded them, and for two years the city of Acre held out against 30,000 
 Franks. Nine battles were fought beneath its walls, the sultan being 
 eager to raise the siege; but the arrival of the English and French fleets 
 in the bay was followed by the surrender of the city. Disunion was 
 soon apparent in the councils of the invaders, Philip and Richard inces¬ 
 santly interrupting the campaign by their mutual jealousies. The 
 former returned to France; after which, Richard, who continued the 
 war, was uniformly victorious. But the romantic exploits of this chi¬ 
 valrous monarch failed to produce any permanent effect. Before he 
 quitted Palestine to meet an unjust captivity and early death, he con¬ 
 cluded a treaty 7 , in 1192, by which the holy sepulchre should be open to 
 all pilgrims, and the seacoast from Jaffa to Tyre be held by the Latins. 
 Thus ended the Third Crusade, and though five others at various inter¬ 
 vals disturbed the peace of Europe, Palestine was never again the scene 
 of action. A parallel has been drawn between these enterprises and the 
 Trojan war; and there are not wanting many points of resemblance in 
 the character of the respective heroes and in the results of their labours. 
 Poetry also has assisted to increase the likeness ; and the religious wars 
 found a Homer in Tasso. This is, however, the weakest part of the 
 similitude, for the tinsel of the Italian can bear no comparison with the 
 pure gold of the great bard of antiquity. 
 
 Assassins.* —The society which bore this name proved one of the 
 
 *The word assassin is of doubtful etymology. Some think it derived from the name 
 of the founder; others from hascliischim , an intoxicating preparation of henbane and 
 hemp, which, when smoked or otherwise inhaled, excites a violent delirium or a pleas¬ 
 ing trance. 
 
 23 
 
266 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 most dreadful scourges of the East. It was founded about the year 
 1090, among the hills southward of the Caspian sea, by Hassan Sebek, 
 the son of Ali. This prince of the Ismaelites, by uniting the doctrines 
 of the Koran with the visions of some pretended prophets, established 
 a politico-religious system, whose motto was, 44 to the faithful nothing 
 is forbidden.” The Old Man of the Mountain, for by that name he and 
 his successors were generally known, resided first at Damghan, whence 
 he removed to the fortress of Alamout, in the Persian territory, not far 
 from Teheran. The daggers of his subjects were felt in the East and 
 the West; and by them perished Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, while 
 walking in the streets of Tyre, 1192. In Syria, where they amounted 
 to 60,000, their capital was Massiat, a day’s journey westward of 
 Hamah, and from that place they possessed a line of seven other for¬ 
 tresses, extending to the Mediterranean, near Tripoli The sect, which 
 lasted 172 years, was finally destroyed by the Mongols.* 
 
 The Druses, who are said to have sprung from the Assassins, chose 
 for their prophet, Hakem, an Egyptian caliph, notorious at once for 
 cruelty and vice. When his licentiousness and murders had excited 
 disgust among a portion of his subjects, he answered their remonstran¬ 
 ces, not by denying his crimes, but by asserting that they formed a 
 sublime allegory, full of inst uction to true believers. 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire.— 1204, Latin Princes. — 1259, Second Greek Empire — Michael 
 Palaeologus.—1274, Union of the Churches. 
 
 Germany. — 1212, Frederick II. — Papal Disputes — Crusade. — 1241, Hanse 
 Towns.—1273, Rodolph of Hapsburg. 
 
 Italy. —Italian Republics—The Visconti.—1258, 1293, Venetian Wars.—1282, 
 Sicilian Vespers. 
 
 France. —1214, Battle of Bouvines.—1226, Louis IX.—Parliament begun.— 
 1268, Pragmatic Sanction.—1285, Philip le Bel.—1302, Staies-General— 
 Aleigenses.— 1302, Rout of Courtray. 
 
 Britain. —1199, John.—1215, The Great Charter. —1265, First Parliament. 
 
 1283, Conquest of Wales.—1297, Wallace. 
 
 Spain.— 1212, Battle of Tolosa. — 1252, Alphonso X. — Siete Partidas. 
 
 The East. — 1205, Affghan Dynasty, India — Mamelukes. —1206, Genghis 
 Khan. —1279, Conquest of China, by Kublai Khan.—1300, Ottomans in Bi- 
 thynia. 
 
 Church.— Mendicant Friars. — 1209, The Inquisition—The Albigenses. 
 Inventions. — 1270, Glass Mirrors. —1253, Linen first made in England.— 
 1299, Spectacles at Pisa. 
 
 Celebrated Men. —Aquinas—R. Bacon—Saadi—Duns Scotus—Marco Polo. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 The Latins.— The warriors engaged in the Fourth Crusade, 1202, 
 were diverted from the more immediate object of their expedition by the 
 
 ♦Some families of the Assassins are reported still to exist in Lebanon ; but the last 
 inhabitants of Massiat were put to the sword in the year 1809, by a hostile tribe in that 
 neighbourhood. • 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 267 
 
 solicitations of the young Alexius Angelus, who implored their inter¬ 
 cession in behalf of his father Isaac, whom another Alexius of the same 
 family had dethroned and imprisoned. The usurper was soon defeated ; 
 but the non-fulfilment of the terms of agreement and the daring usurp¬ 
 ation of Ducas Mourzoufie, armed the Christian warriors anew against 
 Constantinople. The French knights and the Venetian fleet, by a 
 simultaneous attack, carried by assault the Greek capital, which had 
 been hitherto deemed impregnable, and gave it up to pillage. The 
 Latin princes next agreed to choose a sovereign from their own body, 
 and Baldwin, count of Flanders, was saluted emperor with the applause 
 of the whole army in 1204. The territory was afterwards divided 
 among the French and Venetians; the latter long preserved the title of 
 Lords of the Roman Empire. The Greeks did not patiently submit, 
 and Theodore Lascaris, ruler of Nice, twice threatened the eastern 
 metropolis. Trebizond, also, whither the wife of Manuel had fled with 
 her infant sons from the relentless enmity of Isaac Angelus, was the 
 seat of another rival to the Latin monarch. By her means, the Greeks 
 of that region gradually formed, on the banks of the Phasis, a sove¬ 
 reignty which the distracted government of the Angeli was unable to 
 suppress. On the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, Alexius 
 was joined by many fugitives from that city. He had always retained 
 the title of Caesar and King, and now fixed the seat of empire at Tre¬ 
 bizond, without, however, abandoning his claim to the Byzantine throne. 
 A more formidable opponent to the divided Latins was the revolted 
 chief of the Bulgarians in 1205; for, being invited by the Greeks, his 
 approach was marked by a general massacre of those spread over the 
 face of the country. The gallantry of Baldwin led him to take the 
 field with an inferior army; but, being defeated and made prisoner, his 
 captivity was closed by an agonizing death. While the throne was 
 filled in succession by various celebrated warriors, the restoration of the 
 Greek family was at hand. Theodore Lascaris, during a reign of 
 eighteen years, had extended his principality of Nice to the greatness 
 of an empire. John Ducas Vataces, 1222, encouraged agriculture and 
 commerce, preserved friendly relations with the Turks, and reigned 
 supreme from their frontiers to the Adriatic sea. Theodore Lascaris II., 
 1255, thrice invaded Bulgaria; but the honourable task of recovering 
 Constantinople was reserved for Michael Palaeologus, the most illus¬ 
 trious of the Greek nobles. 
 
 New Greek Empire.— With the aid of the Genoese, Palaeologus 
 made himself master of the capital, 25th July, 1260. Some time pre¬ 
 viously, he had caused himself to be crowned emperor, and two years 
 after put out the eyes of his ward, John III., in order to reign alone. 
 Fearful of being attacked by Charles of Anjou, king of Naples, he sent 
 to the council of Lyons two Greek bishops, who formed a treaty of 
 union between the two churches, but which did not continue longer than 
 the reign of Michael. The empire, indeed, was no sooner re-establish¬ 
 ed than the priests were embroiled in quarrels, occasioned by discus¬ 
 sions on obscure dogmas of the church. The controversy on the ques¬ 
 tion whether the Holy Ghost proceeded from the' Son, or by the Son, 
 together with the disputes on the election of the patriarchs, was long 
 the sole occupation of the sovereigns and their ministers. Palaeologus 
 was succeeded in 1283 by his son Andronicus the Elder, who being 
 
268 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 constantly assailed by temporal and spiritual enemies, had little time to 
 promote his own views or his people’s happiness. He recovered many 
 isles in the Archipelago from the Franks, but on his eastern frontier was 
 unable to make head against the Ottomans. Though reputed the most 
 learned prince of the age, he was the slave of degrading superstitions. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Henry VI., who died of poison in 1197, left his son Frederick under 
 the guardianship of Innocent III. This rival of Gregory VII. raised 
 up antagonists to Philip of Swabia, the brother and successor of Henry, 
 procured the election of Otho IV. of Brunswick in his stead, and after¬ 
 wards excommunicated him for refusing to restore the fiefs of the Coun¬ 
 tess Matilda. The pope now brought forward Frederick II., at the age 
 of eighteen years, who was acknowledged by the greater part of the 
 German princes, 1212. After various contests, and the defeat or death 
 of all his competitors, he received the imperial crown at Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle, 1215. The greater part of his reign was spent in Italy and Sicily. 
 His unwillingness to enter upon the crusades led to his excommunica¬ 
 tion by Gregory IX., which he retaliated by boldly ordering the eccle¬ 
 siastics to continue the performance of their sacred functions, and by 
 proceeding to Jerusalem, which surrendered at the terror of his name. 
 The interval from 1230 to 1238 was occupied in the re-establishment of 
 order in Germany, disturbed by the unruly vassals, by the ecclesiastics, 
 and by a rebellious son. In the subsequent disputes with the papal see, 
 originating in charges of irreligion, Frederick appears to have caught 
 some glimpses of pure Christianity. From a war of manifestoes the 
 contending powers had recourse to arms; and those of the emperor were 
 successful in every quarter. But his excommunication in 1239, the 
 crusade published against him in the following year, and his solemn 
 deposition by the council of Lyons, 1245, changed his fortunes. City 
 after city revolted; and this great antagonist of the papacy expired in 
 the castle of Fiorentino, near Lucera, in 1250. 
 
 Interregnum. —With the death of Frederick began the great inter¬ 
 regnum, from 1250 to 1272, during which Germany was in effect 
 without any ruler ; for, although there were several, none exercised any 
 real authority. In 1250, two princes bore the title of King of the 
 Romans,—Count William of Holland, the priests’ king, as he was 
 denominated, and Conrad IV., son of Frederick II. On the news of his 
 father’s death, Conrad, abandoning Germany, where the scantiness of 
 his resources reduced him to an inglorious station, passed into Italy to 
 receive the fairest portion of the paternal inheritance—the kingdom of 
 the Two Sicilies; but his death, in 1254, which has been attributed to 
 Manfred, prevented his return into Germany at the head of a numerous 
 and well-appointed army. The demise of William of Holland happened 
 shortly after. The title of emperor was next conferred on Richard, earl 
 of Cornwall, brother to Henry III. of England, and, on his mother’s side, 
 nephew of Henry the Lion. Richard, whose wealth was his chief re¬ 
 commendation, had promised to the Archbishop of Mentz 8000 silver 
 marks, 12,000 to the archbishop of Cologne, and 18,000 to the Count 
 Palatine; but the choice of the other electors fell on Alphonso X., king 
 of Castile, who offered 20,000 marks for each vote. This double electior 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 269 
 
 was the first in which the grand dignitaries of the crown alone took a 
 part, to the exclusion of all the other great vassals; or, in other words, 
 it is the first time that we see appear the seven princely electors. 
 
 Alphonso never visited Germany; but his competitor undertook several 
 journeys, in each of which he distributed enormous sums of money 
 among the electors. Although greatly occupied with the internal affairs 
 of his native country, Richard, in 1269, passed an important decree, by 
 which the estates, assembled in diet at Worms, bound themselves mu¬ 
 tually by oath to punish all who should exact illegal toll, trouble the 
 security of commerce on the high-road, or who should in any way dis¬ 
 turb the public tranquillity. In another of his visits he gave the 
 investiture of Austria and Styria to Ottocar, king of Bohemia. In his 
 last journey, he espoused the daughter of a baron named Falkenstein, 
 and, returning to England, died in 1272. 
 
 In the midst of these petty wars between weak princes, the power 
 and influence of the great commercial cities were slowly increasing; and 
 from their alliances for mutual defence arose three sorts of confedera¬ 
 tion:—1st, The Teutonic or Hanseatic league, 1241; 2d, The confede¬ 
 ration of the cities of the Rhine (Burgfrieden), about 1255; and, 3d, 
 The Ganerbinates, (Gan-Erbschaften), or treaties of succession and 
 mutual defence. 
 
 The long-continued anarchy at length wearied all parties, and it was 
 determined to elect an emperor. The choice fell upon Rodolph of 
 Hapsburg in Switzerland, a prince whose scanty resources and limited 
 influence seemed to give no cause for fear. 
 
 House of Hapsburg, 1273.—Rodolph, the founder of the house of 
 Austria, was a brave and just monarch, wisely devoting his attention to 
 the internal affairs of Germany. The rebellion and defeat of Ottocar, 
 king of Bohemia, enabled him to confer the dukedom of the Austrian 
 provinces upon his son Albert, 1283. But he was not less a peacemaker 
 than a conqueror. He visited all parts of his dominions with incredible 
 activity, re-established the security of the highways, and destroyed a 
 number of castles which were little else than retreats for brigands. His 
 death in 1291 was followed by an interregnum of ten months,—for, in 
 order to avoid the appearance of hereditary right to the imperial crown, 
 the electors refused to appoint Albert, and their choice fell upon Adol¬ 
 phus of Nassau, 1292. In a contest which ensued, Albert destroyed 
 his rival in 1298, maintaining till 1308 his imperial dignity, notwith¬ 
 standing the irregularity of his election, and the determined hostility of 
 Boniface VIII. 
 
 Hanse Towns. —These were a commercial league ( [hansa ) formed o 
 the most flourishing cities in the north and west of Europe. In L241, 
 Lubeck associated with some neighbouring places for mutual protection 
 against the pirates of the Baltic; and by degrees it was joined by all 
 the trading towns between the Rhine and the Vistula. Depots were 
 established at London, 1250, Bruges, 1252, Novgorod, 1272, and Ber¬ 
 gen, 1278. The administration of the league was intrusted to the four 
 cities of Lubeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Dantzic. During three 
 centuries they maintained a degree of prosperity then unexampled, and 
 by their navies commanded the narrow seas; but the discovery of the 
 Indies was a fatal blow to their commerce. The town of Ghent dared 
 23* 
 
270 
 
 MIDDLE AGES 
 
 to beard Charles V. in the very height of his glory, by putting one of 
 his officers to the torture for having concealed the record which contained 
 the ratification of the concessions they had extorted from former sove¬ 
 reigns. By the power of the league the King of Sweden was dethroned, 
 and his crown bestowed on Albrecht of Mecklenburg. Such was the 
 wealth of these merchants that at a great ball at Bruges, the Queen of 
 France retired in chagrin, because six hundred of the wives of the citizens 
 were more splendidly dressed than herself. 
 
 HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN OR SWABIA. 
 
 This family, issuing from the castle of Wibelung, was ennobled in Frederick Hohen- 
 staufen, who, for his eminent services, was rewarded with the hand of one of the daugh¬ 
 ters of the Emperor Henry IV. 
 
 Frederick , Count of Hohenstaufen, and created Duke of Swabia, by Henry IV., in 1080, 
 
 t 1105, m. Agnes, daughter of Henry IV. 
 
 
 18. Conrad III. 
 emp. 1138, f 1152. 
 
 Frederick , d. of Swabia, Albert , Henry, Leopold, 
 
 m. Judith, d. of Henry the Black, successively d. of Austria, 
 t 1126. 
 
 _A____ 
 
 19. Frederick I., Barbarossa, emp. 1152, f 1190 — Beatrice, heiress of Burgundy. 
 
 --A- - --. 
 
 20. Henry VI. emp. 1190, 
 m. Constance, heiress of Sicily. 
 
 --A-- 
 
 21. Philip, emp. 1197, 
 m. Irene Angela. 
 
 Three other sons. 
 
 23. Frederick II. k. of Sicily, 1197; emp. 1212, j 1250. 
 
 --*- 
 
 24. Conrad IV. emp. 1250, f 1254 
 
 -A_ 
 
 f --- A 
 
 Conradin, d. of Swabia, behead. 1268. 
 ****** 
 
 25. William of Holland, emp. 1247, f 1256. 
 
 Manfred, nat. son k. of Sicily, t 1266- 
 
 - - A -> 
 
 Constance = Peter ITI. k. of Aragon. 
 ****** 
 
 26. Richard of Corn wall, emp. 1257, 
 t 1271. 
 
 HOUSE OF GUELF OR D’ESTE. 
 
 This ancient and noble family descended, according to Muratori, from Adalbert I. mar¬ 
 quis of Tuscany (847-875). It received new lustre from the marriage of Albert Azon II. 
 with Cunegonda of Altorf. Albert died in 1097, leaving behind him 
 
 tVelf I. created d. of Bavaria, 1071, Foulques , 
 
 f 1101. Founder of the House of Modena. 
 
 /- A -\ 
 
 Henry the Black, d. of Bavaria, f 1126, Welf II. of Este — Matilda, countess 
 
 m. Wilfrida, daughter of d. of Saxony of Este, heiress of Tuscany, | 1129. 
 
 and heiress of Luneburg. 
 
 , -A- ‘ - --\ 
 
 Henry the Proud , d. of Bavaria, f 1139 = Gertrude, d. of Emp. Lothaire II. 
 
 heiress of Saxony and Brunswick. 
 
 > - - -—-—> 
 
 Henry the Lion, d. of Bavaria and Saxony, Welf III. d. of Tuscany, 
 
 dep. 1180, f 1195. 
 
 r - ■ " 1 ■ ' “ 
 
 22. Otho IV. emp. 1208. 
 
 * • * * * * * 
 
 26. Alphonso X. emp. 1257. 
 
 William of Luneburg, 1st d. of Brunswick, 
 t 1213: from him descends the reigning 
 monarch of England. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Italian Republics. — The republics of Northern Italy refused to 
 acknowledge Frederick II. as their sovereign, and their rebellious 
 spirit was fomented by the popes. But the struggle that followed was 
 not one of principle, but of faction, — Guelf against Ghibelline, the 
 church against the empire. These states may be divided into four 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 271 
 
 great clusters:—1. Central Lombardy, containing Milan, Cremona, 
 Parma, Mantua, Lodi, and other towns. 2. The March of Verona, 
 between the Adme and the German frontiers. 3. Romagna, containing 
 Bologna, Modena, and Ferrara. 4. Tuscany. The first and third were 
 principally Guelfs; the second, Ghibellines; while the fourth was ba¬ 
 lanced between the two parties. 
 
 The misfortunes which oppressed Frederick pursued all his family. 
 A kind of fatality seemed to impend over his race; and it appeared as 
 if the heroic house of Hohenstaufen was destined to astonish the world 
 as much by its miseries as by its glory. His son Enzio died a 
 prisoner at Bologna, after twenty years of captivity ; his natural son 
 Manfred was deprived of the kingdom of Naples by Charles of Anjou, 
 and perished in battle; lastly, his grandson Conradin, wdio endeavoured 
 to recover his heritage by arms, w T as defeated, taken prisoner and judi¬ 
 cially murdered. 
 
 Lombard Leagues. —The first Lombard league, 1167, against the 
 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, succeeded in obtaining the objects for 
 w’hich it was formed. The alarming demonstrations of Frederick II. 
 against the pope and the independence of the Italian cities aroused the 
 fears of the Guelf party in that peninsula. The Milanese began the 
 resistance by an appeal to the Lombard communities, fourteen of which 
 adhered to the confederation. The departure of the emperor for the holy 
 war was improved to the advantage of the revolted states ; and although, 
 on his return, he published a law on the public peace, which was sup¬ 
 ported by the eloquence of the preacher John of Vicenza, the suspension 
 of hostilities was not of long duration. Frederick suddenly reappeared 
 in Italy, in obedience to the call of Ezzelino, podesta of Verona and 
 chief of the Ghibellines in Lombardy. After the victory of Corte 
 Nuova, on the Oglio, in 1237, nearly all the towns made submission; 
 but they were again driven to arms by the intrigues of the pope, who 
 had conciliated the alliance of Venice and Genoa. 
 
 After the death of Frederick II. the contentions still survived, although 
 their objects wrere changed, the struggle being now 7 between the nobles 
 and the people. Ezzelino III., with his brother Alberic, podesta of 
 Treviso, w T as at first victorious over the Guelf party; but Pope Alex¬ 
 ander IV. having preached a crusade against them in 1255, most of the 
 cities united under the command of the Marquis of Este. To punish 
 the citizens of Padua, who had received the crusaders, Ezzelino put to 
 death eleven thousand of those enrolled among his troops. This atro¬ 
 cious cruelty having withdrawn from him his most powerful allies, he 
 w^as defeated and mortally wounded at Cassano, 1259. In the follow¬ 
 ing year, Alberic and all his children w T ere massacred; and the spoils 
 of the family divided among several of his principal antagonists. 
 
 Florence. —In this city, whose history previous to this period is 
 obscure and unimportant, the chief offices w T ere held by the Guelf 
 families of Buondelmonti and Donati, and the Ghibellines of Amidei 
 and Uberti. In 1250, about two months before the death of Frederick 
 II., the former, supported by Pope Innocent IV., deposed the imperial 
 governor, and framed a democratic government under a captain of the 
 people and a Milanese podesta. Lucca, Pistoia, Sienna, and other 
 towms, followed the example of Florence, and the Ghibellines were 
 enabled to preserve the superiority in Pisa alone. After several years 
 
272 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 of exile, the proscribed faction, with the aid of Manfred of Sicily, 
 being victorious in the battle of Monte Aperto, returned to Florence, 
 whence they were again expelled in 1267, and the Guelfs re-established 
 by Charles of Anjou, then signor of the republic. 
 
 Venice.— The crusades were the commencement of the power and 
 greatness of this commercial state. Mercantile advantages alone in¬ 
 duced the people to embark in the holy wars, which opened to them all 
 the Syrian harbours, and gave them greater security than they could 
 expect from the infidels. They had already factories, officers, and a 
 particular jurisdiction in the principal marts of Asia, when the Emperor 
 Alexius Comnenus granted them the freedom of unlimited commerce 
 in all his ports, with the exception of those in Cyprus and Candia. In 
 the Fourth Crusade they acquired a universal monopoly in the Greek 
 empire, and even a partial sovereignty in 1204. Corfu, Candia, ant 
 most of the Aegean islands, fell under their power, and half of Con 
 stantinople was thrown open to them. Henceforward Venice long pos 
 sessed the exclusive commerce of the Black Sea, and established hei 
 principal factories on its shores. 
 
 The Venetians disputed the possession of Illyria with the Hungari 
 ans, but their most formidable antagonists were the Genoese, with whom 
 commercial rivalry had brought them into contact in 1264. They then 
 lost their influence at Constantinople; and two naval defeats, in 1293 
 and 1298, forced the Doge Gradenigo, to sign a treaty, forbidding the 
 vessels of the republic to navigate the Black Sea. This epoch, so dis¬ 
 astrous to their commercial prosperity, was equally ruinous to their 
 ancient constitution. The sovereign power was placed, at this period, 
 in the great council, which, in 1172, had deprived the general assembly 
 of their voices in the election of the chief officer of the state, as well 
 as the nomination of the tribunes, who each year were charged with the 
 renewal of the council by the choice of fresh members. Gradenigo 
 made a greater progress towards aristocracy by confining the qualifica¬ 
 tion to the families of the senators then in office (il serrar del const glio, 
 1298); and, finally, under the Doge John Soranzo, the great council 
 being made hereditary, in 1319, the Golden Book received the names of 
 the houses retaining this new nobility. In the interval between these 
 changes the spirit of the democracy was manifested by the conspiracy 
 of Marino Bocconio, 1299, and that of Bohemond Tiepolio, 1310. 
 These popular movements served only to strengthen the nobles, who 
 placed themselves under the mysterious guardianship of the council 
 of ten. 
 
 Genoa.— This commercial city entered the Lombard confederation in 
 1238, previous to which period it had been considered part of the king¬ 
 dom of Italy. Its earliest government was by consuls; but in 1190 it 
 exchanged them for podestas, and these made way for the captains of 
 the people, 1257, who again were succeeded by doges in 1339. These 
 changes do not seem to have injuriously affected its mercantile interests 
 In the latter half of the thirteenth century, the Genoese contributed 
 their efforts to restore Constantinople to its legitimate monarchs, and 
 the privileges which were granted in return for their services enabled 
 them to dictate to Pisa and Venice. They disputed the possession of 
 Candia with the Venetians, and took Corsica from the Pisans, whom 
 they compelled to renounce all maritime operations, 1290. 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 273 
 
 Pisa.— This city took no part in the internal agitations of Italy, but 
 always remained faithful to the German emperors; while the island of 
 Sardinia, one of her most valuable acquisitions, formed also the most 
 extensive portion of her territory. It did not definitely acknowledge the 
 republic until 1117, when it was divided into four provinces, Cagliari, 
 Logodore, Ga'llura, and Arborea. Corsica, for which Pisa and Genoa 
 had long contended, gave rise to implacable hatred between the dis¬ 
 putants. The battle of Meloria, gained by Uberto Doria over the 
 Podesta Morosini, secured the island to the Genoese; and by the ruin 
 w hicn it inflicted on their enemies’ marine, left them without rivals in 
 the adjoining waters, 1284. The republic, exhausted by so great a 
 reve.se, and deprived of the protection of the Swabian family, fell under 
 the influence of the Guelfs; but their chief, Ugolino, being accused of 
 planning the surrender of the city to the Florentines, expiated his trai¬ 
 torous intention by the most cruel tortures, 1287. Intestine divisions 
 served only to aggravate the misfortunes of Pisa, which was compelled 
 to sun a treaty with Genoa, the articles of w T hich stipulated that its port 
 should be filled up, 1290. This act hastened the decay of the republic. 
 
 The internal prosperity of the chief Italian cities may be inferred from 
 the solid magnificence of their architecture. No part of Europe could 
 show such commodious private houses, flagged streets, noble public 
 buildings, and majestic bridges. These cities were fortified with mas¬ 
 sive walls, and defended by an intrepid body of buighers. Their 
 administration w T as under the management of annual consuls, aided by 
 a popularly elected assembly : but a nominal sovereignty w T as still 
 reserved to the people. Dissension, however, soon intruded upon this 
 fair scene; and civil strife proved more dreadful than any foreign war. 
 Before the end of the century, the Lombard cities had fallen under the 
 yoke of tyrants; Ferrara acknowledged the Lords of Este; the savage 
 Ezzelino ruled over the cities beyond the Adige; the Torriani and Vis¬ 
 conti at Milan; the Scaligers at Verona ; the Gonzagas at Mantua ; and 
 at Padua the Carraras. 
 
 Naples and Sicily. —The authority of the emperors in Italy was 
 almost entirely lost at the death of Frederick II., in 1250. Pope Inno¬ 
 cent IV. planned the reunion of Naples to the States of the Church ; 
 and, with this view 7 , wrote to the clergy and nobles, exhorting them to 
 take up arms, and declaring their kingdom henceforward irrevocably 
 united to the holy see. But the intentions of the pontiff were frustrated 
 for the present by the decision of Conrad and Manfred, the two sons of 
 Frederick. The decease of the former in 1254 left the Neapolitan 
 inheritance to Conradin, then a child two years old. Innocent took 
 advantage of these circumstances, and was pursuing a victorious career, 
 not, however, wdthout a severe check from Manfred, w 7 hen death termi¬ 
 nated his ambitious designs in December of the same year. Alexander 
 IV. w r as unable to maintain his predecessor’s conquests : in two years 
 Manfred recovered the kingdom, and on a vague report of Conradin’s 
 death, w T as proclaimed king. Urban IV.,w T ho filled St. Peter’s chair in 
 1261, resumed the designs of Innocent, and offered the crowm to Charles 
 of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. All Upper Italy declared for this prince, 
 and Philip della Torre, signor of Milan, went so far as to receive a Pro¬ 
 vencal podesta in his city. Manfred was, meantime, preparing a 
 vigorous resistance. The Sicilian galleys, united with the Pisan fleet, 
 
274 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 were to close the seas against the Angevins, while two armies sent mto 
 Tuscany and the March of Ancona, defended the approaches to the king¬ 
 dom. Neither of these precautionary measures succeeded. The two 
 rivals met on the banks of the Calore, in the plain of Benevento, 1266. 
 Treachery deprived Manfred of the victory, and, unwilling to survive 
 defeat, he rushed into the ranks of the enemy, and fell, mortally 
 wounded. 
 
 The decisive victory of Benevento threw all the country into Charles’ 
 hands; Messina declared in his favour, and thus was Sicily laid at his 
 feet. The capture of Manfredonia completed the subjugation of the 
 kingdom, and placed at the mercy of the victor all the family of 
 Manfred, with the exception of one daughter, married to the King of 
 Aragon. 
 
 The exactions and violent proceedings of Charles were ill calculated 
 to ensure the tranquillity of his government. The Ghibelline party sent 
 to Conradin, then sixteen years old, the most flattering representations 
 of the state of Italy ; the deputies of Sienna and Pisa brought with them 
 100,000 florins, and the chief barons of Germany joined his army. 
 Moved by their arguments, he advanced into Italy with the young Duke 
 of Austria, Frederick, who was himself deprived of his hereditary estates. 
 He entered Pisa, Sienna, and even Rome ; Charles had lost many cava¬ 
 liers in Tuscany ; his fleet had been destroyed before Messina, by that 
 of Pisa; all Sicily, except Palermo, Syracuse, and Messina, raised the 
 Swabian flag; and his affairs seemed on the verge of ruin. The rival 
 armies met at Tagliacozzo, near the Lake of Celeano, when a stratagem 
 gave the victory to the usurper. Conradin was taken prisoner, and 
 shortly after beheaded, with Frederick of Austria and the chief Ghibel¬ 
 line captives, 1268. Thus ended the two houses of Hohenstaufen and 
 Bamberg. 
 
 After putting to death the illustrious individuals just named, Charles 
 did not hesitate to sacrifice to his vengeance a crowd of the obscure 
 partisans of Conradin. All the provinces were filled with executions. 
 In Rome he cut off the legs of those who had declared against him; 
 and then, fearing the pity that would be excited by the view of their 
 sufferings, he enclosed them in a wooden house to which he set fire. 
 In Sicily the inhabitants of a whole city perished on the scaffold, not 
 excluding the traitors who had opened the gates to the French. Being 
 now master of the Two Sicilies and head of the Guelf party, he became 
 the arbiter of Italy. In 1269, in the diet of Cremona, he was declared 
 signor of most of the Guelf cities of Lombardy, including even Milan. 
 He would not have limited his success to this important station, had he 
 not been drawn by his brother into the second crusade of St. Louis, in 
 which, after making Tunis tributary to his crown, he turned his views 
 towards Constantinople. Pope Gregory X., and his successor Nicholas 
 III., impeded his designs; but a more formidable obstacle appeared in 
 the person who, having been the companion in arms of Frederick II. 
 and Manfred, burned with the desire of avenging their cause, and 
 liberating his country. John of Procida, a banished Neapolitan, trave 1 
 led through Sicily in disguise, exciting the people to revolt, and animat¬ 
 ing them with a hope of deliverance. The insurrection, which took 
 vlace in 1282, has been named the Sicilian Vespers from the occasion 
 on which it occurred. The inhabitants were excited by an outrage 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 275 
 
 which was perpetrated on a young woman, under the pretence of search¬ 
 ing lor arms, as she was going with other citizens of Palermo on Easter 
 Monday to the customary service at a church without the city. The 
 Sicilians rose upon their oppressors: 4000 persons were massacred in 
 one night,—victims to the popular indignation ; and before the end of 
 April, the island was entirely evacuated by the French troops.* 
 
 The Sicilians, terrified at their own boldness, sent deputies to implore 
 the pardon of Martin IV. and his intercession with their king; bat the 
 only reply that w as given bade them think of self-defence, if such w T ere 
 possible. To prepare themselves against the vengeance of Charles, 
 tlmy called the Kino- of Aragon to their aid. All the efforts of their 
 enraged enemy were unsuccessful before the w 7 alls of Messina, and his 
 fleet w as burnt by Loria, w 7 ho also had the good fortune to make his son 
 prisoner, 1284. In the following year the invader died, the victim of 
 disappointed ambition. Charles II. was restored to liberty by a treaty 
 which he did not observe; and the King of Aragon, attacked by France, 
 Castile, and Rome, was constrained to abandon Sicily. In 1303, his 
 brother Frederick, w r ho w r as soon elected to fill his place, by his talents 
 confirmed the independence of the people, and the pope w ? as compelled 
 to acknowledge him as sovereign. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Battle of Bouvines, 1214.—When John succeeded to the English 
 throne in 1199, Philip supported a pretender in the person of Arthur of 
 Brittany, grandson of Henry II. This prince fell into the hands of his 
 uncle, and w 7 as murdered ; upon which Philip Augustus summoned John 
 to appear and answer the charges made against him, as vassal of the 
 crown of France. On his refusal, Philip confiscated his fiefs, seized 
 on Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou, leaving him Guienne alone. 
 John w as compelled to submit in silence, but, soon finding a favourable 
 opportunity, he united with the French barons, the Earl of Flanders, 
 Otho IV., and the Earl of Boulo ne, in a formidable league acrainst 
 the French king. All had just cause of complaint, and all were ready 
 to assert their rights by force of arms. Not fewer than 200,000 men 
 combined against Philip, while 70,000 w 7 ere the w 7 hole he could bring 
 into the field under the Bishops of Senlis and Beauvais. But, never¬ 
 theless, he w T as victorious; and thus the safety of John’s continental 
 possessions w 7 as endangered, and the French monarchy more respected. 
 The last years of Philip’s reign w r ere spent in tranquillity, though dis¬ 
 turbances prevailed all around him. 
 
 Louis VIII., 1223, w r as diverted from the wars ao-ainst the English in 
 France to prosecute his crusade against the Albigenses. For a lolig 
 period the southern provinces had been insulated from the northern, and 
 the Count of Toulouse, the most powerful baron in those parts, was also 
 one of the richest princes in Europe; but his wealth and the premature 
 civilisation w T hich was the consequence, had drawn the people away 
 
 *The French were long taught to remember this bloody lesson. “ If I am provoked,” 
 said Henry IV., “ I will breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples.”—“Your majesty,” 
 replied the Spanish ambassador, “ may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers.” To the 
 credit of the Sicilian character, it should not be forgotten that the single Frenchman 
 (William Porcelet) who had not disregarded the laws of justice and humanity, was, 
 together with his family, safely conveyed to Italy. 
 
276 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 from the church of Rome. The reformers spread over Languedoc had 
 already refused to recognise the spiritual authority of the pope, who, 
 denouncing them as schismatics, lighted up a terrible war, which deso¬ 
 lated one of the fairest portions of Europe. “ Innocent III.,” says the 
 President Henault, “ was the soul of this war, Dominic was its apostle, 
 the Count of Toulouse the victim, and Simon, earl of Montfort, the 
 chief.” Louis VIII. marched against these opponents of the Romish 
 church, with 200,000 men. After some resistance he took Avignon, 
 which,* strengthened with 300 houses fortified with towers, had been 
 considered almost impregnable. Many cities in Languedoc opened their 
 gates to him; but a contagious disease spread among his troops, and he 
 himself being seized with the disorder, withdrew to Montpensier in 
 Auvergne, where he died, 1226. Louis IX., surnamed the Saint, being 
 only eleven years old at the death of his father, his minority was spent 
 under the regency of his mother, the excellent Blanche of Castile. 
 Though the first fifteen years of his reign was one continued struggle 
 against his refractor) 7 barons, his moderation and virtue, nevertheless, 
 increased the influence of the monarchy. A series of destructive cam¬ 
 paigns was avoided by his surrender of Guienne to Henry III. of Eng¬ 
 land; and the security of his people was maintained by his “Establish¬ 
 ments,” a code of feudal customs, the first monument of legislation raised 
 by the Capetian family. But Louis was superstitious, and this led to 
 his two unfortunate crusades, in the last of which, 1270, he met his 
 death at the siege of Tunis. 
 
 St. Louis united several provinces to his crown without the cost of one drop 
 of blood. The alliances of his brothers, Alphonso and Charles, prepared for 
 the union of Languedoc and Provence ; Blois and Chartres were purchased 
 from the Count of Champagne, 1247; Nismes and Carcassone were gained by 
 renouncing the feudal sovereignty of Barcelona, 1258 ; and the treaty of Abbe¬ 
 ville with the English in 1259 consolidated the conquests made during the reign 
 of Philip Augustus. From his impartiality, St. Louis was frequently chosen as 
 mediator in the quarrels of his time : he endeavoured to reconcile the Duke of 
 Brittany with the King of Navarre — the latter with the King of England — 
 Henry III. with his barons—and Gregory IX. with the Emperor Frederick II. 
 In all his transactions with the court of Rome, he firmly but respectfully 
 defended the rights of his crown, and by his Pragmatic Sanction,* 1268, estab¬ 
 lished the liberties of the Gallican church. 
 
 Louis IX. prudently continued the work begun under the auspices of Philip 
 Augustus, of increasing the royal power by controlling his vassals, not, how¬ 
 ever, without due respect to such rights as were consecrated by age, although 
 originally usurped by violence. For the first time deputies of the citizens were 
 admitted into certain public assemblies. The administration of justice was 
 reformed by wise institutions and by the influence of the “Establishments;” 
 the limits of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction were clearly determined by the 
 orders of 1235 ; and the traders’ companies regulated by useful decrees. Mfil¬ 
 ler, speaking of St. Louis, observes, that the empire of the Franks was founded 
 by arms ; but royalty in France w T as consolidated by the virtues of this monarch. 
 
 Philip III. the Bold, considerably increased the royal domain by the 
 addition of Poitou and Auvergne, 1271; while circumstances, arising 
 
 *Tnis regulation in matters of religion is commonly, but perhaps without foundation, 
 attributed to Louis IX A similar usage in episcopal elections was established by the 
 famous pragmatic sanction of Charles YU., drawn up in an assembly of the French 
 church held at Bourges, 14:18, which contains certain regulations for ecclesiastical dis 
 cipline in conformity with the canons of the council of Basle. This rule; which was 
 intended by the Gallician church as a barrier against the encroachments of the papa 1 
 court, was revoked by the concordat of Bologna in 1516, between Francis L and Leo X. 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 277 
 
 out of the death of Theobald II. on his return from Tunis, eventually 
 gave Champagne and Navarre to the French crown. By these acquisi¬ 
 tions, and that of the earldom of Toulouse, the king became on a sudden 
 very powerful in the south. But he was not successful in the war in 
 Sicily, undertaken to defend his uncle Charles of Anjou against Aragon. 
 Having marched an army into Spain, he died on his return to France, at 
 Perpignan, 1285. 
 
 CAPETIAN DYNASTY: Portion II. 
 
 Louis VI. the Fat , k. 1108. 
 
 6. Louis VII. the Young, 1137, 
 m. 1. Eleanor of Guienne. 
 
 2. Constance of Castile. 
 
 3. Alice of Champagne. 
 
 I 
 
 Robert the Great , 
 stock of the families of 
 Dreux and Brittany. 
 
 Peter (7th son), 
 m. Isabella , d. and 
 heiress of Reginald 
 of Courtenay, ct. of 
 Auxerre. 
 
 7. Philip II. Augustus, 1180, 
 m. 1. Isabella , heiress of 
 Artois. 2. Agnes de 
 Meranie. 
 
 Margaret , 
 m. Henry, son of 
 Henry II. of England. 
 
 Peter , 
 
 emp. of Constantinople, 
 1216. 
 
 I 
 
 - A__ 
 
 8. Louis VIII. 1223, 
 m. Blanche of Castile. 
 
 Philip , 
 
 ct. of Boulogne. 
 
 emp. 
 
 Robert, 
 
 of Constantinople, 1221. 
 
 9. Louis IX. 1226, 
 m. Margaret of 
 Provence. 
 
 Robert I. 
 stock of House 
 of Artois, extinct 
 in 1472. 
 
 Alphonso, 
 ct. of Poitiers, 
 m. Joan, heiress 
 of Toulouse, 
 f 1271. 
 
 Charles , ct. of Anjou, 
 m. Beatrice of Provence ; 
 stock of Sicilian kings. 
 
 10. Philip III. the Bold, 1270, 
 m. 1. Isabella of Aragon. 
 
 2. Mary of Brabant. 
 
 Robert , 
 
 ct, of Clermont; 
 stock of branches 
 of Bourbon, Ven- 
 dome, and Mont- 
 pensier. 
 
 Peter , 
 
 ct. of Alencon. 
 
 Blanche , 
 m. Ferdinand of 
 Lacerda. 
 
 11. Philip IV. the Fair, 1285, 
 m. Joanna, heiress of Navarre 
 and Champagne. 
 
 Charles , 
 
 stock of Houses 
 of Valois and 
 Alencon. 
 
 Louis , 
 
 stock of House 
 of Evreux-Na- 
 varre. 
 
 Margaret , 
 m. Edward I. 
 of England. 
 
 12. Louis X. Hutin, 1314, 
 m. 2. Clemence of Hungary. 
 
 13. Philip V. 
 the Long, 1316, 
 m.Joan of 
 Burgundy. 
 
 14. Charles IV. 
 the Fair, k. 1322, 
 t 1328, last of the 
 first branch. 
 
 Isabella , 
 m. Edward II. 
 of England. 
 
 
 John I. 1315, 
 lived hut eight 
 days, and is 
 not reckoned 
 among kings 
 of France. 
 
 Joanna , 
 heiress of 
 Navarre; 
 m. Philip 
 of Evreux. 
 
 Joanna, 
 heiress of Bur¬ 
 gundy, and Ar¬ 
 tois ; m. Eudes IV. 
 d. of Burgundy. 
 
 Edward III. of 
 England, pretender 
 to the French 
 throne. 
 
 Philip IV. the Fair, was bent upon the aggrandizement of the mon¬ 
 archy by the reduction of the five great fiefs, Champagne, Guienne, 
 Flanders, Burgundy, and Brittany. The first he obtained by marriage; 
 the second he got possession of by stratagem, but was compelled to 
 restore in 1303; his attempt on the third was defeated by the terrible 
 rout of Courtray, 1302, in which the Flemings took 4000 pair of gilt 
 spurs, worn only by knights. The various difficulties in which this 
 king was involved, by the depreciation of the coinage and his disputes 
 wfith the clergy, led to the convention of the states-general, 1302. Pro¬ 
 fiting by a quarrel between some Norman and English sailors, he com- 
 24 
 
278 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 menced a war with England, and took, with little resistance, all the 
 strong places of Guienne and Gascony. Edward I. was then too much 
 engaged with the Scottish war to defend his continental possessions *, 
 but he menaced France with a formidable league in the north. The 
 defeat of the Flemings suspended the contest; and, by the treaty of 
 Montreuil sur Mer, Edward espoused, in 1299, Philip’s sister, Margaret. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 Magna Charta. — John, 1199, the murderer of his nephew Arthur, 
 fell under the ban of the pope, and provoked his subjects to revolt. All 
 the exactions usual to Norman kings were not only redoubled, but min¬ 
 gled with outrages still more intolerable by this prince, who was not 
 less contemptible for his folly than his cowardice. It was a fortunate 
 circumstance that England was not at this period parcelled out like 
 France into numerous petty states, separated from each other by laws, 
 manners, and privileges. When the country rose as one man against 
 his tyranny, John was isolated; there was no province on which he 
 could depend for support by concessions and privileges detrimental to 
 the rest. He was therefore compelled to relax the severity of the forest 
 laws, and to sign the Great Charter, 1215, the keystone of English 
 liberty. “All that has since been obtained,” says Hallam, “is little 
 more than as confirmation or commentary; and if every subsequent law 
 were to be swept away, there would still remain the bold features that 
 distinguish a free from a despotic monarchy.” Sir J. Mackintosh 
 observes, that “ to have produced the Great Charter, to have preserved 
 it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the * 
 esteem of mankind.” This is what some rash men were about to 
 exchange for the dominion of France in 1213. The attempt of John to 
 annul the charter was happily frustrated by his death ; but he had already 
 suffered the continental possessions of England to be diminished by sur¬ 
 rendering to the French monarch, without a struggle, Normandy, Anjou, 
 Touraine, and Maine, 1205. A quarrel with Innocent III. caused the 
 kingdom to be laid under an interdict. The churches were closed, the 
 sacraments withheld from all but children and dying persons; and the 
 dead were buried without prayers in unhallowed ground. John was at 
 length compelled to yield, promising to do homage for his dominions, 
 and to pay an annual tribute of 1000 marks. His character may be 
 summed up in the words of Juvenal,—“ Monstrum nulla virtute redemp- 
 tum a vitiis.” 
 
 Remarks on the Great Charter. 
 
 On the English nation the charter has contributed to combine stability with 
 improvement. It set the first example of the progress of a great people in blend¬ 
 ing popular pretensions and the power of the nobles with a vaguely limited 
 monarchy, so as at length to form, from these discordant materials, the only 
 kind of free government which experience has shown to be reconcileable with 
 widely extended dominion. 
 
 Prepare: A sketch of Magna Charta, with the names of its chief promoters. 
 
 Henry III., 1216, succeeded his father at the age of ten years. His 
 minority was passed in peace and without any important event, under 
 the successive guardianship of the Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de 
 Burgh. As soon as he attained his majority, he showed himself as 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 279 
 
 unworthy the confidence of his subjects as did his father. Always 
 guided by favourites, he was easily managed by De Burgh, on whom 
 he lavished numerous offices. He oppressed his people with all kinds 
 of exactions, and fell into a serious disagreement with his brother Rich¬ 
 ard, earl of Cornwall, afterwards King of the Romans. He twice inter¬ 
 fered in the civil wars of the regency in France, and was on both occa¬ 
 sions unsuccessful. In 1245, he opposed the preaching of the crusade 
 within his dominions, partly from mistrust of Louis IX., and partly from 
 his being engaged in disputes with Llewellyn, the last native prince of 
 Wales. 
 
 England during nearly the whole of this reign was a prey to internal 
 dissensions, excited by Henry’s prodigality, favouritism, exactions, and 
 continual violation of his people’s rights. These grievances led to a 
 revolt of the barons, who placed at their head Simon de Montfort, earl 
 of Leicester, who had married Henry’s sister. They compelled the king 
 to agree to the provisions of the parliament of Oxford, reforming most 
 of the abuses; but, in 1261, he recalled his assent, and procured Pope 
 Alexander IV.’s dispensation from his oaths. St. Louis was umpire in 
 the subsequent disputes ; but the barons being dissatisfied with his deci¬ 
 sion, recourse was had to arms, when the battle of Lewes, 1264, threw 
 the king and his brother Richard into their hands. The commons were 
 now, according to some historians, summoned for the first time to the 
 national assembly or parliament.* Affairs, however, soon changed 
 appearances. Edward, the presumptive heir to the crown, defeated the 
 insurgents at Evesham, in 1265, when Leicester perished, and the king 
 was delivered from his captivity. Peace being established, the prince 
 joined in the crusade of St. Louis, and two years after was recalled to 
 England on the death of his father. 
 
 Edward I., 1272, the conqueror of Wales and the Justinian of Eng¬ 
 land, proved equally wise and patriotic. Warlike and sagacious, he 
 corrected the many abuses which had crept into the administration of 
 the laws, and reduced the Welsh to subjection, 1283. A disputed suc¬ 
 cession to the sovereignty of Scotland led to his interference in the affairs 
 of that country. By his arbitration as lord paramount, Baliol was seated 
 on the throne, 1292; but four years afterwards, on a frivolous pretext, 
 Edward invaded and overran the whole country, carrying the king pri¬ 
 soner to London. The Scots, however, soon re-asserted their independ¬ 
 ence, and next year, under the brave Wallace, cleared the country of 
 the invaders. The name of this heroic soldier is worthily ranked among 
 the foremost of patriots — with Gustavus Vasa, the two Williams of 
 Orange, with Kosciusko, and wfith Washington. The battle of Falkirk, 
 in 1298, proved fatal to Scotland; and it was while marching against 
 the noble Bruce, who had assumed the royal title, that this enterprising 
 monarch breathed his last, 1307. 
 
 SPANISH PENINSULA. 
 
 Castile and Leon. — In the beginning of the thirteenth century, an 
 army of 80,000 Moorish cavalry, accompanied by a corresponding body 
 
 ♦This parliament, held in London, 22d January 1265, was composed of the clergy and 
 barons, with two knights from each county, and two burgesses from every borough. The 
 division into separate houses was effected between 1339 and 1343. 
 
280 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 of infantry, invaded Spain, spreading terror throughout Christendom. 
 At the summons of Innocent 111., 60,000 crusaders from France and 
 Germany crossed the Pyrenees, and took Malagon and Calatrava. Dis¬ 
 appointed in their expectations of the pillage of these two cities, they 
 returned to France, leaving only a small part of their forces under the 
 Archbishop of Narbonne and Theobald of Blacon. With these the 
 Sierra Morena was passed, and the battle of Tolosa fought, 1*21*2, in 
 which, if we may credit the historians, not fewer than 200,000 Mussul¬ 
 mans perished. Alphonso IX. of Castile died shortly after, leaving the 
 crown to his infant son Henry, under the regency of Don Alvaro, chief of 
 the house of Lara. The unimportant reign of this monarch was followed 
 by that of Ferdinand III., son of Alphonso IX. of Leon. On the death 
 of his father, in 1230, who expired on a pilgrimage to St. James of 
 Compostella, he united Castile to the kingdom of Leon. 
 
 The situation of Christian Spain was extremely flourishing at this 
 period; two formidable invasions had been repelled, and the Moors pos¬ 
 sessed little beyond Murcia, Valencia, with part of Andalusia and Gra¬ 
 nada. The order of St. James, founded about the middle of the twelfth 
 century, having acquired eighty commanderies and two hundred priories, 
 was capable of bringing a thousand knights into the field. Next fol¬ 
 lowed the orders of Calatrava and Alcantara, which filled the ranks of 
 the Christian army with their bravest warriors. Thus success followed 
 upon success; and Alphonso, the brother of Ferdinand, crossing the 
 Guadiana, defeated the Moors. The king in person took Ubeda, and 
 Cordova fell before an army of adventurers, 1236. The sovereigns of 
 Murcia and Granada submitted to pay tribute; Seville was attacked and 
 taken after a two years’ siege; and Ferdinand was projecting the cap¬ 
 ture of Ceuta when he died in 1252. 
 
 Alphonso X. of Castile and Leon, 1252, received on his accession to 
 the throne the oaths of fidelity from the sovereigns of Granada and Nie- 
 bla. The latter city he conquered in 1259, and four years after defeated 
 the rulers of Murcia and Granada, notwithstanding the aid they had re¬ 
 ceived from Morocco : he further united great part of Murcia to Castile, 
 forcing the King of Granada to acknowledge his dependence by payment 
 of a tribute. But the glories of the earlier years of this reign were tar¬ 
 nished by the disturbances which clouded its close. The depreciation 
 of the coinage and the establishment of a maximum led to extreme misery 
 and discontent among all classes. The invasion by the King of Fez in 
 1275, reconciled for a time the monarch and his subjects; yet Sancho 
 the Brave, his second son, who had the greatest share in the defeat of the 
 Moors, renewed the troubles by aspiring to the crown, which by right 
 should have fallen to his elder brother, Ferdinand of Lacerda. Alphonso 
 was forced to submit to his rebellious son, who was acknowledged heir. 
 
 The first act of Sancho IV., 1284, was to deprive his brother, Don 
 Juan, of Seville and Badajoz, which had been left to him by his father. 
 Resuming the war against the Moors, his fleet, united with the Genoese, 
 several times defeated the infi lels, and the King of Morocco fled in 
 dismay from the siege of Xeres, 1285. The course of his victories was 
 suspended by the quarrels of the rival houses of Haro and Lara; but on 
 the settlement of their disputes he was enabled to return against the 
 Moors, from whom he took the fortress of Tarifa. He died in 1295, 
 leaving his son Ferdinand IV. under the regency of his mother, Mary, 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 281 
 
 who was fortunate enough to satisfy the ambition of Don Juan, her late 
 husband’s brother, and to reconcile the two hostile families. Henry, 
 third son of Ferdinand III., having reappeared in Spain after an absence 
 of twenty-five years, seized on the regency ; but was soon environed 
 with enemies, whose w^ant of unity w 7 as fatal to their success. The 
 death of the usurping regent, which happened shortly after, threw the 
 Hiief power into the hands of Don Juan and the house of Lara, who 
 persuaded the king to deprive his mother of her authority. On obtaining 
 his majority, Ferdinand re-established concord for a time, by giving a 
 suitable appanage to the eldest son of Alphonso of Lacerda, and by 
 ceding the north of Murcia to Aragon. In Ferdinand’s reign the im¬ 
 portant fortress of Gibraltar w T as taken from the Moors. 
 
 Aragon.—Peter II., who ascended the throne in 1196, after contri¬ 
 buting to the victory of Tolosa, perished at Muret, fighting on the side 
 of the Count of Toulouse against Simon of Montfort. His successor, 
 James I., surnamed the Conqueror, 1213, undertook an expedition to the 
 Balearic Isles, attacked Majorca, defeated the Moors, marched towards 
 their capital, and himself mounting first to the assault, took possession 
 of the place, which, wdth the whole island, he united to Aragon, an im¬ 
 portant conquest for the maritime commerce of the Catalonians. When 
 two Moorish princes were prosecuting their claims to the throne of 
 Valencia, James, proceeding to the succour of one of-them, penetrated 
 to the capital, which he captured. The submission of Valencia gave 
 fresh importance to Aragon; but his successors, washing to unite the 
 crown of Sicily to those which they already w T ore, the occupation of that 
 island diverted them from the Moorish wars to mingle in the quarrels 
 then agitating Italy. 
 
 Peter III., 1276, who had married the daughter of Manfred, king of 
 Sicily added that island to the possessions of the house of Barcelona. 
 It was in vain that Pope Martin IV. declared his deposition, and con¬ 
 ferred the crown on Charles of Valois, second son of Philip the Bold, 
 for the Admiral Roger de Loria maintained everywhere the superiority 
 of the Aragonese flag, and thereby entirely neutralized the invasion of 
 Catalonia by the French monarch. At Peter’s death, in 1285, the crown 
 of Sicily w r as left to his second son James, and that of Aragon to Al- 
 phonso III., the Beneficent, who took Minorca from the infidels. At the 
 news of Alphonso’s death, in 1291, James, abandoning Sicily to his 
 brother Frederick, returned to assume the crown of his native land. To 
 terminate the war with France, he espoused Blanche, daughter of 
 Charles of Naples, and promised to restore Sicily to that prince; but 
 Frederick found means to prevent the execution of this promise. 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 Mamelukes. —On the death of Saladin, in 1193, his empire was di¬ 
 vided among the princes of his family; Egypt still maintaining its 
 pre-eminence. But the sons of that great leader were dethroned by his 
 brother Malek-el-Adel, who began, in 1200, the dynasty of the Ayoubite 
 sultans; and in the reign of his last descendant, St. Louis undertook 
 the crusade in wririch he and his army were made prisoners, 1250. In 
 the same year the Mamelukes broke out into open rebellion, and having 
 murdered their new sovereign, they established a dynasty of their own. 
 
 24 * 
 
282 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 This class of men were principally Circassian or Georgian slaves whom 
 the Egyptian saltans had purchased to fill the ranks of their army; and 
 being trained as a body-guard, they proved very brave though sometimes 
 turbulent soldiers. After this period, few of their sovereigns died a 
 natural death; the only variety in their fate was the means employed— 
 the sword, poison, or the bowstring. The Mamelukes oppressed the 
 unfortunate Egyptians, and filled the country with scenes of violence, 
 until their dynasty was ended in the Sultan Selim, 1517. 
 
 Genghis Khan.— Another terrible scourge now appeared in Asia. 
 On the banks of the Selinga was born, in 1164, Temugin, better known 
 as Genghis Khan.* This leader of the Mongols issued from the distant 
 regions of Chinese Tartary at the head of a fierce and uncivilised race, 
 whose course was everywhere marked by desolation, 1296. His career 
 was one splendid victory. Invading China, he seized on seven of the 
 northern provinces ; conquered Corea and Thibet; defeated 400,000 men 
 under Mohammed, the sultan of Kharism ; and routed the Czar of Rus¬ 
 sia. All Asia, from the sea of China to the Euxine, yielded to his 
 power ; and though he died in 1226, his conquests were continued by his 
 successors. One of them, Baatu, made a rapid incursion into Europe, 
 1236, the broadest rivers proving no obstacle to his savage followers. 
 Having conquered Russia, they invaded Poland, and destroyed the cities 
 of Lublin and Cracow. The monarchs of Europe trembled on their 
 thrones, when this second Attila was recalled by the death of the Great 
 Khan Octai in 1245. 
 
 The caliphate of Bagdad was terminated by the Mongols, under 
 Hulaku, in 1258, a. h. 656. During forty days the city was given up 
 to plunder, and 200,000 persons were slain. The conquest of China 
 was completed in 1279, by Kublai Khan, who had raised the power of 
 his nation to the summit of grandeur. He died in 1294, when the 
 empire was divided into Iran (Persia), Zagatai (S. E. Asia); Kaptschak 
 (Russia); and China. 
 
 Read: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. lxiv. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Mendicant Orders.— The reform called for by the corrupt lives 
 of the clergy demanded a stronger spirit of enthusiasm in their defence. 
 Francisco, the son of a rich merchant of Assisi, was actuated in his 
 youth by a delirious piety; in his riper years he became either a mad¬ 
 man or an impostor. With the pope’s consent he instituted in 1210 a 
 class of Friars Minorite, better known as Franciscans, from the name 
 of their founder, in honour of whom they modestly call themselves the 
 Seraphic order; having installed him above the seraphim upon the throne 
 from which Satan fell. They were bound to observe the severest rule 
 of life : they went barefooted, and trusted to alms for their daily bread. 
 They increased with great rapidity; so that in the eighteenth century, 
 when the Reformation must have diminished their number by one-third, 
 
 * Genghis Khan, or the greatest khan, had been raised to the command of his nation 
 by the help of another whose name has been mixed up with numerous fables. Temugin 
 had married the daughter of Ouang, the great khan of the Keraites, who, from the story 
 of having been converted by some Christian monks and baptized, is known in Europe 
 as Prester John. 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. t>. 283 
 
 there were found 28,000 Franciscan nuns in 900 nunneries, and 115,000 
 friars in 7000 convents. 
 
 The rival order of Dominicans, which was instituted on the same 
 principles, and about the same period, became noted for performing the 
 sanguinary tasks of the Inquisition, extirpating heretics with fire and 
 sword. By the council of Lyons, 1274, the number of the mendicant 
 orders was confined to four:—Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, 
 and Austin friars,—all of whom proving the ever-acting agents of the 
 holy see, received in consequence great privileges from the popes. The 
 monks could confess, absolve, and preach in all churches ; and thither 
 ran the people to listen to these men, coarsely clad and attenuated by 
 austerity, rather than to the delicate and sumptuous prelates, who glit¬ 
 tered in purple garments and gold. These orders, by undermining the 
 influence of the superior clergy, restored to Christianity the democratic 
 character which it bore in the primitive church, and which was mani¬ 
 fested with such terrible energy during the religious wars. 
 
 Read: Southey’s Book of the Church. 
 
 The Inquisition. —The establishment of the Inquisition by Dominic, 
 in 1204, enabled the papal court to direct all its efforts to the extirpation 
 of heresy. The leading features of this odious tribunal were the impen¬ 
 etrable secrecy of its proceedings, the insidious mode of accusation, the 
 use of torture, and heavy penalties. This weapon of the church was 
 first successfully employed against the Albigenses, but was afterwards 
 suppressed in France. Introduced into Germany in 1231, it was 
 abolished after the lapse of three years on account of the violence of the 
 inquisitor, and never again restored. In Italy it succeeded in crushing 
 the Reformation; but it was successfully resisted by the Neapolitans, 
 who were alarmed at the cruelty with which it was administered in 
 Spain. In that country it possessed a formidable power, and there an 
 auto-da-fe was solemnized so lately as 1783. 
 
 Read : M’Crie’s Reformation in Italy.—Llorente’s Inquisition. 
 
 Albigenses. —This sect, which derived its name from the town of 
 Albi, was probably a union of all who differed from the Romish church, 
 collected round the simple Waldenses—so called from Yaldo of Lyons 
 —whom Providence had kept untainted by the papal corruptions. The 
 suspicious death of Pietro de Castelnau, while crossing the Rhone in 
 1208, called forth a bull from Innocent III. against all schismatics, and 
 particularly against Raymond VI. count of Toulouse, absolving his 
 subjects from their allegiance, and informing them that faith was not to 
 be kept with heretics. Simon, count of Montfort, uras appointed leader 
 of this Western Crusade. It began with the storming of Beziers, where 
 15,000 Albigenses were slain. It is said that when some of the in¬ 
 habitants would have escaped, a Cistertian monk led on the crusaders 
 with the cry of “ kill them all! God will know his own.” At last 
 Raymond VII., in 1229, was forced to capitulate, and the Inquisition 
 was established in Toulouse. The Albigenses were dispersed, but not 
 destroyed, by a determined system of persecution. During tw r o cen¬ 
 turies they supplied victims for the Spanish inquisition; in Bohemia 
 they had a dreadful season of vengeance under Zisca and Procopius; 
 in Germany they prepared the way for Luther; and in Britain they 
 sowed that seed of which, by the blessing of God, we now enjoy the 
 abundant harvest. 
 
284 
 
 MIDDLE AGES* 
 
 CRUSADES. 
 
 Fourth Crusade, a. d. 1202. — A new holy war was preached by 
 Fulques of Neuilly, and Baldwin, count of Flanders, was made leader. 
 The crusaders were diverted from the object of their expedition by the 
 prayers of the young Alexius, who implored their protection in behalf 
 of his father. Aided by Dandolo of Venice, they took the Byzantine 
 capital, and elected Baldwin emperor. Other chiefs shared in the 
 spoils; Boniface of Montferrat had the title of King of Thessaly; 
 Ville Hardouin was made Duke of Thrace; Athens was converted into 
 a duchy; Achaia into a principality; and Corinth into a lordship 
 Thus began the Latin empire in 1204, which lasted till 1261. 
 
 Crusade of Children.— As the crusading spirit of the times haa 
 seduced Louis IX., so even children were possessed by it. In 1212, 
 nearly 90,000 youths of different countries left their parents and school¬ 
 masters in order to betake themselves to the Holy Land. They pro¬ 
 ceeded in great troops to Marseilles and Genoa, although their numbers 
 were diminished by cold, hunger, and disease. As two merchants of 
 the former city offered to transport them across the sea, seven vessels 
 quitted the port, by which they were carried to Alexandria, and there 
 sold as slaves. Most of those who reached Genoa, in the hope of find¬ 
 ing the bed of the sea dried up, were reduced to bondage by the in¬ 
 habitants of the country. 
 
 Consult: Michaud’s History of the Crusades, vol. iii. 
 
 Fifth Crusade, 1217.—This expedition was undertaken by the 
 king of Hungary, Andrew II., who was aided by John of Brienne, 
 king of Jerusalem; Hugh, king of Cyprus; and Leopold III., duke of 
 Austria. The crusaders first landed at Acre, but their ill success in 
 Palestine, and the departure of the Hungarians, induced them to turn 
 their arms to another quarter. As Egypt was the great resource of the 
 Mussulmans in the Holy Land, it was resolved to conquer Jerusalem 
 by depriving it of its usual supplies. Accordingly Damietta was 
 stormed, and the sultan offered to give up the Holy City with the true 
 cross, when the pope’s legate thought fit to reject his proposals and con¬ 
 tinue the war. This resolution was fatal; for, surrounded by the waters 
 of the Nile, attacked on all sides by the Saracens, and wasted by a con¬ 
 tagious malady, the Christians were forced to submit to humiliating 
 conditions of peace, in 1221. 
 
 Sixth Crusade, 1228.—The failure of the fifth crusade incited the 
 pope to press the fulfilment of the vow which the Emperor Frederick 
 II. had made to assume the cross; but it was not until he had incurred 
 the penalty of excommunication through his various delays, that the 
 emperor set out for the Holy Land. Here, by a convention signed the 
 following year, the Sultan of Egypt ceded Jerusalem, Bethlehem, 
 Nazareth, Rama, and all the country between Acre, Tyre, Sidon, and 
 Jerusalem. But the Christians did not long preserve their acquisitions. 
 Weakened by civil wars, some forming alliances with the Sultan of 
 Damascus, others with the ruler of Egypt, they lost Jerusalem in 1244; 
 and although they recovered it again, and held possession of it for a 
 brief period, they were finally driven out by the Kharismians, who 
 massacred or reduced to slavery all the population of Palestine, and 
 destroyed the sacred sepulchre. 
 
THIRTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 285 
 
 Seventh Crusade, 1248.—Cardinal Eudes of Chateauroux was the 
 
 eans of giving birth to this war, in which Louis IX. sailed for Egypt 
 with an army of nearly 60,000 men. That country was looked upon as 
 the key of Palestine, and Louis made the city of Damietta the centre 
 of his movements. Natural obstacles, the resolute opposition of the 
 Turks, and the loss of many brave knights, including his brother the 
 Count of Artois, compelled him to retreat w r hen almost within sight of 
 Cairo. Pestilence and famine aggravated the distresses of his soldiers; 
 and the king himself became a captive, when his army was almost 
 annihilated. His ransom was obtained by the payment of 400,000 
 livres. At Acre, he lingered four years, ashamed to return inglorious to 
 France and unable to visit the holy sepulchre. 
 
 Eighth Crusade, 1270.—A chimerical hope of converting the King 
 of Tunis led Louis to the African coast. His army, 30,000 foot, and 
 6000 horse, was composed of men of all nations; for English, Scots, 
 Catalonians, Portuguese, and Castilians, fought under the same ban¬ 
 ners with the French chivalry. The plague, however, soon appeared 
 in the camp, which cut him off at the age of fifty-five, 1270. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 Des Michaels, examining the influences of the Crusades, classifies them 
 under the following heads 
 
 I. Immediate Effect. —Europe was saved from Turkish invasion at a period 
 when she would have been ill able to resist it, although she purchased this 
 benefit and short repose at a great price of blood and treasure. 
 
 II. Effect on the Church. —The popes augmented their spiritual and temporal 
 power. They brought under their supremacy the patriarchs of Antioch and 
 Jerusalem, and strengthened the links of the hierarchy. 
 
 III. Folitical Effect. —This was shown, ls£, Among the princes, who all, 
 with the exception of the emperors, found means of enlarging their domains, 
 and increasing their authority ; 2d, Among the nobility, who suffered in power 
 and riches, but were gainers in honorary distinctions. The orders of knight¬ 
 hood established in the East reflected their splendour over Europe and were 
 imitated in all Christian states. Tournaments, a recent introduction, charmed 
 the West by representing the exploits of the Holy War ; the combatants from 
 beyond the seas came to display, in the various courts, the magnificence of the 
 East; while coats of arms became necessary as distinctive marks, and family 
 names were adopted and transmitted from sire to son. 
 
 IV. Effect on Commerce and Industry. —The art of navigation made important 
 progress, owing to the frequent voyages, to the great profits derived from them, 
 and to the practices borrowed from the pilots of the Levant. By opening a 
 wider field to speculation, and by facilitating exchange, commerce derived the 
 same advantages as nautical science. Productions of nature and art, hitherto 
 unknown in the West, brought new enjoyments, and called forth fresh industry. 
 The maritime cities that engrossed the commerce of the East, attracted to them 
 most of the wealth of Europe, and several of them became powerful republics. 
 Hence the prosperity of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, of Barcelona and Marseilles. 
 Hence, too, the wealth and activity of the Flemish towns, which served as 
 the medium of exchange between the North and South, between the ports of 
 the Mediterranean and the towns of the Hanseatic league. Agriculture was 
 also greatly benefited by the introduction of the mulberry, Turkey-wheat, the 
 sugar-cane, and other plants. 
 
 V. Effect on Knowledge. —General civilisation was advanced by new inter¬ 
 national relations, and the progress of science and literature. Ideas of honour 
 and courtesy spread from chivalry into society generally, softening the public 
 
286 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 manners, and ennobling, in some respect, the enfranchised serfs, who were 
 indebted for most of their wealth and liberty to the crusades. 
 
 New and sublime subjects were laid open to poetic genius, which, however, 
 rarely employed them with advantage. Still talent was honoured, and the 
 Warriors, not satisfied with encouraging the versifiers who celebrated their 
 exploits, became their own bards. A peculiar character was impressed on 
 poetry, and thus arose the romance of chivalry and the songs of the troubadours. 
 Hence was breathed the first harmony into the various dialects of modern 
 Europe. 
 
 The advances made by the sciences of geography, history, and medicine, were 
 important in giving a new impulse to geographical research and adventure. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire. —1341, Cantacuzene. —1355, Great Earthquake. — 1391, 
 Manuel II. 
 
 The East. —1310, Knights of St. John at Rhodes.—1326, Rise of the Ottoman 
 Power—Janizaries. —1370, Tamerlane. —1389, Bajazet. —1402, Battle of 
 Angora. 
 
 Germany. —1315, Battle of Morgarten.—1338, Union of Rense.—1347, Charles 
 IV. —1356, Golden Bull. —1378, Wenceslaus, Emperor. —1386, Battle of 
 Sempach. 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —The Visconti. —1320, Castruccio Castracani. —1342, 
 Joan I.—1347, Rienzi.—1355, Faliero expelled.—1378, War of Chioggia. 
 France. —1302, Defeat at Courtray—Papal Quarrels.—1307, Templars abol¬ 
 ished— Salic Law. —1346, Battle of Cressy ; 1356, of Poitiers. —1358, The 
 Jacquerie. —1364, Charles V. 
 
 Britain. — 1314, Battle of Bannockburn. — 1346, The Black Prince. — 1371, 
 The Stuarts.—1381, Wat Tyler.—1399, House of Lancaster —Henry V. 
 Spanish Peninsula. —1340, Battle of Tarifa: Cannons first used. —1350, 
 Peter the Cruel.—1368, Henry of Trastamare.—1385, John of Portugal. 
 Church. —1360, John Wickliffe.—1378, Great Schism of the West—Lollards 
 —Bianchi. 
 
 Inventions. —1306, The Mariner’s Compass—Linen Paper—Cannons.—1330, 
 Notes of Music.—1360, Metal-drawing; Pins.—1380, Playing Cards—Gun¬ 
 powder used. 
 
 Literature, &c. — 1300, Cimabue; 1336, Ghiotto, Painter. — 1321, Dante, 
 Poet; 1343, Occam, Theologian ; 1374, Petrarch, Poet; 1375, Boccacio, 
 Novelist; Hafiz, Persian Poet; 1400, Chaucer, Poet; 1402, Gower, Poet*, 
 Froissart, Historian. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 A nation so degraded as the Greeks was unable to defend itself 
 against the Turks, to repel whose attacks Andronicus II. hired 7000 
 Catalonians, whom the reconciliation of the houses of Anjou and Aragon 
 had left without employment; but these mercenaries, uniting with the 
 Turks, pillaged Thrace and Thessaly, and seized on the duchy of Athens, 
 1312. Further, the knights of St. John wrested Cos, Rhodes, and 
 several adjacent islands, from the Byzantine emperor. Internal dissen 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 287 
 
 sions led to the dethronement of the sovereign by his grandson, Andronicus 
 the Younger, 1328, under whom the abuses of the government increased. 
 Bithynia was conquered by the Turks ; and his reign of thirteen years 
 was imbittered by a declining popularity and a premature old age, the 
 consequence of youthful excess. John Palaeologus, 1341, was left in 
 his ninth year under the guardianship of the regent Cantacuzene, who 
 had the merit of restoring Lesbos and iEtolia to the empire. The 
 intrigues of jealous courtiers led him to assume the imperial title. 
 During six years the flames of civil discord burned with various success; 
 and while internal factions weakened the state, the barbarians were 
 breaking through the whole line of the frontiers. The regent finally 
 triumphed, but his reign was disturbed by faction; and he descended 
 from the throne to a cloister, 1355, when John resumed the purple. In 
 this year a terrible earthquake shook most of the cities in South Rou- 
 melia,—an event of which the Turks took advantage to seize on them, 
 and to fortify Gallipoli and Zympe. Opposed on all sides by Chris¬ 
 tians and infidels alike, the emperor besought the protection of the pope, 
 and endeavoured to effect a union between the two churches. But this 
 was unavailing against the victories of Amurath, to whom he became 
 almost a tributary vassal, and the Greek empire w T as confined to a corner 
 of Thrace between the Sea of Marmora and the Euxine, scarcely 1500 
 miles square—Philadelphia, the last city held by the Greeks in Asia 
 Minor, having been wrested from them in 1390.— Manuel II., 1391, 
 who had served under Bajazet, preserved his military reputation by a 
 lengthened struggle with his rival John of Selymbria. The threatening 
 power and haughty summons of Bajazet led to an ignominious truce of 
 ten years, in virtue of which the religion of Mohammed w T as tolerated in 
 the Christian capital. 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 Ottoman Empire. —Profiting by the weakness of the Seljukians of 
 Iconium, many Turkish families had retired into the mountains of Asia 
 Minor, where they formed several petty states, and preserved their war¬ 
 like habits by continual inroads into the Greek territories. Among these 
 was Othman, who, fixing his residence at Karahissar, extended his power 
 into Bithynia; and his son Orcan, who succeeded him, 1326, having 
 assumed the title of sultan, rapidly enlarged his dominions. Invited into 
 Europe by one of the factions of the capital, the barbarians established 
 themselves in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, whence they sub¬ 
 dued the whole province from the Hellespont to Mount Heemus, 1360. 
 Amurath I. at length reduced the Greek emperor to the ignominy of 
 sending his four sons as hostages to the Ottoman camp. To him, or to 
 his predecessor Orcan, the celebrated Janizaries owe their origin. 
 Aware of the real superiority of the Europeans in warlike matters, he 
 selected the stoutest of the Christian prisoners, and educated them in 
 habits of martial discipline. This new militia vras consecrated by a 
 renowned dervise, who said, “ Let them be called Janizaries —new sol¬ 
 diers; may their hands be ever victorious, and their swords keen.” 
 
 Bajazet I., surnamed Ilderim, 1389, reigned fourteen years; and his 
 rapid movements soon reduced to obedience all the country between the 
 Euphrates and the Danube. At the battle of Nicopolis, 1396, he defeated 
 Sigismond the king of Hungary, and the bravest knights of France and 
 
288 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Germany, who had marched to the support of Europe and the church. 
 It was the insolent boast of this proud army of 100,000 Christians, that 
 if the sky should fall they could uphold it on their lances. The impe- 
 tuousity of the French caused the loss of the day, and the lives of many 
 of the most gallant soldiers. With savage cruelty Bajazet led out the 
 prisoners, amounting to no few T er than 10,000, to be slaughtered in cold 
 blood. The Duke of Burgundy was compelled to be a spectator of this 
 inhuman massacre, which lasted from early morn till four o’clock, p. m. ; 
 and then was only stopped by the intercession of some of the Moham¬ 
 medan leaders. The siege of Constantinople was next meditated, but 
 the sultan was compelled to defend himself against the formidable 
 Tamerlane. The twrn armies met at Angora, 1402: Bajazet was 
 defeated and- made captive, and carried about in triumph, as some say, 
 in an iron cage. 
 
 Tamerlane.— Under the successors of Genghis Khan in the four¬ 
 teenth century, the vices common to all Asiatic monarchies appeared. 
 The provincial governors asserted their independence in 1355, and the 
 dynasty of the Ilkhanians at Bagdad extended their authority to the 
 Caspian Sea. At the same time, the khan’s officers deprived him of his 
 power, and governed the empire in his name. Lastly, the inroads of the 
 Turkomans, and of the Mongol Khan of the Kaptschak, wffio several 
 times entered Persia, hut particularly those of Tamerlane, put an end 
 to their dominion. This famous warrior was not distinguished in arms 
 until the age of twenty-seven; his youth having been passed in tending 
 the flocks and herds of the family. At nineteen he became religious, 
 and made a vow never to injure any living thing. His first adventures 
 were the struggles upon which he entered to restore to independence his 
 country, that had been invaded by the Calmucks. He ascended the 
 throne of Zagatai, 1370 ; but before his death the crown of that kingdom 
 w T as only one of fourteen that encircled his brows. Turkestan was sub¬ 
 dued in 1383; Persia in 1393; and Eastern Tartary was invaded with a 
 mighty army, wffiose front covered thirteen miles. Hindostan was 
 assailed by 92,000 horsemen; and 10,000 prisoners, whom they took on 
 their march, were all massacred. Delhi was captured and delivered up 
 to an undisciplined soldiery ; and after a campaign of one year, Tamer¬ 
 lane returned home. His designs of conquest w T ere probably changed 
 by the news he received of the ambitious projects of Bajazet. Quitting 
 the banks of the Ganges, he marched against his rival; Sebaste, on the 
 borders of Anatolia was taken, and the garrison, consisting of 4000 
 Armenians, buried alive. His incursions into Syria and Persia during 
 the next two years enabled Bajazet to collect forces; and after various 
 delays, the two armies met in the heart of the Ottoman empire. The 
 result of the battle of Angora, 1402, did not disgrace the thirty years’ 
 experience of Tamerlane. Almost the whole of Asia was now in his 
 hands, but while meditating a new design of vast extent, the reduction 
 of Egypt and Africa, and the entrance into Europe by Gibraltar, death 
 put a term to his conquests in 1405. With his life the glory of his 
 empire faded, and, before the end of the fifteenth century, Transoxiana 
 and Persia were trampled upon by their Turkoman neighbours. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 After the death of his rival Adolphus in 1298, Albert of Austria 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 289 
 
 leoeived the imperial crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, notwithstanding tne 
 determined opposition of Boniface VIII., who, nevertheless, becoming 
 reconciled, assisted him in placing on the throne of Hungary their com¬ 
 mon friend, Carobert of Naples, 1308. The emperor next disposed of 
 the Bohemian territory in favour of two of his sons, Rodolph and 
 Frederick. But the states had already conferred the sovereignty on 
 Henry of Carinthia, brother-in-law of the preceding king, Wenceslaus 
 V. Albert, after making several vain efforts to support the rights of his 
 own family, turned all the fury of his anger against the Swiss. 
 
 Helvetic Confederacy. —The Swiss towns did not rise into import¬ 
 ance before the twelfth century, nor did their country bear its present 
 name. Part belonged to the duchy of Swabia ; part to the kingdom of 
 Arles; part to Burgundy ; and though all as a body were dependent on 
 the empire, certain fiefs appertained to the house of Austria. At the 
 end of the thirteenth century, the politic and enterprising Rodolph, with 
 his son Albert, had obtained a great ascendency among them. The 
 latter, however, was viewed with distrust, and bis conduct in sending 
 some imperial bailiffs as administrators of criminal justice, excited a 
 brave and simple-minded people to insurrection. Stauffacher, Furst, 
 and Melchthal united in the cause of liberty, and the cantons of Schweitz, 
 Uri, and Unterwalden, which they represented, unanimously rose and 
 expelled their oppressors in 1308. Tell, the son-in-law of Furst, having 
 offended the bailiff Gessler by refusing to bow to a hat planted on a 
 pole, was seized, and in violation of the privileges of his canton, placed 
 in a boat to be carried across the lake. A storm having arisen, he was 
 loosed from his fetters to navigate the vessel, when he found an oppor¬ 
 tunity of effecting his escape. He shortly after met his enemy and shot 
 him in a hollow way in 1307.* 
 
 Leopold, duke of Austria, led a considerable force to reduce the pea¬ 
 sants who had rebelled against his father; but the battle of Morgarten, 
 the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the independence of the three 
 cantons, 1315. In this conflict a display of patriotic firmness occurred, 
 not unworthy the best days of ancient Rome. Fifty men, who had been 
 banished from Schweitz, solicited permission to fight in defence of their 
 native homes; the magistrates declined the offer, being unwilling to 
 allow the approach of danger to relax the ordinances of the state. But 
 the exiles, though thus rejected, posted themselves on an eminence 
 beyond the frontier of the canton, where they contributed to the victory 
 of those by whom their services had been refused. They obtained from 
 the gratitude of their country, what they had vainly sought from its fears, 
 and were all restored. 
 
 The battle of Sempach, in 1386, was the last in which Austria endea¬ 
 voured to subdue those independent mountaineers. It was rendered 
 illustrious by an heroic act, deserving to be ever remembered among the 
 instances of generous self-devotion. When the confederates had been 
 defeated in every attempt to break the line of the enemy, another Codrus, 
 Arnold Struthan, knight of Unterwalden, cried to his countrymen that 
 he would open a passage, desiring them to provide for his wife and 
 
 ♦The authenticity of the romantic story of Tell and his son is very doubtful. Saxo 
 Grammaticus, the Swedish historian, relates a precisely similar event, which happened 
 to the Danish Toko, under Harold the Blue, king of Denmark, in the 10th century. 
 
 25 
 
290 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 children, and to honour his race. Then throwing himself on the oppos¬ 
 ing pikes, he grasped as many of them as he could, buried them in his 
 oosom, and bore them to the ground, leaving a space open for the ad¬ 
 vance of his companions. 
 
 Before the middle of the century, the confederacy had been strength¬ 
 ened by the addition of Lucerne, Zurich, Berne, Zug, and Glaris, com¬ 
 posing the eight ancient cantons. Friburg, Appenzel, Soleure, Basle, 
 and Schaffhausen, afterwards became part of the body; and its inde¬ 
 pendence was declared by the treaty of Basle in 1500. 
 
 Seven months elapsed between the murder of Albert and the election 
 of Henry VII. of Luxemburg, 1308. In order to divert the attention of 
 the princes of the empire, he endeavoured to re-establish the imperial 
 power in Italy, which during sixty-four years had recognised no foreign 
 authority. The factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines still distracted 
 the country, though their objects were no longer the same, — the one 
 contending for the emperor, the other for the pope. When Henry ap¬ 
 peared in Italy, escorted by 2000 cavalry, all the signors presented them¬ 
 selves before him, but they were compelled to resign into his hands the 
 sovereignty which they had abdicated. After having assumed at Monza 
 the crown of Lombardy, he received deputies and oaths of fidelity from 
 all the cities. He died of poison administered in the consecrated wafer, 
 1313. During this period Germany was at peace, but in the year pre¬ 
 ceding Henry’s death it was ravaged by a pestilence that carried off 
 13,000 persons at Strasburg, 14,000 at Basle, and as many at Colmar. 
 In some towns and cities not one man escaped. 
 
 After an interregnum of fourteen months, two emperors w T ere chosen: 
 Frederick of Austria, the son of Albert, was crowned at Cologne, and 
 Louis of Bavaria at Aix-la-Chapelle. The civil war which broke out 
 between the two competitors, was terminated in 1322 by the victory at 
 Muhldorf, which left Louis sole emperor. In 1328, he caused himself 
 to be crowned king at Rome, not by the pope, who was always opposed 
 to him, but by the prefect Sciarra Colonna and two excommunicated 
 bishops; after which he solemnly proclaimed the deposition of John 
 XXII. and proceeded to the election of another pope. The degraded 
 pontiff with his successors Benedict XII. and Clement VI., from their 
 place of exile at Avignon, did not cease to pursue his majesty wfith their 
 anathemas. Wearied by such continued persecutions, Louis offered to 
 resign his crown, but the electors opposed this resolution, and united at 
 Rense for the preservation of the German independence against his holi¬ 
 ness, and replied to the anathemas of Benedict XII. by the pragmatic 
 sanction of Frankfort, 1338. By this act of firmness the papal court w r as 
 only the more offended; and Clement VI. persuaded the ecclesiastical 
 electors and the Duke of Saxony to choose a new emperor. Their choice 
 fell on Charles of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, and eldest son of 
 King John the Blind of Bohemia. The sudden death of Louis IV., in 
 1347, gave the imperial crown to Charles IV. without a struggle. 
 
 Golden Bull. — The emperor just named, like Louis XI. of France, 
 showed how a monarch may rule without possessing any respectable 
 qualities. His residence at Prague led to the embellishment of the city 
 with public buildings, and his bull of 1355 terminated the disputes be¬ 
 tween the electors. It was surnamed the golden, from the seal attached 
 to it. Bartholus, the celebrated lawyer, drew up this charter, ^y which 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 291 
 
 the prerogatives of the electoral college were finally ascertained. Their 
 number was confined to seven; the imperial elections were to be held at 
 Frankfort, and the coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Archbishop of 
 Cologne performing the ceremony. The electors were declared equal to 
 kings, and conspiracy against them was made high treason. 
 
 Charles twice visited Italy, where he sacrificed most of his imperial 
 prerogatives, as he had already done in Germany. He was always 
 King of Bohemia, and showed great wisdom in the government of his 
 hereditary states. His reign is further remarkable for the foundation of 
 the universities of Prague and Vienna, and for a persecution of the Jews, 
 so atrocious as to require the interference of the pope to stop it. He 
 was succeeded by his son Wenceslaus in 1378. 
 
 The reign of Charles, it has been said, was an age of gold compared 
 with that of his son. In Swabia and Franconia private hostilities were 
 frequent; and the cities, from the necessity of preserving the public 
 peace, formed various associations to protect themselves against the 
 leagues of the nobles. An open war ensued between the two parties, 
 and the corporations were defeated at the battles of Weil and Worms, 
 1388. The emperor paid dearly for the secret influence which he had 
 used in favour of the free cities: and in order to destroy him, his vicious 
 pursuits, exaggerated beyond all probability, were everywhere made 
 known. He had not a less difficult task in governing his Bohemian 
 subjects; for he had undertaken to Germanize these ancient Sclavonians, 
 and impose on them new laws and a new language. At length his peo¬ 
 ple imprisoned him, 1393, and he was deposed in 1400. 
 
 ITALIAN PENINSULA. 
 
 The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a brilliant period, in which 
 poetry, the letters, the arts, and internal improvement raised the Cisal¬ 
 pine nations to an intellectual superiority, which has rarely been equalled; 
 while the political history of the same space presents little more than a 
 labyrinth of petty facts, not less obscure than unimportant. Milan, Flo¬ 
 rence, Genoa, and Naples, rose to eminence; the pope consolidated his 
 territorial sovereignty; but the kingdom of Naples was a prey to the 
 factions of Anjou and Aragon. By the end of the thirteenth century, the 
 Ghibelline faction was everywhere proscribed; and Charles of Anjou 
 was constituted vicar-general of Tuscany. Robert, the third of the An¬ 
 gevin kings of Naples, aspired to the sovereignty of all Italy, and before 
 1318 his ambitious measures were generally successful. His death 
 restored the republics to their former condition, but only to accept new 
 masters; for the Visconti of Milan gradually absorbed the rule of all the 
 northern provinces. The marriage of Valentina with the Duke of Or¬ 
 leans, 1389, led to protracted calamities in Italy at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century. During this period, their relations with the empire, 
 though interrupted, were never entirely suspended. 
 
 The decree of Rodolph, 1278, by which he resigned the imperial 
 supremacy over all the dominions already granted to the Roman see 
 was a leading epoch in the civil history of the papacy. The power of 
 the bishops was not generally acquiesced in by the citizens, whose 
 bosoms were animated with the recollection of ancient glories. Arnold 
 of Brescia, a political heretic, had preached against the temporal juris 
 
292 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 diction of the hierarchy, in 1140. By his exhortations the republic was 
 restored; but his life was sacrificed to cement the union between the 
 Emperor Barbarossa and Pope Adrian, 1155. The government of the 
 senate lasted nearly fifty years; when Brancaleone, a senator of Bologna, 
 was elected to the supreme magistracy, 1*253. His rigour and inflexible 
 justice were repaid by the ingratitude of an unworthy people. The 
 translation of the holy see to Avignon, 1305, left Rome a prey to the 
 factions of her nobles. In every street was erected some stronghold; 
 each mansion became a castle ; an the feuds of the Orsini and Colonna 
 families were more fatal to the capital than the inroads of the barbarians. 
 
 Rienzi. — Nicholas Rienzi, born of humble parents, was carefully 
 educated, and from the study of the ancient classics had imbibed a deep 
 veneration for the past glories of Rome. In 1342, he was named col¬ 
 league of Petrarch in a deputation sent to solicit the return of Clement 
 VI. Shortly after, he was appointed apostolic notary; and, in 1347, he 
 began the revolution he had long meditated.* He suspended in the 
 public places various pictures emblematical of the misery and degrada¬ 
 tion of the city, which he explained in the most animated manner. 
 Favoured by the absence of Stephen Colonna,j - he at length proclaimed 
 that all should assemble on the eve of Whitsunday, in the church of 
 St. Angelo, to provide for The Good State, the watchword of his party. 
 There he assisted during the night at the masses of the Holy Spirit, 
 that he might appear to act by inspiration of Heaven; and then sallied 
 forth bareheaded, attended by a hundred armed men. He was invested 
 by acclamation with the necessary power for carrying his proposed regu¬ 
 lations into execution, but contented himself with the title of tribune. 
 The intemperance of prosperity soon betrayed the vices of his character, 
 and precipitated his ruin, even in despite of the salutary influence of his 
 government. Resolving to assume the order of knighthood, the unusual 
 ceremonies he employed, such as bathing in the porphyry vase used at 
 the baptism of Constantine, offended the superstition of the people. 
 His victory over the nobles, who had united in defence of their lives 
 and property, was the crisis of his fate, by the distress it caused to the 
 inhabitants of Rome. A small force advanced to the capitol, in which 
 he held his sumptuous residence, and forced him to leave the city after 
 a government of seven months. He returned in a short time, invested 
 with legitimate authority by the pope; but his administration of scarcely 
 four months was terminated by assassination, in 1354. 
 
 Genoa dates her commercial prosperity from the recovery of Con¬ 
 stantinople, 1261. Owing to her convenient station at Galata, she long 
 monopolized the commerce of the Euxine, and contested the dominion 
 of the Mediterranean with Venice. In a dispute with the Tartars it 
 became necessary to blockade the Sea of Azoph, a proceeding which 
 gave umbrage to the Venetians, and led to a war, in which Genoa was 
 eventually successful, under the Admiral Paganino Doria. In 1378, 
 
 ♦The author of Corinne has drawn with a single stroke the character of Rienzi, Cres- 
 centius, and Arnold of Brescia, gui ont pris les souvenirs pour les esperances. The sub¬ 
 sequent affairs of Rome are obscure ; the people appear to have continued the republican 
 institutions till 1362, when the legate of Innocent VI. was allowed to assume the govern* 
 ment. 
 
 tLike Brutus, Rienzi acted the buffoon, and the Colonnas used to invite him to their 
 palace to furnish them with amusement, considering him as a mere fool, and of no im¬ 
 portance. 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 293 
 
 the occupation of Tenedos by the Venetians, and the conquest of Cypru9 
 by the Genoese, led to the war of Chioggia. The latter, defeated near 
 the ruins of Anfcium, and victors before Pola, seized upon Chioggia; 
 where Peter Doria rejected with contempt the submission of the Doge 
 Contarini. But the tide of fortune turned, and the peace of Turin, in 
 1381, which reconciled the two powers, was advantageous to neither. 
 From this period Genoa was in continual revolution; between 1390 and 
 1394, the doge was changed ten times; and the city was finally placed 
 under the protection of a French garrison, 1401. 
 
 Venice.— While this republic was extending her sway abroad by 
 arms and commerce, she was limiting the power of the doge at home, 
 and establishing an hereditary aristocracy that enabled the state to rise 
 to the highest greatness. In 1339, she increased her territory on the 
 Continent, by the conquest of the city of Treviso, and in 1355 executed 
 Faliero for his attempts on the constitution. This doge had been raised 
 to the ducal throne, 1354, at the age of 76. Jealous of the attractions 
 of his young and beautiful wife, he was filled with unappeasable indig¬ 
 nation at a scurrilous couplet written on his throne by a young noble¬ 
 man, Michael Steno, and which reflected on the purity of his lady. He 
 wished to make it a state crime, but the council sentenced the offender 
 to a short imprisonment only. This drove the doge to extremities, and 
 uniting with several discontented plebeians, he engaged in a conspiracy 
 to massacre the whole of the oligarchy. The plot was discovered; 
 Faliero avowed his guilt, and was condemned to die. He was privately 
 beheaded on the great staircase of the ducal palace, and the bloody 
 sword was shown to the populace, with the proclamation, that justice 
 had been executed on a great criminal. 
 
 The honour of Venice was connected with the reign of the Latins at 
 Constantinople, and the supremacy there of the Roman church; while 
 Genoa, emulous of her fame, concluded an alliance with the Greeks, 
 and assisted them materially in the recovery of their metropolis. Re¬ 
 ligious disputes, as well as commercial and national prejudices, imbit- 
 tered the contest between the two republics. The war of 1378 threaten¬ 
 ed Venice with great misfortunes. The capital was blockaded by the 
 possession of Chioggia, and the Genoese swore that a curb should be 
 placed in the mouth of her wild horses. Necessity compelled the 
 release of the Admiral Pisani from his prison. The canals were defend¬ 
 ed by floating batteries; private coffers were emptied ; gold and silver 
 plate was melted down; and a promise was made that thirty families 
 should be ennobled for their exertions in this momentous crisis. Al¬ 
 though the besiegers were in their turn besieged, the senate seriously 
 thought of transporting themselves to Candia. Things were in this 
 state when Carlo Zeno arrived laden with treasure from the Ligurian 
 shores. But after some further struggles, the fortunes of Genoa sunk 
 for ever, and the rivalry of 130 years was terminated by the superiority 
 of Venice. The latter seized on Durazzo and Corfu in 1386, and the 
 Polesina of Rovio-o in 1395; and from that moment she did not cease 
 to direct her ambition and arms towards the continent of Italy. 
 
 Tuscany. —This rich country was still divided into nearly as many 
 republics as cities, and the disputes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines raged 
 with their wonted animosity. The latter would not have been able to 
 maintain themselves much longer, but for the genius of Castruccio Cas- 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 tracani, who was elected signor of Lucca in 1320. Uniting with Gale- 
 azzo Visconti of Milan, he invaded the territory of the Florentines, and 
 defeated their troops at the battle of Alto Pascio in 1325. But for the 
 premature death of this warrior, the liberty of the Tuscan republics 
 would have been endangered. 
 
 Of all the Italian cities Florence was perhaps most distracted by rival 
 factions, which, in turn victorious, unfeelingly proscribed their antago¬ 
 nists. Thus was the great poet Dante expelled at the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century by the Guelfs, and condemned to wander, until his 
 death, through the towns of Tuscany and Romagna. The Blacks and 
 the Whites —for by this name did the Guelfs and Ghibellines distinguish 
 themselves — promoted in no small degree the cause of the democracy. 
 The former, guided by the Donati and controlled by the kings of Naples, 
 were nearly always predominant, and the administration was conse¬ 
 quently of a popular form. Sometimes the power fell into the hands of 
 the nobles; but the tyranny of Walter of Brienne in 1342 induced the 
 state to adopt the democratic form of government. Its situation became 
 then more critical than ever. Depopulated by pestilence in 1348, and 
 afterwards besieged by the troops of John Visconti, it found safety in 
 the devotion of the Guelf corporations of Sienna, Avizzo, Volterra, and 
 Perugia. By such means the Florentines employed their power to 
 maintain the union between these republics, and to withdraw them from 
 the control of the French, and particularly of the pontifical legates. 
 But they were themselves divided by the rivalry of the Greater and the 
 Less Arts,* as well as by the aristocratic and popular factions, who 
 renewed within the walls the bloody tragedies of the Bracks and the 
 Whites, at the same time that Tuscany was ravaged by “ the free com¬ 
 pany,” which the legate, Robert of Geneva, had brought to protect him, 
 1376. About two years later, democracy prevailed at Florence, through 
 the influence of the gonfalier Sylvester de Medici. 
 
 Lombardy.— The grandson of Mastino della Scala, who had raised a 
 durable power on the ruins of the house of Romano at Verona, obtained 
 from the Emperor Henry VII., in 1312, the title of imperial vicar in the 
 march of Treviso, as well as the signory of Vicenza. The republicans 
 of Padua contested the government of that city; but they themselves 
 fell under the hereditary yoke of James Carrara in 1318. Mastino II., 
 pursuing the ambitious designs of his father, extended his influence into 
 Tuscany by the acquisition of Lucca, and menaced the independence of 
 Florence, which was indebted for its safety to the Venetians. He 
 aspired to the sovereignty of Italy; in this, however, he was opposed 
 by the hostility of the Visconti and the policy of Venice. His family, 
 after his death in 1351, gradually declined, and Antony, the last heir, 
 was deprived of all his possessions by Galeazzo Visconti, who also 
 took Padua from Francisco Carrara in 1388. This city, as well as 
 Verona, fell into the hands of the Venetians in 1404. 
 
 The Torriani succeeded in driving the Visconti from Milan in 1302; 
 but they soon returned, and their leader, Matthew, engaged the former 
 
 *The citizens exercising commerce were divided into twelve companies or arts. The 
 seven, called the greater, were those of lawyers and notaries, wholesale dealers in foreign 
 cloth, bankers or money-changers, woollen-drapers, physicians and druggists, dealers in 
 silk, and furriers: the inferior arts, which were gradually increased to fourteen, were 
 the retailers of cloth, butchers, smiths, shoemakers, and builders. 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 295 
 
 n a sedition in which the greater part of them perished, 1311. It was 
 about the same period that Henry VII. conferred the title of Imperial 
 Vicar of Lombardy on this chief, who contrived to make the office of 
 signor hereditary in his family. His successors extended their power 
 in Upper Italy by policy as much as by vigour of arms. John Galeazzo 
 Visconti ruined the fortunes of the Scaligers, and united to his paternal 
 estates all Lombard Italy from the Brenta to the Ticino: Verona, Vi¬ 
 cenza, Padua, Bergamo, Brescia, Lodi, Cremona, Alexandria, Parma, 
 Piacenza, Bologna, and Pisa, all flourishing cities, received under diffe¬ 
 rent titles the laws of the signor of Milan. The kings of France courted 
 his alliance, and in 1395, the Emperor Wenceslaus, for 100,000 florins, 
 conferred on him the dignity of duke. 
 
 Sicily and Naples. —Frederick of Aragon merited by his prudent 
 administration the gratitude of his Sicilian subjects. Useful institutions, 
 the encouragement of manufactures, an alliance with Henry VII., and 
 afterwards with Louis IV., both enemies of the house of Anjou, dis¬ 
 tinguished his reign of forty-one years, which terminated peaceably in 
 1337, in spite of several excommunications by the holy see. His son, 
 Peter II., filled the throne only five years. Under his successor Louis, 
 peace was at length signed with Naples, and Joan I. renounced Sicily, 
 Louis paying a tribute to the pope, 1347. But the domestic troubles 
 which followed drove 10,000 inhabitants from the island, and forced the 
 King of Naples to renew hostilities. Frederick III. succeeded in 
 expelling the Neapolitans a second time, and the peace of 1372 left to 
 their monarchs little more than the titular sovereignty of Sicily. 
 
 During this time, Naples had been the theatre of bloody revolutions. 
 Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles the Lame in 1285, who was 
 followed by Robert the Good, 1309, by whom Sicily was unsuccessfully 
 attacked. He was more fortunate on the mainland, being nominated 
 senator of Rome by the pope, and received hy the Genoese as their 
 signor. It was he who crowned Petrarch in the capitol in 1341. His 
 daughter Joan, wife of Andrew the Hungarian, succeeded to the throne 
 in 1343, commencing her disgraceful reign by the assassination of her 
 husband, and then marrying Prince Louis of Tarentum. But the King 
 of Hungary, Louis the Great, led an army to avenge his brother, and 
 the country was devastated by war during several years, until the inva¬ 
 der was recalled, to his own states. Henceforward the court of Naples 
 gave way to the grossest immoralities, though Joan finally expiated her 
 crimes by a cruel death, being strangled by Charles of Durazzo. She 
 left behind her the seeds of war by adopting Louis I. of Anjou in oppo¬ 
 sition to the lineal heir. From this period began those struggles between 
 the second Angevin family and the royal branch of Durazzo, which 
 brought the French into Italy, and were the cause of a lasting enmity 
 between the houses of France and Austria. Louis I. in 1383, and his 
 son in 1390, invaded the kingdom, but were compelled to retire. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Flemish War. —The peace of Montreuil allowed Philip IV. to 
 resume his aggressions against Flanders. The count of that province 
 was already his prisoner, and two of Philip’s officers so oppressed the 
 Flemings with unjust exactions, that they revolted, and having mur 
 
296 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 dered the French residents, advanced to meet the royal army. At 
 Courtray a most sanguinary engagement took place, in which the flower 
 of the French chivalry perished, 1302. Two years after, Philip repaired 
 this disaster by the victory of Mons-en-Puelle, while the Genoese in his 
 service, under the command of Grimaldi and Philip of Rieti, destroyed 
 the Flemish fleet at Zierikzee. These successes, however, were fol¬ 
 lowed by no advantage, as his majesty was compelled to recognise the 
 independence of the Flemings, 1305. 
 
 Papal Quarrels. —Boniface VIII. was scarcely seated in the ponti¬ 
 fical chair, before he resolved to extend the authority of the tiara; though 
 he found in the King of France an adversary by no means inclined to 
 give up any of his prerogatives. At first the intentions of the pope 
 appeared favourable towards him; but his holiness, wishing to interfere 
 as mediator between France and England, employed language which 
 highly incensed the French monarch, who, some time after, imposed a 
 new tax on all his subjects, from which not even the priests were 
 exempted. This measure did not create a breach; yet w’hen the king 
 had imprisoned Bernard Saisset, a turbulent bishop who pretended to 
 have no superior except the pope, Boniface published that celebrated 
 bull Jlusculta jili, ordered by the other to be publicly burnt, and w’hich 
 was the cause of the first meeting of the three estates of the kingdom, 
 1302. This assembly protested energetically against the superiority 
 assumed by the holy see over the crown of France. In another assem¬ 
 bly of barons and church dignitaries, Philip appealed to a future council 
 against the anathemas of the pope; and William of Nogaret, his chan¬ 
 cellor, accusing Boniface of heresy and simony, procured a sentence 
 of imprisonment, to avoid which the pontiff fled to Rome, where he 
 died in 1303. His successor Benedict XL, enjoying his exaltation only 
 a few months, was followed by Clement V. who transferred the seat of 
 the pontificate to Avignon, 1305. 
 
 Templars abolished. — This distinguished order, which was esta¬ 
 blished in 1118 by the patriarch of Jerusalem, consisted originally of 
 eight or nine poor knights who dwelt in community near the site of the 
 ancient temple. They voluntarily took on themselves the obligation of 
 guarding the roads in the neighbourhood of the city, and of protecting 
 the pilgrims from the infidels. Gradually their numbers and wealth 
 augmented ; their military services excited the gratitude of Christendom; 
 and in every nation legacies and lands successively increased the pos¬ 
 sessions of the brotherhood. After being expelled from the Holy Land, 
 they indulged in indolence and luxury, and were charged with the 
 grossest crimes. Philip, having repeatedly denounced them to Clement 
 V., at last ordered every member within his dominions to be arrested. 
 Fifty-nine of the noblest were burnt at Paris in 1309 ; and numbers in 
 other parts of France also became victims.* 
 
 The result of the trials, which lasted three years, acquits the order, 
 however it may condemn a few individuals. A bull was published by 
 the council of Vienne, 1312, transferring their property to the knights 
 hospitallers of St. John, w T ho had just achieved the conquest of Rhodes. 
 
 ♦In Castile the templars were imprisoned only; in Aragon they existed some time 
 longer; in Portugal they were incorporated with the order of Christ; in Germany they 
 were acquitted of all charges; while in England and Ireland they were kept in honour¬ 
 able but safe custody. 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 297 
 
 Salic Law. — Philip IV., dying in 1314, left three sons—Louis 
 Hutin, Philip the Long, and Charles the Fair — who successively 
 reigned. Louis survived his father less than two years, leaving one 
 daughter, and his queen on the point of giving birth to another child. 
 In his reign there was a violent reaction against the royal despotism. 
 Louis was obliged to accord to the barons of the north and centre of 
 France the rights of local sovereignty to which they had laid claim; 
 and further confirmed the privileges enjoyed by many municipal cities. 
 He also permitted the return of the Jews, who had been expelled by his 
 predecessor, and, declaring that all Frenchmen should be free, allowed 
 the serfs of the royal domains to purchase their liberty. 
 
 Philip now assumed the regency, and availing himself of the peculiar 
 state of affairs, procured the ratification of the Salic law by the assembly 
 of Paris, 1317, and seized the royal sceptre. French writers assert that 
 he ascended the throne “of right”—the exclusion of females being a 
 fundamental maxim of their government; but the text of the Salic law 
 sanctions no such opinion, and it is only from this period that the usurpa¬ 
 tion carries with it the air of legal authority. Philip left four daughters, 
 and Charles IV. ascended the throne in 1322; his daughters also being 
 excluded by Philip of Valois, 1328. Edward III. of England now 
 advanced a claim to the French crown, which gave rise to a struggle of 
 one hundred and twenty years—the evils of which were increased in 
 both countries by domestic disturbances in the intervals of the war. 
 Edward maintained that, although females were excluded from the suc¬ 
 cession, their male issue might succeed, and hence that his mother 
 Isabella might transfer her title to him. France at this oeriod was an 
 extensive and compact monarchy, and deemed so powerful that Pope 
 Benedict XII. wrote an urgent letter, dissuading the English monarch 
 from taking the style and arms of that kingdom, and showing the im¬ 
 possibility of his ever succeeding in establishing his claim. But in the 
 course of twenty years, courage and military skill compelled that nation 
 to submit to an ignominious peace, and to cede several provinces. The 
 battles of Cressy, 1346, Poitiers, 1356, and Agincourt, 1415, in spite 
 of the great disparity of forces, manifested the high martial qualities that 
 distinguish the English soldiery. 
 
 The cruelties of the Count of Flanders having created fresh discontent 
 among his subjects, a sedition broke out at Ghent which rapidly spread 
 over the whole province. James Von Artaveldt, a brewer, was the 
 leader of the revolt, and proposed to Edward III. to assume the title of 
 king of France, in order that the Flemings might join his ranks with¬ 
 out violating the feudal laws. War between the two monarchs now 
 became inevitable; the earlier operations w T ere not very favourable to 
 Edward, who, notwithstanding the defeat of the French fleet, was unable 
 to take Tournay. The hostilities, which were suspended by a year’s 
 truce, were once more resumed in 1341. 
 
 John III., duke of Brittany, left the duchy to his niece, who had mar¬ 
 ried Charles, count of Blois, and nephew of Philip of Valois; though 
 the Earl of Montfort, brother of the last duke, was the popular candidate. 
 Philip sent an army to instal the new prince, and Montfort, who had 
 been made prisoner at Nantes, was unable to profit by the succour 
 which Robert of Artois brought to him from England. vShortly after¬ 
 wards his competitor also was captured, and the struggle continued 
 
298 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 twenty years longer, until the treaty of Guerande assigned the dukedom 
 to the house of Montfort. 
 
 Cressy.— The French and English did not long confine themselves 
 to opposing each other in the duchy ; the execution of OJiver de Clisson, 
 and several other Breton nobles devoted to the court of Edward, led to a 
 rupture of the truce. This prince suddenly landed in Normandy, ad¬ 
 vanced to Paris, and burnt St. Cloud, spreading everywhere terror and 
 desolation. The approach, however, of an army of 100,000 men forced 
 him to retreat towards Flanders, when he was opposed at Cressy, 26th 
 August, 1346, and compelled to fight a battle, in which 30,000 Fr- nch, 
 besides one king, eleven princes, and 1200 knights, were left dead on 
 the field. Next year Calais surrendered to the English monarch. 
 
 Pope Clement VI., grieved at the misery of the inhabitants, wh«m 
 the war, with its frequent attendants famine and pestilence, was afflict¬ 
 ing, interposed between the belligerents, and procured a truce which 
 lasted until 1355. Philip, who died in 1350, had enlarged his domin¬ 
 ions by the addition of Montpellier, purchased from the King of Majorca 
 at the price of 200,000 crowns, and of Dauphiny, ceded by Humbert 
 II. Henceforward the eldest son of the French monarch bore the title 
 of dauphin, from this province. 
 
 The prerogatives of the throne had so greatly increased that the 
 sovereign no longer thought it necessary to rid himself of his enemies 
 by judiciary processes. Thus John II., who succeeded in 1350, put to 
 death the Constable d’Eu, whom he suspected of corresponding with 
 Edward III., and somewhat later he beheaded Count Harcourt, and im¬ 
 prisoned the King of Navarre. In former reigns the whole of the 
 nobility would have risen in arms; but the great barons, now almost 
 extinct, were replaced by poor nobles, most of whom received the royal 
 pay. The necessity of keeping up a large army, and of maintaining 
 the knights who followed the king’s banner, had so deranged the finan¬ 
 ces, principally through the ill-judged means devised for raising money, 
 that it was found necessary to summon the states-general of the langue 
 d'oil to meet in Paris for the purpose of levying a subsidy. The depu¬ 
 ties of the three orders voted a sum of 5,000,000 of livres, and 30,000 
 men at arms. The necessary funds were raised by the gabel/e and a 
 tax upon the sale of merchandise. In return for these sacrifices, the 
 representatives required a fixed standard of coinage and the reform of 
 many abuses, 1355. 
 
 While the estates were endeavouring to secure their political rights, 
 Edward III. ravaged Picardy, and his son, the Black Prince, devastated 
 the provinces beyond the Loire. Against the latter, King John march¬ 
 ed with an army of 60,000 men, and came up with him at Maupertuis, 
 near Poitiers, 19th September, 1356. Regarding the small band of 
 8000 islanders as already his prisoners, he charged them with thought¬ 
 less impetuosity, and the result was a frightful carnage of his own 
 troops. The dauphin was one of the first to flee, leaving in the midst 
 of the enemy his father, who was valiantly defended by his fourth son 
 Philip, a youth scarcely fifteen years of age. He was, however, taken 
 and carried to England, where he shared the captivity of the Scottish 
 monarch, David II. 
 
 The Jacquerie. — During John’s detention, France was a prey to 
 
299 
 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 every calamity. The ruler of Navarre had taken the field against his 
 sovereign, the capital was in sedition, pestilence was consummating the 
 work of hunger and the sword, and to crown all, the Jacquerie broke 
 out in 1358. The peasantry (Jacques bon homme , the cant phrase appli¬ 
 ed to them) furious at the ill treatment received from their superiors, 
 flew to arms, and laid waste the whole country, murdering every person 
 who refused to join them. Two hundred castles were burnt and their 
 inhabitants massacred; but the nobles soon retaliating, the cruelties of 
 the free companies deluged France with blood. Subdued by these 
 heavy misfortunes, the regent, afterwards Charles V., concluded a peace 
 in 1360 by which Guienne, Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, the Limou¬ 
 sin, and Angoumois, with Ponthieu and Calais were ceded in full sove¬ 
 reignty to the English, who were also to receive for the king’s ransom 
 three millions of gold crowns. In 1364, Charles V. succeeded his 
 father, whose death occurred in London, whither he had returned to sup¬ 
 ply the place of one of the royal hostages who had escaped to Paris. 
 The war was resumed in 1368 by Charles, on the ground that treaties 
 found unfavourable to the public service ought not to be kept! French 
 historians give a specious account, which tends to throw the blame of 
 the rupture on the English king; but however ambitious Edward may 
 have been, his reputation is unblemished by bad faith. He and his son 
 being in declining health, were unable to contend against the valour of 
 Du Guesclin. Hence in a few campaigns they lost the whole of their 
 conquests ; yet the war was always popular in England, although that 
 country, scarcely to a less degree than France, was weakened by internal 
 discord. 
 
 Charles continued his victorious career; and while the French fleet 
 was ravaging the English coasts, all that remained of Edward’s acqui¬ 
 sitions were Bordeaux, Bayonne, Rochelle, Brest, and Calais. The 
 monarch dying in 1380, the fruits of this temporary success were lost 
 by France in the succeeding reign; and during the forty-two years that 
 Charles VI. was on the throne, his kingdom was reduced to a state 
 nore deplorable than in the time of John’s captivity. The Maillotins 
 — the rabble using clubs armed with lead—treated Paris as a place 
 taken by storm : dreadful executions succeeded, and many persons were 
 put in sacks and thrown by night into the Seine. The insanity of the 
 king, in 1393, placed the government in the hands of the Duke of Bur¬ 
 gundy, not without opposition from the Duke of Orleans, who at last 
 succeeded in obtaining the entire management of affairs. But his dis¬ 
 solute conduct, and the excessive taxes he imposed, rendered him quite 
 odious. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 Edward II., 1307, at once effeminate and timid, and entirely governed 
 by favourites, was unable to carry out the warlike projects of his father. 
 The companion of his youth was Piers de Gaveston, a brave and hand¬ 
 some cavalier, who was celebrated for his feats in the tournament. He 
 was created Earl of Cornwall, appointed a lord of the bedchamber, and 
 married to one of the king’s nieces. Indignant at the favours lavished 
 
 * Edward was induced to consent to the treaty of Bretigny, by the impression which 
 a tremendous storm, deemed by him a special admonition from heaven, had made upon 
 his mind. 
 
300 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 upon this minion, the English nobles insisted on his banishment. 
 Having retired to Ireland, he soon after returned, and it was not until 
 the parliament in 1310 made his exile the condition of certain subsidies, 
 that he again left the island. But shortly after he revisited England, 
 upon which the barons flew to arms, attacked his place of refuge, and, 
 making him prisoner, beheaded him at Warwick castle. The mediation 
 of France now became necessary to restore harmony, which was effected, 
 at least in appearance, between Edward and his people. The unfortu¬ 
 nate Gaveston was succeeded by Hugh Despenser, whose earliest ob¬ 
 ject was to bring Pembroke to the scaffold, as being the cause of his 
 predecessor’s ruin. 
 
 While these events were occurring in the south, King Robert Bruce 
 was steadily gaining ground in Scotland. The principal cities had 
 fallen into his hands ; and the strong fortress of Stirling was closely 
 invested, when Edward II. marched to its relief with 100.000 men. To 
 oppose him, Bruce collected a force of 30,000, and the complete rout 
 which the English sustained in the battle of Bannockburn, 2-lth June 
 1314, secured the independence of his country. Edward Bruce, brother 
 of the renowned w*arrior, crossed to Ireland, with the view of delivering 
 that island from the English yoke; but after various successes, and 
 receiving the title of king, he was defeated and slain, 1318. 
 
 Meantime, famine was desolating England, and the popularity of the 
 king diminished as that of his nephew, the Earl of Lancaster, increased. 
 Indeed, so disgusted w*ere the people with the vices of their ruler, that 
 they universally revolted; and Edward could only appease them by 
 granting all their demands. In a subsequent rising, the royal lieuten¬ 
 ants were able to withstand the rebels; and their leader, Lancaster, was 
 taken and beheaded, along with a number of his partisans, in 13*2*2. 
 This year was further remarkable for the inroads of King Robert Bruce 
 into Yorkshire, and a successful battle he fought at Boroughbridge. A 
 more imminent danger, however, menaced Edward from the Pembroke 
 party, which grew so formidable as to make open war upon him; when 
 the two Despensers, father and son, were captured and put to an igno¬ 
 minious death. The chief instrument in this revolution was the queen, 
 Isabella, a princess remarkable for her beauty, but inheriting her father’s 
 cruel disposition. When she found the two favourites monopolizing all 
 influence with the king, she crossed the sea to Flanders, and raised an 
 army, with which she returned, and deposed Edward, who was impri¬ 
 soned in Berkeley Castle, where he was put to death in the most bar¬ 
 barous manner in 13*27. 
 
 Edward III. inherited the active and warlike spirit of his grandfather. 
 In 1331, he caused the queen-mother and her paramour, Mortimer, earl 
 of March, to be arrested; the latter was executed, and Isabella ended 
 her days in prison. The chief complaints against Mortimer, were the 
 conclusion of peace with Scotland, and giving the king’s sister in mar¬ 
 riage to its monarch, David Bruce. The claims of Edward Baliol to the 
 Scottish crown led to a war, in which the English army gained a vic¬ 
 tory at Halidon Hill in 1333. 
 
 Battle of Sluys, 1340. — Edward, in returning from England to 
 Flanders, was intercepted by a numerous fleet which Philip had moored 
 in four lines across the mouth of the harbour at Sluys. These ships 
 were provided with turrets filled with stones on their mast-heads, and 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 301 
 
 were fastened to each other with strong chains. Having the wind and 
 tide in his favour, Edward gallantly bore down on the first line; and 
 after an obstinate contest, prolonged to midnight, only a few stragglers 
 escaped. With these exceptions, the w r hole flotilla, of more than 200 
 sail, remained in the hands of the English, who lost but two vessels, 
 while the slain and drowned of the enemy exceeded 20,000. History 
 does not present an instance of a naval victory more complete or more 
 sanguinary. The French ministers dared not inform their royal mas¬ 
 ter of the calamity, which was first hinted to him by a buffoon who 
 called the English cowards; and when the king asked his reason, 
 replied, because they had not the courage to leap into the sea, like the 
 French and Normans. 
 
 Cressy and Poitiers. —Hostilities with France were recommenced 
 for the succession to the throne,—Edward claiming the crown as the son 
 of Isabella, in opposition to Philip de Valois, wflio was heir in the male 
 line. By the help of his gallant son, the Black Prince, he reduced the 
 power of France to a very low ebb. The war which broke out in 1339, 
 was continued with various success till 1346, when the celebrated battle of 
 Cressy was fought, in which, as just noticed, 30,000 English under Ed¬ 
 ward defeated 100,000 French under Philip, with the loss of 30,000 men, 
 besides many of the nobility, 1200 knights, and 1400 esquires. The impor¬ 
 tant city of Calais was invested, and taken the next year; and a long truce 
 succeeded, during which Europe was ravaged by a dreadful plague. In 
 1356, the war was renewed, under Edward the Black Prince, “ that 
 young Mars of men.” With an army of 8000, he defeated, at Poitiers, 
 King John with 60,000, and made him prisoner. France was now com¬ 
 pletely at the victor’s mercy; and the treaty of Bretigny was concluded 
 in 1360. The terms of this peace were, the ransom of the king for three 
 millions of golden crowns, and the cession to England in full sovereignty 
 of a great part of the conquered territory. The declining age of Edward, 
 however, and the disordered health of the prince were visible in the suc¬ 
 ceeding campaigns, during which the sons of those who had fallen at 
 Poitiers recovered nearly all their fathers had lost, except Bordeaux, 
 Bayonne, Calais, Brest, and Cherbourg. 
 
 The Prince of Wales died in 1376, in the forty-sixth year of his age, 
 leaving behind him a character without blemish, and exciting a degree 
 of sorrow which time could not alleviate. His father followed him 
 about a year after, deserted by his courtiers, even by those who had 
 grown rich on his bounty. This great king confirmed Magna Charta 
 no less than fifteen times. In his reign the House of Commons first met 
 annually; the parliament assumed the right of trying ministers of the 
 crown; and decided cases of high treason, which had been hitherto left 
 to the arbitrary decision of the judges. Edward encouraged trade, and 
 above all that in wool, the main source of the riches of the kingdom ; he 
 protected letters, and conferred many privileges on the university of Ox¬ 
 ford. The order of the Garter was instituted by him in 1347 : its origin 
 is involved in obscurity. 
 
 About this period the distinction between the Normans and Saxons 
 began to disappear, and they gradually formed an undivided people, 
 having one language and the same manners. To efface the last traces 
 of the Conquest, the king forbade the use of the French language in legal 
 proceedings and deeds, though enjoined by law. 
 
 26 
 
302 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 
 The feeble reign of Richard II., son of the Black Prince, commenced 
 in 1377. One of its remarkable events was the march of the Earl of 
 Buckingham, at the head of 10,000 men, through the heart of France. 
 Such was then the terror of the English name, that the Duke of Bur¬ 
 gundy, with a much superior force, would not hazard a battle. Thirty 
 years of respite from war, and an almost friendly intercourse between 
 •he two nations, now succeeded.* Richard w^as only eleven years of 
 age when he ascended the throne; the guardianship was disputed by 
 his three uncles, the Dukes of York, Lancaster, and Gloucester, whose 
 quarrels dissipated the finances of the kingdom, already deranged by the 
 wars of the preceding reign. New taxes were imposed, and the arbitrary 
 manner in which they w T ere levied gave rise, in 1381, to a revolt, headed 
 by Wat Tyler: he rallied around him the people of Essex, whose 
 loyalty had already been shaken by the discourses of John Ball, a priest 
 of Kent. A hundred thousand rebels marched to London; but the 
 death of their leader and the treacherous professions of the young mo¬ 
 narch restored order. The amnesty and charter promised by him were 
 soon forgotten, and the people were more oppressed than before. 
 
 The war against Scotland was renewed, although without success; 
 when the king, despairing of the submission of its inhabitants, abruptly 
 relinquished his enterprise, 1385; and Robert II. was able peacefully 
 to transmit to his descendants the succession to a throne, which, how¬ 
 ever, proved to them very fruitful in misfortunes.f 
 
 Returning from his Scottish expedition, Richard aimed at absolute 
 power, and fell under the influence of princes and favourites who op¬ 
 pressed the people in his name. By a treaty with France in 1395, it 
 was stipulated that he should marry Isabella, the daughter of Charles 
 VI., and surrender the ports of Cherbourg and Brest. This latter con¬ 
 dition was extremely unpopular; severe punishments checked discontent 
 for a season; but, during his absence in Ireland, whither he had g-one to 
 quell a revolt, Henry, duke of Lancaster, quitted his exile in France, 
 and landed in Yorkshire, whence he marched to the capital. The king, 
 being deserted by his army, was forced to resign the crown, which 
 the parliament conferred on Lancaster, in 1399. The manner of Rich¬ 
 ard’s death in Pontefract castle, is variously related : some attributed it 
 to grief, others to assassination or hunger. 
 
 Grea.t Pestilence, 1348.—A succession of earthquakes convulsed Europe 
 from Poland to Calabria; and although England escaped this calamity, it was 
 deluged with incessant rain from June to December. In August the plague 
 appeared in Dorsetshire, whence it gradually extended to the north of the 
 island. Many of its victims expired in six hours; few lingered beyond three 
 days. All the cemeteries of London were soon filled,—one burial-ground alone 
 
 * At. the coronation of Richard II. we first meet with a ceremony which was repeated 
 at that of the English kings till the reign of William IV.: An officer called the King’s 
 Champion, clad in mail, rides into Westminster Hall, and by his herald proclaims a 
 challenge in defence of the monarch’s title to the crown. Baker, in his Chronicles, says 
 that “ Sir John Dymock and Sir Baldwin Freville both claimed the office of king’s cham¬ 
 pion, but it was adjudged to the former,” in whose family it is now hereditary. 
 
 f This race of monarchs was particularly unfortunate .-—James I. was kept a prisoner 
 in England nineteen years: he was murdered at Perth in 1437. James II. perished at 
 the age of twentv-nine by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh castle, 
 1460;—James III., after being defeated by rebels, was assassinated, 1488;—James IV. 
 perished at Flodden, 1513;—Queen Mary was beheaded after being imprisoned nineteen 
 years, 1587;—Charles I., her grandson, perished on the scaffold, 1649;—James II. was 
 driven from his kingdom, 1688, and died in exile. 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 803 
 
 receiving 200 bodies daily during several weeks. Its ravages were, however, 
 principally confined to the lower orders. From man the pestilence extended to 
 the brute creation. 
 
 SPANISH PENINSULA. 
 
 Castile. —The long minority of Alphonso XI., 1312, was disturbed 
 like that of his father by the rivalries of the houses of Lara and Haro; 
 but so soon as he assumed the reins of government himself, he vigor¬ 
 ously repressed all domestic troubles, and, uniting Portugal to Aragon, 
 gained a brilliant victory over the Moors in 1340. Unfortunately he 
 died of the plague at the very moment he was about to inflict the most 
 deadly blow on the Saracenic power. 
 
 Pedro the Cruel, 1350.—This prince began his reign with the mur¬ 
 der of Leonora de Guzman, his father’s mistress. His own wife, Blanche 
 of Bourbon, being committed by him to the custody of the uncle of Maria 
 de Padilla, a lady whom he had secretly married, soon perished by poi¬ 
 son. Such was his unexampled tyranny, that the arbitrary conduct of 
 his predecessors, Sancho and Alphonso, was quite forgotten. The nu¬ 
 merous fugitives from his despotic cruelty found refuge in Aragon; 
 thence, with Henry of Trastamare, the son of Leonora, at their head, 
 they were driven into France. Aided by the celebrated Bertrand du 
 Guesclin, an army of 30,000 men was soon raised from the free compa¬ 
 nies, and by their help Pedro was dethroned without a blow, 136G. The 
 tyrant escaped to Bordeaux, where he threw himself at the feet of Ed¬ 
 ward the Black Prince, who undertook to avenge his wrongs, and 
 marched into Spain at the head of 30,000 men. The road lay through 
 the valley of Roncesvalles, the scene of the fabulous exploits of the 
 renowned Orlando. It was then the depth of winter; the snow beat in 
 the faces of his troops, while to cold and fatigue was added the want of 
 provisions in a barren and mountainous district. The two armies met 
 in the plains between Navarete and Najera—Henry having more than 
 100,000 men under his banners, while the army of the Black Prince 
 scarcely amounted to one-third of that number. Victory favoured the 
 cause of Pedro, and Trastamare was compelled to flee, 1367. Two 
 years after, during the siege of Montiel, the two brothers met by chance 
 in the tent of a French knight: they immediately grappled ; Pedro threw 
 Henry on the floor, but in the struggle was despatched by the poniard 
 of his adversary. 
 
 Henry II., the first of the house of Trastamare, now succeeded to the 
 throne, and governed during a brief and fortunate period. He had to 
 contend against the Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III. of England, 
 who had married Constance, daughter of Pedro the Cruel; Granada, 
 Portugal, and Navarre, being also opposed to him. He defeated the 
 Portuguese fleet in 1370, and next year that of the English before Ro¬ 
 chelle; and, dying in 1379, left his crown to John I., who espoused 
 Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Portugal, stipulating that her chil¬ 
 dren should succeed to the throne of that kingdom. The Portuguese 
 attached little importance to this arrangement, which sacrificed their 
 independence; and, when Ferdinand died, their choice fell upon John, 
 son of Pedro the Justiciary. Upon this the Castilian sovereign imme¬ 
 diately commenced hostilities, but was unsuccessful, being once driven 
 by pestilence from before the walls of Lisbon, and at another time de- 
 
304 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 feated before the walls of Aljubarotta. At the same time, the Duke of 
 Lancaster made a descent at Corunna, and was proclaimed king at San¬ 
 tiago de Compostella; his farther progress was, however, prevented by 
 treaty. 
 
 Henry III. was only twelve years of age when he succeeded his 
 father, John I. The regency had been disturbed, as usual, by civil strife, 
 which was suppressed when the king assumed the government in 1393. 
 He abolished the enormous pensions which had been granted to various 
 members of his family during his minority, deprived them of the strong¬ 
 holds to which they had retired, and reduced them to submission. The 
 Portuguese, who had surprised Badajoz, were defeated ; and the pirates 
 of Tetuan were attacked and dispersed in 1400. Encouraged by these 
 successes, Henry planned a war against the Moors, but he died in 1406, 
 leaving an infant son fourteen months old. 
 
 Aragon.—-James II., by the conquest of Sardinia in 1325, was recom¬ 
 pensed for the loss of Sicily ; this acquisition, however, involved the 
 country in a series of wars with Genoa, which occupied the whole of 
 the reign of Alphonso IV. Pedro the Great, who succeeded in 1336, 
 maintained the possession of Sardinia, and united the Balearic Isles to 
 his dominions, wresting them from James III., a prince of a younger 
 branch of his own house. In alliance with Venice, he defeated the 
 Genoese near Algheri in 1353, and shortly after aided Henry of Trasta- 
 mare to win the crown of Castile. Plis son, John I., 1386, continued 
 the war against the Genoese with success; and at his death, in 1394, 
 he bequeathed his kingdom to his brother Martin, with whom terminated, 
 in 1410, the house of Barcelona, which had reigned 273 years. 
 
 Portugal.—Dionysius, surnamed the Just, founded the university of 
 Coimbra, and encouraged agriculture, as well as the sciences, and 
 navigation, and commerce. He was succeeded in 1325 by Alphonso 
 IV. the Bold, who caused the assassination of Inez de Castro, whom 
 his son had privately married. Pedro I. succeeded to the throne of his 
 father in 1357; and his earliest object was to punish the cruel assassins 
 of his unfortunate and beloved wife. His useful laws and economical 
 expenditure made his loss generally deplored, 1367. The extinction of 
 the legitimate line of Alphonso I. in 1383, in the person of Ferdinand 
 l., was followed by an interregnum of eighteen months. Ferdinand 
 nad left one child, an illegitimate daughter, Beatrice. Desirous of 
 placing her on his throne, he united her at an early age to John of Cas¬ 
 tile, 1382, and bequeathed the sceptre to their issue. At his death, 
 which happened soon after, Don John, his natural brother, took advan¬ 
 tage of the jealousies of the two provinces, and seized on the crown. 
 The Castilian king upon this laid siege to Lisbon; failing, however, in 
 his attacks, the cortes, in the year 1385, elected Don John, by whom 
 the country was soon cleared of invaders. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Great Schism. —Boniface VIII., who succeeded to the tiara in 1294, 
 was the last of the great popes, the heirs, so to speak, of Gregory VII. 
 He proposed to complete the mighty work of his predecessors by sub¬ 
 jecting all the kings of the earth to the pontifical authority ; but at the 
 end of the thirteenth century the condition of the world had greatly 
 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 305 
 
 changed, for society was beginning to emerge from feudal anarchy, 
 under the shield of a power capable of maintaining public peace. Even 
 in the darkness and confusion of the ninth century, the papacy had 
 failed in its enterprises. It was therefore to no purpose that, at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth, Boniface, in the council held at Rome, 
 1302, composed the famous decretal TJnam Sanctam , which asserts that 
 the temporal power is inferior to the spiritual, and that the pope has the 
 right of appointing, correcting, and deposing sovereigns. Philip the 
 Fair, against whom this was manifestly aimed, replied by accusing the 
 pontiff of heresy, simony, and other crimes,—a charge which is said to 
 have caused the death of his holiness. The dispute, however, was 
 amicably settled by his successor in 1303. The residence of the 
 supreme pontiff was now transferred from Italy to France ; and Cle¬ 
 ment V. made Avignon the capital of the papacy. This “ Babylonish 
 captivity,” as it was derisively called, lasted seventy-two years. On 
 the decease of Gregory XI., in 1378, two popes were elected: Urban 
 VI. was acknowledged by the greater part of the empire, also by Bohe¬ 
 mia, Hungary, and England; Clement VII. was recognised as legiti¬ 
 mate in France, Spain, and Scotland. The former resided at Rome, 
 the latter at Avignon. This great schism of the West lasted fifty-one 
 years : it was extinguished by the abdication of Clement VIII. in 1429. 
 
 TABLE OF POPES DUPING THE GREAT SCHISM. 
 
 1378. Urban VI. 1378. Clement VII. 
 
 1389. Boniface IX. 1394. Benedict XIII. 
 
 1404. Innocent VII. 
 
 1406. Gregory XII., de¬ 
 posed and replaced by 
 409. Alexander V. 
 
 1410. John XXIII. ( Three popes instead of two). 
 
 This dispute was terminated by the council of Constance, in 1414, 
 which deposed the three popes, Gregory, John, and Benedict, and con¬ 
 ferred the papacy on 
 
 1417. Martin V. 1424. Clement VIII. (antipope.) 
 
 About 1360, Wickliffe began to expose the corruption of the clergy, 
 which paved the way for the Reformation in England. Twenty years 
 afterwards, he made known to the people the records of divine truth, by 
 the first English translation of the Bible. It was now that more for¬ 
 cibly than ever he raised his powerful voice against the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation; and above all, he boldly declared that the Sacred Scrip¬ 
 tures alone are the sole foundation of our belief. His followers, by 
 way of reproach, were termed “ Lollards.”* 
 
 The Flagellants. —This sect, which appeared during the great pestilence 
 of 1348, imagined that scourging was the only means of procuring a remission 
 of the divine punishment. It originated in Hungary, and gradually spread over 
 the central parts of Europe: it was excluded from France, but reached Eng¬ 
 land in 1349. 
 
 The Bianchi. —In the summer of 1399, a sect of fanatics suddenly arose in 
 Italy called Bianchi, from the long white garments they wore. Their faces 
 were covered with a veil, that they might not be known. They walked in 
 
 * A word of doubtful origin: probably from Walter Lollard, a German, 1315; or from 
 Lullards or Lollards, the praisers of God, a sect thus named in Brabant, 1309. 
 
 26* 
 
306 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 procession from town to town, following a large crucifix, and chanting that 
 beautiful hymn of the Romish church, “ Stabat mater dolorosa.” They 
 restricted themselves to bread and water. A remarkable although transient 
 reformation of manners has been ascribed to their influence. They were 
 opposed by the pope, and strictly prohibited both in France and England. The 
 founders of this sect are said to have come from Britain ; and their description 
 corresponds to a certain extent with that of the itinerant priests in 1382. 
 
 INVENTIONS, &c. 
 
 The Mariner’s Compass. — In this century many new inventions, by 
 seconding the exertions of genius, accelerated the progress of knowledge and 
 civilisation. The chief of these were the construction of the mariner’s compass, 
 and the manufacture of linen paper. The Chinese were acquainted with the 
 polarity of the magnetic needle so early as 1121; and they assign the invention 
 of the compass to 1108 b. c. This instrument was probably introduced into 
 Europe by the Saracens; but only came into general use at the end of this 
 century. The pretensions of Flavio Gioia of Almafi have been long detected ; 
 indeed it is doubtful if such a person ever existed. A more fearless spirit of 
 maritime adventure soon arose, and its fruits in the next century were the dis¬ 
 covery of the New World. 
 
 Linen Paper. —The revival of learning in the fourteenth century called for 
 cheaper materials than the parchment in general use. Paper made from cotton 
 appears to have been known as early as 1100. The Arabians assert that cotton 
 paper had been manufactured at Samarcand in the eighth century, the method 
 having been introduced from China. Though linen paper was very little known 
 till the latter part of the fourteenth century, it is an unreasonable scepticism to 
 doubt its use in the West in the middle of the thirteenth. Pace da Fabiano of 
 Treviso is said to have been its inventor ; but subsequent researches place him 
 in the same rank of fabulous persons, as Flavio Gioia and the monk Schwartz. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Greek Empire and the East. —1402, Invasion of Tamerlane—Mohammed I. 
 —1425, John Paleeologus — Huniades and Scanderbeg. —1448, Constantine 
 Palaeologus. — 1451, Mohammed II. — 1453, Constantinople taken by the 
 Turks.—1480, Siege of Rhodes—Bajazet II. 
 
 Germany. —1400, Robert.—1410, Sigismond.—1414, Council of Constance— 
 Hussite War.—1436, Peace oflglau.—1438, Austrian House.—1464, Ernes¬ 
 tine and Albertine Houses.—1479, Victory at Guinegate.—1493, Maximilian 
 I.—1495, Diet of Worms: Imperial Chamber. —1500, Six Circles. 
 
 France. —1407, Civil War: Burgundians and Armagnacs.—1415, Defeat at 
 Agincourt.—1420, Treaty of Troyes.—1422, Charles VII.—1423, Defeat at 
 Verneuil. —1429, Joan of Arc.—1461, Louis XI.—1477, Charles of Bur¬ 
 gundy killed at Nancy.—1479, Swiss League.—1483, Charles VIII.—1495, 
 Naples conquered—Victory of Fornovo. 
 
 Britain. —1401, Sawtree burnt for Heresy.—1413, Henry V.—1415, Agin 
 court. —1422, Henry VI.—Bedford, Regent.—1444, Truce of Tours—Jack 
 Cade.— Wars of the Roses: 1455, Battle of St. Albans : 1460, of Wake¬ 
 field Green. — 1461, House of York: Edward IV.—1471, Battle of Bar¬ 
 nett; 1483, of Tew r kesbury—Jane Shore—Edward V.—Richard III.—1485, 
 Tudors: Henry VII.—1487, Simnel, and Perkin Warbeck. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 307 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —1400, John de Medici. —1434, Cosmo I. —1435, Al- 
 phonso V. of Naples. —1460, Defeat at Sarno. — 1466, Galeazzo Sforza..—• 
 1469, Lorenzo de Medici.—1485, Revolt of Nobles. 
 
 Spanish Peninsula. —1406, John II. of Castile—Alvarez de Luna—Power 
 of Grandmaster of the Three Orders. —1409, Martin V. of Aragon and 
 Sicily.—1419, John II. of Navarre.—1452, Don Carlos defeated at Aibar.— 
 Roussillon and Cerdagne sold to France. —1454, Henry IV.—Invasion of 
 
 Granada. — 1465, Deposition of Henry-1474, Isabella.— 1479, Union of 
 
 Castile and Aragon.—1480, Inquisition.—1492, Conquest of Granada. 
 Church. —1409, Hussites. —1414, Sixteenth General Council, Constance.— 
 1429, End of Schism of the West.—1439, Council of Florence.—1454, St. 
 Francis.de Paulo founds the order of Minims. 
 
 Inventions and Discoveries. —1440, Carriages.—1449, Felt Hats.—Painting 
 in Oil.—1461, Engraving on Copper—First Silk Manufacture.—1450, Print¬ 
 ing. — 1474, First Lithotomic Operation. — 1495, Algebra. — 1486, Cape of 
 Good Hope.—1492, America discovered. 
 
 Literature and Art. — Poggio, L. Valla, Pulci, Politian, Pico Mirandola, 
 Manutius Aldus, Ital. —Budaeus, Fr. —Villena, J. de Mena, Sp. —Lydgate, 
 Fortescue, Littleton, Caxton, E?ig. —Thomas a Kempis, Reuchlin, Germ. 
 
 GREEK EMPIRE. 
 
 Fall of Constantinople.— The destruction of the Greek empire was 
 for a time delayed by the invasions of Tamerlane, so that Manuel, who 
 had visited the west of Europe in the hope of obtaining succours from 
 the Latin powers, returned to his capital, where he reigned many years 
 in prosperity and peace. In 1425, the crown descended to John Pal.e- 
 ologus II., who, with a design of healing the schism between the 
 Eastern and Western churches, attended the council of Ferrara, 1438. 
 Had this visit failed in its object, still the revival of Greek literature in 
 Italy by the learned men in the emperor’s train would have been ample 
 compensation. On his decease, in 1448, the throne was occupied for the 
 last time by one of its native sovereigns, Constantine Pal^eologus. 
 He was soon attacked by the young and ambitious Mohammed II., wiio 
 laid siege to his capital in the spring of 1453. The emperor, having 
 implored in vain the assistance of the Latin princes of Europe, was left 
 with only 7000 or 8000 men to contend against a victorious rival at the 
 head of 260,000. Fourteen batteries, mounting guns of enormous cali¬ 
 bre, poured their destructive fire, night and day, against the ancient 
 walls. The various operations of the siege were conducted with the 
 greatest impetuosity on both sides; while the failing spirits of the gar¬ 
 rison and citizens were revived by the timely arrival of five heavily 
 laden ships of war, that had broken through the line of the enemy’s fleet, 
 and caused a loss of 12,000 men. Although this was the only attempt 
 made to succour Constantinople, it so discouraged the sultan, that he 
 was about to withdraw his troops, wdien the devoted city was entirely 
 surrounded by transporting some of the lighter Ottoman vessels over 
 a narrow isthmus into the inner part of the harbour. The terms of 
 capitulation which Mohammed now offered w T ere such as the religion of 
 Constantine forbad 0 him to accept. Preparations were accordingly 
 made for a fierce struggle, and while the Greeks dedicated the whole 
 
308 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 night of 28th May to prayer, the besieging camp was already filled with 
 the shouts of victory. At daybreak, the city was violently attacked on 
 all sides ; the valour of the Christians long rendered the event doubtful, 
 and the fortune of that day might have been different, but for the retreat 
 of Justiniani, the Genoese commander, and his auxiliaries. A gigantic 
 janizary, named Hassan, was the first to climb the shattered rampart, 
 and though precipitated into the ditch, he had showm the practicability 
 of the enterprise. Palseologus fell by an unknown hand, resisting to 
 the last; and with him the fate of his capital was decided, after a siege 
 of fifty-three days, 29th May 1453. Constantinople was sacked, and 
 its inhabitants became the prey of the victors. In the destruction of the 
 libraries, posterity has to regret the loss of 120,000 manuscripts. 
 
 The dissolution of the Greek empire now proceeded step by step. “ Every 
 province was in turn subdued ; the limbs were lopped off one by one ; and the 
 majesty of the Roman name was ultimately confined to the walls of Constan¬ 
 tinople. Before Mohammed II. planted his cannon against them, he had 
 deprived the expiring empire of every hope of succour or delay. It was neces¬ 
 sary that Constantinople should fall; but the magnanimous resignation of her 
 emperor bestows an honour upon her fall, which her prosperity seldom earned. 
 The long deferred but inevitable moment arrived, and the last of the Caesars 
 folded round him the imperial mantle, and remembered the name which he 
 represented in the dignity of heroic death.”—Hallam’s Middle Ages. 
 
 OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND TURKEY. 
 
 Invasion of Tamerlane.— In 1402, Tamerlane invaded the Ottoman 
 empire, after provoking Bajazet by menacing letters, in which he was 
 compared to an insect. The sultan was at this time besieging Constan¬ 
 tinople, when hastily breaking up his camp before that city, he marched 
 against the Mongols, who were attacking Angora, in Asia Minor. Here, 
 on the 28th July, he gave battle on the ground where Pompey defeated 
 the army of Mithridates. The combat was prolonged during three 
 days and two nights, and 140,000 men were left dead on that terrible 
 field of slaughter. The Turks were completely routed, and Bajazet 
 fell into the hands of the conqueror, by whom (according to the western 
 historians, whose testimony is not confirmed by the Persians) he was 
 carried about enclosed in an iron cage until his death. Fortunately for 
 Europe, the want of ships checked the progress of Tamerlane on the 
 shores of the Hellespont and Bosporus. The victor now returned to 
 Samarcand, whence his ambition, which the snows of seventy winters 
 had not cooled, hurried him to China, hoping to add that country to his 
 acquisitions; but he did not live to realize his project, having died at 
 Otrar, 1st April 1405. The fate of his kingdom was similar to that of 
 Alexander, whose place it nearly occupied. From a portion of this 
 immense dominion his descendant Baber, in the next century, formed 
 the empire of the Great Mogul in India. 
 
 The invasion now described, and dissensions among the sons of Ba¬ 
 jazet, nearly compromised the existence of the Ottoman state ; but the 
 victory of Semendria, gained by Musa over the Emperor Sigismond in 
 1412, restored to the Crescent its former glory, and the pacific policy 
 of Mohammed I. secured the conquests of his predecessors. Constan 
 tinople, however, still remained insulated in the midst of barbarians, 
 having no means of communication with the rest of Europe except by 
 the Genoese cruisers. It owed the prolongation of its miserable exist 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 309 
 
 ence to the protection of the merchants of Pera. The intrigues of 
 Manuel with a pretender, in 1422, exposed him to the vengeance of 
 Amurath II., who besieged Constantinople with an army of 200,000 
 men; from which danger, however, the capital escaped for the present. 
 
 Huniades. — A formidable armament for the relief of Constantinople 
 was preparing on the banks of the Danube, which the sultan resolved to 
 anticipate. The Turks invaded Servia, and took Semendria in 1435, 
 yet all their efforts were unavailing against Belgrade, defended by John 
 Huniades. This hero, from an obscure origin, had risen by his talents 
 to the command of the Hungarian armies; and the epithet of brigand, 
 which the infidels added to his name, attests the hatred with which he 
 was regarded by them. Through his .influence Ladislaus of Poland 
 obtained the crown of Hungary, 1440, in return for which important 
 service he had received the dignity of Waywode of Transylvania. In 
 1442, and the subsequent year, Ladislaus and Huniades gained several 
 advantages over the Turks, so that Amurath demanded a truce for ten 
 years; upon which, satisfied with having restored peace to his domin¬ 
 ions, he abdicated in favour of his son Mohammed II., and retired among 
 the dervises of Magnesia, 1443. The imprudent zeal of Pope Euge- 
 nius IV. caused the treaty to be broken the same year it was made,— 
 a circumstance which drew Amurath from his seclusion. Meeting the 
 Hungarians near Varna, he was long unable to make any impression on 
 their gallant band of 24,000 warriors ; but the impetuosity of Ladislaus 
 cost him his life, and produced a panic which ended in a sanguinary 
 defeat. During the minority of the Austrian prince who succeeded, 
 Huniades was governor of Hungary, and, in the course of an adminis¬ 
 tration of twelve years, showed in how eminent a degree he united the 
 talents of a statesman and of a warrior. He formed an alliance with 
 Scanderbeg, the Hero of Albania, and after employing two years in 
 placing his own country in a state of defence, crossed the Danube at 
 the head of 22,000 men to join that prince. Though betrayed into the 
 hands of the Turks, the battle was continued during three days, and 
 terminated in the destruction of the Christian army, 1448. The brother 
 of Huniades and a great number of men of rank were among the slain; 
 and Amurath lost 34,000 warriors, many of whose bodies were flung 
 into a neighbouring river to conceal his disaster. 
 
 Scanderbeg.— Amurath II., after this triumph, had retired once more 
 to the solitudes of Magnesia, where a mutiny of the janizaries did not 
 allow him to remain. Being forced to resume the government after a 
 second abdication, he directed his forces against Albania, the inhabitants 
 of which had revolted on the return of the young Scanderbeg (Alexan¬ 
 der Bey), who had been sent as hostage to Amurath by his father, 
 Prince John Castriot. The permanent army of the Albanian prince 
 consisted of 8000 horse and 7000 foot, which insignificant force resisted, 
 during twenty-three years, all the attacks of two formidable warriors. 
 Amurath is said to have died at Adrianople of chagrin at his failure in 
 the siege of Croia, 1451 ; and Scanderbeg perished of a violent fever at 
 Lissa in 1467. When this place was afterwards captured by the Turks, 
 they exhumed, with religious respect, the mortal remains of the hero, 
 and suspended round their necks in gold or silver frames the smallest 
 portions of his bones as amulets to impart strength and courage. The 
 Castriots took refuge in Naples, and the descendants of an Albanian 
 
310 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 colony which accompanied them are still to be found in Calabria, pre* 
 serving almost unchanged the language and manners of their fathers. 
 
 Mohammed II., following the advice of his father, determined tc 
 reduce Constantinople. An army of 260,000 men, aided by a fleet of 
 300 sail, appeared before the imperial city, which was besieged for the 
 twenty-ninth time since its foundation. After two months the Greek 
 empire was terminated by the fall of the capital, and its subjects were 
 scattered as slaves over all the Ottoman empire. Various means were 
 used to recall to the deserted city those inhabitants who had fled, but it 
 was long before they returned in any considerable number, although per¬ 
 fect toleration of their religion was granted. 
 
 Being now master of the metropolis, the sultan claimed the island of 
 Rhodes, occupied by the knights of Saint John, as a dependency of his 
 empire. His demand for tribute was haughtily rejected; and important 
 affairs soon called his attention to another quarter. Pope Cahxtus III. 
 was labouring to unite the selfish and impolitic princes of the West in 
 an offensive treaty against the Ottomans. Mohammed, unwilling to be 
 surprised, marched to lay siege to Belgrade, at the hefld of 150,000 men, 
 while 200 small vessels blockaded it on the side of the Danube, 1456. 
 Here the sultan was less fortunate than he had been at Constantinople; 
 for he W’as defeated by Huniades, who unhappily perished in the very 
 hour of triumph. But this check to his arms only turned them in 
 another direction; and the duchy of Athens, possessed since 1364 by the 
 Florentine house of Acciaiuoli, was destroyed, as was the independence 
 of Trebizond, Servia, and Bosnia, not long afterwards. The Venetians 
 alone made any important resistance after the reduction of Albania, and 
 their devastating incursions on the seacoasts of Greece gave rise to the 
 solemn vow of Mohammed II., offered up in all the mosques in his 
 dominions, pledging himself and his subjects to the entire extirpation 
 of Christianity, 1469. The very next year, in fact, a powerful Turkish 
 fleet, the largest armament that had appeared in those seas since the 
 time of Xerxes, attacked the island of Negropont, and massacred all the 
 inhabitants of its capital. The signal defeats suffered before Scutari 
 and Lepanto were counteracted by the acquisition of Caffa in the Crimea, 
 a town which, for two centuries, had been in the power of the Genoese, 
 and was the mart of all the productions of the North and the East. 
 
 In 1480, the sultan carried into execution his long-meditated plan 
 against the island of Rhodes. One hundred thousand men, commanded 
 by a renegade of the imperial house of the Palseologi, appeared off its 
 shores, but only to suffer defeat. After an attack, prolonged during 
 three months, Misithes was forced to yield to the firmness of Peter 
 d’Aubusson, grand-master, whose wise government of thirty years was 
 productive of glory and prosperity to the knights of his order. To efface 
 the impression of this repulse, Mohammed resolved to send two expedi¬ 
 tions simultaneously against the East and West; but death surprised 
 him in the midst of his projects in May 1481. 
 
 The two great secrets of Mohammed’s military success were rapidity and 
 secrecy; but still he is far from meriting the praise that has been lavished on 
 his generalship. Although acts of monstrous ferocity have been imputed to 
 him, he was a friend to letters, founded a public library, instituted two acade¬ 
 mies (Medresse), and was frequently present at the discussions of their learned 
 members, distributing rewards to the most distinguished orators and poets. He 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 311 
 
 was instructed in history and geography, and could converse in Greek, Latin, 
 Hebrew, Arabic, and Persia/i. It was this prince who legalized fratricide, 
 supporting the decrees of his code by the maxim of the Koran, that confusion 
 is worse than murder. 
 
 Mohammed left two sons, Bajazet II. and Zizim. While the elder 
 was engaged on a pilgrimage to Mecca, the younger laid claim to the 
 empire, and the troops of Asia declared in his favour. Beaten near Brusa 
 by the Grand Vizier Achmet, Zizim fled from one retreat to another, 
 until he found an asylum in Rhodes. He was demanded by the sultan, 
 but the knights refused to give him up, and afterwards sent him to 
 France, where he was kept prisoner,—Bajazet readily paying an annual 
 sum of 35,000 ducats to ensure his captivity. He died in 1495, of poi¬ 
 son administered, it has been insinuated, with the connivance of Pope 
 Alexander VI. 
 
 A quarrel between two tributary princes of the respective empires was 
 the pretext for hostilities between Bajazet and the Sultan of Egypt. 
 The former was at first unsuccessful, and suffered defeat at Issus in 
 Cilicia, 1488; but more fortunate in Europe, he reduced Moldavia, 
 Bosnia, and Croatia, and succoured the Moors of Granada against the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 The Italian expeditions, which had again been suspended under 
 Wenceslaus, were revived, in 1400, by his successor the elector pala¬ 
 tine, Robert of Bavaria, who endeavoured to open his way to Rome by 
 the ruin of the Visconti, then absolute masters of the Milanese; but his 
 defeat on the lake of Guarda proved that Italy was for ever lost to the 
 Germans. On the death of Robert, disunion again arose in the electoral 
 diet; and a triple schism divided at the same time the empire and the 
 church. The electors favoured at once the deposed Emperor Wences¬ 
 laus, his brother Sigismond, and Jossus of Moravia, his cousin: by the 
 death of this last, however, in 1411, all the suffrages were united in sup¬ 
 port of Sigismond, king of Hungary and elector of Brandenburg. 
 
 Under a prince already possessing the rank of elector and the crown 
 of Hungary, with the prospect of succeeding to the throne of Bohemia, 
 the imperial power seemed about to regain its former greatness. But 
 the successful attacks of the Ottomans, the necessity of re-establishing 
 order among churchmen, and, above all, a religious war in Bohemia, 
 prevented Sigismond from restoring the throne of the Caesars to its 
 ancient splendour. 
 
 Hussite War.— The council of Constance, 1414, which was expected 
 to have effected a universal reconciliation in Christendom, only imper¬ 
 fectly attained this noble end, and was for the empire in particular a 
 new cause of discord and misfortune. This assembly condemned to the 
 stake John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who had propagated in Bohemia 
 the doctrines of our own Wickliffe ; and the news that the cruel sentence 
 was executed, inspired some of their followers with a deep desire of 
 revenge. They took arms under John of Zisca, and massacred the 
 senate of Prague. King Wenceslaus of Bohemia died of fright; and 
 Sigismond was unable to prevent the states-general of the kingdom from 
 uniting with the rebels. Compelled to fight against his own subjects, 
 he at first met with continual reverses, and was unable to protect the 
 
312 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 empire against the incursions of the Taborites. At length the conces¬ 
 sions made by the council of Basle having led to the submission of the 
 states, their chief, Procopius, could not prolong the war; and his defeat 
 in 1434 was followed by the pacification of Iglau. The King of 
 Hungary died, after having restored tranquillity to his dominions; and 
 with Sigismond perished the royal house of Luxemburg, 1437. 
 
 House of Austria.—Albert II., duke of Austria, the son-in-law of 
 Sigismond, and sovereign of Bohemia and Hungary, was elected King 
 of the Romans in 1438. During his brief reign of two years, he reformed 
 many abuses in the administration of justice, and moderated the formi¬ 
 dable power of the secret tribunal of Westphalia. To suppress private 
 wars and establish public security on a solid foundation, he proposed to 
 divide the empire into several cantons or circles, each under a director 
 and captain-general, charged with maintaining peace; but various 
 obstacles hindered the execution of this project. Albert died on his 
 return from an expedition against the Ottomans who had invaded 
 Bohemia. His loss was regarded as a calamity to his subjects and to 
 Europe generally, his power and talents being deemed the best defence 
 of Christendom against the arms of the infidels. 
 
 The conduct of Frederick III., who succeeded in 1440, made the 
 death of his predecessor more severely felt. In consequence of differ¬ 
 ences with his brother Albert, he could not for two years after his 
 election visit Aix-la-Chapelle to receive the imperial crown. Gained 
 by the flattering presents of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, he 
 surrendered all the ancient claims of the empire over the duchies of 
 Brabant and Limburg, with the countships of Holland, Zealand, and 
 Hainault, and the lordship of Friesland. Nor was he more capable of 
 maintaining the privileges of the Germanic church against the holy see. 
 The desire of being crowned at Rome induced him to attempt a recon¬ 
 ciliation between the states of Germany which had adopted the opinions 
 of the council of Basle and Pope Eugenius IV. After mutual conces¬ 
 sions, a treaty of union was signed at the diet of Frankfort; and 
 subsequently, in another assembly, the Germanic concordat was sub¬ 
 stituted for the pragmatic sanction of Mentz, 1448. Idle projects of 
 ambition now filled the mind of Frederick, and withdrew his attention 
 from the government of the empire, which was a prey to civil war, at 
 the very time when, in his hereditary dominions, he was contending 
 against his own brother. 
 
 The Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Good, the firm friend and ally 
 of the emperor, died in 1464, leaving two sons, Ernest and Albert. The 
 former succeeded to Thuringia and the electorate, and was the founder 
 of the Ernestine house, which reigned in Saxony until 1548, and from 
 whence issued the branches of Weimar, Gotha, Cobourg, Meiningen, 
 and Hildburghausen. Albert, who had Misnia, was the root of the 
 Albertine family : this dynasty succeeded to the electorate of Saxony, 
 and filled the Polish throne from 1697 to 1763. 
 
 The death of the emperor’s brother and the treaty of Frankfort having 
 restored tranquillity to Germany, all eyes were directed to the rapid 
 conquests of the Ottomans ; but even the pathetic exhortations of Popes 
 Nicholas V., Calixtus III., and Pius II., failed to excite the ardour of 
 the crusades. The minds of the people were otherwise occupied; and 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 313 
 
 the church probably felt more apprehension at the spread of the Hussite 
 doctrines than at the victories of the infidels. 
 
 While the weak Frederick still wore a crown which he was incapable 
 of protecting, Charles the Bold, sovereign duke of Burgundy, Franche- 
 Comte, Artois, and Flanders, aspired to the regal dignity. Negotiations 
 on this matter were opened with the emperor; but at the very moment 
 the duke thought the object of his ambition within his grasp, the other 
 changed his mind, and hastily quitted Treves, where the two contracting 
 parties had met. Charles soon sought an opportunity of avenging this 
 slight; but his forces being exhausted during the long siege of Neuss, 
 he was glad to purchase a cessation of hostilities by a present of *200,000 
 crowns and the promise of his daughter to the Archduke Maximilian, 
 1475. Meantime, the Swiss had invaded Franche-Comte; three times 
 they defeated the armies of Charles; and he himself perished under the 
 walls of Nancy. His death, of itself memorable, is more so from its 
 consequences. Mary, the heiress of his vast estates, preferred the son 
 of the emperor to all the other princes who sought her hand in marriage. 
 This union, the fertile source of a long rivalry between the houses of 
 France and Austria, was immediately followed by a war between Maxi¬ 
 milian and Louis XI., the latter claiming part of the Burgundian 
 succession. Four years of hostility, signalized by no events of more 
 importance than the battle of Guinegate, gained by the Austrians in 
 1479, and the premature death of the Archduchess Mary, endangered 
 the power of Maximilian, who in 1488, was thrown into prison at 
 Bruges by his revolted subjects, and liberated only on the approach of a 
 German army. 
 
 In 1493, Frederick died,* and was succeeded by Maximilian I., who 
 shortly after espoused Blanche Mary, niece of Ludovico Sforza, duke of 
 Milan, by which union he acquired the power of interfering in the 
 political transactions of Italy. The part he took in the great events of 
 which this peninsula was the theatre during his reign, will be detailed 
 in the history of France. 
 
 When, in 1495, Maximilian demanded subsidies for the prosecution 
 of the Italian war, the states assembled in diet at Worms refused to 
 occupy themselves with foreign matters until they had decreed the pro¬ 
 mulgation of a perpetual peace, and the establishment of a tribunal for 
 punishing or preventing all infringement of the conditions of this new 
 constitution. By one of its fundamental articles, all private war was 
 forbidden under the penalty of 2000 gold marcs and being placed under 
 the ban of the empire. To ensure the execution of its regulations, a 
 diet was created, under the title of the Imperial Chamber, a permanent 
 court of justice; the composition of which, and the place of its sitting, 
 were however continually changed. The decrees of the diet of Worms 
 were renewed by that of Augsburg in 1500, the latter also realizing the 
 idea of dividing Germany into circles, of which there were at first only 
 six,—Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, the Rhine, Swabia, and Westphalia. 
 
 ♦The famous Austrian device. A. E. I. O. U, that is, Austria Est Imperare Orbi Uni- 
 verso, was first used by Frederick III., who caused it to be inscribed on his books, plate, 
 and public buildings. 
 
 27 
 
314 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
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FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 315 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Burgundians and Armagnacs. —The imbecility of Charles VI. left 
 France without a ruler; but his uncles, after expelling the ministers, 
 seized on the royal authority, and rendered the government odious by 
 the divisions and quarrels which threatened the country with the greatest 
 misfortunes. After some years of tyrannical administration, the state 
 changed masters, without however receiving any change of fortune. 
 Louis, duke of Orleans, his majesty's brother, supplanted his three 
 uncles, and was proclaimed lieutenant-general of the kingdom. But 
 this victory cost him dear, for when the Duke of Burgundy died, his 
 son John-sans-Peur, a man of vindictive temper, resolved to destroy his 
 father’s rival; and the better to compass this end, he feigned to become 
 reconciled to'him. The two princes swore eternal friendship, and par¬ 
 took of the sacrament together; yet three days after, on 23d November 
 1407, Orleans was assassinated in the streets of Paris by the agents of 
 the Duke of Burgundy. The murderer openly boasted of his crime, and 
 a doctor of the Sorbonne was found to justify the deed. The unfor¬ 
 tunate Louis left three legitimate sons, and the bastard Dunois, son of 
 Mary of Enghien. 
 
 As these young men grew up, they determined to avenge their father’s 
 murder. Charles, the eldest, who had married the daughter of the 
 Count of Armagnac, became the chief of the Orleanists, and from him 
 they derived the name that characterized them in the civil wars which 
 ensued. Hostilities began with the devastation of the environs of Paris, 
 and to preserve this city, the Duke of Burgundy organized the faction 
 of the Butchers, who, from the name of one of their chiefs, were denomi¬ 
 nated Cabochins, 1411. His rivals, now despairing of success, solicited 
 the protection of Henry IV. of England, offering to fulfil the conditions 
 of the treaty of Bretigny. This flagrant abandonment of the rights of 
 France gave fresh power to the Duke of Burgundy, who induced the 
 king to declare the Armagnacs enemies to the state. The royalist army 
 marched into Berri against them, and a treaty was signed at Bourgess, 
 which put an end to hostilities without bringing about a real concilia¬ 
 tion ; the fear of foreign invasion alone having temporarily united the 
 tw T o parties. 
 
 Meanwhile Henry V. had succeeded to the English crown, and on the 
 refusal of the French princes to execute the treaty of Bretigny, he landed 
 in Normandy with 30,000 men, took Harfleur, and endeavoured to march 
 through Picardy to Calais. An army nearly ten times the amount of 
 his own encountered him at Agincourt, 25th October 1415, and expe¬ 
 rienced a defeat more terrible than those of Cressy and Poitiers. Ten 
 thousand French, among whom were seven princes and more than eight 
 thousand gentlemen, perished on the field, while five princes and four¬ 
 teen thousand men were made prisoners. 
 
 This loss increased in an extraordinary degree the unpopularity of the 
 Armagnacs, and the Parisians took a very active part in the revolt 
 against their party, great numbers of whom were put into confinement. 
 In June 1418, the prisons were broken open, and all immured there were 
 slain one by one as they came out. The Count of Armagnac, father-in- 
 law of the dauphin, the chancellor, seven prelates, with peers and 
 magistrates of the parliament, were dragged from their dungeons and 
 
316 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 massacred. In one prison some resistance was made; but the edifice 
 being at last set on fire, the inmates surrendered ; and the populace 
 rushing in, compelled them to precipitate themselves out of the windows 
 upon pikes held below. Three thousand five hundred persons are 
 stated to have perished in three days. 
 
 The cruelty of the Burgundians was not atoned for by any valour or 
 activity in their party, whose unpopularity was farther increased by the 
 conclusion of a treaty with the English. Circumstances, however, 
 occurred that induced the duke to seek a reconciliation with the dauphin, 
 for which purpose a meeting was appointed to take place at the bridge 
 of Montereau, on the Yonne, where he was assassinated by the attend¬ 
 ants of the prince. The latter, though probably innocent of this 
 treacherous act, was abandoned by the majority of the nation, and expe¬ 
 rienced a new enemy in Philip the Good, who had succeeded to the vast 
 possessions of his father. The young duke, forming an alliance with 
 Isabella of Bavaria and the king of England, procured Henry’s signature 
 to the treaty of Troyes, 1420, by which, on the marriage of the latter 
 with Catherine, daughter of Charles VI., he was to be declared regent 
 of the kingdom, and to succeed to the throne on that monarch’s death, 
 in despite of the claims of the dauphin. In the midst of his glory, and 
 when his expectations of conquering all France were highest, Henry V. 
 died at the castle of Vincennes in 1422; and the same year beheld the 
 close of the unfortunate reign of Charles in circumstances of great 
 depression. 
 
 Charles VII. was crowned at Poitiers, where he organized a parlia¬ 
 ment and university from among the members of those bodies who had 
 left Paris when the English entered it in triumph. Amused by the little 
 court he had assembled round him, he forgot the loss of his provinces 
 amid balls and gayeties, which soon exhausted his scanty treasury. 
 During these festivities, the Duke of Brittany declared for the English, 
 and notwithstanding the victory of Marshal la Fayette at Bauge, in 
 1421, the Scottish auxiliary troops in the service of Charles were de¬ 
 feated at Crevant, and again at Verneuil, 1424; the city of Orleans, 
 which defended the passage of the Loire, was already closely invested, 
 and the king proposed to retire into the southern provinces, when several 
 unexpected events turned the current of affairs.* 
 
 Joan of Arc. —On the death of Henry V. of England, the Dukes of 
 Bedford and Gloucester had been appointed guardians of his son, Henry 
 VI.; the former to have the regency of France, the latter that of Eng¬ 
 land. At this epoch there appeared one of the most remarkable enthu¬ 
 siasts that history has commemorated. Joan of Arc, a village girl of 
 Domremy in Lorraine, was the daughter of poor and industrious parents. 
 Her early years had been employed in tending cattle, and the solitude 
 in which much of her time was passed seems to have fostered a disposi¬ 
 tion naturally religious and enthusiastic. The degradation of her coun¬ 
 try had so deeply impressed her mind, that she was persuaded heaven 
 had commissioned her to effect its deliverance. Encouraged, as she 
 
 *Few states have ever been in a more wretched condition than France at this period. 
 To the north of the Loire the country appeared to be one vast scene of desolation,— 
 theft and open robbery being the chief occupations of the inhabitants. Charles waa 
 acknowledged king only by the central provinces, and by Languedoc, Poitou, antf 
 Dauphiny. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 317 
 
 fondly imagined, by angelic voices, she determined to declare to the 
 king her mission; and though she met with great opposition, at length 
 appeared before Charles, who at first treated her as a visionary. Per¬ 
 sisting, however, in her declaration that she was delegated by Cathe¬ 
 rine, her patron saint, to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown her 
 native monarch in Rheims, at that time in the hands of the enemy, she 
 obtained a party of troops for the relief of the besieged town, 1428. 
 With the veteran Dunois at her side, she succeeded in making her way 
 into the city, when the assailants retired, a prey to superstitious terrors, 
 not less strongly felt by Talbot and Chandos than by the meanest sol¬ 
 diers under their command. In the course of the next year, she had 
 the gratification of seeing her sovereign consecrated in the cathedral of 
 Rheims. She was soon after taken prisoner by the Burgundians, while 
 endeavouring to raise the siege of Compiegne; and John of Luxemburg 
 surrendered her to the Duke of Bedford for a large sum of money. 
 At Rouen she was burned on a charge of witchcraft in 1431, it having 
 been declared that the defeats of the English “ were caused by the un¬ 
 lawful doubt that they had of a disciple and limb of the fiend, called 
 the Pucelle, who had used false enchantments and sorcery.”* 
 
 With the king every thing now appeared to prosper: the Duke of 
 Burgundy entered into an alliance with him; his victorious’ troops re¬ 
 entered Paris in 1437; and if a few other places remained in the hands 
 of the English, it was owing entirely to the discontent of the dauphin, 
 Louis, and some turbulent nobles. A brief civil war, called the Pra- 
 guerie , interrupted for a season the triumphant progress of his arms; 
 and in 1444, a suspension of hostilities, concluded at Tours, left several 
 towns in possession of the enemy for a brief period. Charles took 
 advantage of this interval of repose to re-organize his army, and to 
 negotiate the marriage of Margaret of Anjou with Henry VI.,—a union 
 unfavourable to England, as it caused both the loss of the French pro¬ 
 vinces and civil w T ars that lasted half a century. The queen brought 
 no dowry to her husband, who, although crowned in his infancy King 
 of France and England, was fated to expire dethroned. The Duke of 
 Suffolk, who had risen to high rank by the favour of the king, found it 
 necessary to make peace with France, and even renounced, in his mas¬ 
 ter’s name, all title to Maine and Anjou. As he did not venture to make 
 a public avowal of these shameful transactions, he still maintained gar¬ 
 risons in the two provinces; but Charles, who did not understand the 
 policy of Suffolk, renewed hostilities in 1448. Dunois conquered all 
 Normandy; while Richemont destroyed at Formigny the only English 
 army that could arrest his progress. The taking of Rouen, Cherbourg, 
 and Harfleur, in 1450, and, next year, of Bayonne and Bordeaux, left 
 Calais alone in the hands of Henry VI. Thus France became suddenly 
 
 * If the cruel fate of Joan of Arc be a stain on the glory of England, what can be said 
 of Charles VII. and his friends, who abandoned her to languish in captivity, and to 
 perish at the stake? No ransom was offered for her, no attempt made to alleviate the 
 rigour of her confinement, no notice was taken of her execution. An ingenious writer 
 in the Monthly Magazine has recently endeavoured to prove that she did not suffer 
 execution, and that she was afterwards received at Orleans with due honours; that she 
 was acknowledged by her brothers Jean and Pierre, and afterwards married to a gentle¬ 
 man of the house of Ambois, in 1436 ; and that, on their solicitation, her sentence was 
 annulled in 1456. The curious in such matters are referred to the work of M. Palluche, 
 Problems Hist, sur la Pucelle d'Orleans, or to the last volume of the Histoire de Jeanne 
 d'jlrc, surnommee la Pucelle , by Lebrun de Charmettes, 4 vols. Paris, 1817. 
 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 freed from her foreign enemies. Charles recompensed the faithful in¬ 
 struments of his success ; and a profound peace, with a paternal govern¬ 
 ment and wise legislation, promised to heal the wounds of the country, 
 when the king found his life endangered by the wickedness of his son, 
 which in some degree accelerated his death in 1461. 
 
 Charles VII. was a good king, but, in the earlier part of his life, appears to 
 have been of an easy disposition, so that it was remarked of him, that no one 
 could lose a kingdom with greater gayety. But when the tide of affairs turned, 
 and success followed the enthusiastic appearance of Joan of Arc, he equalled 
 his greatest captains in activity and courage. It was he who first provided for 
 the security of the throne and kingdom by a standing army, and by his vigour 
 asserted the supremacy of the law. The bastard of Bourbon, condemned to 
 death, was put into a sack and thrown into the river. The Duke of Alengon, 
 accused of corresponding with the English, was sentenced to die ; and though 
 the extreme penalty was remitted in consequence of his royal blood, he was 
 confined in the castle of Loches, near Tours. Charles endeavoured to assimilate 
 the customs of the different provinces ; and the celebrated Pragmatic Sanction, 
 long the bulwark of the Gallican church, was his work. 
 
 Louis XI., 1461.—The reign of this monarch was one continued strucr- 
 gle against the great vassals. He had scarcely ascended the throne 
 before he displaced all his father’s ministers, and restored those who 
 had been disgraced. The result of these measures tending to repress 
 the nobility, was the formation of a league “ for the public good,” at the 
 head of which was placed Charles, duke of Berri, a youth not more than 
 sixteen, 1464. The battle of Montlheri, fought the next year, was inde¬ 
 cisive; but as Paris remained faithful, the king’s power was unshaken. 
 He thought it prudent, however, to come to terms with his antagonists; 
 and the treaties of Conflans and Saint Maur were concluded. The con¬ 
 ditions were fulfilled by neither party ; in fact, Louis never intended to 
 observe them, wishing merely to gain time for sowing dissension among „ 
 the confederate princes. Misunderstandings between the Duke of Brit¬ 
 tany and the new ruler of Normandy soon furnished the desired oppor¬ 
 tunity ; and Monsieur (for so the king’s brother began to be called) lost 
 his government within a few weeks of his investiture, 1465. 
 
 Charles the Bold. — A more formidable danger threatened Louis 
 when the dukedom of Burgundy fell to Charles, count of Charolais, on 
 the death of his father Philip the Good in 1467. The French king was 
 marching against the Duke of Brittany, who persisted in holding certain 
 towns in Normandy, which had been declared by the assembly at Tours 
 to be a fief inseparable from the crown, when Charles hastened from his 
 residence in Brussels to the support of his ally. On reaching the 
 Somme, he learnt that negotiations had been commenced, and that his 
 imposing force would be compelled to remain inactive. While he was 
 waiting for the arrangement of affairs, Louis roused a formidable enemy 
 in his states, which compelled him to retire. The bishopric of Liege, 
 containing twenty-six towns, yielded reluctant obedience to a prelate 
 nominated by the duke; for, although it was situated in the Low Coun¬ 
 tries, it was a fief of the empire. Louis, by his emissaries, excited the 
 people to revolt, at the same time that he accepted an invitation to meet 
 Charles at Peronne, in 1468. To this place the king resorted with few 
 attendants; and when the news of the insurrection at Liege, with the 
 murder of the bishop, reached the duke, he kept Louis a prisoner until 
 he signed a treaty confirming those of Arras and Conflans. After a des- 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 319 
 
 perate resistance, the insurgents were compelled to submit. Their town 
 was carried by assault; the inhabitants were drowned or massacred 
 without distinction of person or sex; and the city itself was burnt to the 
 ground. 
 
 The destruction of Liege and the abolition of the privileges of Ghent, 
 allowed Charles to turn his views abroad. At this period new commo¬ 
 tions were taking place in England, in which the King of France and 
 the Duke of Burgundy interposed,—Louis favouring Lancaster, as the 
 French party; while Charles, married to the sister of Edward IV., sup¬ 
 ported the Yorkists. The objects of the ambitious duke were twofold: 
 he wished to re-establish the ancient kingdom of Burgundy, by re-unit¬ 
 ing to his present dominions the states of Lorraine, Provence, Dauphiny, 
 and Switzerland ; and, secondly, he aimed, in concert-with the English, 
 at the dismemberment of France and the conquest of Champagne and 
 Nivernois. 
 
 Charles entered Lorraine with 40,000 men, and, having reduced it, 
 turned his arms against the Swiss, 1476. His valiant cavalry were 
 defeated at Granson, and at Morat, by a half-disciplined army of pea¬ 
 sants. Before he had recovered from these reverses, Rene of Vaude- 
 mont reconquered Lorraine; and the duke was roused from the melan¬ 
 choly state into which he had fallen, to attempt its reduction anew. 
 With all the forces he could muster he hastened to besiege Nancy, leav¬ 
 ing an Italian, named Campo-Basso, to direct the operations; and this 
 traitor having deserted wuth a portion of the troops under his command, 
 Charles was forced to give battle wuth scarcely 4000 men. On the 5th 
 January 1477, during a heavy fall of snow, the duke began the engage¬ 
 ment ; his small army w T as soon overwhelmed by numbers, and he him¬ 
 self fell, after having performed prodigies of valour. “ Thus perished,” 
 says Duclos, “ at the age of forty-four years, Charles, last duke of Bur¬ 
 gundy, who had no virtues but those of a soldier. He was ambitious, 
 daring, and rash, the enemy of peace, and always thirsting for blood. 
 He ruined his house by his foolish enterprises, caused the misery of his 
 subjects, and merited his misfortunes.” 
 
 Louis immediately seized on the towns along the Somme, on Bur¬ 
 gundy as a male fief (for Charles had left only a daughter, Mary), and 
 on Besanpon, altogether nearly two-thirds of the late duke’s territories. 
 Flanders and Artois having declared in favour of the princess, the king 
 proceeded against them, when the youthful heiress w T as subjected to the 
 insolence of the revolted burghers of Ghent, w 7 ho washed her to marry 
 Adolphus of Gueldres, an object of universal execration. But this per¬ 
 son dying in battle, Mary, to shield herself from further persecution, 
 united herself, in 1477, to Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., 
 and hence commenced the rivalry of the houses of France and Austria. 
 Louis, on discovering the error he had committed in allowing her to 
 espouse a foreigner, marched into Flanders, and, after a temporary ad¬ 
 vantage, was defeated at Guinegate. Negotiations, truces, and intrigues 
 followed, interrupted only by the death of the archduchess, who left two 
 children; Philip, w r hose marriage with Joanna of Castile gave Spain to 
 the house of Austria, and a princess named Margaret. Maximilian lost 
 all by the death of his wife; and the citizens of Ghent, assuming the 
 guardianship of her children, forced the archduke to make peace with 
 Louis. By the treaty of Arras, in 1482, it was stipulated that Margaret 
 
320 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 and the dauphin should be united in marriage, and receive for dowry the 
 provinces of Franche-Comte and Artois. 
 
 The demise of Louis was now fast approaching. Frequent attacks 
 of apoplexy gave him those salutary warnings which his physicians 
 hesitated to offer, and he retired to his favourite castle of Plessis near 
 Tours, where he expired in August 1483, at the age of sixty, leaving by 
 testament the guardianship of his heir, Charles VIII., to his eldest 
 daughter, the princess Anne. 
 
 The character of Louis XI. was an extraordinary compound, and his reign, 
 though in some respects odious, was beneficial to the interests of France. He 
 completed the ruin of the great feudatories by annexing ten provinces to the 
 crown: Roussillon and Cerdagne in 1462; Guienne, 1472; Picardy and Bur¬ 
 gundy, 1477; Provence, Maine, Anjou, 1481; Perche, Artois, Franche- 
 Comte, 1482. He established monarchical power in the east and south of 
 France, by instituting three parliaments,—at Grenoble, 1451; Bordeaux, 1462; 
 and Dijon, 1477 ; which also served to limit the jurisdiction of the nobles. He 
 repressed their license in the person of the Count of Armagnac and of the Sieur 
 d’Albret, 1473; of the constable Saint Pol, 1475; of the Duke of Alen§on, 
 1476 ; and of the Duke of Nemours, 1477. But he associated with persons of 
 low birth, such as Oliver Daim, his barber, whom he created Count of Meulan ; 
 he visited the citizens of Paris, inquired into their private affairs, and frequently 
 admitted them to his table. He was superstitious to an extreme degree; care¬ 
 less of his most solemn promises, unless made by the cross of Saint Lo. His 
 mind was cultivated by study ; and two works have been attributed to him, le 
 Rosier des Guerres, and a collection of tales. He founded the universities of 
 Valence and Bourges, and transported that of Dole to Besan 9 on. By him also 
 the newly discovered art of printing was protected, the study of medicine 
 encouraged,* and commerce increased by the establishment of several new 
 fairs and markets. One of the most useful institutions of this reign was that 
 of posts, which originally served for the conveyance of the correspondence of 
 the king with the papal court; and in 1481, they were extended to private 
 individuals. 
 
 Charles VIII. was only thirteen years of age when he ascended the 
 throne in 1483, under the regency of his sister, who united all the graces 
 of her sex with a masculine disposition of mind. Her first antagonists 
 were two pretenders to the guardianship of the young king; Louis, duke 
 of Orleans, the presumptive heir, and John of Bourbon, elder brother of 
 her husband the Lord of Beaujeu. To decide upon their claims the 
 states-general were assembled at Tours, when the administration of the 
 late monarch was bitterly condemned, and the recall of most of his edicts 
 loudly demanded. Still the government of the kingdom was secured to 
 Anne, and Orleans nominated president of the king’s council. This 
 arrangement was far from satisfying the inordinate wishes of the duke, 
 who, finding his complaints neglected, raised an army of 20,000 men. 
 and threatened the regent. She was not, however, discouraged, but by 
 her activity captured the several leaders in their fortresses, and termi¬ 
 nated the war, almost without a battle, 1485. Maximilian, who had 
 formed an alliance with the insurgents, still continued his attacks, and 
 was only prevented from maintaining his conquests by his inability to 
 pay his troops, who were accordingly disbanded. The duke himself 
 not long afterwards was defeated and made prisoner; while Francis of 
 Brittany was so humiliated by the terms of peace forced upon him that 
 
 * In this reign the operation of Jithotomy was first tried with success on the body of 
 a criminal condemned to die. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 321 
 
 he died a few days after signing the treaty. His daughter Anne, only 
 fourteen years of age, inherited the duchy, which, by her politic mar¬ 
 riage with Charles, was annexed to the French crown in 1491 ; and thus, 
 of all the great feudatories who had so disturbed the kingdom, there 
 remained only the Count of Flanders, now become Archduke of Austria. 
 
 Italian War. —The crown of France had inherited the rights of the 
 house of Anjou to the throne of Naples, and the greatest desire of 
 Charles, during the tranquillity of his kingdom, was to assert them by 
 arms, and expel the family of Aragon. At the age of twenty-four, igno¬ 
 rant of the military art, without money or skilful generals, he set out 
 from Grenoble, in August 1494, at the head of 6000 French infantry, as 
 many Swiss, 5000 cavalry, and 140 pieces of cannon. The march of 
 this small army spread everywhere the greatest terror. The Italians 
 were especially astonished to see the artillery, for they themselves had 
 nothing hut small brass culverins. Charles traversed their country with¬ 
 out opposition; the gates of Florence and Rome were opened at his 
 approach; and Naples submitted, the new 7 king Ferdinand II. having 
 retired to the island o,’ Ischia. The French monarch next conceived the 
 chimerical design of passing into Greece, and attempting the conquest 
 of the Empire of the East, in right of the cession made by Andrew 1 
 Palaeologus, nephew 7 of Constantine XII., the last emperor of the Greeks. 
 This brilliant project was soon dissipated by a coalition formed against 
 him in most of the Italian principalities, and particularly by the alliance 
 of Ludovico Sforza of Milan, of the Venetians, and of Pope Alexander 
 VI., w 7 ith Ferdinand of Spain, and Maximilian. Leaving half of his 
 forces to garrison Naples, the French king retired towards his own fron¬ 
 tiers, encountering no obstacle until he reached Fornovo in Parma, where 
 a numerous body of Venetians opposed his further progress. A decisive 
 victory crowned the arms of Charles, who lost only 200 men, w 7 hile 
 4000 of the enemy were left on the field ; and meeting no farther oppo¬ 
 sition, he arrived safely at Lyons. The troops left at Naples were soon 
 compelled to capitulate, and Ferdinand II. was restored to his throne. 
 Death surprised the conqueror in his preparations for a second expedi¬ 
 tion ; and being childless, he was succeeded, in 1498, by Louis of Or¬ 
 leans, heir of the collateral branch of the house of Valois, which was 
 derived from Louis, second son of Charles V. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 House of Lancaster.—Henry IV., 1399, first king of the house ot 
 Lancaster, was not the legitimate heir to the English crown in default 
 of the direct branch of the Plantagenets, which became extinct in the 
 person of Richard II. He was descended from the third son of Edward 
 III., and his claims to the throne were consequently inferior to those of 
 the sons of the Duke of York, second son of the same monarch. But 
 as Henry alone had given birth to the revolution, he determined that 
 none but himself should profit by it. His position was not, however, 
 without difficulty between the partisans of the late king, those of the 
 house of York, and the enemies of his government; so that his whole 
 reign of fourteen years was employed in consolidating his usurpation; 
 in punishing the revolts of many of the nobles, and particularly of the 
 powerful Earl of Northumberland; in gaining the favour of the clergy 
 
FIRST BRANCH OF VALOIS. 
 
 322 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
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FIFTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 323 
 
 by persecuting the W ickliffites; and in securing that of the nation by 
 making important concessions to the House of Commons. 
 
 His son, Henry V., 1413, reaped the fruits of his father’s prudence, 
 and was, as we have seen, enabled to take advantage of the troubled 
 state of France. After showing from the first days of his reign a 
 moderation that was not to be expected in one whose youth had been so 
 disorderly, he summoned the French king to fulfil the treaty of Bretigny. 
 On his refusal, the young monarch called a parliament at Leicester, 1415, 
 to which he declared his intention of recovering his inheritance by force. 
 On the 14th August, he landed near Harfleur with 6000 men at arms, 
 and 24,000 archers. The town and garrison were soon compelled to 
 surrender; but dysentery attacked his troops, which were in consequence 
 forced to retire upon Calais, through the hostile provinces of Normandy, 
 Picardy, and Artois. When they had arrived near Agincourt, a body 
 of 100,000 men w-as discovered ready to oppose them. A dark and 
 rainy night depressed the spirits of the English soldiers, who were 
 already much enfeebled by disease and want of food ; but brighter hopes 
 revived with the daw n, and the confidence of their leader was shared by 
 the whole army. “The fewer we are,” exclaimed Henry, “the less 
 w’ill be the loss to our country if we fall, and the greater our honour if 
 we gain the victory.” The battle w T as begun by the archers, who soon 
 threw the French into inextricable confusion, and then their lines were 
 successively defeated. The loss on the side of the conquerors amount¬ 
 ed to 1600 men, with the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. Of 
 the enemy, there perished 8000 knights and esquires, more than 100 
 bannerets, seven counts, and the dukes of Bar, Alencon, and Brabant. 
 The number of prisoners exceeded that of the whole army which took 
 them, among whom Avere the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and the 
 Counts of Eu, Yendome, and Richemont. This finished the campaign, 
 and when Henry returned, he w^as conducted from Dover to London in 
 one continued triumph. 
 
 In the succeeding spring, he resumed operations in France. Cher¬ 
 bourg opened its gates to him after a siege of six months; Rouen made 
 a desperate resistance for a period nearly equal, during which the in¬ 
 habitants were compelled to eat the most disgusting food. The capitu¬ 
 lation of this city in 1419 spread consternation throughout France. A 
 treaty was soon after concluded at Troyes, 1420, by the terms of which 
 Henry received the hand of the Princess Catherine, was appointed 
 regent of the kingdom during the life of Charles, and w^as to succeed 
 to the French crown at his death. But he did not long enjoy the ad¬ 
 vantages of this treaty; an inveterate disease carried him off on the 
 31st August, 1422. in the same year with his father-in-law. Henry 
 was equally celebrated as a statesman and a warrior,— as able to take 
 advantage of a victory as to achieve it. The ordinary crowm-revenue 
 in his time amounted to about £56,000, and the usual outlay to £53,000. 
 
 Henry VI., who was only nine months old at the death of his father, 
 was immediately proclaimed in London and Paris; while the govern¬ 
 ment was carried on in France by the Duke of Bedford, and at home 
 by the Duke of Gloucester. The flames of war were soon rekindled on 
 the Continent, and at Crevant, on the banks of the Yonne, the united 
 French and Scots were defeated, and their respective commanders taken 
 prisoners. Shortly after the breaking up of the confederacy between 
 
324 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Charles and his allies, and the restoration of King James I. of Scotland 
 to liberty, the battle of Yerneuil was fought, 1424, in which the Eng¬ 
 lish were again successful. But the affairs of Henry in France now 
 took an unfavourable turn. Gloucester, by marrying Jacqueline of 
 Bavaria, forfeited the alliance of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Duke 
 of Brittany was compelled to abandon the English party. At length, 
 the Earl of Salisbury crossed the Loire and laid siege to Orleans, during 
 the protracted blockade of which, Sir John Falstaff, at the head of 1500 
 men, routed a body of 5000 cavalry, under the Earl of Clermont, who 
 attacked him at Rouvrai. The garrison was driven to despair, and on 
 the point of surrendering, when the extraordinary appearance of Joan 
 of Arc completely changed the scene. She performed prodigies of 
 valour; but, falling eventually into the hands of her enemies, was burnt 
 at the stake in the city of Rouen, 1431. Michelet observes, that while 
 this proceeding was disgraceful to the English, it was still more so to 
 the French clergy, who, becoming the creatures of the foreigner, show¬ 
 ed the most ferocious dislike to the heroine who had rescued her coun¬ 
 try from bondage. In 1435, the congress of Arras reconciled the great 
 vassals of France with their sovereign, and before the close of the same 
 year the Duke of Bedford died. His successor, the Duke of York, 
 showed neither the same talents nor activity; and the quarrels which 
 broke out between Gloucester and the Cardinal of Winchester, prevent¬ 
 ed England from adopting vigorous measures. 
 
 In each successive campaign, the English were expelled from some 
 town of France by Dunois or Richemont. The victor of Agincourt was 
 ill replaced by the youthful Henry, whose gentleness rendered him the 
 more unsuited to the turbulent period in which he lived. While the 
 annual revenue of the crown had fallen to nearly 425000, several families 
 had acquired princely fortunes by marriages and inheritance. The Earl 
 of Warwick, the last and most illustrious example of feudal hospitality, 
 supported regularly on his estates about thirty thousand individuals $ 
 while his immense fortune was maintained by all the talents which the 
 head of a party required. His intrepidity was a stranger to the chival¬ 
 rous point of honour; for although he had not hesitated to attack a fleet 
 double the strength of his own, he often fled when he saw his troops 
 waver before the enemy. It was observed, too, that although severe 
 toward the nobles, he spared the lives of his men in battle. 
 
 The court, too weak to withstand such men as Warwick, seemed to 
 take a pleasure in aggravating the discontents of the people. As early 
 as 1430, a law had been passed, depriving of the elective franchise all 
 freeholders below forty shillings; and, in 1445, Henry’s marriage with 
 the Princess Margaret, together with the cession of Maine and Anjou, 
 rendered him still more unpopular. Scarcely two years after this event, 
 the good Duke of Gloucester was found dead in his bed ; and, in 1451, 
 Calais was the only town in France which the English were able to 
 retain. The favourite, Suffolk, lost his life at the hands of the offended 
 people, for the supposed share he had in these reverses. At the same 
 time, a formidable rising took place in Kent, under the management of 
 Cade, and London itself fell into the power of the insurgents, though in 
 a few days they all returned to their homes. The rebel displayed his 
 banner a second time, but not with the same good fortune; he was pur¬ 
 sued and slain at Lewes. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 325 
 
 Wars of the Roses. —In 1452, Richard, duke of York, openly pro¬ 
 claimed his designs on the throne, and appeared in arms to enforce them, 
 though each side hesitated to strike the first blow. However, in 1454, 
 when Henry VI. was attacked by a mental disease which rendered him 
 incapable of governing, Richard, being recalled to the council, w^as 
 named Protector; but on the king’s recovery, he was again compelled 
 to quit the court. He then put himself at the head of 3000 men in the 
 marshes of Wales, being aided by the Duke of Norfolk and the Earls 
 of Salisbury and Warwick. The kinof advanced against him, and a 
 battle took place at St. Albans, in which the royalists were defeated. 
 Henry was wounded, and fell into the hands of the conqueror, who 
 treated him with respect, but seized anew on all his authority, under the 
 former title of Protector. In 1460, Queen Margaret undertook to defend 
 a second time the rights of the crown, but she was vanquished by War¬ 
 wick at Northampton, and her husband again became a prisoner. 
 Richard now laid before the peers his claims to the throne, which they 
 recognised as legitimate, declaring, that as Henry had already wielded 
 the sceptre thirty-eight years, he should preserve it until his death, and 
 that in the mean while the Duke of York, being acknowledged heir, 
 should administer the government of the country. Margaret, in behalf 
 of the Prince of Wales, refused to ratify this act, supporting her refusal 
 with an army of 20,000 men. Richard, with only 5000 followers, im¬ 
 prudently hazarded a battle, in which he was defeated and killed at 
 Wakefield, 1460. After this important victory, the queen divided her 
 forces, and sent part under the Earl of Pembroke against Edward, earl 
 of March, the eldest sen of York. This young prince triumphed over 
 his adversaries at Mortimer’s Cross, killing about 4000 of their troops. 
 Owen Tudor, Pembroke’s father, and who had married Catherine, widow 
 of Henry V., was taken prisoner, and. with seven other chiefs, beheaded 
 at Hereford. This barbarous practice, which became customary on both 
 sides, consecrated private revenge under the name of just retaliation. 
 
 The struggle was now almost at an end, and although Maro-aret was 
 victorious at St. Albans, she was compelled to retire towards the north, 
 while York was proclaimed king at London, under the title of Edward 
 IV., 4th March 1461.* 
 
 Edward was scarcely seated on the throne before he was compelled 
 to march against the Lancastrians, whom he defeated near Towton, with 
 immense loss, quarters being refused on both sides. As soon as these 
 pressing dangers were removed, the king in council announced his pri¬ 
 vate marriage with Elizabeth, the widow of Sir John Grey, a beautiful 
 woman, daughter of Jacquetta of Luxemburg, duchess of Bedford, by 
 her second marriage with Sir Richard Woodville. The queen’s rela¬ 
 tions and friends soon obtained the principal offices about the court, and 
 Warwick, who had been the chief means of placing Edward on the 
 
 * It has been observed that usually the weakening of the regal power and great poli¬ 
 tical troubles in a state are accompanied with financial difficulties. This remark applies 
 especially to the reign of Henry VI. The hereditary revenues of the crown had long 
 been decreasing; but under this monarch they diminished still more rapidly, owing to 
 the enormous expenses of the French wars and the personal extravagance of the king. 
 In 1429, the money absorbed annually by the war exceeded the revenue by nearly 
 .£14,000 ; and, four years later, there was an annual deficiency of £35,000 sterling, 
 which, with the debts of the crown, exceeded £140.000. Despite of the measures adopted 
 to remedy this state of affairs, the evil still augmented ; and the deficit was nearly 
 tripled before the end of Henry’s reign. 
 
 28 
 
326 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 throne, fell into disgrace. He retired to France, where he strengthened 
 his party by giving his daughter Isabella to the Duke of Clarence, the 
 king’s brother. Both soon afterwards returned to England, which they 
 found in a state of insurrection, and battles, truces, and negotiations fol¬ 
 lowed in succession. At length, in 1470, Warwick, sumamed the King¬ 
 maker, expelled the monarch whom he had created, and brought Henry 
 VI. from his prison to be reseated on his throne by the unanimous voice 
 }f parliament, — a body, however, which at this time seldom failed to 
 respond to the wishes of the strongest party. 
 
 This restoration was the consequence of an agreement made by War¬ 
 wick at the court of Louis XI. with Queen Margaret, whose son had 
 been married to one of the earl’s daughters. The conditions were, that 
 if the Prince of Wales died without issue, Clarence should succeed; 
 Warwick thus securing the crown in his own family. But he was dis¬ 
 appointed in his schemes; for Edward, who had taken refuge in the 
 Low Countries, returned, and soon found himself at the head of 60,000 
 men, by whose aid he was victorious at Barnet, where Warwick and all 
 the Lancastrian chiefs, except Somerset and Oxford, were killed, 1471. 
 On the very day of this disastrous battle, Margaret and heT son landed 
 at Weymouth with a small body of French troops. The king defeated 
 them at Tewkesbury, and the young prince, who was made prisoner, 
 was stabbed in his presence. Henry VI. shortly after perished in the 
 Tower, and the Duke of Exeter was secretly put to death, his body being 
 found floating between Dover and Calais. Some years afterwards, Ed¬ 
 ward procured a decree of the parliament,* condemning his brother 
 Clarence to death for high treason. A report was circulated that he had 
 been drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. 
 
 After such turbulent scenes, Edward relapsed into his former volup¬ 
 tuous life, from which he was aroused, for a moment, by the prospect of 
 a great conquest. In 1475, he united with the Dukes of Burgundy and 
 Brittany against Louis XI.; but his efforts soon terminated in the treaty 
 of Pecquigny, by which the French king agreed to pay 75,000 crowns, 
 with an annuity of 50,000 more, while he ransomed Margaret with a 
 noble generosity. In 1483, Edward IV. expired, leaving behind him 
 the character of an accomplished gentleman, but of a revengeful and 
 suspicious king. 
 
 Edward V., then in his twelfth year, succeeded to the throne, the 
 Duke of Gloucester being made protector. The queen-mother, who saw 
 in this proceeding the ruin of her family, took refuge in the sanctuary 
 of Westminster. By persuasion and menace, Gloucester succeeded in 
 lodging the two young princes in the Tower, as a place of greater secu¬ 
 rity. It appears also to have been customary for the sovereigns to take 
 up their residence in that fortress some time before their coronation. 
 The ambitious duke had already procured the execution or disgrace of 
 
 *The independence of parliament was in abeyance during the civil wars: the abso¬ 
 lute spirit of military discipline had passed into the government, with which terror 
 seemed to be the mainspring of action. The Lords and the Commons always appeared 
 ready to second Edward’s despotic measures; and no statute w r as passed during his 
 reign for the redressing of grievances or the maintenance of the national privileges. In 
 the preceding reign, the manner of elections had undergone some modifications. Henry 
 IV., to win popularity, had so greatly increased the number of voters, that the elections 
 were become a source of danger and disturbance. Henry VI., or rather the Duke of 
 Gloucester, who governed in his name, confined the elective franchise, in counties, to 
 the 40s. freeholders, a sum not less than £45 of our money. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 327 
 
 those whom he feared, and now, by the most unwarrantable means, 
 endeavoured to induce the citizens of London to name him king. Al¬ 
 though they did not respond to his wishes so readily as he might have 
 expected, he nevertheless assumed the crown, and put an end to the 
 brief reign of Edward V. 
 
 Richard III. ascended the throne June 26, 1483, sealing his usurpa¬ 
 tion by the murder of his nephews, whose liberation their friends in 
 London were already meditating.* The news of this crime spread hor¬ 
 ror among all parties, and the adherents of the young princes hied their 
 attention on Henry, Earl of Richmond, heir to the house of Lancaster. 
 An ill-timed insurrection in his behalf drew down all the wrath of the 
 usurper; but the latter was gradually deserted by most of his support¬ 
 ers, Catesby and others of a similar class alone remaining faithful. At 
 length, Richmond landed with an army of 3000 Normans, and being 
 generally aided by the English, he was successful at the battle of Bos- 
 worth, in which the tyrant fell, after a reign of two years, marked by a 
 succession of cruel executions. 
 
 Tudor Line.—Henry VII., 1485, in order to put an end to the civil 
 contest that for more than half a century had deluged England with 
 blood, married the Princess Elizabeth, heiress of the house of York. 
 Nor was such a measure unnecessary, for he had to contend against the 
 impostures of Lambert Simnel, whom, after some trouble, he defeated 
 at Stoke in Nottinghamshire, 16th June 1487.1 The king took ad¬ 
 vantage of this revolt to abolish the dangerous and illegal practice of 
 “ maintenance,” that is, the association of individuals under a chief, 
 whose livery they wore, and whose cause they swore to defend. Such 
 leagues gave the nobles means of expeditiously raising troops, and of 
 favouring insurrection or usurpation. The preceding parliament had 
 ordered all the lords to swear to renounce this usage, and to receive no 
 longer into their service men publicly known as vagabonds, murderers, 
 felons, or outlaws; and in that held in 1487, it was further enacted that 
 the chancellor, the treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, with one tem¬ 
 poral and one spiritual peer, and the judges of King’s Bench and Com¬ 
 mon Pleas, should have authority to call before them persons accused 
 of violating this law, and to inflict punishment on them. Their place 
 of meeting was a chamber decorated with stars, and hence the tribunal 
 acquired the appellation of the Star-chamber. 
 
 About this time Henry’s attention was drawn to France, where Charles 
 VIII., at the age of fourteen, had succeeded his father Louis XI. in 1483 ; 
 and although the affairs of Brittany were settled without the aid of Eng¬ 
 land, he nevertheless landed at Calais with an army of 25,000 men and 
 1600 horse. He marched to Boulogne, which he invested ; but the war 
 was soon terminated by the French monarch agreeing to pay ^149,000 
 sterling to the invader, as an equivalent for his claims on Brittany. The 
 
 * In July 1674, in consequence of an order to clear the White Tower from the adjoin¬ 
 ing buildings, as the workmen were digging down the stairs which led from the king’s 
 apartment to the chapel, they found the bones of two boys, apparently of the age of the 
 two princes, viz. thirteen and eleven years; which were consequently deposited in the 
 chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster. 
 
 t Lord Lovell escaped from this battle, and was never seen afterwards. About the 
 end of the 17th century, there was found in a subterraneous chamber at Lovell Castle, 
 Oxfordshire, the skeleton of a man sitting in a chair. It has been supposed that his 
 'ordship had concealed himself there, and perished for want of food. 
 
328 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
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FIFTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 329 
 
 king’s repose was soon after troubled by the intrigues of the Duchess 
 of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., and whose court was the asylum of 
 all the disaffected. Spreading the report that Richard of York had not 
 perished with his brother in the Tower, she put forward Perkin War- 
 beck, the son of a converted Jew, who had resided many years in Eng¬ 
 land. The vulgar were easily deceived by the polished manners of this 
 adventurer, and by the elegance of his language. He was well received 
 in Ireland,* and protected by the kings of France and Scotland; but 
 several partial insurrections terminated his designs, and, after imprison¬ 
 ment, he perished on the scaffold, 1499. In the same year, another 
 insurrection in Warwickshire broke out, when, in order to crush entirely 
 the hopes of the malcontents, the Earl of Warwick, the last legitimate 
 descendant of the Plantagenets, was executed by Henry’s order. 
 
 Let the pupil draw up: A genealogical table of the houses of York and 
 Lancaster. 
 
 Scotland. —This country enjoyed few intervals of repose from that anarchy 
 to which it had been very long subjected. This evil originated in the excessive 
 power of the nobles, sovereigns on their own estates, and almost always at war 
 with one another or with the king, who, having but a scanty revenue and no per¬ 
 manent forces, exercised at the best a very precarious authority. Such disorder 
 was most prevalent on the English Border and in the Highlands, two great 
 divisions of Scotland which were yet in a state of barbarism. The inhabitants 
 of the mountains were distinguished from the rest of the nation by their man¬ 
 ners, dress, and language. They spoke, as many still speak to this day, a 
 Celtic dialect, the Gaelic, unintelligible to the Lowlanders, whose language 
 differed little from the English. They were divided into tribes or clans, each 
 denominated after some ancient chief whom his followers considered as their 
 common ancestor. For example, the MacDonalds and the MacGregors were 
 esteemed the sons of Donald and of Gregor. Besides their almost incessant 
 struggles one with another, these mountaineers were in perpetual hostility with 
 the dwellers in the plains, whom they hated as Saxons and usurpers of the 
 country that had belonged to their forefathers. Many Highland chiefs assumed 
 the privileges of independent monarchs. The most powerful of these was the 
 Earl of Ross, lord of the Isles, who was considered the absolute sovereign of 
 the Hebrides. The Borderers were no less turbulent than the mountaineers, 
 to whom, in their manners, they bore a great resemblance. They were divided 
 into clans under particular chiefs, lived on the booty plundered from England 
 or the central counties of Scotland, and trampled under foot the respect due to 
 the laws and regal government. Under the Stuarts, in despite of the wise laws 
 enacted by parliament! to destroy or diminish the evil, the ambition of the 
 Douglas family, dissensions in the court, and numerous minorities of the crown, 
 perpetuated this unsettled condition. 
 
 James III. of Scotland, 1460, was not less zealous than his two im¬ 
 mediate predecessors in his endeavours to diminish the power of the 
 aristocracy; but instead of keeping these chiefs around him, and re¬ 
 pressing their violence by firmness of character, he drove them from his 
 presence, and passed his time in comparative seclusion at Stirling, sur- 
 
 *On the occasion of these attempts of Perkin, Sir Edward Poynings, sent into Ireland 
 to repress the troubles, assembled a parliament in Dublin, which enacted the famous 
 statute known as Poynings’ Act, and which forms an epoch in the history of Ireland, 
 with reference to the English dominion. This act declared, that all the statutes of the 
 English parliament should be law in Ireland, and that the Irish parliament should not 
 meet without the permission of the King of England, and after assigning the motives 
 of such convocation. 
 
 * Tn the Scotch parliament, the nobles, prelates, and commons sat in one chamber, and 
 voted as members of the same bodv. 
 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 rounded by men of low extraction, with whom he occupied himself in 
 the study of architecture, music, and other arts. The nobles, indignant 
 at the choice of his favourites, plotted against him; but the treason was 
 discovered : John, earl of Mar, brother of the king, was assassinated; 
 Alexander, duke of Albany, another brother, escaped from Edinburgh 
 castle, and took refuge in England. ' In consequence of the intrigues of 
 this fugitive with Edward IV., in which Albany assumed the title of 
 King of Scotland, and bound himself, if the English monarch would 
 furnish him with the means of establishing his claim, to do homage to 
 him, the Duke of Gloucester marched northwards at the head of a 
 numerous army, which compelled James to implore the aid of his barons. 
 These readily assembled in arms, less with the intention of repelling 
 foreign invasion than of obtaining satisfaction for their own injuries. 
 They resolved on the death of the king’s favourites, and executed their 
 design in the camp near Lauder, with all the promptitude and vigour of 
 military men. James, unable to rely on an army so turbulent, disband¬ 
 ed it, and taking refuge in Edinburgh castle, soon became reconciled 
 with the Duke of Albany. But his majesty had not learnt wisdom 
 from the late transactions ; and a decree forbidding the wearing of arms 
 within the royal palace, together with the formation of a permanent 
 body-guard, drove the nobles to revolt, who placed at their head the 
 Duke of Rothesay, the eldest of his children. This imminent danger 
 drew the monarch from his retirement: He marched against the rebels, 
 and, being defeated at Sauchieburn, a few miles from Stirling, was 
 assassinated in a miller’s cottage, 1488. The general indignation ex¬ 
 cited by this atrocious murder compelled the conspirators to use their 
 victory with moderation. James IV. succeeded to the throne; and in 
 his reign, the enmity which had frequently displayed itself between the 
 sovereign and the nobility was almost forgotten. Far from dreading 
 the power of the aristocracy, he considered it the best support of the 
 throne; and by his confidence gained their aid in all his enterprises. 
 
 % 
 
 ITALIAN PENINSULA. 
 
 Naples. — In the twelfth century, the kingdom of Naples passed in 
 succession to the Normans, and to the German Hohenstaufens; and in 
 the thirteenth, to the house of Anjou. This dynasty governed until 
 1382, when Joan I. adopted the younger brother of Charles V. of France, 
 Louis I. of Anjou, who was, however, deprived of the crown by Charles, 
 duke of Durazzo, the direct heir. Thus began those wars between the 
 second house of Anjou and the family of Durazzo, which led to the 
 invasion of Italy and the long struggle between France and the Empire. 
 Louis I., in 1383, and next Louis II., in 1390, invaded the kingdom, 
 but without success. A second Joan, sister of Ladislaus who succeed 
 ed Charles of Durazzo, revived this war, when its embers were nearly 
 extinct, by adopting in turn Alphonso V., king of Aragon and Sicily, 
 and Louis III. of Anjou. When Joan and Louis died in 1435, Rene of 
 Anjou, duke of Lorraine and count of Provence, opposed Alphonso V., 
 and was for a brief period master of Naples; but, in 1442, he was 
 driven out by the latter sovereign, who received the investiture of his 
 new kingdom from the pope. Alphonso died in 1458, leaving to his 
 natural son Ferdinand the kingdom of Naples, and to his brother John 
 
fifteenth century a.d. 331 
 
 II. (the usurper of Navarre) Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, with the 
 Balearic Isles, Sardinia, and Sicily. 
 
 Alphonso V., surnamed the Magnanimous, was not only a skilful and for¬ 
 tunate warrior, but the protector of letters. In his liberality originated the 
 chief defects of his government; for perpetually embarrassed in consequence 
 of his profuse generosity, he was obliged either to oppress his subjects with 
 taxes, or sell his patronage contrary to the good administration of his kingdom. 
 Lavishly conferring new titles, he extended the prerogatives of the nobles, so 
 as to aggravate the evils of vassalage, and weaken the authority of the crown; 
 but in spite of these faults, he deserves to be considered one of the greatest and 
 most worthy monarchs that adorned the fifteenth century. 
 
 At the summons of the Neapolitan barons, John of Anjou, son of 
 Rene, in 1459, opposed himself to Ferdinand, who, being defeated in 
 the battle of Sarno, 1460, was only saved from destruction by Francis 
 Sforza and Scanderbeg, the latter of whom Alphonso had often aided 
 against the Turks, and who now repaid to the son the assistance he had 
 received from the father. The victory of Troja in Apulia, however 
 seated Ferdinand securely on the throne. The conqueror now began tc 
 oppress the supporters of his rival; and the hatred excited by his cruel¬ 
 ties was increased during his long reign by numerous acts of treachery 
 and violence. In 1485, the nobles revolted against him ; but he dis¬ 
 armed them by an insidious peace, and arresting the most dangerous 
 caused them to be secretly put to death. Those who escaped his ven 
 geance by flight spread throughout Italy the odium of his name. 
 
 Florence.— Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the triumph 
 of the Albizzi faction deprived the Medici of all influence. John of that 
 name restored his family in 1420, having acquired immense riches, and 
 become chief magistrate. In 1426, when the nobles had formed the 
 design of usurping all the power of the state, he alone refused to second 
 their project, and thereby raised his popularity to the greatest height. 
 Cosmo I. inherited the talents of his father, but neglecting his sage 
 counsels, was banished in 1433. Being recalled the following year, the 
 Albizzi were all proscribed, and he preserved the supreme authority 
 until his death in 1464. His fellow-citizens conferred on him the title 
 of “ Father of his Country,”—a distinction worthy of his zeal to main¬ 
 tain peace at home as well as abroad, and of the noble uses to which he 
 applied his wealth, in building palaces, founding monasteries and 
 hospitals, forming libraries, and extending to letters and the arts that 
 protection which became hereditary in bis family. This distinguished 
 merchant was at the head of one hundred and twenty-eight commercial 
 houses in Europe, Asia, and Africa. 
 
 Pietro de Medici had neither the experience nor the talent required to 
 accomplish the objects contemplated by his predecessor; but when 
 Soderini, the gonfalonier of justice, had sought the alliance of the Duke 
 of Modena to dethrone Pietro, the latter gave such proofs of firmness as 
 disconcerted his enemies, and enabled him to proscribe the most illus¬ 
 trious families. Lorenzo and Julian, though young, were recognised as 
 their father’s successors; and, during seven years, Florence enjoyed 
 peace under their government. Among the chief persons of the city the 
 Pazzi held the first rank, and these Cosmo had desired to attach to his 
 party by bonds of marriage. Lorenzo, surnamed u the Magnificent,” 
 pursuing a different line of conduct, spared no exertions to ruin their 
 
332 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 fortunes; and hence a conspiracy to murder the Medici and change the 
 government was eagerly entered into by these persecuted men.* The 
 brothers were attacked in the cathedral church: Julian was killed, but 
 Lorenzo escaped to take a bloody revenge on the assassins, 1478. The 
 war which sprung out of this conspiracy lasted nearly three years. 
 
 Lorenzo died in 1492, beloved by his subjects, respected abroad, and 
 deeply lamented on account of the skill with which he had held the 
 balance among the other powers of Italy. His taste for the arts and 
 literature procured him the title of “ Father of the Muses;” but his 
 luxury, together with the bad management of his commercial transac¬ 
 tions, entirely absorbed the immense fortune of the Medici. During 
 many years, the public revenues contributed to cover their losses; and, 
 at last, to prevent their bankruptcy, the state itself became insolvent, 
 1490. The interest of the debt, then fixed at three per cent., was 
 reduced to one and a half; a number of charitable foundations were 
 suppressed; and the coin in circulation was received in payment of 
 taxes at one-fifth below its nominal value, and reissued at its full 
 amount. 
 
 The Roman State.— The abdication of the antipope, Clement VIIL, 
 in 1429, terminated the great schism of fifty-one years. Martin V. 
 alone retained the tiara, by whom the council of Basle was convoked in 
 1431. His successor, Eugenius IV., alarmed at the attacks made by 
 this body upon his prerogative, convened in succession the synods of 
 Ferrara and Florence, a proceeding which gave rise to another separa¬ 
 tion,—the fathers of Basle deposing him, and electing Amadeus of 
 Savoy as Felix V. In 1438, the French adopted several decrees of the 
 council of Basle, by the famous pragmatic sanction which Charles VII. 
 drew up at Bourges; and their example was imitated by the Germans, 
 who accepted the same decrees at the diet of Mentz, 1439, since which 
 time the popes had used every exertion to obtain their revocation. 
 Nicholas V., who succeeded Eugenius in 1447, substituted the Germanic 
 concordat for that of Mentz ; but the joy this event caused was clouded 
 by the conspiracy of Stephano Porcari, and by the fall of Constantinople. 
 Several attempts were made by Calixtus III., Pius II., and Paul II., to 
 excite the Christians to another Crusade, but they all completely failed. 
 The Cardinal Francis de la Rovera, exalted to the pontificate under the 
 title of Sixtus IV., was more occupied in the aggrandizement of his 
 family than in promoting the interests of the church. Innocent VIII. 
 succeeded in 1484,—a prelate of easy life and manners, entirely governed 
 by favourites, and who made every thing a matter of money. After him 
 the infamous Borgia, Alexander VI., for eleven years disgraced St. 
 Peter’s chair. His simoniacal election, 1492, and the knowledge of his 
 character, spread general consternation. 
 
 Venice.— The taking of Constantinople by the Turks threatened the 
 destruction of the Venetian colonies in the East. At first the republic 
 was allowed to have an ambassador in that capital; but in 1463, her 
 leaders began a war, which, after sixteen years, was terminated by an 
 unfavourable treaty. It was during these hostilities that Venice obtained 
 
 * Conspiracy at this period seemed to be the constitutional mode of reforming a bad 
 government. In three years, historians reckon one at Ferrara, two at Genoa, one a, 
 Milan and one at Florence. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTVfcYT A. D. 
 
 333 
 
 possession of Cyprus. This isic had been given by Richard Coeur de 
 Lion to Guy of Lusignan, whose descendants occupied the throne 266 
 years. The last of these, John III., died in 1458, leaving an only 
 daughter, Charlotte, who succeeded, and whose husband, Louis of 
 Savoy, brother of Duke Amadeus IX., shared the honours of the crown. 
 James, a natural son of John III., supported by the Sultan of Egypt, 
 Malek-Ella, to whom the kings of Cyprus were tributary, dethroned 
 them both in 1460. The usurper, threatened by the knights of St. John 
 and the Genoese, sought the aid of Venice by marrying Catherine Cor- 
 naro, niece of Andrew Cornaro, a patrician, whose family had extensive 
 estates in the island, 1471. The senate, to honour this union, adopted 
 Catherine, declaring her 44 daughter of St. Mark,” that is, of the republic. 
 James died two years after, and the queen, owing to her foreign extrac¬ 
 tion, being unpopular among the Cypriots, the Venetians, in her name, 
 reduced the island under their power in 1474, leaving to her little beyond 
 the pomp of royalty. Their hold on this conquest was confirmed by 
 Catherine’s abdication in 1489 and the investiture given them by the 
 Sultan of Egypt. While the republicans were thus extending their 
 sway over Cyprus, aggrandizement in Italy was not neglected by them. 
 They acquired by wars and treaties Gallipoli and Policastro, Polesina 
 and the territory of Rovigo; for at this period their armies were scarcely 
 less powerful on land than their fleets at sea. The population was nu¬ 
 merous, the finances well administered ; and this was the first state that, 
 by government loans, had attached the rich to the commonwealth by the 
 great bond of the public funds. Her .manufactures in gold, silver, and 
 silk, were much esteemed; but the time of her fall drew near, when the 
 commerce of Asia, turned from its ancient course, went to enrich the 
 nations of the West. 
 
 Milan and Genoa. — A labourer of Cotignola, named Attendolo, 
 becoming a soldier at the beginning of the fifteenth century, passed 
 rapidly through all the degrees of military rank, and became the most 
 famous captain of the age. With 7000 volunteers who followed his 
 banner, he delivered Joan II. of Naples from the hands of Alphonso of 
 Aragon, for which he was made constable of the kingdom and gonfalo¬ 
 nier of the Roman church. A premature death by drowning terminated 
 his honourable career. He had changed his name to. Sforza, which he 
 transmitted to his natural son Francis, inheritor of his talents and cou¬ 
 rage, who had married Bianca, natural daughter of Philip-Maria, last 
 of the Visconti dukes of Milan. On his father-in-law’s death, 1447, he 
 claimed the inheritance in opposition to the Duke of Savoy, the King 
 of Naples, the republic of Venice, and Charles of Orleans. The Mila¬ 
 nese abolished the ducal power, and established a republic, nominating 
 their own magistrates, and appointing Sforza commander of their troops. 
 In 1 his post he succeeded in restoring the title of duke, and reigned until 
 the year 1466. The greatest princes sought his alliance ; his daughter 
 Hippolyta married Alphonso of Naples, and Louis XI. ceded to him the 
 city of Genoa. His son and successor Galeazzo, by his pride and des¬ 
 potism, excited an insurrection in which he perished, 1476. L'nder his 
 infant heir John Galeazzo, two uncles disturbed the public tranquillity; 
 they were, how*ever, eventually banished. About this time the Genoese 
 revolted and recovered their liberty; but Prospero Adorno, the mover of 
 the revolution, having abused his victory by putting some of his oppo 
 
334 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 nents to death, fled from the city, and Battista Fregosa was proclaimed 
 doge. In 1479, one of the uncles of the Duke Galeazzo, known as 
 Ludovico the Moor, made himself master of Tortona. Having been 
 called to Milan to act as counterpoise to the favourite minister Simoneta, 
 he soon put that officer to death, declaring that his nephew, a child of 
 twelve years, had attained his majority; from which time Ludovico in 
 reality governed in the name of his ward. In 1488, Genoa again be¬ 
 came a Milanese dependency, although Sforza had the prudence to hold 
 it as a fief of the French crown, the investiture of which he received two 
 years after. 
 
 The other states of Italy do not require to be mentioned in detail: it 
 will be sufficient merely to note their existence. The Counts of Savoy 
 were attached to France. Duke Philip II. was of great use to Charles 
 VIII. in his Italian expedition, for which he was created high-chamber- 
 lain and grand-master of the palace. The marquisates of Montferrat 
 and Saluzzo were not yet united to Savoy; while Parma and Piacenza 
 formed a portion of the Milanese territory. The house of Este reigned 
 in Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio; the Gonzagas at Mantua; the Picos 
 at Mirandola ; the Malatestas at Rimini; the Malaspinas at Massa and 
 Carrara; the Grimaldis at Monaco; and the Montfeltros at Urbino: all 
 of which states, with the small republics of Lucca and Sienna, were 
 dragged into the common vortex of political commotion. 
 
 Never had Italy been happier or more flourishing than at the epoch 
 of the French invasion in 1494. Ruled by native-born princes, inde¬ 
 pendent of all foreign influence, exempt from internal troubles, she had 
 carried the sciences, letters, and the arts to the highest degree of perfec¬ 
 tion. Enriched by agriculture and commerce, she possessed the most 
 brilliant courts, the most magnificent cities; and her pleasures, the 
 natural result of long prosperity, had attained a degree of delicacy and 
 refinemen unknown to the rest of Europe. But this deceitful exterior 
 concealed those vices which usually indicate the decline of nations,— 
 effeminacy, perfidy, cowardice, and corruption. She carried in her bosom 
 the seeds of ruin, which the concord maintained by the ascendency of 
 two wise rulers, Pope Innocent VIII. and Lorenzo de Medici, alone 
 prevented for a time from bursting forth. But these two monarchs 
 expiring about the same period, in 1492, the equilibrium was destroyed, 
 and Italy doomed to experience the horrors of internal discord and 
 foreign invasion. 
 
 SPANISH PENINSULA. 
 
 Navarre. —In 1419, John II., second son of Ferdinand the Just, king 
 of Aragon, had married Blanche, daughter and heiress of Charles III., 
 king of Navarre, of the house of Evreux. When the latter monarch 
 died, in 1435, the crowrn passed to the family of John, who had one son, 
 Don Carlos, prince of Viana, and two daughters, Blanche married to 
 Henry IV. of Castile, and Leonora the wife of Gaston IV., count of 
 Foix. On the death of his mother in 1441, Carlos ought to have 
 inherited the crown of Navarre, but as this would have compelled his 
 father to descend from his high station, he not less wisely than affec¬ 
 tionately left the supreme power in his hands. The king having taken 
 a second wife, Joanna Henriquez, daughter of the Admiral of Castile, 
 had a son, who is known in history as Ferdinand the Catholic. At the 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 335 
 
 instigation of his consort, John endeavoured to secure the succession to 
 his younger son, and for this purpose deprived Carlos of all share in 
 public business. After enduring the most unworthy treatment, this 
 victim of an ambitious stepmother took up arms, but was defeated in 
 battle near Aibar, 1452. Being taken prisoner, he was shut up in a 
 strong castle, whence he was delivered only at the earnest intercession 
 of the Navarrese states. In 1456, the queen, who had sworn the de¬ 
 struction of the prince, aided her husband in forming an alliance with 
 his son-in-law, the Count of Foix, against him, by which it was agreed 
 that John should possess the crown of Navarre during his life, and that 
 it should afterwards pass to the Count and Countess of Foix, to the 
 prejudice of Don Carlos, and Blanche, queen of Castile. This injustice 
 drove him a second time to arms ; but the fortune of war turning once 
 more against him, he went to Paris and Naples, to solicit the mediation 
 of Charles VII. and Alphonso V. During his absence, his supporters 
 again proclaimed him king, though bloodshed was avoided by the inter¬ 
 position of the latter monarch, whose death unfortunately removed all 
 chance of reconciliation. Other reverses followed, but eventually the 
 injustice of John augmented so greatly the number of his son’s sup¬ 
 porters, that, at Barcelona, the latter was proclaimed heir, and intrusted 
 with the perpetual lieutenancy of Catalonia. He did not live to enjoy 
 this elevation; and his death, in 1461, has been attributed to various 
 causes,—to poison administered by Joanna, or to grief at being the con¬ 
 tinued object of paternal hatred. His sister, Blanche, whom he had 
 named his successor, was not long after imprisoned by her father and 
 deprived of life. The Catalonians becoming alarmed for their liberties, 
 never spoke but with abhorrence of the homicidal monarch, and with 
 euthusiasm of their governor, that noble victim of unnatural ambition, 
 or, as he was already esteemed, that 44 holy martyr,” to whom the super¬ 
 stitious attributed numerous miracles. It was in order to raise money 
 for punishing these insurgents, that the king sold the provinces of Rous¬ 
 sillon and Cerdagne to Louis XI. for 300,000 gold crowns. John II. 
 died in 1479, and was succeeded by his daughter Eleonora, who 
 occupied the throne less than a year, after which it passed to the house 
 of Foix, in the person of Francis Phoebus, her grandson. 
 
 Aragon. —With the death of Martin in 1410 ended the house of Bar¬ 
 celona, which had filled the throne 273 years. Five claimants to the 
 sovereignty now appeared ; but, in 1412, the estates decided in favour 
 of Ferdinand of Castile, whose son Alphonso the Magnanimous con¬ 
 quered Naples in 1442. At the death of Alphonso in 1458, his natural 
 son Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of Naples, and Aragon devolved 
 on his brother John II. The son of the last monarch, Ferdinand the 
 Catholic, by his marriage with Isabella of Castile, united the two king¬ 
 doms in 1479. 
 
 Castile.— Henry III., while projecting a war against the King of 
 Granada, died in 1406, leaving behind him an infant son of only fourteen 
 months. In such circumstances Ferdinand, the king’s brother, was 
 solicited by the estates to assume the crown, but he refused, and caused 
 his nephew to be proclaimed as John II. The uncle, however, held the 
 regency till 1412, when he was called to the throne of Aragon to suc¬ 
 ceed Martin, who had left no children. His place as regent was supplied 
 by Alvarez de Luna, who, in a short time, excited disaffection by the 
 
336 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 severity of his government. Aided by Henry, infant of Aragon, who 
 resided in Castile, the powerful nobles took Toledo by surprise, urged 
 the Prince of Asturias to revolt, and at last constrained John to make 
 concessions. But Don Juan Pachecho engaged the prince to support the 
 cause of his father John II., who was soon at the head of an army which 
 defeated the rebels in the battle of Olmedo, where Henry of Aragon 
 fell, 1444. The prince, displeased at seeing Alvarez restored to favour, 
 again revolted, when the latter was banished from the court and put to 
 death. 
 
 Henry IV. succeeded his father in 1454, and his reign presented simi¬ 
 lar vicissitudes. He invaded Granada with an army of 50,000 men ; 
 but no conquests were made of sufficient importance to defray the ex¬ 
 penses of the war. Returning from this expedition, Henry, who had 
 repudiated his first wife, Blanche of Navarre, espoused Joanna of Por¬ 
 tugal. In the Castilian court the greatest corruption prevailed; the king 
 indulged in every kind of license, and the new queen followed the con¬ 
 tagious example. By this means the affections of his subjects were 
 alienated, and a storm was gathering which could not fail eventually to 
 burst on the two sovereigns. A few trifling though fortunate expedi¬ 
 tions against the Moors retarded the catastrophe; but, in 14(15, the nobles, 
 with the Archbishop of Toledo at their head, proclaimed Alphonso, the 
 king’s brother, their new sovereign. 
 
 The cowardly monarch, Henry, entered into an accommodation with 
 the rebels, by which he sacrificed his daughter, the Princess Joanna 
 (whose parentage appeared somewhat doubtful), and adopted Alphonso 
 as his heir. New dissensions followed this arrangement, until 1465, 
 when a civil war broke out; but its cruelties w*ere in a measure softened 
 by the interposition of the pope, and it w 7 as terminated by the death of 
 Alphonso in 1468. The factious nobles after this proclaimed Henry’s 
 sister Isabella; but she refused to accept a title that did not belong to 
 her while her brother lived. In 1469, this princess, whose hand had 
 been sought by the King of Portugal and the Duke of Guienne, secretly 
 married Ferdinand of Aragon. Henry immediately annulled the union 
 by a solemn decree, to which no one paid any respect, and the country 
 was once more plunged into all the horrors of a civil strife, which con¬ 
 tinued until his death in 1474. In the preceding year, he endeavoured 
 to remedy some of the abuses that had accumulated during his unfortu¬ 
 nate reign. The revenues of the crown being extremely diminished, he 
 revoked^all the donations made during the last ten years,—an arrange¬ 
 ment that became ineffectual from the number and strength of the inte¬ 
 rested parties. He also dissolved various brotherhoods or congregations, 
 established with dangerous views; confirming those only which were 
 founded for the security of the kingdom against the bands of robbers 
 that everywhere devastated it. Finally, he suppressed all tolls and other 
 tributes of that kind, arbitrarily established by the nobles in their do¬ 
 mains, and which gave rise to innumerable vexations. 
 
 Joanna was left heiress to the crown, and her cause was warmly 
 espoused by her uncle, Alphonso V. of Portugal. She was supported 
 in Castile, chiefly by the malcontents who had formerly contested her 
 legitimacy, but who now dreaded the firmness of Isabella. The victory 
 of Toro, in 1476, gave the throne to the latter, and Joanna, deserter oy 
 her partisans, retired to a convent in Coimbra, 1479. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D 
 
 33 ? 
 
 In the same year expired John II., king of Aragon, whose states, com¬ 
 prising Aragon Proper, Catalonia, Valencia, Marcia, the Balearic Isles, 
 Sardinia, and Sicily, descended to Ferdinand, by whom they were united 
 to Castile. 
 
 Aragon and Castile. — The moment that Ferdinand and Isabella 
 assumed the reins of government, the state of their dominions was 
 changed. Crime, even in the highest ranks, ceased to be unpunished, 
 and the execution of robbers and assassins showed the people that vio¬ 
 lence would ’be replaced by order and justice. The organization of the 
 “Holy Brotherhood” (Santa Hermandad), destined for the repression 
 of murder and theft, was perfected. In Galicia, where the nobles exer¬ 
 cised the greatest tyranny, forty-six strongholds were demolished, and 
 the property stolen from the royal domains, the churches, monasteries, 
 and private persons, was restored. 
 
 After having cnus destroyed faction and strengthened their own power, 
 the Catholic sovereigns, for by that title were they known, began to 
 carry into execution their long-meditated plan of expelling the Moors 
 from Spain. Muley Ali Abulhassan, who at this time occupied the 
 Moorish throne, began the war with the surprise of Zahara, 1481, which 
 was immediately retaliated by the capture of Alhama. The successes 
 were for a long time balanced, until one imprudent step drove the infidel 
 to ruin. Captivated by the charms of a Christian slave, he repudiated 
 his wife Ayesha, who belonged to one of the chief tribes, and had borne 
 him several sons, all of whom he ordered to be destroyed for the purpose 
 of securing the succession to the issue of his second marriage. One only 
 escaped, the celebrated Boabdil (Abu-Abdallah), who was shortly after 
 proclaimed king by a party of discontented nobles, and Abulhassan was 
 driven from his capital. A cruel civil war forthwith commenced, and 
 while the Moors were thus weakening their own resources, Ferdinand 
 pursued a victorious career. Ten years were spent in a sanguinary con¬ 
 test before the Christians were enabled to besiege Granada, which they 
 invested with a chosen army of 50,000 men, when a blockade of nine 
 months compelled the inhabitants to surrender, and in January, 1492, 
 Isabella and Ferdinand made their triumphal entry into a city whose 
 capture almost compensated for the previous loss of Constantinople. To 
 Gonzalvo de Cordova, a distinguished leader of the Christian host, was 
 intrusted the adjustment of the articles of capitulation, which were highly 
 honourable to both parties. They provided that the vanquished should 
 be governed by their own laws, preserve their customs, judges, and 
 liberty of worship; that they should hold their property in Spain free 
 from molestation, or be allowed to sell it and withdraw wheresoever 
 they pleased ; and that Boabdil should be permitted to retire to an estate 
 in the Alpuxarras. The Saracens were, however, finally expelled from 
 Spain in the reign of Philip III., 1610. 
 
 The Jews had been included in the Moorish treaty; but with them 
 the conditions were not kept. Besides having amassed considerable 
 riches by trade, they had also acquired nearly all the wealth of the king¬ 
 dom by usury. An intolerant zeal, excited by absurd reports, impelled 
 the government to order every individual of that persecuted race to quit 
 the country. Four months only were allowed for the settlement of their 
 affairs, and they were forbidden, under pain of death, to carry with them * 
 either silver, gold, or precious stones. 'Half a million, or according to 
 29 
 
338 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 certain authors 800,000, are said to have departed, some proceeding to 
 Africa, others to France, and the majority into Portugal, where they 
 were in a short time treated with no less severity. These oppressed 
 individuals carried away all the commerce of the Peninsula, and the 
 Spanish government, far from enriching itself, lost a great portion of its 
 annual revenue. 
 
 In the same year which saw Granada wrested from the Moors, Ame¬ 
 rica was discovered by Columbus, who thus 44 for Castile and Leon 
 found a New World.” 
 
 The restoration of Roussillon and Cerdagne by Charles VIII., before 
 his expedition into Italy in 1494, added to this prosperity; and in 1496, 
 a double marriage united 4he houses of Spain and Austria. Mary of 
 Burgundy, wife of the Archduke Maximilian, bore her husband two 
 children; namely Philip, who married Joanna second infanta of Spain, 
 and Margaret, who became the wife of John the infanta's brother. This 
 latter prince dying the same year, Isabella, married to Emmanuel of 
 Portugal, was declared heiress of Castile and Aragon by the estates 
 assembled at Toledo and Saragossa. But she died in giving birth to a 
 son, who did not long survive his parent. 
 
 Portugal. —The race of Henry of Burgundy became extinct in 1383, 
 in the person of Don Ferdinand, who, at his death, left a natural child 
 Beatrice, married to John I. of Castile. The aversion entertained by 
 the Portuguese to a Castilian sovereign enabled Don Juan, brother of 
 the late king, to ascend the throne as John I. of Portugal. Being sup¬ 
 ported by the English, he defeated the Spaniards and their French 
 allies at Aljubarotta, 1385, and thereby secured the throne, though the 
 
 war was not terminated until the commencement of the fifteenth centurv 
 
 * 
 
 This sovereign died in 1433, after a popular and glorious reign of forty- 
 eight years, during which the Cortes were twenty-five times convoked. 
 Edward, his eldest son, succeeded, but was soon carried off by a pesti¬ 
 lence which ravaged the country, 1438 ; and in an expedition against 
 the African Moors, he was so unfortunate as to leave his brother to 
 perish in captivity. Alphonso V., a monarch of warlike and chivalrous 
 spirit, conducted three expeditions against the infidels. In 1474, on the 
 death of Henry IV. of Castile, he espoused Joanna, daughter of that 
 monarch, assumed the title of sovereign, and even disputed the posses¬ 
 sion of the kingdom with Ferdinand the Catholic. Being unsuccessful, 
 he visited France to seek the assistance of Louis XI.; and here the 
 failure of his negotiations so disgusted him with the regal power, that 
 he formed the resolution of abdicating and retiring to the Holy Land. 
 He died in 1481, as he was about to enter the monastic life. John II. 
 strengthened the royal authority in Portugal by diminishing the power 
 of the barons : in the diet of Evora, 1482, he revoked the concessions 
 made by his predecessors to the prejudice of the crown, and suppressed 
 the power of life and death exercised by many nobles. Such innova¬ 
 tions were not tamely endured, but the vigour of the king eventually 
 compelled submission. John has been styled a perfect prince, and the 
 tutor of kings in the art of government; and in truth he deserved the 
 esteem of his subjects, by the indefatigable cares of his administration, 
 by his just regulations, and by his anxiety in promoting maritime dis¬ 
 covery. But, by humbling the nobles, he laid the foundation of future 
 despotism, as they gradually beoame instruments of absolute power, 
 lie died in 1495. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 339 
 
 DISCOVERIES AND COLONIES. 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth century, two events of incalculable im¬ 
 portance to mankind,—the discovery of the New World, and the route 
 to the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope,—produced an entire revolution 
 in the commerce, manners, industry7'and government of every nation. 
 
 Portuguese Colonies. —John i., who about the end of the fourteenth 
 century had founded a new dynasty in Portugal, undertook an expedi¬ 
 tion against Barbary in 1412, with the intention of occupying the rest¬ 
 less minds of his subjects. His third son, Henry, who accompanied 
 him, manifested thenceforward averyea er desire for foreign adventure. 
 Two ships, equipped by his orders, advanced five degrees beyond Cape 
 Nun, hitherto considered impassable owing to the burning heat of the 
 torrid zone; but they did not venture to pass Cape Bojador, lying three 
 degrees north of the tropic. In 1419, accident led to the discovery of 
 Madeira; the extraordinary fertility of which island is attributed to the 
 burning of the forests to clear the face of the country, which is said to 
 have continued seven years. The sugar-cane was imported from Sicily 
 and Cyprus; the vine was brought from the Morea; and in a few years 
 sugar and wine became considerable articles of commerce. The Canary 
 islands, early taken possession of by the Spaniards, were during several 
 years a subject of dispute between Spain and Portugal; but they even¬ 
 tually remained in the power of the former. 
 
 Prince Henry, now directing all his attention to the discovery of a 
 passage to India by sea, obtained from Pope Martin V., as sovereign of 
 the universe, a right to the conquests he should make between Cape 
 Bojador and the Indies. As soon as the necessary bull was granted, 
 the expedition sailed; and in 1440, Cape Blanco was reached. Two 
 years after, the exchange of some prisoners for gold-dust and negroes 
 gave rise to the odious slave-trade. In 1484, the adventurers proceed¬ 
 ed more than 1500 miles, crossing the equator and entering the river 
 Congo. In their farther progress south, the land was found to decline 
 towards the east, which gave them hopes of arriving at India, and ap¬ 
 peared to confirm the narratives of the circumnavigation of Africa by 
 the Phoenicians. The solution of the great problem fell to the lot of 
 Bartholomew Diaz, who discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1486. 
 Vasco de Gama, the hero of the Lusiad, sailed from Portugal in 1497, 
 and doubling, for the first time, that celebrated promontory, discovered 
 Madagascar. From this island he proceeded until he reached Calicut, 
 thirteen months after his departure from Lisbon. 
 
 Hindostan was at this period divided among the kings of Cambay, 
 Delhi, Bisnagar, Narsinga, and Calicut, who had many sovereigns 
 among their tributaries. The port of Calicut, from a Mohammedan 
 superstition connected with it, became the most celebrated in the whole 
 peninsula. Here Gama was at first hospitably received, but he after¬ 
 wards experienced considerable opposition from the Moors of Africa, 
 who traded to that city. On his return home in 1499, the king named 
 him admiral of the Indies, and loaded him with honours. 
 
 America. —About the end of tne tenth century, the Scandinavians, in 
 some of their maritime expeditions, had reached Iceland and Greenland, 
 from which latter country they appear to have advanced to Finland, 
 
840 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 probably Labrador. In Greenland some unimportant settlements were 
 made, and the communication with the transatlantic continent was main¬ 
 tained until the beginning of the 15th century, when the fate of these 
 colonies was covered as with a cloud ; and although various attempts 
 have since been made for their discovery, no traces of their existence 
 have been obtained. In Southern Europe these expeditions were entire¬ 
 ly unknown, and therefore the undiminished glory was left to Columbus 
 of proving the existence of the Western World. This celebrated navi¬ 
 gator was of Genoese origin; though his character had been formed 
 and his skill acquired in the service of Portugal. His active mind 
 readily foresaw the length and difficulties of a voyage to the Indies by 
 sailing to the eastward, even if the route should be discovered; and it 
 appeared to him that by sailing directly west he would more readily 
 attain his object. Many circumstances, the importance of which is 
 best known to mariners, supported his theories; but those to whom he 
 applied for protection and support did not acknowledge their force. 
 The Genoese senate regarded him as a madman; in Portugal his confi¬ 
 dence was most treacherously abused; and in England his brother Bar¬ 
 tholomew obtained the consent of Henry VII. only when too late. x 
 After many obstacles, arising from the ignorance and religious scruples 
 of those to whom his project was submitted, Columbus sailed with three 
 small vessels from Palos in Andalusia, 3d August, 1492. On the night 
 of the 11th October, land was seen after a tedious voyage, during which 
 the commander had to contend against the cowardly and rebellious spirit 
 of his crew. San Salvador or Guanahani, one of the Bahama chain 
 stretching between Florida and St. Domingo, was the island first dis- 
 covered. Cuba and Hayti were reached soon after. Columbus, now 
 directing his course homeward, returned to the harbour of Palos, seven 
 months and eleven days after his departure. He was received with 
 great kindness by Ferdinand and Isabella, who ennobled his family, 
 and ratified all the privileges of the treaty of Santa Fe.* 
 
 While Europe was still re-echoing with the news of this voyage, the 
 navigator had acrain sailed towards the west with seventeen vessels, 
 having on board numerous settlers eager to reap the golden harvest 
 which the descriptions of travellers had placed in the Indies. Isabella 
 in the island of Cuba was the first city founded in the New World. In 
 his third voyage, 1498, Columbus reached the continent of America, 
 near the mouth of the Orinoco. It does not fall within the scope of 
 this work to do more than notice the leading points of transatlantic dis¬ 
 covery; the history of the early settlers will he found in volumes espe¬ 
 cially devoted to that purpose. .It will here suffice to say, that Colum¬ 
 bus died in 1506, after being treated by the Spanish court with the great¬ 
 est ingratitude. His body was pompously interred in the cathedral of 
 Seville; arid over it was erected a monument, with the simple inscrip¬ 
 tion that Columbus had given a new world to Castile and Leon. His 
 remains were afterwards transported to the island of Hayti, and buried 
 in the cathedral of St. Domingo in 1536, whence, two hundred and sixty 
 years afterwards, they were transferred to Havana. 
 
 * By the articles of this treaty, drawn up before Columbus sailed, he was created high* 
 admiral, with hereditary right in the seas he should discover ; viceroy also, with heredi¬ 
 tary possession of the lands; he was to receive a tithe of the profits of commercial 
 undertakings; and be supreme judge in all mercantile disputes in the newly-discovered 
 countries. 
 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 341 
 
 In 1499, Alonzo de Ojeda sailed to the new continent, accompanied 
 by a Florentine merchant named Amerigo Vespucci, under whose direc¬ 
 tion the enterprise was chiefly conducted. Returning to Europe, he pub¬ 
 lished an account of his adventures, and claimed the honour of being the 
 first to discover the mainland of the new world.* In 1500, the mouth 
 of the great river Amazon was entered ; while the Portuguese had already 
 landed in Brazil. 
 
 Consult: Robertson’s History of America; Irving’s Life of Columbus. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Councils of Constance and Basle, 1414 and 1431. — Several at¬ 
 tempts were made to terminate the great schism in the Catholic church; 
 and for that purpose, in the double pontificate of Benedict XIII. and 
 Gregory XII., a council was held at Pisa in 1409, whose election of 
 Alexander V. added a third pope to the two who disputed the possession 
 of the tiara. It was not until the council of Constance deposed all the 
 three, and elected Martin V. in their stead, followed, in 1429, by the 
 resignation of Clement VIII., that these divisions in the church were 
 entirely extinguished. Martin, in contempt of his promises, published 
 only seven unimportant decrees, by which he pretended to satisfy the 
 complaints and demands of the council. In 1418, he dissolved it, and 
 named Pavia for the next place of meeting, but the assembly was even¬ 
 tually held at Basle under Eugenius IV. Independently of the correc¬ 
 tion of abuses, this body had to deliberate on a reunion with the Greek 
 church and other schismatic communions. The first object was attained 
 by decreeing the abolition of u annates, reserves, and expectatives.” 
 The pope, alarmed at these bold measures, wished to dissolve the coun¬ 
 cil ; but the members asserting their supremacy by force, accused Euge¬ 
 nius of heresy, and deposed him. The reforms effected at Constance 
 and Basle had not all the happy results that were expected; neverthe¬ 
 less, they were adopted in France by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 
 1438; and the diet of Aschaffenburg accepted the German concordat, 
 drawn up in terms exceedingly favourable to the holy see, 1448. The 
 Emperor Frederick III., who desired to be crowned in the Roman capi¬ 
 tal, withheld no sacrifice; and his coronation in 1452 was accompanied 
 by a total renunciation of the rights of the empire over that ancient city. 
 Since this period, the authority of the popes has been supreme in Rome ; 
 and the conspiracy of the tribune Porcari in 1453 was the last struggle 
 for republican liberty. 
 
 The chief resolutions of the assembly at Basle were those of the fourth and 
 fifth sessions: one declaring the supremacy of general councils, as having 
 received by divine right an authority to which every rank, even the papal, must 
 submit in matters of faith, and in the reformation of the church ; the other 
 declares liable to punishment every person, not excepting the pope himself, that 
 shall refuse to obey any council lawfully assembled. These decrees, the great 
 boast of the moderate papists, are not of direct, practical importance ; but they 
 served to check the usurpations of the see of Rome, by the acknowledgment 
 
 * The imposture of Vespucci has long been known, and his dishonest narrative has in 
 no degree injured the glory of Columbus. As to the honour of first reaching the shores 
 of the new continent, it probably belongs to the English mariners, who, under Cabot, a 
 Bristol seaman of Venetian parents, sailed along the coasts of North America from 
 Labrador to Florida, 1498. 
 
 29 * 
 
342 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 of a superior authority. The same assembly further enacted that another 
 general council should be held in five years; a second at the end of seven 
 more; and at intervals of every ten years afterwards. Their proposition on the 
 faith to be kept with heretics will be noticed below. This synod further took 
 away the cup from the laity, ordering that “the Lord’s supper should be 
 received by them only in one kind, i. e. the bread.” 
 
 Hussites. —Since the cruel extirpation of the Albigenses, the pope 
 and church, who assumed to be sole interpreters of Scripture, had reigned 
 without obstacle; but the imprudent obstinacy of John XXII., in 1324, 
 excited complaints and accusations against the holy see, which proved 
 the forerunners of the Reformation. The Franciscans, whom the pope 
 violently persecuted, furnished in thirty-four years no fewer than two 
 thousand victims to the pontifical executioners. The publications de¬ 
 scribing the disorders of the court of Avignon were followed up in 
 England with an effect still more fatal to the supremacy of Rome. John 
 Wickliffe, by his translation of the New Testament into the English 
 tongue, inflicted a severe blow on the authority of the clergy .* His 
 doctrines spread rapidly beyond this country; and in the university of 
 Prague arose the great predecessor of Luther. John Huss began by 
 preaching against the disorderly lives of churchmen, and soon adopted 
 the principles of Wickliffe, with which he became familiar, by means 
 of the books his friend Jerome had brought from Oxford. Some time 
 afterwards, Boniface IX. sent monks into Bohemia charged with the 
 sale of indulgences : this scandalous traffic was forbidden by Sigis- 
 mond; and Huss seized the opportunity of declaiming against the power 
 of the pope to grant them. When the reformer’s exertions in defence of „ 
 the privileges of the university had promoted him to the rectorship, he 
 spoke more freely, and even attacked the papal supremacy. Alexander 
 V. interfered energetically to crush the rising heresy ; but although in 
 1412 he excommunicated Huss and laid Prague under an interdict, the 
 rector continued to disseminate his doctrines. For this conduct he was 
 cited before the council of Constance, the states-general of Christendom, 
 as it has been called, 1414. Under a safe-conduct from Sigismond, 
 Huss reached the place of meeting, where he was soon thrown into 
 prison, and detained half a year before his first interrogation, 5th June 
 1415. About a month afterwards, judgment was pronounced on a series 
 of thirty-nine articles professed to be taken from his works, his books 
 were condemned to be burnt, and himself given over to the secular 
 power. He perished at the stake, protesting his orthodoxy to the last, j* 
 In 1416, his disciple, Jerome of Prague, underwent a similar fate. 
 
 * The translation and reading of the Bible, after the Vulgate had ceased to be intel¬ 
 ligible, was by no means interdicted, although the Legends of Saints were more admired 
 The New Testament was rendered into German by two different parties in the ninth 
 century, and detached books had been translated into French before the twelfth. When 
 the spread of heretical opinions began to disturb the orthodox believer, it was thought 
 necessary to provide against lawless interpretation; and, accordingly, the council of 
 Toulouse, in 1229, prohibited the laity from possessing the Scriptures. 
 
 t Hallam remarks, that “ the Scandalous breach of faith—the violation of the safe- 
 conduct—which the council induced Sigismond to commit on that occasion, is notorious. 
 But perhaps it is not equally so, that it recognised by a solemn decree the flagitious 
 principle, that no faith or promise ought to be kept with Huss, by natural, divine, or 
 human law, to the prejudice of the Catholic religion. No breach of faith, he continues, 
 can be excused by our opinion of ill-desert in the party, or by a narrow interpretation 
 of our own engagements. Every capitulation ought to be construed favourably for the 
 weaker side.” 
 
APPENDIX TO PART SECOND. 
 
 343 
 
 The news of these executions excited general indignation throughout 
 Bohemia, where the doctrine of communion in both kinds and evangeli¬ 
 cal self-denial had made great progress. All the churches of Prague 
 re-echoed the panegyrics of Huss; medals were struck in his honour; 
 and at length a solemn festival was appointed to commemorate his mar¬ 
 tyrdom. Angry feelings both against Germans and Romans now 
 announced a speedy outbreak; and in John of Trocznow, surnamed 
 Zisca, was found a leader in the war against the church. His partisans 
 soon amounted to the number of 40,000; and to provide a stronghold for 
 them, he caused lines to be drawn around the summit of a mountain, 
 which he called Tabor — the Bohemian word for a camp or tent — 
 whence his followers derived their appellation of Taborites. The 
 Hussites gave full scope to their fury, so that they destroyed 550 monas¬ 
 teries before the end of the year. This violence brought Sigismond 
 into Moravia; and by means of the crusade then preached, he united 
 140,000 men under his banner. This numerous host was defeated by 
 the Bohemians armed with iron flails, and nearly all the Moravian 
 nobility perished on the field of battle. Zisca having died in 1424 of 
 the plague, the Taborites separated into two bodies, which continued to 
 devastate Bavaria, Misnia, and Lusatia. Their ravages were terminated 
 by the concessions of the council of Basle. 
 
 Council of Florence, 1439.—Under Pope Eugenius IV. a council 
 was held at Florence, whither it had been transferred from Ferrara, for 
 the purpose of terminating the Greek schism. The Emperor John Pa- 
 laeologus, after a brief discussion, acceded to the Roman confession of 
 faith, recognising especially the doctrines that the “ Holy Ghost pro¬ 
 ceeded from the Father and the Son,” and that the Bishop of Rome 
 was the head of the universal church. The wound now seemed healed; 
 but when the emperor returned to Constantinople, he met with such an 
 opposition to the re-union of the two churches, that he dared not perse¬ 
 vere. In the subsequent overthrow of the Greek kingdom, Pope 
 Nicholas V. saw the judgment of an offended Deity. In 14-92, the papal 
 crown was disgraced by Alexander VI. (Roderic Borgia), whose profli¬ 
 gate career, scarcely possible to be exaggerated, was ended by his 
 drinking the poison he had mingled for another. 
 
 APPENDIX TO PART SECOND. 
 
 / 
 
 Commerce , the Progress of Learning , Discoveries , fyc. 
 
 Commerce. —The commerce of Western Europe was almost entirely inter¬ 
 rupted between the fall of Rome and the accession of Charlemagne, at which 
 latter period the cities of Italy began to form a connexion with the ports of the 
 Greek empire. While Constantinople flourished, the treasures of the East 
 were brought thither by caravans from India, through Candahar and Persia; 
 by the northern routes along the Caspian and Euxine seas ; by the Euphrates 
 and thence overland to the Syrian ports; or lastly, by way of the Red Sea and 
 Egypt. Amalfi, in the tenth century; Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the 
 eleventh, became in turn the chief marts of foreign trade. The persecuted 
 Jews were at this time active agents in the mercantile system ; and by the 
 decrees of the church against usury, the trade in money was, until the thirteenth 
 
344 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 century, thrown almost entirely into their hands. The Crusades formed a 
 grand epoch in the history of commerce, by the introduction of silk and sugar 
 into the west of Europe. Five hundred years before, in 551, silk-worms had 
 been brought from China into Greece, and were successfully reared in the 
 More a. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, the Genoese traded with India through the Black 
 Sea; as did the Venetians through Egypt and Syria. The circumnavigation 
 of Africa proved as fatal to the commerce of Venice as did the fall of Constan¬ 
 tinople to her great rival. So long as the Mediterranean was the medium of 
 commercial intercourse, Venice, situated nearly in the centre of the civilised 
 world, possessed the whole trade of the East; and such were her resources 
 derived from the traffic, that five millions of gold crowns were expended in 
 opposing the memorable league of Cambray, 1508. The maritime communica¬ 
 tion opened by the Portuguese with India in 1497, deprived the republic of the 
 wealth of the East; while the discovery of America directed the attention of 
 Western Europe to a wider field of mercantile and naval enterprise. Another 
 extraordinary event again changed the course of commerce : an inundation of 
 the sea formed a connexion between the ocean and a lake since called the 
 Zuyder Zee, and thus Amsterdam became a maritime port in the fifteenth 
 century. The Hanseatic league, which, in 1241, facilitated the progress of the 
 interior trade of Europe, began to decline from 1370. 
 
 The grand commercial route was the Rhine, the Danube, and the various 
 passages of the Alps, particularly across the Tyrol and by the St. Gothard. The 
 second line proceeded from Greece to Russia, passing by Vienna and Ratisbon. 
 A third road extended from the coasts of the Mediterranean, by Marseilles, to 
 the Atlantic. The merchandise brought by these channels was distributed at 
 the several fairs of Aix-la-Chapelle, where all goods were exempt from toll, 
 and of Champagne, where might be seen merchants from the most distant 
 parts of the known world. Spain furnished arms, silk, and Cordovan leather; 
 while Germany, in return for the wines of France and spices of the East, 
 exported beer, cloth, and metals. 
 
 In England the charter of John, 1215, declared a uniformity of weights and 
 measures; and in 1331, Edward III. endeavoured to bring from the Low 
 Countries a number of the discontented weavers. In the thirty-seventh year 
 of his reign, it was enacted that every merchant or artificer worth ,£500 in 
 goods and chattels might dress like a squire of £100 a-year, and so on in a 
 rising scale. In 1348, Spanish horses of Arabian breed were exchanged for 
 sheep ; a barter which created new sources of wealth in both countries. Agri¬ 
 culture especially flourished in England ; and it is to this triple combination of 
 commerce, manufactures, and rural economy that she is indebted for her 
 splendour and power. - 
 
 Woollen Trade .—The introduction into England of the important manu¬ 
 facture of woollen cloth was the work of Edward III. Flanders had previously 
 been the great centre of the trade, whence, by the institution of yearly.fairs, 
 960, all continental Europe was supplied. English wool had long been exported 
 to the Netherlands, but principally by German and Italian merchants. Henry 
 I. had endeavoured to establish manufactures of fine wool in 1111, by a settle¬ 
 ment of Flemings at Ross in Pembrokeshire. The abuses of monopoly, and 
 the tumults to which they gave rise, drove many workmen from Holland and 
 Flanders into this kingdom, 1331, where they obtained such privileges as 
 encouraged them to resume their occupations. The serges of Ireland were 
 much esteemed in Italy in the fourteenth century, before which period the 
 woollen trade of Catalonia had been firmly established. 
 
 Fisheries .—The earliest authentic account of the herring-fishery on the coast 
 of Norway extends as far back as to 978. At the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century the Netherlands rivalled the Hanse Towns, not only in their woollen 
 manufactures, but in their method of pickling herrings, a superiority which 
 they attained about the time of the removal of the great shoal from the 
 southern shores of the Baltic, first to those of Denmark and Norway, and, in 
 1394, to that of Britain. 
 
 IVawzZ Code. —The first maritime code was that of Rhodes, wnich was revived 
 
APPENDIX TO PART SECOND. 
 
 345 
 
 in that of Amalfi. Richard I. of England is supposed to have drawn up the 
 laws of Oleron, 1194 ; but the code of Barcelona, 1255, became the fundamental 
 law of commerce. Some such regulations were necessary to prevent piracy 
 and the barbarous custom of reprisals. 
 
 Banks , <$ -c. —The silver mines of Misnia, discovered in 698, afforded a more 
 convenient means of trading than by barter. The modern funding system dates 
 from 1175, when a forced loan was raised at Venice. General letters of credit 
 are mentioned about 12.00 ; bills of exchange were known in 1255 ; and the first 
 bank of exchange and deposit was established at Barcelona, 1401. In 1236, an 
 attempt was made in China to introduce a paper currency for the relief of the 
 government, but it failed from the want of public confidence. 
 
 Gunpowder. —The manufacture of gunpowder was known to the Chinese 
 about a. d. 85 ; but no traces of it are discoverable in Europe before the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, when it is said to have been used by the Spanish 
 Moors in defence of the city of Niebla, 1249. Cannon appear to have been 
 first employed by the King of Granada, when he besieged Baza in 1312; and 
 by Edward III. at Cressy, 1346. Muskets were introduced about 1411, and 
 bombs in 1450. 
 
 Printing. —The art of printing with moveable types was invented about the 
 middle of the fifteenth century ; but its origin is involved in much uncertainty, 
 no less than fifteen cities and a greater number ef individuals laying claim to 
 the honour. The taking of impressions from engraved blocks or plates is very 
 ancient, and was known to the Babylonians and Romans. The Chinese are 
 supposed to have made much progress in this art before the tenth century. 
 Guttenburg of Strasburg, Faust, and Schceffer, however their pretensions may 
 be confused, consummated this valuable discovery. The first printed book was 
 a Latin Bible, 1450-1455, known as the “ Mazarin Bible,” from a copy having 
 been discovered at Paris in the library of the Cardinal Mazarin. The first 
 work printed in England was executed at Oxford, 1468, three years before 
 Caxton began to print in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The Great Plague. —An extraordinary continuance of heavy rain-storms in 
 the winter of 1345 and the following spring, by causing the almost entire failure 
 of the harvests in Europe, produced a severe famine, which rendered the popu¬ 
 lation very susceptible of contagion. The great plague raged in every country 
 of Europe, carrying off nearly three-fifths of the inhabitants. It began in the 
 Levant about 1346, and thence extended to Sicily, Pisa, and Genoa: the suffer¬ 
 ings of Florence gave occasion to the Decameron of Boccaccio. In 1348, it 
 spread over France and Spain, reaching Britain the next year. In 1350, it 
 coasted Germany and other northern states, continuing generally about five 
 months in each country. 
 
 Gipsies. —In the year 1417, the gipsies first appeared in Moldavia^ Wallachia, 
 and Hungary. It is extremely probable that the terror spread by Tamerlane’s 
 invasion of India, 1408, drove out many of the inhabitants, and that these are 
 the Zingari (Wanderers), known as Bohemians in France, and ’Gipsies (t*. e. 
 Egyptians) in England. 
 
 Revival of the Arts and Learning . —The revival of the fine arts illumined the 
 close of the Middle Ages. The church of St. Mark at Venice was completed 
 in 1071 ; Notre Dame in Paris was founded 1163, and occupied 100 years in 
 building; Westminster Chapel was rebuilt by Henry III. in 1220; the dome 
 or cathedral of Pisa was the first model of the Tuscan order; Cimabue, born 
 at Florence 1240, was the restorer of oil-painting; while his pupil Giotto intro¬ 
 duced rules and added dignity to the art. The gardens of Lorenzo de Medici, 
 filled with the precious remains of antiquity, were the nursery of men of genius, 
 and particularly of Michael Angelo, who attained the highest eminence in 
 painting, sculpture, and architecture. Finiguerra, in 1460, or rather Baldini, 
 invented the art of engraving ;* and by 1600, the sublime and graceful produc¬ 
 tions of Raphael were accurately transferred to paper. 
 
 ♦This is doubtful, as plates are to be found in the different cabinets of Europe of 
 as early a date as 1440. Wood-engraving made great progress in Germany about the 
 
346 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 From the fall of Rome to the time of Charlemagne there was a long period 
 of violence and ignorance ; during which the islands of Britain and Ireland 
 claim the honour of sheltering the exiled learning of Europe. Situated beyond 
 the iimits of the barbarian ravages, they afforded an asylum, from which the 
 students were again expelled by the maritime ravages of the Danes and North¬ 
 men, to diffuse their knowledge over the Empire of the West. The conventual 
 schools, established by Charlemagne, became the means of arresting the utter 
 decay of learning. 
 
 The dialects of France, Italy, and Portugal, are derived from one common 
 source; for “ Rome imposed not only her yoke but her language upon con¬ 
 quered nations.” The progressive corruption of the Latin language by the 
 adoption of foreign words, and by the loss of many works of standard authority, 
 conduced to the formation and peculiarities of its several derivatives. Still it 
 did not cease to be spoken in France until the eighth century; but in 813, we 
 find the Romance tongue completely established. In Italy, the change appears 
 to have taken place earlier 
 
 With the disuse of Latin all the learned pursuits were abandoned, and the 
 establishment of Christianity alone preserved the remains of ancient literature, 
 which found refuge in the monastic institutions. The first great step towards 
 a revival of letters appeared in the foundation of universities. Paris, in 
 1100, became famous by the teaching of William of Champeaux, and of his 
 rival Abelard. Oxford was a flourishing school about 1200, and Cambridge 
 was incorporated in 1231. Bologna claims a higher antiquity. These seats 
 of the muses owed their reputation to the “scholastic philosophy”—an intri¬ 
 cate web of logical and metaphysical subtleties, founded on die dialetics of 
 Aristotle. 
 
 In the twelfth century the Romance language separated into the Langue 
 d ’ Oc and the Langue d' Oil, Provencal and Northern French. The celebrated 
 Troubadours now appeared ; and the Floral games of Toulouse and the Courts 
 of Love attracted the chivalry of Europe. French, properly so called, began 
 to be spoken prior to 1100, and England was the earliest school of its literature, 
 and the resort of the Norman trouveurs. 
 
 The English language was formed at a later period than either of the above- 
 mentioned dialects ; the earliest tolerable writer was the author of Piers Plow¬ 
 man’s Vision. Wickliffe first displayed the copiousness and energy of the 
 language; and Geoffrey Chaucer, born in 1328, is justly esteemed the father 
 of English poetry. 
 
 The oldest Italian poet is not earlier than the year 1193. Dante, the first 
 great one of modern Italy, was born 1265 ; his noble poem, the Divine Comedy, 
 was written in exile. He died in the year 1321. Petrarch followed at an 
 interval of eighty-three years, 1304, and gave a polish to the language which 
 the other had formed. He was among the first to urge the study of Greek 
 literature, and was successful in recovering many of the treasures of the 
 ancient classics. Boccaccio, born 1313, kindled his poetic ardour at the tomb 
 of Virgil; but he is more justly famous as the father of Italian prose composi¬ 
 tion. About this period the French commenced turning their old metrical 
 romances into prose—an evidence that the prosaic genius of their dialect began 
 to be felt. The language and poetry of Spain were not developed before the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 The arrival of Barlaan, a Calabrian monk, at Avignon was an epoch in 
 literary history. He read Plato and Homer with Petrarch, whose example 
 attracted the attention of Italy. Cosmo de Medici established an academy at 
 Florence about 1450, solely for the study of Plato : Nicholas V., on the con 
 trary, favoured the philosophy of Aristotle. The progress of learning was 
 facilitated by the invention of linen paper in the thirteenth century, and public 
 libraries were soon afterwards formed. To Poggio we are indebted for the 
 
 end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries under Albert Durer and 
 his masters. 
 
APPENDIX TO PART SECOND. 
 
 347 
 
 discovery of Quintilian, Lucretius, twelve comedies of Plautus, and other 
 works. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 contributed greatly to the spread 
 of Greek literature in the West, by the dispersion of its iearned men. A pro¬ 
 fessorship of Greek was established at Oxford under Henry VII., and another 
 at Paris in 1458. The cause of learning was supported by Laurentius Valla, 
 Leonardo Aretino, Politian, and the learned printer Manutius Aldus. 
 
 Domestic Manners , fyc. The increasing wealth and foreign commerce of 
 Europe naturally led to greater refinements in domestic life. When other and 
 more direct testimony is wanting, we may, in certain respects, judge of the 
 progress of society by the sumptuary laws, the chief part of which, extending 
 both to the table and the wardrobe, were enacted in the fourteenth century. 
 In France these provisions were continued down to 1700. The history of civil 
 architecture gives a striking insight into the advancement of social comforts. 
 The high gloomy keeps, with their narrow loopholes, gradually yielded to the 
 castle and the palace, in which the large arched windows are evidences at 
 once of internal quiet and magnificence. The houses of the gentry were 
 usually built of wood or of stones rough from the quarry. Brick buildings 
 first appear in the fourteenth century. The ordinary mansion-houses were 
 small and inconvenient; a passage extended through the house, with a hall 
 and parlour on one side, and on the other the kitchen and offices, with one or 
 two chambers above. In France, traces of fortified castles {chateaux) remain; 
 while in Italy, although in several towns the houses were covered with thatch, 
 there was a greater degree of elegance in the buildings. Chimneys did not 
 come into general use before the. middle of the fourteenth century ; and in 
 France, not before the middle of the seventeenth. They were not introduced 
 into the Cheshire farm-houses until the early part of Elizabeth’s reign, the fire 
 being in the middle of the house against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under 
 the same roof with the family. Neither in France nor in England was window- 
 glass introduced before the fourteenth century, and during the middle ages 
 glazed windows appear to have been an article of moveable furniture. Beds 
 were extremely rare; the walls of. the rooms were naked ; there were no 
 libraries or pictures; silver cups and spoons were almost the only articles of 
 plate. Chairs and looking-glasses were scarcely known; window-shutters 
 and curtains were great luxuries even in 1539. 
 
 The condition of agriculture in England had been gradually improving since 
 the Norman conquest. During the long reign of the Plantagenets, woods 
 were cleared, marshes drained, and parochial enclosures made, so that, under 
 Edward III., there was a great extent of land cultivated; the northern and 
 western parts, however, being the most backward. The culture of the arable 
 soil was very imperfect, nine or ten bushels of wheat being a fair average crop 
 to an acre. Such land was rented at about sixpence an acre, though meadow- 
 ground was double or triple that sum. To augment their revenues, the land¬ 
 lords procured a repeal of the act forbidding the exportation of corn, 15th 
 Henry VI., so long as wheat did not exceed 6s. 8d. a-quarter, and barley 3s. 
 Under Edward IV. the usual price of land was ten years’ purchase. But to 
 form precise notions on this subject, we must be acquainted with the relative 
 value of money. Before the debasement of the coin in 1301, the ordinary price 
 of a quarter of wheat was about 4s., that of barley and oats being in proportion. 
 A sheep was dear at one shilling, and an ox at ten or twelve. By a com¬ 
 parative table of English money, drawn up by Sir F. Eden, it appears that the 
 value of a pound sterling of our present coinage was worth at the Conquest 
 £2, 18s. l^d., whence it gradually decreased until it reached 4s 7|d. in 1551 ; 
 but the next year it rose to £1, Os. 6fd. With few variations, until the 43d of 
 Elizabeth, it continued as at present. Sir John Fortescue speaks of £5 a year 
 as “ a fair living for a yeomanin 1514, the expense of a scholar at the uni¬ 
 versity was but £5 a-year, or about £60 of our money ; and earlier, in 1476, 
 we find fourpence (our five shillings) given as a fee to a barrisler for his dinner. 
 Here we must consider the change in manners and the usual mode of living. 
 Little wine was drunk; there were no foreign luxuries; male servants were 
 kept chiefly for husbandry; and landed estates were nearly exempt froir 
 
348 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 taxation. The condition of the labouring classes, in the reign of Edward III. 
 or Henry VI., was better than at present. In the fourteenth century a harvest¬ 
 man had fourpence a-day, thus enabling him in a week to buy a coom of 
 wheat, which, at the average of the last twenty years, would now cost about 
 28s. In 1350, reapers’ wages were fixed by law at threepence a-day, without 
 food, equal to 5s. at present; in 1424, at fivepence, equal to 6s. 8d.; those of 
 ordinary workmen being somewhat less. In 1444, a head-shepherd had £1, 
 4s. a year, equivalent to about <£20, and in their ordinary diet labourers used a 
 good deal of animal food. 
 
 Consult: Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. ix. pp. 1 and 2; and Millar’s Lectures 
 on the Philosophy of History, vol. iv. lect. 38-40. 
 
 END OP PART II.-MIDDLE AGES. 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 MODERN HISTORY 
 
 PROM THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 V 
 
 The great historical and political events which characterize this Iasi 
 period of Universal History were brought about by many concurrent 
 circumstances, sufficiently united in respect of date to form a marked 
 difference between the middle ages and the events of modern times. 
 The introduction of the mariner’s compass was followed, though at a 
 long interval, by the discovery of America and by the circumnavigation 
 of Africa; while the invention of printing prepared the way for the intel¬ 
 lectual and religious changes effected by Luther in the sixteenth century. 
 
 In considering the actual state of Europe, we must not forget the 
 influence of race and language. The nations of the South, with their 
 Roman habits and dialects, were in almost constant opposition to those 
 of the North, whose language and manners were of Germanic origin. 
 In the West, civilisation was rapidly developed, and carried to the most 
 distant countries, whereas in the East, the people, chiefly of Sclavonic 
 lineage, were too much engaged in opposing the barbarians to make 
 any great progress in the arts of peace. Similar causes will also 
 account for the backwardness of the Scandinavian tribes, who were so 
 far removed from the influence of refinement. 
 
 In all the nations of Gothic descent, which alone were strictly under 
 the feudal law, a powerful middle class arose by degrees, and supported 
 the kings against the barons. But the struggle was long and severe ere 
 the people triumphed. In the middle jof the fifteenth century, feudal¬ 
 ism was dominant in the Empire; it had humbled the Castilian 
 monarchs, and preserved its supremacy in Portugal, England, and 
 Naples ; in Scotland it was attacked by the sovereigns ; while in France, 
 Charles VIII., successful in recovering those provinces conquered by 
 the English, paved the way for its abolition ; and, before the end of the 
 century, Ferdinand of Spain, Henry VII. of England, and Louis XL of 
 France, had established the royal power on its ruins. Sweden, which 
 had been united to Denmark during sixty years, broke the union of Cal- 
 mar ; Russia emancipated herself from the Tartar yoke ; and the Teu¬ 
 tonic order of knights became the vassals of Poland. Durincr the time 
 the emperor was busied in founding the greatness of his house, and 
 Germany in repairing the evils inflicted by her political and religious 
 wars, all the Eastern states were menaced by the Turks, whom the 
 Hungarians at length arrested in their victorious career. By the middle 
 of the sixteenth century, the Reformed doctrines were already spread 
 30 (349) 
 
350 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 throughout Europe, particularly in France, England, Scotland, and the 
 Low Countries. Spain alone remained closed against them, and be¬ 
 came their most determined adversary. 
 
 The Eastern and Northern states did not long remain strangers to the 
 European republics. During the rivalry of Francis I. and Charles VI., 
 Turkey was identified with the European system; and at the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, Sweden interfered in a resolute manner in 
 the affairs of her southern neighbours. It w^as now that France assumed 
 a high position; and Louis XIV. dictated to Europe so long as his an¬ 
 tagonists were composed of the divided Empire, Holland, and Spain, 
 then almost ruined ; but his influence and power were eclipsed so soon 
 as William III., in 1688, ascended the British throne, and was enabled 
 to wield the extensive resources of his new kingdom. In concert with 
 Holland, the English destroyed the pretensions of France to the dominion 
 of the sea, and, in union with Austria, confined her within her proper 
 limits, though they could not prevent the establishment of a Bourbon 
 on the Spanish throne. Sweden was the principal northern power: 
 twice she effected considerable conquests, but was too feeble to maintain 
 a lasting supremacy. Her career, too, was checked by Russia, which 
 eventually attained the superiority she has ever since preserved. 
 
 The beginning of the eighteenth century was marked by the formation 
 of the kingdoms of Prussia and Sardinia. The colonial wars, one of the 
 characteristics of this period, furnished England with an opportunity of 
 destroying the navies of France and Spain, and of asserting her power 
 over the neutral states. The revolution of her American dependencies 
 threatened her influence, and terminated in the loss of these important 
 settlements; but, presenting a determined front to her enemies, she 
 founded in the East an empire of vast wealth and extent. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century, war raged throughout the 
 greater part of Europe ; and the very foundations of society were shaken 
 by the most terrible revolution on record. The political w r hirlwind 
 spread from France over Europe, leaving in all directions the deepest 
 marks of its progress. But as storms and tempests serve to purify the 
 atmosphere, so good has, in the political world, sprung out of what ap¬ 
 peared to be unmingled evil. Constitutional monarchies are everywhere 
 established, or the way is rapidly preparing for them; and the influence 
 of the middle class is more directly felt in the governments both of 
 England and France. 
 
 , SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Britain and Ireland. —1509, Henry VIII.— 1513, Battle of Flodden; James 
 V. — 1514, Wolsey. — 1527, Anne Boleyn. — 1536, First Suppression of 
 Monasteries.— 1542, Mary, Queen of Scotland.— 1547, Edward VI.— 1553, 
 Mary.— 1558, Elizabeth.— 1587, Queen of Scotland beheaded.— 1588, Spanish 
 Armada defeated.— 1598, Irish Revolt. 
 
 France. — 1508, League of Cambray against Venice.— 1512, Battle of Ravenna. 
 — 1515, Francis I. — 1520, Field of Cloth of Gold. — 1544, Battle of Cerri- 
 soles ; Boulogne taken by the English. — 1545, Massacre of the Vaudois. —- 
 1558, Calais recovered.— 1560, Charles IX.— 1572, Massacre of St. Bartho- 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 351 
 
 lomew.—1574, Henry III.—1588, States of Blois.—1589, Henry IV.—1598, 
 Edict of Nantes. 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —1501, Naples conquered by French. — 1503, Battle of 
 Cerignola; 1525, of Pavia.—1537, Cosmo de Medici.—1547, Fieschi’s Con¬ 
 spiracy.—1580, Charles Emanuel of Savoy.—1585, Pope Sixtus V. 
 
 Spanish Peninsula. — 1500, Charles V. born; Ximenes. — 1539, Last Casti¬ 
 lian Cortes.—1555, Philip II.—1557, Sebastian of Portugal.—1578, Henry I. 
 of Portugal.—1596, Cadiz taken by the English. 
 
 United Provinces. —1568, Death of Counts Egmont and Horn.—1579, Union 
 of Utrecht.—1584, Prince of Orange murdered.—1597, Victory of Turnhout. 
 Germany. —1501, Aulic Council.—1517, Luther.—1519, Charles V. Emperor. 
 —1530, Diet of Augsburg.—1535, Anabaptist War.—1545, Council of Trent. 
 —1552, Treaty of Passau.—1556, Ferdinand I.; 1564, Maximilian II.; 1576, 
 Rudolph II. 
 
 Hungary and Bohemia. —1490, Ladislaus.—1516, Louis II.—1526, Battle of 
 Mohaz ; John Zapoli and Ferdinand.—1541, John Sigismund.—1548, Here¬ 
 ditary Succession of Bohemia.—1566, Turkish Invasion. 
 
 Poland and Russia. —1506, Sigismund I. king of Poland.—1519, Polish War 
 against Teutonic Order.—1533, Ivan IV.—1550, New Code.—1573, Henry 
 of Valois.—1581, Conquest of Siberia.—1598, End of Rurik Dynasty. 
 Denmark, SwedExV, and Norway. —1448, Christian II. —1523, Gustavus 
 Vasa. — 1534, Christian III. — 1560, Eric of Sweden. — 1592, Sigismund of 
 Poland. 
 
 The East. —1501, Ismael Sophi, King of Persia.—1512, Selim I.—1515, Mogul 
 Empire in the East Indies.—1521, Belgrade taken.—1522, Siege of Rhodes. 
 —1548, War with Persia.—1553, Roxalana.—1571, Battle of Lepanto.— 
 1574, Amurath III.—1585, Shah Abbas. 
 
 Colonies. — 1500, Brazil discovered. — 1503, Portuguese first established in 
 India. —1508, West Indies. — 1513, Discovery of the South Sea. — 1526, 
 Pizarro in Peru.—1584, Virginia, the First English Colony.—1586, Davis’ 
 Straits. 
 
 The Church.— 1517, Luther.—1525, Capuchin Order.—1530, Confession of 
 Augsburg.—1533, Calvinists.—1534, English Reformation.—1540, Jesuits. 
 —1545, Council of Trent.— 1546, Socinians.—1552, St. Francis Xavier.— 
 1568, Bull in Ccena Domini ,— 1572, Massacre of St. Bartholomew. — 1580, 
 Chinese Mission. 
 
 Inventions, &c.—1517, Gun-locks.—1538, Lotteries.—1548, Balance Wheel. 
 —1582, Reformed Calendar; Oil-Painting. —1593, Telescope and Ther¬ 
 mometer. 
 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 England.— In 1501 and 1502 were concluded two marriages which 
 led to important results in after-times. Arthur, prince of Wales, son of 
 Henry V II., having espoused Catherine of Aragon, fourth daughter of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, and dying six months afterwards, his brother, 
 afterwards Henry A III., accepted the hand of the widow; while Mar¬ 
 garet, eldest daughter of Henry VII., married James IV. of Scotland, 
 thereby transmitting rights to her descendants which at length placed 
 the Stuart family on the English throne. 
 
352 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Henry VIII. succeeded his father in the year 1509, at the age of 
 eighteen. His accession to the throne excited transports of joy in the 
 nation, which had been dissatisfied with the parsimonious habits of his 
 predecessor. The treasures amassed by the latter furnished the young 
 king with immense resources ; the chief potentates of the Continent 
 sought his alliance ; the treaties with France were made perpetual; and 
 nothing was thought wanting to his happiness. The celebrated W'olsey 
 now first appeared on«the theatre of politics; and, soon after his intro¬ 
 duction to Henry, became the most influential member of the privy- 
 council, and was considered prime-minister. Although older than his 
 majesty, he made it his study to flatter and subserve the natural disposi¬ 
 tion of his master for luxury and every kind of pleasure. Henry speedi¬ 
 ly dissipated in tournaments and banquets the wealth left by his parent; 
 and turned his attention to political intrigues and active warfare. Pope 
 Julius II., eager to expel the French, whom, in virtue of the league of 
 Cambray, he had introduced into Italy, spared no means to gain his 
 support. He succeeded so far as to interrupt the friendly relations with 
 Louis XII., and the English king in person led an army into Flanders, 
 where he took Terouenne, and routed the enemy at Guinegate, in the 
 Battle of the Spurs. In Scotland, the arms of Henry were not less 
 successful; and James IV., the Scottish monarch, was entirely defeated 
 and slain at Flodden in 1513. But finding at length that he had been 
 the dupe of the Pope, he concluded a treaty with Louis XII., giving 
 him in marriage his sister Mary, 1514. 
 
 Francis I. renewed the treaties of his predecessors, and Wolsey 
 seized on this opportunity of making himself agreeable to the French 
 ruler, whose influence he required at Rome to obtain a cardinal’s hat, 
 the object of his ambition. The crafty churchman, however, took ad¬ 
 vantage of the success gained by his patron at Marignano to alarm 
 Henry as to the effect of the victories of the young and warlike sovereign. 
 The long rivalry between Francis I. and Charles V., consequent on the 
 elevation of the latter to the imperial dignity, for which Henry had him¬ 
 self been a candidate, brought the English monarch into the quarrel, in 
 the first instance, as the ally of the emperor. 
 
 Discussions of a very different character soon engrossed the attention 
 of the English monarch. Henry, who piqued himself greatly on his 
 theological abilities, was indignant at the contempt with which Luther 
 had treated Thomas Aquinas. In support of his favourite author, he 
 composed “ A Treatise in Defence of the Seven Sacraments,” which 
 was presented to the Pope, who, besides comparing it to the writings of 
 Jerome and Augustin, gratified the king with the title of “ Defender of 
 the Faith,” 1521. In return, the royal author, who was not inaccessible 
 to the voice of praise, entered readily into the league against the King 
 of France. 
 
 The English invaded Picardy, and advanced to within eleven leagues 
 of Paris, when the defeat and capture of Francis at Pavia in 1525, 
 altered the policy of their sovereign. His intercession between the 
 captive and Charles led to new conventions between England and 
 France, whereby Henry gave up all pretensions to the crown of the 
 latter country, which his predecessors had claimed since the reign of 
 Edward III. 
 
 In 1527, Henry was seized with a passion for Anne Boleyn, one of 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 353 
 
 the queen’s maids of honour; and he seems to have early formed the 
 design of getting rid of Catherine, and making this new favourite his 
 wife. The quarrel between Pope Clement VII. and Charles V. appear¬ 
 ed to Henry a favourable moment for accomplishing his purpose. Pro¬ 
 posals to annul the marriage had been ineffectually made to the Pope 
 several months before Anne appeared at court, when the king’s determi¬ 
 nation assumed all the violence natural to his character. Affecting to 
 have scruples as to the lawfulness of his union with Catherine, and 
 adopting the express language of the Book of Leviticus, he forwarded 
 a theological treatise on the subject to Clement, who, pressed on the 
 one side by a prince whom he was desirous of conciliating, and on the 
 other by the emperor whom he feared, promised and temporized, in the 
 hope that the passion of the former would cool. But this delay only 
 irritated Henry’s impatient temper, and, after a disgraceful scene before 
 the two legates, he banished the unfortunate Catherine from court, 1529. 
 Meanwhile the Pope had become reconciled with Charles V., at whose 
 instigation the case was transferred to Rome. For this change the king 
 held Wolsey responsible, who, overwhelmed with sudden disgrace, was 
 stripped of his immense riches, and died of a broken heart, 1530. His 
 place was soon supplied by Cranmer, under whose advice Henry con¬ 
 sulted the principal universities of Europe, the majority of which were 
 favourable to his wishes; and to annoy and weaken the clergy, he in¬ 
 cluded them in the charge previously brought against the cardinal, of 
 violating the statute of “ praemunire.”* A convocation was immediate¬ 
 ly summoned, and £100,000 were offered for a full pardon, which 
 Henry, who had now resolved on entirely subverting the papal au¬ 
 thority, refused unless he were acknowledged “ Supreme Head of the 
 Church in England.” Having attained his object, he secretly married 
 Anne Boleyn, 1533 ; and after publicly acknowledging his new wife, 
 had her crowned with great ceremony so soon as Cranmer, now raised 
 to the see of Canterbury, could pronounce the sentence of divorce 
 against Catherine. The parliament ratified the marriage with Anne, 
 and declared Mary, the issue of the previous union, illegitimate. It 
 also formally annulled the pontifical authority, and conferred on the 
 king the title of “ Supreme Head of the Anglican Church,” with most 
 of the spiritual prerogatives previously exercised by the Pope. 
 
 In separating from the Romish communion, Henry pretended still to 
 be orthodox. Believing himself absolute master of the minds of his 
 subjects as well as of their bodies, he changed the discipline of the 
 church, but retained its doctrines. In his eyes it was equally criminal 
 to believe in the Pope or in Luther; and those of either party who were 
 unable to disguise their sentiments, were punished alike. In 1535, two 
 illustrious victims, Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, perished on 
 the scaffold for refusing to take the oath of supremacy; and at the same 
 time, Protestants were dragged to the stake for speaking against the 
 sacraments of the Roman church. The monks, whose credit had fallen 
 with the power of the pontiff, detested the sacrilege which they conceived 
 
 *This law, which is still in force, was passed during the disputes of Richard II. with 
 the papacy, and enacts, that if any man shall seek or obtain, in the court of Rome or 
 elsewhere, any translations of bishops from their present sees to other sees out of the 
 kingdom ; any excommunications, bulls, or other instruments against the king’s crown 
 and dignity ; that his goods and chattels, lands and tenements, shall be forfeited to the 
 crown, and his body imprisoned. 
 
 30* 
 
354 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 the king to have committed; and, on the other hand, Henry regarded 
 them as his principal enemies, whom it was necessary to destroy. For 
 this purpose, Cromwell, his secretary, was appointed “royal vicegerent 
 and vicar-general,” with orders to visit by his commissioners the con¬ 
 vents of both sexes throughout the kingdom. Though time had intro¬ 
 duced abuses and disorders into these institutions, the visiters published 
 an exaggerated relation of them.* The parliament immediately made 
 a first step towards the entire destruction of the religious orders, by sup¬ 
 pressing all monasteries whose yearly income did not exceed £200 ster¬ 
 ling. By this measure, 380 communities were abolished, whose total 
 revenue amounted to £32,000, besides plate and jewels to the value of 
 £ 100 , 000 . 
 
 Soon after these arbitrary proceedings, the queen was suddenly arrested 
 and conveyed to the Tower, being accused of adultery and high treason. 
 Seventeen days saw~ Anne Boleyn pass from the throne to the scaffold. 
 There is no doubt that her vivacity and freedom of manner had given 
 rise to suspicion ; but the best exculpation of her character is to be found 
 in Henry’s marriage with Jane Seymour, one of her maids of honour, on 
 the day succeeding Anne’s execution, 1536. During these transactions, 
 the violent religious changes had excited great discontent, particularly 
 in the north of England, where several revolts broke out. Thirty thou¬ 
 sand of the malcontents marched towards London; but they were dis¬ 
 persed, and the principal leaders executed. These commotions increased 
 the king’s dislike to the monks, whom he not unjustly accused of being 
 the secret agents of the insurrection. To crush them entirely, he deter¬ 
 mined to destroy all the remaining religious communities. The parlia¬ 
 ment readily passed the necessary measures; and the annual revenue of 
 the crown was augmented by an addition of £160,000. 
 
 In the midst of his hostility to the Romish church, Henry never failed 
 in his zeal to uphold its dogmas. The parliament, becoming daily more 
 servile, approved of his intolerance by the famous bill of the Six Arti¬ 
 cles, called the Bloody Statute,—a law which asserted the real presence 
 and communion of one kind, forbade the marriage of priests, admitted 
 vows of chastity 7 , and declared the utility of private masses, with the 
 necessity of auricular confession. Any violation of the first article was 
 punishable with death; and for the others, the penalties were confisca¬ 
 tion of property and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. To crown 
 all, the same parliament gave to the king’s proclamations the force of 
 statute law. 
 
 In 1540, Henry, left a widower by the death of his queen, Jane Sey¬ 
 mour, who died in 1537, twelve days after giving birth to a son, subse¬ 
 quently Edward VI., contracted a new marriage with Anne, daughter 
 of the Duke of Cleves. His union with this princess, whose personal 
 appearance did not correspond with Cromwell’s flattering description, 
 led to the destruction of that favourite, whose sudden exaltation and 
 tyrannical conduct had caused him to be generally hated. The king 
 gave him over to his enemies, by r whom he was accused of heresy and 
 high treason; the very parliament which condemned him to death hav- 
 
 * The substance of these charges has never been impeached ; and their existence is in 
 a measure confirmed by similar imputations attached to monastic institutions even of 
 these later days in Italy and Spain, as may be seen in the life of Scipio Ricci, bishop of 
 Pistoia. 
 
 \ 
 
 r 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 855 
 
 ing, but a few days before, declared him worthy to be the “ vicar-gene¬ 
 ral of the universe.” The disgrace of this high officer was followed by 
 the divorce of the queen ; and in less than a month Henry married a niece 
 of the Duke of Norfolk, Lady Catherine Howard, who was decapitated 
 eighteen months afterwards on a charge of incontinence before and after 
 marriage. The king next espoused Catherine Parr, widow of Lord 
 Latimer. A revolt in Ireland, hostilities and negotiations with Scotland, 
 and a war with France, occupied the latter years of his reign. 
 
 As Henry was descended from the Welsh Tudors, he naturally di¬ 
 rected his attention to the country of his ancestors, which was a prey 
 to all the disorders of feudal anarchy, and where his proclamations were 
 without force. In 1536, it was enacted that the whole of Wales should 
 be incorporated with England, being made subject to the same laws, 
 and authorized to send to parliament a member for every county. 
 
 In Ireland, the religious innovations countenanced by the government 
 had excited so profound a sensation as to unite in one common cause 
 the natives and the settlers, hitherto apparently irreconcilable enemies. 
 But O’Neill, the head of the insurgents, having been defeated, the other 
 chiefs submitted to the royal authority. In 1542, that country was 
 raised from a lordship to a kingdom, and several of the most powerful 
 leaders created earls, among whom O’Neil received the title of Tyrone. 
 Lastly, some regulations for the administration of justice completed its 
 pacification, and the power of the English had never appeared more 
 firmly established since the invasion of Henry II. 
 
 The king, finding his authority confirmed in England and Ireland, 
 wished to extend his influence into Scotland, and oblige his nephew, 
 James V., to adopt his religious opinions and declare war against France. 
 An invasion by an English army produced no other effect than the burn¬ 
 ing of a few villages; and the death of the Scottish sovereign, in 1542, 
 led to a cessation of hostilities. Henry was now at leisure to turn his 
 attention to France, whither he sent a numerous army, which took 
 Boulogne. After the defection of Charles V. from his alliance, the war 
 continued two years longer, but was not marked by any memorable 
 event. In virtue of the treaty of 1546, Henry retained his conquests 
 until certain sums of money owing by the enemy were paid. „ 
 
 The end of this extraordinary monarch now rapidly approached ; and 
 his death, on the 28th of January 1547, saved the life of the Duke of 
 Norfolk, who had been condemned to be executed the following morn¬ 
 ing. 
 
 Hallam thus describes Henry’s,rule and character: — A government ad¬ 
 ministered with so frequent violations not only of the chartered privileges of 
 Englishmen, but of those still more sacred rights which national law has 
 established, must have been regarded, one would imagine, with just abhorrence 
 and earnest longings for a change. Yet contemporary authorities by no means 
 answer to this expectation, some mentioning Henry after his death in language 
 of eulogy. I do not indeed believe that he had really conciliated his people’s 
 affection ; for that perfect fear which attended him must have cast out love. 
 But he had a few qualities that deserve esteem, and several which a nation is 
 pleased to behold in a sovereign. He was without dissimulation ; his manners 
 were affable, and his temper generous. Though his schemes of foreign policy 
 were not very sagacious, and his wars productive of no material advantage, yet 
 ffiey were uniformly successful, and retrieved the honour of the English name. 
 But the main cause of the reverence with which our forefathers cherished this 
 king’s memory, was the share he had taken in the Reformation. They saw 
 
856 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 in hin? not indeed the proselyte of their faith, but the subverter of their enemies 
 power —the avenging minister of Heaven, by whose giant arm the chain of 
 superstition had been broken, and the prison burst asunder .—Constitutional 
 History of England , ch. i. 
 
 Read: Tytler’s Life of King Henry VIII. in Edinburgh Cabinet Library. 
 
 Edward VI. had not reached his tenth year when he ascended the 
 throne in 1547. Henry had fixed his majority at eighteen, and ap¬ 
 pointed sixteen executors, assisted by twelve counsellors, to carry on 
 the government in the meanwhile. But the young king’s uncle, the 
 ambitious Earl of Hertford, by securing a majority of the curators, was 
 appointed protector of the realm, and created Duke of Somerset. This 
 nobleman, being a zealous partisan of the new religious doctrines, edu¬ 
 cated Edward in Protestant principles, and concerted with Cranmer a 
 plan of general reform. Yet it was necessary to proceed with caution; 
 and the duke suspended for a time the episcopal authority, appointing 
 commissioners to visit the dioceses. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, 
 opposed these proceedings with all his influence; and to silence so 
 powerful an adversary, he was thrown into prison. 
 
 During this time Scotland was more than ever agitated. The murder 
 of Cardinal Beaton lighted up the flames of civil w T ar. The queen- 
 dowager, Mary of Lorraine, asked succour from France, and the Pro¬ 
 testant party had recourse to England. Somerset, who crossed the 
 Tweed at the head of 20,000 men, proposed to unite the two kingdoms 
 by the marriage of the young queen with Edward, and offered peace as 
 the condition. The battle of Pinkey, 1547, in w^hich more than 10,000 
 Scots were left on the field, followed the refusal. Instead of taking 
 advantage of this success, the victor returned to London, where cabals 
 were forming against him by his brother Lord Seymour, and Dudley, 
 earl of Warwick. To secure his popularity, he summoned a parliament, 
 which repealed the most hateful laws of Henry VIII., including the 
 statute of the Six Articles. Further, private masses were forbidden, and 
 the holy communion ordered to be administered in bread and wine, 
 while the nomination of bishops became one of the prerogatives of roy¬ 
 alty. In the following year, the parliament enacted that the mass 
 should be celebrated in English, adopted the reformed liturgy, and per¬ 
 mitted the marriage of priests. 
 
 Public attention was now directed to the struggles of the protector 
 against his brother Lord Seymour, who was one of his greatest enemies. 
 The ambition of the latter had been nourished by his marriage with 
 Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII., on whose death he had aspired 
 to the hand of the Princess Elizabeth. He had numerous partisans; 
 but being charged with plotting to carry off the king and change the 
 government, he was executed on the 20th March 1549. This, however, 
 did not terminate the protector’s embarrassments; for Catholic priests 
 had stirred up the peasants of Devonshire and Norfolk, and when these 
 insurrections were suppressed, he had to contend against the allied 
 Scotch and French army. Failing in obtaining foreign aid, and being 
 opposed by the powerful Warwick faction, Somerset fell rapidly from 
 his lofty station. He was accused of high crimes and misdemeanours, 
 and committed to the Tower; but his execution in 1552, and the title of 
 Duke of Northumberland conferred on Warwick, did not satisfy the lat* 
 ter nobleman, who aspired to the supreme authority, founding his ambi- 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 357 
 
 tious views on the delicate health of the king. He first persuaded Ed¬ 
 ward to change the order of succession, representing that Mary and 
 Elizabeth, having been declared illegitimate by the parliament, could 
 not ascend the throne; that the religion and birth of the Scottish queen 
 disqualified her; and that, consequently, the nearest heir was his cousin 
 the Marchioness of Dorset, eldest daughter of Mary, sister of Henry 
 VIII., by her second husband the duke of Suffolk, and after her, Lady 
 Jane Grey, the grand-granddaughter of Henry VII. While the council 
 were deliberating on this momentous question, Northumberland effected 
 the union of his fourth son, Guildford Dudley, with Lady Jane, and Ed¬ 
 ward VI. expired not long after, in the sixteenth year of his age, July 6, 
 1553. 
 
 Immediately on Edward’s decease, Northumberland proceeded to pro¬ 
 claim Lady Jane Grey; but Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII. by his 
 first queen, Catherine of Aragon, collected an army, asserted her claims, 
 and prevailed over her rival. The unfortunate Jane reigned only ten 
 days,—to her a period of sorrow and distress. The duke was beheaded 
 in 1553, and Lady Jane and her husband in the following year. 
 
 Mary had determined to re-establish the Roman Catholic worship, but 
 she proceeded cautiously, at first liberating Gardiner and other bishops 
 from prison,- and restoring them to the sees of which they had been 
 deprived; while of the reformed clergy great numbers were ejected. 
 Cranmer, doubly hateful to her for the share he had taken in the divorce 
 of her mother, and in the establishment of Protestantism, was accused 
 of favouring the party of Lady Jane Grey, and condemned for high trea¬ 
 son; but his execution did not take place till three years after. Parlia¬ 
 ment readily abolished the statutes of Edward VI. w’hich were in any¬ 
 wise favourable to the new doctrines, and restored affairs to the state in 
 which they were left by the death of Henry VIII., Mary retaining the 
 spiritual power and the title of the head of the church only until she 
 could restore both into the hands of the Pope. In order more surely to 
 accomplish her designs, she contracted a marriage with Philip, son of 
 the Emperor Charles V., in 1554. After a sojourn of fourteen months 
 in England, the prince returned to Flanders, and soon after inheriting the 
 crown of Spain, he thought no more of his queen. Thus was fortu¬ 
 nately defeated a deep-laid plot to transfer the kingdom under a foreign 
 yoke, and to crush the Protestant religion along with the national inde¬ 
 pendence. 
 
 In the new parliament, which assembled in November 1554, the entire 
 re-establishment of the Roman Catholic religion was agreed to, and 
 Cardinal Pole was sent from Rome to reconcile England to the holy 
 see. Worldly interest entered deeply into this religious change; for 
 those who had enriched themselves by the spoils of the church in the 
 two preceding reigns, exacted a confirmation of the abbey lands to their 
 new proprietors. Under the fanatical Gardiner, it was not to be expected 
 that heresy would pass unpunished. The number of persons who suf¬ 
 fered death by fire in Mary’s reign has been computed at 300, among 
 whom were Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Latimer, Hooper, and Ridley. 
 The Princess Elizabeth was confined in the Tower, on account of her 
 extensive influence among the Protestant party. The murmurs of the 
 people, the rapid progress of the Reformed doctrines, the indifference of 
 her husband, the loss of Calais, and the failure of an expedition to Brest, 
 
358 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 all preyed upon the queen’s spirits, and hastened her death. She expired 
 in 1558, leaving the kingdom to her sister. 
 
 Hallam sums up the character and reign of Mary in the following expressive 
 terms: — “Her reign was inglorious, her capacity narrow, and her temper 
 sanguinary; although conscientious in some respects, she was as capable of 
 dissimulation as her sister, and of breach of faith as her husband; she obsti¬ 
 nately and wilfully sacrificed her subjects’ affections and interest to a misplaced 
 and discreditable attachment; and the words with which Carte has concluded 
 the character of this unlamented sovereign are perfectly just: — * Having 
 reduced the nation to the brink of ruin, she left it, by her seasonable decease, 
 to be restored by her successor to its ancient prosperity and glory.’ ”— Const. 
 Hist. England. 
 
 Elizabeth had been brought up in the religion of her mother, Anne 
 Boleyn, and had with difficulty escaped from the trials of the preceding 
 reign. Misfortune served only to call forth the strength of her character. 
 In her long retirement, occupied in the study of ancient and modern lan¬ 
 guages, and in the pursuits of literature, she prepared herself for the 
 great task which Providence had reserved for her. 
 
 Although the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, and Henry’s marriage 
 with Anne Boleyn, had been ratified by parliament, yet as these acts 
 w T ere not acknowledged by the Pope, the zealous Catholics disputed 
 Elizabeth’s right of succession, and turned their eyes to Mary Stuart, 
 who inherited the claims of Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. 
 This princess, married to the dauphin of France, accordingly assumed 
 the title of Queen of England, and quartered the English arms with those 
 of Scotland and France. Elizabeth now decided upon establishing 
 Protestantism, as the safeguard of her throne; but her first steps were 
 marked by her characteristic caution and prudence. She published an 
 edict maintaining, until further orders, the services of religion in the 
 same form as at the death of Mary, and permitted the prayers and offices 
 to be read only in English. She was even consecrated by the Roman 
 Catholic bishop of Carlisle, 15th January 1559; but the parliament 
 which assembled ten days after abolished the papal supremacy, ordered 
 the Book of Common Prayer to be exclusively used, and that all clergy¬ 
 men should sw’ear to the new order of things. The bishops, with one 
 exception (Landaff), refused to take the required oath; but among the 
 inferior clergy, spread over nearly ten thousand parishes, there were not 
 found two hundred to follow their example. The Protestant Church 
 of England was thus established in its present form. 
 
 As Elizabeth’s greatest difficulties were to be expected from the oppo¬ 
 sition of the Catholics, she endeavoured to promote Protestant principles 
 in those states that were most in connexion with her own. In Scotland 
 the reformers had made great progress, animated by the zeal and elo¬ 
 quence of Knox; and the dissensions between the tw T o parties in that 
 kingdom were encouraged by Secretary Cecil, in order to weaken the 
 power of the queen, and destroy the influence of the French king, her 
 husband. The measures pursued were so successful, that when Mary 
 returned to Scotland in 1561, she was obliged to renounce all claims to 
 the English throne. Elizabeth now turned her view’s to the internal 
 improvement of her own dominions, and the success which accompanied 
 her labours excited the admiration of all Europe. 
 
 In 1563, a law w T as passed commanding all members of the House of 
 Commons, teachers, lawyers, and clerks, to take the oath of supremacy; 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 359 
 
 not long after which the Puritans separated from the estaoixshed church. 
 An ecclesiastical convocation was summoned to compose the national 
 creed, and the Thirty-nine Articles were drawn up, as they exist at the 
 
 present day. ' 
 
 The progress of affairs in Scotland was so adverse to Mary Stuart, 
 
 that she'was compelled to flee from her own subjects into England, 
 where she was immediately imprisoned on the plea of certain crimes 
 with which she was charged. The conferences at York and Hampton 
 Court, as to her participation in her husband’s murder, were far from 
 disproving her guilt; while the extensive combination in 1569, to marry 
 her to the°Duke of Norfolk, gave great disquietude to the cabinet. The 
 intrigues of this weak and ambitious nobleman were terminated by his 
 death on the scaffold in 1572. The Pope, Pius V., did not remain an 
 idle spectator of these transactions. He issued a bull, which, after enu¬ 
 merating Elizabeth’s crimes, declared her guilty of heresy, and an¬ 
 nounced that her subjects were absolved from their allegiance. This 
 edict, founded on the assumed right vested in the supreme pontiff to 
 depose kings-for heinous crimes against the church, was far more inju¬ 
 rious in its consequences to those whom it was intended to serve than 
 to the sovereign. It elicited two statutes for her security, punishing 
 with severity any intercourse with Rome, and all who ventured to deny 
 her title. The House of Commons even called for the trial of “ the pre¬ 
 tended Scottish queen.” 
 
 Elizabeth now began to enjoy tranquillity, her authority being firmly 
 established in England, and Scotland governed by her creature Morton. 
 Although herself a Protestant, she had not hitherto, from the unsettled 
 state of her affairs, interfered directly in the insurrection of the Low 
 Countries or the civil war in France. But in 1579, she beheld dangers 
 closing around her on every side. The first blow was the disgrace of 
 Morton, and the subsequent loss of her influence in Scotland. In 1578, 
 she had concluded a treaty with the states-general of Holland, professing 
 at the same time a desire to preserve friendly relations with Philip II., 
 notwithstanding that Drake, with a privateering squadron, was ravaging 
 the Spanish colonies of America. His majesty, to retaliate these indi¬ 
 rect hostilities of the English queen, sent a body of troops into Ireland, 
 1579. Her quiet was farther menaced by the plots of the Catholics, to 
 counteract which the Protestants formed a solemn association for her 
 defence against all enemies, foreign or domestic. Parliament banished 
 the Jesuits as well as the priests of the Romish communion, and forbade 
 their return under the penalties of high treason. 
 
 The alarm, whether real or feigned is uncertain, which Elizabeth felt 
 on account of Queen Mary, caused an increase of severity towards that 
 unfortunate princess. Her friends in England were consequently more 
 earnest in her cause, and plotted the assassination of their own sovereign. 
 A young man, named Babington, managed to open a correspondence 
 with the royal prisoner, which however did not long escape the vigi¬ 
 lance of Secretary Walsingham. Means were now found to implicate 
 Mary with the conspirators, and she was tried and condemned to death 
 by a special commission, 25th October, 1586. On the 8th of February, 
 in the following year, the sentence was carried into effect at Fotheringay 
 castle. Elizabeth affected grief and anger, put on mourning, and pun¬ 
 ished her secretary, Davison, for having allowed the execution to take 
 place without her orders. 
 
360 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 W hen the King of Scotland was informed of the death of his motner, 
 he testified the most viclent indignation ; but policy soon prevailed over 
 filial tenderness, and the prospect of one day succeeding Elizabeth in¬ 
 duced him to suppress his resentment. Philip II. had resolved on pun¬ 
 ishing the English queen for the aid she had given to the Low Coun¬ 
 tries, and the eyes of all Europe were fixed on his armaments; but 
 before the preparations were completed, Drake, at the head of a gallant 
 squadron, burnt a great number of Spanish ships in sight of Lisbon and 
 Cadiz, captured the galleons which were on their voyage from America, 
 laden with riches, and returned home with an immense booty, 1587. 
 At the same time, Walsingham succeeded in getting the Spanish bills 
 dishonoured at Genoa, thereby depriving Philip of the resources he 
 expected. This manoeuvre, and the terror inspired by Drake, compelled 
 the expedition to be deferred until the following year, thus giving 
 Elizabeth time to prepare for the defence of her kingdom. 
 
 The “ invincible armada,” as it was called, consisted of 13*2 vessels, 
 most of them being of unusual magnitude, and mounted 3165 guns. It 
 was navigated by 8766 seamen, and carried nearly *22,000 soldiers; a 
 force which was to be augmented by 30,000 men assembled in the 
 neighbourhood of Dunkirk. England now appeared animated with one 
 sentiment. Exclusive of the levies furnished by the city of London, 
 132,000 men were speedily collected where the prospect of invasion was 
 most imminent. The queen appeared on horseback in the camp at Til¬ 
 bury, and haranguing the army, exhorted the soldiers to remember their 
 duties to their country and their religion. “ I am ready,” she said, 44 to 
 pour out my blood for God, my kingdom, and my people. I will fight 
 at your head; and although I have but the arm of a woman, I have the 
 soul of a king; and what is more, of a king of England.” By such 
 conduct and language she filled the people with enthusiasm. Her fleet, 
 which consisted of only twenty-eight ships, was by the zeal of her 
 people soon increased to a hundred and seventeen, having on board 
 11,120 men, placed under the orders of the High-admiral Lord Howard 
 of Effingham, who was aided by Drake, Hawkins, Lord Henry Sey¬ 
 mour, and Frobisher. The spirit of the Scotch was not inferior to that 
 of the English; they raised troops for the defence of both kingdoms, 
 and formed an association, whose object was to maintain their religion 
 and government against all enemies, at home or abroad. 
 
 On the 29th of May, 1588, the Spanish armada, under the Duke of 
 Medina, sailed from Lisbon ; but a furious tempest next morning drove 
 it back into harbour, and it did not reach the Channel before the 19th 
 of July. Here it was attacked by the English squadron, which proved 
 victorious in five successive engagements. The duke, finding he could 
 not farm a junction with the troops at Dunkirk, meditated a return to 
 Spain, when a storm arose, w hich destroyed the greater part of his fleet 
 on the shores of Orkney and Ireland, so that only 53 ships reached 
 home, and these in a shattered condition. The event w r as celebrated in 
 England with great rejoicing's, and a medal struck in commemora¬ 
 tion, bearing the inscription,- Dens afflavit et dissipantur. The destruc¬ 
 tion of the armada w r as a fatal blow' to Spain; English cruisers covereu 
 all the seas, ravaged her coasts, and plundered her colonies. 
 
 Henceforward the reign of Elizabeth was less disturbed. The death 
 of Mary Stuart, and the Protestant sentiments of her son, had entirely 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 361 
 
 mined the hopes of the Catholics; while the cause of the Reformation 
 was supported in Holland by British auxiliaries. Philip, in revenge, 
 stirred up the Irish Catholics to revolt. On a given day there was a 
 general massacre of the English, — a detestable treachery, that only 
 served to call down upon their country the wrath of the queen. The 
 Earl of Essex was sent over at the head of a large army, and with 
 unlimited power, but this favourite was recalled to perish on the scaf¬ 
 fold, 1601. The death of Elizabeth followed not long after, having- 
 been accelerated, if we may believe the common rumour, by her regret 
 at the untimely fate of the earl. At the age of seventy years, and after 
 a glorious reign of nearly half a century, she expired on the 24th March 
 1603, leaving the sceptre to James VI. of Scotland. 
 
 Scotland. — This country had suffered greatly from its wars with 
 England, against which the alliance of France proved but an uncertain 
 protection. The chivalrous temper of James IV. led him to seek the 
 chief support of his crown in the great feudatories; but he prematurely 
 perished in the disastrous battle of Flodden, 1513. During the minority 
 of James V., his mother, Margaret of England, disputed the regency 
 with the Duke of Albany. But this contest was of little importance, 
 compared with the great change operating by the introduction of the 
 Reformed doctrines, about 1530. James V., who had married a French 
 princess, Mary of Lorraine, died in 1542, leaving an only child, Mary, 
 afterwards united to the dauphin. Under the regency of the queen- 
 mother, the Reformation rapidly proceeded; and Cardinal Beaton, who 
 virtually administered the government, attempting to check it by violence, 
 perished by assassination. Excited by the enthusiastic eloquence of 
 John Knox, the people rose in insurrection, stripped the Catholic 
 churches of their ornaments, and in many places totally destroyed them. 
 An army was immediately collected to punish these disorders, when the 
 Protestants united themselves still more closely by a treaty or covenant , 
 at the head of which was James Stewart, a natural son of James V., 
 and souo-ht the assistance of Elizabeth. Taking advantage of the 
 absence of their queen in France, the people, who had subdued the 
 Catholic party, gave their new church a regular form of government. 
 Professing the doctrines of the Reformers of Geneva, they abolished 
 Episcopacy, ^nd established an ecclesiastical republic, or Presbyterian¬ 
 ism. The return of Queen Mary to Scotland, 1561, was the beginning 
 of the misfortunes of that unhappy princess. Her education in the 
 court of France made the cold and rough manners of her new subjects 
 intolerable, while her adherance to the Roman Catholic religion was far 
 from conciliating their affections. The sudden and violent death of her 
 husband, Darnley, and her subsequent marriage with Bothwell, drove 
 the people into revolt. Her forces were defeated at Carberry Hill, and 
 she was confined in Lochleven castle ; having escaped, she was again 
 defeated at Langside, and compelled to take refuge in England, 1568, 
 leaving the kingdom in the hands of the Earl of Moray, as regent for 
 her infant son, James VI. 
 
 Ireland.— This country, the origin of whose inhabitants is somewhat 
 obscure, had been governed by native princes until 1172, when Henry 
 II. Plantagenet, taking advantage of its intestine troubles, seized upon 
 the kingdom, and conferred the government upon his son John, by 
 whom it was united to England in 1210. But successive revolutions 
 31 
 
362 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 disturbed the country, and it was not entirely subdued before the end of 
 the sixteenth century. Henry VIII. ruled it with a stern and systematic 
 despotism, and almost entirely destroyed the ancient family of the Ge¬ 
 raldines. Laws were now enacted to establish the English dress and 
 language, and to prevent the colonists from holding intercourse with the 
 natives. The royal authority, after being in abeyance about two hun¬ 
 dred years, was recognised in Ulster and Connaught. The accession 
 of Elizabeth was a crisis in Irish history : in her reign the Protestant 
 church was established, and all subjects were bound to attend its public 
 services. The violent manner in which these laws were attempted to 
 be enforced aggravated the rebellious spirit of the Irish and drove them 
 to insurrection. The insurgents were with difficulty put down ; and 
 their crime was punished with so much severity, that the counties of 
 Cork and Kerry, the patrimony of the Earl of Desmond, were reduced 
 to a barren waste. 
 
 At an early period in the history of Ireland, the chieftainships were subject to 
 the law of tanist.ry, i. e. that the lands and dignity descended to the eldest and 
 most worthy of the same blood, the claims of seniority being controlled by a 
 due regard to desert. The landowners, not of noble rank, held their posses¬ 
 sions by the tenure of gavel-kind, which was not an equal partition, as in 
 England, but the chief of the sept to which the deceased belonged was entitled 
 to divide the patrimony as he pleased, allotting to the lineal heirs a portion with 
 the rest of the tribe. Justice was administered in each sept by judges called 
 bretons, selected from certain families. The government of Ireland was en¬ 
 tirely aristocratic, the condition of the common people being little different 
 from slavery. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Louis XII., 1498, ascended the throne of France at the age of thirty- 
 six. He added to his regal titles those of Duke of Milan, and King of 
 the Two Sicilies and of Jerusalem,—thus declaring his intention of fol¬ 
 lowing in the steps of Charles VIII. His claims to the duchy were 
 derived from his paternal grandmother, Valentina Visconti, a descendant 
 of the ducal family of that name. 
 
 Trained in the school of misfortune, this prince had learnt to be just; 
 and, by his generous and beneficent character, deservedly bore the title 
 of Father of his People. His chief minister was Amboise, archbishop 
 of Rouen, the early period of whose government was employed in use¬ 
 ful reforms, and in diminishing an oppressive taxation, although the 
 country was engaged in war. The troops were subjected to regular dis¬ 
 cipline, fixed garrisons appointed, and a stated subsistence provided for 
 them. Pie moreo ver improved the administration of justice by shorten¬ 
 ing the usual law-processes and their expenses. 
 
 Almost the first act of Louis’ reign was to dissolve his marriage with 
 Joan of France, whom he had been compelled to espouse by Louis XL 
 He wedded his second wife, Anne of Brittany, the widow of Charles 
 VIII., as much from policy as inclination, since the alienation of the 
 duchy was thereby prevented. On her death he married Mary, sister 
 of Henry VIII. of England, which was the means of obtaining peace 
 after the defeat at Guinegate, better known as the Battle of the Spurs, 
 from the knights making greater use of these in their flight than of their 
 lances in the attack. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 363 
 
 Claude de Seyssel, bishop of Marseilles, in a work on the Monarchy of 
 France, has left us a valuable picture of the constitution of that country during 
 this reign. The royal authority was limited by the states-general and the 
 parliaments. The former, meeting only for important cases, and not being 
 regularly convoked according to a fixed law, possessed little real influence. 
 The parliaments, comp >sed of permanent magistrates, registered the edicts, 
 and could remonstrate against them: so that these two bodies, although im- 
 perfec ly constituted for successful opposition, could in some measure restrain 
 the abuse of authority. The Court of Accompts verified the public expendi¬ 
 ture, and had the power of retrenching whatever appeared unnecessary. It 
 also watched over the preservation of the royal domain, which provided for the 
 personal expenses of the sovereign. These several guarantees against despo¬ 
 tism, although far inferior to those afforded by the representative system, 
 characterize the monarchy of this period as more constitutional than is generally 
 supposed. 
 
 The different orders in society, although distinct and unequal, were not so 
 hostile as may be imagined. The clergy had rich benefices and great privileges, 
 ut their ranks were open to all classes. The nobility were exempt from taxes 
 
 every denomination ; but in war they served the state gratuitously, and were 
 forbidden to engage in any mechanical or secular profession. The upper 
 burghers or commons possessed the judicial and financial offices, which gave 
 them great influence in society. These were not interdicted to the nobles, but 
 they generally preferred a military career. Fortune and talent were the means 
 of raising the merchants and lawyers to the higher class; as this last might be 
 ennobled by the king in reward of meritorious service. 
 
 Italian Wars. —Before commencing his first Italian campaign, the 
 French monarch endeavoured to strengthen his cause by numerous 
 alliances. Pope Alexander VI. became his friend, as did his illegiti¬ 
 mate son, Caesar Borgia, upon whom was conferred the duchy of Valen- 
 tinois; and the kings of England and Spain, with the republic of Venice, 
 formed treaties of alliance with him. Sforza, better known as Ludovico 
 the Moor, was without a friend; but Bajazet II., the grand sultan, in¬ 
 directly afforded him assistance by attacking the Venetians, against 
 whom he had declared war. 
 
 At the close of July, 1499, the French army, composed of 1600 lances, 
 and 13,000 infantry, including 5000 Swiss, crossed the Alps under the 
 command of Marshal Trivulzio. All the strong places opened their 
 gates. Milan itself deserted the tyrant Ludovico, who was obliged to 
 seek an asylum with the Emperor Maximilian at Innsbruck. The con¬ 
 quest of the duchy was completed in twenty days. Louis XII., who 
 made a triumphal entry into the capital, exercised his rights of sove¬ 
 reignty by diminishing the taxes and regulating the courts of justice. 
 Trivulzio was appointed governor; but his violence prepared the way 
 for the return of Sforza, whose re-appearance in the Milanese at the 
 head of 10,000 Swiss was the signal for a general revolt. The duke 
 re-entered his capital in February 1500, amid the shouts of those who 
 had driven him into exile a few months before. The French returned 
 soon after his restoration, when the Swiss, who had fought under his 
 banner, deserted in a body. He sought safety in flight; but was made 
 prisoner, and kept in close confinement at the castle of Loches, in Berri, 
 until his death in 1510. 
 
 Louis, now thinking himself firmly established in the Milanese, 
 turned his thoughts to Naples. Frederick, too weak to dispute the 
 kingdom, offered advantageous conditions, which were rejected; and 
 finding that the French still advanced towards Naples, he surrendered 
 
364 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 to the invader, who sent him to Tours, where he died in 1504. The 
 French and Spaniards now began to quarrel about the division of the 
 spoil; but after two campaigns, the latter remained in possession of the 
 kingdom of Naples. Three armies and two fleets were soon prepared 
 by Louis to avenge his honour, but they all failed in their object. The 
 succession of Julius II. to the papal throne led to the treaty of Cam- 
 bray in 1508, by which Louis, the Emperor Maximilian, Ferdinand of 
 Spain, and the Pope united against Venice. By the battle of Agna- 
 dello, gained by the French, the Venetians were driven from the conti¬ 
 nent and confined to their isles. The allies took possession of the 
 deserted cities, but did not occupy them long; for, in 1510, Julius II. 
 became reconciled with the republic, and in the next year succeeded in 
 drawing Ferdinand, Henry VIII., and Maximilian to his side. France 
 bravely made head against her enemies. Gaston de Foix, at the age 
 of twenty-two, repelled a body of 16,000 troops engaged in invading 
 the Milanese, raised the siege of Bologna, defeated the Venetians, re¬ 
 covered Brescia from them, and gamed the battle of Ravenna, in which 
 he fell, pierced by sixteen wounds, 1512. After Gaston’s death, Louis 
 experienced several reverses in Italy; and the Sforzas were established 
 at Milan, and the Medici at Florence. The war had now no longer 
 any object. Louis therefore concluded a treaty with Ferdinand of 
 Spain, and abjured the council of Pisa, which had authorized his oppo¬ 
 sition to the head of the church. He died in 1515. 
 
 Francis I., immediately on his accession, invaded Lombardy with a 
 powerful army. The Swiss valiantly opposed his troops at Marignano; 
 for two days the victory was obstinately contested, and at last the moun¬ 
 taineers, though defeated, retired in good order. The alliance now 
 formed with Pope Leo X. and with the Venetians seemed to open the 
 way to Naples. Charles of xVustria, who had succeeded his grand¬ 
 father Ferdinand on the Spanish throne, was desirous of peace, that he 
 might consolidate his vast inheritance. Francis hesitated to profit by 
 his victory; and the treaty of Noyon, in 1516, gave a temporary repose 
 to Europe. 
 
 The elevation of Charles to the imperial dignity gave rise to a long 
 period of rivalry between that prince and the King of France, 1519. 
 Taking advantage of the departure of the emperor for Germany, Francis, 
 on pretext of recovering Navarre for John d’Albret, sent an army into 
 Spain; where, however, it was defeated, and compelled to recross the 
 Pyrenees. The war was now prosecuted in the Low Countries, France, 
 and Italy, with varied success. In the latter country, the troops of the 
 empire were commanded by the Constable Bourbon, a prince of the 
 blood-royal of France, who, in consequence of the injuries inflicted on 
 him by the queen-mother, had deserted his native country. The French 
 under Bonnivet were defeated at Rebec, where the celebrated Chevalier 
 Bayard fell, 1524; and in the subsequent year the king, who command¬ 
 ed in person at the battle of Pavia, w’as made prisoner. The captive 
 was taken to Madrid, and there kept under a strict guard. In January 
 1526, a treaty w T as signed by which he agreed to renounce all his claims 
 on Italy and the sovereignty of Flanders and Artois, restore Burgundy, 
 give his tw r o eldest sons as hostages, and marry Eleanor, the emperor’s 
 sister. These hard conditions, extorted by force, were not strictly exe¬ 
 cuted. An assembly of notables, convened at Cognac, declared against 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 365 
 
 the treaty, and their decision was confirmed by a similar body, which 
 met in Paris. At the same time, his majesty concluded an alliance 
 with Clement VII., Venice, the Duke of Milan, and Henry VIII. The 
 war was terminated in 15*29 by the treaty of Cambray; Charles gave 
 up his hostages, and Eleanor was married to the French monarch. 
 
 In 1536, Francis invaded Savoy and Piedmont; but Charles, hasten¬ 
 ing to meet the French troops, drove them across the Alps, and entered 
 Provence at the head of 50,000 men. While he was detained by the 
 siege of Marseilles, another army ravaged Champagne and Picardy. 
 Marshal Montmorency saved Provence and Dauphiny by devastating 
 the-country through which the imperialists would have to advance. In 
 1538, a truce for ten years was concluded at Nice by the intervention 
 of Pope Paul III. An interview between the two sovereigns appeared 
 to give promise of a lasting peace, and these hopes were increased by 
 the circumstance of the emperor being permitted to pass through France, 
 to quell a revolt at Ghent. Scarcely four years of tranquillity, how¬ 
 ever, were allowed to elapse before hostilities recommenced. To the 
 astonishment of Christendom, an Ottoman fleet, united with a French 
 squadron, undertook the siege of Nice. But Andrew Doria, the cele¬ 
 brated Genoese admiral, then in the service of Austria, repelled both, 
 and defeated the Turks in several engagements. The victory of Cerri- 
 soles, near Carignano, gained by Francis, was more glorious than 
 advantageous. An alliance of Henry VIII. with Charles V. exposed 
 Paris to the greatest risk; for the latter had become master of Epernay 
 and Chateau-Thierry. It was fortunate for France that the religious 
 disturbances in Germany demanded the undivided attention of the 
 emperor; and the peace of Crespy in Valois terminated the contests be¬ 
 tween the two great rivals, 1544. The French monarch expired in 1547. 
 
 Battle of St. Quentin.—Henry II., w T ho, in 1547, succeeded his 
 father at the age of twenty-nine, recovered Boulogne from the English, 
 and compelled Charles V. to raise the siege of Metz. The war with 
 Spain and England began in 1557, in which one of the armies of Philip 
 II., commanded by the Duke of Savoy, blockaded St. Quentin. The 
 Constable Montmorency advanced to throw troops and provisions into 
 the place, when his army suffered a dreadful reverse, and the town was 
 shortly after taken by assault. The Duke of Guise, who had been 
 recalled from Italy, retook Calais, stormed Guines, and by his successes 
 hastened the conclusion of peace. In a tournament given on the occa¬ 
 sion of the marriage of Henry’s sister Margaret with the Duke of 
 Savoy, and of his daughter Elizabeth with Philip II., the king was 
 accidentally wounded in the eye by the lance of the Count de Mont¬ 
 gomery, a captain of the Scottish guard, and died eleven days after¬ 
 wards, 1559. 
 
 The Factions.—Francis II., the husband of Mary Stuart, queen of 
 Scotland, who was about sixteen when he ascended the throne, proved 
 a passive instrument in the hands of faction. On the one side were the 
 Bourbons or princes of the blood-royal, Anthony, king of Navarre, and 
 Prince Louis of Conde ; on the other was the family of the Guises, con¬ 
 sisting of six brothers,—whose leaders were the Duke Francis, who 
 had gained a high military reputation in the last campaigns, and Charles, 
 cardinal of Lorraine, whose vast erudition and fiery zeal against the 
 Huguenots had placed him at the head of the French clergy. The 
 31* 
 
366 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Constable Montmorency and his nephews, the two Colignis, formed 4 . 
 third party, which expected to hold the balance between the other two. 
 
 The Guises, at this time all-powerful, held the king in tutelage, the 
 nation was enslaved, and the princes of the blood were banished. It 
 was not to be expected that they could maintain their power unassailed; 
 and we find, accordingly, that Conde formed a very extensive conspi¬ 
 racy, the object of which was to seize them and the king. The {dot 
 w r as discovered through the indiscretion of one of the leaders, and 
 several of the conspirators were arrested and suffered death. This 
 event, known in history as the conspiracy of Amboise, contributed to 
 increase their influence; and under the title of lieutenant-general of the 
 kingdom, the duke possessed nearly equal power with the ancient 
 mayors of the palace. This he employed to destroy Conde, who, in 
 defiance of numerous warnings, imprudently went to Orleans, at the 
 invitation of his majesty. He was immediately arrested ; the conspiracy 
 just noticed, and other charges, were alleged against him, and by an 
 extraordinary tribunal he was condemned to death; but, in consequence 
 of the demise of Francis, 1560, the sentence was not carried into effect. 
 
 Charles IX., at the age of ten years, succeeded his brother; and 
 Catherine of Medici held the reins of government, without, however, 
 assuming the title of regent. Louis of Conde was restored to liberty; 
 the Constable Montmorency was received into favour; while the queen- 
 mother, on her side, endeavoured to create a third party. 
 
 At a meeting of the states-general in Orleans, the clergy fulminated 
 against the Huguenots; while the tiers etat demanded a reform of the 
 clergy, whose vices, they alleged, were the cause of all the troubles. 
 The nobles besides insisted on freedom of worship for the Huguenots,* 
 who at this epoch were calculated to amount to a sixth or a fourth of the 
 population. Many of them had taken up arms in different parts of 
 France in defence of the reformed religion; and their numbers compelled 
 the Catholic party to treat them with moderation, until the decision of 
 a national council should be knowm. A conference was appointed to 
 take place at Poissy ; and although no formula of faith could be adopted 
 likely to unite all parties, an edict was issued in 1562, by which the 
 Protestants were allowed to preach outside the towns. Soon afterwards 
 a body of Huguenots, w 7 ho had met to worship in a barn at Vassy in 
 Champagne, w T ere attacked by the retinue of the Duke of Guise, sixty 
 of their number murdered, and more than 200 wounded. This atrocity 
 was the signal for a general rising, and the prelude to the first civil 
 war. 
 
 First Civil War, 1562.—The parties in this conflict were the Guises 
 in amity with Montmorency, w T ho was master of the king’s person; and 
 Louis of Conde, wfith Coligni and d’Andelot. The court faction had 
 the ascendency in Paris, and in the provinces of Picardy, Champagne, 
 Brittany, Burgundy, and Guienne. The Protestants were superior in 
 the west and south, especially in Rouen, Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, 
 Le Mans, Poitiers, Bourges, Angouleme, La Rochelle, Montauban, and 
 Lyons. But being thus isolated, they could not co-operate with then 
 brethren in Germany and the Low Countries. 
 
 * The derivation of this word is much disputed. It is probably another form of Eignot 
 (from the German, eignossen ), a name given to the Germans who entered into alliance 
 with the Swiss cantons to maintain their liberties against Savoy. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 367 
 
 The first pitched battle was fought at Dreux in Normandy, 1562, 
 where the royal army was commanded by Montmorency, who was taken 
 prisoner at the first onset. Guise, however, won the field and captured 
 the Prince of Conde; and Admiral Coligni, who succeeded to the com¬ 
 mand of the Huguenot host, was compelled to retreat. The death of 
 Guise at the siege of Orleans restored Catherine’s authority, which was 
 consolidated by the convention of Amboise, 1563, allowing the Protest¬ 
 ants the free exercise of their religion. 
 
 Second Civil War, 1567.—The pacification just mentioned was 
 scarcely concluded, before its terms were modified by the court; the 
 Huguenot party still demanding securities, which their opponents de¬ 
 layed to give. A journey of the king and his mother into the southern 
 provinces, and the interview of the latter with the Duke of Alva at 
 Bayonne, w r hen plans were concerted for the extirpation of the new 
 opinions, were soon followed by another war. Rochelle now became 
 the rallying point of the reformed party. Since the reign of Charles V. 
 this city had exercised the right of coining money; its mayors and prin¬ 
 cipal authorities were reputed noble; besides which, with many other 
 privileges, it enjoyed an extensive commerce, and possessed great influ¬ 
 ence in Aunis, Saintono-e, and Angoumois. At Jarnac, on the banks of 
 the Charente, the insurgents were defeated by superior numbers, 1569; 
 and their brave leader, the Prince of Conde, who had been made pri¬ 
 soner, was assassinated after the battle by a captain of the Duke of An¬ 
 jou’s guards. Coligni once more saved the relics of the conquered army. 
 The wfidowed Queen of Navarre, Joan of Albret, carried her son Henry, 
 prince of Bearn, to the camp, and presented him to the troops, by whom 
 he was recognised as head of the Protestant party. They were, how¬ 
 ever, again defeated at Moncontour, in Poitou, where the royal youth 
 fought by the side of the admiral. 
 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572.—A peace was concluded in 
 1570 at St. Germain. Catherine accorded favourable conditions to the 
 Huguenots; but she had long been meditating a blow more deadly than 
 all the preceding defeats. Henry, now king of Navarre, received in 
 1572 the hand of Margaret of France, the youngest of her daughters; 
 and to add to the splendour of this marriage, the leading members of the 
 Protestant party were invited to Paris. On the 22d August, as Coligni 
 was returning home from a conference with the king at the Louvre, his 
 life was attempted by an assassin at the instigation of the queen-mother, 
 jy whom Charles was easily brought to consent to a general massacre 
 of his Protestant subjects. The night of the 23d August, St. Bartholo¬ 
 mew’s eve, was the time fixed for the perpetration of a deed which has 
 covered with infamy the memory of every one engaged in it. The admi¬ 
 ral was one of the first victims : after being murdered, his head was cut 
 off, carried to the queen as a trophy, and, being embalmed, was subse¬ 
 quently transmitted to Rome. During three days the massacre was 
 continued in the streets and in private houses; even in the royal palace 
 some of the retainers of the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde 
 were assassinated before their masters’ eyes. Henry and the young 
 prince were spared only on condition of abjuring their religion within 
 three days. Neither rank nor age was exempted : in the capital there 
 suffered 500 gentlemen, with 10,000 persons of inferior station; while 
 not fewer than 70,000 individuals fell throughout the entire kingdom. 
 
368 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Public thanksgivings were offered up at Rome and Madrid for the suc¬ 
 cess of a crime which Thuanus, himself a Roman Catholic, stigmatizes 
 as “ a ferocious cruelty, without a parallel in all antiquity.”* Charles 
 IX. died in 1574, in great agony of body and mind. 
 
 The League.—Henry III., the conqueror at Jarnac and Moncontour, 
 who had been elected King of Poland, returned hastily to France on the 
 news of his brother’s death. The new monarch, who endeavoured to 
 play the parties against each other, gave favourable terms to the reform¬ 
 ers, now headed by his brother the Duke of Anjou and the young King 
 of Navarre. To the former he ceded Anjou, Touraine, and Berri; reli¬ 
 gious toleration was permitted everywhere, except in Paris; Protestants 
 were to form half of each parliament; and the cities of Angouleme, Niort, 
 La Charite, Courges, Saumur, and Mezieres, were to be held by Hugue¬ 
 not garrisons. The Catholic party, directed by the Duke of Guise, were 
 far from being satisfied with this arrangement. They formed the cele¬ 
 brated compact known as the Catholic League , 1577; and the king, with 
 the view of controlling it, declared himself its head. The ostensible 
 object of this association was to promote the ascendency of the Romish 
 faith ; but it also secretly contemplated the deposition of the dynasties 
 of Valois and Bourbon, in virtue of an anathema by Pope Stephen II. in 
 752 against the usurper Hugh Capet, and the placing of Guise on the 
 throne, on condition that he should engage to suppress the liberties of 
 the Gallican church. 
 
 In 1584, died Francis duke of Anjou, on his return from an expedition 
 into the Low Countries; and by his decease the King of Navarre be¬ 
 came the presumptive heir to the crown. It was about this time that a 
 popular society was formed among the leaguers, more violent in its 
 principles, and which was called the Sixteen , from the number of its 
 directing committee, each of whom became a religious agitator in so 
 many quarters of Paris. 
 
 The Barricades. —Henry III. gave himself up to the debauchery of 
 his capital; and, although he practised every external act of devotion, 
 became the object of public contempt, and was daily exposed to some 
 new attack on the part of the Sixteen. Guise, who had been forbidden 
 to enter Paris, openly defied the royal prohibition, and on his arrival a 
 general rising was organized. The League took up arms; barricades 
 were erected ; and chains stretched across the streets. The king’s troops 
 were gradually driven back to the Louvre; and he himself made a nar¬ 
 row escape to Chartres, 1588. From this place he negotiated with 
 Guise, nominated him generalissimo of his armies, and promised to con¬ 
 voke the states-general at Blois, to deliberate on the articles proposed 
 by the League. This assembly met on the 4th October 1588; but its 
 first measures disappointed the monarch’s expectations. The spirit of 
 Rome appeared to animate the deputies; and Henry soon discovered that 
 
 * Protestant writers endeavour to prove—and their arguments are very powerful— 
 that the massacre of St. Bartholomew had been premeditated for nearly two years, if not 
 longer; and that the nuptials of Henry of Bearn and Margaret of Valois were only a 
 pretext for drawing the chief Huguenots to Paris. But whether it was premeditated or 
 not for so long a period; whether the king and his mother were the sole contrivers 
 whether a greater or less number of victims fell than above stated,—are questions of 
 little importance: it was planned, organized, and executed, facts which admit of no 
 palliation, and must eternally brand the memory of Charles, Catherine, and their 
 counsellors. • 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 369 
 
 his enemies would prove successful, unless he anticipated them by some 
 bold measure. He therefore determined to assassinate the duke; and, 
 accordingly, on the morning of the 23d December, he was killed when 
 entering the royal chamber. His brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, was 
 murdered the next day while the king was at mass. 
 
 On the news of these events many towns rose in revolt. The sove¬ 
 reign was regarded as the assassin: the pope excommunicated him; the 
 Sorbonne declared the throne vacant, and his subjects were released 
 from their fidelity; while the faction of the Sixteen flung into the Bas- 
 tile those members of the parliament who still showed any attachment 
 to the monarchy. Henry ultimately sought the alliance of the King of 
 Navarre, whom he had long treated as an enemy, and at the head of the 
 united forces, Catholic and Huguenot, he advanced to besiege Paris; 
 but at the moment his affairs were taking a favourable turn, his career 
 was checked by the dagger of Jacques Clement, August 2, 1589, and in 
 him the house of Valois became extinct. 
 
 The Bourbons. — Davila regards the transactions which led to the 
 advancement of Henry IV. to the throne, 44 as one of the most surprising 
 arrangements of the providential government of the world.” Even the 
 manner of his predecessor’s death determined many of the Catholic party 
 to attach themselves to this prince, rather than to the League, which had 
 countenanced so unjustifiable a deed. Deserted by the royal army, the 
 new king retired into Normandy, followed by the Duke of Mayenne at 
 the head of the troops of the League, who had already proclaimed his 
 uncle, the Cardinal Charles of Bourbon. Having received an aid of 
 money and reinforcements from England, he was however enabled to 
 keep the held; and his troops, though inferior in number, being superior 
 in valour to those of the duke, he defeated him at Arques in 1589, and 
 next year gained the decisive battle of Ivry. After some delay, he laid 
 siege to Paris, and when so employed received notice that death had 
 removed his rival, and that a solemn decree of the Sorbonne had declared 
 him incapable, as a heretic, of mounting the throne of France. Already 
 30,000 victims had fallen, when the generous enemy relaxed his rigour, 
 and allowed all but the military to retire. Peace was at length restored 
 to the country, and he became the king of a united people by his abjura¬ 
 tion of Protestantism, 1593. He entered the metropolis on the 22d 
 March 1594. The parliament was immediately re-established; all its 
 decisions since 1588 were cancelled, and the decrees of the last assem¬ 
 bly held at Paris annulled. In 1598, a memorable ordonnance termi¬ 
 nated the religious quarrels which had distracted France during thirty- 
 six year^. The edict of Nantes granted to the Protestants the public 
 exercise of their worship, the enjoyment of the rights of citizenship, and 
 free admission to all employments and judicial offices; while, in other 
 respects, they preserved their importance as a political party. Having 
 secured peace to his country by a treaty with Spain, the young sovereign, 
 aided by his wise and virtuous minister, Sully, devoted the remainder 
 of his reign to the restoration of order and general improvement. 
 
 ITALIAN PENINSULA. 
 
 Naples and Milan.— Throughout the first half of the sixteenth cen¬ 
 tury, the Italian peninsula was the scene of almost incessant contests, 
 
370 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 arising out of the claims of the French monarchs to the possession of 
 these two states. Charles VIII. of France having taken possession of 
 Naples in 1494, a general league of the Italian powers was formed 
 against him, his troops were driven from the country, and Ferdinand II. 
 ascended the throne. He was succeeded by his uncle Frederick, who, 
 being threatened by Louis XII., applied for assistance to his relative, 
 Ferdinand of Spain. This last sent Gonsalvo de Cordova, his captain- 
 general in Sicily, into Naples; but, instead of rendering the aid demand¬ 
 ed, a secret treaty was entered into with Louis for the partition of the 
 kingdom. This nefarious transaction accordingly took place, 1496; but 
 Louis granted to the dethroned monarch the duchy of Anjou, with a 
 pension. The plunderers soon quarrelled about the division of the spoil, 
 which was decided by the battle of Creignola, 1503, where Gonsalvo 
 gained a complete victory,* and drove the French from the country. 
 Naples thenceforth continued an appanage of the Spanish crown, go¬ 
 verned by viceroys. 
 
 Louis XII. began his wars in 1499, by a treaty with Venice for the 
 partition of the Milanese, when Ludovico Sforza was left without an 
 ally—the Turks alone making a diversion in his favour. He was shortly 
 after betrayed into the hands of the French king, by whom he was im¬ 
 prisoned till his death, ten years later. Various alternations of success 
 followed; and the territory was occasionally in the hands of the French 
 and of the Sforzas, until after the battle of Pavia in 1525, when it fell 
 into the possession of Charles V. Ten years subsequently, the male 
 line of the Sforzas having become extinct, the emperor, who still retained 
 possession, granted the duchy to his son Philip, as a vice-royalty of 
 Spain. The wars consequent on these arrangements are detailed under 
 the respective heads of France and Germany. 
 
 The French invasion in 1494 appears to have been courted by most of the 
 powers of Italy :—Ludovico and John Galeazzo hoped to profit by the arrival 
 of Charles VIII.; the Florentines were eager to throw off the yoke of the 
 Medici; Pope Alexander VI. was jealous of the authority of Ferdinand of 
 Spain; the Venetians desired the humiliation of the house of Aragon, and the 
 numerous enemies of this family in the kingdom of Naples sought revenge for 
 a long period of oppression. 
 
 In Florence two parties divided the state. Jerome Savonarola, a native of 
 Ferrara, a man of ardent imagination, and who had early embraced a religious 
 life, thought himself commissioned by Heaven to reform Christendom. He 
 began by preaching on the Apocalypse at Florence in 1489, where he continued 
 his exhortations during eight years, mingling politics with religion. An enthu¬ 
 siast in the pulpit and a demagogue in the public places, he gradually became 
 the idol of the people and the leader of the anti-Medician party. At the 
 approach of Charles, he declared that monarch to be the envoy of Heaven, the 
 predestined instrument of reform. Peter de Medici, intimidated by the sensa¬ 
 tion produced by his harangues, and unable to contend at once against internal 
 tumult and foreign aggression, submitted to Charles \ III.; tor which the 
 enraged populace drove him into banishment, and the government of Florence 
 became an aristocracy. The Medici were restored in 1532 by Charles V. after 
 the treaty of Camb'ray. Savonarola, having been excommunicated by the 
 Pope, was tried for sedition and blasphemy, and being condemned to death, 
 was burnt in 1498. 
 
 At this epoch there was a great and important difference between the French 
 and Italian armies. The former were chiefly composed of gentlemen, animated 
 by the desire of glory ; and, being paid by the king, they were always well 
 equipped and complete. The latter were, on the contrary, a crowd of adven¬ 
 turers and peasants, hired by the chiefs named Condottieri, who had neither 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 371 
 
 love of fame nor attachment to the prince who paid them. Solely hent on gain, 
 .hese captains passed with their troops from one side to the other under the 
 most trivial pretexts; and in battle their chief aim was to make prisoners for 
 the sake of ransom. The Italian cannons were of iron, and difficult to manage, 
 while those of France were of bronze. In such circumstances Charles might, 
 w T ith ordinary prudence, have obtained a permanent footing in Italy; but the 
 arrogance and injustice of the French alienated all parties, and finally led to 
 their expulsion from the country. 
 
 “ During the whole period of the French wars the wretchedness inflicted on 
 Italy by the foreign soldiery, and especially by those mutinous robbers who 
 composed the armies of the Empire and of Spain, was such as had not been 
 exceeded in any age of her eventful history. Cities were plundered and burnt, 
 rural districts were converted into wastes, families were despoiled and dis¬ 
 honoured, individuals were imprisoned, tortured, and put to death. And yet, 
 over this blood-stained arena, on which a nation, summoning up its expiring 
 strength, fought unwisely though not ingloriously its last battle for independence 
 —over this wild and troubled scene, where danger stalked without and treason 
 lurked within—genius diffused a radiant light, that died away after peace had 
 revived, hand in hand with bondage. Almost all the greatest of those names 
 that make the modern Italians proud of the sixteenth century, presented them¬ 
 selves in groups which disappeared before the age had proceeded half way 
 towards its close.”— Italy , Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
 Savoy and Piedmont. —The house of Savoy was founded in the 
 beginning of the eleventh century, when Berold possessed its lands, as 
 an ancient province of the kingdom of Burgundy. By intermarriages, 
 by taking advantage of the civil dissensions of the country, and par¬ 
 ticularly by those in France, its territories were gradually extended; 
 but, when Duke Charles III. died in 1553, a great part of his domin¬ 
 ions was seized by the French and Spaniards. The troubles which 
 soon after broke out induced Charles IX. to restore to Savoy the strong 
 places which he still occupied in Piedmont. Emanuel Philibert, as 
 well as his son Charles Emanuel, who succeeded in 1580, had nothino- 
 to apprehend from France, then distracted by the religious wars. Charles 
 even went so far as to invade Provence and Dauphiny, in 1590, and 
 disputed the possession of these provinces with his powerful neighbour. 
 
 Genoa. —The aristocratic constitution which Andrew Doria had given 
 the Genoese, did not satisfy many of the turbulent and factious repub¬ 
 licans. In January 1547, a conspiracy was headed by John Louis 
 Fieschi; all the more important posts were seized; Gianettino, the 
 nephew of Andrew, upon whom the government had devolved, was 
 stabbed in the streets; his aged relative escaped with difficulty, and 
 every thing had succeeded beyond expectation, when the leader himself 
 perished. His partisans submitted to their rivals, who punished the 
 most guilty by banishment or death. 
 
 After suppressing this conspiracy, Doria continued to exercise the 
 supreme authority in Genoa, until his death in 1560, at the age of 
 ninety-four. During the remainder of the century, this state, disturbed 
 by its revolted subjects without, did not enjoy internal repose, in conse¬ 
 quence of the differences between the old and new nobility. These 
 dissensions ran so high as to give Don John of Austria a hope of mas¬ 
 tering the city, when he lay in its port with the fleet that afterwards 
 gained the battle of Lepanto, 1571. The disputes between the factions 
 were referred to the arbitration of the Pope, the Emperor, and the King 
 of Spain, by whom the constitution was modified, and the privileges of 
 the nobles augmented, 1576. Tranquillity was thus re-established, and 
 the Genoese enjoyed peace during the succeeding fifty years. 
 
872 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Venice. —The league of Cambray, 1508, armed the half of Europe 
 against this single state. Venice, long confining her power to the sea, 
 had, as early as 1*274, forbidden her citizens to acquire any possessions 
 on the mainland ; but, gradually departing from her ancient maxims, 
 she had made large acquisitions at the expense of her neighbours. To 
 enforce the abandonment of these conquests, Louis, Maximilian, the 
 Pope, and Ferdinand of Spain, formed a coalition; but the glory as 
 well as the charges of this impolitic war devolved upon France. The 
 battle of Agnadello, in 1509, destroyed the continental power of Venice ; 
 after which, his Holiness seized upon Rimini, Faenza, and Ravenna; 
 the troops of Maximilian, advancing through Friuli, captured Verona, 
 Vicenza, Padua, and Trieste; the Spaniards retook the cities of Trani, 
 Brindisi, and Taranto; while Brescia, Bergamo, and Cremona, fell to 
 Louis. The Venetians, although driven to the shelter of their lagunes, 
 did not despair; and, taking advantage of a trivial success, entered 
 upon negotiations with the pontiff, who formed a treaty with them, 24th 
 February 1510. After exhausting her strength in resisting the league 
 of Cambray, Venice sunk into comparative obscurity. Two unsuccess¬ 
 ful wars with the Turks deprived her of the islands in the Archipelago, 
 and of Cyprus, her most valuable colony, 1570. The fear of the Otto¬ 
 mans induced the government to form an alliance with Austria; and, 
 during the remainder of the sixteenth century, her history contains little 
 worthy of attention. 
 
 Tuscany. —After the treaty of Cambray, the Florentines continuing 
 hostile to the Medici, the city was besieged by an imperial army, and 
 forced to surrender in 1530. A new constitution, published by the 
 emperor two years afterwards, declared Alexander de Medici chief of 
 the city, with the hereditary title of duke; but he did not long enjoy 
 his new dignities, being assassinated in 1537 by one of his near rela¬ 
 tives. He was succeeded by the morose and heartless Cosmo de Medici, 
 the first grand-duke, who was very active in the administration of 
 affairs, endeavouring to reform the public manners, especially those of 
 the clergy, and to revive agriculture and commerce. He extended his 
 protection to letters, re-established the universities of Florence and 
 Pisa, and founded the Academy in the former city. In 1562, his palace 
 was the theatre of some tragical events. His second son, Giovanni, 
 having been assassinated by the third son, Garcia, Cosmo stabbed the 
 fratricide in the arms of his mother, who died of grief shortly after, and 
 the duke himself retired from public life, assigning the administration 
 of the government to Francis, his heir. Cosmo died in 1574, and his 
 successor, after a reign marked by assassinations and crimes of every 
 kind, was poisoned, 1587, together with his paramour, who had become 
 his wife, at a banquet given by his brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand. 
 The latter ascended the throne, and endeavoured to raise the people from 
 the degradation to which they had been subjected sixty years. Under 
 this prince, agriculture and commerce flourished ; he extended his 
 patronage to the fine arts, and rendered the court of Tuscany the best 
 musical school in Europe. 
 
 The Roman States. —Romagna was. during many years, the theatre 
 of a contest excited by the ambition of Caesar Borgia. At this time the 
 States of the Church were the worst administered and least peaceful of 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 373 
 
 all Italy, the territories immediately encircling Rome having passed 
 entirely under the control of the Colonnas and the Orsini. The former 
 being Ghibellines, the latter Guelfs, the nobility were divided between 
 these two powerful families, whose quarrels often stained the streets of 
 the capital with blood. Alexander VI., 1492, resolved to profit by these 
 dissensions for the aggrandizement of his son, at the expense of the 
 church patrimony. Caesar Borgia, with the aid of French troops, 
 gradually reduced the petty lords of Romagna; and this prince, whom 
 Louis XII. protected, extended his conquests by taking the isles of 
 Piombino and Elba, with several towns on the mainland. 
 
 Alexander VI., who died in 1503, was succeeded by Pius III., and 
 the latter by Julius II., in the same year. The last-named pontiff, a 
 thorough Italian in heart, entertained a like hatred to Spaniards, Ger¬ 
 mans, and French, as having been in turn the conquerors and oppressors 
 of his country. After the death of Caesar Borgia, he reduced part of 
 Romagna, and prosecuted his design of expelling all foreign enemies 
 from the Italian soil. 
 
 Julius, dying at the very moment that his schemes appeared likely to 
 be realized, was succeeded by John de Medici, as Leo X., who at first 
 trod in the steps of his predecessors, but whose conciliatory character 
 inclined to peace. He continued the magnificent basilic of St. Peter, 
 which the other had begun; and, in order to raise the necessary funds, 
 had recourse to the sale of indulgences,—the proximate cause of the 
 Reformation. Clement VII., 1523, also one of the Medici, and a patron 
 of letters, but of an austere life, published a bull for the reformation of 
 manners at Rome and throughout Italy. He was succeeded in 1534 by 
 Alexander Farnese, who assumed the name of Paul III. It was by his 
 intervention that Francis 1. and Charles V. were induced to conclude 
 the treaty of Nice in 1538; and the council of Trent, which was sum¬ 
 moned at his suggestion, was by him transferred to Bologna. Paul IV., 
 1555, was the first who drew up and published an Index expur gutorius, 
 to prevent the dissemination of heretical doctrines; he also invested the 
 Inquisition with more ample powers. Gregory XIII. aided the Vene¬ 
 tians in their wars with the Turks ; and it was this pontiff who re¬ 
 formed the Roman calendar, adoptingsthe system of Louis Lilio, a Cala¬ 
 brian astronomer, and commanding its immediate use.* He was 
 distinguished for liberality, having expended in charitable and pious 
 works not less than 200,000 crowns. Sixtus V., his successor, 1585, 
 who was the son of a peasant in the March of Ancona, honoured the 
 pontificate by the vigour of his character. He cleared the country of 
 robbers, favoured agriculture, and encouraged manufactures. Under 
 him Rome was greatly improved and extended ; he built magnificent 
 aqueducts, worthy of the ancient capital of the world ; raised the Egyp¬ 
 tian Obelisk before the church of St. Peter; and completed its gorgeous 
 cupola. He died in 1590. His decision, and the numerous public 
 buildings which he constructed, conferred honour on his name ; but his 
 extreme rigour caused his death to be hailed with joy by the Romans, 
 
 *This method, which consisted simply in throwing out ten days from the common 
 reckoning of time at that period, and introducing;proper regulations of the bissextiles, 
 was ordered to take place in October 1582. It has been received by all the nations of 
 Europe, except the Russians and Greeks. The new style was not adopted in Great 
 Britain before 1752. 
 
 32 
 
374 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 who overthrew the statues that had been raised to him in the Capitol. 
 After him, Urban VII., Gregory XIV., and Innocent IX., successively 
 reigned only a few months; they were followed by Clement VIII. in 
 1592, who reunited Ferrara to the Holy See, and expired in 1605. 
 
 Parma and Piacenza.— Pope Paul III., who passionately desired the 
 aggrandizement of his family, had obtained, in 1545, the consent of the 
 Sacred College to confer on his illegitimate son, Peter Louis Farnese, 
 the states of Parma and Piacenza, with the title of duke, feudatory to 
 the holy see. But the new ruler was assassinated in 1547 by the 
 nobles, to whom his debauchery, cruelty, and, above all, his various 
 efforts to limit their privileges, had rendered him odious. Ferdinand de 
 Gonzago, governor of Milan for the emperor, who had taken some 
 share in this conspiracy, seized on the duchy in the name of his master. 
 Octavius, the duke’s son, claimed Parma, which the Pope had resumed, 
 and applied to Henry II. of France for assistance, by whose intervention 
 it was recovered, in 1552, to which Piacenza was added by Philip II., 
 in 1556. The long reign of this prince, of nearly forty years, contri¬ 
 buted greatly to strengthen the ducal throne. He was succeeded by his 
 son Alexander, who commanded the Spanish troops in Flanders, and 
 died at Arras in 1592. His successor, Ranuzio I., exercised the most 
 frightful tyranny. 
 
 SPANISH PENINSULA. 
 
 The death of their only son, and other family bereavements, induced 
 Ferdinand and Isabella to centre all their hopes on the Princess Joanna 
 and her posterity. In 1504, on the demise of Isabella, the infanta and 
 her husband the archduke succeeded to the crown of Castile, their son 
 Charles becoming prince of the Asturias : two years afterwards, Philip’s 
 reign was terminated by death. This event entirely unhinged the mind 
 of his consort, and Ferdinand, her father, became regent of the kingdom. 
 He expelled John d’Albret from the throne of Navarre, thus extending 
 the limits of the Spanish monarchy to the Pyrenees, 1512. This prince, 
 who has been reproached for his insatiable avarice and crafty policy, 
 died in 1516, leaving the throne to Charles, afterwards Emperor of 
 Germany. 
 
 Ferdinand, of whom it was said by Philip II. that royalty in Spain was in¬ 
 debted to him for everything, rescued the country from feudal anarchy. Under 
 various pretexts—by violence or judicial sentence—he deprived the nobles of 
 the lands they had acquired from the prodigality or weakness of his predeces¬ 
 sors, and diminished the power of the religious military orders. By these and 
 similar innovations, he firmly established the royal authority ; but at the same 
 time laid the foundation of a political and religious despotism, which attained 
 its full development in the following reign. 
 
 Charles I. was successively recognised king of Castile and Aragon, 
 principally through the influence of his able minister, Cardinal Ximenes. 
 The partiality of the monarch for his Flemish favourites had the effect 
 of greatly alienating the affections of the Spanish people ; when, in the 
 midst of the discontents thus occasioned, his grandfather Maximilian 
 died, and he succeeded to the imperial crown by the title of Charles V., 
 1519. His departure to Germany was immediately followed by a for¬ 
 midable insurrection, in which even the clergy took part, one of the 
 most active leaders being the Bishop of Zamora; it was, however, 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 375 
 
 quelled after a short, but ill-concerted struggle. The history of Spain 
 during this reign is henceforth almost inseparably connected with that 
 of the empire. The incessant wars in which Charles was involved, 
 compelled him to make frequent applications, particularly to his Spanish 
 subjects, for the necessary funds. In 1539, the cortes being assembled 
 at Toledo, he proposed to relieve the wants of his government by a 
 general impost upon all kinds of merchandise. The violent opposition 
 of the several orders, especially of the nobles and clergy, to the impo¬ 
 sition of this tax, led to an important change in the constitution of the 
 cortes. Finding it impossible to overcome their resistance, the emperor 
 indignantly dissolved the assembly, remarking that those who did not 
 contribute had no rio-ht to deliberate. Thenceforth, neither nobles nor 
 prelates were summoned to take part in the discussion of any fiscal 
 question, the states being composed merely of the representatives of 
 cities, who, to the number of thirty-six, formed an assembly entirely 
 subservient to the will of the court. 
 
 Philip II. w T as called to the throne, in 1555, by the abdication of his 
 father, and signalized the commencement of his reign by stringent 
 measures for the extirpation of Lutheranism. The regulations of the 
 Council of Trent were rendered imperative throughout the whole extent 
 of the Spanish monarchy ; and, with the view of compelling the Moors 
 to embrace Christianity, it was ordered, in 1568, that they should 
 renounce their language, names, and all distinctive usages. This blind 
 tyranny provoked a general insurrection, which was headed by Moham- 
 med-Aben-Humeya, a descendant of the former sovereigns of Granada. 
 Don John of Austria being sent against them, they were defeated in 
 several engagements, and compelled to submit to conditions which 
 involved their removal from their former residence, and their dispersion 
 through the old Christian provinces, 1576. 
 
 Revolutions in Portugal were preparing the way for the temporary 
 union of that kingdom with Spain. The absolute government which 
 had prevailed in the former country under John II. and Emanuel, 
 increased greatly under John III. In the reign of this monarch, which 
 lasted thirty-six years, the cortes wrnre only three times convoked ; while 
 the establishment of the Inquisition, and the introduction of the Jesuits, 
 contributed greatly to the consolidation of despotism. The disastrous 
 reign of Sebastian, grandson of John III., began in 1557, when the 
 king was a minor three years of age. Educated in a manner well cal¬ 
 culated to excite a naturally romantic character, and full of religious 
 and knightly ardour, he, in 1578, undertook an expedition against the 
 Moors in Africa, w'here he was defeated and slain. The Cardinal Henry 
 now succeeded,* the only important event of whose short rule was the 
 meeting of the estates at Lisbon to decide between the claims of the six 
 pretenders to the throne on his decease, among whom was Philip II. of 
 Spain. The priest-king, as Henry was called, died in 1580 ; and Philip, 
 having gained over a part of the Portuguese nobles, ordered 30,000 men 
 into Portugal, who, in three weeks, obtained possession of the country 
 
 * Henry is seen to much greater advantage as a prelate than as a king. He reformed 
 the too relaxed manners of the ecclesiastics, established schools and hospitals for the 
 poor, protected letters, founded the university of Evora, and colleges at Coimbra and 
 Lisbon. He employed the Jesuit Maffei in writing the history of the Portuguese in the 
 Indies, encouraged the useful labours of many learned men, and himself composed 
 several works. 
 
376 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 The Spanish arms were at this period in the height of their success 
 in Flanders under Alexander Farnese. Seized with the emulation of 
 subjugating France and England, and at the same time irritated by the 
 assistance which the latter country had afforded to the Flemish revolt, 
 Philip, in 1588, fitted out the famous armament known as the invincible 
 armada , which was signally defeated. Spain now gradually became 
 of less importance in the politics of Europe; her naval power and com¬ 
 merce declined ; and the king, at his death in 1598, bequeathed a debt 
 of 140 millions of ducats to a nation whose resources were already 
 exhausted.* 
 
 THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 Philip the Hardy, youngest son of John of France, having been 
 created Duke of Burgundy in 1303, married Margaret, daughter and 
 heiress of Louis III., last count of Flanders. With the hand of this 
 princess, he obtained, in addition to the county now named, Artois, 
 Franche-Comte, Nevers, Rethel, Mechlin, and Antwerp. The fortune 
 of the family rapidly increased with the lapse of years, and the dukes 
 of Burgundy were soon more powerful than several of the kings of 
 Europe. On the death of Charles the Bold, Louis XI. seized on the 
 dukedom, while all the other provinces passed to the house of Austria 
 by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian, 
 1477, whose grandson Charles V. increased his domains by the lord- 
 ships of Utrecht and Overyssel, with the territory of Groningen. He 
 then formed the plan of uniting the seventeen provinces^ with Spain. 
 Under this monarch the United Provinces greatly flourished ; but his 
 son, Philip II., desirous of eradicating Protestantism, introduced the 
 Inquisition, which ultimately drove the inhabitants into rebellion. 
 
 In the Counts Egmont and Horn, and in William of Nassau, prince 
 of Orange, the people had leaders worthy of their cause. Their repre¬ 
 sentations to the sovereign having failed, they attacked the churches 
 and monasteries, and after destroying the altars and images, violently 
 introduced the Protestant form of worship. 
 
 Philip, in 1567, sent the Duke of Alva into the Low Countries with 
 an army of 20,000 men, at whose approach 100,000 Flemings abandoned 
 their country, carrying their treasures and industry into France, Ger¬ 
 many, and England. A tribunal of twelve judges established by Alva 
 to examine into the excesses, and discover those who favoured Protes¬ 
 tant doctrines, caused no fewer than 18,000 persons to perish by the 
 hand of the executioner. The most illustrious of these victims were 
 the Counts of Egmont and Horn, who suffered death at Brussels, June 
 5, 1568. The news of this cruelty was the signal for a fresh revolt and 
 civil commotion. The Prince of Orange, at the head of a large but 
 undisciplined army of Germans, French, Italians, and Flemings, invaded 
 
 * At his accession, Philip possessed, in Europe, the united kingdoms of Castile, Ara¬ 
 gon, and Navarre, with Naples, Sicily, Milan, Franche-Comte, and the Netherlands; in 
 Africa, Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde and Canary Islands; in America, Peru, Mexico, 
 New Spain, and Chili, besides Cuba, Hispaniola, &c. The mines of Mexico, Chili, and 
 Potosi were alone a source of greater wealth than almost all the other princes of Europe 
 together were possessed of.—Watson’s Philip II, vol. i. p. 17. 
 
 f These provinces were the duchies of Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Gueldres ; 
 the seven earldoms of Flanders, Hainault, Artois, Holland, Zealand, Namur, and Zut- 
 phen ; the marquisate of Antwerp, and the five lordships of Mechlin, Friesland, Utrecht, 
 Groningen, and Overryssel. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 377 
 
 Luxemburg. His first efforts being unsuccessful, he and his brother 
 Louis were compelled to return to Germany. Though defeated on land, 
 the prince and Count William de la Marck encouraged a maritime war 
 against the Spaniards; and in 1572, a small body captured the town of 
 Briel, an event which laid the foundation of the republic of the United 
 Provinces. A revolution broke out in Zealand; and all the cities, except 
 Middleburg, opened their gates to the insurgents, an example followed 
 by many towns in Holland. At Dort, William was declared stadt- 
 holder, and the public exercise of the Reformed religion in the Calvin- 
 istic form openly introduced. 
 
 Alva was recalled and disgraced; his successor, Louis de Requesens, 
 and Don John of Austria, continued the war wfith varied success. The 
 Spanish fleet having attempted to secure Middleburg, was defeated by 
 the Prince of Orange; while Count Louis of Nassau and his brother 
 Henry w^ere killed at the battle of Mookerheide. One of the most 
 remarkable events of the w T ar was the siege of Leyden, 1574, which 
 W’as defended by the Dutch with heroic resolution. The dikes of the 
 Yssel and Maes w*ere broken down; the fields occupied by the besieging 
 army inundated ; and the invaders were eventually forced to retire. In 
 the following year, the states of Holland founded the university of Ley¬ 
 den, which long held an elevated rank among the great seminaries of 
 Europe. 
 
 The Spanish soldiery now committed the greatest excesses, plunder¬ 
 ing many cities, and ravaging the open country. In this extremity, a 
 common danger united the Protestants and Catholics. The states-gene- 
 ral, assembled at Brussels, proposed negotiating with the Prince of 
 Orange and the confederates of Dort. Their overtures w*ere favourably 
 received; and a treaty of general union was concluded, under the title 
 of the “ Pacification of Ghent,” between the provinces of the north and 
 south, guaranteeing mutual support against the Spaniards, and solemnly 
 pledging the contracting parties not to lay down their arms until their 
 enemies were finally expelled from the country, 1576. 
 
 On the death of Requesens, Don John of Austria was appointed go¬ 
 vernor. The confederates w r ere now masters of Antwerp, Bergen-op- 
 Zoom, Breda, and other important places. With an army of 20,000 
 men, the new governor was at first successful; but was eventually de¬ 
 feated on the banks of the Diemar, and dying in 1578, w T as succeeded 
 by the Prince of Parma, w T ho, like his predecessors, failed to make any 
 impression on the northern provinces. He w T as so far successful, how¬ 
 ever, in sowing dissension betw r een the states of the north and south, 
 that the Prince of Orange, who had long regretted the insecure nature 
 of the connexion subsisting between them, was led to form the design 
 of isolating the northern provinces from the rest of the Low countries, 
 and establishing a republic of which he should be the head. The act 
 which realized this design was signed at Utrecht, January 25, 1579, 
 between the provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gueldres, and 
 Groningen. Friesland and Overyssel acceded to it in June following; 
 and several cities of Belgium, including Ghent, Antwerp, and Breda, 
 joined it somewhat later. William of Orange was elected stadtholder, 
 with all the attributes of royalty. 
 
 While the Seven United Provinces braved with their own resources 
 the power and vengeance of Spain, the ten others had elected the Duke 
 32* 
 
878 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 of Anjou, brother of Henry III., to the sovereignty of the Low Coun¬ 
 tries ; but that prince, having foolishly attempted to tamper with the 
 constitution of his new dominions, was driven back to France in 1584. 
 In the same year, William was assassinated at Delft, at the instigation 
 of Philip, by Balthasar Gerard; and, in the absence of the prince’s eld¬ 
 est son, who was a prisoner in Spain, Maurice, his second son, was 
 raised to his father’s dignities, and notwithstanding his youth, became a 
 formidable rival to the Duke of Parma. The loss of William, however, 
 was a severe blow to the confederation; the Spaniards recovered several 
 cities, and reduced the states to such extremity, that they offered, as the 
 price of succours, to resign the country either to England or France. 
 Elizabeth afforded only a trifling assistance; but her aid, by involving 
 Philip in those hostilities with England which led to the destruction of 
 the armada, had an important though indirect influence on the welfare 
 of the United Provinces. The scale was finally turned in their favour 
 by the death of the Prince of Parma, in 159*2; and the battle of Turn- 
 hout, in which his successor was totally routed by the allied English 
 and Dutch forces, 1597, may be regarded as the virtual conclusion of the 
 contest. 
 
 The result of the protracted struggle between the sovereign of so many states 
 and the small republic of the Seven Provinces appears almost a miracle. Many 
 circumstances, however, contributed to thwart the King of Spain and to favour 
 the Dutch. They would have been inevitably crushed, if Philip II. had brought 
 all his power to bear upon them ; but his ambition, which compelled him to 
 divide his forces, was a protection to his enemies. That ruinous policy which 
 kept traitors in every court of Europe in his pay, the support he gave to the 
 League in France, the insurrection of the Moors of Granada, the conquest of 
 Portugal, and the construction of the magnificent palace of the Escurial, dissi- 
 pated treasures which seemed almost inexhaustible; while his armament against 
 England swallowed up the entire revenues of both Indies, and proved the 
 destruction of the veteran Spanish soldiery. 
 
 The situation of the insurgents was different. They found auxiliaries in all 
 those who, to escape the Duke of Alva, had quitted the southern provinces; 
 in all whom the Huguenot wars had driven from France; and in all whom 
 religious intolerance had banished from other parts of Europe. The enthusiasm 
 inspired by new doctrines, the desire of vengeance, and other motives, attracted 
 to their standards the adventurers of all countries. Thus the Dutch army was 
 complete without the necessity of withdrawing men from the cultivation of the 
 fields, from commerce, or from their extensive fisheries, which, in 1604, con¬ 
 tributed five millions of florins to the revenue. At the epoch when the new 
 country was struggling for existence, it extended its dominion beyond the seas, 
 and laid the foundations of its power in the East Indies. — Schiller’s Revolt of 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 The reign of Maximilian was ah important one both to Germany and 
 his hereditary dominions. He reformed the public law of the empire, 
 and was the first to establish a standing army, with infantry, cavalry, 
 and artillery, divided into regiments and companies. In 1501, he insti¬ 
 tuted the Aulic Council, which gradually acquired extensive jurisdic¬ 
 tion, in some respects superior to that of the Imperial Chamber. The 
 diet of Treves, besides confirming the power of the council, completed 
 the subdivision of the empire into circles, by adding four others to the 
 six instituted in 1500. He also secured the reversion of Hungary and 
 Bohemia to his posterity, by the double marriage of the Archduchess 
 
379 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 Maty, his granddaughter, with Louis, only son of Ladislaus, king of 
 Bohemia and Hungary, and of Anne, sister of Louis, with his grandson, 
 the Archduke Ferdinand. 
 
 Charles V. —The death of the emperor, 1519, led to some of the 
 most important events in modern history. Three candidates aspired to 
 the imperial honours—Charles I. of Spain, Francis I. of France, and 
 tfcnry VIII. of England; the last, however, speedily withdrew. The 
 electors, distrustful of the known ambition of Francis, and influenced, 
 moreover, by the consideration that the dominions of Charles in Austria 
 would render him the most likely defender of the empire against the 
 Turks, then under the warlike Selim I., decided in favour of the Spanish 
 monarch, who was solemnly inaugurated at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the 
 title of Charles V., 15*20. The dissatisfaction of Francis with this 
 decision, conjoined with his claims on Italy, led to a series of disastrous 
 wars between him and the Empire. The French monarch, having 
 invaded and taken possession of Navarre, advanced into Spain, where 
 he was defeated, compelled to evacuate his conquest, and driven back 
 into his own country. At the same time, the Milanese, disgusted with 
 the exactions and insolence of his troops, rose in arms, putting them¬ 
 selves under Francis Sforza, brother of their late duke; while Pope 
 Leo X., the Emperor, and the King of England, formed a league for 
 their assistance. The French forces were everywhere defeated, and 
 forced to abandon nearly the whole of their possessions in Italy. Joy 
 at these successes having proved fatal to the reigning pontiff, 1522, he 
 was succeeded by Adrian VI,, who, with the Florentines and other 
 Italian states, joined in league against Francis, now left without an 
 ally, 1523. The emperor and Henry VIII. invaded France on the north, 
 south, and east; but their forces were repelled; and Francis, encouraged 
 by this partial success, again essayed the recovery of the Milanese. In 
 1525, entering Italy at the head of a large force, he was at first very 
 successful, and finally sat down before Pavia, a town strongly garri¬ 
 soned, and commanded by Leyva, an able officer. Every exertion was 
 now made by the imperial generals to collect an army ; while the French, 
 exhausted by fatigue and the rigour of the season, and weakened by a 
 large detachment sent against Naples, remained in their intrenchments. 
 On the 2d February, they were attacked by the imperialists and totally 
 routed; and their king, after beholding the flower of his nobility perish 
 by his side, was taken prisoner and carried in triumph to Madrid. # The 
 result of these signal reverses was a treaty by which Francis agreed to 
 surrender Burgundy to the emperor, and delivered up his two sons as 
 hostages for its performance, 1526. 
 
 The English sovereign now became alarmed by the growing power 
 of the empire ; the states of Burgundy protested against the surrender 
 of their province ; and Pope Clement VII. absolved the king from the 
 obligations of the treaty of Madrid. In these circumstances, an alli¬ 
 ance, called the Holy League, was formed between France, England, 
 the Swiss, Florentines, Milanese, and the Pope, to oblige Charles to 
 give up the sons of the French monarch, and to restore the duchy of 
 Milan, of which he still retained possession, to Sforza. Charges, the 
 ruler of so vast an empire, possessed a very limited revenue; and the 
 wants of his exchequer opposed a greater obstacle to his ambition than 
 tne coalition of all the princes of Europe. The forces of the empire 
 
380 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 were commanded by the Constable Bourbon, who had been arbitrarily 
 deprived of his estates at home, and had joined the cause of the enemy. 
 The confederates took the field in Italy ; but not being sufficiently rein¬ 
 forced by Francis, the Constable overran the Milanese, and his troops 
 beginning to mutiny for want of pay, he led them to Rome, then one 
 of the richest cities in Europe. In the assault on the city, he himself 
 was slain; but Rome was taken, and experienced from the troops 3©f 
 the Catholic monarch calamities surpassing those inflicted by the bar¬ 
 barians of former times, 1527. On receiving the news of the captivity 
 of the pope, Charles ordered prayers to be offered up in the churches 
 for his deliverance, saying that his quarrel was with the temporal 
 sovereign of Rome, but not the spiritual head of the church. The 
 treaty of Cambray, 1529, restored peace between the rival monarchs; 
 Francis abandoning his claims upon Italy and Flanders. In the same 
 year, Charles and Pope Clement were also reconciled; and, in March 
 1530, the Spanish king was crowned by the pope at Bologna as Empe¬ 
 ror and King of Lombardy. 
 
 In the mean time, the doctrines of the Reformation had made rapid 
 progress in the empire. Martin Luther, a man of elevated mind and 
 inflexible resolution, had boldly declaimed against the corruptions of 
 the papacy, 1517; and the opinions he promulgated were readily em¬ 
 braced by the thoughtful and speculative people of Germany. The 
 policy of the northern princes strongly encouraged this natural direction 
 of the minds of their subjects, as the best guarantee against the almost 
 irresistible power of Charles. From the year 1525, John the Constant, 
 who had succeeded his brother Frederick the Wise in the electorate of 
 Saxony; Philip, landgrave of Hesse ; George, marquis of Brandenburg; 
 Ernest, duke of Luneburg; and Wolfgang, prince of Anhalt, with most 
 rf the free cities of the empire, made a public profession of Lutheranism. 
 Albert, margrave of Brandenburg, grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, 
 desirous of sharing in the political advantages of the Reformation, 
 renounced his vow of chastity, secularized the duchy of Prussia, which 
 he placed under the protection of Poland, and thus laid the foundations 
 of a monarchy which, two centuries later, became one of the most pow¬ 
 erful in Christendom. Thoroughly alarmed at the progress of the new 
 opinions, Charles, soon after his coronation, set out for Germany, where 
 he immediately assembled the diet at Augsburg, June 1530. The Re¬ 
 formers, who had now received the name of Protestants , here solemnly 
 presented to the emperor the first public confession of their faith, drawm 
 up by Luther, and subscribed by the various princes who had embraced 
 the reformed doctrines. Charles, whose disposition was not naturally 
 intolerant, found himself compelled to adopt a temporizing policy 
 towards this portion of his subjects. The Turks were now menacing 
 Hungary; and satisfied that he could not refuse them the free exercise 
 of their religion without a war of extermination, he referred the whole 
 matter to a general council, which he urged the pope to convoke, but 
 which did not meet until 1545. 
 
 The emperor now began to despair of universal monarchy, and finding 
 himself unable alone to support the burden of affairs, he associated his 
 brother Ferdinand with him in the government, and conferred on him 
 the title of king of the Romans, 1531. This prince, who administered 
 the hereditary estates of Austria, had acquired by marriage the kingdom 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 381 
 
 Bohemia, and the sovereignty of Hungary had fallen to him on the 
 death of Louis II. Thus already wielding three sceptres, and uniting 
 under his authority all the south of Germany, he was one of the most 
 powerful princes in Europe when he was nominated to the imperial 
 succession. Charles having repelled a formidable inroad of the Turks 
 in Hungary, 1532, returned to Spain, whence he sailed with a large 
 army for Tunis, where Barbarossa, the dread of the Christians in the 
 Mediterranean, had fortified himself, 1535. During his absence, the 
 Anabaptists, a fanatical sect w T hich had arisen in Germany amid the 
 agitation of Reformed doctrines, seized on the city of Munster, and 
 defended it courageously against the troops of the bishop ; they were, 
 however, overcome, and their leaders executed with great cruelty. On 
 the return of the emperor from Africa, where he had been completely 
 successful, he was again compelled to take up arms against Francis, 
 who once more revived his Italian claims, 1536. Having expelled the 
 French from Italy, Charles invaded their territory, with the determina¬ 
 tion of reducing it to a province of his empire; but after fruitlessly 
 investing Arles and Marseilles, and laying waste Provence, he was 
 compelled to recross the Alps with the loss of half his army. Moham¬ 
 med, the sultan’s lieutenant, having at the same time invaded Hungary, 
 while Barbarossa was ravaging the coasts of Southern Italy, he gladly 
 accepted the mediation of Paul III., and a truce of ten years was con¬ 
 cluded with Francis, 1538. 
 
 The conquest of Algiers had long been a favourite object with Charles. 
 Having suppressed a revolt in Ghent, his native place, he, in 1541, 
 collected a large armament, w T ith which he sailed for Africa, contrary to 
 the advice of his admiral, Andrew Doria. Having landed and com¬ 
 menced operations against the city, a furious storm scattered his fleet 
 and destroyed his soldiers, and he was forced to reimbark with the loss 
 of the greater part of his force. Meanwhile, the murder at Milan of two 
 French emissaries on their way to Constantinople, and the refusal of 
 Charles to call the perpetrators to account, put an end to the truce be¬ 
 tween him and Francis, 1542. The latter w r as allied with the kings of 
 Denmark and Sweden, and had renewed a treaty he formerly made with 
 the sultan. During two years, war raged in France, Spain, Italy, and 
 the Low Countries; but the only important engagement took place at 
 Cerrisoles, in which 10,000 imperialists were slain, and their opponents 
 gained a signal victory, 1544. This was followed by a peace signed 
 at Crespy, in which each party agreed to restore its conquests, unite 
 against the Turks, and suppress reform in their respective dominions. 
 
 The prime motive with Charles in the peace now mentioned was his 
 desire to humble the Protestant princes. The diet of Worms, in 1545, 
 passed various resolutions against them, in consequence of which they 
 rose in arms under Frederick of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. 
 The emperor concluded a dishonourable peace with Soliman, formed an 
 alliance with the Pope, who sent him 13,000 men under his illegitimate 
 son, Alexander Farnese, and having collected an army, made a victori¬ 
 ous march towards Upper Germany, levying contributions in the disaf¬ 
 fected districts. In a decisive battle at Mulhausen, 1547, the confede¬ 
 rates were completely defeated, and the two princes taken prisoners. 
 The electorate of Saxony was conferred on Maurice, a kinsman of Fre¬ 
 derick, who had treacherously aided the emperor against the confederacy 
 
382 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 of which he had at one time been a member. All opposition seemed 
 now at an end; his great rival Francis had recently expired; and Charles, 
 thinking himself secure in his designs on the liberties of Germany, and 
 desirous of ending dictatorially the disputes on religion, presented a 
 formula to the diet of Augsburg, 1548, drawn up by his own order, the 
 articles of which were to serve as a rule of faith until the final decision 
 of a general council. To this most of the Protestant states were com¬ 
 pelled to submit. But such an order of things was not destined to con¬ 
 tinue, for the Lutherans, though humbled, were not subdued ; the princes 
 were fully alive to the ambitious designs of Charles; and even Maurice, 
 of Saxony saw the necessity of opposing them. That prince, having 
 been appointed general of an imperial army, retained the troops in his 
 pay under various pretences; formed a treaty with Henry II. of France; 
 and, secure of the adhesion of the Danish king and most of the northern 
 potentates, at length threw- off the mask. At the head of a force of 
 20,000 foot and 2000 horse, he took the field, with the avowed purpose 
 of defending the Protestant religion and maintaining the liberties of Ger- 
 many; and marched towards the south, everywhere restoring the Luthe¬ 
 ran clergy and magistrates. At the same time the French invaded 
 Lorraine, their monarch styling himself “ Protector of the liberties of 
 Germany and its captive princes.” The emperor in vain sought to 
 negotiate: Maurice advanced with all speed to Innsbruck, where he was 
 then residing, and was so near surprising him, that he escaped w T ith 
 difficulty during the night. Augsburg had been taken, the Protestants 
 laid siege to Frankfort on the Maine, and the haughty spirit of Charles 
 was at length forced to submit. The treaty of Passau terminated the 
 internal disputes of the empire, and placed the reformed religion on a 
 secure basis, 1552. 
 
 This was unquestionably the most disastrous period in the reign of 
 that great ruler. The war continued with the Turks in Hungary on the 
 one side, and the French on the other; and on both the imperialists w T ere 
 almost uniformly unsuccessful. Italy was in commotion from north to 
 south; Sienna openly revolted; and the coast of Naples was ravaged by 
 the Turkish fleet, 1555. Wearied with the cares of government, and 
 hopeless of realizing his dreams of universal dominion, Charles at length 
 determined on resigning all his dignities. For this purpose he sum¬ 
 moned his son Philip to Brussels, w r here the latter w-as solemnly invest¬ 
 ed with the government of the Low Countries, and a few weeks after 
 with that of Spain and the Indies. In the following year, 1556, he gave 
 up the imperial crow T n to his brother Ferdinand ; and, after astonishing 
 the wmrld by this abdication, retired to the convent of St. Just, in Estre 
 madura, where, at the end of two years, he expired in the 69th year of 
 his age. 
 
 Consult, for particulars, Robertson’s History of Charles V. 
 
 The first exertions of Ferdinand I., on being invested wfith the su¬ 
 preme authority, w 7 ere directed towards the establishment of civil and 
 religious concord. He opposed the pretensions of the pope, who claimed 
 the right of conferring the imperial title, and vindicated the independence 
 of the empire from the encroachments of the holy see, 1557. Having 
 re-assembled the coimci* of Trent, which had been broken up by the 
 disturbances of the last beign, an attempt at reconciliation between the 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 383 
 
 Catholic and Protestant parties was made by the emperor; but this prov¬ 
 ing ineffectual, this last of general councils was dissolved, 1563. Maxi¬ 
 milian II. pursued with greater success the same course as his father, 
 1564. The reformers had now begun to retaliate the Catholic persecu 
 ions, and even to disagree among themselves; but by his ability and 
 moderation, he was enabled to hold the balance between the contending 
 parties, and preserve the tranquillity of the empire. A Turkish invasion 
 of Hungary was repelled, and a truce concluded with the sultan; while 
 a convention with John Sigismund secured to him the crown of Hun¬ 
 gary. Rudolph IL succeeded to the imperial crown in 1576, but fol¬ 
 lowed a very different course. Abandoned to the direction of favourites, 
 and naturally intolerant, he suppressed the Protestant worship in Aus¬ 
 tria, and attempted to deprive the Hungarians and Bohemians of all their 
 immunities. The country was everywhere embroiled in insurrections; 
 the Lutherans were led to form a confederation, and to ally themsel ves 
 with Holland and Henry IV. of France; while the Catholics, on the 
 other hand, united for mutual defence. The empire was saved from 
 open war by the assassination of Henry IV., 1610, just as he was about 
 to pour his troops into Germany; and Rudolph himself died in 1612. 
 In the midst of these troubles, however, science flourished ; and the cele¬ 
 brated Rudolphine Tables , calculated by Kepler and Tycho Brahe, have 
 rendered this reign an era in the annals of astronomy. 
 
 HUNGARY AND BOHEMIA. 
 
 Hungary first attained the rank of a kingdom in the eleventh century, the 
 reigning prince, whose father, Duke Geysa, had previously embraced Christi¬ 
 anity, assuming the title of Stephen I., 1000. Under succeeding monarchs, 
 the country rose rapidly in importance ; its limits were extended; and it long 
 formed the chief barrier of Christendom against the Turks. The sovereignty 
 was elective: in 1437, it had fallen to Albert, archduke of Austria, who 
 perished in a campaign against the Turks, and was succeeded by his posthu¬ 
 mous son, Ladislaus, 1440. Under this monarch and his successor, the king¬ 
 dom was saved from destruction by the valiant regent, John Huniades, whose 
 son, Matthias I., ascended the throne in 1458. The neighbouring country 
 of Bohemia became known as a kingdom about the end of the twelfth century, 
 though still remaining feudatory to the German emperors, from whom its kings 
 received their investiture ; they, in turn, enjoying one of the seven electoral 
 votes. The crown, like that of Hungary, was elective, passing, however, in 
 ordinary cases, to the nearest heir. The power of the monarch was limited 
 by the coronation oath, by a permanent senate, and by frequent convocations 
 of the national diet, composed of the armed nobility. An important era in the 
 history of Bohemia dates from the appearance of the celebrated John Huss, 
 and his pupil, Jerome of Prague, the former of whom had translated the works 
 of Wickliffe, and openly taught his doctrines to his countrymen, 1400. Both 
 fell victims to the persecuting spirit of the age ; but their preaching and example 
 had made a deep impression, and led the way to an important change in the 
 national faith, preceded, however, by great internal disorders. 
 
 On the death of Matthias I. of Hungary, in 1490, Ladislaus, king 
 of Bohemia, was invested with the crown, thereby uniting the two 
 countries. This able prince was succeeded by his son, Louis II., a 
 child ten years of age, 1516, during whose long minority the country 
 was torn by factions, and the national revenue wasted. In 1526, the 
 Sultan invaded Hungary with an army of 300,000 men; and, in the 
 fatal battle of Mohacz, Louis perished with the flower of his nobility, 
 
384 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 great part of his territory becoming a prey to the conqueror. Ferdi¬ 
 nand I. of Austria, having married the sister of Louis, succeeded to the 
 throne of Bohemia; but the Hungarians, refusing to acknowledge his 
 claim, gave the crown to John Zapoli, palatine of Transylvania, and at 
 his death to his son, John Sigismund. This led to a long and bloody 
 war, which, as the Turks took part in it, lasted during the whole life 
 of Ferdinand,— the result, in a great measure, of the unpopularity ot 
 the house of Austria, whose religious intolerance and despotic habits 
 were offensive to the Hungarian nobles. Maximilian II., 1563, sue 
 ceeded his father in the dignities of Emperor and King of Hungary 
 and Bohemia; not, however, without opposition from John Sigismund, 
 who was aided by Soliman II. Rudolph, who ascended the throne in 
 1572, in order to get rid of the enormous expense of maintaining the 
 strongholds of Croatia, gave them, as a fief of the empire, to Charles, 
 duke of Styria, who partitioned the whole into a number of smaller 
 fiefs, which he bestowed on foreigners of all nations, of whom he 
 formed a military colony. This establishment, which gradually extended 
 along the frontiers of Sclavonia and Croatia, effectually repelled the 
 Turkish inroads, and supplied those redoubtable troops, who, under the 
 names of Croats and Pandoors, became the strength of the Austrian 
 armies. The bigoted spirit of this prince alienated the affections of his 
 subjects, particularly of the Protestants, who rose in rebellion, and 
 gave the thrones of both countries, during his lifetime, to his brother 
 Matthias. 
 
 POLAND AND RUSSIA. 
 
 Poland. —The Poles, who belonged to the Sclavonian branch of the European 
 family, were at first divided into several petty states, constantly at war with 
 each other; but the early history of the country is involved in much obscurity. 
 In 965, the people were converted to Christianity, and united under the govern¬ 
 ment of Duke Mieczeslaus, who became, however, a vassal of the empire; 
 and his successor, Boleslaus, received the royal crown from the hands of the 
 Emperor Otho III., 1000. During three hundred years the country presents 
 the usual disorders incident to a rude and warlike people. Ladislaus II., 
 1306, an able prince, exerted himself to compose the disturbances of the king¬ 
 dom, and firmly established his authority. His son, Casimir the Great, 
 followed in the steps of his father : he freed the nation from its dependence on 
 the empire, invited the settlement of foreigners, built towns and fortresses, 
 encouraged industry and commerce, and promulgated an excellent system of 
 laws. At his death, 1370, the crown became elective with certain limitations, 
 and was conferred on his nephew Louis, king of Hungary. This monarch 
 secured the succession to his daughter, who ascended the throne in 1382, and 
 married Jagellon, duke of Lithuania, that prince with his people agreeing to 
 embrace the Christian faith. This important augmentation of national strength 
 was followed by long and violent contests with the Teutonic Knights , who 
 possessed Prussia and the neighbouring provinces; these were not terminated 
 till 1466, when, after immense bloodshed, the knights submitted to do homage.* 
 The union with Lithuania did not prevent violent contentions and animosities 
 between the two countries; they were afterwards repealedly separated and 
 again united, and their thorough incorporation was not effected till 1569. 
 
 The kings of Poland were engaged in almost incessant wars with 
 the Ottomans, as well as with the Tartars and Muscovites. In 1501, 
 
 ♦This order of military monks was founded in Asia during the Crusades, whence they 
 removed to Germany on the relinquishment of all hopes of recovering Palestine. Here 
 they subdued the pagan inhabitants of Prussia, and shortly after acquired Livonia and 
 Esthonia, 1273. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 385 
 
 Alexander grandduke of Lithuania, was elected to the Polish crown, 
 during whose government the royal power was much weakened by the 
 encroachments of the nobles. His successor, Sigismund I., 1506, found 
 the country in great disorder; and his reign forms one uninterrupted 
 series of successful exertions for its security and improvement. The 
 same wise course of administration was followed by his son, Sigismund 
 II., 1548-157*2. During this interval the Reformed doctrines made 
 great progress in Poland, especially among the higher classes ; and this 
 country is distinguished as being the first to adopt a complete system 
 of toleration. By an enactment of the diet, known as the Confederation 
 of 1573, all sects were left at liberty to follow the dictates of conscience, 
 and allowed equal rights and privileges.* The death of Sigismund II. 
 terminated the main line of Jagellon, and the throne of Poland became 
 open to the ambition of various competitors. Henry of Anjou was first 
 chosen, but he clandestinely retired to France, to the crown of which he 
 succeeded as Henry III. Battori, prince of Transylvania, was next 
 elected, and proved an able and vigorous monarch: he was a terror to 
 the enemies of his people, and greatly promoted their internal prosperity. 
 Sigismund III., crown-prince of Sweden. 1587, reigned forty-five years. 
 His bigoted attachment to the Papal church caused the loss of his here¬ 
 ditary dominions, and gave rise to a rebellion in Poland, which was 
 suppressed with difficulty. 
 
 Russia. —In the ninth century, the vast territory now known by this name 
 was peopled by various Scythian and Tartar tribes, and divided into numerous 
 independent states, the two principal of which were Kiew and Novgorod. In 
 850, a Scandinavian chief, named Rurik, became master of the latter country, 
 and is considered the first of the Russian sovereigns. Under Vladimir the 
 Great, 980-1015, the people embraced Christianity according to the forms of 
 the Greek church, the arts of civilisation were introduced, and some degree of 
 stability was given to the government. After his death, the country was 
 partitioned among his sons, and became for nearly a century a prey to civil 
 wars and Polish invasions. In 1223, the whole region was overrun by the 
 Tartars, under a son of Genghis-khan; the towns were destroyed, and the 
 inhabitants massacred; and during the space of two hundred years, the Rus¬ 
 sian princes became vassals of the conquerors. In 1462, Ivan III. restored the 
 independence of his country, reunited the several divisions of the territory, and 
 already aspired to the possession of the Byzantine throne. In this reign the 
 influence of Russia first began to be recognised in the politics of Europe. 
 
 Vasili IV., the successor of Ivan, 1505, continued to prosecute the 
 schemes of aggrandisement formed by his father. His son, Ivan IV., 
 1533, was the first Russian prince who assumed the title of Czar , and 
 contributed more than any of his predecessors to the power of the 
 government. In the early years of his reign, he repressed the incur¬ 
 sions of the Tartars, instituted the Strelitzes , a regular body of infantry, 
 and published a code of laws. The voluntary adhesion of the Don Cos¬ 
 sacks secured to him the services of these warlike auxiliaries, 1549; 
 while the conquest of Siberia, 1581, more than doubled the original ter¬ 
 ritories of the empire. During this reign, the discovery of the passage 
 to the White Sea by some English merchants, opened a commercial 
 intercourse between Great Britain and Russia. The ferocious character 
 
 ♦ The Arians and Socinians were at this time numerous in Poland — the latter sect, 
 ersecuted everywhere else, here found an asylum. Their chief establishment was at 
 tacau. 
 
 33 
 
386 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 of Ivan procured for him the surname of the Terrible and the execrations 
 of his subjects, but was probably inseparable from the energy necessary 
 for the government of a savage people. His successor, Theodore, 1584, 
 proved an imbecile prince ; and the government was actually conducted 
 by his minister, Boris, who succeeded him in 1598. Boris prosecuted 
 the designs of Ivan: he signalized the commencement of his reign by 
 raising the condition of the serfs, invited artists from foreign countries, 
 promoted commerce, and improved the military defences of the empire. 
 
 DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY. 
 
 Denmark and the Scandinavian peninsula were early occupied by the Goths, 
 who subdued the original Finnish tribes. The ninth century is generally 
 assumed as the beginning of the connected history of Denmark, when Gormon, 
 by reducing the separate provinces, established his sovereignty over the whole 
 territory, 863-900. His son, Harold II., introduced Christianity about a. d. 
 970; and, at the beginning of the eleventh century, Sweyne I., his grandson, 
 subjugated a portion of Norway and the greater part of England. Canute ihe 
 Great, 1016, possessed himself of the whole of England and part of Scotland, 
 and in 1030 completed the conquest of Norway.* The reign of this warlike 
 and enlightened prince was devoted not merely to his own aggrandisement hut 
 to the establishment of law and internal organisation, and to the general dif¬ 
 fusion of Christianity throughout his dominions. Under his imbecile successors, 
 the history of Denmark exhibits an almost uninterrupted series of disasters, 
 terminating with the death of Sweyne III., 1157. The ascendency of the 
 feudal system, introduced by Canute, had rendered the sovereign dependent 
 upon the voice of the nobles anchsuperior clergy, the peasants were degraded 
 to the condition of serfs, agriculture could hardly be said to exist, and nearly 
 the entire commerce of the country fell into the possession of the Hanse Towns. 
 Valdemar III. began the restoration of his kingdom, 1333; and after a vigorous 
 reign, was succeeded by Olaus III., a child five years of age, 1376. His mother, 
 Margaret, distinguished by the title of the Semiramis of the North, was 
 appointed regent; and in 1387, on the death of Olaus, she herself ascended the 
 throne. Having acquired Norway by inheritance, and conquered Sweden by 
 force of arms, the grand object of her ambition was attained by the Union of 
 Calrnar, which united the three northern kingdoms into one monarchy, 1397. 
 By this means the great mercantile confederacy of the Hanse Towns was 
 humbled ; but the Swedes, to whom the union had always been displeasing, 
 after a long series of contests, renounced it in 1 523. 
 
 The proximate cause of Swedish independence is found in the tyranny 
 of Christian II., surnamed the Wicked. Having vanquished the 
 patriotic party by treachery and force, he was crowned at Stockholm; 
 and, with the view of striking terror into the nation, he seized the oppor¬ 
 tunity to perpetrate a public massacre of ninety-four nobles, 1521. 
 Gustavus Vasa, son of one of the murdered chiefs, having escaped 
 from the prison in which he had been immured, roused the miners of 
 Dalecarlia to assume arms in defence of their native land. His first 
 attempts proving successful, the whole people gradually rose against 
 the tyrant; the Danes were driven from the country, and Gustavus, by 
 
 * The Norwegians were first known in Europe as pirates, frequently visiting and lay¬ 
 ing waste the countries bordering on the North Sea Their first regular king was 
 Harold Haarfager, who subdued and united the small principalities into which the 
 country was divided. His reign was distinguished by the numerous migrations of his 
 subjects: some settled on the distant shores of Iceland; others seized on the Scottish 
 isles; Rollo, exiled in 896, established himself in France, 911. Norway was united with 
 Denmark under Sweyne and Canute ; but the countries were again separated till 1387, 
 when they were conjoined under Margaret. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 387 
 
 universal consent, ascended the throne, 1523. Christian, who was 
 equally hated by his Danish subjects, was in the same year superseded 
 in the crowns of Denmark and Norway by his uncle Frederick I., 
 duke of Sieswick and Holstein. In 1528, the Swedish government 
 introduced the Lutheran Reformation; while the usurpations and vio¬ 
 lence of the clergy during the ten years’ interregnum which followed 
 the death of Frederick I., and their attempts to set aside his son Chris¬ 
 tian 111., on account of his religious principles, led to the same event 
 in Denmark in 1536. During the reign of Christian, a code of laws, 
 entitled the Recess of Colding, was promulgated, Sieswick and Holstein 
 were united to the Danish crown, and the improvement and stability of 
 the country promoted. The harmony between Sweden and Denmark 
 ~ was disturbed by a furious war which continued seven years, 1563, and 
 again in 1611 ; both of which tended to a more precise adjustment of the 
 relations of the two rival monarchies. 
 
 The long reign of Gustavus, an interval of tranquillity, allowed full 
 time for the consolidation of Swedish independence. In 1560, he was 
 succeeded by his son Erik, a fickle and violent prince, during whose 
 time a war was prosecuted with Russia; the Livonian contest followed, 
 1561; that with the Hanse Towns, 1562 ; and with Denmark, 1563,— 
 which w ere almost uniformly unfortunate. The internal administration 
 of Erik was stained with sanguinary cruelties, w 7 hich eventually led to 
 his deposition, his brother John, duke of Finland, w r ho had married a 
 daughter of Sigismund of Poland, being raised to the throne. After 
 some successful operations, the new king concluded an advantageous 
 peace with Denmark, 1570, the quarrel with Russia still continuing. In 
 1592, Sweden was united to Poland in the person of his son Sigismund. 
 The vehement efforts of this prince to change the established worship, 
 led to a rebellion headed by his uncle Charles. He w 7 as finally deposed 
 by a resolution of the states, on the ground that he had “ broken the 
 coronation oath, violated the constitution, disregarded the laws, and 
 endangered the Protestant religion;” and Charles, endeared to the 
 people by his services, and as the last surviving son of the great Gusta¬ 
 vus, was immediately elevated to the throne, 1600. 
 
 OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE EAST. 
 
 A peace concluded with Venice in 1503, and which was observed 
 until 1537, left the Ottoman empire in tranquillity with its neighbours 
 during the remainder of the reign of Bajazet. But it w*as not equally 
 free from internal disturbances: two younger sons of the sultan rebelled 
 in their respective provinces, and w T ere immediately strangled by their 
 father’s order ; of the remaining three, two were feeble and unw T arlike, 
 the third, Selim, after compelling Bajazet to abdicate, caused him to be 
 poisoned, 1512. He commenced his reign by the murder of his brothers 
 and nephews, and the massacre of 40.000 Sheeahs, or dissenters from 
 orthodox Mohammedanism. Two of Achmets’s sons, however, having 
 escaped to Persia, Selim sent to demand them ; and Shah Ismail, the 
 founder of the Sophi dynasty in that country, refusing to give them up, 
 he took up arms against him, and defeated the Persians near Tauris, 
 but with a loss of 40,000 men. He acquired Koordistan and Mesopo¬ 
 tamia either by force or negotiation, and declared war against the Mame¬ 
 luke sultan of Egypt, as an ally of Ismail, whom he overthrew in a 
 
388 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 sanguinary engagement near Aleppo, 1516,—all Syria falling into the 
 hands of the victor. Selim now entered Egypt, gained another battle 
 near Cairo, which city was taken, 50,000 of its inhabitants barbarously 
 massacred, the brave sultan, Toomaun -Beg, hanged at one of the gates 
 of his capital, and the country redifeed to a Turkish province. The last 
 caliph of the house of Abbas having submitted, and dying on his way 
 to Constantinople, the sultan assumed the sacred title, which has ever 
 since been borne by his successors. 
 
 Soliman I., the Magnificent, and the greatest of the Ottoman sove¬ 
 reigns, succeeded his father in 1520. In the first year of his reign, pro¬ 
 fiting by the troubles of the West, he captured Belgrade and other for¬ 
 tresses from the Hungarians. Satisfied with having thus secured the 
 key to Eastern Christendom, he next resolved upon the conquest of 
 Rhodes, which had been upwards of two hundred years the chief station 
 of the Knights of St. John, then commanded by the illustrious grand¬ 
 master Villiers de Pile Adam. In 1522, the vizier appeared off the 
 island with a fleet of 400 sail, containing an army of 200,000 men; to 
 oppose which there were only 600 knights and 5000 soldiers. The 
 place was defended with unexampled resolution, the Christian warriors 
 performing prodigies of valour: Soliman himself arrived to encourage 
 his troops ; but 80,000 Turks had perished by the sword and by disease, 
 the fortifications were reduced to a heap of ruins, almost every one of 
 the defenders had been wounded, and their ammunition and provisions 
 were exhausted, ere the heroic grandmaster would condescend to capitu¬ 
 late. The sultan granted honourable terms to the survivors, who evac¬ 
 uated their stronghold on Christmas-day : they were afterwards settled 
 in Malta by Charles V., 1530. Long peace being incompatible with 
 the habits of the Turkish soldiers, who had already broken out into 
 several serious revolts, Soliman again invaded Hungary; the king of 
 which lost a battle and his life on the plains of Mohacz, his capital was 
 plundered, and the whole country overrun, 1526. Three years after, 
 the sultan laid siege to Vienna, but was compelled to retire. A war 
 with Persia next followed, by which Soliman gained possession of 
 Bagdad. 
 
 About this time the famous Khair Eddin Barbarossa entered the ser¬ 
 vice of the sultan. His brother, originally a pirate, had by force and 
 eachery attained the sovereignty of Algiers, whence he swept the coasts 
 of the Mediterranean with his galleys, and carried the terror of his name 
 even into the centre of Africa. On his death in 1518, the Turks in that 
 province immediately proclaimed Khair Eddin, who has been called 
 Barbarossa II. He placed himself under the protection of the grand 
 seignior, repelled the attacks of the Christians, captured Tunis, and was 
 appointed to the command of the fleet, 1530,—a dignity which he held 
 till his death, 1546. Tunis was however again wrested from him by 
 Charles V., who restored it to the former sovereign, Muley Hassan. 
 Tbe Turkish arms were victorious on all hands, and the friendship of 
 Soliman was even courted by Francis I., who formed with him the first 
 alliance between the Porte and any Christian power, 1536. Repeated 
 wars with Austria and Hungary followed, greatly to the advantage of 
 Soliman, who eventually succeeded in making Transylvania a province 
 of his empire, 1552. A renewed invasion of Persia, in which Erivan 
 was taken, led to a peace with the shah in 1554, which became the 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 389 
 
 basis of all subsequent treaties between the rival powers. The great 
 naval victory at Djerbeh, on the coast of Africa, over the combined 
 Christian fleets, 1560, secured the Turkish ascendency in the Mediter¬ 
 ranean ; while a truce with the empire confirmed their Hungarian con 
 quests, 1562. 
 
 These brilliant martial triumphs were, however, imbittered by do¬ 
 mestic dissensions. Soliman’s eldest son, Mustapha, had been put to 
 death in 1553 by the intrigues of his stepmother Roxalana, who wished 
 to secure the succession for one of her own children; the jealousies of 
 the two surviving princes, Seiim and Bajazet, ended in the revolt of the 
 latter, who was defeated and executed, 1561. An unsuccessful expe¬ 
 dition against Malta, 1565, was followed next year by a campaign in 
 Hungary, in which he headed his armies in person for the last time. 
 He expired before the walls of Zigeth, the day before the capture of the 
 place, at the age of seventy-two, and was succeeded by his only sur¬ 
 viving son, Selim II., 1566. 
 
 The empire now began to decline rapidly, the conquest of Cyprus 
 being more than neutralized by the destruction of the Turkish fleet at 
 Lepanto, 1571. Under Amurath Ilf., 1574, the turbulent janissaries 
 revolted ten times; and on one occasion set fire to Constantinople, 
 when 15,000 houses were destroyed, with the loss of 50,000,000 gold 
 crowns. 
 
 Persia. —During this century a dynasty was formed in Persia on the 
 basis of religion. Sheikh Eidar, a descendant of Ali, having gained a 
 number of adherents by a reputation for sanctity and the austerity of his 
 life, assumed the title of Svphi , and declared himself commissioned by 
 Heaven to work a religious reformation. He perished, however, in the 
 attempt; but his son Ismail, protected by his disciples, was removed to 
 the province of Ghilan, and strictly educated in his principles. In 1501, 
 at the head of a numerous body of partisans, he revived the claims of 
 his father, whose doctrines he propagated; and, gradually overcoming 
 all opposition, he at length became the founder of an extensive empire, 
 comprehending Persia Proper, Media, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Armenia 
 Ulterior. In 1514, in the war with Selim, his capital, Tauris, w~as 
 taken and plundered, though with immense loss on the part of the 
 Turks, who were obliged to retreat for want of supplies. He afterwards 
 subdued Georgia, and was succeeded by his son Tamasp, 1523 ; and 
 though, during his reign, the Turks several times invaded Persia, they 
 were unable to maintain their conquests. The succession was disputed 
 by his sons, the eldest of whom was proclaimed by the title of Moham¬ 
 med Mirza, 1576. This prince was deposed by the Sultan of Khoras- 
 san, who placed Mirza’s youngest son, Abbas, on the throne, 1585, by 
 far the most illustrious of the Sophi dynasty. He recovered from the 
 Turks and Tartars several provinces they had taken from his father, 
 recaptured from the Portuguese the island and town of Ormuz, destroyed 
 the janissaries, and legislated wisely for his people. He gave way, 
 however, to the natural cruelty of his character, causing his eldest son 
 to be murdered, and depriving both the others of sight, on suspicion of 
 their designs upon the throne. During this reign Isphahan became the 
 capital of Persia, where the shah erected the royal palace, the great 
 mosque, and othei celebrated buildings. A quarter of the city was set 
 
 33 * 
 
390 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 apart for the Armenians, and the resort of Christians encouraged. He 
 died in 16*28. 
 
 India. —The early history of this fertile and extensive country, which seems 
 to have been among the first inhabited parts of the globe, is necessarily involved 
 in great obscurity. The invariable traditions of the Hindoos point to the 
 northern provinces of the peninsula as the primeval residence of their race, and 
 of the Braliminical faith; and powerful empires existed in Hindostan many 
 centuries anterior to the Christian era. 
 
 About a. d. 1000, the celebrated Sultan Mohammed, a Tartar sovereign of 
 Ghizni, turned his arms against Lahore, the key of Northern Hindostan. 
 Twelve times he penetrated into the very centre of the peninsula, overthrow¬ 
 ing the temples of Brahma, and by his murderous ravages changing fertile 
 countries and populous cities into dreary solitudes. At his death in 1030, his 
 kingdom extended from the Caspian Sea to the mouth of the Indus, and from 
 the Tigris to the Ganges. His successors, despoiled by the Seljukian Turks 
 of nearly all the provinces they possessed beyond the Indus, still preserved the 
 empire founded by Mohammed westward of that river until the year 1182, at 
 which epoch the Ghorian dynasty was founded, and reigned at Delhi till the 
 end of the thirteenth century. Subsequent monarchs extended their dominion 
 over the Punjaub, Bengal, and Malwa, and contributed to the greater civilisa¬ 
 tion of their subjects by a generous patronage of literature. In later years, the 
 Mongols made frequent irruptions into India ; and on two occasions placed the 
 capital in imminent danger. The invasion of Tamerlane inflicted a terrible 
 blow on the empire of Delhi; but it gradually revived, without however being 
 able to regain its ancient frontiers. Mussulman and Hindoo princes, while 
 owning a nominal subjection to the emperor, founded independent states in 
 Oude, Bengal, Malwa, and Gujerat. The Decan also formed a kingdom, 
 which remained long divided between the Mohammedans and Hindoos. 
 
 The utmost confusion continued to prevail throughout India, till at 
 length Baber, a descendant of Tamerlane, became master of Delhi, and 
 put an end to the Afghan dynasty, 1525. He was the founder of the 
 Tartar or Mogul power, and his dominion extended from the Indus to 
 the Ganges. In 1556, the celebrated Akbar ascended the throne, and 
 firmly established the Mogul eritpire. This prince w~as honourably dis¬ 
 tinguished by his toleration and love of justice ; under his reign the 
 Hindoos enjoyed greater prosperity than they had experienced since the 
 Mohammedan invasion; and the memory of his virtues is even yet 
 cherished by all classes of the people. He divided his empire into 
 soubahs or provinces, and caused the land to be regularly assessed. 
 Towards the end of his life, he appears to have favoured the religious 
 opinions of the Hindoos and Parsees; he encouraged literature, and by 
 his order the Vedas were translated from Sanscrit into Persian. He 
 died in 1605. During this reign the Europeans first obtained a footing 
 in India. 
 
 China.. —The annals of this vast country extend over a period of upwards of 
 4000 years, from an era coeval with the rise of the Egyptian and Assyrian 
 monarchies, and exhibit an empire ascending from the rudiments of the social 
 state to a high pitch of civilisation and refinement. 
 
 What may be called the modern history of China begins with the great 
 dynasty of Han, which existed about four centuries and a half. It was over¬ 
 thrown a. d. 266 ; and, amid the disturbances that ensued, arose those epheme¬ 
 ral races which have been designated by the Chinese historians as the six petty 
 dynasties, 265-608. During this period, the empire, desolated and enfeebled 
 by civil wars and revolutions, lost the ascendency which it had formerly main¬ 
 tained over great part of Asia. These troubles were at length terminated by 
 the elevation of the royal house of Tang, 618-907, under whom the nation 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 391 
 
 / 
 
 attained a high degree of power and opulence. The most illustrious prince of 
 this family was Tai-tsong, in whose reign the frontiers, or at least the influence 
 of China, were extended far into Western Asia, and even to Persia; the 
 sovereign of the latter country having solicited the aid of his soldiers to repel 
 the Mohammedan Arabs. The Tang was followed by ho fewer than five suc¬ 
 cessive lines of monarchs, which lasted only fifty-three years, under whom the 
 empire was again' split among a number of independent chiefs. In 960, the 
 Song dynasty was founded, and lasted 319 years, presenting during that long 
 period a succession of able and virtuous monarchs. The last sovereign of the 
 race, however, was compelled to become tributary to the Tartars ; and, in 
 1279, China fell under the Mongol yoke. Kublai-Khan, a grandson of Genghis, 
 was the founder of this new line of monarchs, and extended his authority from 
 the Frozen Ocean to the Straits of Malacca. He possessed also Pegu, Thibet, 
 Tartary, and Turkestan: Siam, Cochin-China, Tonquin, and Corea paid him 
 tribute; and he was regarded by the other chiefs of the family as the head of 
 their race. Several of the princes after Kublai seem to have been able and 
 even enlightened rulers ; but under their degenerate successors the ruin of the 
 dynasty was consummated. The Chinese took advantage of the dissensions 
 of their conquerors, and about the middle of the fourteenth century revolts 
 everywhere broke out. The last Mongol emperor retired in 1368 into Tar¬ 
 tary, abandoning his throne to the founder of the glorious dynasty of Ming, 
 1368-1644. The new sovereign immediately attacked the princes of the fugitive 
 race, when Thibet and other Tartar dependencies were subdued by his arms. 
 
 COLONIES AND DISCOVERIES. 
 
 The fifteenth century had closed with the discovery of a new world 
 and a new route to India. Between 1508 and 1510, the Spaniards set¬ 
 tled in Hayti, Cuba, and Jamaica; but the revenue they drew from the 
 West Indies was at first inconsiderable. 
 
 Mexico. — In 1517, Mexico was discovered by Francisco Cordova ; 
 and, two years later, the celebrated Hernan Cortez landed with an arma¬ 
 ment for the conquest and settlement of the country. The invaders found 
 the empire at this period governed by Montezuma, a powerful prince, 
 whose subjects were considerably advanced in civilisation and in the 
 knowledge of the mechanical arts. The cruelties that disgraced the 
 conquest of Mexico can scarcely be imagined. A great number of the 
 people were branded in the forehead and sent to work in the mines; and 
 the successor of the vanquished monarch was burnt to death over a slow 
 fire by the orders of Cortez. The Spaniards, however, derived immense 
 riches from this acquisition. 
 
 Peru.— This country was invaded by Francis Pizarro, once a shep¬ 
 herd of Estremadura, in 1526. Intestine dissensions facilitated his suc¬ 
 cess; and, after putting the sovereign to a violent death, the principal 
 provinces were divided among the conquerors. Peru, at the epoch of 
 its discovery, was under the theocratic government of the Incas or “ chil¬ 
 dren of the sun,” the object of religious worship. The great mass of 
 .he people were enslaved ; and, although they had constructed roads and 
 built cities, they were but little advanced in the arts; for they had no 
 iron, no coined money, nor any beast of burden except the llama. 
 
 Brazil was approached by the Portuguese in the last year of the fif¬ 
 teenth century, bux was not settled till about 1530. Its history was not 
 remarkable until it passed into the hands of the Spaniards in 1580; and 
 the revolution which placed the family of Braganza on the throne, ter¬ 
 minated their dominion in 1640. 
 
392 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 North America. — The English, before 1588, had advanced little 
 farther towards their maritime and colonial dominion than by making 
 repeated attacks, not avowed by government, on the rich home-bound 
 cargoes of Spain. Between 1576 and 1610, vain attempts were made 
 by Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and others, to discover a northeast or a 
 northwest passage to India. The unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh founded 
 a colony in Southern Virginia, 1584: but the affairs of North America 
 remained in the hands of a company until the reign of James I. France 
 made a few unsuccessful attempts at colonisation, important chiefly for 
 their consequences. Cartier, a mariner of St. Malo, took possession of 
 the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534. 
 
 [DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 [The honour of discovering the continent of North America belongs 
 to John Cabot, a Venetian merchant resident at Bristol, and his son, 
 Sebastian Cabot, a native of the latter place. The brilliant success of 
 Columbus had awakened a zeal for discovery throughout Europe. Under 
 the influence of this feeling, Henry VII. of England, in 1495, readily 
 granted to Cabot and his sons a commission to make a voyage of dis¬ 
 covery, and to take possession of the regions discovered in the name of 
 the king of England. Their first voyage commenced in 1496. Its object 
 was to find a northwest passage to China, and it resulted in the disco¬ 
 very of the north coast of Labrador, in June 1497. The fame of this 
 expedition led to the immediate fitting out of a second for commercial 
 purposes by the merchants of Bristol, in which the king himself became 
 an interested partner. This second expedition, which was under the 
 command of Sebastian, sailed early in 1498, and after reaching New¬ 
 foundland, proceeded in a southerly direction along the coast as far as 
 Albemarle Sound. Sebastian Cabot, afterwards known in England as 
 the Great Seaman, lived to an extreme old age, and was much distin¬ 
 guished for his naval skill and enterprise. 
 
 [Florida w r as discovered in 1512 by Ponce de Leon, a gallant soldier, 
 and one of the companions of Columbus. This noble-minded Spaniard 
 attempted in 1521 to settle the country which he had discovered; but 
 his little colony was expelled by the natives, and he himself died of a 
 wound received from one of their poisoned arrows. 
 
 [The French w*ere the first to derive any commercial advantage from 
 the discoveries of the Cabots. As early as 1504, the hardy mariners of 
 Brittany and Normandy w*ere found engaged in the fisheries off New 7 - 
 foundland. In 1524, Francis I. employed John Verrazzani, an adven¬ 
 turous Florentine, to explore the new regions. Sailing westerly from 
 the coast of Spain, in a single small vessel, Verrazzani reached the coast 
 of North Carolina, near where Wilmington now is, a portion of the con¬ 
 tinent never before seen by any European. From this point he sailed 
 north along the coast as far as latitude 50, trafficking with the natives 
 and exploring the regions, particularly the New Jersey shore, New V ork 
 harbour, New* Port, New* England, and Nova Scotia. 
 
 [In the following year, 1525, Stephen Gomez, a Spanish navigator, 
 sailed northward along the coast of North America for the purpose of 
 discovering a northwest passage to China, wffiich Cabot had attempted. 
 Hence New England and the Middle States are marked in old Spanish 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 393 
 
 maps as the land of Gomez. The expedition of Gomez, however, was 
 without any practical result. 
 
 [The continued success of the French fishermen led Francis I. in 
 1534, to fit out another exploring expedition for the New World, undei 
 the command of James Cartier, a mariner of St. Malo in France. Car- 
 tier, in this voyage, sailed around Newfoundland, entered the bays of 
 Chaleurs and Gaspe, and explored the bay and river of St. Lawrence. 
 In the following year, 1535, Cartier led a second expedition, whose 
 object was to colonize the newly-discovered regions. He followed the 
 same route as in the previous year, sailed some distance up the St. 
 Lawrence, gave name to Montreal, learned from the natives something 
 of Vermont and New York, and having wintered in the country, returned 
 in the spring to France, leaving no settlement behind him. A third but 
 unsuccessful attempt was made by Cartier in 1541, in conjunction w r ith 
 Roherval, a nobleman of Picardy. Some other attempts to settle Ca¬ 
 nada w 7 ere made by the French during the present century, but without 
 success. 
 
 [Ferdinand de Soto, a companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Mexico, 
 became dazzled with the accounts which he had received of the wealth 
 and magnificence of Florida. Accordingly, under the auspices of Charles 
 V., he set on foot an expedition similar in its design to those conducted 
 by Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. De Soto reached the bay of 
 Spiritu Santo in Florida in 1539; and dismissing his ships, commenced 
 his march into the interior. His followers, six hundred in number, were 
 mostly men of wealth and distinction; some of them were nobles, and 
 the very flow 7 er of Spanish chivalry, De Soto continued for three years 
 to traverse in various directions the States bordering on the Gulf of 
 Mexico; and after encountering almost incredible hardships, he died on 
 the banks of the Mississippi in 1542, and lies beneath the river which 
 he discovered. He crossed a continent in search of gold, and found 
 nothing so remarkable as his burial-place. His followers attempted to 
 penetrate the country westward to Mexico; but failing in this, returned 
 to the Mississippi, and passed downward through its mouth into the 
 Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 [In 1562, a colony of French Pluguenots, under command of John 
 Ribault, made several discoveries along the coast of Florida and the 
 Carolinas, and effected a settlement. The infant colony struggled on 
 with various success for three years, when it w 7 as exterminated by a 
 general massacre, conducted with remorseless cruelty by Melendez and 
 a body of Spaniards from St. Augustine. 
 
 [To the bigoted Melendez belongs the honour of establishing the first 
 permanent settlement in the United States. The foundations of St. Au¬ 
 gustine were laid by him in September 1565; and houses in it are yet 
 standing, w 7 hich are said to have been built many years before the colo¬ 
 nization of Virginia. 
 
 [English mariners appear very early to have been attracted to the 
 fisheries off Newfoundland. No formal expedition however was made 
 into these regions after the time of the Cabots until 1576, when Martin 
 Frobisher renewed the design of accomplishing a northw T est passage to 
 China. In three successive voyages, undertaken by the authority and 
 partly at the expense of queen Elizabeth, and for the double purpose of 
 colonization and discovery, Frobisher made no settlement, and penetrated 
 
394 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Hudson’s Straits only to see regions visited by Cabot seventy years 
 before. 
 
 [Sir Francis Drake, an English navigator, who had acquired great 
 notoriety and immense treasures, as a freebooter in the Spanish harbours 
 on the Pacific, sailed in 1579 northward alone* the coast of California as 
 far as the 43d degree of latitude, or about one decree north of the south- 
 ern boundary of the Oregon territory. This whole coast however had 
 been previously explored by an expedition of Spaniards in 1542, who 
 traced the continent as far as the 44th degree of latitude, or within about 
 two and a half degrees of the mouth of the Columbia river. 
 
 [In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a member of the English, parliament, 
 and step-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, under a liberal charter from 
 queen Elizabeth, made a vigorous but unsuccessful attempt to establish 
 a colony on the coast of the United States. Gilbert himself and a large 
 part of the colonists perished on the voyage. 
 
 [Nothing daunted by the melancholy fate of his step-brother, Raleigh 
 in 1584 obtained a new patent from Elizabeth, and sent out another 
 expedition, consisting of two ships well laden with men and provisions. 
 The colonists visited the islands in Ocracock inlet, explored Pamlico 
 and Albemarle Sounds, and trafficked with the natives; but wantino* the 
 courage to make a settlement, they returned to England, where they 
 gave a glowing account of the regions, which in honour of the Virgin 
 Queen were named Virginia. 
 
 [Raleigh, however, pursued his plan for colonizing the New World, 
 and in 1585 set on foot a second expedition, composed of seven vessels, 
 and carrying out 108 colonists. Among these were Lane, Grenville, 
 Cavendish and Hariot, all men of distinction. Lane, the governor of 
 the colony, proved to be not equal to his station. After remaining on 
 the island of Roanoke little more than a year, and making a few incon¬ 
 siderable excursions into the interior, he returned with his wfiiole colony 
 to England in the fleet of Sir Francis Drake, which had stopped to visit 
 the colonists on a homeward voyage from the West Indies. 
 
 [Raleigh was not dismayed by ill success. In 1587 he sent out at 
 his own expense a third company of emigrants, with their wives and 
 children, 108 in all. The poor colonists of Roanoke were however for¬ 
 gotten in the panic of the Invincible Armada; and when, after its signal 
 discomfiture, vessels were sent to inquire after and supply their wants, 
 no traces of them could be found. Whether they perished of hunger, or 
 were massacred by the savages, is a matter of conjecture. 
 
 [Thus ended for the present all attempts to settle this country. North 
 America, at the end of the sixteenth century, had many English graves 
 but no Encrlish towns. Raleigh himself, the illustrious author of colo- 
 nization in the United States, after expending more than fifty thousand 
 pounds upon his favourite project, lived to see it apparently entirely 
 abandoned; and he was himself reduced to beggary by the English 
 government, and finally beheaded by order of James I.] 
 
 Colonial System. —The conquered kingdoms of America became colonies 
 of Spain, under a constitution framed by Charles V., 1542. All the external 
 apparatus of Christianity was carried across the Atlantic; there were arch¬ 
 bishops, bishops, vicars, and monks, dependent entirely on the king ; nor was the 
 Inquisition forgotten, 1570. The political affairs were managed by the Council 
 of the Indies in Spain, and in America by two viceroys, aided by boards and 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 395 
 
 municipalities. By'this imitation of European forms, the national spirit of the 
 natives was extinguished. The trade was rendered a complete monopoly. 
 Vera Cruz, Portobello, and Carthagena, in America; Seville, and afterwards 
 Cadiz, in Europe, were the only ports which were allowed to be used by 
 colonial ships. Little advantage was derived from these extensive acquisitions 
 beyond the supply of precious metals, the mining operation connected with 
 which gave rise to the African slave-trade , the aboriginal population being 
 found unable to undergo the exhausting labour demanded by their taskmasters. 
 
 During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese dominion, strengthened by the 
 genius of its governors, Almeida and Albuquerque, extended in the East from 
 the African coast to the peninsula of Malacca and the Spice Islands. Every¬ 
 where they established factories or marls; but although their commerce was 
 not restricted to a company, as in England and Holland, it could not be carried 
 on without permission of the government. A connexion was formed with 
 China, 1517 ; and Xavier, the apostle of the Indians, was the means of establish¬ 
 ing a regular communication with Japan. In Brazil also, the Portuguese pos¬ 
 sessions were widely extended; and the sugar-cane, transplanted from Madeira, 
 was largely cultivated. A dispute between this nation and Spain about the 
 possession of the Moluccas, was the cause of the voyage of Magellan, whose 
 fleet first circumnavigated the globe, 1520. 
 
 The ruin of the Portuguese dominion in the East was accelerated by the 
 decline of morality among the higher class of colonists, and more especially by 
 their avarice. The tyranny of the Inquisition at Goa has never been equalled. 
 Spain, between 1560 and 1620, considerably augmented her commerce and 
 maritime power by acquiring the East Indian colonies of Portugal and the pos¬ 
 session of the Philippines England and Holland entered into rivalry with her; 
 and the latter, while combating for the liberty of Europe, became mistress of 
 the commerce of the world. The first charter of the Dutch East India Com¬ 
 pany was granted in 1602, making it a political as well as a mercantile body, 
 governed by a board of directors at home and a governor-general in India. 
 Establishments were made at Amboyna, Ternate, and other places, 1607; an 
 intercourse was opened with Japan, 1611 ; and Batavia was founded in 1619. 
 
 England in the reign of Elizabeth extended her views to all parts of the 
 world. After having penetrated into Persia and even to India by the Caspian 
 Sea. she founded her great agricultural colonies in North America. The prin¬ 
 cipal branches of foreign commerce were conferred on chartered companies; 
 that of the East Indies was organized in 1600, but its traffic was long very 
 inconsiderable.* 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Reformation. —Many circumstances, widely separated in respect of 
 time, seem to have contributed to the great ecclesiastical revolution which 
 distinguished this century. The introduction of image worship had been 
 strenuously resisted ; and many of the principles of Protestantism can be re¬ 
 cognised so far back as the end of the eleventh century. The Waldenses or 
 Vaudois had ever maintained a stronsr opposition to the grosser corruptions of 
 Rome ; but the isolated position which long ensured them an immunity from 
 persecution was ill suited for the birthplace of wide religious changes. In 990, 
 Gerbert declared the Pope to be antichrist; and Berenger of Tours, in the next 
 age. attacked the great doctrine of transubstantiation. In the Greek church, 
 the liturgy was read in the vernacular tongue of each country which received 
 its tenets, and the communion dispensed to the laity in both kinds. Wickliffe, 
 in 1360, had preached against the corruptions of Rome; and his opinions, 
 spreading over the Continent, were eagerly embraced by Huss and Jerome of 
 Prague. Interior causes of decay were also undermining the colossal fabric of 
 popery. The tiara had been contested by two or three pontiffs at a time ; and 
 the attachment of the secular clergy to the court of Rome was weakened by 
 its partiality for the mendicant orders, its usurpation of the rights of ecclesias- 
 
 * For the substance of this and the subsequent sketches of colonial history, the reader 
 is referred to Heeren’s work on that subject. 
 
396 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 tical patronage, and its oppressive pecuniary exactions. The temporalities of 
 the papacy brought forward base and unworthy men, eager to gratify an in¬ 
 triguing ambition; and in the latter part of the fifteenth century, the triple 
 crown was dishonoured by the extreme profligacy of the popes, especially of 
 the notorious Alexander VI. 1'he necessity of a reformation, in discipline at 
 least, was generally felt even by those best disposed to the church of Rome; 
 while the spirit of inquiry awakened by the invention of printing was ominous 
 of more important doctrinal changes. 
 
 Luther. —The immediate cause of the Reformation was the cross 
 
 O 
 
 abuse of indulgences. Mitigations of the penalties of the church had 
 been introduced as early as the third century, but they were not employed 
 as an engine of power until the time of the Crusades. The indulgences 
 then granted to the opposers of the infidels were afterwards extended to 
 those who aided in the suppression of heresy : they were also transformed 
 into remissions of the pains of purgatory. Leo X., who had been elected 
 in 1513, discovered that his finances were inadequate to his great expen¬ 
 diture, and to complete the magnificent church of St. Peter. Accord¬ 
 ingly, in 1517, a sale of indulgences was proclaimed, as the most effec¬ 
 tual means of replenishing his exhausted treasury, their disposal being 
 intrusted to the monks of the order of St. Dominic. By these, absolution 
 was given for future sins, as well as for the past; and they were con¬ 
 verted into licenses for violating the most sacred moral obligations. This 
 darinor infringement of the law of God roused the indignation of Luther, 
 and he resolutely determined to oppose it. As confessor, he had enjoined 
 penance for some atrocious crimes, and refused to accord absolution until 
 his directions were complied with, although the party had pleaded a 
 remission in the form of a plenary indulgence. His firmness was threat¬ 
 ened with the terrors of the Inquisition and the stake; but he determined 
 to appeal to the reason of his countrymen, and, on the 31st October 1517, 
 he began the Reformation by submitting ninety-five propositions to be 
 discussed before the university of Wittenberg, in which he was professor 
 of divinity. Adopting the opinions of St. Augustine on predestination 
 and grace, and denying the efficacy of indulgences and the intercession 
 of the saints, he proceeded to contest the doctrines of auricular confes¬ 
 sion, purgatory, celibacy of the priesthood, transubstantiation, and, 
 finally, the supreme authority of the pope. Erasmus, who ridiculed the 
 monastic orders, and even the court of Rome itself, by his writings ma¬ 
 terially assisted the efforts of Luther. His translation of the New Tes¬ 
 tament appeared in 1516; but he was too timid to enter into the views 
 of his great contemporary, hoping that the advancing reform in literature 
 would gradually effect a corresponding change in religion. 
 
 Leo X. was little qualified to combat the energy of Luther; and he 
 did not proceed to condemn the new tenets until the year 1520, yielding 
 at length to the importunity of his ministers. Charles V., having need 
 of the Pope’s services, declared against the reformer, who, with his 
 followers, was proscribed by the edict of Worms, 1521. He was not, 
 however, dismayed : in the castle of W’artenburg, to which he had been 
 conveyed, he continued to write in defence of his principles; and, in 
 1522, executed a German translation of the New Testament. The new 
 doctrines spread rapidly through all parts of the empire, particularly 
 Hesse and Saxony. A diet was held at Spires in 1529, where, as the 
 Lutherans protested against the decree that would have crushed the new 
 opinions, they acquired their name of Protestants. The diet of Augs- 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 397 
 
 burg, in 1530, which elicited a confession of their faith, proved that all 
 hope of reconciling the two parties was futile. In 1532, the emperor 
 for the first time agreed to conclude a religious peace at Nuremberg; 
 but, not long after, his opponents were so much reduced, as to submit 
 to accept a re-establishment of nearly all the abuses they had renounced, 
 1548. This was the crisis of the German reformation. A peculiar 
 combination of circumstances induced Maurice of Saxony to declare 
 for the Protestant cause; and, in 1555, Charles was compelled to grant, 
 in the diet of Augsburg, a complete toleration of the Lutheran doctrines. 
 
 The Helvetic reformation, commenced by Zuingle in 1518, w r as com¬ 
 pleted by Calvin in 1541. A separation from those who adopted the 
 articles of Augsburg grew out of a difference of opinion respecting the 
 sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The tenets of the reformers began to 
 make way in France in 1519. They were condemned by the Sorbonne 
 in 1521, but still found advocates in every class of society, particularly 
 among the members of the learned professions. The views of Calvin, 
 as proclaimed by his celebrated Institutes, 1536, were generally adopted. 
 The progress of ecclesiastical reform in England and Scotland has been 
 described elsewhere. In Poland, the freedom of the government allowed 
 the adversaries of the Trinitarian doctrine to form a church, which has 
 received its name from Socinus. In Spain and Italy the Reformation 
 was crushed with the most unrelenting severity. 
 
 The Council of Trent.— The Protestants, on their condemnation 
 by the bull of Pope Leo X., had appealed to a general council, which 
 was prevented from assembling by the troubled state of Europe. At 
 length Paul III. convoked the long-wished-for assembly, which met at 
 Trent in 1545, and did not close till 1563, in the pontificate of Pius IV. 
 As might have been anticipated, the decisions of this convocation were 
 far from allaying the religious differences. Doctrines depending on the 
 credit of tradition alone w T ere there sanctioned and defined; and cere¬ 
 monies, venerable only from their antiquity, were pronounced essential 
 parts of worship. Among the articles decreed by this council to he 
 implicitly believed, are:—The celibacy of the clergy; the equal 
 authority of Scripture and tradition, including the apocryphal and cano¬ 
 nical books; confession and absolution; communion in one kind only; 
 the continuance of miracles; the worship of images and relics; the 
 intercession of saints; the adoration and immaculate conception of the 
 Virgin Mary ; purgatory, or the intermediate state of punishment between 
 death and judgment, from which the souls of men can be delivered by 
 the prayers, alms, or penance of the faithful; and transubstantiation, or 
 a belief that the consecrated wafer (or host) is absolutely changed, in 
 the Lord’s Supper, into the real and substantial body and blood of 
 Christ. 
 
 The Jesuits. —The rapid dissemination of Protestantism throughout 
 Europe gave rise to a great increase of zeal among the adherents of the 
 ancient wmrship. Several monastic orders were established at this 
 period, solely to combat the spirit of innovation; and of these the most 
 celebrated arose in Spain. By the chivalrous enthusiasm of Ignatius 
 Loyola, a Biscayan gentleman, the society of Jesuits was founded in 
 1534, and sanctioned by Rome in 1540. At his death in 1556, the order 
 had diffused itself over most of the Catholic countries of Western 
 34 
 
398 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Europe, and its missionaries were scattered throughout India, Ethiopia, 
 and Brazil. The object of this association was the control of public 
 opinion, by which power they hoped to oppose the new doctrines and 
 the freedom of the intellect, supporting at the same time the highest 
 assumptions of the papacy. Their principles were diffused by means 
 of missions, confessionals, and the instruction of youth in seminaries 
 under the control of the order. The good done by them in the propaga¬ 
 tion of religion, and in various branches of science, is not to be depre¬ 
 ciated ; but the political historian has not much to say in their favour. 
 The order was suppressed in 1773 by a papal bull, and revived by 
 another in 1814. 
 
 LETTERS, ARTS, AND SCIENCES. 
 
 The invention of printing, in the preceding century was followed almost as 
 a consequence by the Protestant Reformation in the present; and these two 
 great events communicated an incalculable impulse to the cause of literature 
 and science. The study of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue by the mass of 
 the people, and by scholars in the original Hebrew and Greek, was the initia¬ 
 tory step to various other departments of knowledge, and led to investigations 
 in history, laws, geography, and antiquities, not less than in theology. Amid 
 the intellectual excitement thus occasioned, principles were evolved destined to 
 change the face of society, to lead science forward to the great discoveries of 
 modern times, and to impart to literature a degree of vigour and originality 
 rivalling the models of classic genius, as well as an influence on the progress 
 of society hitherto unexampled. 
 
 England. — During the first half of the sixteenth century, England could 
 only boast of two distinguished poets,—Thomas Wyatt (d. 1541),* who com¬ 
 posed sonnets in the style of Petrarch; and the unfortunate Surrey, 1547, the 
 first English writer who made use of blank verse. Under Elizabeth flourished 
 that accomplished soldier and patron of letters, Sir Philip Sydney, 1586, the 
 author of the Arcadia ; Raleigh, 1618, at once historian and statesman, poet 
 and navigator; Dorset, whose political cares did not render him averse to the 
 Muses, and who, in 1561, caused Gordubuc to be played, the first piece in 
 verse that had been represented in London; Daniel, 1619, an historian and the 
 poet of the Wars of the Roses ; Southwell, 1595, whose verses are quoted for 
 their elegance and noble sentiment; Davies, 1626, whose poem on the Immor¬ 
 tality of the Soul was the type of the Essay on Man; Drayton, 1631, whose 
 elegiac, historical, and religious essays have been a great storehouse for suc¬ 
 ceeding writers; Spenser, 1599, whose Faery Queen has placed him in the 
 foremost rank of English literature; and a greater genius still, the “ honey- 
 tongued” Shakspeare, 1616 ; with Gascoigne and Marlow, 1577 and 1593, his 
 predecessors; Beaumont and Fletcher, 1616 and 1625, Massinger, 1640, and 
 Ben Jonson, 1637, his contemporaries, rivals, and sometimes his equals. The 
 Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, 1600, has been justly famed; and the cele¬ 
 brated Institutes of Coke, 1634, are still the standard authority on English law. 
 The first document in the form of a newspaper is believed to have been pub¬ 
 lished by Elizabeth’s order, 23d July 1588. 
 
 France. —The age of Francis I. is the first of the three literary eras of his 
 country. The Italian expeditions had increased his taste for the fine arts, and 
 he invited to his court Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, and Rosso. Las- 
 caris, a learned Greek, was employed to form the king’s library at Fontaine¬ 
 bleau, and to introduce professors of his language into the university of Paris. 
 At the solicitation of the learned Budaeus, 1540, the king established the Col¬ 
 lege of France for the study of the sciences and of those recently cultivated 
 languages which had no professor in the university. Literature was also 
 
 * The year of decease will be always given, as serving to mark more exactly the period 
 at which the individual may be supposed to have flourished. 
 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 399 
 
 adorned by the names of Marot, 1544, the inventor of the rondeau ; Rabelais, 
 1553, the witty but impure author of the adventures of Pantagruel and Gar- 
 gantua; Ronsard, 1585, an elegant poet and sonnetteer, especially distinguished 
 by Francis I.; Montaigne, 1592, the garrulous but sceptical essayist; and 
 Malherbe, 1628, some of whose poems are the most touching in the whole 
 range of French literature. Philology was honoured by the printers and cri¬ 
 tics, Robert and Henry Stephens, 1559 and 1598; by the learned Scaliger, 
 1609; and by Casaubon, 1614. The names of Calvin, 1564, and the correct 
 Beza, 1605, have distinguished the theology of France. 
 
 Italy —This century was the famous Medician era of Italian literature. In 
 it flourished the poets Ariosto, 1533, author of Orlando Furioso; Vida, 1566, 
 who wrote the Christiad in Latin verse ; Tasso, 1595, celebrated for the epic 
 of Jerusalem, Delivered Guarini, 1612, the author of the Pastor Fido ; and 
 Tassoni, 1635, the witty writer of the Pape of the Bucket. History was adorned 
 by the acute Machiavelli, 1527, whose name has passed into a proverb ; by 
 Guicciardini, 1540; by the Latin history of Venice by Bembo, 1547, who oc¬ 
 casionally strayed into the field of poetry ; and by Sarpi, 1623, better known 
 as Father Paul, the historian of the Council of Trent. Scholars and critics still 
 respect the names of the printer Manutius Aldus, 1516, whose editions of the 
 classics are highly prized ; of Sannazarius, 1530, whose poem De Partu Vir- 
 ginis, is said to have occupied him twenty years; and of the learned Joseph 
 Scaliger, 1609. The unequalled paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, 1520; of 
 Raphael, 1520; of Corregio, 1534; of Titian, 1576; and of the two Caracci, 
 1609 and 1618, adorn the churches of Italy and the galleries of Europe; while 
 Michael Angelo, 1564, courted with equal success the rival muses of painting, 
 sculpture, and architecture. Cardan, 1576, facilitated the operations of algebra, 
 by his method for the solution of equations of the third degree. 
 
 Spain. —The great exploits of Spain were celebrated by various eminent 
 writers. The Jesuit Mariana, 1624, wrote a general history of that country; 
 Herrera, 1625, was the chronicler of the reign of Philip II. and of the Castilian 
 conquests in the Western World; Garcilasso, 1536, revived the lyric poetry 
 of the nation; Ercilla, 1596, the most celebrated epic poet of the peninsula, 
 composed, in 1590, the Araucana, in which he describes the wars he had 
 shared in the New World. John de la Cueva, Christoval de Virues, Father 
 Ojeda, and Zorate, each wrote an epic poem. Lope de Vega, the greatest poet 
 of this era, 1635, also composed an epic on the conquest of Jerusalem; but it 
 was in the drama that he unfolded the full resources of his genius. Calderon, 
 1687, who, with the poet just mentioned, scarcely belongs to this century, ranks 
 in the very first class of tragic writers. The romance of Don Quixoto, by 
 Cervantes, 1616, has become part of the standard literature of every civilized 
 nation. Mendoza, Boscan, Louis de Leon, and Quevedo, have attained a 
 European celebrity. 
 
 Portugal. — The first Portuguese writer of merit was Ribeyro, 1521. 
 Camoens, at once the glory and shame of his native land, died a year before 
 Portugal was subjected to the Spanish crown, 1579. His great poem, the 
 Lusiad, was written during his exile at Macao : it is a description of the dis¬ 
 coveries and exploits of his countrymen in the East. 
 
 Germany and Holland. — Albert Durer, 1528, the father of the German 
 school of painting and engraving, after studying the Italian models, formed his 
 style in the school of Bruges. Luke of Leyden, 1533, founded the Dutch 
 school. Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1536, prepared, by the freedom of his popular 
 writings, for a considerable change in the opinions of Europe. In poetry, the 
 Minnesingers, the popular troubadours of Germany, were distinguished. 
 Luther himself was no contemptible poet, and one of the chief writers of the 
 day, 1546; and Zuingle the Swiss, 1531, and Melancthon, 1560, also adorned 
 theology. Paracelsus alone, 1541, was conspicuous in natural philosophy, and 
 Mercator, 1594, in geography ; Lipsius, 1606, and Buxtorf, 1629, were cele¬ 
 brated for their learning and philological studies. Almost all that was pro¬ 
 duced in this century, of whatever is elevated and precious, arose from the 
 inspiration of Germany. Copernicus of Thorn in Poland, 1543, by comparing 
 
400 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 he ancient notions of astronomy, hypothetically discovered that system of the 
 planets which was afterwards demonstrated by Newton. Tycho Brahe, 1601, 
 even when rejecting the suppositions of Copernicus, contributed to the advance¬ 
 ment of astronomical science by the improvement of his optical instruments and 
 his accurate observations, 1546-1601. Kepler, 1630, united the speculations of 
 Copernicus with the method of Brahe, and, by his immortal labours, established 
 the foundations of modern astronomy. In Switzerland, the physician Gesner 
 introduced the study of the natural sciences, 1516-1565. 
 
 Table to be filled up by the pupil with notes on any personage the 
 
 tutor may select. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Born and Died. 
 
 Where. 
 
 Performances. 
 
 j 
 
 Critical Opinion or 
 Remarks. 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 i 
 
 N. B.—The other literary periods may be studied according to this model. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Great Britain. — 1603, The Stuarts: James I.— 1605, Gunpowder Plot.— 
 1621 Whigs and Tories. — 1625, Charles I.— 1638, Solemn Covenant; Long 
 Parliament. — 1641, Irish Rebellion. — 1643, Episcopacy abolished. — Civil 
 War.— 1649, The Commonwealth. — 1653, Cromwell Protector.— 1660, The 
 Restoration: Charles II. — 1665, 1666, Plague and Fire of London. — 1679, 
 Habeas Corpus Act. — 1688, Revolution : House of Orange. — 1694, Trien¬ 
 nial Act. 
 
 France. — 1610, Louis XIII. — Richelieu and Mazarin.—1643, Louis XIV.— 
 1659, Peace of Pyrenees. — 1668, Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. —1685, Edict 
 of Nantes revoked.—1697, Peace of Ryswick. 
 
 Spain and Portugal.— 1610, Moors expelled. — 1621, Philip IV. — Decline of 
 Spain.—1640, Revolution of Portugal.—Braganza Dynasty.—1668, Indepen¬ 
 dence of Portugal. 
 
 Italy. —1647, Massaniello.—1645, Candian War. 
 
 Germany. — 1618, Thirty Years’ War. —1648, Treaty of Westphalia.—1682, 
 Insurrection of Tekeli.—■ 1683, Siege of Vienna by the Turks.—1687, Hun¬ 
 gary becomes hereditary in the Austrian Family. 
 
 Holland. —1609, Truce with Spain.—1618, Synod of Dort.—1648 Treaty of 
 Munster.—1678, Treaty of Nimeguen.—1689, William III. of Holland be 
 comes King of England. 
 
 Denmark.— 1588, Christian IV.—1611, Swedish War. — 1648, Frederick III 
 
 Sweden. — 1611, Gustavus Adolphus. — 1632, Battle of Lutzen ; Christiana* 
 Abdicates in 1654.—1697, Charles XII. 
 
 Poland. —1632, Ladislaus IV.—1647, Cossack War.—1674, John Sobiesky; 
 Raises the Siege of Vienna, 1683.—1686, Treaty ot Leopol. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 401 
 
 Russia. — 1613, Romanof Dynasty : Michael.— 1645, Alexis.— 1667, Revolt 
 of the Cossacks.— 1689, Peter the Great; Turkish War. 
 
 Ottoman Empire. — 1645, Candian War. — 1669, Conquest of Candia ; Mo¬ 
 hammed IV.— 1699, Treaty of Carlowitz. 
 
 The East. —Shah Abbas.— 1694, Hussein Mirza.— 1644, Tartar Dynasty in 
 China.— 1611, Dutch Trade with Japan. — 1659, Aurengzebe ; The Mah- 
 rattas. 
 
 Colonies. — 1600, East India Company.— 1623, Dutch Cruelties at Amboyna. 
 —1648, Factories at Madras and Hoogly; 1699, Fort-William at Calcutta. 
 —1674, Colonies on Guinea Coast.— 1625, Barbadoes and St. Kitt’s.— 1641, 
 Sugar-cane planted in West Indies. — 1655, Conquest of Jamaica. — 1627, 
 Boston founded.— 1630, Rhode Island.— 1632, Maryland.— 1680, Carolina. 
 1682, Pennsylvania.— 1664, French West India Company; Buccaneers.— 
 1650, Dutch settle at Cape of Good Hope.— 1656, Ceylon. 
 
 Church.— 1638, Jansenism. — 1709, Port Royal suppressed. — 1650, Quakers. 
 Inventions, &c. — 1602, Decimal Arithmetic.— 1610, Thermometer; Satel¬ 
 lites of Jupiter. — 1614, Logarithms.— 1625, Barometer.— 1628, Circulation 
 of Blood demonstrated; Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, and Sugar introduced.— 
 1658, Pocket Watches.— 1686, Newtonian Philosophy. 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 The Stuarts, 1603.—The death of Elizabeth terminated the main 
 line of the Tudors, who had now filled the throne of England one hun¬ 
 dred and eighteen years. The popular voice declared James VI. of 
 Scotland heir to the crown, notwithstanding- the claims of other com- 
 petitors; and the new 7 sovereign accordingly removed from Edinburgh 
 to London, and quietly assumed the sceptre by the title of James I. 
 England and Scotland w’ere thus at length united under one sovereign; 
 and, at the suggestion of the king, wfiio wished to obliterate all distinc¬ 
 tion between them, the tw 7 o countries henceforth received the common 
 designation of Great Britain. The character of James was in many 
 respects singular. To great capacity for learning, and abilities by no 
 means contemptible, he united a degree of meanness, pusillanimity, and 
 vanity, which accorded but ill w ith his lofty ideas of the divine rights 
 and authority of sovereigns. He was equally disposed with his prede¬ 
 cessor to govern despotically ; but he w T as signally deficient in the 
 vigour and tact w 7 hich enabled Elizabeth to rule in the hearts as much 
 as over the persons of her subjects. At the same time, the discontents 
 of the Catholics, the fears of the church party, and the energy of the 
 popular spirit, manifested particularly in the acts of the Puritans , ren¬ 
 dered the position of the monarch by no means an easy one. The latter 
 party desired to make great alterations in the government and w orship 
 of the church; and, in the strictness of their manners and the fervour of 
 their devotions, bore a striking resemblance to the Scottish Presbyterians. 
 While, therefore, the nation w^as making rapid advances in wealth and 
 intelligence, and trade and maritime enterprise flourished, causes w 7 ere 
 at work which threatened the stability of regal government, and led to 
 the great national convulsions in the next reign. 
 
 Gunpowder Plot. —Soon after the accession of James, a plot had 
 been discovered to place Arabella Stuart, lineally descended from Henry 
 34 * 
 
402 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 VII., upon the throne ; but the conspirators, who were in correspondence 
 with the Pope and Spain, were arrested and executed. In 1605, some 
 disappointed Roman Catholics, at the head of whom were Robert Catesby 
 and Thomas Percy, formed a conspiracy to destroy by gunpowder the 
 king and assembled Parliament; and sixty-four barrels of powder had 
 been actually deposited in the cellars beneath the house. This atrocious 
 scheme was happily discovered, and the principals were severely 
 punished. The famous Oath of Allegiance, 1606, was drawn up in con¬ 
 sequence of this attempt; it asserted the supremacy of the sovereign 
 relative to ecclesiastical matters, denying the Pope’s right to depose him 
 or absolve his subjects from their allegiance. The timidity of the 
 monarch’s temper, however, prevented him from taking further advan¬ 
 tage of this circumstance to increase the persecution of the Catholic 
 party. 
 
 The most laudable act of James’ reign was the settlement and planta¬ 
 tion of the north of Ireland. Previously, the legislative authority of 
 England had been circumscribed within a small district called “ the 
 Pale,”—the rest of the country being abandoned to the sway of lawless 
 native chiefs. The king extended the English law over the whole 
 country, passed an act of indemnity for former offences, and procured 
 the settlement in Ulster of thousands of English, Scotch, and well- 
 disposed Irish, who contributed greatly to the pacification of the coun¬ 
 try, 1609. 
 
 While in Scotland, James had been governed by favourites, and he 
 did not change his habits in England. He raised a Scotchman of the 
 name of Carr from obscurity to the earldom of Rochester; but he was 
 subsequently neglected for the handsome George Villiers, who rapidly 
 passed through every grade of nobility, and became Duke of Bucking¬ 
 ham, invested with many of the principal offices of the kingdom. In 
 1621, the king summoned a parliament, in vffiich already were seen the 
 two parties known as Whigs and Tories ,—the former for the people, the 
 latter for the king. His last moments were disturbed by war. The 
 Princess Elizabeth had been married in 1613 to Frederick, Elector Pa¬ 
 latine ; this prince had afterwards the misfortune to lose his dominions, 
 in consequence of his having accepted the sovereignty of Bohemia,* not¬ 
 withstanding the aid of his father-in-law, who took part in his favour 
 against Austria and Spain. King James died in 1625. 
 
 One of the first acts of Charles I. w^as to marry the Princess Henri¬ 
 etta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and a Catholic. The war 
 with Spain still continuing, the king applied to parliament for aid ; but 
 was there met with so keen a spirit of liberty, and so many complaints 
 as to his government, that he was led to revive a practice of former 
 sovereigns of levying taxes called benevolences and ship-money , by his 
 own authority. These acts, coupled with his arrogant assertion of the 
 arbitrary principles held by his father, excited a universal spirit of dis¬ 
 content throughout the nation. In 1628, the Commons presented to him 
 an act called a Petition of Right , limiting the powers of the crow r n, 
 wffiich not without difficulty he was prevailed on to sanction; but the 
 disputes with Parliament soon after ran to such a height, that he dis- 
 
 * Sophia, youngest daughter of this dethroned pair, having married the Duke oi 
 Brunswick, was the ancestress of the family which now reigns in Britain. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. 1>. 
 
 403 
 
 solved it in a fit of indignation, resolving never again to call another. 
 About this time the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated ; and Laud, 
 archbishop of Canterbury, together with the Earl of Strafford, became 
 the chief advisers of the king. The Petition of Right was now alto¬ 
 gether disregarded, great numbers of persons were dragged before an 
 arbitrary court, called the Star-chamber, and frequently subjected by its 
 sentence to the greatest indignities and tortures for the most trifling 
 offences. 
 
 In 1037, the attempts of Charles to introduce into Scotland the Epis¬ 
 copalian form of worship, as more favourable to royalty than Presbyte¬ 
 rianism, drove the Scots to rebellion. In 1638, they framed the cele¬ 
 brated Covenant to maintain their ecclesiastical liberties, and took up 
 arms ao-ainst the king. A dreadful rebellion about the same time broke 
 
 out in Ireland, in which thousands of Protestants were barbarously mas- 
 
 ' %/ 
 
 sacred. Under these circumstances the Long Parliament assembled, 
 and declared its sittings permanent until the popular grievances were 
 redressed. This act, which deprived the king of one of his highest pre¬ 
 rogatives, was fatal to the monarchy. The ministers, Strafford and 
 Laud, were impeached and beheaded, the one in 1641, the other in 1644. 
 The Presbyterians,-who were a majority in the Commons, procured the 
 exclusion of the bishops from the Upper House, 1641 ; an act which was 
 followed up in 1643 by the entire abolition of Episcopacy. 
 
 Civil War. —The differences between the king and parliament had 
 now come to a crisis. The former was generally supported by the no¬ 
 bility and landed gentry, the Catholics, and the high church party; 
 while the latter found its chief strength in the mercantile and middle 
 classes, and the lower orders of the great towns. Both parties resolved 
 on an appeal to arms. In August 1642, the royal standard was raised 
 at Nottingham; and for three years numerous engagements took place 
 between the forces of the king and the parliament, the latter aided by 
 the Scottish army. At length his majesty received a final overthrow at 
 Naseby, 1645; and, unable longer to keep the field, he threw himself 
 upon the protection of the Scots, then encamped at Newark, by whom 
 he was soon after surrendered to the English parliamentary leaders, 1647. 
 The whole pSwer of the state had now fallen into the hands of the Inde¬ 
 pendents, a fanatical sect, who declared for democratic government both 
 in church and state. At the head of this party was Oliver Cromwell, 
 general of the army, a man of great talent and address, and who seems 
 now to have formed the design of obtaining supreme power. Having 
 forcibly succeeded in excluding from parliament about two hundred 
 members of the Presbyterian party who were supposed favourable to 
 royalty, Cromwell and his associates resolved on the death of the king, 
 1648. He was accordingly brought to trial, condemned, and executed, 
 1649 ; an act which struck Europe with amazement, and has been 
 generally condemned as alike illegal, sanguinary, and impolitic. 
 
 The Commonwealth. —The parliament, known by the appellation of 
 the Rump , now administered the affairs of the country; but all real 
 power lay in the hands of Cromwell and the army. During the progress 
 of the civil war, an attempt had been made in Scotland to produce a 
 diversion in the king’s favour by the chivalrous Marquis of Montrose, 
 who gained several victories, but w^as eventually defeated and forced to 
 quit the kingdom. The royalists were still in considerable force in 
 
404 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Ireland under the Duke of Ormond, and a large body of Catholic insur* 
 gents were not indisposed to join them ; but, before any such union 
 could be effected, Cromwell repaired thither with an army, defeated all 
 his opponents, and rapidly overran the whole country, 1649. In the 
 following year, the Scots having proclaimed Charles II., he crossed the 
 Tweed, and gained a signal victory at Dunbar; and, though the young 
 prince afterwards led a Scottish army into England, he was defeated at 
 Worcester, and compelled to take refuge in France, 1651. The victo¬ 
 rious general now dissolved the Long Parliament, and governed by his 
 own authority under the title of Lord Protector . The struggle for popu¬ 
 lar rights had therefore ended in a military despotism, distinguished, 
 however, for great vigour and ability. On the seas, the fleets of Crom¬ 
 well were successful against the Dutch, whom he compelled to strike 
 their flag to the English, 1653. Uniting with France against Spain, 
 1655, he took the valuable island of Jamaica; and, in 1658, the port of 
 Dunkirk was delivered to him. Under the Protector, England became 
 both respected and feared throughout Europe; but his power at home 
 was crumbling to pieces, and he eventually sank under the anxieties of 
 his position, in September 1658. 
 
 The Restoration.— Cromwell was succeeded by his son Richard in 
 his dignity of Protector; but, finding himself incapable of resisting the 
 intrigues of the various parties and the cabals of the army, he quietly 
 abdicated, and retired into private life. The dissensions that followed 
 were terminated by General Monk, commander of the forces in Scotland, 
 who marched with his army to London, and assembled a free parlia¬ 
 ment, which unanimously invited King Charles to return to the throne 
 of his ancestors. Accordingly, on the 29th May 1660, the anniversary 
 of his thirtieth birthday, the monarch entered London. 
 
 Charles II., at the beginning of his reign, used every method to con¬ 
 ciliate his subjects, forming his council indiscriminately of men of all 
 parties. A general amnesty which had been promised was confirmed, 
 those only being excepted who were considered as the promoters of the 
 late king’s death, ten of whom suffered capital punishment.* Charles 
 then disbanded the army of Cromwell, restored the Episcopal clergy to 
 their benefices, and rewarded those who had contributed to his return. 
 In 1662, he married Catherine of Portugal, an unhappy union, contracted 
 with interested views. In personal character the king was licentious, 
 indolent, and careless of religion; and he spent his time almost exclu¬ 
 sively in the indulgence of the basest appetites. The liberal civil list 
 afforded him by parliament proved altogether insufficient for his expen¬ 
 diture ; and he basely accepted 4B40,000 from Louis XIV., as the price 
 of the surrender of Dunkirk, and even condescended to receive a secret 
 pension from that prince. With the view of obtaining parliamentary 
 subsidies, he also engaged in a naval war with Holland, which, though 
 generally favourable to the British, had, in 1667, nearly led to the de¬ 
 struction of London by the Dutch fleet. 
 
 Plague and Fire of London.— In the summer of 1665, London was 
 visited by a dreadful pestilence, which swept off about 100,000 people, 
 and abated little till the approach of winter. Houses were rendered 
 
 *The most illustrious victim was the Marquis of Argyle in Scotland, who had placed 
 the crown on the king’s head at Scone in 1651. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 405 
 
 tenantless, grass grew in the streets, and the whole city presented one 
 wide scene of misery and desolation. This was succeeded in the fol¬ 
 lowing autumn by a conflagration, which raged a whole week, destroy¬ 
 ing 13,200 houses and eighty-nine churches. The night was as clear 
 as day to the distance of ten miles round; and even on the Scottish 
 border its strange effect upon the sky was perceptible. In the end, 
 however, this latter calamity was advantageous to London; the city has 
 never since been visited by pestilence; and the widening of the streets, 
 improved drainage, and stricter police regulations, now render it one of 
 the healthiest capitals in the world. 
 
 Persecution in Scotland—Popish Plot. —The great object of 
 Charles was the re-establishment of Popery and arbitrary power; and 
 though still himself professing adherence to the Reformed doctrines, his 
 brother James, duke of York, openly affiliated with the Jesuits. An 
 iniquitous attempt had been made to force Episcopacy upon the people 
 of Scotland, and upwards of 300 Presbyterian ministers were expelled 
 from their livings. The people then began to hold conventicles in the 
 fields, where they attended the services of their expelled pastors; but 
 the execrable barbarities employed to overcome their opposition to the 
 new arrangements at length drove them to insurrection, which was sup¬ 
 pressed by a war of extermination.* The prejudices and fears of the 
 English people began now to be effectually aroused. In 1673, the Test 
 Ad was passed, imposing a religious oath upon all who entered the pub¬ 
 lic service. This was followed in 1678 by a panic equally foolish and 
 deplorable. The infamous Titus Oates succeeded in propagating a 
 general belief in a pretended Popish Plot for the massacre of the Pro¬ 
 testants ; and, in the midst of the ferment thus occasioned, many inno¬ 
 cent Catholics were judicially massacred. The Parliament now became 
 more and more intractable: they passed the celebrated Haheus Corpus 
 Ad; and the Commons even prepared a bill for the exclusion of the 
 Duke of York from the succession. This latter measure seems to have 
 produced a temporary reaction in the king’s favour, who dissolved the 
 houses, and reigned by his own arbitrary authority, 1681. A plan was 
 now formed by the late majority to raise simultaneous insurrections in 
 London, the west of England, and Scotland. This was discovered ; and 
 the leaders, Russel, Sydney, and others, becoming implicated also in 
 the Rye-house Plot for murdering the king, perished on the scaffold, 
 1683. Charles II. died in 1685. 
 
 The Revolution, 1688.—The commencement of the reign of James 
 II. was sufficiently favourable: the Commons voted him an ample reve¬ 
 nue; the university of Oxford and the Scottish Parliament recognised 
 his “ sacred, supreme, and absolute authority.” The character of the 
 new king was much more respectable than that of his brother; but he 
 was deficient in those popular and show T y qualities by which Charles, 
 notwithstanding his tyranny and vices, had succeeded in making him¬ 
 self agreeable to his subjects. James had all along been an avowed 
 Catholic ; and, though he began his reign by professing an intention to 
 govern according to the laws, it soon became apparent that he had set 
 
 * On a monumental stone in the Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, may be seen an 
 inscription, which states that, between' 1661 and 1688, 18,000 persons are computed to 
 have suffered death for their faith. 
 
406 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 his heart on overthrowing the established religion. An unfortunate 
 expedition of the Duke of Monmouth, natural son of the late king, to 
 effect a rising in the west of England, and of the Duke of Argyle in 
 Scotland, which ended in the execution of both, gave him additional 
 confidence in the prosecution of his design. He proceeded to dispense 
 with the Test Act, by proclaiming a general toleration in favour of the 
 Catholics; and six bishops who opposed his proceedings were impri¬ 
 soned, but subsequently liberated on trial. The Romanists were now 
 openly admitted to the royal councils, chapels being everywhere 
 erected ; and he even held a correspondence with the pope for the pur¬ 
 pose of placing England once more under the dominion of the holy see. 
 The fears of the people were excited to the highest pitch by the birth 
 of a Prince of Wales ; and all ranks uniting with the clergy and nobility, 
 William, prince of Orange, who had married the Princess Mary, was 
 invited to England to defend the Protestant cause. On the 5th of No¬ 
 vember, the prince landed at Torbay w T ith an armament; soon after 
 which, the chief persons in the kingdom flocked to his standard, and 
 the troops of James went over to him. His majesty himself, deserted 
 on all hands, made his escape to France, leaving the crown, without a 
 struggle, in the hands of his son-in-law. 
 
 GENEALOGY OF THE HOUSES OF ORANGE AND BRUNSWICK. 
 
 24. James I., b. 1560; k. Gr. B. 1603; d. 1625. 
 
 /- A ---*-"V 
 
 t Elizabeth , b. 1596. 25 Charles I. k. 1625; beh. 1649. 
 
 /- A - 
 
 26. Charles II., Mary, m. William 27. James II., k. 1685; Henrietta Maria. 
 
 k. 1660, d. 1685. II. of Orange, dep. 1689 : m. 1. Anne 
 
 1641, d. 1661. Hyde ; 2. Mary of 
 
 Modena. 
 
 - - A -, /- A -S 
 
 28. William III., p. of Orange, b. 1650 == 28. Mary, 29. Anne, James Edward , 
 
 q. 1689. 1702. the Pretender. 
 
 t Elizabeth, m. Frederick V., elect, pal., 1613, d. 1661. 
 
 /- A -\ 
 
 Sophia , dec. heiress to throne, 1700, m. Ernest Augustus, el. of Hanover, 1658, d. 1714. 
 
 - - A -\ 
 
 HOUSE OF HANOVER. 
 
 30. George I., k. 1714. 
 
 House of Orange. —The bloodless revolution of 1688 established 
 the great principle, that “ when a government, by its aggravated abuses, 
 has ceased to command the support of the people and to be an instru¬ 
 ment of good, it is no longer entitled to obedience.” The accession of 
 William terminated the persecution in Scotland; the Presbyterian 
 church was established by law; and, excepting among the Highland 
 clans, who made some resistance under Viscount Dundee, the new 
 government was at first very popular. On the other hand, the Catholics 
 in Ireland made common cause with the deposed monarch, who landed 
 in that country in the spring of 1689, and soon found himself at the 
 head of a large but undisciplined army. He was defeated by his 
 antagonist at the battle of the Boyne, and immediately returned to 
 France; while his adherents acceded to the new order of things by the 
 treaty of Limerick, signed soon after. William’s great operations against 
 Louis XIV. prevented him, had he been so disposed, from impeding the 
 liberal measures of Parliament, and the Triennial Ad was accordingly 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 407 
 
 passed, 1694. In 1691, for a merely legal offence, an atrocious massacre 
 was perpetrated in the Highlands on the clan of Macdonald of Glencoe, 
 from w r hich the sovereign was never able altogether to clear himself; 
 and the affections of the Scottish people were further alienated by the 
 obstacles thrown in the way of their commerce at the instigation of the 
 English merchants, particularly in regard to an expedition fitted out to 
 colonize the isthmus of Darien, in which many hundred persons lost 
 their lives, and a large capital was irrecoverably lost, 1699. The Jaco¬ 
 bite party consequently became strong in Scotland, wffiile not a little 
 dissatisfaction prevailed in the south; and, though the peace of Rys- 
 wick, 1697, enabled the king to spend the remainder of his days in 
 peace, he w T as subjected to much domestic inquietude. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 On the death of Henry IV. in 1610, the crown of France descended 
 to his son Louis XIII., a minor, under the regency of the queen, Mary 
 of Medici. In October 1614, the prince was declared to be of age ; and 
 in the year following, he married Anne, daughter of Philip III. of Spain. 
 Sully having retired, an Italian named Concini, a creature of the queen- 
 mother, possessed the direction of affairs. The nobility, disgusted by 
 his insolence, began a civil war, headed by the Prince of Conde, but 
 were appeased by concessions, 1615. The king himself, become im¬ 
 patient of the rule of his parent and the favourite, by the advice of a 
 young courtier named Luines, procured his assassination; his w ife was 
 condemned to death on a charge of magic; and the queen-dowager was 
 sent to Blois under arrest, 1617. Louis, who, during the whole of his 
 reign, was altogether incapable of conducting affairs, now became a 
 passive instrument in the hands of Luines, who w r as raised to the 
 highest rank and offices in the state. 
 
 Richelieu. — Some years after, Mary escaped from Blois, and being 
 supported by the Duke of Epernon and other nobles, a civil w’ar broke 
 out; but it w'as composed by the mediation of Armand du Plessis, 
 bishop of LuQon, known afterw ards as Cardinal Richelieu, who effected 
 a reconciliation between Louis and his mother. In 1620, an attempt 
 having been made to invade the liberties of the Protestants, they flew 
 to arms; and in the hostilities that followed, Luines, now Constable, 
 lost his life, wffien a peace was concluded, confirming the edict of 
 Nantes, 1622. The haughty Richelieu now became prime-minister, 
 and soon displayed the possession of abilities of the highest order, w ith 
 an unscrupulous perseverance in the prosecution of his designs. There 
 were three parties whom he resolved to humble;—the nobility, the 
 Huguenots, and the house of Austria. With these views, he concluded 
 a marriage between Charles, prince of Wales, and the king’s sister, 
 Henrietta, and effected an alliance between the two monarchs and Hol¬ 
 land. A w*ar wfith Spain was the consequence, 1625, wffiich, how'ever, 
 led to no important results. The Protestants having rebelled, he laid 
 siege to Rochelle, their oreat stronghold, which v T as forced to surrender, 
 1628; and they w^ere eventually compelled to yield all their fortified 
 towns. 
 
 The French dissenters were now effectually subdued, and the whole 
 kingdom brought under the supreme authority of the crow-n. Richelieu 
 
408 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 ruled the country with a rod of iron; he negotiated with the King of 
 Sweden, and aided the German Protestants against Austria; attacked 
 the latter power in Italy; and assisted in re-establishing the indepen¬ 
 dence of Portugal. But his ambition was of an exalted kind: to him 
 France was indebted for the establishment of the Academy; he liberally 
 encouraged literature and the arts, and promoted the revival of national 
 commerce, ruined by two centuries of domestic war. In spite of all 
 enemies, the cardinal retained the administration of affairs till his death, 
 1642, at the very time when the combined forces of Sweden and France 
 had utterly humbled the pride of the house of Austria. Louis XIII. 
 died a few months after. 
 
 Mazarin and the Fronde. —The subtle policy of the Italian Mazarin 
 succeeded the energetic rule of Richelieu, and was continued during the 
 minority of the young king, Louis XIV., 1643. The new minister had 
 the satisfaction of concluding the treaty of Westphalia, which termi¬ 
 nated the thirty years’ war, France gaining thereby several important 
 acquisitions, 1648. The early part of this reign was however disturbed 
 by the troubles of the Fronde, as they were called, headed by the Car¬ 
 dinal de Retz. A war was begun against the minister, while the rebels 
 proclaimed their unbroken attachment to the crown. These disorders, 
 which served only to embroil the nation, without leading to any decisive 
 result, were terminated by the king’s majority, 1653; and during the 
 nine succeeding years, Mazarin’s attention to the finances prepared the 
 way for great military exertions. 
 
 The Spaniards, in the war terminating 1648, had been severely 
 defeated at Rocroi by the Duke d’Enghien, and near Gibraltar by the 
 French fleet under the Duke de Breze; besides which they lost many 
 strong places. But they did not accede to the treaty of Westphalia, 
 and the war still continued in the Low Countries, Turenne commanding 
 the French troops, while the Prince of Conde, who had been exiled 
 during the late troubles, fought on the side of the Spaniards. At Arras 
 and Valenciennes, the talents of the rivals vvere alike conspicuous, 1656. 
 Mazarin now formed an alliance with Cromwell, and Turenne gained 
 the famous victory of Dunes, 1658. This led to a pacification in the 
 ensuing year, known as the treaty of the Pyrenees, by which France 
 gained Artois, Roussillon, part of Flanders, Hainault, and Luxem¬ 
 bourg; Louis at the same time married the Infanta Maria Theresa, and 
 agreed to pardon Conde. 
 
 In 1667, six years after the death of Mazarin, began those aggres¬ 
 sions which alarmed all Europe. In 1657, that minister had made an 
 unsuccessful attempt to get Louis elected emperor, which led to a long 
 and bitter animosity between Leopold and the French king. The 
 minister, Colbert, had largely multiplied the resources of the country, 
 and the war department was systematized and brought to a high state 
 of efficiency by Louvois. On the death of Philip IV. of Spain, Louis 
 laid claim to the duchy of Brabant in right of his wife, and entered 
 Flanders with 40,000 men. His success led to a triple alliance between 
 Britain, Sweden, and Holland, which compelled him to accede to the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668 ; but having resolved to revenge himself 
 on Holland, he succeeded in breaking up the confederacy, by securing 
 the alliance of Charles II. Under the most frivolous pretences, both 
 monarchs declared war against the United Provinces, 1672; a combined 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 409 
 
 fleet of nore than one hundred sail put to sea, while the French king 
 invaded the frontiers with an army of 120,000 men. The Dutch de¬ 
 termined to make a vigorous resistance : the Prince of Orange was 
 placed at the head of the land forces, and the gallant De Ruyter com¬ 
 manded 130 ships. 
 
 The hostile fleets came in sight of each other in Southwold Bay, 
 where a desperate engagement was fought, with no decisive advantage 
 to either party. The French army, however, commanded under Louis 
 by Turenne, Conde, and Luxembourg, was more successful. Having 
 passed the Rhine, Nimeguen and Utrecht opened their gates, and all 
 the provinces, except Holland and Zealand, were forced to submit. 
 The former broke down the sluices and laid the country under water; 
 the Prince of Orange was declared stadtholder; and all idea of submis¬ 
 sion was abandoned. The prospects of the Dutch now began to 
 brighten. The combined fleets were driven from the coast of Holland 
 
 <_5 
 
 by violent storms, and three naval actions, vigorously contested, termi¬ 
 nated rather in favour of De Ruyter and Van Tromp. In the mean 
 time, the troops of the empire having united with the Prince of Orange, 
 the electorate of Cologne was conquered; and the communication 
 between France and Holland being thus cut off, Louis was forced to 
 recall his army and abandon his conquests, 1673. The King of Spain 
 now declared war against France, and Charles II., unable to get sup¬ 
 plies from his parliament, made peace with the United Provinces. Five 
 bloody but indecisive campaigns followed ; the preponderance of success 
 by land, however, lay on the side of the French, while the Dutch and 
 Spanish fleets were defeated in the Mediterranean. The peace of Nime¬ 
 guen put an end to the contest, Louis obtaining Franche-Comte and 
 sixteen fortresses in the Low Countries, 1678. 
 
 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685.—The character of the 
 French monarch was essentially absolute. His favourite expression was, 
 “ I am the state and, on this principle, having determined that nothing 
 should oppose his supreme authority, he stript the parliament of their 
 privileges, and regarded the body of the nation as the mere instruments 
 of his ambition. He hated the Protestants from religious bigotry, but 
 still more because he regarded them as rebellious subjects. Influenced 
 by these motives, and instigated by Louvois, Madame de Maintenon, 
 whom he had privately married, and the Jesuits, he resolved on the 
 wicked and disastrous measure of revoking the Edict of Nantes. This 
 act, by proscribing Protestantism in France, deprived that country of 
 thousands of its most industrious and enterprising subjects, and produced 
 general alarm throughout Europe. Children at the age of seven years, by 
 apostatizing, were declared independent of their parents ; military execu¬ 
 tions were employed to enforce uniformity of worship ; voluntary exile was 
 prohibited ; and the declaration of the illegality of Protestant marriages 
 rendered the issue illegitimate. 
 
 Consequences. —The terrible effects of this measure are not easily described, 
 and they are such as France has never recovered. Before the revocation, from 
 14,000 to 15,000 persons had removed to the commercial cities of Hamburg and 
 Amsterdam, most of whom were wealthy and respectable, and engaged in 
 commerce. But the number of refugees was alarmingly increased by the recall 
 of the edict. Within a few years, nearly one million of individuals went into 
 exile; in one season, the Prince of Orange raised three regiments and manned 
 
 35 
 
410 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 three ships of war with French Protestants. Not less than twenty millions 
 sterling of property left the country ; and. in the loss of her active and enter¬ 
 prising population, France suffered the worst consequences of civil war. In the 
 course of five years, the inhabitants of Tours had dwindled away from eighty 
 to thirty thousand. The silk manufacturers, so hospitably received in England, 
 laid the foundation of the great works of Spitalfields ; and Picardy Place in 
 Edinburgh still marks the site of the factories there established. 
 
 Louis was at this time the most powerful prince in Europe, and the 
 necessity of restraining his encroachments was felt by every surrounding 
 state. The Grand Alliance of 1689, the result of the elevation of Wil¬ 
 liam of Orange to the English throne, included the Emperor, Holland, 
 Spain, the northern powers, and Savoy. The French king sent two 
 large armies into Flanders; a third was opposed to the Spaniards in 
 Catalonia; reinforcements were given to James II. in Ireland; while his 
 troops in Germany perpetrated one of the most barbarous deeds on 
 record, in the wanton destruction of the Palatinate. In 1691, his fleet 
 defeated the combined English and Dutch off Beachy-head; but the 
 conquerors in their turn were vanquished near La Hogue in the follow¬ 
 ing year. The forces of the allies, commanded by the King of England, 
 were worsted by Luxembourg at Landen, 1693 ; while Catinat overthrew 
 the Duke of Savoy near the river Cisola. Meanwhile, the resources 
 of France were becoming exhausted; agriculture and commerce lan¬ 
 guished ; and the two following campaigns were indecisive. All parties 
 being now tired of hostilities, the treaty of Ryswick was at length con¬ 
 cluded, Louis acknowledging the title of William III., and restoring his 
 principal conquests, 1697. 
 
 SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 
 
 Spain.—Philip III., 1598, was not destitute of amiable qualities, but 
 he was excessively indolent, and fully equalled *his father in intolerance. 
 The chief circumstances of his reign were the virtual recognition of the 
 independence of the United Provinces by a truce of twelve years, 1609, 
 and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The former event was 
 brought about not less by the heroic resistance of the Netherlanders, than 
 by the absolute exhaustion of his resources. As if desirous of consum¬ 
 mating the ruin of his kingdom, he yielded so far to the Inquisition and 
 the advice of his feeble and bigoted minister, the Duke of Lerma, as to 
 issue an edict commanding all his Mohammedan subjects to leave it 
 within thirty days, 1610. The Moors, in despair, flew to arms ; they 
 were subdued, and a million of industrious subjects driven into exile. 
 
 Philip IV., 1621, possessed even less energy than his predecessor, 
 and was entirely controlled by his minister Olivarez, a man of some 
 ability, but conceited and ambitious. While the resources of the coun¬ 
 try were daily declining, and agriculture and trade suffered from exces¬ 
 sive imposts, this politician resolved upon plunging into war, notwith¬ 
 standing the discontent of all classes of the people. His intrigues were 
 among the causes which led to the sanguinary contests in Germany ter¬ 
 minated by the treaty of Westphalia, and to the struggle with France 
 till the peace of the Pyrenees, ten years later. All his measures were 
 eminently disastrous. The English took Jamaica and Dunkirk; while 
 the French signally defeated his forces on the plains of Rocroi. A dan¬ 
 gerous insurrection in Catalonia was followed in 1640 by the revolt of 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 411 
 
 Portugal. In consequence of this vicious administration, the country 
 became so poor that the government was compelled to have recourse to 
 copper money, to which a value was attached equal to that of silver. To 
 complete the humiliation of Philip, the independence of Holland was 
 fully acknowledged, 1643. 
 
 Portugal. —The revolution which restored the independence of Por¬ 
 tugal was brought about mainly by the weakness of Spain. The people 
 had Ion g been exasperated by the despotism of their foreign rulers ; the 
 want of troops had compelled Olivarez to withdraw great part of the 
 garrison from Lisbon; and the country at 'large was occupied by a very 
 small force. When the revolt took place in Catalonia, orders came from 
 Madrid for the Portuguese nobility to take arms for its suppression. But 
 a plot which had long existed now broke out. The conspirators, headed 
 by the Archbishop of Lisbon, met in st cret, and resolved on the eleva- 
 ion of their legitimate prince, the duke of Braganza, to the throne. He 
 was accordingly proclaimed king by the title of John IV., 1640, the 
 whole nation at once eagerly acknowledging him. A similar revolution 
 was accomplished with equal facility in all the colonies in India and 
 Africa. 
 
 The treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659, left Spain free to attempt the reco¬ 
 very of Portugal, which was obliged to form a defensive alliance with 
 England. Alphonso VI. had succeeded his father in 1656. and strength- 
 ened his position by marrying his sister, the Infanta Catherine, to Charles 
 the Second. France also felt it to be her interest to support the cause 
 of the Portuguese against Spain. In the course of the war, which was 
 vigorously conducted on both sides, Alphonso was forced to abdicate in 
 favour of his brother, Peter II., who immediately concluded a peace 
 with the Spanish monarch, by which the independence of his own coun¬ 
 try was acknowledged, 1668. Philip IV. of Spain was succeeded by 
 his infant son, Charles II., in 1665, the queen-mother being appointed 
 regent. During this reign, the same vicious-administration prevailed 
 which had already been so disastrous to the nation; its internal affairs 
 were reduced to the most miserable condition, and its arms abroad 
 were exposed to continual reverses. Three successive wars with France 
 ended severally in the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668; Nimeguen, 
 1678; and Ryswick, 1697, at each of which Spain was compelled to 
 resign some portion of her territories in Flanders to her powerful and 
 ambitious neighbour. 
 
 ITALIAN PENINSULA. 
 
 The Reformation entirely destroyed the political importance of Italy. 
 Vhe Pope was no longer a sovereign whose alliance could turn the fate 
 >f a campaign; and Spain, mistress of the Two Sicilies and of the Mi¬ 
 lanese, dictated to the other petty states of the peninsula. In 1647, 
 Naples was the scene of a remarkable event. It was governed by depu¬ 
 ties appointed by the court of Madrid, whose cruelties and extortions at 
 length drove the people to insurrection. A fisherman, named Massa- 
 niello, who put himself at their head, was raised to the supreme power; 
 but, intoxicated or maddened by his elevation, he indulged in such ex¬ 
 cesses as led to his speedy abandonment by his own partisans, and he 
 was assassinated by the viceroy’s orders. The Neapolitans then placed 
 
412 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 themselves under the protection of the Duke of “Guise, who was not-— 
 expelled without difficulty. Similar causes led to a rebellion at Messina 
 in 1674, the citizens proclaiming Louis XIV. king of Sicily. A naval 
 war followed in the Mediterranean; but, by the treaty of Nimeguen, 
 1678, the Messenese were abandoned to the mercy of their former mas¬ 
 ters. 
 
 Venice. —In 1624, a law was passed in this republic, bestowing the 
 exclusive jurisdiction over patricians, in criminal matters, on the Council 
 of Ten. The senate made a vigorous resistance to the claims of Paul 
 V., by forbidding the erection of additional monasteries, or the alienation 
 of property for spiritual purposes without the consent of government; 
 they also successfully vindicated their sovereignty over the Adriatic, 
 which, with the connivance of Austria, had been infested by Dalmatian 
 pirates. In the latter half of this century, the republic carried on two 
 wars with Turkey. The first, in Candia, was protracted twenty-five 
 years, and closed in 1669 by the capitulation of the chief city, after a 
 heroic resistance, and the loss of the island. In the second contest, how¬ 
 ever, commencing in 1684, the commonwealth reconquered the Morea; 
 and in 1699, that province, with the isles of Egina and Santa Maura, 
 and several fortresses in Dalmatia, were secured to her by the peace of 
 Carlowitz. But the resources of Venice were exhausted, and the affec¬ 
 tions of the Greeks alienated by an unseasonable zeal against the Eastern 
 church. The Turks took advantage of the dissatisfaction thus created; 
 and a war commenced in 1715, ending with the peace of Passarowitz, 
 1718, whereby Greece once more returned to its Mohammedan masters. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Rudolph II. was succeeded, in 161 * 2 , by his brother Matthias, who 
 had already obtained the sovereignty of Hungary and Bohemia. This 
 prince had hitherto favoured the Lutherans; but the liberal spirit gene¬ 
 rated by their principles being opposed to the despotic maxims of the 
 house of Austria, he now resolved to curb them; and, with this view, a 
 family compact was formed with Spain, while his cousin Ferdinand, 
 Duke of Styria, was chosen successor to the crowns of Hungary and 
 Bohemia. The subjects of the latter w*ere soon in open insurrection, in 
 consequence of the intolerant proceedings of the Bishop of Prague, who 
 had demolished several Protestant places of worship; and a general 
 feeling of distrust was excited throughout Germany. This was the com¬ 
 mencement of a sanguinary and protracted conflict. 
 
 Thirty Years’ War.—Ferdinand II. succeeded Matthias in the 
 imperial dignity, 1619. The Bohemians, however, having been refused 
 satisfaction for the outrages committed on their churches, declared theii 
 crown vacant, and offered it to Frederick V., elector-palatine, who, con¬ 
 trary to the advice of his father-in-law, James I. of England, agreed to 
 accept it. He was supported by most of the Protestant princes of the 
 empire, by a body of British and Dutch auxiliaries, and by Bethlehem 
 Gabor, prince of Transylvania; while the Catholic electors and the King 
 of Spain were ranged on the side of Ferdinand. Spinola, then com¬ 
 manding the Spanish forces in the Low Countries, led 24,000 men into 
 the palatinate; and Frederick himself was defeated at the White Moun¬ 
 tain, near Prague, by the Duke of Bavaria, 1620. He and his adherents 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 413 
 
 were put to the ban of the empire; and his dominions having been en¬ 
 tirely overrun by Count Tilly, the Bavarian prince received the dignity 
 of elector. Another Protestant confederacy, 1625, at the head of which 
 was Christian IV. of Denmark, having in view r the restoration of the 
 palatinate, was equally unfortunate. In two successive campaigns, the 
 imperial troops, led by Tilly and Wallenstein, were everywhere triumph¬ 
 ant; Christian was driven into his hereditary dominions, and forced to 
 sue for peace, 1629. 
 
 The emperor, flushed with success, now conceited that he had found 
 a favourable opportunity for reducing the German princes to the condi¬ 
 tion of nobles in other countries ; but he resolved to begin with the Pro¬ 
 testants. He accordingly abolished the exercise of their religion in 
 Bohemia, exiled or put to death their leaders, confiscating their property ; 
 seven hundred noble families were proscribed, while the common people 
 were forced to conform to the Romish worship. In Germany, however, 
 he proceeded more cautiously. He began by excluding the Calvinists 
 from the benefits of the general toleration formerly granted, and passed 
 an edict commanding the restoration of the church lands seized by the 
 Protestant princes subsequently to the treaty of Passau. Even the 
 Catholic electors opposed the execution of this edict, having themselves 
 also obtained no small amount of ecclesiastical property; and the diet 
 held at Ratisbon insisted that the emperor should reduce his army and 
 dismiss his commander Wallenstein, who had become hateful by his 
 arrogance and the disorders of his troops. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Protestants had formed a secret alliance with Gusta- 
 vus Adolphus, king of Sweden, who resolved to take up arms in defence 
 of religious toleration, 1630. Cardinal Richelieu engaged to furnish 
 him with an annual subsidy of 1,200,000 livres; he was joined by 6000 
 men under the Marquis of Hamilton; and numerous volunteers from 
 Britain repaired to his standard. On the first appearance of Gustavus in 
 Pomerania, the Protestant princes hesitated to join him; but the energy 
 and success of his operations speedily secured their adherence. In the 
 course of eight months, he had taken eighty fortified places ; and, being 
 joined by the troops of Saxony, he advanced towards Leipsic, and pre¬ 
 pared to encounter the imperialists under Tilly. The hostile armies 
 met on the 7th December 1631; the battle was long and obstinately 
 contested ; but at length the skill of the Swedish monarch and the valour 
 of his soldiers gained a complete victory. The whole country was now 
 rapidly overrun : Tilly, disputing the passage of the Lech, was killed, 
 1632; and Gustavus entered Munich in triumph. Wallenstein was 
 again put at the head of the imperial forces; he succeeded in recovering 
 several places taken by the enemy, and eventually engaged Gustavus at 
 Lutzen, where the Swedes gained another victory, too dearly bought 
 with the life of their heroic sovereign, 1632. 
 
 Notwithstanding the dismay occasioned by the death of Gustavus, the 
 contest continued to be prosecuted with vigour till 1634, when the severe 
 defeat of the Swedes at Nordlingen revived the hopes of Austria. The 
 German princes now made a separate treaty with Ferdinand, in which 
 he departed from his former demands as to the church property; and the 
 weight of the war fell upon the Swedes and French. Ferdinand III. 
 succeeded his father in 1637; and, though naturally a wise and temper¬ 
 ate prince, he felt himself under the necessity of pursuing the same 
 
 35* 
 
414 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 policy. In the four following campaigns, the fortune of war was de¬ 
 cidedly against the imperialists; and in 1641, the Swedish general, 
 Banier, had nearly taken the emperor prisoner while holding a diet at 
 Ratisbon. Ferdinand’s armies were defeated one after another; his 
 family were forced to flee from Vienna; and at length the victory of 
 Zummerhausen, gained by Turenne and Vrangel, compelled him to 
 think seriously of terminating the contest. This was finally brought 
 about by the peace of Westphalia, 1648, which secured some important 
 advantages to France and Sweden. By this celebrated treaty, the Lu¬ 
 therans and Catholics were placed on a footing of equality; six Pro¬ 
 testants were to be admitted into the Auiic Council, and equal numbers 
 of each party were to be summoned to the diet and to have seats in the 
 Imperial Chamber. 
 
 The remainder of the reign of Ferdinand was spent in tranquillity ; his 
 death took place in 1657. His son, Leopold I., had been proclaimed 
 King of Hungary in 1655; of Bohemia in 1657 ; and notwithstanding 
 the rivalry of Louis XIV., was chosen emperor in 1659. The Turks, 
 having made an inroad into the former country, were defeated, and a 
 truce of twenty years concluded. But the intolerance of the Austrian 
 court constantly furnished matter of irritation to the Hungarians; and, 
 in 168*2, the malcontents broke out into open insurrection, under Count 
 Tekeli, whose father had previously been executed for a conspiracy, 
 along with some other noblemen. The rebel was immediately acknow¬ 
 ledged by the Porte as Prince of Hungary, tributary to the sultan; and, 
 regardless of the truce, the vizier joined him with an army of 150,000 
 men.* The confederates, having defeated the imperial troops near 
 Raab, advanced to Vienna, which was invested on the 15th July 1683; 
 a long and desperate siege was nearly terminated by its loss, when at 
 length the Poles, under John Sobieski, appeared for its deliverance. 
 On the l*2th September, the Turks were defeated under the walls of the 
 city ; two or three well-fought campaigns drove them out of Hungary; 
 and, with the view of humbling the nobility of that country, the crown 
 was declared no longer elective, but hereditary in the house of Aus¬ 
 tria, Joseph, Leopold’s son, being ordained king, 1687. The Turkish 
 contest was at length concluded, after a complete victory gained by 
 Prince Eugene near Zenta, by the peace of Carlowitz, 1697. 
 
 During this century Leopold took part in two wars against Louis 
 XIV., which have already been noticed under the head France. The 
 last of these, disgraced by the most atrocious cruelty on the part of the 
 French generals, was ended by the peace of Ryswick, 1697. The reign 
 of this emperor was signalized by the establishment of a ninth electorate 
 in favour of Ernest Augustus, duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, who 
 became the first Elector of Hanover, 1692; and by the assumption of 
 the regal title by Frederick, elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prus¬ 
 sia, in 1701. A permanent diet was also established, attended not by 
 the electors in person hut by their representatives. 
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 After the battle of Tumhout, Philip II., who had begun to suspect the 
 hopelessness of the contest, transferred the sovereignty of the Low 
 
 * It came to be known afterwards that Louis XIV., imitating his predecessor, Francis 
 was the chief instigator of this Turkish invasion of Austria. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 415 
 
 Countries to his daughter Isabella, and her husband the Archduke Al¬ 
 bert; but, as the northern states refused to acknowledge these new rulers, 
 the war continued to be prosecuted with vigour both by sea and land. 
 Great part of the Portuguese East India trade fell into the hands of the 
 Dutch, who had become at least the second maritime state in Europe. 
 Prince Maurice of Orange, acknowledged to be the first captain of his 
 day, defeated the forces of the archduke near Ostend, 1600; and the 
 siege of that city, four years after, cost the Spaniards nearly 70,000 men. 
 Spinola, now made commander-in-chief, after two fruitless campaigns, 
 at length gave it as his opinion that the conquest of the United Provinces 
 was impracticable; and Philip III. agreed to sign a truce of twelve 
 years, 1609. 
 
 Synod of Dort, 1618. — The republic had hardly secured external 
 peace, ere it began to be troubled with domestic dissensions; religion 
 being, as elsewhere in this age, the ostensible matter of dispute. The 
 disagreements in question arose out of a difference of opinion between 
 two professors of divinity at Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Armi- 
 nius; the former of whom maintained the tenets of Calvin in their most 
 rigorous form, while the latter advocated a milder system. But this 
 religious schism was not unconnected with political motives. The 
 Prince of Orange, with the established church and the majority of the 
 people, were Gomarists; the Arminian party w r as chiefly supported by 
 the Grand Pensioner Barneveldt and the higher classes, who suspected 
 the ambitious designs of Maurice; and both parties sought, under colour 
 of these polemical contests, to forward their respective views. Riots 
 and disorders broke out in various places, and the Gomarists loudly 
 clamoured for a national synod to settle the differences; which accord¬ 
 ingly met at Dort in November 1618. This body, as might be expected, 
 secured the triumph of the prince and his party : the Arminian preachers 
 were banished; the patriotic Barneveldt, at the age of seventy-two, was 
 brought to the block, Grotius and others w T ere thrown into prison, and 
 their followers were in general treated with great cruelty and injustice. 
 
 The decisions of this assembly excited the utmost horror and disgust 
 throughout Protestant Europe; and the reaction in Holland itself might 
 have proved fatal to the ascendency of Maurice,* had not the resumption 
 of hostilities with Spain rendered his military services indispensable to 
 the safety of the republic, 1621. The prince was opposed to his old 
 rival, Spinola, and conducted the warlike operations with great skill till 
 his death in 1625. Frederick Henry succeeded to all his brother’s 
 titles and employments, and commenced his career by exercising various 
 acts of clemency in favour of the persecuted Arminians, while he nobly 
 sustained in the field the high military reputation of his family. Plis 
 son, William II., became stadtholder in 1647; and, in the following 
 year, this long contest was brought to a termination. By a treaty signed 
 at Munster, Spain fully recognised the independence of the United Pro¬ 
 vinces, and abandoned all the places she possessed in Brabant and 
 Flanders. Ever regardful of commercial interests, the Dutch insisted 
 upon closing the Scheldt, by which Antwerp was ruined and the com¬ 
 merce of the remaining Spanish provinces excluded fiom the sea. 
 
 After a brief and inglorious rule, distinguished merely by an abortive 
 attempt to render his power absolute, William II. died in 1650, leaving 
 the state without a stadtholder and the army without a chief. The birth 
 
416 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 of a son by the widowed princess, a week after, did not prevent a resump¬ 
 tion of most of the sovereign prerogatives by the people; and the direc¬ 
 tion of the military force now devolved on the states-general. About 
 this time the English parliament passed the celebrated Navigation Act, 
 which, though expressed* in general terms, was specially directed against 
 the commerce of Holland, and gave rise to a sanguinary naval war be¬ 
 tween the two republics, in which Van Tromp and De Ruyter were 
 compelled to yield to Blake, Dean, and Monk, 1652, 1654. In the paci¬ 
 fication which followed, the Dutch, besides consenting to strike their 
 flag to the English, were compelled to promise that neither the infant 
 Prince of Orange nor any of his family should ever be elevated to the 
 dignity of stadtholder. In 1664, after the restoration of Charles II., the 
 national jealousy of Holland, and the cupidity of the monarch, again 
 plunged the two countries into war. The Pensioner De Witt, who now 
 directed the affairs of the republic, foreseeing the designs of England, 
 had formed an alliance with France; several desperate sea-fights took 
 place, with varied success; in 1665, Admiral Opdam was totally de¬ 
 feated by the Duke of York, while, in 1667, a Dutch fleet sailed up the 
 Thames, and burned several ships of war at Chatham. The treaty of 
 Breda, concluded the same year, at length terminated this absurd and 
 fruitless war. 
 
 The general alarm excited by the invasion of Louis XIV. in 1672, 
 effected an immediate revolution in Holland. In a paroxysm of popular 
 phrensy, the great and good De Witt and his brother were torn to pieces, 
 and William III., now twenty-two years of age, and conspicuous for 
 the abilities which had distinguished his race, was raised to his father’s 
 dignities, with even greater powers. The heroic defence conducted by 
 the young prince has already been noticed under the head of France. 
 Peace was restored by the treaty of Nimeguen, 1678; and, in 1689, 
 William, who was nephew of James II., and the husband of his daugh¬ 
 ter Mary, became King of England, and brought the great resources of 
 his new sovereignty to restrain the renewed encroachments of the French 
 monarch. 
 
 DENMARK. 
 
 Christian IV., 1588, reigned several years in profound tranquillity; 
 but his warlike disposition displayed itself in a contest with Sweden 
 about the right to the barren soil of Lapland, 1611-1613. For some 
 time after the conclusion of peace, the king applied his talents to pro¬ 
 mote the commercial interests of his country; but, in 1625, he was in¬ 
 duced to put himself at the head of the Protestant league for the rein¬ 
 statement of the elector-palatine. After some temporary successes, the 
 fortune of war turned so decidedly against him, that he was obliged to 
 sign a humiliating peace, 1629. During the course of hostilities in 
 Germany, terminated by the treaty of Westphalia, certain unfriendly 
 demonstrations on the part of this king led to a contest with Sweden. 
 In a naval engagement near the Isle of Laaland, the combined Swedish 
 and Dutch fleets defeated his armament with great loss, 1644; and next 
 year, after some farther operations by land, a peace was concluded, 
 exempting Sweden from the payment of the Sound dues, and securing 
 other important advantages to that country. 
 
 Frederick III., 1648, engaged in a contest with Sweden, whose 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 417 
 
 sovereign, Charles Gustavus, invaded and overran his dominions; and 
 he was at length forced, by the treaty of Copenhagen, 1660, to cede 
 several important districts. He was consoled for these reverses by an 
 act of the three estates of the realm, who, in the same year, proclaimed 
 him and his successors absolute sovereigns of Denmark, and established 
 the fundamental law of settlement which still prevails. Christian V. 
 succeeded his father in 1670, and shortly after joined in a league against 
 the Swedes, which led to a sanguinary war, the rival princes frequently 
 heading their troops in person. The treaty of Fontainebleau, 1679, led 
 to the re-establishment of peace ; and, in 1689, the convention of Altona 
 settled a long-pending dispute between Denmark and the Duke of Hol¬ 
 stein. During this reign, a West India Company was established, and 
 settlements made in the West Indies and Tranquebar in Hindostan, 
 while the attention of the monarch to manufactures and commerce, and 
 the improvement effected by him in the condition of the humbler classes, 
 contributed even more than his military talents to render him the idol 
 of his people. Frederick IV., 1699, renewed hostilities with Sweden, 
 which were brought to a successful close by the peace of Stockholm, 
 1720,—the claim of Denmark to the sovereignty of Sleswick being fully 
 recognised, and the right of exemption from the Sound dues abandoned 
 by the others. 
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 Charles IX. expired in 1611, leaving the sceptre to his son, Gustavus 
 Adolphus, then only seventeen years of age. A war with Denmark, in 
 which his father had been engaged, was terminated by the young prince 
 in 1613 at Knaerod, to the satisfaction of both parties. Meanwhile, he 
 restored the exhausted finances, filled his ports with ships, disciplined 
 the army, and already gave promise of the highest political and military 
 genius. The deposed monarch, Sigismund of Poland, had not ventured, 
 during the lifetime of his uncle, to disturb the settlement in Sweden ; 
 but the inexperience of the youthful ruler encouraged him to renew his 
 claims on the crown. He accordingly invaded the country in behalf of 
 his son Ladislaus, then a minor; but this war only served to develop the 
 great talents of Gustavus and the bravery and attachment of his people. 
 He defeated the Czar of Russia, who had taken up arms as the ally of 
 his rival, and also Sigismund himself; and at length, by the mediation 
 of England and Holland, a peace was concluded in 1629, by which the 
 right of the young monarch w^as secured, and the important town of 
 Riga, with great part of Livonia, annexed to his territory. The high 
 character acquired by Gustavus in these operations now fixed the atten¬ 
 tion of Europe ; and the persecuted Protestants of Germany looked to 
 him eagerly for support and protection. He had a rational attachment 
 for the reformed doctrine, and regarded with horror the atrocious cruel¬ 
 ties inflicted on its professors in Bohemia ; while the arrogant ambition 
 of Ferdinand, w’ho did not conceal his intention of subjugating Scandi¬ 
 navia itself, added the motive of personal interest to his dislike to the 
 house of Austria. He accordingly put himself at the head of the Lu¬ 
 therans, 1630, and began that career of victor} 7 which has been noticed 
 under Germany, terminated by the battle of Lutzen, 1632, where he fell 
 at the very moment when the army of the empire recoiled before the 
 valour of his troops. 
 
418 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 The crown now devolved on his daughter Christiana, a child five 
 years of age. During her minority, the government was administered 
 by a regency, at the head of which was the Chancellor Oxenstiern, an 
 experienced and enlightened statesman, by whom the war in Germany 
 was carried on sixteen years longer. The queen took affairs into her 
 own hands in 1644, when she speedily brought the hostilities with Den¬ 
 mark to a successful termination, and, though contrary to the wishes of 
 her minister and others, pressed on a peace with the emperor. She 
 eventually became a chief party in the treaty of Westphalia, 1648, by 
 which, in consequence of the victories of her troops, she received several 
 millions of dollars, the cession of Pomerania, Bremen, Verden, and Wis- 
 mar, and three votes in the Germanic diet. The character of this prin¬ 
 cess is one of the most extraordinary on record : she possessed but little 
 of the gentler qualities of her sex, affecting the society of scholars and 
 learned men, and displaying almost a mania for the collection of books, 
 medals, and philosophical instruments. Grotius, Descartes, the fore¬ 
 runner of the modern philosophy, as also D'Herbelot and Bochart, dis¬ 
 tinguished for their oriental studies, experienced her protection. In her 
 twenty-eighth year, with the wish, apparently, of indulging her tastes 
 or caprices at perfect liberty, she formed the singular resolution of re¬ 
 signing her crown and retiring into private life ; and this event took place 
 with great solemnity in May 1654, her cousin Charles Gustavus be¬ 
 coming her successor by the title of Charles X. 
 
 The Swedes were now gradually losing much of their warlike cha¬ 
 racter, and, with the view of sustaining the military reputation of his 
 kingdom, the new monarch, after putting the finances in a better condi¬ 
 tion, resolved on a war with Poland, the sovereign of which had 
 offended him by a reassertion of his right to the Swedish throne. At 
 the head of the veteran bands of Adolphus, he rapidly overran that coun¬ 
 try, the terrified Casimir being compelled to take flight; but the Poles, 
 aided by Russia, speedily rallied in defence of their national independ¬ 
 ence. Frederick III. of Denmark having at the same time taken up 
 arms against him, Charles effected a retreat through Pomerania, invaded 
 Holstein, and speedily subdued the whole peninsula of Jutland. The 
 Dane was forced to conclude a humiliating peace at Roskilde, 1658 ; but 
 Charles, who seems to have been bent on the entire subjugation of that 
 country, again invaded it in the following year. In the midst of these 
 ambitious schemes, however, he was suddenly cut off, 1660, leaving the 
 throne to his son Charles XI., th,en a minor. Peace was now con¬ 
 cluded on all hands : that of Oliva terminated the feud between the Ca¬ 
 tholic and Protestant branches of the house of Yassa; the negotiation 
 of Kardis put an end to the war with Russia; while the contest with 
 Denmark was closed by the treaty of Copenhagen, which mainly con¬ 
 firmed the previous conditions, of 1658. On attaining majority, Charles 
 became a member of the triple alliance for restraining the encroachments 
 of Louis XIY.; but being speedily detached from it by the intrigues of 
 the latter monarch, he found himself again involved in a war with Den 
 mark and with Holland, which was terminated in 1679, by the compact 
 at Fontainebleau, the Swedish monarch receiving in marriage the 
 Danish Princess Ulrica Eleanora. Charles now applied himself to 
 the internal affairs of his government, reforming the abuses which had 
 crept into the administration, and adjusting the imposts and burdens to 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 419 
 
 which so long a period of military conflict had subjected the people. 
 Some of these measures gave great offence to the nobility, and they 
 attempted to remonstrate against them ; but their opposition only tended 
 to hasten the downfall of the aristocratic order, an act being passed by 
 the states in 1693 declaring the king absolute.* The remainder of this 
 monarch’s life was passed in the praiseworthy endeavour to establish 
 peace in Europe, the congress of Ryswick being brought about in a 
 great degree by his mediation. He was succeeded in 1697, by his son 
 Charles XII., the extraordinary events of whose career, however, be¬ 
 long to the next century. 
 
 POLAND. 
 
 The reign of Sigismund III. was a uniform succession of errors, re¬ 
 sulting from the intense religious bigotry which he carried into all his 
 transactions. Taking advantage of troubles in Russia, his general Zol- 
 kiewski invaded that country, and succeeded in having his son Ladislaus 
 proclaimed czar, 1610; but the Polish monarch having refused to ratify 
 the liberal conditions then granted, the Muscovites flew to arms and ex¬ 
 pelled the invaders, allowing them, however, to retain Smolensk and 
 other provinces, 1618. When the Bohemian insurrection broke out, 
 which paved the way for the thirty years’ war, he naturally sided with 
 Austria, sending a force into Hungary against the Prince of Transylva¬ 
 nia ; but this interference involved Poland in hostilities with Turkey, in 
 which General Zolkiewski was slain, 1620. In a peace concluded the 
 following year, Moldavia was ceded to the Moslem; while the war with 
 Sweden, carried on with little interruption since 1618, was terminated 
 by the cession of Livonia to that country, 1629. The reign of this sove¬ 
 reign sowed the seeds of future calamities for Poland : the free spirit of 
 the Reformation was stifled by his intrigues; the adherents of the Greek 
 church, numerous in the south-eastern provinces, were exposed to much 
 persecution; and the best interests of the country sacrificed to the endea¬ 
 vour, in which he was sufficiently successful, of establishing the absolute 
 ascendency of Popery. Ladislaus IV., 1632, was elected without oppo¬ 
 sition. Immediately after his coronation, he took arms against the 
 Muscovites, who had invaded his frontiers, defeated them in battle, and 
 reduced .several towns. These successes led to a treaty in 1634, by 
 which the terms of the truce in 1618 were confirmed ; peace was also 
 concluded with the Turks, and the suspension of hostilities with Sweden 
 prolonged for twenty-six years. The country, therefore, enjoyed tran¬ 
 quillity during the remainder of his reign, while his virtuous and en¬ 
 lightened character, and aversion to religious intolerance, seemed to 
 promise a settlement of intestine disorders. 
 
 But the Jesuits had become too firmly established during the long 
 administration of his father, to enable him to put a stop to their persecu¬ 
 tion of the followers of the Eastern church ; and the results of this un¬ 
 happy circumstance were soon apparent in an insurrection which broke 
 
 * It is a striking fact, that both in Sweden and Denmark the legal establishment of 
 despotism was brought about by the deliberate suffrages of the people stimulated by a 
 hatred of the aristocracy. In each country the tyranny of this class seems to have been 
 carried to the highest pitch, the burghers and peasants being little better than slaves ; 
 and there can be no doubt that these changes, though different from the course pursued 
 in constitutional states, really contributed to the improvement and happiness of tho 
 people at large. 
 
420 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 oat among the Cossacks of the Ukraine a short time before his death, 
 1648.* Under his brother and successor, John Casimir, this rebellion 
 raged with increased fury, the Cossacks, aided by the Tartars of the 
 Crimea, committing great ravages in his dominions; and in 1654 Alexis 
 of Muscovy sent a numerous army to their assistance. In the midst of 
 these troubles the king had been so foolish as to protest at Stockholm 
 against the right of Charles Gustavus to the Swedish crown; and that 
 prince, who only wanted a pretext for invading Poland, and being more* 
 over encouraged by some discontented noblemen, speedily made himself 
 master of the distracted country, the king being forced to take refuge in 
 Silesia. This acquisition might have been permanent, but for the arro¬ 
 gance of Charles, who, affecting to hold the territory by right of con¬ 
 quest, refused to convoke the diet for his election. In consequence, the 
 people exerted themselves vigorously for the restoration of their monarch; 
 and the Czar of Muscovy having concluded a truce with them, the 
 Swedes were compelled to evacuate the country. The Elector of Bran¬ 
 denburg, who had at first aided this invasion, now made terms with 
 John, and turned his arms against his former allies; in return for which 
 he was declared independent of the Polish crown, 1657. Peace was at 
 length confirmed in 1660, by which the king resigned his claims on 
 Sweden, and matters otherwise were placed on the same footing as be¬ 
 fore the war. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Cossacks had returned to their duty on receiving 
 ample guarantees for their religious and political liberties; and the 
 hostilities with Muscovy, renewed in 1658, were terminated in 1667 by 
 a treaty which deprived Poland of the acquisitions she had made during 
 the reign of Sigismund. This was one of the most unfortunate epochs 
 in the history of that country: incessant war and pestilence depopulated 
 the land, and thousands were driven into exile by a fanatical persecution. 
 John Casimir having abdicated in 1668, was succeeded by Michael, 
 prince Wisniowietzki, who was reluctantly compelled to accept the 
 crown, and whose reign was constantly disturbed by faction.j" The 
 Turks at this time invaded Poland with an immense army; and, not¬ 
 withstanding prodigies of valour and military skill performed by the 
 heroic John Sobieski, they succeeded in obtaining possession of the 
 Ukraine, with the promise, besides, of an annual tribute of *22,000 ducats, 
 1672. The diet were indignant at these humiliating conditions; the 
 war still continued ; and, in 1673, Sobieski gained a brilliant victory at 
 Choczim. Michael died the following year, and the gallant leader, who 
 had stept in for the salvation of the country, was unanimously elected 
 his successor, by the title of John III. This truly great man now set 
 
 * This people were of Scythian origin, and dwelt on both sides of the Dnieper, below 
 Kiev, where, distributed into military companies under a hetmann or commander-in¬ 
 chief, they had served Poland as a frontier guard against the Turks and Tartars. 
 
 t The throne of Poland was indeed no very desirable possession: the turbulent and 
 factious character of the nobles, the almost independent jurisdiction they possessed in 
 their respective estates, and the rivalry of the different orders, rendered the royal 
 authority little better than nominal, while the great mass of the people were exposed to 
 all the evils of feudal oppression and anarchy. At each recurring vacancy of the throne, 
 the electoral diets became more ungovernable: the nobles assembled, armed and on 
 horseback, in the order of their palatinates, and each king was compelled to grant new 
 immunities to the privileged classes; and thus, with a show of liberty, the country 
 actually suffered under evils more intolerable than could have been inflicted by the worst 
 hereditary despotism. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 421 
 
 himself to complete the work he had begun; by extraordinary exertions, 
 he contrived to augment the military force, and, in a series of brilliant 
 achievements, succeeded in reconquering two-thirds of the Ukraine, 
 1676. In 1683., he riveted the attention of all Europe by the total defeat 
 given to the enemies of Christendom under the walls of Vienna,—a blow 
 from which the Ottomans never altogether recovered. But these efforts 
 served but to throw a temporary splendour over the waning destinies of 
 Poland. All the exertions made by him for the internal improvement 
 of his kingdom were frustrated by the turbulent nobility, by means of 
 the veto which each possessed, and whereby the most useful measures 
 could be opposed by the dissent of a single chief. The treaty of Leopol, 
 1686, by which the aid of Russia was secured against the Turks and 
 Tartars, was only purchased by considerable cessions of territory; and 
 at the close of a stormy diet in 1688, he confessed with tears in his eyes 
 his inability to save his country from the ruin which he foresaw was but 
 too surely overtaking her. He died in 1696, and with him the greatness 
 of his native land may be said to have ended. 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 During the preceding centuries, this hitherto barbarous empire had 
 acted a very unimportant part in European politics. In 1605, during 
 the reign of Boris, an individual assuming to be the late king’s brother 
 Demetrius, who had been assassinated, as was supposed, by the conni¬ 
 vance of the existing monarch, succeeded in seating himself on the 
 throne. But he was himself slain in a popular tumult a year after, 
 when various pretenders and impostors aspired to the sovereignty; the 
 Swedes and Poles simultaneously invaded the country, and the latter 
 actually succeeded in placing the crown on the head of their young 
 prince Ladislaus, 1610. But the bigotry of the Polish ruler, who refused 
 to confirm the conditions by which his son had gained this elevation, 
 and the dread that their territories would be seized, roused the national 
 spirit of the Russians; the invaders were expelled from Moscow, after a 
 sanguinary conflict, 1613 ; and, in the year following, Michael Roma- 
 nof, a descendant by the female line from the house of Rurik, was placed 
 on the throne by the unanimous consent of the whole people. 
 
 The accession of this dynasty was the true commencement of the 
 European greatness of Russia, which henceforth began to assume a 
 growing importance among the monarchies of Christendom. Michael, 
 however, was obliged to purchase peace from Sweden by the cession of 
 the whole of the Baltic coast, Archangel on the White Sea being now 
 his only port; while Smolensk was delivered to Poland as the price of 
 a fourteen years’ truce, 1618, and which was again ceded in 1634, after 
 a fruitless effort to recover it by force of arms. But the prudent admi¬ 
 nistration of this prince more than compensated for these serious losses: 
 he erected fortresses, invited foreign officers to enter his service, formed 
 his army upon the European model, and gave a new impulse to trade by 
 concluding advantageous treaties with France and England. The early 
 years of his son and successor, Alexis, 1645, were disturbed by an in¬ 
 surrection of the nobles, in consequence of the unpopularity of the regent; 
 but these disorders were composed when the prince attained majority, 
 1648. In 1654, he aided the Ukraine Cossacks in their revolt against 
 
422 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Poland; and, by the truce of Wilna, 1656, succeeded in recovering 
 Smolensk from that country; while a renewal of the contest ended by 
 securing to him additional advantages, 1686. Meanwhile the internal 
 peace of his dominions was disturbed by seditions arising from various 
 causes; and in 1667, a revolt of the Don Cossacks, under a chief named 
 Razin, threatened the dismemberment of the empire. Having proclaimed 
 liberty to the serfs, immense numbers flocked to the rebel standard, and 
 their leader, seizing on Astracan, assumed the style of an independent 
 sovereign ; but he was at length defeated and put to death, along with 
 many of his followers. The remainder of the reign of Alexis was de¬ 
 voted to improving the condition of his subjects. He promulgated a 
 revised code of laws, established manufactories of linen, silk, and iron, 
 and endeavoured to open a communication with China. He was suc¬ 
 ceeded by his eldest son Theodore, 1676, whose short reign is chiefly 
 remarkable for the first war between Russia and the Ottomans, which 
 terminated in 1682 by the final cession of the Ukraine to the former. 
 
 In 1689, Peter, surnamed the Great, a younger son of Alexis, and 
 then seventeen years of age, became sole monarch, his brother Ivan, 
 who had been proclaimed along with him, being set aside from incapa¬ 
 city. The first exertions of this prince were directed to the disciplining 
 of the army and the improvement of his resources; and in 1694, he took 
 Azof from the Turks, aided by a flotilla on. the Don, which was the first 
 Russian navy. Three years after, he quitted his dominions, and travelled 
 through Holland, England, and other countries, with the view of gaining 
 a knowledge of shipbuilding and mechanical science, and engaging 
 artisans to aid him in the great designs he had already begun to form. 
 
 OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 The Turkish power, though manifestly declining, was still very for¬ 
 midable. The janissaries were at once the cause of its strength and its 
 weakness, for this irregular but warlike militia usurped over the throne 
 an authority equalling that possessed in Rome by the praetorian guards. 
 Five successive sultans reigned during the first half of this century, and 
 with two exceptions, Osman and Murad, were sunk, during their short 
 periods of authority, in pleasure and sensual indulgence. Achmet, 1603, 
 was succeeded by Mustapha in 1617; and he being next year deposed 
 by the janissaries, gave place to Osman, who, when defeated by the 
 Poles in 1621, was strangled a year after by his merciless troops. Mus¬ 
 tapha was again restored, only to suffer the same fate in 1623; and his 
 successor Murad, a warlike prince, who conquered Bagdad from the 
 Persians, 1638, was sacrificed soon afterwards. The next sovereign, 
 Ibrahim, was equally unfortunate, being in turn strangled in 1648. 
 Three years before this event, a rich Turkish vessel, that had put into a 
 Candian port, was captured by Maltese cruisers; and Ibrahim conse¬ 
 quently commenced hostilities against Venice, which were continued by 
 his abler and more fortunate successor, Mohammed IV. Twenty-three 
 languid campaigns, however, elapsed before the contest was brought to 
 a consummation by the siege of the capital of Candia, 1667. On its 
 capitulation, two years after, only 2500 survived of the original garrison 
 of 30,000 men, while the loss to the besiegers amounted to 118,000. 
 This conquest was mainly due to the famous vizier, Achmet Kouprili. 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 423 
 
 ^ The reign of Mohammed presents little else than one unvaried series 
 of wars, of which that in Hungary proved in the end most disastrous to 
 the Ottomans. In 1672, he accepted the sovereignty of the Cossacks, 
 and maintained it against Poland, but was forced to resign it to Russia 
 in 1682. A powerful league formed between Austria, Poland, Russia, 
 and Venice, followed upon the defeat of the Turkish forces under the 
 walls of Vienna by John Sobieski; and in 1687, they were again van¬ 
 quished at Mohacz, and finally driven out of Hungary with immense 
 loss, while great part of Southern Greece became the possession of Ve- 
 nice. Mohammed having been deposed in 1687, was succeeded by 
 Soliman III., by whom the war was continued, the fortress of Belgrade 
 twice changing masters, but remaining finally in the hands of the Turks. 
 Under Achmet II., 1691, the fortress of Great Waradein surrendered to 
 the Austrians: and his successor, Mustapha II., 1695, after being forced 
 to yield the town of Azof to Russia, sustained a final overthrow from 
 Prince Eugene of Savoy at Zenta, 1697. The treaty of Carlowitz, 1699, 
 at length terminated this disastrous war, and completed the humiliation 
 of the Porte ; Transylvania, Sclavonia, and Hungary, were preserved 
 to the emperor; Podolia, with part of the Ukraine, remained in the 
 possession of Poland; Russia retained her conquests on the Black Sea; 
 and the Morea was ceded to Venice. 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 Persia. —The great Shah Abbas was succeeded by his grandson 
 Saffi, a sanguinary tyrant, who reigned from 1627 to 1641, under whom 
 Persia lost the acquisitions gained from Turkey by his predecessor. 
 The rule of the two next monarchs, Abbas II., 1641, and Saffi II., 1666, 
 was uniformly peaceful, and the arts and commerce flourished; but the 
 court was enervated by luxury, and the martial spirit of the people suf¬ 
 fered from inaction. In 1694, Hussein Mirza, a weak and bigoted 
 prince, ascended the throne. After reigning nearly twenty years in 
 peace, his kingdom was invaded and taken from him by the Afghans 
 (f. e. destroyers), a warlike people on the confines of India, he himself 
 being forced to place the royal diadem on the head of their chief Mah¬ 
 moud, 1722. 
 
 China. — The Mongols, who had been expelled from China by the 
 founder of the Ming dynasty, took refuge among the Tartars of the north¬ 
 east; and this union eventually gave rise to the Mantchoos, who were 
 destined at length to expel the native line of princes, and establish a 
 permanent dominion. The ability of the earlier monarchs long averted 
 this catastrophe, and the seat of government was transferred to Pekin, 
 apparently with the view of restraining their encroachments; but the 
 usual degeneracy seems to have overtaken their successors, and the 
 country becoming involved in great disorders, these warlike enemies, 
 first called in to assist in the settlement of internal differences, succeeded 
 in seizing the throne for themselves, 1644. Happily for the country, 
 however, Chun-tchi, the new Tartar emperor, guided by experienced 
 counsellors, showed himself a generous and enlightened monarch, ab¬ 
 staining from all interference with the prejudices of his subjects, and 
 exerting himself vigorously for their improvement. His son and suc¬ 
 cessor, Kang-hi, 1661, was one of the most illustrious sovereigns that 
 
424 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 ever ruled in China, having been conspicuous for almost every virtue 
 drat can adorn a throne; and to his exertions are mainly owing the peace 
 and unity which the empire has ever since enjoyed. During this reign, 
 the Jesuit missionaries made some progress, being employed by him to 
 reform the calendar; but he was afterwards induced to discourage them, 
 and is said to have particularly derided the spiritual supremacy claimed 
 by their leaders for the Pope. 
 
 Japan.— The islands of Japan were probably settled by the Chinese; 
 their rulers, until about 660 b. c., being, so far as the imperfect accounts 
 are to be credited, the same as those of that empire. Afterwards, the 
 country seems to have been governed by chiefs called Dairis , who united 
 in their persons both the spiritual and temporal authority. But all 
 offices, public or private, being hereditary, the military commander gra¬ 
 dually obtained so much influence, that, in 1585, he was able to seize 
 on the entire power, leaving to the other merely the control of ecclesias¬ 
 tical affairs. Thus Japan has since had two sovereigns, the former 
 residing at Jeddo, the latter at Miaco, under whom the country appears 
 to have enjoyed a large amount of prosperity and peace. During this 
 century, the Roman Catholic religion was introduced by the Portuguese, 
 whose intercourse dates from 1541 : at first it made great progress, but 
 was eventually rooted out by cruel persecutions, and entirely forbidden. 
 The Dutch succeeded in establishing a trade with the natives in 1611; 
 and they are now the only Europeans allowed to enter their ports. 
 
 India. —On the death of Akbar in 1605, the Mogul empire descended 
 to his son Selim, wffio assumed the pompous title of “ conqueror of the 
 world.” This designation w T as certainly anything but appropriate; for 
 durino' his reffin the Persians took Candahar, the Usbecks obtained 
 possession of Cabul, the Afghans in the north revolted, the Rajpoot 
 princes began a struggle for independence, and even his own heir, Shah 
 Jehan, rebelled against him. He appears, however, to have been a weak 
 rather than a bad ruler, protecting the Hindoos in the exercise of their 
 religion, and encouraging literature and the arts. The British East 
 India Company, having sent an embassy to his court, obtained from him 
 many advantageous grants. His successor, Jehan, 1627, was doomed 
 to experience a severe requital for the ingratitude he had displayed to 
 him, being dethroned in 1659 by his own son Aurengzebe, wffio detained 
 him in prison till his death. This prince was the last powerful Mogul 
 sovereign, having conquered the cities of Golconda, Hydrabad, and 
 Bejapore, and extended his rule almost to the limits of the Carnatic. 
 His reign, as it had been begun, continued to be distinguished by great 
 cruelty; he endeavoured to establish Mohammedanism throughout his 
 dominions, by destroying the Hindoo temples and imposing a poll-tax 
 on every individual not professing Islamism. The Mahrattas now began 
 to assume importance in India, having succeeded in conquering great 
 part of the Deccan; and though frequently defeated in the low country 
 by the troops of Aurengzebe, he was unable to make any permanent 
 impression on their mountain territory. Sevajee, the founder of the 
 Mahratta sovereignty, was succeeded by his son Sambajee in 1682, wffio 
 was taken prisoner by the Mogul emperor, 1689, and subjected to a 
 cruel death. This monarch was undoubtedly one of the most powerful 
 of his day, his revenue being computed by Major Rennel at more than 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 425 
 
 thirty-two millions sterling, in a country where productions are a fourth 
 less in value than in England; but, after his demise in 1707, the wealth 
 and influence of the Moguls rapidly declined. 
 
 COLONIES. 
 
 English. —In 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter of exclusive 
 commerce with the East Indies to a company of London merchants, who 
 made several profitable voyages, and, in 1611, received permission from 
 the government of Delhi to establish factories at Surat, Camoay, and 
 other places, though their attempts to obtain a share of the spice trade 
 by a settlement at Amboyna were resisted by the Dutch, who even put 
 some settlers to death, 1623. In 1624, the company received extensive 
 judicial authority, being permitted to try their servants when abroad 
 either by civil or martial law; and, though exposed to considerable 
 opposition from the rivalry of other mercantile associations, who at vari¬ 
 ous times acquired permission to infringe the original monopoly, they 
 continued steadily to advance, and eventually thwarted all competitors. 
 Their first settlement at Madras was formed about 1648, and they ob¬ 
 tained another valuable position on the western coast by the gift of the 
 island of Bombay, which formed part of the marriage portion received 
 by Charles II. with the Princess Catherine of Portugal, 1668. Seven 
 years previously, by a new charter, the company, besides a confirmation 
 of all their former privileges, received the further authority to make 
 peace or war with any people not being Christians, and to seize all un¬ 
 licensed persons who should be found within their limits, and send them 
 to England. In 1664, they first came into hostile collision with a native 
 power, having repelled an attack upon Surat by Sevajee, the founder of 
 the Mahratta empire; on which occasion the Mogul expressed his thanks 
 for their conduct, and considerably extended their trading privileges. 
 Fort William at Calcutta was erected in 1699. 
 
 Many African companies were successively incorporated; but none 
 succeeded in obtaining exclusive privileges. About 1674, the English 
 founded on the Guinea Coast the ports of St. James and Sierra Leone 
 Their colonies in the West Indies began to flourish in the early part of 
 the century. Private merchants established factories in Barbadoes and 
 St. Kitt’s in 1625; but little importance was attached to these places 
 until the sugar-cane, transplanted from Brazil in 1641, began to be suc¬ 
 cessfully cultivated. The conquest of Jamaica, 1655, opened a new and 
 abundant source of wealth to British commerce in those regions. 
 
 On the North American continent, in 1620, the state of Massachusetts 
 owed its first settlement to a small body of Presbyterians, who had 
 resolved to seek freedom of worship on those distant shores, where, six 
 years later, they founded the city of Boston. The increasing persecu¬ 
 tions of the Puritans and Catholics, and the internal convulsions of 
 England, drove great numbers across the Atlantic. Rhode Island was 
 colonized by the former in 1630; and Maryland, in 1632, by the latter. 
 About 1662, Charles II. granted to a body of noblemen the lordship of 
 the country now known as Carolina; but the first permanent settlement 
 was not made till 1680, on the site of Charleston. The shores of Chesa¬ 
 peake Bay were first occupied by the Swedes ; their colony subsequently 
 fell into the hands of the Dutch, who finally ceded it to England in 1664 
 36 * 
 
426 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 In 1681, the country was granted to the celebrated William Penn, who 
 in the following year founded the city of Philadelphia. By the treaty 
 of Utrecht, 1713, Great Britain acquired Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 
 with the entire commerce of Hudson’s Bay and the Straits. 
 
 French.— The minister Colbert, whose attention was much directed 
 to commerce and maritime speculations, established East and West India 
 Companies in 1664; and between 1685 and 1690, a French settlement 
 formed at Pondicherry obtained considerable importance. Their first 
 permanent occupation of Canada took place in 1608, on the spot now 
 covered by the city of Quebec, w T here a valuable trade in fish and pel¬ 
 tries was established. 
 
 Spanish. —The immense empire founded by Spain in the New World 
 had now become consolidated, and the wealth derived from the rich 
 mines of gold and silver excited the envy of all Europe. During the 
 wars of this century, the plate fleets, as they were called, laden with the 
 annual tribute of those regions, frequently fell into the hands of the 
 Dutch, French, or English cruisers; and the colonies also suffered much 
 from the predatory attacks of the Buccaneers, a body of lawless adven¬ 
 turers who established themselves in a small island in the West Indies, 
 whence they long continued to be the terror of the Spanish Main. The 
 Jesuit missionaries succeeded in acquiring immense influence in South 
 America, and made great efforts for the benefit of the natives; but, in 
 general, the condition of the aboriginal population continued to be the 
 most miserable that could possibly be conceived. 
 
 Portuguese.— After her separation from Spain, Portugal retained 
 little of her East Indian possessions besides Goa and Diu. Her valua¬ 
 ble settlement of Brazil had previously to that period been exposed to 
 various attacks, particularly from the Dutch, who, between 1620 and 
 1640, under prince John Maurice of Nassau, obtained possession of 
 nearly the whole colony; but by the peace of 1660 they subsequently 
 resigned all claim to it. About the year 1700, the accidental discovery 
 of the rich mines of Villa Rica gave increased importance to this pos¬ 
 session. 
 
 Dutch.— In 1650, the Dutch seized on the Cape of Good Hope, 
 where they founded the capital Cape Town; and in 1656, they drove 
 the Portuguese out of Colombo, a valuable settlement in Ceylon, de¬ 
 priving them of the principal seat of the pearl-fishery. In 1605, they had 
 wrested from the same people the possession of the Moluccas or Spice 
 Islands, and continued to maintain them against all competitors; and 
 their colony of Surinam in South America, founded about 1590, became 
 highly flourishing 
 
 / 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 [The oldest town in the United States is St. Augustine, in Florida, 
 having been settled by the Spaniards in 1565, as was related in the his¬ 
 tory of the sixteenth century. 
 
 [Gosnold in 1602, Pring in 1603, and Weymouth in 1605, explored 
 the whole New England coast, but failed to make any settlement. The 
 first permanent settlement made by the English was that of Jamestown, 
 in Virginia, in 1607. The first settlers, 105 in number, were chiefly 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 427 
 
 commercial adventurers. They experienced all the hardships incident 
 to their situation, and were several times on the brink of destruction; 
 but were repeatedly rescued by the genius and daring of Captain John 
 Smith, one of the most remarkable men in American annals, and justly 
 called the father of Virginia. 
 
 [The same year that Jamestown was founded, the Plymouth company 
 sent out a hundred emigrants for the purpose of establishing a settlement 
 in New England. They effected a landing near Kennebec, in Maine, 
 where they remained nearly all winter; but, discouraged by the hard¬ 
 ships which they had to endure, they abandoned their settlement the 
 following year, and returned to England. The Plymouth company 
 were unsuccessful in their subsequent efforts to plant a colony under the 
 charter they had received, until at length a congregation of English Pu¬ 
 ritans, whom oppression had driven to Holland, formed the resolution 
 of seeking the civil and religious liberty which they wished by removing 
 in a body to the New World. Having returned to England to make the 
 necessary arrangements for their departure, they finally sailed from Ply¬ 
 mouth for the river Hudson, on which they intended to settle; but being 
 carried further north, they landed near Cape Cod, December 1620, at a 
 place to which, in honour of the port from which they sailed, they gave 
 the name of New Plymouth. These emigrants, 101 in number, are 
 known in history as the Pilgrim Fathers. They were soon followed 
 by others, who, with them, laid the foundation of all the New England 
 States. 
 
 [Roger Conant, one of the pilgrims from New Plymouth, with only 
 three companions, in 1626 made choice of Salem as the most convenient 
 place of refuge for their persecuted brethren in England ; and they boldly 
 resolved on establishing themselves there as the sentinels of Puritanism. 
 They were not long left alone. Endicott joined them in 1628 with a 
 company of one hundred Puritans from England ; seven of whom, with 
 characteristic enterprise, detached themselves from the rest, and imme¬ 
 diately commenced a new settlement at Charlestown. A company of 
 two hundred men, among them Francis Higginson, went over in 1629. 
 In the same year the friends of the cause succeeded in getting a new and 
 more liberal charter, and, what was more important, in getting the cor¬ 
 poration itself, which had hitherto existed in England, transferred to the 
 colony, the members of the corporation becoming the actual colonists. 
 The effect of these movements was to direct the attention of the whole 
 body of English Puritans to the subject of emigration; and in the fol¬ 
 lowing year, 1630, no less than seventeen ships, containing fifteen hun¬ 
 dred emigrants, with John Winthrop at their head, landed at Salem. 
 Such was the origin of Massachusetts. The Puritans who settled it 
 were men of a superior character to any that had yet come as colonists 
 to the shores of America; a large portion of them gentlemen of fortune 
 and education, who sought the New World, not in the spirit of commer¬ 
 cial adventure, but to found a free commonwealth for themselves and 
 their posterity. 
 
 [The names of Sir Ferdinand Gorges and Captain John Mason are 
 inseparably connected with the history of New Hampshire. Under the 
 patent obtained by them, a settlement was commenced on the Piscataqua 
 river in the year 1623. The oldest towns built were Portsmouth and 
 Dover. The colony was replenished partly by settlers from England 
 
428 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 under grants from Mason and Gorges, and partly by emigrants from 
 Massachusetts; and suffered probably more than any other, both from In¬ 
 dian hostilities, and from disputes about conflicting titles to the land. 
 
 [On the coast of Maine attempts at a settlement were made very early 
 by both the French and English, but without success until 1628, when, 
 under the influence of Gorges, a few trading-houses were planted near 
 the Penobscot. A charter, with ample proprietary powers, was granted 
 to Gorges in 1635, and a general court was held at Saco in 1640. This 
 colony, like that of New Hampshire, was early taken under the protec¬ 
 tion of Massachusetts, and suffered greatly from the claims of conflicting 
 jurisdictions. 
 
 [Roger Williams, a Puritan divine, illustrious for his political wisdom 
 as well as his benevolence, proclaimed opinions respecting freedom of 
 conscience in matters of religion of the most liberal and comprehensive 
 character, and, consequently, far in advance of the age in which he lived. 
 Being exiled on this account from the colony of Massachusetts, in 1636 
 he retired alone into the recesses of the forest to a place which he called 
 Providence, where he was soon after joined by others, and became the 
 founder of Rhode Island. 
 
 [Connecticut was settled chiefly by emigrants from the older colonies. 
 The people of New Plymouth built a trading-house at Windsor in 1633, 
 and settlements were commenced soon after at Hartford and Wethersfield 
 by pioneers from Massachusetts. In 1636 a large company from the 
 same colony, led by Hooker and Haynes, emigrated to the banks of the 
 Connecticut. This emigration was made under authority of a grant ob¬ 
 tained from the proprietaries by the younger Winthrop ; a man so highly 
 esteemed in England, that he was enabled afterwards to obtain for Con¬ 
 necticut the wisest and most liberal of all the charters granted by the 
 Stuarts. He may justly be considered the founder of Connecticut, as 
 his father was the father of Massachusetts. 
 
 [In 1609, the great navigator Henry Hudson, sailing on a voyage of 
 discovery in the service of the Dutch, entered New York harbour, and 
 the noble river which bears his name. Having explored the river as far 
 as Albany, he published such an account of these regions, which had 
 never before been seen by any European, as led in the following year to 
 a voyage for the purpose of traffic with the natives. In 1614, the first 
 rude fort was erected on the southern point of Manhattan Island, and in 
 1615 the first permanent settlement at Albany began. The object of the 
 Dutch was commerce rather than colonization. Political dissensions at 
 home, however, soon caused the emigration of a large number of settlers 
 from Holland. The New Netherlands, under its brave governors Wouter 
 Van Twiller, William Kieft and Peter Stuyvesant, continued for half a 
 century to be a thriving and important colony of the Dutch West India 
 Company. In 1664, however, it passed into the hands of the English, 
 and has since been known by its present name of New York. 
 
 [The first settlement in Delaware appears to have been made by the 
 Dutch. Certain wealthy proprietors in Holland, who had purchased of 
 the natives the title to the lands around the mouth of the Delaware river 
 in 1630 set on foot an expedition for the purpose of taking possession 
 of their new territories. De Vries, the conductor of the expedition, 
 reached. Delaware bay and planted a colony of thirty souls at Lewistown 
 in 1631. Gustavus Adolphus, the illustrious king of Sweden, in 162^ 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 429 
 
 projected a plan for colonizing these regions by his own subjects; and 
 the commencement of their colony has been generally assigned to that 
 year. No actual emigration, however, took place till 1638, when a small 
 company of Swedes and Finns entered Delaware bay, and having pur- 
 chased from the natives all the land from its mouth to the falls of Trenton, 
 built a fort and commenced a settlement on Christiana creek. Emigrants 
 multiplied, and Swedish settlements were formed along the Delaware as 
 far as Tinicum Island, within a few miles of Philadelphia. They were, 
 however, conquered by the Dutch in 1655, and, with the rest of the 
 Dutch possessions in North America, passed into the hands of the Eng¬ 
 lish in 1664. 
 
 [William Clayborne, an English surveyor, under license of Charles 
 I., formed a trading establishment on Kent Island, in Maryland, as early 
 as 1632. The same year Sir George Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, ob¬ 
 tained a royal charter, which, in consequence of his death before the 
 patent had passed the great seal, was made out in the name of his son 
 Cecil, granting to him and his heirs proprietary rights to the soil of 
 Maryland. This charter, which was written by the elder Lord Balti¬ 
 more, was .onceived in a spirit of moderation and of civil and religious 
 toleration much in advance of the age. Under its wise and liberal pro¬ 
 visions, a large body of English Catholics, gentlemen of birth and qua¬ 
 lity, embarked in the enterprise of colonizing Maryland. The first town 
 founded by them was St. Mary’s, 1634, where their first legislative assem¬ 
 bly was held the following year. They experienced bitter opposition from 
 Clayborne, whose establishment was broken up, but continued with 
 various success under the proprietary government until the Revolution. 
 
 [In the year 1663, some of the independent planters of Virginia esta¬ 
 blished themselves on Albemarle Sound, and a few hardy sons of New 
 England began an infant colony on the banks of Cape Fear River. 
 These were the first beginnings of the permanent settlement of the Caro- 
 linas. The same year Lord Clarendon obtained for himself and some 
 others a charter constituting themselves proprietors of the soil. The 
 celebrated Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, and John Locke the 
 philosopher, afterwards, in 1669, prepared for this province a constitu¬ 
 tion and frame of government, which, however, never went fully into 
 operation. 
 
 [On the surrender of the New Netherlands in 1664, the territory be¬ 
 tween the Hudson and the Delaware was granted, under the name of 
 New Jersey, to Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, as proprietors. 
 Settlements had already been commenced by detached bodies of Swedes, 
 Dutch and English. As early as 1664, a few families of Dutch were 
 found about Burlington, and of Quakers on Raritan Bay; and in the 
 following year a considerable number of New England Puritans were 
 settled at Elizabethtown, and plantations were begun at Middletown 
 and Shrewsbury. Just ten years later, West Jersey was purchased by 
 a company of English Quakers, who immediately made settlements at 
 Salem, Burlington, and other places on the Delaware. East and West 
 Jersey continued divided until 1702, when they were again united into 
 one province. 
 
 [Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, who obtained a royal 
 charter for the purpose in 1681. Small settlements had already been 
 made by the Swedes and Finns. Markham was sent over, therefore, by 
 
430 
 
 modern history. 
 
 the proprietary to take possession of the province, and make preparations 
 for settling it on a more extended scale. Penn himself came over in 
 1682 with about two thousand settlers, mostly Friends. Having first 
 agreed upon a constitution at Chester for the government of his colony, 
 including the previous settlements of the Swedes and Finns, having 
 concluded his famous treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon, now 
 called Kensington, and having purchased of the Swedes the ground 
 occupied by them near the mouths of the Delaware and Schuylkill, Penn 
 proceeded to lay out and build the city of Philadelphia according to a 
 plan designed by himself before leaving England. Penn’s charter con¬ 
 tained the same features of civil and religious liberty which character¬ 
 ized that of Lord Baltimore; and Penn himself was distinguished by a 
 liberality of opinions, a moderation of conduct, and a wise political fore¬ 
 cast, which have placed him in the first rank of human legislators. 
 
 [Georgia was founded in the following century, 1732, by a company 
 of settlers under the direction of General James Oglethorpe.] 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Jansenists.— This sect, which sprung up in the Romish church 
 about the middle of the century, owed its origin to Jansenius, a bishop 
 of Ypres, who died in 1638, leaving behind him a work entitled Augus¬ 
 tinus, in which he had treated of the opinions of St. Augustine concern¬ 
 ing predestination and grace. Several years after his death some 
 Jesuit theologians discovered in his volume five propositions embodying 
 principles closely resembling Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, and 
 which they denounced as heretical. After much discussion, Pope Inno¬ 
 cent X. condemned the same tenets as blasphemous, 1653 ; but various 
 learned men, who disliked the Jesuits, undertook to prove that they did 
 not, in fact, exist in the work, at least in the sense attributed to them. 
 Three years after, however, the book itself was condemned by Alexan¬ 
 der VII.; while Arnauld, Pascal, and others, from their retreat at Port 
 Royal, near Paris, continuing to maintain the orthodoxy of the author, 
 received the name of Jansenists. A formula having been afterwards 
 drawn up, which all ecclesiastical persons in France were required to 
 sign, many refused; and a schism consequently arose in the Gallican 
 church, the followers of Arnauld pointing out various corruptions in dis¬ 
 cipline and morality, and accusing the Jesuits as the cause of them. 
 Much controversy arose from these differences; and the influence of the 
 latter body in European affairs gave even a political importance to their 
 antagonists. The excitement subsequently died away ; and the monas¬ 
 tery of Port Royal was suppressed by Louis XIV. in 1709. 
 
 An immense number of different bodies arose among the Reformers, 
 which it would be tedious even to enumerate. In England, about 1650, 
 first appeared the Quakers, at that time regarded as a sect of visionary 
 fanatics, and owing their origin to George Fox, a shoemaker. Barclay, 
 their great apologist, and William Penn, are, however, to be considered 
 the real founders of the society. 
 
 LITERATURE, ARTS, AND SCIENCES. 
 
 England. —The literature of England during this century presents a galaxy 
 of great and imperishable names. Bacon, 1626, laid down the principles of the 
 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 431 
 
 modern or inductive philosophy in his Novum Organon , and thus led the way 
 to the great discoveries of Newton and Davy. In the struggles of these times, 
 Algernon Sydney, 1683, Hobbes, 1679, and Milton, 1674, are celebrated as the 
 defenders of popular principles. The Essay on the Human Understanding by John 
 Locke, 1704, still retains the highest rank among metaphysical productions. 
 Poetry was illustrated by the names of Waller, 168/, Denham, 1668, Butler, 
 1680, Otway, 1685, and Dryden, 1700, to whom the perfection of English ver¬ 
 sification has been ascribed. Milton, the greatest poet of his time, composed 
 his Comus before the Civil War; his Allegro and Penseroso were written in 
 the midst of its contentions; and, when withdrawn from the political world, 
 and even deprived of sight, he produced that imperishable monument of his 
 fame, Paradise Lost. Lord Shaftesbury, 1713, and Atterbury, 1732, were cele¬ 
 brated as elegant prose-writers, and Lord Clarendon, 1674, as an historian. 
 
 In 1645, a number of learned men in London, agreeing to meet at stated 
 times and communicate their discoveries in science, laid the foundation of the 
 Royal Society. Harvey, 1657, first demonstrated the circulation of the blood ; 
 and the practice of medicine owed a signal improvement to Sydenham, 1689. 
 The steam-engine was invented by the Marquis of Worcester, 1667, and ap¬ 
 plied to practical purposes by Savary, 1696. Drebbel, a Dutch peasant, con¬ 
 structed the thermometer, 1634; and the reflecting telescope owes its origin to 
 James Gregory, a native of Scotland, 1675. Mathematical science received a 
 valuable contribution in the invention of Logarithms, by Baron Napier of 
 Merchiston, 1617. 
 
 France. —At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the French language 
 was yet unformed. Malherbe, 1628, had just shown how far it was capable of 
 strength and elevation in poetry ; and the affected Balzac, 1654, had done the 
 same thing for its prose. Both species of composition were brought to maturity 
 in the reign of Louis XIV. Corneille, 1684, was the first who elevated the 
 literary genius of France by creating its theatre; Racine, 1699, exalted the 
 drama to its highest degree of elegance and dignified expression, though it still 
 remained a feeble copy of the Grecian stage. Fenelon, 1715, author of Tele - 
 tnachus, gave to French prose its utmost degree of refinement. Moliere, 1673, 
 is still admired in his own peculiar branch of comedy ; as is Lafontaine, 1695, 
 for the exquisite simplicity and sly humour of his fables. The pulpit was 
 adorned by the eloquence of Bourdaloue, 1704, of Bossuet, 1704, and Massil¬ 
 lon, 1742. Philosophy was successfully cultivated by Des Cartes, 1650, Pascal, 
 1662, and Malebranche, 1715. Among the philologers of the day are found the 
 names of Bochart, 1667, Anne Dacier, 1720, and Huet, 1721. Boileau, 1711. 
 was celebrated as a critic and satirist; and Bayle, 1706, the father of free dis¬ 
 cussion in modern times, was conspicuous in the same walk. The French 
 school of painting was upheld by the judicious Le Sueur, 1655, and by the cor¬ 
 rect designs of Charles Le Brun, 1690. Sallo, 1669, conducted the first literary 
 journal established in Europe ; and Gallois, 1707, assisted in projecting the 
 Journal des Savans. The Academie Frangaise owed its origin to Richelieu 
 in 1635. 
 
 Italy. —During this century Italian literature and science began to share in 
 the degeneracy of the nation, although in the first part of it their painters were 
 still the most celebrated in Europe. We recognise the name of one original 
 prose-writer, Caracciolus, marquis of Vico, 1744; and the historians Sarpi, 
 1623 ; Davila, 1631 ; and Bentivoglio, 1644. Poetry was much disfigured by 
 euphuism and affectation in Marini, 1625; and Tassoni, 1635. Painting was 
 illustrated by the delicate and beautiful pencil of Guido. 1642; Albano, 1660, 
 celebrated for the grace of his figures ; Domenichino, 1641, whose correct and 
 lively designs have been much admired ; and Salvator Rosa, 1673. conspicuous 
 for the wild and gloomy magnificence infused into his conceptions. Modern 
 astronomy and physics owe a debt of gratitude to the celebrated Galileo, 1642, 
 who demonstrated the truth of the Copernican philosophy, by discovering the 
 motions of the planets, and he is also known as the inventor of the pendulum ; 
 *he barometer owes its invention to his pupil Torricelli, 1647; and Cassini, 
 1712 , was renowned for his astronomical discoveries. 
 
432 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Spain.- —The literature of Spain presents no celebrated names beyond those 
 mentioned in the last century ; Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and Calderon, being 
 still its chief writers. Murillo, 1682, and Alfaro, 1680, were conspicuous as 
 painters. 
 
 Germany. —Notwithstanding the appearance of several eminent writers, Ger¬ 
 many as yet showed few indications of the high literary and scientific renown 
 which she has since attained. In philosophy and politics, there were Conring, 
 1681 ; Puffendorf, 1694; and Leibnitz, 1716: in poetry, Opitz, 1639; Balde, 
 1668 ; Canitz, 1699. Bauer, 1640, was celebrated as a painter and engraver ; 
 Sandrart, 1688, was favourably known for historical pieces; Lely, 1680, and 
 Kneller, 1723, both of whom died in London, were eminent portrait painters. 
 In addition to the valuable contributions to science of Kepler and Tycho Brahe, 
 mentioned in the last century, may be noticed the important invention of the 
 air-pump by Otto Guerike, 1686 ; and Glauber, 1668, famed for his chemical 
 investigations, and in particular for the discovery of the salt which bears his 
 name. 
 
 Holland. —In this century, Holland gave birth to Spinosa, 1677, a cele¬ 
 brated sceptic, and to Grotius, 1645, who gave a scientific form to morals, and 
 demonstrated their application alike to social and individual man. The depart¬ 
 ment of philology was illustrated by a number of eminent writers, among whom 
 may be mentioned Voss, 1649 ; Heinsius, 1655 ; Schrevelius, 1667 ; and Go- 
 lius, 1667. In Flanders was formed that celebrated school of painting from 
 which emanated the masterly productions of Rubens, 1640; Vandyck, 1641; 
 Rembrandt, 1674; and the two Teniers, 1649 and 1694. Mathematical science 
 was cultivated by Ludolph of Cologne, 1610; physiology by Wale, 1640, and 
 Sylvius, 1672; and Huygens, 1695, is eminent for his improvements on the 
 telescope, and for the invention of the pendulum clock. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Great Britain. — 1700, Act of Succession. — 1702, Anne. — 1707, Scottish 
 Union. — 1704, Victory of Blenheim; Gibraltar taken. — 1706, Ramillies; 
 1708, Oudenarde ; 1709, Malplaquet.— 1714, House of Brunswick; George 
 I.— 1715, 1745, Scottish Rebellions.— 1716, Septennial Act.— 1718, Quadru¬ 
 ple Alliance. — 1720, South Sea Bubble; Walpole. — 1743, Victory at Det- 
 tingen. — 1748, Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. — 1759, Conquest of Canada.— 
 1763, John Wilkes; American War; ended 1783 ; Fox and Pitt. — Naval 
 Victories of Howe, 1794; Duncan and Jervis, 1797; Nelson, 1798. — 1798, 
 Irish Rebellion. 
 
 France. —1700, War of Spanish Succession.—1715; The Regency of Orleans. 
 —1718, Mississippi Scheme.—1733, War of Polish Succession.—1740, War 
 of Austrian Succession. —1756, Seven Years’ War. — 1764, Jesuits sup¬ 
 pressed.—1774, Louis XVI. — 1789, States-General. — Revolution : 1793, 
 King beheaded.—1794, The Directory.—1798, Egyptian Expedition.—1799, 
 Consulate; Bonaparte. 
 
 Spain.— 1700, Philip V. of Anjou; Cardinal Alberoni.—1746, Ferdinand IV 
 —1761, Family Compact.—1788, Charles IV. 
 
 Portugal. —1703, Methuen Treaty.—1706, John V. —1714, Portuguese Aca¬ 
 demy.— 1750. Joseph I.; Marquis of Pombal.—1755, Earthquake at Lisbon, 
 —1758, Jesuits expelled. 
 
 Italy. —Victor Amadeus II. of Sardinia. — 1737, Francis of Lorraine, grand 
 duke of Tuscany.—1767, Jesuits expelled from Sicily. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 433 
 
 Germany. —1705, Joseph I.—1711, Charles VI.—1724, Pragmatic Sanction.— 
 1740, Maria Theresa ; War of the Austrian Succession.—1748, Treaty of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. — 1763, Treaty of Paris. — 1777, Bavarian Succession; 
 1779, Peace of Teschen.—1780, Joseph II.—1792, Francis II.—1797, Treaty 
 of Campo Formio. 
 
 Holland. — 1713, Peace of Utrecht.—1747, William IV.—1751, Regency.— 
 1787, Revolution ; William V.—1795, Batavian Republic. 
 
 Denmark.—F rederick IV.—1720, Peace of Stockholm.—1746, Frederick V.; 
 Bernstorf. — 1766, Christian VII.; Affranchisement of Serfs. — Struensee 
 beheaded, 1772. 
 
 Sweden. — 1700, Charles XII.—1709.—Defeat at Pultow.a.—1738, Factions of 
 Hats and Caps .— 1771, Gustavus III. — 1792, Gustavus IV. 
 
 Poland. — 1697, Augustus II. — 1763, Stanislaus Poniatowski.— Religious 
 Quarrels.—Partitions, 1772, 1793, 1795. 
 
 Prussia.— 1701, Frederick I.—1740, Frederick II.—1756, Seven Years’ War. 
 
 —1786, Frederick William III. ; War with France. 
 
 Russia. — Peter the Great.—1700, Defeat of Narva. —1725, Catherine I.— 
 1762, Catherine II. ; Turkish War. 
 
 Turkey.— 1715, War with Venice.—1718, Treaty of Passarowitz.—1730, Re¬ 
 volution ; Mahmoudi.—Treaties of Kainardge, 1774; of Jassy, 1792. 
 Persia. —1727, Nadir Shah. —1738, Invasion of Hindostan; Kingdoms of 
 Cabul and Candahar.—1797, Futteh Ali. 
 
 India.— 1707, Sikh Wars. — 1756, Black Hole of Calcutta. — 1757, Battle of 
 Plassey.—1766, Hyder Ali; Warren Hastings.—1799, Tippoo Saib killed. 
 United States. -—1773, Disturbances at Boston; War of Independence.— 
 1777, Burgoyne capitulates.—1783, Independence recognised by England.— 
 1787, Federal Constitution. 
 
 Hayti.— 1794, Rebellion of Slaves ; Toussaint l’Ouverture. 
 
 Church.— 1773, Suppression of Jesuits.—1793, Abolition of Religious Worship 
 in France.—1740, Methodists in England. 
 
 Discoveries, &c.— 1720, Fahrenheit’s Thermometer; Reaumur, 1731.—1713, 
 Ruins of Herculaneum.—1750, Ruins of Pompeii.—1759, Eddystone Light¬ 
 house built; Lewenhoek’s Microscope.—1781, Planet Herschel.—1783, Air 
 Balloon by Montgolfier ; Lightning Conductors.—1791, Galvanism; Gal¬ 
 vanic Battery.—1794-1798, Vaccination. 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Act of Succession.—W illiam and his sister-in-law Anne being- both 
 childless, parliament in 1700 passed the famous Act of Succession, by 
 which the crown, failing them, was settled upon the next Protestant 
 heir, Sophia, duchess of Hanover, daughter of Elizabeth, eldest daughter 
 of James I. About this time the causes of a new war arose out of cer¬ 
 tain disputes as to the inheritance of the crown of Spain, which had been 
 left by the will of the last monarch to the grandson of Louis XIV.; and 
 England, Holland, and the Empire, accordingly became parties to a 
 Grand Alliance , as it was called, having in view the preservation 
 of the balance of power in Europe, supposed to be endangered by this 
 arrangement. In 1701, James II. died in France, leaving his pretensions 
 
 37 
 
434 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 to his son of the same name;* and Louis, in spite of the treaty of Rys- 
 wick, immediately recognised this young prince as King of Great 
 Britain, thereby adding materially to the hostile feelings which animated 
 William and his people. War was accordingly in preparation when the 
 latter sovereign died in 1702, in consequ; nee of a fall from his horse. 
 His reign is remarkable for the commencement of the national debt, and 
 for thtf first legal support of a standing army. Banks for the deposit of 
 money and the issue of a paper currency were also first established in 
 his time; the Bank of England having been incorporated in 1694, and 
 that of Scotland in the following year. 
 
 Queen Anne, 1702. — This princess, who was the second daughter of 
 James II., had married Prince George of Denmark in 1683, by whom 
 she had several children, though none of them lived to maturity. On 
 her accession to the crown, she found it necessary to maintain her place 
 in the Grand Alliance; and the Duke of Marlborough was sent to the 
 Continent with a large army to prosecute the designs of the confederates. 
 In Germany and Flanders, under this able commander, the British army 
 achieved some signal successes, particularly at Blenheim, 1704, and 
 Ramillies, 1706; while a smaller force in Spain, under the chivalrous 
 Earl of Peterborough, performed important services, the strong fortress 
 of Gibraltar, the key of the Mediterranean, also falling into the hands 
 of Britain, 1704. The war, however, was one in which the country had 
 little real interest, and the Tory party, in 1706, attempted to bring it to 
 an end; but Marlborough, who found his account in its continuance, 
 succeeded in averting a treaty for some years. 
 
 Treaty of Union, 1707.—The Scottish nation had been deepiy in¬ 
 censed by the fate of their Darien expedition, and being now intent on 
 a fair participation of trade, their parliament passed, in 1703, an Jict of 
 Security , by which it was declared that the successor of her majesty in 
 Scotland should not be the same as in Enoland, unless a free cominer- 
 cial intercourse was permitted between the two countries; while a 
 measure was at the same time adopted for arming the people. In these 
 circumstances the English ministry, fearful that the northern crown 
 might fall into the hands of the Pretender, resolved upon effecting an 
 incorporating union; and for this purpose a treaty was drawn up by 
 commissioners chosen from each country, for the purpose of joining the 
 two legislatures; the Scots to send forty-five members to the Commons 
 and sixteen to the Upper House, and to retain their judicial and ecclesi¬ 
 astical establishments. These terms, though regarded by the Scottish 
 people as miserably inadequate, were nevertheless carried through their 
 parliament, May 1, 1707; and thenceforth England and Scotland formed 
 one state, under the title of the United Kino'dom of Great Britain. 
 
 Meanwhile the continental war continued, the victory of Oudenarde, 
 1708, being accompanied in the same year by the surrender of the islands 
 of Majorca and Minorca to the British, and followed by the triumph at 
 Malplaquet, 1709. But the Whigs, under whose auspices this contest 
 had been protracted, were now becoming unpopular, and the influence 
 of the Tory party began to be felt in the queen’s councils. Their entire 
 
 ♦James became henceforth known by the appellation of the Pretender . a term having 
 its rise from an assertion made at his birth, that he was a supposititious child. Subse¬ 
 quent writers, having no doubt that he was the real son of James II., have employed il 
 simply to designate his pretensions to the British throne. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 435 
 
 ascendency was at length achieved by the trial of Henry Sacheverell, a 
 divine of inferior note, who had preached an inflammatory sermon, call¬ 
 ing upon the people to take arms in defence of the church, which he 
 pronounced to be in danger from the principles of toleration acted on by 
 the ministry. This person, though subjected merely to a nominal pun¬ 
 ishment, w T as regarded as a martyr; and the queen being herself deeply 
 imbued with High Church principles, Harley, afterwards Earl of Ox¬ 
 ford, and St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, obtained the seals of 
 office at^he head of a decidedly Tory government, 1710. These states¬ 
 men speedily exerted themselves to bring about a peace, which, after 
 much negotiation, was signed at Utrecht, 1713, Britain gaining little by 
 her exertions except the retention of her conquests of Gibraltar and Mi¬ 
 norca. Anne died suddenly in the following year. 
 
 House of Brunswick, 1714.—The late queen and her ministers were 
 supposed not unwilling to have set aside the Act of Succession, and 
 hereby reinstate the direct Stuart line; but her sudden death prevented 
 any steps being taken for that purpose, and the Elector of Hanover, son 
 of the Duchess Sophia, w^as accordingly proclaimed under the title of 
 George I. The new king, know ing well to which party his elevation 
 W’as ow 7 ing, immediately raised the Whigs to pow-er, wffiile he treated 
 their opponents with great harshness, and even suffered articles of im¬ 
 peachment to be draw n up against the heads of the late administration. 
 The Tories, however, still succeeded in fomenting popular disturbances 
 in favour of High Church principles, which were met by an enactment 
 called the Riot Act , permitting a military force to be used in dispersing 
 a crowd after the act itself shall have been read by a magistrate in their 
 hearing. Thrust out from all hope of office and power, and deeply 
 resenting the treatment of their leaders, the same party now 7 resolved to 
 bring in the Pretender, otherwise called the Chevalier St. George, by 
 force of arms; and accordingly the Earl of Mar, secretary of state in the 
 late government, put himself at the head of 10,000 Highlanders, while 
 a simultaneous rising took place in the north of England under the Earl 
 of Denventw T ater, September 1715. The movement, how r ever, w r as but 
 slenderly supported by the nation, while all hope of aid from France 
 w r as disappointed by the death of Louis XIV.; so that, before the prince 
 could arrive to encourage his partisans, his Scottish adherents had been 
 defeated by the Duke of Argyle at Sheriffmuir, while the southern insur¬ 
 gents w T ere forced to surrender themselves prisoners at the town of Pres¬ 
 ton in Lancashire. The Highland army now 7 rapidly dispersed, the 
 chevalier and Mar making their escape into France, while Derwentw 7 ater 
 and about tw r enty other prisoners suffered by the hands of the executioner. 
 The successful suppression of this rebellion tended greatly to the sta¬ 
 bility of the Hanoverian dynasty; and the ministers took advantage of 
 the disturbed state of the country to extend the duration of parliament 
 from three to seven years, 1716. 
 
 In 1718, Britain became a party in a Quadruple Alliance, alone- with 
 Holland, France, and Germany, for the purpose of repressing an attempt 
 on the part of Spain to regain her Italian possessions. Admiral Byng 
 was despatched with a squadron to the Mediterranean, w 7 here he defeated 
 the Spanish fleet near Sicily; wffiile the failure of an expedition fitted 
 out to invade England in favour of the Pretender, compelled the Catholic 
 monarch to accede to the terms of the allies, 1719. 
 
436 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 South Sea Bubble, 1720.—A Scotsman of the name of Law, after almost 
 ruining France by the famous Mississippi scheme, was the means of inspiring 
 the British people with a similar visionary project. It originated in a proposal 
 of the ministry to reduce the interest of the national debt, amounting to upwards 
 of fifty millions, from six to five per cent., when Sir John Blount, one of the 
 directors of a company professedly formed for trading; to the Pacific, projected 
 the purchase and management of all the government liabilities. The company 
 was accordingly empowered to raise funds by means of shares, which, by 
 various tricks and manoeuvres, unintelligible unless explained in detail, were 
 rapidly enhanced to ten times their original value. During this seeming pros¬ 
 perity, many realized large fortunes by selling their shares to oihers at enormous 
 premiums ; but in a short time the unsoundness of the whole scheme was dis¬ 
 covered, the price fell, and thousands were utterly ruined. A committee of the 
 Commons, with great difficulty and by an extremely complicated adjustment, 
 succeeded in restoring credit by equalizing as far as possible the state of gain 
 and loss among the innocent sufferers ; and Sir Robert Walpole, who had been 
 mainly instrumental in effecting this arrangement, became prime-minister, 1721. 
 
 Consult: Lord Mahon’s Hist. England, ch. ix. 
 
 George II., 1727.—George I. was succeeded by his son of the same 
 name, a prince of respectable character and moderate abilities, under 
 whom Walpole continued at the head of affairs. The love of peace 
 being the distinctive feature of this minister’s policy, he exerted his 
 influence in developing the commercial resources and arranging the 
 finances of the country; but his parliamentary career was marked by an 
 extensive system of bribery, alike disgraceful to the members and to 
 himself. At length the Spaniards, with the view of putting a stop to 
 the illicit traffic which had sprung up with their American colonies, 
 began to insist on a right of searching all vessels sailing in the South 
 Sea; and this indignity being offensive to the country, Walpole was 
 forced to declare war against that people, 1739. Hostilities, however, 
 were languidly conducted, the chief exploit being the taking of Porto- 
 bello at the outset of the war, which was more than balanced by an 
 unsuccessful attack on the town of Carthagena in the following year, 
 involving a loss of 20,000 men. The war between France and the 
 Queen of Hungary had now broken out, and the English king, alarmed 
 for the safety of his German dominions, resolved upon taking up arms 
 in behalf of that princess, 1742. The premier, who was strongly op¬ 
 posed to this measure, retired from office, which was given to the chief 
 of his parliamentary opponents; and his majesty himself, with the Earl 
 of Stair, led an army to the Continent, where he gained a victory over 
 the French at Dettingen, 1743. In a subsequent campaign the British 
 forces, under the young Duke of Cumberland, were less successful, being 
 subjected to a severe repulse at Fontenoy, and forced to retreat, 1745. 
 
 Rebellion of 1745.—Meanwhile the court of Louis, with the view 
 of effecting a diversion in favour of their army in the Netherlands, had 
 fitted out an expedition in support of the exiled Stuart family. Their 
 fleet, however, having been driven back by a storm, Charles Edward, 
 eldest son of the Pretender, resolved on prosecuting the enterprise un¬ 
 aided, trusting solely to the attachment of his friends in Britain; and he 
 accordingly landed in Inverness-shire in July 1745. A number of the 
 Highland clans speedily repaired to his standard, and the prince having 
 descended with his tumultuary followers into the Lowlands, took pos¬ 
 session of Edinburgh, and defeated the royal forces at Prestonpans. He 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 437 
 
 shortly after entered England, where he penetrated as far as Derby, but 
 was then compelled to retire towards the north; and being now opposed 
 by the Duke of Cumberland with large reinforcements, at length expe¬ 
 rienced a total overthrow at Culloden, 1746. Charles, after a variety 
 of adventures, reached France in safety, while numbers of his unfortu¬ 
 nate adherents perished on the scaffold or by military execution. Mea¬ 
 sures were then taken to prevent similar attempts, by suppressing the 
 hereditary jurisdictions in the Highlands, and the tartan dress was pro¬ 
 hibited ; the army and other public employments were opened to the 
 gentry, and the Scottish people at large treated in a milder spirit. Dur¬ 
 ing the remainder of the war in which the confederates were engaged 
 with France, the forces of the latter were generally successful by land, 
 while the British fleets were triumphant at sea; but all parties willingly 
 listened to overtures of peace, which terminated in the treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, 1748, leaving matters in precisely the same condition in which 
 they stood before the commencement of hostilities. 
 
 Seven Years’ War. —The British colonial empire had now attained 
 an unexampled pitch of prosperity both in India and America; and their 
 lucrative commerce provoked the cupidity of the French, who commenced 
 a series of encroachments, particularly in the latter continent, which 
 eventually led to hostilities, 1756. The King of Prussia, being at the 
 same time involved in a war with Louis and other continental sove¬ 
 reigns, received the support of an English army and large subsidies. 
 On the accession to office of Mr. Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham), 
 1757, the war was carried on w T ith great vigour, all Canada submitting 
 to the British, though at the expense of the life of the brave General 
 Wolfe, while their arms in India were signally triumphant under Colo¬ 
 nel Clive. At sea, the naval victories of Sir E. Hawke, 1759, and Cap¬ 
 tain Elliot, 1760, rendered the British maritime supremacy indisputable. 
 These triumphs, however, were somewhat counterbalanced by the French 
 invasion of Hanover, in the course of which a body of 40,000 men, under 
 the Duke of Cumberland, were compelled to lay down their arms, 1757, 
 leaving that country for a time in the hands of the victors. 
 
 George III., 1760.—In the midst of these contests the king died, and 
 was succeeded by his grandson, then in his twenty-third year, by the 
 title of George III., w T ho at that time began one of the longest and most 
 remarkable reigns in English history. Mr. Pitt soon retired from office, 
 with a peerage and a pension, and was succeeded by the Earl of Bute, 
 a man of peaceful dispositions, under whom, however, the war continued 
 to be prosecuted. The French power in India was nearly destroyed, 
 and a rupture again occurring with Spain, in consequence of the signa¬ 
 ture of the family compact with France, Havannah and Manilla were 
 taken, 1762. At length, by the peace of Paris, tranquillity was re¬ 
 established in a manner highly favourable to Great Britain; the Spa¬ 
 niards ceding Florida and Minorca, while France gave up Louisiana, 
 Canada, and various islands in the West Indies, 1763. But the national 
 debt had now increased to ^0140,000,000. 
 
 The signal success which had so generally attended this war, rendered 
 it highly popular with the people; and the Earl of Bute, who had all 
 along been odious from his Scotch extraction and Tory principles, was 
 assailed with the most violent abuse for the treaty now concluded, and 
 
 37 * 
 
438 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 speedily forced to retire from office. One of the most virulent of his 
 opponents was Mr. John Wilkes, member for Ailesbury, and editor of a 
 paper entitled the North Briton. Mr. Grenville, successor of Bute, in¬ 
 stituted a prosecution against this personage for a libel contained in the 
 forty-fifth number of his paper, in which he had directly accused the 
 king of falsehood. He was apprehended on a general warrant issued by 
 the secretary of state, and committed to the Tower, but was released 
 again in a few days, as being a member of the House of Commons. 
 Though expelled from parliament, and his paper ordered to be burnt by 
 the hands of the common hangman, Wilkes commenced an action against 
 the secretary for illegal imprisonment, which terminated in a verdict of 
 damages, and a declaration by Chief-Justice Pratt, that general warrants 
 were inconsistent with the laws of England.* The celebrated Letters 
 of Junius belong to this period. 
 
 American War. — The war in which Britain had recently been en¬ 
 gaged, having been undertaken in a great measure for the defence of the 
 North American colonies, the ministry now resolved upon taxing those 
 provinces, as a means of relieving the burdens of the parent state. Mr. 
 Grenville accordingly procured the enactment of the celebrated Stamp 
 Act , 17G5, which was strongly resisted by the Americans, on the plea 
 that they were not represented in the Imperial Parliament, and that their 
 charters and privileges secured to them the sole right of taxing them¬ 
 selves. In consequence of the strenuous opposition thus excited, the 
 government consented to repeal the obnoxious statute, though still 
 asserting a right to impose taxes on the colonies, which was acted on 
 in 1767 by a duty on tea, glass, and paints; but, in 1770, during the 
 ministry of Lord North, all these imposts were abandoned except that 
 on tea, which it was determined to retain, as an assertion of the right 
 of parliament to tax their dependencies. The unavailing remonstrances 
 of the inhabitants at length led to the struggle detailed under the head 
 United States, and which, aided by France and Spain, terminated in 
 the treaty of Versailes, 1783, when those colonies were finally acknow¬ 
 ledged by England as “free, sovereign, and independent.” At the same 
 time, the Irish volunteers, a large body of armed men assembled for the 
 defence of that country, procured the recognition of the independence of 
 their parliament, and the extension to the people of the right of habeas 
 corpus . The national debt now amounted to nearly 267 millions ster¬ 
 ling. 
 
 This formed altogether a most tremendous epoch in the history of the British 
 empire. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the gradual develop¬ 
 ment of her vast commercial and military resources had excited the wonder and 
 jealousy of surrounding states; and France, in particular, could not easily for¬ 
 get the triumphant peace she had dictated in 1763. That power was therefore 
 readily induced to promote the independence of the British colonies, and to send 
 a force for their assistance, 1778; Spain, conceiving the period for her humilia¬ 
 tion had at length arrived, declared war against her in the following year; in 
 
 * Mr. Wilkes at this time found it prudent to retire to the Continent, whence he sub¬ 
 sequently returned during the ministry of the Duke of Grafton, and was elected member 
 for the county of Middlesex, 1768. The Commons formally expelled him from the house , 
 but he was again returned a second and a third time, and as often rejected. The cry of 
 “Wilkes and Liberty” now became general; forty-eight peers, including all the great 
 Whig chiefs, publicly protested against the injury supposed to be done to the cause of 
 popular representation ; and from the agitations thus produced may be dated the long 
 struggle for Parliamentary reform in England 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 439 
 
 1780, Holland was added to the number of her enemies ; while Russia, Sweden, 
 and Denmark formed an armed neutrality indirectly hostile to her cause. In 
 1779, 300,000 men, 300 armed ships, and twenty millions sterling annually, 
 were found no more than enough to meet the enormous force Drought to bear 
 against her; and even these unexampled exertions were insufficient to prevent 
 the unwonted spectacle of a hostile fleet riding unopposed in the Channel. 
 These fearful difficulties from without were aggravated by internal disorders 
 of an alarming nature. In 1778, in consequence of the repeal of certain severe 
 penal statutes against the English Catholics, formidable riots took place in 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other cities ; and, in 1780, a mob assembled by Lord 
 George Gordon retained uncontrolled possession of the metropolis during five 
 days, setting fire to the city in various quarters, and pillaging and demolishing 
 in every direction. But the inherent strength of the empire was found fully 
 equal to the crisis. The internal disorders were speedily composed ; Gibraltar, 
 besieged four years, proved invulnerable to the attacks of France and. Spam, 
 1779-1783; Rodney vanquished the Spanish fleet in 1780, and that of France 
 near Dominica in 1782 ; and though the peace of Versailles terminated in the 
 dismemberment of the empire, and was followed by some colonial concessions 
 to her European enemies, Britain afterwards attained, partly by this very dis¬ 
 memberment, an unexampled height of commercial prosperity, and her navies 
 annihilated the maritime resistance of the world. 
 
 The ministry of Lord North had been succeeded by one under the 
 Marquis of Rockingham in 1782; and, on the death of this nobleman 
 shortly afterwards, the seals of office were transferred to the Earl of 
 Shelburne, by whom the peace of Versailles was signed in the following 
 year. The celebrated Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, son of the 
 Earl of Chatham, now appeared on the theatre of parliament; and in 
 1783, the Coalition Ministry was formed, Mr. Fox and Lord North be¬ 
 coming joint-secretaries of state. These associates having attempted to 
 obtain the entire patronage of India by means of a measure called the 
 India Bill, the king, sanctioned by the voice of the nation, raised Mr. 
 Pitt to the office of prime-minister, who remained at the head of affairs 
 till the end of the century. The new premier, who had hitherto pro¬ 
 fessed liberal principles, signalized his entrance into office by a motion 
 for reform in parliament, which was rejected by a large majority, 1785, 
 and by the promulgation of the well-known scheme of a sinking fund 
 for reducing the national debt, 1786. At the same time commenced the 
 trial of Mr. Warren Hastings for alleged cruelty and robbery in India, 
 which extended over several years, but ended in his acquittal. In 1788, 
 the king first began to display symptoms of insanity; and the question 
 of a regency gave rise to animated discussions in parliament between 
 Fox and Pitt, which were terminated by his majesty’s recovery, 1789. 
 
 Meanwhile, the course of events on the continent of Europe was pre¬ 
 paring for England a contest of unexampled severity and duration. The 
 French revolution began in 1789, and rapidly advanced to a consumma¬ 
 tion in the execution of Louis XVI., 1793. At this period, a great 
 number of democratical societies existed in Britain, for the purpose of 
 obtaining a reform in parliament; and there can be little doubt that the 
 apprehension of scenes at home similar to those which had so fearfully 
 distinguished the neighbouring country, rendered the ministry not averse 
 to a war in defence of ancient institutions. The French envoy was ac¬ 
 cordingly ordered to quit England, which was immediately followed by 
 a declaration of hostilities on the part of the convention; while Pitt 
 formed alliances with the powers who had already declared against the 
 republicans. The first military operations on the Continent were unfa- 
 
440 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 vourable to England and her allies; but France lost all her colonial 
 possessions; her fleets were defeated by Howe, 1794, and by Nelson, 
 1798; three expeditions to Ireland failed; Jervis vanquished a Spanish 
 squadron off Cape St. Vincent, and the Dutch navy was annihilated by 
 Duncan at Camperdown, 1797. The Cape of Good Hope was taken 
 from Holland, and Trinidad from Spain. A mutiny of the Channel 
 fleet, 1797, was fortunately composed without loss to the nation; while 
 a rebellion in Ireland, 1798, was speedily suppressed, and a body of 
 French troops sent to aid the insurgents taken prisoners. At the same 
 time, with the view of attaching Ireland still more closely to the British 
 crown, an incorporating union, similar to that formed with Scotland a 
 century before, was effected, 1801, by which that country became an 
 integral part of the empire, and George III. assumed the title of sove¬ 
 reign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 “ Nine years of peace had enabled Great Britain to recover, in a great degree, 
 the losses and exhaustion of the American war. If she had lost one empire in 
 the Western, she had gained another in the Eastern world: the wealth of India 
 began to pour into her bosom ; and a little island in the west of Europe already 
 exercised a sway over realms more extensive than the arms of Rome had 
 reduced to subjection. A vast revenue, amounting to £7,000,000, was already 
 derived from her Indian possessions; and although nearly the whole of this 
 great sum was absorbed in their costly establishment, yet her rulers already 
 looked forward with confident hope to the period, now never likely to be 
 realized, when the empire of Hindostan, instead of being as heretofore a burden, 
 should be a source of revenue to the ruling state, and the wealth of India really 
 become that mine of gold to Britain which it had long proved to numbers of 
 her children. Her national debt, amounting to £244,000,000, and occasioning an 
 annual charge of £9,317,000, was indeed a severe burden upon the industry of 
 the people; and the taxes, though light in comparison of what have been 
 imposed in later times, were still felt as oppressive; but, nevertheless, the 
 resources of the state had augmented to an extraordinary degree during the 
 repose which had prevailed since the conclusion of the former contest. Com¬ 
 merce, agriculture, and manufactures, had rapidly increased ; the trade with 
 the independent states of North America had been found to exceed what had 
 been enjoyed with them when in a state of colonial dependence; and the 
 incessant exertions of every individual to better his condition, had produced a 
 surprising effect upon the accumulation of capital and the state of public credit. 
 The three per cents., from 57 at the close of the war, had risen to 99; and the 
 overflowing wealth of the capital was already finding its way into the most cir¬ 
 cuitous foreign trades and hazardous distant investments. The national revenue 
 amounted to £16,000,000, and the army included 32,000 soldiers in the British 
 isles, besides an equal force in the East and West Indies, and thirty-six regi¬ 
 ments of yeomanry; but these forces were rapidly augmented after the com¬ 
 mencement of the war, and, before 1796, the regular army of Britain amounted 
 to 206,000 men, including 42,000 militia. More than half of this force wag 
 required for the service of the colonies; and experience has proved that Britain 
 can never collect above 40,000 men upon any one point on the continent of 
 Europe. The real strength of England consisted in her inexhaustible wealth, 
 in the public spirit and energy of her people, in the moral influence of centuries 
 of glory, and in a fleet of 141 ships of the line, which gave her the undisputed 
 command of the seas.”—Alison’s History of the French Revolution, vol. i. p. 
 516-518. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 War of the Spanish Succession. —Scarcely had the treaty of Rys- 
 wick given peace to Europe, and promised a period of repose to the 
 exhausted resources of the French empire, ere the elements of a new 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 441 
 
 struggle arose, destined to destroy the long supremacy of her ambitious 
 sovereign, and to cloud his declining days with ruin and disaster. 
 Charles II., king of Spain, was now on the brink of the grave, without 
 any immediate successors, and the nearest heirs to the throne were the 
 Emperor Leopold, on behalf of his second son the Archduke Charles; 
 Philip, duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis; and the Prince of Bavaria, 
 also a relative of the Emperor. It was at first agreed, with the consent 
 of the English monarch, to partition the Spanish territory among the 
 contending claimants; but this arrangement was at once set aside when 
 it was found that Charles II. had bequeathed the entire succession to 
 the French prince, 1700. The new monarch, supported by his grand¬ 
 father, was immediately acknowledged by the people as Philip V. ; 
 while on the other hand, Germany, England, and Holland, formed an 
 offensive alliance, which was afterwards joined by Prussia, Portugal, 
 and Savoy, 1701. War now broke out in all quarters; the imperialists, 
 under Prince Eugene, invaded Italy, where the French were signally 
 defeated; while the celebrated Duke of Marlborough was appointed to 
 lead the armies of the allies in the Netherlands, where he compelled 
 Boufflers, the French general, to retreat, and captured Yenlo, Rure- 
 monde, and Liege. The treasury of Louis was exhausted, and, to add 
 to his distresses, a formidable insurrection of the Protestants took place 
 in the Cevennes, 1702: while in the same year his fleet was utterly 
 destroyed at Vigo by the English and Dutch. The signal defeat at 
 Blenheim, 1704, was next year followed by the almost complete con¬ 
 quest of Spain by the Archduke Charles and the Earl of Peterborough; 
 and though these conquerors were in 1707 defeated at Almanza by the 
 forces of Philip V., under the Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James 
 II., Louis had still to regret the disaster at Ramillies, which placed the 
 entire Netherlands at the feet of his enemies, and the decisive battle of 
 Turin, gained by Prince Eugene, which almost annihilated his Italian 
 army, 1706. An abortive attempt to invade Scotland in behalf of the 
 Stuarts, and the defeat of Oudenarde, 1708, which appeared to open the 
 way to Paris, now forced the French monarch to sue for peace; but the 
 demands of the allies were so exorbitant, that he resolved to hazard an¬ 
 other campaign, in which he was signally discomfited by Marlborough 
 at Malplaquet, 1709. Again he solicited an accommodation, offering 
 yet more favourable conditions, which were still haughtily rejected ; and 
 the total ruin of this once powerful prince seemed impending, when the 
 accession of the Tories to office in England, in 1711, deprived Marlbo¬ 
 rough of his command, while the Archduke Charles in the same year 
 became Emperor of Germany, and thus entirely changed the aspect of 
 affairs. The European powers were even more unwilling to see Spain 
 in the hands of Austria than in those of the Bourbons, and the cause of 
 Philip V. having now gained a decided preponderance in that country, 
 peace was at length signed at Utrecht with England and the other allies, 
 1713, and in the following year with the emperor at Rastadt. By these 
 treaties the right of Philip to the Spanish crown was recognised, but 
 with the stipulation that Spain and France should never be united under 
 one sovereign; while England received large territories in America; 
 Naples, Milan, and the Spanish Netherlands, fell to Austria; and the 
 Duke of Savoy obtained the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Louis him 
 self died in 1715. 
 
442 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Louis XIV. was a great but a bad sovereign, and his reign proved a source 
 of incalculable evils to France and to Europe. His most valuable qualities— 
 power of application to business, quickness in discovering and applying the 
 abilities of others, and skill in attaching them to his service ; even the senti¬ 
 ment of religion which he seems to have possessed—became with him the mere 
 instruments of ambition and intolerance. In his long reign of seventy-two 
 years, he reared the fabric of absolute monarchy in France; and the ruling 
 principles of his government, uniformity and centralization, survived even the 
 storms of the revolution. With him began the great military system of Europe ; 
 and his immense standing armies, clothed in uniform, and armed with the 
 bayonet, set a fatal example to surrounding states. From 1672 he maintained 
 a force of 180,000 regulars ; and afterwards, including the marine, there were 
 in arms not fewer than 450,000 men. The revenues of his kingdom were at 
 the same time raised to the enormous sum of thirty millions sterling; and at 
 his death he bequeathed a debt of more than two thousand millions of livres. 
 Unhappily, his abilities, by no means extraordinary, were nevertheless of that 
 theatrical and showy cast, so likely to create admiration in an excitable people ; 
 and to the passion for false glory engendered during his reign may be traced 
 that course of events which, in the next century, after unparalleled bloodshed, 
 placed France once more prostrate beneath a military despotism. 
 
 The Regency, 1715.—Louis XV., great-grandson of the former so¬ 
 vereign, and nephew to Philip V. of Spain, was a feeble infant on his 
 accession to the throne, and the regency in consequence devolved on 
 Philip, duke of Orleans, who had been nominated to that office by the 
 will of the late king. The regent, though regarded as a man of unprin¬ 
 cipled character, began with several salutary measures. He reformed 
 many of the most glaring abuses of the late reign, liberated a number 
 of individuals who had for years been immured in the prison of the 
 Bastile; while he at the same time reduced the army, enforced economy, 
 and endeavoured to maintain peace in Europe. This was partially dis¬ 
 turbed by the ambitious projects of Cardinal Alberoni, prime-minister 
 of Spain, who wished to displace the regent, and recover the Italian 
 territories given up at the peace of Utrecht; but Philip was speedily 
 forced to dismiss the priestly statesman and accede to the Grand Alli¬ 
 ance, 1720. 
 
 Mississippi Scheme, 1718.—Meanwhile, the disorder in which he had found 
 the finances, and the grievous deficiency in the revenue, induced the duke to 
 listen to a wild project propounded by the celebrated John Law r , wffiich even¬ 
 tually involved the nation in wide-spread bankruptcy and ruin. This plan con 
 sisted in the establishment of a bank of issue, the shares of w’hich w’ere offered 
 to the national creditors in exchange for their stock; w’hile, with the view’ of 
 inducing the public to purchase these shares, the bank was conjoined with a 
 company having a monopoly of trade wdth the Mississippi territory and Canada 
 to the former of which great numbers of planters and artisans were removed 
 for the cultivation of tobacco and other produce, 1718. In the following year, 
 the East India and Senegal Companies were incorporated with the Mississippi 
 Company ; and the prospect of the advantages thus held out w r as so great, that 
 its stock speedily rose 1200 per cent. The corporation had now obtained the 
 farming of the entire public revenues- and an exclusive privilege of coining, and 
 had actually advanced large sums to government in payment of the national 
 debt. In 1720, its stock rose to the enormous height of 2050 per cent. ; but 
 this was the climax of the delusion: the hopes of profit were found to be 
 erroneous, and, in the course of a few’ w’eeks, the bank suspended payment of 
 its notes. By this step thousands of wealthy persons w’ere reduced to indigence, 
 and Law retired in disgrace to Venice, w’here he died in poverty. The same 
 period was conspicuous for a calamity of a different kind, the plague at Mar¬ 
 seilles, by which fully half of the inhabitants were sw’ept aw T ay ; an even* 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 443 
 
 illustrated by the heroic labours of the “ good bishop,” Belzunce, who exerted 
 nimself Jay and night to relieve the distress of the inhabitants. 
 
 The regent died in 1723, at which period the young king came of age; 
 and, by the advice of the Duke of Bourbon, now become prime-minister, 
 he was induced to marry the Princess Maria, daughter of Stanislaus, 
 ex-king of Poland, who had taken refuge in France, 1725. The duke 
 was dismissed in 1726, to make way for the Cardinal Fleury, a man of 
 pacific disposition, and possessing great influence over the mind of the 
 king. The cardinal made every exertion to restore order in the finances, 
 and promote the revival of credit and commerce, endeavouring with this 
 view to maintain peace in Europe. Nevertheless, a war broke out in 
 1733 against Russia and Austria on behalf of Stanislaus; but the real 
 strength of France was directed towards Italy and the Rhine, at the 
 latter of which the Austrians under Prince Eugene were opposed by the 
 Duke of Berwick, who fell while taking the town of Philipsburg, 1734. 
 In Italy, also, the French arms were successful under Marshal Villars, 
 who united his forces with those of the King of Sardinia, and reduced 
 Milan with various other strong places; w hile Naples was overrun »nd 
 conquered by a Spanish army under Don Carlos. A treaty was at 
 length concluded at Vienna, 1735, by which the duchy of Lorraine w r as 
 given to the exiled Polish monarch, to revert to France on his death, ana 
 Naples and Sicily were ceded to Don Carlos, thereby establishing a 
 third Bourbon dynasty in Europe. 
 
 By the peace just concluded, France had become a party to the famous 
 Pragmatic Sanction , guaranteeing the Austrian succession to the Princess 
 Maria Theresa, daughter of the Emperor Charles VI. But on the 
 death of that sovereign in 1740, Louis, in utter disregard of these obli¬ 
 gations, and against the advice of Fleury, agreed to assist the Elector 
 of Bavaria in his claims to her inheritance, and thereby involved him¬ 
 self in a war with Britain. The enthusiasm of the Hungarians and 
 Austrians in favour of their youthful queen frustrated all the designs of 
 her enemies; the French and Bavarians were expelled from Bohemia, 
 and they were also defeated at Dettingen by the English under George 
 IL, 1743. The death of the cardinal in the same year freed the king 
 from the restraints which his wise and virtuous character imposed; 
 and he declared he would henceforth govern without a minister. The 
 conquest of the Austrian Netherlands now became the chief object with 
 Louis, where his forces under Marshal Saxe defeated at Fontenoy, with 
 great slaughter, the allied army of England, Austria, and Holland, led 
 by the Duke of Cumberland, 1745. Two subsequent campaigns were 
 equally favourable to France; but her arms were unfortunate in Italy, 
 her fleets had been annihilated, and Britain threatened her colonies in 
 India and America. In these circumstances, a treaty was at length con¬ 
 cluded at Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, all parties agreeing to a mutual restitu¬ 
 tion of conquests. 
 
 France now enjoyed the blessings of peace nearly seven years, dis¬ 
 turbed, how 7 ever, by factions among the clergy ; and the king aban¬ 
 doned himself to the control of his mistress, the Marchioness of Pompa¬ 
 dour, a vulgar and ambitious woman. But, in 1755, in consequence of 
 certain disputes as to the boundary between Canada and the British 
 settlements, a contest, known as the Seven Years’ War, broke out be¬ 
 tween France and England, in which, entirely reversing the previous 
 
444 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 state of parties, the former united with Austria, while the latter allied 
 herself with Frederick of Prussia. The events which followed are 
 noticed under England and Prussia ; and it may suffice to repeat, that 
 at the peace of Paris, 1763, France, utterly prostrated, surrendered the 
 whole of her American and African territories, besides various islands 
 in the West Indies. Her finances, too, were in a state of deplorable con¬ 
 fusion ; while the monarch, abandoned to the most shameless profligacy, 
 formed a harem after the fashion of Eastern sultans, on which he 
 squandered vast sums. The Duke of Choiseul, his last able minister, 
 by whose advice the Jesuits had been expelled from France in 1764, 
 attempting to bring him to a sense of his degradation, was banished 
 from the court, 1770; while the remonstrances of the provincial parlia¬ 
 ments were stifled by the strong hand of arbitrary authority. The king 
 died in 1774, having previously lost his eldest son, the dauphin, in 1765, 
 who left three sons, afterwards known as Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., 
 and Charles X. 
 
 The reign of Louis XV., one of the most contemptible and odious characters 
 in French history, formed an ominous and fatal sequel to that of his predecessor. 
 The wastef ul extravagance and boundless ambition of the former monarch were 
 at least gilded by the lustre of his early victories; but, under his successor, the 
 nation was destined not merely to see its laurels fade before the ascendency of 
 England, but to lament the perversion of the revenues, drawn from an exhausted 
 and famishing people, to maintain the unveiled debaucheries of the court. The 
 nobility and higher clergy, exempted from taxation and possessed of exclusive 
 privileges, trampled on the inferior orders, and, while following the example of 
 corruption thus held out, lent a greedy ear to the sensual philosophy now be¬ 
 come fashionable with all classes. These causes, added to an empty exchequer, 
 a debt of four thousand millions of livres, impolitic restrictions even on internal 
 trade, general poverty, national humiliation, and universal discontent, prepared 
 the way for the fearful explosion which took place under his unfortunate suc¬ 
 cessor. 
 
 Louis XVI., 1774.—The new sovereign was about twenty years of 
 age when he succeeded to the throne, having married, in 1770, the 
 Archduchess Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. 
 The natural disposition of the king, which was amiable and virtuous, 
 led him to put a stop to the scandalous depravity of the court, and he 
 was sincerely anxious to promote the happiness of his people; but, 
 though possessed of considerable industry and application, his mind 
 was weak and irresolute. One of his first acts was to restore the Par¬ 
 liament of Paris, exiled in the previous reign ; and the management of 
 the finances was intrusted to Turgot, an enlightened minister, who pro¬ 
 posed many salutary reforms. But his measures being opposed by the 
 nobility, and even by the parliaments, who feared that their importance 
 would be lessened by them, the timid monarch was induced to dismiss 
 him in 1776, and transfer the office to Necker, a Swiss Protestant, also 
 an able and well-intentioned man.* Notwithstanding financial embar- 
 
 * From the dictates of his own natural disposition, however, Louis effected much 
 partial good. He granted liberty of trade in corn between one province and another, 
 made reforms in the administration, abolished various feudal exactions and the practice 
 of torture, established some degree of economy and order, and set a conspicuous example 
 of it in the management of his own household. He also extended freedom of worship to 
 the Protesta t< : and demonstrated on the whole, that if he could have followed the bent, 
 of his own heart and understanding, France might have had cause to rejoice in the 
 blessings rather than to lament the calamities of his reign. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY A. D. 
 
 44 b 
 
 rassments, the French marine had been brought, by extraordinary exer¬ 
 tions, nearly to an equality with that of England; and when the Ame¬ 
 rican colonies of the latter country began their struggle for independence, 
 the people, bifrning to wfipe out the disgraces of the former contest, 
 eagerly clamoured for war, to wffiich the king reluctantly consented. A 
 treaty of commerce and alliance was accordingly signed between France 
 and the United States, 1778; hostilities were declared, and a body of 
 auxiliaries, under the Marquis La Fayette, sent out to aid the colonists. 
 The chief events of this struggle have already been noticed ; and it may 
 suffice to state, that its consequences to France, besides a great aggra¬ 
 vation of financial difficulties, w 7 ere conspicuous in the general diffusion 
 of those republican principles which had been imbibed by the army 
 during their service in America. 
 
 The Revolution. —Meanwffiile M. Necker had been doomed to share 
 the fate of his predecessor, from nearly the same causes, 1781; and in 
 1783, Calonne, supposed to be a more pliant personage, was appointed 
 to succeed him. After various unsuccessful efforts to meet the difficul¬ 
 ties of his position, the minister at length, 1787, resolved upon assem¬ 
 bling the Notables , a number of influential persons nominated by the 
 king, to wffiom he proposed a measure for taxing the wffiole landed pro¬ 
 perty in the nation, including that of the nobles and clergy. But this 
 body, being entirely composed of territorial proprietors, at once rejected 
 the proposal; Calonne resigned; and Louis, after vainly employing 
 several successive advisers, at length recalled Necker, 1788. This 
 statesman now declared that the only resource left w 7 as to assemble the 
 states-general, a body consisting of the three orders, clergy, nobility, and 
 commons or third estate, which had not met since 1614 ; and they were 
 accordingly convoked in May 1789 at Versailles. The king had pre¬ 
 viously agreed that the deputies of the third estate should equal in num¬ 
 ber those of the other two orders; and immediately after their meeting, 
 the commons made a proposal that the three estates should assemble 
 and deliberate together. This being at first refused by the nobles and 
 clergy, the commons declared themselves The National Assembly , and 
 at length succeeded in forcing the others to join them in one common 
 hall. 
 
 A fearful excitement now 7 prevailed in Paris and throughout the coun¬ 
 try, wffiich w r as greatly aggravated by the imprudence of his majesty in 
 dismissing Necker, July 11, the only individual near him wffio continued 
 to retain public confidence. The nobles of the court, headed by the 
 king’s brother, the Count d’Artois, were occupied in collecting troops 
 from all quarters around Versailles and the capital; wffiile the Parisians, 
 joined by a portion of the regular army, wffiose pay w r as greatly in arrear, 
 formed themselves into a body called the national guard. On the 14th 
 July, this newly organized force, accompanied by a vast concourse of 
 the lowest people, stormed the Bastile, and massacred the governor and 
 his lieutenant; simultaneous insurrections against the mansions of the 
 wealthy occurred in the provinces; and the princes of the blood and 
 many of the nobility, thoroughly alarmed, hastened to leave the country. 
 The perplexed monarch again recalled Necker; but the enthusiasm of 
 the populace w 7 as shared by the assembly, wffiich now 7 proceeded in its 
 task of legislation with an absurd and fatal rapidity. On the night of 
 the 4th of August, every incorporate and vested right in the kingdom 
 38 
 
446 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 was cancelled by a single vote; and on the 20th September Louis was 
 compelled to sanction a decree by which the entire royal authority was 
 swept away, and France virtually created a republic, with an hereditary 
 magistrate having the regal title. The excitement in Paris still increased, 
 fomented by various demagogues and the miseries of a famine; and on 
 the 6th of October, a mob from that city attacked the palace of Versailles, 
 massacred the guards, and compelled the king and his family, at the 
 peril of their lives, to remove to Paris, whither the National Assembly 
 also repaired. On the very same day the famous Club of the Jacobins 
 bea-an its sittings. 
 
 w o ^ ^ 
 
 During the year 1790, the royal family remained in the Tuileries, in 
 a condition no way different from that of prisoners, constantly disturbed 
 by alarms of insurrection and rumours of foreign war; while the assem¬ 
 bly continued their labours for the new organisation of the country. On 
 the 16th June, they abolished hereditary titles and every distinction of 
 rank; and, in November following, passed a decree ejecting from their 
 benefices all those of the clergy who refused to swear to the new order 
 of things. Necker had now resigned and departed from the country, 
 an example which had already been set by most of the nobility and 
 higher classes; and the unfortunate monarch, left alone to contend with 
 a storm of democracy which he had neither courage to allay nor genius 
 to direct, also attempted to escape, June 1791. He was, however, stopped 
 and brought back to Paris; and, in September following, the assembly 
 presented to him the new constitution in a complete form, which he 
 swore faithfully to observe. That body now dissolved itself, declaring 
 at the same time that its members should not be eligible for re-election 
 to the ensuing Legislative Assembly , which commenced its sittings on 
 the 1st October. This new body was almost wholly made up of persons 
 holding republican principles; the majority being connected with the 
 Jacobin Club, while the more moderate party, led by Brissot and other 
 deputies from the Gironde, were found in the end altogether destitute of 
 influence. They began by confiscating the property of the emigrants 
 and banishing the nonjuring priests; and at the same time, the king 
 was treated with marked disrespect, and even forced to dismiss a num¬ 
 ber of his guards. At this period, the Austrian and Prussian monarchs, 
 alarmed by the progress of democracy in France, assembled a large force 
 on the frontiers; the assembly declared war against them in April 1792; 
 and in July, the Duke of Brunswick, commander of the combined armies, 
 issued a violent manifesto, declaring his intention to reinstate the royal 
 authority, to treat the authors of the late changes as rebels, and even to 
 subject the capital to military execution. This arrogant declaration ex¬ 
 cited general resentment, and drove the populace of Paris to absolute 
 phrensy. On the 10th August, they attacked the Tuileries, massacred 
 the Swiss guards, and compelled the king and his family to take refuge 
 in the hall of the assembly, whence they v 7 ere immediately after trans¬ 
 ferred as prisoners to the old palace of the Temple. The gaols of Paris 
 now contained large numbers of recusant priests and others ; and, on the 
 advance of the allies into France, bands of furious ruffians burst into 
 these places of confinement, and massacred their unfortunate inmates in 
 cold blood, 2d Sept.; similar scenes were also enacted in the chief cities 
 of the provinces. 
 
 The Republic _The Legislative Assembly now gave place to a new 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 447 
 
 body termed the National Convention , which, on the first day of its sitting, 
 abrogated the constitution, and declared France a republic ; shortly after, 
 they invited the people of all nations to overturn their existing govern¬ 
 ments, and offered them protection. The Jacobin or Mountain party,* 
 led by Danton and Robespierre, were now the ruling power; and the 
 fate of the unfortunate prisoners in the Temple was not long in being 
 decided. On the 21st January 1793, after a mock trial by the conven¬ 
 tion, the king was led out to execution; an act of gratuitous atrocity, 
 which at once arrayed against France the moral sympathies of mankind, 
 and provoked a coalition among all the powers of Europe.f By this 
 time, however, the revolutionary authorities had assembled numerous 
 and well-appointed armies; and, in 1792, General Dumouriez, who had 
 been opposed to the Duke of Brunswick, after compelling that leader to 
 retreat from France, gained a victory at Jemappes, which gave him pos¬ 
 session of all the Austrian Netherlands. In the beginning of 1793, war 
 was declared against England, Spain, and Holland; which last country 
 was immediately invaded by Dumouriez, who, however, soon after de¬ 
 serted to the allies; but, at the end of the year, the French had still the 
 ascendency in Flanders, and their armies on the Rhine were equally 
 successful. The city of Lyons, having revolted, was taken by the re¬ 
 publican troops after a siege of two months, and became the scene of 
 horrible atrocities; the people of La Vendee, who had risen in behalf of 
 royalty, after being entirely overcome in the field, were massacred in 
 thousands; while the seaport of Toulon, which had been taken by the 
 English, was recovered, chiefly through the skill of a young officer of 
 artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, a native of Corsica. The ruling spirits 
 of this extraordinary epoch, known as the Reign of Terror, and charac¬ 
 terized equally by intense vigour and wild ferocity, were Robespierre 
 and Carnot, the heads of the Committee of Public Safety. To the latter 
 was intrusted the chief control of military operations; while the former 
 directed the confiscations and massacres perpetrated by those sanguinary 
 courts which had been established in the capital and principal cities for 
 the trial of persons accused of disaffection. As if to demonstrate the 
 close alliance between crime and irreligion, the convention, in October 
 1793, passed a decree prohibiting the worship of God ; busts were erected 
 in the public places to various infidels; while a great festival, equally 
 absurd and impious, was celebrated in honour of the apotheosis of the 
 Goddess of Reason. In little more than a year, the revolutionary tribunal 
 of Paris had sent 1108 persons to the guillotine, including nearly the 
 whole moderate part of the convention ; while, by July 1794, Robespierre 
 had procured the execution of a great number of his former associates, 
 besides nearly a thousand other victims. At length the remaining mem¬ 
 bers of the convention, each fearful of being the next sacrifice, united 
 against the dictator, who was himself executed on the 28th July 1794. 
 
 * So called from occupying the most elevated benches in the convention. 
 fOn the 14th October of the same year, the queen was brought to the guillotine; the 
 king’s sister, Princess Elizabeth, suffered the same fate on the 10th May following; his 
 young son, the dauphin, died in prison in 1795. Of this ill-fated family, the princess 
 royal alone survived, being given up to the Austrians in exchange for some French 
 prisoners, 1795. 
 
 JThe republican writer, Prudhomme, gives a list of upwards of one million persons 
 who suffered during this period, including 18,603 persons of both sexes who were guillo¬ 
 tined: 937,000 perished in La Vend6e; 32,000 at Nantes, exclusive of the massacres at 
 Versailles, Lyons, and various other places. 
 
448 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 The Directory. —The fall of Robespierre placed tne direction of 
 affairs in the hands of more moderate men; but Carnot still had the 
 control of the military operations, which were prosecuted with the same 
 energy and success. The republican fleet, ir^eed, had been destroyed 
 by Lord Howe, June 1794, and their possessions in the West Indies 
 taken by the British; but, by the beginning of 1795, Holland was en¬ 
 tirely overrun and incorporated with France; their victories in Germany 
 forced Prussia to a humiliating peace; corresponding triumphs in Spain 
 led to the same result with that country, followed next year by an alli¬ 
 ance offensive and defensive. In October, the convention terminated its 
 extraordinary career, and was succeeded by an executive government of 
 five directors, Barras, Carnot, Reubell, Reveillere-Lepaux, and Letour- 
 neur, and two legislative bodies ; the one, composed of *250 members, 
 was denominated the Council of Ancients, the other was called the 
 Council of Five Hundred. The emigrants were forthwith invited to 
 return, and the clergy to celebrate the worship of that divine Being 
 whom France had at length consented to recognise as supreme. Austria 
 and England, and some of the Italian states, were now the only powers 
 who continued the contest; and in the spring of 1796, the directory sent 
 three great armies into the field,—that of the Sambre and Meuse, under 
 Jourdan; of the Rhine and Moselle, under Moreau ; while the command 
 of the army destined for Italy was intrusted to Bonaparte, who, some 
 time before, had rendered an important service to the directory by sup¬ 
 pressing a revolt of the sections in Paris. The first and second of these 
 armies, opposed by the Archduke Charles, one of the ablest generals of 
 his time, maintained the campaign in Germany with various fortune; 
 but the success of that under Napoleon was little less than miraculous. 
 After defeating the Austrians in various successive engagements, and 
 plundering the states of Northern Italy, he succeeded, February 1797, 
 in capturing the strong city of Mantua, whence he instantly crossed the 
 Alps and marched at once upon Vienna. The danger of his capital now 
 forced the emperor to negotiate; in October the peace of Campo Formio 
 was concluded, by which the Austrian Netherlands were ceded to 
 France, and Milan, Mantua, Modena, Bologna, and Ferrara formed into 
 a mere dependency called the Cisalpine Republic. The conversion of 
 Genoa into the Ligurian Republic speedily followed; in 1798, Rome 
 was taken possession of, and the pope deposed; while an unprovoked 
 invasion of Switzerland terminated, after a brief but desperate struggle, 
 in the imposition upon that country of a constitution on the model of 
 that established at Paris. 
 
 England was now the only enemy of France; and the design of 
 attacking her vast empire in India became a chief object with the direc¬ 
 tory. Apparently with this view, and possibly also to get rid of a 
 general whose talents and towering ambition began to excite alarm, 
 Bonaparte, in 1798, was despatched from Toulon to Egypt at the head 
 of 40.000 men. On his way thither, he obtained possession of Malta; 
 successfully eluded an English squadron under Nelson, which had been 
 sent to watch his proceedings ; and, on the 5th July, landing at Alex¬ 
 andria, he took that city by storm, while the fleet remained at anchor in 
 Aboukir Bay. On the 1st of August, the English Admiral hove in 
 sight, and on the same evening began an engagement which utterly 
 annihilated the French squadron, and shut up their army within the 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 440 
 
 limits of Egypt. Nevertheless, Napoleon soon made himself master of 
 the entire country, and marched into Palestine, where he laid siege to 
 the town of Acre; but the pasha having intrusted the command to Sir 
 Sidney Smith, an officer in the British navy, the place was so obstinately 
 defended, that he was forced to raise the siege. He then retreated into 
 Egypt, where, encountering a Turkish army which had been sent from 
 Constantinople, he utterly destroyed it at Aboukir, July 1799. But he 
 had no intention of remaining in this distant country, isolated from the 
 great events then transacting in Europe. The Austrians, encouraged by 
 Nelson’s victory at Aboukir, had again taken the field, and, aided by a 
 Russian army under Suwarrow, recovered possession of the whole of 
 Italy. Bonaparte accordingly returned to France, leaving his army 
 under the command of General Kleber ; and, on the 10th of November, 
 after various intrigues, succeeded in overturning the directory, and 
 obtaining the supreme power by the title of First Consul. 
 
 The downfal of the directory and the final triumph of its ablest military chief, 
 terminated the great drama of the revolution, by far the most remarkable and 
 important event in modern history. In England it tended unquestionably to 
 retard the progress of constitutional liberty, by furnishing its antagonists with 
 the strongest arguments against concession to the popular voice. Still, numer¬ 
 ous obstacles, perhaps otherwise insurmountable, were removed, and the face 
 of Europe gradually prepared for important though less violent changes, by 
 which the wealthy middle and commercial classes have succeeded to the power 
 and influence of a prejudiced aristocracy. The most immediate consequences 
 in France were— 1. The abolition of feudal rights and the privileges of primo¬ 
 geniture ; 2. Equality in the eye of the law ; 3. The establishment of inde¬ 
 pendent tribunals for the administration of justice ; 4. National representation 
 with taxation; 5. Liberty of the press, and religious toleration ; 6. The aboli¬ 
 tion of torture ; 7. The division of provinces into departments. The following 
 institutions also appeared amidst the storms of this period: — The National 
 Guard, the Institute, the Jury ; but this last, adopted from England, does not 
 succeed in a land even yet imperfectly prepared for constitutional liberty. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 The will of Charles II. in favour of the young Duke of Anjou, though 
 mainly obtained through the successful intrigues of his grandfather Louis 
 XIV., seems to have been cheerfully acquiesced in by the majority of 
 the Spaniards; and the Bourbon prince was at once proclaimed as 
 Philip V. throughout the European and transatlantic possessions of the 
 monarchy, 1700. In the long war which followed with Austria and 
 England, the people, aided by a body of French troops under the Duke 
 of Berwick, remained steadfast to their sovereign; until at length that 
 general totally routed the rival claimant at Almanza, 1707, and placed 
 Philip in undisturbed possession of the greater part of the Peninsula, 
 Catalonia alone remaining in the hands of the enemy. The contest, 
 however, of which a notice has already been given under France, con¬ 
 tinued six years longer, the seat of war being chiefly Italy and the 
 Netherlands ; and Spain of course shared in the signal humiliation which 
 it entailed on the French king. The treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt, 
 1713, 1714, stripped her of all her European dependencies, and secured 
 to England the strong fortress of Gibraltar, an acquisition which that 
 country has ever since retained. This struggle was also fatal in a great 
 measure to the liberties of the people; for Philip, who had been educa- 
 38* 
 
450 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 ted in the despotic principles of his grandfather, and was long ruled by 
 French counsellors, succeeded in abrogating the free constitutions 
 enjoyed by the various provinces, and the country became more than 
 ever united into one uniform and absolute monarchy. 
 
 The death of the queen, Maria Louisa, in 1714, terminated the French 
 influence in Spain. Alberoni, an Italian Jesuit, and a person of bold 
 and unscrupulous character, had been appointed envoy from Parma to 
 the court of Madrid, and succeeded in bringing about a marriage between 
 Elizabeth Farnese and Philip. This princess speedily showed her de¬ 
 termination to command both her consort and his kingdom; she igno- 
 miniously turned off the Princess Orsini, the chief favourite of the late 
 queen and also of his majesty himself; while Alberoni, the agent of her 
 elevation, was successively made prime-minister, a cardinal, and a 
 grandee of Spain. The influence of these two ambitious individuals 
 soon became apparent in numerous cabals to set aside the treaty of 
 Utrecht, and thereby secure to Philip the reversion of the French crown 
 and the recovery of his lost dominions in Italy. At the same time, it 
 must be acknowledged that the internal administration of the cardinal 
 was characterized by a wisdom and vigour long unknown to the Span¬ 
 iards ; his endeavours to promote general improvement and increase the 
 advantages derived from the colonies, did much for the restoration of the 
 country; and it may even be doubted whether he would not have perse¬ 
 vered in this judicious course, had not the imperious character of the 
 queen precipitated hostilities. These at length broke out on the death 
 of Louis XIV., 1715 : a conspiracy was formed in France for the over¬ 
 throw of Orleans and the appointment of the Spanish sovereign to the 
 regency of that kingdom ; an armament was despatched against Sar¬ 
 dinia, which was conquered in three months; and an expedition was 
 even fitted out to invade England on behalf of the Stuarts. But the 
 formation of the Quadruple Alliance, 1718, rendered all these designs 
 abortive ; and Alberoni, w T ho had thus drawn on himself the deep resent¬ 
 ment of France and England, was deprived of all his offices, and com¬ 
 pelled to take his departure. However, in the peace which followed, 
 1720, the reversion of the duchies of Parma and Tuscany was secured 
 to the queen and her heirs. 
 
 In 1724, Philip abdicated his crown in favour of his son Louis ; but 
 this prince having died a few months after of the smallpox, he again 
 resumed the government. The real motive for this singular step seems 
 to have been the hope of thereby succeeding Louis XV., whose health 
 was very precarious, on the throne of France, an attempt which would 
 not have been permitted while he remained king of Spain. The ambi¬ 
 tion of the queen was therefore again directed towards Italy; and, on 
 the breaking out of the Polish succession war in 1733, hostilities were 
 declared against Austria, and arr army under her son, Don Carlos, was 
 sent thither. He speedily made himself master of Naples and Sicily, 
 acquisitions which were ultimately secured to him by the peace of 1736, 
 though at the expense of her majesty’s patrimonial territories, the 
 duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which were surrendered to the emperor. 
 In 1739, war broke out with England in consequence of some disputes 
 as to the contraband trade with America; and in the following year 
 Spain took part in the attacks on Maria Theresa of Austria; neither of 
 which contests was conducted with much spirit, Philip, who had long 
 laboured under a hypochondriacal malady, died in 1746* 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 451 
 
 Ferdinand VI. had married in 1729 the Princess Barbara of Portugal; 
 and he had the good fortune to recover, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 1748, the duchy of Parma and other territories in Italy, as a principality 
 for his half-brother Philip. The remainder of his reign was happily 
 barren of w hat are called great events, exhibiting little beyond a contest 
 betw een the English and French agents in support of the policy of their 
 respective courts. In following the bent of his natural disposition, 
 he preserved a strict neutrality, and, aided by his excellent minister, the 
 Marquis of Ensenada, originally a peasant, devoted himself to heal the 
 wounds inflicted by w T ar, alleviate the burdens of the people, encourage 
 agriculture, and re-establish order in the finances. The revenues, which 
 under Charles II. had scarcely amounted to thirty millions of reals, ex¬ 
 ceeded in 1750 thirty millions of dollars, although many taxes had been 
 reduced or abolished. At his death, in 1759, he left about three millions 
 sterling in the royal treasury, and a navy augmented to fifty ships of 
 war. 
 
 Don Carlos, king of Naples, succeeded his brother Ferdinand by the 
 title of Charles III. At this time France and England w ? ere engaged 
 in the celebrated seven years’ w 7 ar, from w hich Spain for a time kept 
 aloof, but w r as at length drawm into it by signing the treaty with the 
 ormer country, known as the Family Compact, 1761. An immediate 
 rupture with England w as the consequence; and Portugal, refusing to 
 sacrifice her alliance with that power, was unsuccessfully invaded by a 
 Spanish army. The English fleet captured Havannah, with a numerous 
 squadron and great booty; the Philippine Islands also fell into their 
 hands. After the conclusion of peace in 1763, by which Florida was 
 ceded to Great Britain, Charles occupied himself with the interior im¬ 
 provement of his kingdom, and societies for the promotion of the arts 
 and agriculture sprung up over all the Peninsula. The roads, which 
 had previously been so bad that no public carriage was in existence, 
 were greatly improved; the canal of Aragon, begun by the Emperor 
 Charles V., was continued; and the revived manufactures of cloth and 
 glass became equally celebrated and valuable. In 1766, some popular 
 tumults occurred in Madrid and other places, w’hich with very little ap¬ 
 pearance of probability were ascribed to the instigation of the Jesuits; 
 and that order was in consequence summarily banished in the follow ing 
 year. Various other measures were adopted to limit the influence of the 
 church and the power of the Inquisition; while military schools w’ere 
 founded, and great exertions made to restore the navy, w’hich had suffer¬ 
 ed severely by the disastrous contest of 1761; so that the Spanish fleets 
 became important auxiliaries to those of France during the American 
 w r ar, 1779. Charles died in 1788, sincerely regretted by his subjects, 
 wdiose happiness and prosperity had been greatly promoted throughout 
 his w’hole reign, both by his own exertions and by those of his enlight¬ 
 ened ministers, Aranda, Campomanes, and Floridablanca. 
 
 Charles IV. w T as forty years of age w 7 hen he ascended the throne. 
 The commencement of his government, which coincides with the epoch 
 of the French revolution, seemed to promise a continuance of the wise 
 policy of his father; but Godoy, a favourite of the queen, having suc¬ 
 ceeded Floridablanca in powder, soon involved the country in a new 
 career of misfortune. In 1793, the convention declared war ao-ainst 
 him, on the ground that he had improperly interfered in the internal 
 
452 
 
 Modern history. 
 
 concerns of France; and there is no doubt that he joined with zeal in 
 the crusade against that country. A contribution of fully three millions 
 sterling being voted towards the expenses of the war, Roussillon was 
 invaded by the united armies of Spain and Portugal; but in 1794 the 
 French entered Catalonia, and compelled Godoy to conclude an ignomi¬ 
 nious peace. The next step of the favourite, who had obtained the sin¬ 
 gular title of Prince of the Peace, was to conclude an offensive and 
 defensive alliance with the revolutionary leaders, by which it was stipu¬ 
 lated that each state should, in case of war, receive from the other the 
 aid of fifteen ships of the line and 24,000 troops. The necessary result 
 of this measure was an immediate rupture with England, in which the 
 Spanish fleets were destroyed, the islands of Trinidad and Minorca 
 wrested from her, and her colonial and foreign trade nearly ruined. The 
 dominions of Charles now became little better than a French dependency; 
 Portugal, having refused to submit to a similar degradation, was invaded 
 by an army of 40,000 men, commanded by Godoy in person, compelled 
 to cede the fortress of Olivenza, and to close her ports against England, 
 1801. 
 
 GENEALOGY OF THE SPANISH BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 1. Philip V., s. of Louis (dauphin), b. 1683, k. 1700, abd. 15th January, rest. 6th 
 | September 1724, d. 1746. 
 
 '-A-- 
 
 2. Louis I., b. 1707, 3. Ferdinand VI., b. 1711, 4. Charles III., b. 1716 
 
 k. 1724, d. 1724. k. 1746. k. 1759. 
 
 --A-- 
 
 5. Charles IV., b. 1748 
 k. 1788, abd. 1808. 
 
 t -A-» 
 
 6. Ferdinand VII., b. 1784 == Maria Antoinette, 
 d. of Ferdinand IV. of Sicily, 1802, k. 1808. 
 
 /—--- A -N 
 
 7. Maria Isabella II. (minor), 1833, q. 
 
 PORTUGAL. 
 
 The reign of Peter II., of nearly forty years’ duration, enabled Portu¬ 
 gal in some measure to recover from the wounds inflicted by foreign 
 domination and the hostilities by which it was terminated; but the 
 country could hardly have attained its former eminence, even though 
 the government had been more wisely administered than it actually was. 
 From this time may be dated her commercial relations and alliance with 
 England. In 1703, a treaty was concluded by the British ambassador, 
 Mr. Methuen, which secured important advantages to both countries, 
 and the Portuguese were induced to take part in the war of the Spanish 
 succession. Peter was succeeded in 1706 by his eldest son John V., a 
 prince of moderate abilities, under whom, nevertheless, some vigour was 
 displayed in relation to foreign affmirs, and various attempts were made 
 for the promotion of internal welfare, by restricting the enormous powers 
 of the Inquisition, and promoting trade and manufactures. That body, 
 however, were much too formidable to allow the object to be effectually 
 attained ; and although the national revenues were considerably im¬ 
 proved, yet immense sums were squandered on the sumptuous monas¬ 
 tery of Mafra, and in obtaining permission from the Pope to institute a 
 patriarch of Lisbon. John V. also patronised literature; in 1714 he 
 founded the Portuguese Academy, and in 1720 that of History. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 453 
 
 Joseph I. succeeded his father in 1750, and chose for his minister the 
 bold and enterprising Don Carvalho, afterwards Marquis of Pombal. 
 The spirit of reform and improvement which had been developing itself 
 in Spain now also became active in Portugal; and this statesman, emu¬ 
 lating Aranda and Floridablanca, was indefatigable in his efforts to 
 restore its ancient prosperity. Industry of all kinds, commerce, and. 
 education, received his attention and support; absurd sumptuary laws 
 were abolished, piracy was checked, the frontiers were fortified, and the 
 army regularly paid. The Jesuits and the nobility, who had exercised 
 a dangerous influence under the preceding reign, were vigorously attack¬ 
 ed, sometimes with a degree of violence not altogether prudent. Several 
 of his measures, too, were regulated by the narrow views of political 
 economy prevalent at the time; the monopoly of the Oporto Wine Com¬ 
 pany, intended to deprive England of some of the benefits she derived 
 from the Methuen treaty, being equally detrimental to the native growers. 
 In the midst of his various plans, a terrible earthquake (November 1755) 
 occurred at Lisbon, by which nearly the entire city was thrown down, 
 and about 15,000 persons perished in the ruins. For some years, the 
 attention of Pombal was mainly occupied with endeavours to repair the 
 ravages of this frightful event; but, in 1758, he renewed his hostility to 
 the Jesuits, resolving even on their expulsion from the kingdom. Some 
 trifling colonial disputes with Spain had revealed the immense influence 
 acquired by these fathers among the Indians of South America, and a 
 plot for the assassination of the king having about this time been disco¬ 
 vered, was charged without a shadow of evidence to their instigation. 
 The order was accordingly proscribed and banished, with circumstances 
 of hardship and cruelty which affix an indelible stigma upon the memory 
 of this minister. After the signing of the family compact between Spain 
 and France, 1761, Portugal, still adhering to the English alliance, was 
 exposed to invasion; but the war terminated honourably for the country, 
 through the able measures of the British general, 1763. 
 
 The accession of Maria, 1777, terminated the ministry of Pombal, 
 who had raised up to himself many enemies among the nobility, and 
 given great offence to the queen by an attempt to impede her succession. 
 Her majesty inherited all the bigotry of the house of Braganza; the 
 ignorant nobles and the equally ignorant and still more ambitious clergy 
 soon regained much of their former influence; and he was consequently 
 condemned to perpetual exile from the court. Her first measures, how¬ 
 ever, were sufficiently popular: a number of persons were released from 
 prison, while a defensive alliance with Spain secured the peace of the 
 Peninsula and terminated the colonial disputes between the countries. 
 In 1786, she lost her husband Pedro, which induced a state of melan¬ 
 choly that rendered her nearly incapable of public business ; the govern¬ 
 ment, of course, fell into great disorder, and faction disputed the autho¬ 
 rity of the state. She at length became entirely insane; and, in 1799, 
 her eldest son, John, prince of Brazil, was declared regent, with full 
 regal powers. 
 
 ITALIAN PENINSULA. 
 
 Savoy, Piedmont, and Sardinia.—Victor Amadeus II., duke of 
 Savoy, had by the treaty of Utrecht reunited Montferrat to Piedmont 
 and the crown of Sicily to his paternal coronet. To take possess* & oi 
 
454 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 his new kingdom, he passed into Sicily with all his court, where he en¬ 
 gaged in hostilities with the Pope, in defence of the royal prerogatives 
 against the pretensions of the holy see. In 1718, the Spanish invasion 
 of this island and the Quadruple Alliance compelled him to exchange 
 Sicily for Sardinia, which was raised to the rank of a kingdom. After 
 having long attracted the attention of Europe by his enterprising and 
 successful ambition, he resigned the crown to his son, Charles Ema¬ 
 nuel III., 1730, and retired to the villa of Moncalieri, where he died 
 two years afterwards. The new sovereign was, like his father, a skilful 
 warrior and politician, and equally true to his own interest. By the 
 contests of the Polish and Austrian successions, he obtained considera¬ 
 ble augmentations of territory. From the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to 
 his death in 1773, his reign exhibits no remarkable event; the place of 
 battles and victories being occupied by useful reforms, and other endea¬ 
 vours to promote the welfare of his subjects. Unfortunately, this state 
 of affairs changed considerably under Victor Amadeus III., a prince 
 fond of show and parade; and Sardinia, until the end of the eighteenth 
 century, groaned beneath the despotism of its viceroys and the continu¬ 
 ally augmenting weight of abuses engendered by a corrupt administra¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Tuscany. —Cosmo III. grandduke from 1670 to 1723, left his terri¬ 
 tory in a miserable condition, loaded with debt and oppressed with 
 abuses. His son, John Gaston, endeavoured to compensate by the 
 pleasures of royalty for the constrained life he had previously been com¬ 
 pelled to lead ; but, in consequence of his ruinous prodigality, his demise 
 in 1737 was esteemed a fortunate event for his people. As he died 
 without heirs, the duchy was conferred by the great powers of Europe 
 on Francis, duke of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa, who, becoming 
 Emperor of Germany some time afterwards, allowed the interests of 
 Tuscany to fall.into neglect. On the death of the emperor, his second 
 son, Peter Leopold, succeeded him as grandduke, 1765, under whose 
 wise and paternal government the prosperity of the country began 
 gradually to revive. 
 
 The Two Sicilies. —After the war of the Spanish succession, the 
 kingdom of the Two Sicilies was divided, by the treaties of Utrecht and 
 Rastadt, between the Emperor Charles VI., who took the continental 
 portion, and the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, who obtained Sicily. 
 In 1733, these territories were reunited under Austrian masters; but, in 
 1734, the Infant Don Carlos began the reconquest of them, which he 
 completed in the following year. He was immediately crowned king 
 as Charles VII., and legitimatized his title by a wise and beneficent 
 administration. His successor in 1759 was Ferdinand IV., a minor 
 eight years of age, under the regency of the able Tanucci. The com¬ 
 pletion of his majority, 1767, was celebrated by the expulsion of the 
 Jesuits from his dominions. Ten years after, Tanucci was disgraced, 
 having possessed power nearly half a century. An Englishman named 
 Acton succeeded to his duties, but became odious to the people by 
 adopting what were thought too stringent measures for the reorganisa¬ 
 tion of the military force. 
 
 Venice, under Francis Morosini, had been signally victorious over 
 the Turks at the end of the seventeenth century. She was sensible 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 455 
 
 of her real feebleness and decline, and, during the war of the Spanish 
 succession, almost alone remained neutral. In 1714, the Ottomans 
 recovered the Morea; and, in 1715, the republic confined its exertions to 
 save the island of Corfu, the key on that side to Italy and the Adriatic. 
 Aided by the emperor, the recovery of their lost territories might have 
 been effected; but the Austrian forces being required elsewhere, the 
 treaty of Passarowitz was hastily concluded at the expense of Venice, 
 1718. The policy of this state was to maintain an entire neutrality, 
 which did not, however, preserve it from being ravaged by the contend¬ 
 ing forces of 1733. In like manner, during the war between the Turks 
 and Russians in 1768, it sided with neither party, confining its exertions 
 to a few ill-directed efforts against the pirates, whose tributary it even¬ 
 tually became. 
 
 States of the Church.—Clement XI., 1700, issued the celebrated 
 bull Unigenitus , which, during half a century, caused so many ridiculous 
 disputes and odious persecutions. A tribunal established in Sicily by a 
 manifesto of Urban II. led to serious differences with the king of that 
 island, 1713 ; but they were terminated in a short time. Benedict XIII., 
 1724, a model of all Christian virtues, weakly abandoned the govern¬ 
 ment to the Cardinal Benevento, who unworthily abused his confidence, 
 causing an annual deficiency of 120,000 Roman crowns. The very day 
 of this pontiff’s death was signalized by a rising of the populace to 
 punish the minister and his agents. Benedict XIV., 1741, esteemed 
 for his moderation, terminated the Jansenist dispute, and settle the differ¬ 
 ences of his predecessors with the courts of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and 
 Sardinia. In the war of the Austrian succession, the neutrality of his 
 territories was violated, for which he received a trifling compensation 
 after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Clement XIII., 1748, got into 
 trouble with all the princes of the Bourbon family by an interdict he had 
 published against the Duke of Parma : France seized upon Avignon, the 
 King of Naples took Benevento, and Spain threatened to appropriate 
 the church revenues. His troubles were further increased by the anti- 
 sacerdotal spirit of the times, manifested principally by the expulsion of 
 the Tesuits from the various states of Europe. Clement XIV. (Ganga- 
 nelli), 1769, one of the wisest men of the age, yielding finally to neces¬ 
 sity, published a bull abolishing the order of Jesuits,—a condescension 
 which was repaid by the restitution of Benevento and Avignon. The 
 early part of the long reign of his successor, Pius VI., 1774, was occu¬ 
 pied with acts of charity or useful labours ; in founding asylums for 
 indigent young females and hospitals for the friars charged with the 
 education of the people, clearing out the port of Ancona, and draining 
 the Pontine marshes. 
 
 Consult: Sismondi’s Italian Republics. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Joseph I., son of Leopold, having been elected king of the Romans in 
 1690, at once succeeded to the imperial honours on his father’s death in 
 1705. The long war of the Spanish succession, already noticed under 
 France, was then at its height, and formed of course the most prominent 
 event of his reign, internally distinguished by a wise, tolerant, and hu¬ 
 mane administration. His brother, the competitor for the throne of 
 
456 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Spain, succeeded him in 1711 as Charles VI., and thus led to the termi 
 nation of a contest which had well-nigh mined France, and exposed many 
 parts ot Europe to bloodshed and devastation. The treaty of Utrecht, 
 1713, the actual conclusion of the war, was confirmed by him at Rastadt 
 the next year; by it he obtained the Spanish Netherlands, except the 
 Dutch barrier towns, with* Milan, Naples, and Sardinia; this last being 
 afterwards exchanged for Sicily. 
 
 The conquest of the Morea, achieved in 1715 by Achmet III., led the 
 emperor to form an alliance with Venice against the Turks, in which 
 Prince Eugene gained fresh laurels. He signally defeated them at 
 Peterwaradin, and afterwards captured Belgrade and a great part of 
 Servia, which with other places were formally ceded by the Porte to 
 Austria, 17IS; while the attempt on the part of Spain to take advantage 
 of this contest to recover her lost territories in Italy was frustrated by 
 the Quadruple Alliance. But the main concern of the emperor was 
 directed to the choice of a successor in his hereditary dominions. With 
 this view, he issued in 17*24 the famous Pragmatic Sanction , or funda¬ 
 mental law regulating the order of succession in the Austrian family ; 
 by which, in default of male issue, Charles’ eldest daughter, Maria 
 Theresa, and her descendants after her, were called to that vast inherit¬ 
 ance. This regulation was guaranteed by all the German princes and 
 several of the European powers ; and various intrigues and alliances 
 were set on foot for the purpose of having it generally recognised,—that 
 with his old enemy, Philip V. of Spain, 1725, being not the least extra¬ 
 ordinary. But this temporary alliance, it is well known, was speedily 
 dissolved, and Charles returned to the party of the maritime states. The 
 latter years of his reign were greatly agitated by these causes, by dis¬ 
 putes respecting Parma and Piacenza, and by the war which arose out 
 of the Polish election, 1733. He afterwards engaged with Russia in 
 hostilities against Turkey, 1738 ; but his army met only with reverses, 
 and the peace of Belgrade, signed in the following year, deprived Aus¬ 
 tria of all the acquisitions she had obtained in 1718. This humiliation 
 accelerated the death of the emperor, which took place in 1740. He 
 was a patron of letters and science, founded a public library, and began 
 a cabinet of medals. In the hereditarv states he formed new and im- 
 proved roads, and endeavoured to stimulate manufactures and commerce. 
 
 By great exertions, Charles VI. had procured for the Pragmatic Sanc¬ 
 tion the guarantee of all the chief European states; and therefore, as 
 well as by right of blood, Maria Theresa was the undoubted sovereign 
 of the Austrian dominions.* But she soon experienced the inefficacy 
 of treaties when opposed to the presumed interests of rulers. She had 
 hardly taken possession of the inheritance when her right was disputed 
 —by Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, on a will of the Emperor Fer¬ 
 dinand; by Augustus III. of Poland, elector of Saxony, in right of his 
 wife Maria, eldest daughter of the Emperor Joseph, Charles’ eldest 
 brother; and by the King of Spain, on a most recondite genealogy; 
 while Frederick of Prussia put forth a groundless claim to the province 
 of Silesia, and the Sardinian monarch demanded the duchy of Milan. 
 
 * This princess had married, in 1736, Francis, duke of Lorraine, afterwards grandduke 
 of Tuscany, where she and her husband were residing at her father’s death. The ter¬ 
 ritories bequeathed to her bv that event were Hungary, Bohemia, Upper and Lower 
 Austria, Silesia, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Burgau, Brisgau, the Tyrol, Friuli, Milan, 
 Parma, Piacenza, the Netherlands, and part of Swabia. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. I 457 
 
 Only England and Holland remained faithful to their engagements. 
 Frederick at once took the initiative in the contest by invading the pro¬ 
 vince he had claimed; while he offered Maria Theresa his friendship on 
 condition of receiving its unconditional surrender,—a proposal which 
 she magnanimously rejected. The elector of Bavaria, on his part, 
 assisted by French auxiliaries, invaded Austria and Bohemia, and, 
 pushing his troops to the very gates of Vienna, forced the queen to flee 
 from her capital. Repairing to Hungary, she convoked the diet at Pres- 
 burg, and appeared in the midst of the assembly with her infant son in 
 her arms. By an eloquent and heart-stirring address, she awakened the 
 enthusiasm of that chivalrous nation ; the barons, drawing their swords, 
 swore to defend their sovereign to the last; and the w 7 hole military f rce 
 of Hungary was speedily marshalled around her. Under Prince Charles 
 of Lorraine, her brother-in-law 7 , and General Kevenhuller, these brave 
 troops speedily drove the French and Bavarians out of the hereditary 
 states, wdth the exception of Bohemia, which still remained in the hands 
 of the enemy; but they w 7 ere unable to prevent the election of Charles 
 Albert to the imperial crown, which was conferred on him by the diet 
 of Frankfort, 1742, under the title of Charles VII. 
 
 Maria Theresa was now 7 compelled to purchase peace with the Prus¬ 
 sian monarch by the surrender of Silesia. She w 7 as able, at the same 
 time, to conclude a treaty of alliance with Sardinia against the French 
 and Spaniards, who w 7 ere thereby kept in check on the side of Italy ; 
 while the former, under Broglio and Belleisle, blockaded in Prague, 
 offered to surrender their conquests in Bohemia for permission to retire, 
 and w r ere at length forced to a disastrous retreat. Nevertheless, in 1744, 
 Frederick again took the field against the queen, demanding additional 
 territories;'but the elector of Saxony, who had made an alliance with 
 her, sent reinforcements, w T hich obliged the Prussians to evacuate Bohe¬ 
 mia with the loss of 20,000 men. In 1745, Charles VII. died ; and 
 the queen, whose fortunes w T ere now decidedly in the ascendant, not¬ 
 withstanding the victory achieved by France over her English allies at 
 Fontenoy, gained the highest point of her ambition in the elevation of 
 her husband as Francis I. to the imperial honours. In Italy, the 
 Austrian and Piedmontese troops obtained great advantages; in 1746, 
 they won the battle of Piacenza against the French and Spaniards, and 
 occupied Genoa, w 7 hich, how r ever, w 7 as afterwards lost through a popular 
 insurrection. Another bloody campaign took place in Italy and Flan¬ 
 ders, with no decisive result; and next year, 1748, the w 7 ar w T as ter¬ 
 minated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, securing to the empress-queen 
 the peaceful possession of her dominions, except Silesia alone, which 
 remained in the hands of Frederick. 
 
 Maria Theresa employed this interval of repose in various useful and 
 important measures of internal reformation, thereby securing still more 
 firmly the attachment of her various subjects. The revenues were much 
 increased, and the army reorganized by Count Daun, the great military 
 rival of Frederick of Prussia. w 7 hile the chief direction of the government 
 was intrusted to Prince Kaunitz. The principal aim of this minister's 
 policy w T as the humiliation of Prussia, now 7 one of the most formidable 
 pow r ers in Europe. With this view 7 , a league w 7 as entered into w ith 
 Russia, Saxony, and France ; while England, then at war w 7 ith the 
 last-mentioned country, promised her aid to Frederick, 1756. A fearful 
 39 
 
458 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 struggle, known as the Seven Years’ War, was the consequence, in 
 which the Prussian monarch had to contend almost alone against these 
 formidable opponents. It ended in 1763, both Austria and Prussia re¬ 
 maining with the same boundaries as before. Two years later, the 
 Emperor Francis I. died, leaving the dignity to his son, who had shortly 
 before been elected King of the Romans. 
 
 Joseph II., though nominally emperor, remained altogether destitute 
 of real power during the lifetime of his mother, and was indebted to the 
 Austrian armies alone for the security of his position. Hence he may 
 he said rather to have acquiesced in than effected the infamous partition 
 of Poland, 1773, between Prussia, Russia, and Maria Theresa, who her¬ 
 self seems to have been forced reluctantly to agree to it. At all events, 
 Austria gained thereby a large accession of territory, — a circumstance 
 which did not prevent her from claiming, on the extinction of the 
 electoral house of Bavaria by the death of Maximilian Joseph, 1777, 
 nearly all the possessions of that family. With the view of enforcing 
 this demand, and regardless of the rights of the undoubted heir, Charles 
 Theodore, elector-palatine, an Austrian army at once occupied the whole 
 electorate. France. Russia, and Prussia, however, remonstrated against 
 this appropriation; and Frederick quickly poured an immense force into 
 Bohemia, which wasted the country even to the walls of Prague. These 
 prompt measures led to a peace at Teschen, 1779, by which the elector- 
 palatine obtained his inheritance, though a small portion of his spoils 
 was secured to the emperor. In 1780, died Maria Theresa, the best and 
 greatest sovereign of her race, after a reign of forty years, devoted to the 
 promotion of the happiness of her people. 
 
 Maria Theresa made many important improvements for the benefit of her 
 wide dominions, in 1776 she abolished the torture in the hereditary states, and 
 put an end to the rural and personal services which the Bohemian peasants 
 rendered to their feudal lords ; and from 1774 to 1778 her attention was occupied 
 with the establishment of a generd system of popular education. Various 
 salutary regulations were enforced touching the temporalities of the clergy ; 
 and in Italy the arbitrary power of the Inquisition was circumscribed within 
 narrow limits. Lombardy, after the long misrule of its Spanish governors, 
 experienced an era of reviving prosperity under her minister Count Firmian, 
 who reformed the financial arrangements, and protected the peasants from the 
 oppressions of the great. 
 
 Joseph II., who aimed at the reputation of a reformer, now undisputed 
 master of the Austrian territories, imagined himself at length able to 
 indulge his ambition abroad, as well as to enter on his long-meditated 
 changes at home. Various schemes of aggrandisement were formed at 
 the expense of Holland, Turkey, aud the smaller Germanic states, 
 especially the exchange of the Netherlands for Bavaria ; but the inter¬ 
 position of France and the King of Prussia, who succeeded in effecting 
 a defensive league among the several- princes, effectually kept him in 
 check. The innovations of the emperor, embracing the entire abolition 
 of feudalism, religious equality, uniformity of government and taxation, 
 regular dispensation of justice to all classes, and the establishment of 
 the German as a universal language throughout his dominions, were in 
 themselves of the most salutary description; hut they were carried inro 
 effect with an arbitrary and restless haste which gave great offence to 
 nations differing widely from each other, and most of them but imper¬ 
 fectly prepared for such sweeping changes. In the Catholic Nether- 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 459 
 
 lands, in particular, these inroads on their ancient usages were viewed 
 with detestation, while the alteration of their native language produced 
 great excitement in Hungary and Bohemia. In 1788, under pretext of 
 an alliance with the Empress Catherine II., then at war with Turkey, 
 he raised a large army for the invasion of that country. He conducted 
 one division of it in person, with little credit; but another, under General 
 Laudon, succeeded in capturing Belgrade and other fortresses, 1789. 
 The disturbances in Hungary and the Low Countries, however, which 
 had been carried the length of open revolt, and the intervention of Prus¬ 
 sia and the maritime powers, arrested the progress of the Austrian arms, 
 and probably accelerated the death of the emperor, which took place 
 in 1790. 
 
 Joseph was succeeded by his brother Leopold II., grandduke of Tus¬ 
 cany, in the hereditary states, and shortly after also in the imperial 
 honours. This prince had gained a high character in his Italian princi¬ 
 pality, and soon displayed a laudable prudence and moderation in 
 governing his extensive empire. He at once abolished the more odious 
 innovations of his brother, thereby, in some measure, securing internal 
 tranquillity ; placed himself on a footing of amity with Prussia and 
 England; and concluded an advantageous peace with the Porte. The 
 most important event of his reign, which embraced little more than 
 twelve months, was an alliance with Prussia, 1792, to arrest the pro¬ 
 gress of French republicanism, which became the precursor of conse¬ 
 quences most disastrous to his country. He was succeeded in the same 
 year by his son Francis II., at a time when the discontent produced by 
 the rash innovations of Joseph had not subsided, and war with France 
 appeared inevitable. It broke out in April by a declaration on the part 
 of the Legislative Assembly, and was carried on for some years on the 
 Rhine with varied success: but the brilliant victories of Bonaparte 
 forced on the peace of 1797. However, in 1799, a new coalition was 
 formed between Austria, Russia, and England, and the allied armies 
 were eminently triumphant both in Italy and on the Rhine, when a mis¬ 
 understanding between the Austrian and Russian commanders led to the 
 defeat of the latter in Switzerland and his subsequent withdrawal, 1800. 
 
 GENEALOGY OF THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG-LORRAINE. 
 
 52. Francis I m b. 1708, emp. 1745, d. 1765= Maria Theresa, q. of Hungary'and 
 | Bohemia. 
 
 «-*-, 
 
 53. Joseph II., b. 1741, emp. 1765, 54. Leopold II., b. 1747, emp. 1790, 
 
 d. 1790. d 1792. 
 
 /- A -—-, 
 
 55. Francis II., b. 1768, emp. 1792, 1st of Austria, 1804. 
 
 /--—- - 
 
 56. Ferdinand Charles, emp. 1835. Maria Louisa, b. 1791 = Napoleon, 1810. 
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 William III., on his accession to the throne of England in 1G89, 
 offered to the world the singular spectacle of a monarchy and a republic 
 governed at the same time by the same individual; and in both capa¬ 
 cities he was occupied with one absorbing motive, that of determined 
 opposition to the power of Louis XIV. Hardly, therefore, was he 
 seated in his newly acquired sovereignty, ere he appeared on the Con¬ 
 tinent at the head of a confederacy embracing Germany, Spain, Great 
 
460 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Britain, and Holland. Various bloody but undecisive campaigns were 
 fought; and though unable to command that success which his military 
 talents deserved, he had the rare fortune of appearing always as for¬ 
 midable after defeat as he had been before action. This contest con¬ 
 ferred a high reputation on the naval and military force of Holland ; but 
 she had at the same time to lament an increase of public debt and the 
 diminution of trade; while the peace of Ryswick, 1697, by which it 
 was terminated, secured to her no advantages. Nevertheless, the states 
 readily became parties to the Grand Alliance, 1701 ; and William was 
 once more preparing to lead the armies of Europe against the French, 
 when his death in the same year left his plans to be carried out by more 
 fortunate leaders. 
 
 Holland, however, did not neglect this opportunity of recurring to the 
 old government of 1650: no new stadthoider was appointed; the su¬ 
 preme authority was retained by the states-general, and Heinsius, the 
 grand-pensioner, was intrusted with the active direction of affairs. This 
 great man amply justified the confidence reposed in him; he ably co¬ 
 operated with Marlborough and Prince Eugene in the long contest which 
 followed; and to his assistance and counsels w'ere owino- in no small 
 degree those masterly combinations which resulted in the splendid 
 triumphs of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. The 
 peace of Utrecht, 1713, which secured to Holland a strong barrier of 
 frontier fortresses, also saw the republic raised to her highest point of 
 influence and greatness. Her powerful enemy had been humbled to the 
 dust; her commerce had revived amidst the struggle; her finances were 
 placed on a satisfactory footing; and surrounding states regarded her 
 with envy or respect. 
 
 For a period of thirty years after this treaty, the United Provinces 
 enjoyed the unwonted blessing of peace, during which the states devoted 
 their entire energies to internal reforms. They received into their pro¬ 
 tection the persecuted sectaries of France, Germany, and Hungary ; and 
 though the principle of toleration might seem to be violated in the expul¬ 
 sion of the Jesuits, 1731, a Protestant country cannot well be blamed for 
 a measure afterwards universally imitated even by Catholic states. In 
 173*2, the whole nation was overwhelmed with alarm, by the discovery 
 that the beams and other wood-work employed in the construction of 
 their dikes had been eaten through by some unknown species of marine 
 grub; but the providential occurrence of a hard frost, by destroying 
 these formidable insects, freed the country from a danger greater even 
 than another war. The elements of a fresh contest were already in 
 existence. In 1729, the states had been induced to guarantee the Prag¬ 
 matic Sanction, and on the death of Charles VI., 1740, they at once 
 joined England in aid of his daughter, Maria Theresa, with a reinforce¬ 
 ment of 20,000 men and a large subsidy. These allies gained the battle 
 of Dettingen, 1743 ; but Holland was once more exposed to invasion 
 after the severe repulse at Fontenoy, 1744. In these circumstances, she 
 again had recourse to the old expedient of elevating the house of Orange; 
 and, accordingly, the representative of that illustrious family, William 
 IV., who had married a daughter of George II., was appointed stadt¬ 
 hoider, and the right of hereditary succession vested in the male and 
 female line, 1747. 
 
 The contest was concluded by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 
 
N 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURA A. D. 
 
 461 
 
 without loss to the country ; but, three years afterwards, amid her re¬ 
 viving prosperity, Holland had to lament the death of her young chief. 
 His son, William V., then an infant, succeeded under the guardianship 
 of his mother; and, during his minority, the nation was able to remain 
 neutral amid the storms of the seven years’ war. This prince assumed 
 the government in 1766; two years later, he married the Princess of 
 Prussia, niece of Frederick the Great. But the anti-Orange faction had 
 in the mean time again attained the ascendency, and a rankling jealousy 
 of England sprung up in the national mind. This feeling led the Dutch 
 to give an underhand aid to the revolted colonies in America, as also to 
 join the armed neutrality of the northern powers; and the British, in 
 return, declared war against them in 1780. In the four years’ struggle 
 that followed, Holland suffered severely in her commerce, and lost many 
 valuable colonies, which were retained by Britain at the peace of 1784; 
 while the emperor also took the opportunity to dismantle the barrier 
 towns, 1781. The national discontent thus awakened, and the new 
 theories set afloat during the contest, gave increased activity to the re¬ 
 publican party; and, in 1787, the states actually deprived William of 
 all his appointments, while his consort, w T ho had endeavoured to recon¬ 
 cile the hostile parties, was unjustifiably arrested and treated as a pri¬ 
 soner. The King of Prussia, in his sister’s name, demanded an ample 
 satisfaction; on the Tefusal of which, a Prussian army of 20,000 men, 
 under the Duke of Brunswick, marched into Holland. Amsterdam was 
 besieged and forced to capitulate, when all the resolutions that had been 
 taken against the stadtholder were annulled, and he was reinstated in 
 his former authority. But this period of recovered power was of short 
 duration; an alliance with Prussia and England in 1788 being the 
 ostensible cause of a declaration of war on the part of France in 1793. 
 At the head of an army of 100,000 men, the republican general, Piche- 
 gru, soon gained possession of the chief places in Flanders, 1794; and, 
 taking advantage of an unusually severe winter, which froze the canals 
 and arms of the sea, drove the Duke of York and his army from point 
 to point, and speedily became master of the whole country. The Prince 
 of Orange presented himself to the states-general at the Hague, into 
 whose hands he resigned his dignities and retired to England; and the 
 United Provinces now changed their long-cherished form of government, 
 and even their name, receiving, at the command of their Gallican masters, 
 the novel designation of the Batavian Republic, 1795. 
 
 DENMARK. 
 
 The treaty of Stockholm, 1720, having secured to Frederick IY. all 
 he could reasonably desire, the remainder of his life was passed in un¬ 
 molested repose, during which he was enabled by economy and wise 
 financial measures to reduce somewhat the extraordinary burdens which 
 the war had rendered necessary. The most striking events that followed 
 were the closing of the trade with Hamburg in 1726, and the occurrence 
 of a fire in Copenhagen, which consumed about sixteen hundred and 
 forty houses, thereby nearly destroying that capital, 1728. Frederick 
 died in 1730, in the sixtieth year of his age, having the character of a 
 wise and biave prince, fond of enterprise, but strongly disposed to pro¬ 
 mote the welfare of his subjects. His son and successor, Christian 
 39* 
 
462 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 
 VI., one of the most popular and patriotic sovereigns of Denmark, im¬ 
 mediately abolished various monopolies in the sale of wine, brandy, 
 salt, and tobacco, which had pressed heavily on the people; and with 
 the view of still further stimulating commerce, he established the Asiatic 
 Company in 1732, and four years after re-opened the trade with Ham¬ 
 burg. At the same time, he renewed treaties of amity with Sweden and 
 England, for the mutual protection of their dominions; with the view of 
 promoting arts and manufactures, workmen were brought from various 
 countries to instruct the people; and the establishment of a royal bank 
 proved of great advantage to the mercantile classes in the kingdom. 
 Notwithstanding the repeal of various oppressive taxes, Christian con¬ 
 trived to maintain his fleet and army on a respectable footing, as well 
 as to restore the militia, which had been abolished ; and, although de¬ 
 voted to a pacific policy, he was thus enabled to assume a vigorous 
 warlike attitude, when events rendered it necessary. This prince also 
 established regulations for the better celebration of religious service, and 
 enjoined upon the great landed proprietors the obligation of founding a 
 school in every village. The magnificent palace of Christiansburg, and 
 the docks of Christianshaven, are among the chief monuments of hi? 
 reign. 
 
 Frederick V., 1746, succeeded to the virtues as well as the crown 
 of his father; and his internal management of affairs forms a brilliant 
 sequel to the measures of that excellent prince, in which he was ably 
 seconded by his minister, the great Bernstorf. Commerce and manufac¬ 
 tures accordingly prospered more rapidly than ever, the national shipping 
 being fully doubled in this reign; intellectual culture became widely 
 diffused; economy and judicious regulations placed the finances in a 
 highly satisfactory condition; while various legislative measures pro¬ 
 vided for the more prompt and regular administration of justice. In 
 1743, the king espoused Louisa, daughter of George II. of England, an 
 estimable personage; and, in 1749, the birth of a prince-royal diffused 
 universal joy throughout the nation. On the death of the queen in 1751, 
 another marriage was concluded with Juliana Maria of Brunswick- 
 Wolfenbuttel, a lady greatly inferior in every respect to her predecessor, 
 and whose intrigues became afterwards' the source of much evil in the , 
 reign of her step-son. In the wars which desolated the rest of Europe, 
 Frederick took no part; and though certain claims put forth toThe duchy 
 of Sleswick by the Czar Peter III. led to military demonstrations in 
 1762, the dispute was amicably settled with Catherine II. in the sam6 
 year. The rest of his life was'spent in encouraging the arts and sciences ; 
 and to hirn the Danish theatre is indebted for its origin. 
 
 Christian VII., 1766, succeeded his father at the age of .seventeen, 
 and, though inheriting little either of his talents or virtues, signalized 
 the commencement of his reign by a measure for the gradual abolition 
 of vassalage throughout the kingdom. Immediately on his accession, 
 he espoused Caroline Matilda, sister of George III. of England, an 
 amiable and accomplished princess, whom he nevertheless treated with 
 great harshness; and, in 1768, leaving her behind him, he set out on a 
 tour of pleasure through Europe, in the course of which he received into 
 his favour the celebrated Struensee, a physician of Ancona. On his 
 return, this individual was raised to the dignity of a count, and to the 
 office of pi ime-minister, in which capacity he displayed considerable 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 463 
 
 administrative ability. His influence over Christian enabled him to re¬ 
 concile that fickle prince to his consort; and, with her approbation, he 
 afterwards introduced many reforms, beneficial in themselves, but which 
 from their precipitancy irritated both the clergy and nobles. In these 
 circumstances, the queen-dowager and her son Frederick plotted his 
 ruin; several injurious, and it would seem false accusations, were set 
 afloat against both him and her majesty; and in 1772, the king was 
 prevailed on to sign an order for the arrest of Caroline and her accom¬ 
 plices. Struensee was thrown into prison and soon after beheaded, and 
 the queen died in banishment at Zell in Hanover, 1775. 
 
 For some years the queen-dowager and her faction possessed the 
 entire control of affairs, Christian himself having fallen into a state of 
 imbecility ; but, in 1784, his son Frederick, then only sixteen years old, 
 succeeded in obtaining the regency, and raised Count Bernstorf, nephew 
 of the former minister of that name, to the chief direction of affairs. 
 The young prince exercised his authority with great moderation, firm¬ 
 ness, and equity; a number of abuses which had crept into the govern¬ 
 ment w 7 ere reformed ; and neutrality w T as maintained in the wars of 1788 
 
 and 1793. In 1808, he succeeded his father by the title of Frederick VI. 
 
 \ 
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 Charles XII., 1697, w r as only fifteen years old when he ascended 
 the throne; and his extreme youth tempted three powerful neighbours 
 to conspire in order to effect the dismemberment of his states, or at least 
 the recovery of territories wrested from them by the valour of his prede¬ 
 cessors. These aggressors w T ere Frederick IV. of Denmark, Frederick 
 Augustus, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, and Peter I. of Russia ; 
 and, in the year 1700, they simultaneously invaded the Swedish do¬ 
 minions at three different points. The young monarch renewed an 
 alliance w r ith England and Holland, from w 7 hom he received reinforce¬ 
 ments, and putting himself at the head of his army, resolved on a vigor¬ 
 ous defence of the kingdom. He immediately sailed w r ith his troops 
 for Copenhagen, attacked that city, and in a few weeks obliged the 
 King of Denmark to sign the peace of Travendahl. He next turned his 
 attention to the Russians, w T ho were besieging Narva, a town in Ingria; 
 and on the 30th November, having under him only 8000 soldiers, totally 
 routed them, though ten times that number. Augustus, w r ho had fruit¬ 
 lessly invested Riga, now only remained : the Sw T edes passed the Dwina 
 in spite of all opposition, and, in an incredibly short space of time, 
 became masters of the whole of Courland. The youthful conqueror now 
 openly declared his intention of dethroning the King of Poland, and 
 conferring the sovereignty of that country upon Stanislaus Leezinski, 
 palatine of Posnania; a design in which he was seconded by several 
 discontented noblemen, and w T hich Augustus in vain endeavoured to 
 avert by negotiation. In 1702, that ruler w r as defeated, after a severe 
 contest, at Clissau, and at Pultusk in the following 1 vear; the Polish 
 diet proclaimed Stanislaus in 1704 ; and at the beginning of 1707, the 
 other was compelled to make a formal resignation of his crown, with 
 permission merely to retain his Saxon dominions. 
 
 The eyes of all Europe were now directed towards the camp of Charles 
 at Leinsic, where, at the head of 50,000 veterans, he received ambassa- 
 
464 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 dors from the principal powers, and even dictated to the emperor condi¬ 
 tions by which the Protestants in Silesia were secured in the free exer¬ 
 cise of their religion. But he felt little interest in the politics of central 
 Europe, his views being turned towards the north, where his great object 
 was the dethronement of his rival, Peter of Russia. He accordingly set 
 out for Muscovy in September 1707, defeated the czar in the following 
 May on the banks of the Berezina, and, by the end of September, pene¬ 
 trated as far as Smolensk. The approaching rigours of the season, 
 however, compelled him to abandon his design of marching upon Mos¬ 
 cow, and to retreat towards the Ukraine, where Mazeppa, hetmann of 
 the Cossacks, had promised to join him. Here Charles passed the 
 winter, during which, besides the loss of his artillery and wagons, he 
 had to lament the interception of a reinforcement of 15,000 men, and the 
 entire dispersion of his expected allies. In the spring of 1709, with an 
 army greatly reduced in number, he was compelled to give battle to 
 70,000 Russians led by Peter in person, under the w T alls of Pultowa, 
 which ended in the total defeat of his brave followers, 9000 of whom 
 perished on the field of battle. This decisive event annihilated the 
 ascendency of Sweden : the vanquished monarch took refuge in Turkey ; 
 Denmark and Poland annulled the treaties they had made; Augustus 
 returned to Warsaw; and the conqueror kept possession of Livonia. 
 
 Instead of immediately returning to defend his dominions, Charles 
 unaccountably persisted in remaining five years in his Turkish asylum, 
 spending the time in fruitless intrigues to foment a war between that 
 country and Russia, while his inveterate enemies in the north were 
 ravaging his continental provinces, and destroying his best troops. At 
 length, in October 1714, he left Turkey, and crossing Hungary and 
 Germany, arrived at Stralsand, where he immediately took the field 
 against Prussia, Denmark, Saxony, and Russia. After various military 
 operations, he succeeded, through the exertions of his minister, Baron de 
 Gortz, in forming an alliance with Peter; but he still pursued the war 
 against the Danes, and in 1718 sat down before Frederickshall in the 
 middle of winter, where his adventurous career was terminated by a shot 
 from one of the enemy’s batteries. This event produced an immediate 
 revolution in the aspect of affairs. The senate, accusing Gortz as the 
 author of the calamities afflicting the nation, had that minister tried and 
 executed; while the late king’s sister, Ulrica Eleanora, was raised to 
 the throne, but compelled to renounce its absolute prerogatives as well 
 as the hereditary right of succession. Treaties of peace were at the 
 same time set on foot: in 1719 the duchies of Bremen and Yerden were 
 ceded to Hanover, in consideration of one million of rix-dollars ; a 
 similar payment of two millions secured Pomerania-Anterior to Prussia, 
 1720; Denmark agreed to restore some of her conquests on receiving a 
 pecuniary compensation, and retaining her right to the Sound dues, 
 Augustus was acknowledged the legitimate sovereign of Poland, to the 
 exclusion of Stanislaus; while Russia, after some renewed military 
 operations extremely disastrous to Sweden, signed a peace at Nystadt, 
 1721, by which she obtained Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Yiborg, and 
 part of Carelia, but agreed to resign Finland, and pay two millions of 
 rix-dollars. 
 
 Previously to the conclusion of these pacific measures, the queen had 
 resolved on having her husband, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, associated 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 465 
 
 with her in the sovereignty; and in May 1720 the royal authority, 
 greatly limited, was intrusted to him with consent of the diet. The 
 king, nevertheless, was able to exert himself successfully for the re¬ 
 establishment of order and prosperity; abuses were investigated, com¬ 
 merce restored, mines and manufactures encouraged, the treasury was 
 replenished, the country placed anew in a competent state of defence, 
 and in 1731 a trading company to the East Indies was established. 
 But the seeds of disunion had been sown in the very liberal constitution 
 lately formed ; and on the meeting of the diet in 1738, two factions 
 appeared, known by the fantastic appellations of the Hats and Caps, who 
 mutually attacked each other with great bitterness. The latter party 
 were favourable to peace on any terms, and to the new order of things; 
 while the former, preferring the old system of government, exclaimed 
 against the late treaty with Russia; and these last, having gained a 
 considerable majority, succeeded in provoking a rupture with the court 
 of St. Petersburg, 1741. The event soon proved the folly of this new 
 contest: various bloody engagements took place in Finland; in almost 
 every one of which the enemy proved victorious; and in 1743, it was 
 terminated by the peace of Abo, the Swedes consenting to nominate 
 Adolphus Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, a relative of the Russian em¬ 
 press, as the successor of their sovereign. 
 
 The prince just named distinguished his accession to the throne by 
 various useful measures, 1751 ; but he was much disturbed by the dis¬ 
 putes of the rival Hat and Cap factions. In 1757, he was led to take 
 part against Prussia in the seven years’ war, a contest in which the 
 Sw T edes were exposed to many reverses, and which ended little to their 
 advantage. He was succeeded in 1771 by his son Gustavus III., who 
 at length, gaining the attachment of the citizens, peasantry, and clergy, 
 succeeded in overawing the imperious council of state by means of the 
 military force; and in 1772, a new constitution was introduced, vesting 
 the legislative power in the states, but limited to such measures only as 
 originated w T ith the crown. This revolution, however, was far from 
 settling the disputes of the nation, or firmly establishing the royal 
 authority; so that, in 1788, on the king engaging in hostilities against 
 Russia, the officers of his army refused to act, on the plea that he was 
 not authorized to declare offensive war. This question having been 
 settled in 1789, by a resolution of the diet investing the sovereign with 
 discretionary power in this respect, the contest continued to be prose¬ 
 cuted; and in 1790, his fleet gained a splendid victory over the Russians 
 near Svenkasund, forty-two ships being either taken or destroyed, an 
 event which led to a peace in the same year. Gustavus afterwards be¬ 
 came a party to the views of the convention of Pilnitz, 1791, intending 
 to lead a northern army into France, when his career was cut short by 
 a conspiracy of the discontented nobles, who procured his assassination 
 at a masked ball, 1792. He w^as succeeded by his son Gustavus IV., 
 under the regency of the Duke of Sudermania. 
 
 POLAND. 
 
 On the death of John Sobieski, the Polish crown became an object 
 of contention among various candidates ; but bribery and force at length 
 decided the election in favour of Augustus II,, elector of Saxony, 1697, 
 
466 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 who, by the peace of Carlowitz, two years after, gained some valuable 
 territorial cessions from the Turks. In 1700, he joined Russia and 
 Denmark in a league against Charles XII.; but the war which followed, 
 already noticed under Sweden, instead of securing his ambitious designs, 
 exposed his kingdom to invasion, and he was hirnseif forced to abdicate 
 in favour of Stanislaus Leczinski, 1707. The battle of Pultowa, how¬ 
 ever, and the overthrow of the Swedish power, 1709, enabled him to 
 displace Stanislaus and recover his position; but the country had, as 
 usual, suffered severely in these struggles, and its miseries were greatly 
 aggravated by his repeated efforts to obtain absolute authority, and the 
 unsparing persecution which he directed against the dissenters from the 
 Catholic faith. On his death in 1733, the electorate of Saxony fell to 
 his son Augustus III., who on this ground had also strong pretensions 
 to the crown of Poland; and though the people in general declared for 
 Stanislaus, who was supported by France, the armies of Russia enabled 
 him to make good his claims, which were finally recognised by the diet 
 in 1736. Instigated by his minister, Count Bruhl, the king took part in 
 the various contests then agitating Germany, sometimes siding with one 
 party and sometimes with another; while the nation, gradually falling 
 under Russian influence, lost the respect of surrounding states, and be¬ 
 came a prey to all the evils of internal anarchy. 
 
 On the death of Augustus in 1763, the diet, assembled at Warsaw to 
 choose a successor, exhibited a disgraceful scene of contention; Cathe¬ 
 rine, on pretence of preserving the peace, sent a body of troops into the 
 country; and next year Stanislaus Poniatowski, the candidate whom 
 she favoured, was of course elected. At this time, chiefly through the 
 efforts of two brothers, the Princes Czartoriski, who desired a more 
 stable government, the executive power of the monarch was somewhat 
 strengthened, while the excessive privileges of the nobles were restricted; 
 but Catherine, who had no intention of aiding in the improvement of 
 Poland, soon exerted herself to nullify the effect of these measures. 
 Animosities broke out between the Catholic party and that of the dis¬ 
 sidents, who demanded an equality of rights; the latter received the 
 support of the czarina and the King of Prussia; and in the diet of 1768, 
 in addition to the equitable law of replacing all Christian sects upon an 
 equal footing, various regulations were adopted tending to weaken the 
 government, while the acceptance of a Russian guarantee declared that 
 state of things immutable. These proceedings, and disgust at the 
 foreign domination under which the country had fallen, led to a con¬ 
 federation of the Catholic party, headed by the Bishop of Kamienetz; 
 and a civil war, combined with one against the Russian intruders, 
 agitated the unhappy country. The confederation, ill supported, and 
 without regular troops, struggled hopelessly some years against the 
 foreign armies; while the Ottomans, who had taken the field in favour 
 of Poland, after in vain representing to the cabinets of Europe the 
 dangers of Russian predominance in that country, were defeated in 
 several battles. 
 
 The Three Partitions. —The time had now arrived for the execu¬ 
 tion of a project first conceived by Frederick of Prussia, — the tran¬ 
 quillizing of Poland by its dismemberment. Accordingly, in 177*2, a 
 scheme of partition was agreed on between him, Catherine, and Maria 
 Theresa; some ridiculous old claims were revived; the king and people, 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 467 
 
 overawed by irresistible force, in vain appealed to justice, for me remain 
 ing powers of Europe were not in a condition to interfere. By this 
 measure, a third part of the country was divided among these imperial 
 robbers : Austria obtained Galicia and Lodomiria; Russia, the territories 
 between the Dwina, the Dnieper, and the Drutsc-h; and Frederick, the 
 whole of Polish Prussia, except Dantzic and Thorn, together with the 
 district of the Netze. A diet was called to sanction the final disruption 
 of their country ; and, coerced by foreign armies and bribed by foreign 
 gold, a majority of voices was found to sanction this achievement of 
 fraud and violence. 
 
 This great calamity had some effect in arousing the nation, which 
 now sought to compensate its heavy loss by internal improvements. 
 The king, though left with little beyond the mere shadow of authority, 
 seconded by several distinguished individuals, earnestly strove to ame¬ 
 liorate the condition of the country: an excellent system of education 
 was introduced, literature received encouragement, and industry revived. 
 The diet, having assembled in 1788, declared itself permanent, and con¬ 
 tinued till 1791, when it proclaimed a new constitution, which abolished 
 the re/o, made the crown hereditary in the Saxon family on the decease 
 of the reigning monarch, and introduced some useful regulations. But 
 a fatal error was committed in neglecting to organize a national force 
 capable of protecting the new arrangements; and Russia, which had 
 guaranteed the former state of things, gave her aid to a confederation of 
 factious nobles at Taro-ovitza, in order to restore them. A civil war 
 followed, in which the king himself at length deserted to the enemy; 
 while the Prussian monarch, though he had encouraged the patriots to 
 frame the new constitution, joined the Russians in an invasion of the 
 country. The consequence was a second partition of the Polish terri¬ 
 tory, 1793. by which Russia gained 85,000 square miles, and Prussia 
 21,000, together with the towns of Dantzic and Thorn. 
 
 The wretched remnant of Poland, amounting to only 85,000 square 
 miles, now became a mere Russian dependency. The confederates of 
 Targovitza, to whose treason this second dismemberment was owinor, 
 encouraged by the presence of Russian troops, persecuted the patriots in 
 every possible manner, and many of the chief persons among them were 
 driven into exile. But these adverse circumstances had not yet quelled 
 the national spirit; insurrections broke out in many places, and an ex¬ 
 tensive conspiracy was finally organized. In 1794, Kosciusko, who 
 had gone abroad at the time of the first partition, returned, and placing 
 himself at the head of a body of peasants rudely armed, took possession 
 of Cracow, and soon after put to flight a superior number of enemies; 
 the people of Warsaw, then occupied by a strong Russian force, expelled 
 their oppressors, after a bloody contest; and their example was followed 
 by the inhabitants of Wilna. The hopes of the patriots were not a little 
 animated by the King of Prussia’s failure before the capital; but their 
 preservation was connected with one man, and his destiny decided 
 theirs. Kosciusko was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner by the 
 Russians; Praga, a principal suburb, was stormed by Suwarrow, and 
 all the inhabitants put to the sword. Finally, Warsaw itself capitulated ; 
 and, in 1795, the remainder of the ill-fated country was divided by 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria; while the king, deprived of the regal 
 title, subsisted at St. Petersburg upon a pension. Thus, while protest- 
 
468 
 
 MODERN HISTORY, 
 
 mg against the horrors of the French revolution, the ye royal spoilers 
 perpetrated the most barefaced act of injustice recorded in modern 
 history, after having by the vilest intrigues fomented, if they did not 
 actually produce, those very disorders which were made the pretext for 
 their aggressions. 
 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 The original nucleus of this great and prosperous country was the province 
 of Brandenburg, a district first inhabited by the Suevi, and subsequently, on 
 the southern migrations of that tribe, by a race of Sclavonic or Vandal origin. 
 Under Charlemagne and his successors, the provinces on the outskirts of the 
 empire, called marks or marches , were administered by governors, who were at 
 the same time supreme judges or grafs, whence they derived their title of 
 margrave (march-graf); and these dignities, at first held for life only, ultimately 
 became hereditary fiefs. Between 1230 and 1283, the district of Prussia Pro¬ 
 per was conquered ,by the 'Teutonic Knights, an order of military monks 
 resembling that of Malta; various adjacent territories subsequently fell under 
 their sway ; but in the end. after a long series of contests, they became feu¬ 
 dally subject to Poland. Brandenburg, meanwhile, under successive rulers, 
 made some figure among the smaller German principalities; till at length 
 Frederick, burgrave of Nuremberg and count of Hohenzollern, obtained from 
 the Emperor Sigismund the dignity of hereditary elector, 1411, and gave rise 
 to a race of princes to whose talents and wisdom the country owes the high 
 rank it has since attained among European sovereignties. In 1525, under the 
 Elector Albert, who was also grandmaster of the 'Teutonic knights, the lands 
 of the order were secularized, and the Lutheran faith introduced ; when Prussia 
 became a hereditary ducal fief in his family, dependent on the Polish crown. 
 The true foundations of Prussian greatness, however, were laid by Frederick- 
 William, the great elector, 1640, whose energetic, just, and patriotic adminis¬ 
 tration, and the ability with whic^he conducted himself in the northern wars 
 of the period, enabled him to strengthen and consolidate his dominions, and 
 eventually, in 1660, to become an independent prince. By the revocation of 
 the edict of Nantes and other religious persecutions of the period, he received 
 a large accession of intelligent and industrious subjects; and at his death in 
 1688, he left the country greatly augmented in wealth, power, and extent. 
 
 The son of Frederick-William continued some years to administer 
 the government by the simple title of elector ; but, in 1701, on condition 
 of assisting the Emperor Leopold in the war of the Spanish succession, 
 he obtained formal permission to assume the regal crown as Frederick 
 I. On this occasion he founded the order of the Black Eagle; and his 
 armies were subsequently greatly distinguished at the battles of Turin 
 and Blenheim. He was succeeded in 1713 by his son, Frederick- 
 WTlliam I., who, by the peace of Utrecht, signed the same year, gained 
 Spanish Cuelderland, and the Swiss canton of Neuchatel. His atten¬ 
 tion was chiefly directed to financial reforms, as well as to the increase 
 and discipline of the military force; and, continuing to facilitate the 
 settlement of industrious foreigners, he erected various public buildings 
 and charitable institutions. In 1715, after the return of Charles XII. 
 from Turkey, he was compelled by the arrogance of that monarch to 
 join the northern league against Sweden ; and though the warlike opera¬ 
 tions presented no event of importance, Prussia again secured a con¬ 
 siderable accession of territory by the peace of 1720. At his death in 
 the year 1740, Frederick-William left 9.000,000 of dollars in the 
 treasury, a regular army of 70.000 men, and a territory containing about 
 46,000 square miles, with a population of 2,240,000. 
 
 Frederick II., surnamed the Great, and one of the most remarKable 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 469 
 
 men of his time, had received a military education in his father’s court, 
 which was one large camp, and imbibed from his tutor, M. Duhan, a 
 high relish for philosophical speculations. He ascended the throne at 
 the age of twenty-eight, shortly before the accession of Maria Theresa 
 to the Austrian dominions; and this event at once afforded him an op¬ 
 portunity of displaying his ambition and great talents for war. The 
 contest itself, known as that of the Austrian succession, has been no¬ 
 ticed under Germany ; it may therefore suffice to state, that during it 
 the king and his armies acquired a high degree of martial renown, and 
 its termination, so far as Prussia was concerned, by the peace of Dres¬ 
 den, 1745, left him in possession of the valuable province of Silesia. A 
 short time previously, his territories had been augmented by the district 
 of East Friesland, which fell to him on the death of the last count in 
 1743. For eleven years after this period, Frederick employed himself 
 with great activity in the administration of internal affairs, the organisa¬ 
 tion of his forces, and literary pursuits. Aided by his chancellor, 
 Cocceii, he framed a valuable body of laws for his dominions, known 
 as the “ Code of Frederickand, though engaged in various other 
 works, he found leisure to visit most parts of the country, endeavouring 
 to stimulate agriculture, arts, and manufactures. By great improvements 
 in the revenues, he was able to maintain 160,000 soldiers; while large 
 sums were expended on his palaces at Berlin and Potsdam, and in erect¬ 
 ing many splendid edifices in these two cities. 
 
 Seven Years’ War, 1756.—The king was soon summoned from these 
 peaceful pursuits to defend himself in a struggle threatening the very 
 existence of Prussia as an independent state. On the breaking out of 
 the colonial war between England and France, he was induced to enter 
 into a treaty with the former for the security of Hanover; while the in¬ 
 trigues of Louis and the jealousy of the emperor led to a secret alliance 
 between these powers, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony, having in view 
 nothing short of the partition of his dominions. This scheme speedily 
 came to the knowledge of Frederick, who at once entered the last named 
 country and made himself master of Dresden; and his progress to Bo¬ 
 hemia being opposed by the elector, he defeated him, and compelled the 
 beaten soldiers to enlist into his own army. In 1757, he advanced into 
 Bohemia, where he gained a signal victory near Prague over the Aus¬ 
 trians under Prince Charles of Lorraine and Count Browm ; that city 
 was immediately invested; but a fresh army under Marshal Daun de¬ 
 feated the Prussians in their turn at Kolin, and compelled them to retreat. 
 Meanwffiile, the French obliged the Duke of Cumberland to abandon 
 Hanover, the Russians and Swedes invaded Prussia from the north, and 
 a combined French and German army marched into Saxony. The 
 Prussian monarch immediately attacked this latter force, twice as 
 numerous as his own, at the village of Rosbach, and subjected it to a 
 complete and most disgraceful overthrow ; the Austrians, who had de¬ 
 feated the Prince of Bevern and taken Breslau, w T ere vanquished at 
 Lissa, and their conquest recovered ; the Russians were forced to retreat 
 for want of supplies ; the Sw r edes were driven under the walls of Stral- 
 sund; wffiile the Hanoverians rose against the French, and assembled a 
 large force under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick to aid the king. 
 
 These successes, and a British subsidy of £670,000, granted annually, 
 would have placed the affairs of Frederick in a favourable position, but 
 40 
 
470 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 for the inveterate enmity of the Empress Elizabeth. In 1758, the prin 
 cipal event was the sanguinary battle at Zorndorf, in which the Russians 
 were defeated, but with immense loss on both sides. Next year, Prince 
 Ferdinand repulsed the French at Minden, and saved Hanover; the 
 king himself, resolving to stop the progress of the combined Austrian 
 and Russian armies, attacked them at Kunersdorf, where he was defeat¬ 
 ed after a horrible carnage; but, by great military skill, he almost im¬ 
 mediately after forced them to act on the defensive. However, in 1760, 
 the enemy was able to enter Brandenburg and occupy Berlin, which 
 was only saved from plunder by paying a heavy contribution; but that 
 city being soon evacuated, Frederick again entered Saxony, and defeated 
 the Austrians under Daun at Torgau. Still, notwithstanding these suc¬ 
 cesses, his resources were melting away; and, in 1761, he was able to 
 do little more than watch the movements of the enemy from an intrench¬ 
 ed camp in Siles ; i. In these circumstances, the death of Elizabeth, in 
 the beginning of 1762, relieved him from his apparently desperate situa¬ 
 tion. Her successor, Peter III., who admired the heroic character of 
 Frederick, formed an alliance with him, which was subsequently con¬ 
 firmed by Catherine; and he was thereby enabled to maintain himself 
 successfully against Austria, while Prince Ferdinand in Westphalia, 
 and the English fleets at sea, completely prostrated the power of France. 
 Peace was finally concluded in 1763 : that between Prussia and Austria 
 was signed at Hubertsburg, and left matters in the same condition as 
 before. 
 
 The result of this sanguinary struggle, while it afforded an unavailing 
 lesson on the wickedness and impolicy of such conflicts, secured to 
 Prussia a decisive influence in European affairs; and the monarch now 
 seriously strove to repair the evils which the war had inflicted on his 
 dominions. The chief events of his foreign policy have been noticed 
 under Germany and Poland, the part taken in the first partition of the 
 latter country being the least defensible of his acts ; but it is at all events 
 gratifying to know that his internal administration secured for all his 
 subjects a rapid increase of prosperity. At his death in 1786, he left his 
 kingdom nearly doubled in extent, upwards of 10,000,000 sterling in the 
 treasury, and an army of 200,000 men. 
 
 Frederick was an avowed unbeliever in revelation, and made little secret 
 during his life of the contempt in which he held religious institutions. He 
 entertained a high admiration for Voltaire, with whom he maintained a close 
 intimacy ; and his own works, which are voluminous and respectable, were 
 composed in the French language, and deeply imbued with the sceptical philo¬ 
 sophy of which that writer is the great apostle. Being thus destitute of fixed 
 principles of action, his political and moral conduct was of course directed by 
 the expediency of the moment, his own pleasure and interest appearing to be 
 the ruling motives. Essentially a despot, but an intelligent and far-sighted one, 
 he defended his dominions with valour, because he felt he was fighting for him¬ 
 self ; and his successful efforts for their internal improvement seem to have 
 sprung in a great measure from a similar impulse. Nevertheless, he has been 
 regarded in Germany with admiration, nor can his own subjects be blamed for 
 the enthusiasm which associates with his memory the title of “ the Great.” 
 
 Frederick-William II. succeeded his uncle under very favourable 
 circumstances, and proved himself on the whole a respectable sovereign. 
 His chief public act, in addition to the share taken by him in the infa¬ 
 mous-partitions of Poland, was the crusade against the French republi- 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 471 
 
 cans, 1792, when fifty thousand men under the Duke of Brunswick were 
 sent to the frontiers of France; but the failure of this expedition led to a 
 peace in 1795. During this reign, the Margrave of Anspach and Baireuth * 
 resigned his territories to Prussia for an annuity of 500,000 florins. This 
 prince was succeeded in 1797 by his son, Frederick-William III., who 
 at the commencement of his reign endeavoured to maintain peace and 
 encourage industry and the arts. 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 The return of Peter from his foreign travels was hastened by an in¬ 
 surrection of the Strelitzes in Moscow, fomented by his sister Sophia;* 
 but it was suppressed before his arrival by a body of faithful troops 
 under General Gordon, and that turbulent corps was abolished by the 
 czar, who caused numbers of them to be executed. The most important 
 transaction in the reign of this monarch was the war undertaken with 
 Poland and Denmark against Sweden, which he began in 1700 by the 
 siege of Narva. Here the military inferiority of the Russians was con¬ 
 spicuously shown, 80,000 of them being totally defeated by 8000 Swedes; 
 but this overthrow only stimulated the genius of their sovereign, w T ho 
 immediately set about repairing the disaster, observing that the Swedes 
 would yet teach his soldiers to vanquish them. While Charles XII. 
 was occupied in Poland and Saxony, he made himself master of Ingria 
 and Carelia; in 1702, he took the town of Marienburg; and in the fol¬ 
 lowing year laid the foundations of St. Petersburg, which eventually 
 became the seat of the imperial government.! In the ensuing years he 
 overran Livonia and Esthonia; and at length, in 1709, the Swedish 
 king, having rashly marched into the Ukraine, sustained a total over¬ 
 throw at Pultowa, from an army led by Peter in person, and was forced 
 to seek an asylum in Turkey. 
 
 In 1696, the czar divorced his first wife, who had borne him one son, 
 Alexis; in 1711, he married his mistress, Catherine Alexina, a native 
 of Livonia, who had risen by a series of extraordinary adventures from 
 the very lowest rank. By this time the intrigues of Charles XII. had 
 procured a declaration of war against Russia on the part of the Porte; 
 and Peter led an army into Moldavia, which, encamping on the banks 
 of the Pruth, was surrounded by the enemy, and exposed to imminent 
 danger. From this perilous position he was relieved by the address of 
 his empress, who succeeded, unknown to him, in bribing the grand 
 vizier to agree to a negotiation, which was at once concluded by the 
 surrender of Azof to the Turks. Hostilities with Sweden now continued 
 to be prosecuted with great success, so that, by the end of 1713, that 
 country had been stripped of every position which could prove annoying 
 to the new metropolis of Russia. Subsequently, in the hope of obtain- 
 
 * This princess, who seems to have been of an ambitious disposition, had already 
 caused much annoyance to Peter, by attempting to obtain a share of the government 
 through her brother Ivan : she was now condemned to permanent seclusion. 
 
 t In 1713 the senate was removed from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and the czar’s sum¬ 
 mer and winter palaces were completed two years after. At one period no fewer than 
 40,000 men were employed in constructing dockyards, building ships, wharfs, and fortifi¬ 
 cations; every means was employed to direct trade into this new channel ; and, under 
 these favourable circumstances, the swampy banks of the Neva were speedily crowned 
 with the edifices of a great city, which has become an emporium-of vast commerce 
 and weajtn. 
 
472 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 ino- Mecklenburg, he dissolved the Northern League, and formed an 
 
 O O 7 O 7 
 
 alliance with Sweden ; but the contest being again renewed, was at 
 length terminated by the peace of Nystadt, 1721, which secured to him 
 the undisputed possession of all his conquests. The senate at this time 
 proclaimed Peter I. “ Emperor of all the Russias,” and conferred on him 
 the merited title of the Great. 
 
 The monarch now turned his undivided attention to the arts of peace. 
 He encouraged the manufacture of woollen and linen cloth, erected mills, 
 projected navigable canals, instituted hospitals, established uniformity 
 of weights and measures, and made every exertion to civilize the man¬ 
 ners of his subjects. These praiseworthy exertions were only partially 
 interrupted by an expedition conducted in person against Persia in 1723, 
 by which, in a single campaign, he acquired the provinces of Ghilan, 
 Mazanderan, and Astrabad. In the same year, he founded the Academy 
 of Sciences at St. Petersburg, caused Catherine to be crowmed, and 
 married his eldest daughter to the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. His death 
 took place on the 28th January 1725. 
 
 The character of Peter the Great, though displaying many inconsistencies, 
 was strongly marked with sound sense and clear judgment. That he some¬ 
 times suffered himself to be swayed by passion and prejudice, and exhibited 
 many of the failings common to the possessors of irresponsible power, cannot 
 be doubted ; but the former fault may be fairly attributed to his very defective 
 education, the latter was of course the result of his position. As to the signal 
 benefits he conferred on his hitherto barbarous empire, there can be but one 
 opinion. “ He gave a polish,” says Voltaire, “ to his people, and was himself 
 barbarous ; he taught them the art of war, which he himself had never learnt; 
 from the sight of a small boat on the river Moskva, he created a powerful fleet, 
 and became an active shipwright, sailor, pilot, and commander; he reformed 
 the manners, customs, and laws of the Russians, and lives in their memory as 
 the Father of his country .” 
 
 The prince Alexis had given great disquietude to his father by his 
 rebellious and dissolute conduct, and at length died in prison in 1718. 
 Prince Menzikof, who had risen from obscurity to be governor of St. 
 Petersburg, accordingly took the opportunity to proclaim Catherine as 
 the successor of her husband; and during her reign he possessed unlim¬ 
 ited authority. The empress, however, survived little more than two 
 years, and in 1727 was succeeded by Peter II., son of Alexis. The 
 short reign of this prince presents nothing remarkable, save the downfall 
 of Menzikof, who w’as arrested and sent to Siberia, where he died in 
 poverty, 1729. Next year, Anne, daughter of Ivan, the elder brother 
 of 1 •t.er the Great, was called to the throne, by the influence of a faction 
 among the nobles, headed by the Dolgoruki family, on signing an 
 agreement limiting the imperial authority ; but this document was imme¬ 
 diately cancelled by the advice of Chancellor Ostermann, the Dolgo- 
 rukis were exiled to Siberia, and the empress ruled with absolute power. 
 In this reign the Persian conquests of Peter were relinquished; but the 
 election to the Polish crown was decided, in 1733, by the interference 
 of a Russian army, and a war against the Porte, in alliance with Aus¬ 
 tria, amply avenged tie convention of the Pruth, Azof being recovered 
 1739. Anne died in the following year, leaving the throne to her grand¬ 
 nephew Ivan, a child two months old ; but this arrangement was speedily 
 set aside by the Russians, who proclaimed Elizabeth, daughter of Peter 
 I. by Catherine, 1740. At the end of three years, this princess acquired 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 473 
 
 part of Finland from Sweden; in 1747, she sent an army of 36,000 
 auxiliaries to the aid of Maria Theresa; her interference in the seven 
 years’ war has already been noticed. She died in 1762, regretted by her 
 subjects, to whom she was endeared by the mildness of her domestic 
 rule, and was succeeded by her nephew, Peter III., duke of Holstein 
 Gottorp. This prince had his choice of the crowns of Sweden and 
 Russia; he unfortunately preferred the latter, where several well-meant 
 but hasty innovations led to a conspiracy, fomented by his own consort 
 Catherine, by which he was deposed at the end of six months. He 
 died in prison a few days afterwards, as is believed by poison ; when 
 his widow was called to the throne by the unanimous voice of the army 
 and the people. % 
 
 The accession of this able and unscrupulous princess at once impressed 
 on the policy of her empire the aggressive character which it has ever 
 since retained. She immediately began a course of secret intrigue and 
 open interference in the affairs of Poland, which finally led to the parti¬ 
 tion of that country; while a war with the Porte, consequent on these 
 measures, 1768, secured some signal triumphs to her arms. A Russian 
 fleet now appeared for the first time in the Mediterranean, and defeated 
 the Turkish navy at Tchesme; the land forces, under Galliczin and 
 Romanzow, subdued Grim-Tartary, Moldavia, and Wallaehia; and at 
 length, by a peace in 1774, she procured large acquisitions, and com¬ 
 pelled her opponents to acknowledge the independence of the Crim- 
 Tartars. About this time the administration was placed on a new foot¬ 
 ing, by the division of the empire into forty-three governments, with 
 separate jurisdictions, and by the gradual promulgation of a new code 
 of laws ; the vast tracts of the interior were colonized, and about 200 
 towns built by Potemkin, who became supreme minister in 1770. In 
 1780, Catherine organized the famous Armed Neutrality of the northern 
 powers, to resist the right of search claimed by Great Britain ; the refusal 
 of that country to sanction the project of founding a new Greek empire 
 at Constantinople, on the ruins of Turkey, having, as is supposed, pro¬ 
 voked her indignation. At all events, she speedily renewed her 
 encroachments towards the east, Crim-Tartary being seized and incor¬ 
 porated with her dominions in 1784 ; and this appropriation, though 
 unopposed at the time, led eventually to a fresh contest, 1789, memora¬ 
 ble for the sanguinary triumphs of Potemkin and Suwarrow, the Em¬ 
 peror Joseph also taking part in it. Choczim, Oczakow, Bender, and 
 Ismail, were successively taken, with fearful slaughter; the peace of 
 Jassy. 1792, established the Dniester as the boundary of the two 
 states; while a short war with Gustavus of Sweden, who endeavoured 
 to produce a diversion in favour of the Porte, had been terminated two 
 years before without any territorial change. 
 
 During these contests,* the attention of the empress was always 
 steadily directed towards Poland, of which she had seized a portion in 
 1772; and now, freed from other enemies, she effected the second parti¬ 
 tion, 1793. The breaking out of the French Revolution produced a 
 change in her sentiments toward the cabinet of London, with which she 
 formed a commercial treaty ; but the contests of Western Europe had no 
 effect in retarding the grand aim of her policy, the final extinction of 
 Polish nationality, which was at length effected in 1795. She died in 
 the following vear 
 
 40 * 
 
474 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Paul I., 1796, after two years spent in various whimsical innovations, 
 joined zealously in the second grand coalition against France; and the 
 Russian forces, under Suwarrow and Korsakow, obtained a series of 
 brilliant triumphs in Italy and Switzerland during the campaign of 1799. 
 His capricious disposition, however, soon induced him to abandon the 
 cause of the allies, and conclude a peace with Bonaparte; and, in 1800, 
 he became head of a union which revived the Armed Neutrality of the 
 North, as before, in avowed hostility to England. 
 
 TURKEY. 
 
 The humiliating peace of Carlowitz, 1699, the conclusion of'a long 
 train of disasters, proved fatal to the authority of Mustapha II., who 
 was deposed by an insurrection of the janissaries, and his brother, 
 Aciimet III., succeeded to the unenviable dignity, 170*2. His reign 
 presents no event of importance till 1709, when he gave an asylum to 
 Charles XII., after the defeat at Pultowa; and subsequently, in a brief 
 campaign against Peter the Great, recovered Azof by the peace of the 
 Pruth, 1711. But a period of repose was at no time very desirable for 
 the Turkish sultans, who found in their own mutinous soldiers the 
 most formidable enemies of the throne. Accordingly, though no advan¬ 
 tage had been taken of Austria in the Spanish succession war, the first 
 opportunity was seized for a rupture with Venice, whose possession of 
 the Morea galled the pride of the Ottomans '; and, in 1715, that republic 
 was stripped of all the fortresses she held in the peninsula. This con¬ 
 quest provoked the interference of the Emperor Charles VI., as guaran¬ 
 tee of the treaty of Carlowitz, and precipitated another Hungarian war. 
 In 1716, the army of the sultan was defeated by Prince Eugene at Pe- 
 terwaradin, and Temeswar reduced; and in the following campaign, 
 another bloody overthrow before Belgrade was followed by the loss of 
 that important fortress. Alarmed at these reverses, the sultan sued for 
 peace, which was signed at Passarowitz, 1718; and by the terms then 
 agreed on, he was forced to confirm the conquests of Austria, but suc¬ 
 ceeded in retaining the Morea. Achmet now turned his eyes towards 
 Persia, then agitated by the troubles consequent on the Afghan usurpa 
 tion; and in 1727 he seized the districts of Georgia and Armenia 
 Some time after, however, Nadir, having defeated the Turkish forces in 
 several encounters, the unhappy prince shared the fate of so many of his 
 predecessors, being deposed and imprisoned in 1730. 
 
 Mahmoud I., nephew of the preceding ruler, was at first greatly 
 harassed by the leaders of the late insurrection, who, however, were even¬ 
 tually ensnared by his policy, and punished with death. The war with 
 Persia was prosecuted for some time with considerable success ; but the 
 death of his commander, Osman, at length turned the tide in favour of 
 the shah, who restored the original boundaries of the two countries 
 1736. This peace had been accelerated by the threatening attitude of 
 Russia, which speedily commenced hostilities by an irruption into the 
 Crimea; while the emperor, who at first offered his mediation, actuated 
 by a selfish policy, began an invasion on his own account. r f s his per¬ 
 fidious conduct was justly punished by several disastrous defeats, 
 Belgrade was taken, and the Danube and Saave became once more the 
 boundary of the two countries; while the Russians, though generally 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 475 
 
 successful, consented to surrender their conquests, demolish the fortress 
 of Azof, and relinquish all claim to navigate the Black Sea, 1739. 
 After a reign prosperous on the whole, Mahmoud died in 1745, and was 
 succeeded by his brother, Osman III., whose history is chiefly remark¬ 
 able for an attempt to poison his nephews, sons of the late sultan : two 
 of these princes fell victims to his jealousy ; Mustapha and Abdul-hamid 
 escaped only by the death of their uncle. 
 
 Mustapha III., 1757, aided by his able and enlightened vizier, Mo¬ 
 hammed Raghib, devoted the first ten years of his reign to the restora¬ 
 tion of order and energy in his domestic government. But the continued 
 encroachments of Catherine II., who paid no attention to the treaty of 
 1739, and her dangerous ascendency in Poland, at length compelled the 
 sultan to declare for war, and led to the disastrous contest of 1768. In 
 1774, Abdul-iiamid succeeded to the throne, and immediately afterwards 
 signed the peace of Kainardge, the most humiliating ever yet submitted 
 to by Turkey ; and, though the independence of the Crimea had been 
 guaranteed by this treaty, he was unable to prevent the appropriation of 
 that district by his ambitious neighbour, 1784. But continued insults 
 on the part of Catherine, who with the Emperor Joseph had formed the 
 design of dividing between them the Ottoman dominions, as they had 
 already partitioned those of Poland, again drove the sultan, in despair, 
 to take up arms, 1787. The Austrians, who assaulted Belgrade without 
 even the formality of a declaration of war, were repulsed on all sides, 
 and the vizier, entering the Bannat, spread consternation to the very 
 gates of Vienna. The Russians, however, were more successful; the 
 Ottoman fleet was destroyed in the Dnieper, while Potemkin reduced 
 the fortress of Oczakow, and barbarously massacred the garrison and 
 inhabitants, 1788. Next year, Abdul-hamid was succeeded by his 
 nephew, Selim III., who, regardless of the hazardous position of his 
 empire, began his reign by a career of the most thoughtless folly and 
 dissolute extravagance. The Austrian and Russian armies, under Co- 
 bourg and Suwarrow, having effected a junction, met the Turkish forces 
 on the plains of Rimnik, and defeated them with great slaughter and the 
 loss of their artillery and baggage. The Austrians then diverged into 
 Wallachia, and captured Bucharest, while Suwarrow, having received 
 the submission of Bender, laid siege to the strong town of Ismail. In 
 December 1790, the place was carried by storm, and the garrison of 
 40,000 men put to the sword; while the fortress of Belgrade shortly 
 after surrendered to Marshal Laudon, thus leaving Nissa as the only 
 barrier of the Turkish capital. At this juncture, when the Ottoman 
 power in Europe seemed on the point of being annihilated, the insurrec¬ 
 tions in Hungary and the Low Countries, and the jealousy of the other 
 powers, alone saved it from utter ruin. By the mediation of England, 
 Holland, and Prussia, the emperor was compelled to sign a separate 
 treaty with the Porte, resigning all his conquests, 1791; while Catherine, 
 after another sanguinary campaign, yielding to the same solicitations, 
 confirmed by the peace of Jassy the former treaty of 1774, retaining 
 merely the fortress of Oczakow. 
 
 This dangerous war, though terminated with little territorial loss, had shaken 
 the internal organisation of the empire to its centre. The janissaries, at one 
 time the most efficient troops in the world, had long been retrograding, and 
 were now little better than a disorderly crowd ; and while these disturbed the 
 
476 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 capital with tumults and insurrections, the provinces set at nought the authority 
 of the sultan. Ali Bey had assumed in Egypt the rank of an independent 
 sovereign, and his example was followed by Ali Pacha of Janina; Paswan 
 Oglou had raised the standard of rebellion at Widin; the Servians were in 
 arms; and Arabia was possessed by the fanatical sect of the Wahabees. In 
 these alarming circumstances, the sultan at length, shaking off his early vices, 
 displayed the possession of considerable talents, Joined with great prudence and 
 humanity. Keeping aloof from the struggles of Europe consequent on the 
 French revolution, he endeavoured to introduce some degree of order into his 
 government, and raised a force disciplined on the modern plan, preparatory to 
 an entire remodelling of the army. These troops were afterwards greatly dis¬ 
 tinguished in the defence of Acre, during the unjustifiable invasion of Egypt 
 under Napoleon; an event which compelled the Porte to unite with England 
 and Russia against France, 1798. 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 The reign of the Afghan usurper, Mahmoud, was at first distinguished 
 by an ability and moderation commendable in a conqueror; but he sub¬ 
 sequently disgraced himself by ferocious cruelty, and died insane in 
 1725. His position was far from being an easy one ; for, while Prince 
 Tam asp, son of Hussein, held out in Armenia, Russia and the Porte had 
 formed the design of seizing the provinces adjoining their frontiers ; and 
 hence, in 1723, he actually ceded the Caspian provinces to Russia, in 
 return for a promise of aid which was never fulfilled. His successor, 
 Ashraff, in order to get himself recognised sovereign of Persia by the 
 Porte, permitted Achmet to seize on various provinces, 1727; but 
 Tamasp was now supported by Nadir Kouli, who from a Turkoman 
 shepherd had, by the force of his character, risen to power and import¬ 
 ance. In spite of desperate efforts in the field, and frightful massacres 
 of the disaffected citizens, the fortune.of war turned against the Afghan 
 monarch, who was finally slain, and his adherents driven out of the coun¬ 
 try, in 1730. All real power, however, lay in the hands of Nadir, who 
 received from the shah the government of the four finest provinces of 
 the empire. He turned his arms successfully against the Turks; but, 
 while he was absent in Khorassan, Tamasp imprudently encountered 
 them, was defeated, and forced to conclude an ignominious peace. 
 Nadir, inveighing against this national disgrace, dethroned the unhappy 
 prince, elevating his infant son, Abbas III., in whose name he governed 
 as regent, 1732; and, after expelling the Turks from their conquests, 
 concluded a treaty in 1736, re-establishing the ancient frontiers of 
 Persia, while the districts ceded to Russia were recovered by negotia¬ 
 tion. The infant prince died the same year, whereupon Nadir formally 
 declared the Sophi dynasty at an end, and himself assumed the diadem 
 by the title of Nadir Shah. 
 
 This extraordinary man, by the sheer force of natural ability, raised 
 Persia for some time to a higher degree of influence than she had pos¬ 
 sessed even in the reign of Abbas. Great part of Afghanistan yielded to 
 his arms; and, in 1739, offended at a breach of friendship by the Mogul, 
 he led an immense army into India. One great victory near Delhi, 
 1739, laid the power of the descendant of Timour at his feet; that city 
 was taken, and upwards of £30,000,000 sterling of booty, with the 
 annexation of all the territory west of the Indus, rewarded the enterprise 
 of Nadir, who is said to have committed fewer crimes on this occasion 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 477 
 
 than almost any other Asiatic invader. He next year reduced the Us« 
 beck princes of Khiva and Bokhara; while a second war with the 
 Porte, 1743, after several signal victories, terminated to the advantage 
 of Persia. But his native ferocity, having no longer foreign enemies on 
 whom it might exercise itself, now broke out uncontrolled, and for the 
 remainder of his life he perpetrated the most frightful tyranny; he 
 blinded his brave son, Riza Kouli, massacred his subjects by thousands, 
 and was at length assassinated by his own officers, 1747. 
 
 The death of Nadir became the signal for a scene of anarchy and con¬ 
 fusion : the Usbecks threw off the yoke, and Afghanistan became an 
 independent and powerful kingdom; while the crown of Persia itself 
 was disputed by various rival chiefs. At length all other claimants 
 were forced to yield to the ability and merit of Kereem Khan, head of 
 the native family of Zend, who, in 1759, assumed the government by 
 the title of administrator , refusing the insignia of royalty. The rule of 
 this excellent man, who occupied the throne twenty-six years, was 
 characterized by a high degree of justice, clemency, and moderation; 
 he repressed the depredations of the Turkoman tribes, which in the 
 time of Nadir had overspread Persia, and concluded advantageously a 
 short war with the Porte. But his death, in 1779, gave rise to new 
 troubles; and during ten years six different chiefs, his brothers and 
 nephews, ascended or claimed the throne, while Russia took advantage 
 of the turmoil to encroach on the northern frontier. At length, in 1789, 
 the supreme power remained in the hands of Lootf Ali Khan, a brave 
 though cruel prince, who maintained his position till 1795, when he 
 was overpowered and put to death by his rival, Aga Mohammed Khan, 
 chief of the Kajirs, a Turkish tribe settled in Mazanderan by Abbas the 
 Great. By a vigorous though sanguinary administration, this monarch 
 succeeded in consolidating his authority; and having fixed his capital 
 in Teheran, he reduced the revolted Georgians with the most ruthless 
 severity. His cruelties, however, speedily provoked his own attendants 
 to assassinate him, and he was succeeded by his nephew, Shah Futteh 
 Ali, 1797, the early part of whose reign was chiefly distinguished by 
 the rival intrigues of France and England in reference to India. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 Fall of the Mogul Empire.— The temporary impulse which the 
 vigorous administration of Aurengzebe had communicated to the empire 
 of Delhi, ceased at once on his death; and during the reign of his son, 
 Shah Aulum, 1707, enemies arose on every side. The Mahrattas widely 
 extended their conquests; the Rajpoot princes, who had never been 
 effectually subdued, again asserted their independence; while the pro¬ 
 vinces of Delhi and Lahore, the very centre of his power, were convulsed 
 by contests with the warlike sect of the Sikhs, who, by declaring the 
 abolition of castes, had rapidly increased'in importance. At his demise 
 in 1712, each of his four sons contended for the succession, which, after 
 a short but sanguinary struggle, at length fell to the eldest, who became 
 emperor by the title of Jehandar Shah. This prince, abandoning him¬ 
 self to a career of low profligacy, was found altogether incapable of 
 ruling; while among the nobles bold spirits were not wanting, ready to 
 avail themselves of the opportunity of advancement thus afforded. Two 
 
478 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 brothers, in particular, Abdoola and Hussein, who boasted the high rank 
 of Syeds or descendants of the Prophet, had the address to procure his 
 dethronement in the course of a few months; and for seven years they 
 actually administered the government, setting up during that period no 
 less than four successive emperors. The last of these, Mohammed Shah, 
 a grandson of Shah Aulum, was raised to the throne in 17*20, and suc¬ 
 ceeded in ridding himself of these dictators by means of assassination; 
 but he was no sooner in uncontrolled possession of the sovereign autho¬ 
 rity, than he displayed that incapacity which seemed now to have be¬ 
 come inherent in the Mogul race. In consequence, the Deccan became 
 virtually independent under the viceroyalty of Nizam-ul-Mulk, while a 
 considerable portion of the northern provinces was seized by the Rohillas, 
 an Afghan people, who established themselves in part of the district 
 afterwards known as Rohilcund. But the greatest misfortune of this 
 reign, and which in fact consummated the downfal of the empire, was 
 the invasion of Nadir Shah. That powerful prince, having sent an em¬ 
 bassy to demand the surrender of several Persian fugitives, the envoy 
 and his suite were murdered by the inhabitants of Jellalabad; and Mo¬ 
 hammed, by the advice of his arrogant courtiers, refused to grant satis¬ 
 faction for the outrage. Nadir, then victorious in Afghanistan, imme¬ 
 diately turned his arms against Delhi, 1739 ; the Mogul forces were 
 defeated, and the wealth of centuries, to the amount of more than 
 dB30,000,000 sterling, besides the provinces west of the Indus, became 
 the prey of the victor. 
 
 Satisfied with the booty and acquisitions he had obtained, the Persian 
 monarch reinstated Mohammed on the throne; and in 1747 that prince 
 was succeeded by his son Ahmed Shah. During his reign, which lasted 
 six years, the dissolution of the empire may be said to have taken place. 
 The northern and north-western provinces were seized by the Afghans 
 and the Sikhs, and the Rajpoots extended their territory as far as 
 Ajmere. Ghazee-ud-dien, grandson to Nizam-ul-Mulk, having now be¬ 
 come vizier, deposed Ahmed in 1753, and raised Aulumgire, a son of 
 Jehandar Shah, to the now merely nominal dignity of emperor. A 
 period of unparalleled intrigue and disorder now took place, during 
 which Delhi was exposed to an assault by the Afghans, surpassing in 
 its horrors that under Nadir; und in 1759, Ghazee caused Aulumgire to 
 be assassinated, and attempted, but unsuccessfully, to set up some new 
 pageant of royalty. Meantime, the restless Mahrattas extended their 
 conquests on every side, drove the Afghans from Moultan and Lahore, 
 and threatened to subjugate all India. On the one hand, the Moham¬ 
 medan powers united to arrest their progress, and were joined by Ahmed 
 Abdalla Shah, who had become Sultan of Afghanistan on the death of 
 Nadir; while, on the other, the Hindoo states and Ghazee made com¬ 
 mon cause with the Mahrattas. This great contest was at length decided 
 on the plains of Panniput, northward of Delhi. The Mahrattas were 
 routed with great slaughter; but the victorious Afghans, contenting 
 themselves with the provinces west of the Indus already in their posses¬ 
 sion, bestowed the Mogul sovereignty on Shah Aulum II., 1761, who, 
 after many vicissitudes of fortune, became a pensioner of the East India 
 Company. 
 
 Rise and Progress of the British Power.—A t the close of the 
 seventeenth century, the three chief maritime nations of Europe, Eng- 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 479 
 
 land, France, and Holland, had obtained possession of various trading 
 settlements in India, and the wars of the west were now to be extended 
 to that distant region. The last of these countries, however, content 
 with their insular possessions, never obtained much territorial power on 
 the Asiatic continent; and the contest for supremacy was waged from 
 the beginning between the two others. These great rivals came into 
 collision on the breaking out of the succession war, when Labourdon- 
 nais, the French governor of Mauritius, led a squadron against the settle¬ 
 ment of Madras, and forced it to surrender, 1746; but it was again 
 restored, two years after, by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.* At this 
 time, Dupleix, who commanded at Pondicherry, having seen the real 
 weakness of the native powers, formed a grand plan for aggrandizing 
 the French East India Company. Accordingly, on the death of Nizam- 
 ul-Mulk, the powerful viceroy of the Deccan, 1748, he declared in favour 
 of one of the rival candidates, and succeeded, by his intrigues and the 
 aid of a strong body of troops, in raising his favourite, Mirzapha Jung, 
 to that dignity. The nabobship of the Carnatic, a subordinate govern¬ 
 ment in the same province, was obtained for his ally, Chunda Sahib, 
 1750; while his own countrymen were rewarded for their assistance 
 with large grants of territory, and indeed with the actual government of 
 these districts. Mohammed Ali, however, son of the late nabob, still 
 held the fortress of Trichinopoly, imploring the assistance of the Eng¬ 
 lish, who gave him some reinforcements; but the fortune of war still 
 continued against him, till at length the celebrated Clive, having ob¬ 
 tained a captain’s commission, undertook to make a diversion by an 
 attack from Madras upon Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. With a 
 small force he captured that city, and though Chunda Sahib besieged it 
 with a large army, repelled the assailants with amazing talent and 
 courage. Reinforced by Colonel Kirkpatrick, he pursued and defeated 
 the enemy on the plains of Ami; the Rajah of Tanjore and other princes 
 declared for Mohammed Ali; and Chunda and his allies were several 
 times discomfited. In 1754, Dupleix was recalled to Europe, and a 
 provisional treaty concluded between the English and French, who 
 mutually agreed to withdraw from all interference with the native 
 princes : Salabat Jung, the successor of Mirzapha, was left in possession 
 of the Deccan, while Mohammed Ali remained nabob of the Carnatic. 
 Both nations, however, now possessed a commanding position in 
 Southern India, and had contrived to secure considerable territorial ad¬ 
 vantages. 
 
 Meanwhile, the English factory at Calcutta, although subordinate to 
 Madras, had continued to make surprising advances in wealth and in¬ 
 fluence, and thereby provoked the jealousy of the native princes. 
 Surajah Dowlah, the subahdar of Bengal, a sanguinary tyrant, offended 
 at some supposed abuse by the English of their privileges, and more 
 especially by the protection of a nabob who had fled from his vengeance, 
 suddenly marched with 50,000 men against Calcutta, 1756. After an 
 ineffectual resistance, the governor and all but 200 of the garrison 
 escaped on shipboard; and these unfortunate persons, along with Mr. 
 Hoi well, who had taken the command, were speedily made prisoners, 
 and immured, by order of the subahdar, in a room not twenty feet 
 
 * The French were the first to train sepoys, or natives disciplined after the European 
 manner. 
 
480 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 square, during an intensely hot night in June. From this dreadful dun¬ 
 geon, long after known as the Black Hole , only twenty-four were taken 
 put alive in the morning. The affairs of the English in Bengal seemed 
 entirely ruined; but the position of the Company in Coromandel was 
 novV so much improved, that they were able to send Clive with a body 
 of roops to Calcutta. That town was immediately recovered, Hoogly 
 ri t tced, and Surajah obliged to grant peace on favourable terms. It has 
 been seen that the contests of the French and English in India were 
 carried on with little intermission even when the two kingdoms were at 
 peace in Europe; but the struggle of the seven years’ war had now 
 broken out, and gave new bitterness to their rivalry. The latter, there¬ 
 fore, in 1757, reduced Chandernagore, the principal settlement of their 
 antagonists in Bengal; while Clive aimed at further humbling the 
 subahdar, who, besides being backward in fulfilling the treaty, had set 
 on foot negotiations with the enemy. With this view, a secret agree¬ 
 ment was made with Meer Jaffier and others of his ministers, for his 
 dethronement, and for raising that chief himself to the musnud; while 
 the English colonel advanced at the head of a body of troops to seize 
 the important post of Plassey. The enemy, however, had already occu¬ 
 pied it with a force of nearly 70,000 men, while those of Clive amounted 
 only to 1000 Europeans and 2000 sepoys; yet he ventured to give battle, 
 and gained a complete victory. Jaffier was acknowledged subahdar; 
 Surajah was taken and put to death with the connivance of his successor, 
 who agreed to enlarge the territory of his allies, and pay them a sum of 
 nearly three millions sterling. 
 
 The war was now vigorously prosecuted between the two European 
 powers in the Carnatic, where Count Lally, the French commander, 
 being considerably reinforced from home, reduced Cuddalore and Fort 
 St. David, 1758. Next year he failed in an attack on Madras; while 
 the British, taking the field in earnest, gained several successes over 
 him, especially at Wandew'ash under Sir Eyre Coote. Finally, in the 
 beginning of 1761, the power of the French was utterly destroyed by 
 the reduction of Pondicherry; and, though this and other settlements 
 were restored by the treaty of Paris, 1763, their influence in India may 
 now be said to have ended. Meanwhile Meer Jaffier, being unable to 
 satisfy the demands of the English, had been deposed, and his son-in- 
 law, Cossim x41i Khan, elevated in his room, 1760. This prince was 
 found still more intractable than his predecessor, and soon incurred the 
 displeasure of his allies by attempting to limit their privileges as traders. 
 Recourse was speedily had to arms; the nabob was defeated and set 
 aside, and Jaffier anew placed on the throne, 1763. Sujah Dowlah, 
 subahdar of Oude, and the titular Mogul emperor, Aulum II., having 
 assisted Cossim, were next attacked and defeated by Major Munro at 
 Buxar, 1764, several fortresses at the same time falling into the hands 
 of the conquerors. The nabob was glad to purchase peace by defraying 
 the charges of the war; and, Jaffier having died, the emperor conferred 
 on the victors the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, as also a con¬ 
 firmation of the several districts conquered by them within the nominal 
 bounds of his empire. From this date, 1765, commences the recognised 
 sovereignty of the British in Hindostan. In the south, besides holding 
 the actual power throughout the Carnatic, they had received the Northern 
 Circars in grant from the Nizam, on condition of giving him their pro* 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 481 
 
 t 
 
 tection; but this alliance involved them in contests with Hyder Ali, a 
 skilful soldier, who had risen from obscurity to be sultan of Mysore. 
 
 The political importance acquired hy the East India Company 
 induced the cabinet to claim a share in the government of their territo- 
 rie ; and in 1773, it was determined in parliament that a supreme court 
 of judicature should be sent from England ; that the three presidencies, 
 Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, should be subject to a governor-general 
 and council, the former to be approved by the king; and that all civil 
 and military correspondence should be submitted to the ministry. Mr. 
 Hastings, the first who held this new authority in the East, found the 
 affairs of India greatly embarrassed, and a general confederation against 
 his countrymen in progress among the native powers. Notwithstanding 
 violent opposition in his council, he conducted affairs with great success. 
 The French, taking advantage of the breaking out of the American war, 
 had formed an alliance with the Mahrattas, the Nizam, and Hyder Ali. 
 They lost, however, their settlements of Chandernagore, Masulipatam, 
 and Pondicherry, 1778. Skilful negotiations weakened the enemy ; but 
 in 1780, Hyder burst into the Carnatic, ravaging everything before 
 him. While besieging Arcot, he defeated two armies within six miles 
 of each other, but was afterwards routed in a desperate battle by Sir 
 Eyre Coote at the head of 7000 men. In less than a month afterwards 
 he experienced another defeat, and had the misfortune to learn that his 
 fleet had been destroyed by Sir E. Hughes. After the death of his father 
 in 1782, Tippoo Saib continued the war with various success until the 
 peace of 1784. 
 
 Warren Hastings, over whose head a public impeachment now hung, 
 was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis, 1786. A dispute between Tippoo 
 Saib and the Rajah of Travancore, an ally of the English, soon rekin¬ 
 dled the flames of war, 1790. After some slight reverses, the strong 
 fortress of Bangalore was taken, and Seringapatam threatened w 7 ith a 
 siege. To preserve his capital, the sultan agreed to resign half his 
 dominions to the English, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas; to pay three 
 millions and a half sterling for the expenses of the contest; and to sur¬ 
 render his tw T o sons as hostages. 
 
 The pacific policy of Sir John Shore caused much dissatisfaction, and 
 converted the Nizam, an old and faithful ally of the English, into an 
 exasperated enemy. Tippoo did not fail to take advantage of this 
 unexpected course of events, and negotiated with the French directory 
 for succours, w T hile he strengthened his position by alliances w r ith the 
 native chiefs. Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquis of Wellesley, 
 wiio succeeded Shore, commenced hostilities, which w r ere rapidly termi¬ 
 ni d by the fall of Seringapatam and the death of the sultan, w 7 hose 
 iirji. . nse treasures became a prey to the victors; and the British 
 dominion was established more firmly than ever in India, 1799. A 
 considerable portion of the territory was restored to a descendant of its 
 ancient princes ; the remainder became the possession of the British and 
 their allies. 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 It has been seen that, during the course of the seventeenth century, the 
 richest and most fertile portions of North America were extensively colonized 
 by English settlers, who sought on those distant shores a larger amount of civil 
 
 41 
 
MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 4S2 
 
 and religious liberty than could be found in Europe. These settlements, there 
 fore, owed their establishment rather to private enterprise than to any active 
 interference on the part of government, charters of trade and occupancy being 
 obtained by various associations and individuals; and the states thus founded, 
 which at length amounted to thirteen in number, were in a great measure inde¬ 
 pendent of each other. The administration of the home government, however, 
 was gradually substituted for that of the various proprietaries under whom they 
 had ueen originally planted; the power of appointing governors being vested in 
 the crown, while the colonists possessed the right of electing their representative 
 legislatures. These liberal institutions, as well as the spirit of the people, 
 fostered the development of a strong disposition towards civil liberty ; while the 
 natural advantages of the country, and the gradual subjugation of the Dutch 
 and French settlements, secured a rapid increase of wealth and population. 
 Their principal value to the mother country consisted in the right of exclusive 
 commerce, which was willingly accorded by the colonists so long as her pro¬ 
 tection was found necessary to shield them from external enemies; but no 
 sooner had they outgrown this necessity, than the restrictions which it imposed 
 began to excite their opposition, while the government itself, instead of pru¬ 
 dently relaxing the strictness of its rule, decided rather upon an extension of 
 authority, and thereby gave rise to a contest which eventually led to the dis 
 memberment of the empire. 
 
 Under the head of Britain have already been noticed the various 
 attempts made by parliament to impose taxes on the colonists, and the 
 strong opposition which these excited on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 At length, in 1773, all these plans were abandoned, with the exception 
 of a merely nominal duty on tea, which could not be said to affect the 
 price ; and as it was never doubted that this impost would be tolerated, 
 large shipments of that article were made from the English ports. But 
 the Americans saw that the right of taxation still lurked under this con- 
 cession; and the approach of the vessels excited their resentment in a 
 manner altogether unlooked for. At New York and Philadelphia, the 
 cargoes were not allowed to be landed ; at Charleston, they were put 
 into stores and prohibited from being sold ; while at Boston a shipload 
 was seized by the mob and thrown into the sea. This act of violence 
 gave great offence, and led to the passing of an act in parliament closing 
 that port, and another abolishing the legislative assembly of Massachu¬ 
 setts. In reference to this latter measure, a congress of representatives 
 from all the states met at Philadelphia in September 1774, when they 
 expressed their sympathy with the disfranchised state, and, in a petition 
 to the king, asserted that the exclusive power, in all cases of taxation 
 and internal policy, lay of right with the provincial assemblies. The 
 same body also denounced other grievances, especially an act for trying 
 in England Americans accused of treasonable practices ; and while still 
 professing a desire for reconciliation, framed a covenant of non-inter¬ 
 course, by which the whole advantage of the colonies to the home 
 country, in a commercial point of view, was at once destroyed. Their 
 petition was not received ; the king and parliament resolved on strong 
 measures; and a civil war was the consequence. 
 
 The contest began at Lexington in the spring of 1775, by a a skirmish 
 between the British troops and the armed provincials for the possession 
 of certain magazines. At the same time, the deputies assembled at 
 Philadelphia, assuming the title of 44 Congress of the United Colonies 
 of North America,” resolved upon raising an army for the defence of 
 the country, and issued a paper currency for its payment. The first 
 4ttle was fought at Bunker’s Hill, near Boston, on the 17th June; and 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 483 
 
 though neither side could boast any decisive success, the royal troops 
 suffered severely, and the real advantage remained with their antago¬ 
 nists. George Washington, a gentleman of fortune in Virginia, who 
 had acquired considerable military reputation in the late colonial war 
 with France, now received from congress the command in chief of the 
 insurgent forces ; and though an expedition under General Montgomery 
 failed to make any impression on Canada, which remained faithful to 
 Britain, the government had the mortification to find, by the end of the 
 year, that no progress had been made in reducing the Americans. They 
 stiil continued to beleaguer the town of Boston, which the English, 
 under General Howe, to the number of 7000, were at length compelled 
 to evacuate and embark for Halifax, leaving a quantity of artillery and 
 stores behind them ; and, in March 1776, Washington entered the place 
 in triumph. 
 
 The congress now resolved on the decisive step of a declaration of 
 ndependence, which was issued on the 4th July of that year ; and they 
 at the same time established a federative union among the belligerent 
 colonies, assuming the title of “ The United States of America.” But 
 the slender forces of the new T republic were for some time hardly able 
 anywhere to face the numerous and well-appointed armies of Britain; 
 and nothing but the indomitable spirit of the people, and the courage 
 and ability of their leaders, could have compensated for the odds. They 
 lost New York and New Jersey, and congress was compelled to take 
 refuge in Maryland; while Howe defeated Washington, with a loss of 
 1200 men, near the Brandywine Creek, and took possession of Phila¬ 
 delphia, 1777. A signal success, on their part, however, made up for 
 these disasters. Lieutenant-general Burgoyne had been sent from 
 Canada with ten thousand men, for the purpose of making an attack on 
 the northen states ; and, advancing to join General Howe, for some 
 time drove the Americans before him, and captured Ticonderoga. But 
 at length he encountered such difficulties, and was so vigorously opposed 
 by Gates and Arnold, that, in October, after two severe actions, his 
 whole force was compelled to surrender at Saratoga. This decisive 
 event determined the French cabinet, who had long been -watching the 
 contest, to form an alliance with the States, 1778; while numbers of 
 their officers, including the celebrated La Fayette, entered the insurgent 
 army. General Clinton, now chief in command of the royal troops, 
 forthwith abandoned Philadelphia, and retired to New York; but an 
 attempt on Rhode Island, by the American general Sullivan and the 
 French admiral D’Estaing, proved a failure. At this period commis¬ 
 sioners were sent from England for the purpose of effecting a reconcilia¬ 
 tion ; but as the congress refused to treat on any other terms than a 
 recognition of independence, nothing could be effected. 
 
 In the year 1779, various naval engagements took place between the 
 British and French fleets, the latter now aided by that of Spain, which 
 proved very harassing to the ministry, and greatly distressed the trade 
 of the mother country. However, in 1780, the states of North and 
 South Carolina, which contained a large proportion of persons favoura¬ 
 ble to royalty, submitted to a British army under General Clinton, and 
 Gates sustained a severe check at Camden from Lord Cornwallis.* 
 
 *In this campaign occurred the defection of the American General Arnold, and the 
 detection and execution of the British Major Andre, by whom it was negotiated, as 
 a spy. 
 
484 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Next year, the greater part of the army in these southern states was 
 conducted northward by the latter, in the hope of making further con¬ 
 quests ; but General Greene, after greatly harassing the royal troops, 
 regained both the Oarolinas, while his lordship took up a position at 
 Yorktown in Virginia; At this time Washington was threatening a 
 force under Clinton at New York, and the latter tamely suffered him to 
 retire to the southward, and prepare to attack Cornwallis. In Septem¬ 
 ber, Yorktown was invested by this and other corps of Americans and 
 French ; and in three weeks, the British batteries being completely 
 silenced, the whole army was compelled to surrender. With this deci¬ 
 sive event, hostilities may be said to have terminated. In England, the 
 hopelessness of the contest had now become so apparent, that early in 
 1782 a motion was carried in parliament for its discontinuance. Provi¬ 
 sional articles of peace were accordingly signed at Paris in the month 
 of November; and in the ensuing February, a treaty was concluded, by 
 which the United States were acknowledged as 44 free, sovereign, and 
 independent.” All the European powers subsequently adhered to this 
 arrangement; while Washington, to whose unshaken constancy and 
 patriotism the success of the struggle had mainly been owing, resigned 
 his authority into the hands of congress, and retired into private life. 
 
 The American leaders now set themselves vigorously to perfect and 
 consolidate the independence which had been so gloriously achieved. 
 Great distress prevailed throughout the county, in consequence of the 
 long neglect of agriculture and commerce; a heavy debt lay on the 
 hands of government; and no small amount of discontent existed. These 
 difficulties were met by various salutary regulations; and in 1787, a 
 general convention met at Philadelphia, of which Washington was 
 chosen president, with the view of framing a constitution for the republic. 
 That body established the form of government which has since prevailed 
 in the country : the different states were united for the purpose of mutual 
 protection; the general legislative powers were confided to a congress, 
 consisting of a chamber of representatives chosen biennially, and a 
 senate elected every six years ; the executive was intrusted to a presi¬ 
 dent and vice-president chosen every four years; while each state, pos¬ 
 sessing a corresponding form of government, retained the management 
 of its own internal affairs. In 1789, Washington was inaugurated first 
 president of the United States, an honour which again devolved on him 
 in 1793; and he displayed throughout his term of office the same talent 
 and disinterestedness which had marked his military career. He wisely 
 abstained from all interference in the contests of the French revolution, 
 formed treaties of amity and commerce with Britain, Spain, and other 
 nations, and anxiously aided every scheme of internal improvement, so 
 that the country made extraordinary advances in wealth and population. 
 He finally resigned all public employment in 1796, and was succeeded 
 by Mr. Adams, one of his coadjutors in the war of independence. 
 
 HAYTI. 
 
 This island, the second in size and first in fertility of the West India group, 
 was discovered by Columbus in 1495, and received from him the name of His¬ 
 paniola ; it was subsequently settled by the Spaniards, who founded the towns 
 of Isabella and St. Domingo. The aboriginal inhabitants are believed to have 
 then amounted to nearly 1,000,000; but in consequence of the frightful cruelties 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 485 
 
 inflicted on them by their European masters, they were almost annihilated in 
 the course of twenty years, and during the next century their place was sup¬ 
 plied by vast importations of negro slaves. In 1665, the French obtained a 
 footing on the western coast, and in 1697 became possessors of nearly half the 
 island; and this colony, being regarded as the most valuable of their foreign 
 settlements, was cultivated with great care and success, so that its agricultural 
 produce, consisting principally of sugar, coffee, and cotton, was valued in 1789 
 at fully 8,000,000 sterling. The whole of this immense wealth, however, as in 
 the other West India Islands, was raised by the compulsory labour of the un¬ 
 happy Africans, who, after enduring the horrors of transportation to the island, 
 were forced there to lead a life of cheerless labour and suffering for the benefit 
 of their taskmasters. 
 
 The barbarities of the slave-trade had long excited the ineffectual in- 
 dignation of the humane in Western Europe; and in Denmark, France, 
 and England, societies were formed for the protection of the negroes. 
 In the last of these countries, so early as 1754, the Quaker body had 
 universally protested against the traffic; while, in 1785, public sympa¬ 
 thy was strongly awakened on the subject by the writings of the cele¬ 
 brated Clarkson. The philanthropists of France took a more decided 
 course. The Societe des Amis des Noirs , 1788, advocated the immediate 
 abolition of slavery itself; and by a decree of the Constituent Assembly, 
 1791, the privileges of equality were conferred indiscriminately on all 
 persons of colour born of free parents. Unfortunately, no precautions 
 were taken to ensure that this great measure should be carried into effect 
 in a peaceful and orderly manner; the whites of the colony were generally 
 opposed to it; and the consequence was, that so soon as the news ar¬ 
 rived, the mulattoes and negroes flew to arms, and massacred large 
 numbers of their former masters. The cruelties exercised on both sides 
 during this disastrous contest exceed anything recorded in history. The 
 Constituent Assembly, at once astonished and alarmed, in vain endea¬ 
 voured to retrace their steps: their delegates, backed by three thousand 
 men, fruitlessly strove to reconcile the discordant inhabitants of the 
 colony. The insurrection at last became universal; while the Legislative 
 Assembly, and after them the Convention, proclaimed the unlimited 
 freedom of the blacks, 1793. The furious civil war which next ensued 
 between the negroes and mulattoes, placed Toussaint L’Ouverture at 
 the head of affairs, 1800. In the next year an assembly of the leading 
 chiefs, convened at Cape Town, drew up a constitution, conferring on 
 him unlimited authority, under the title of president and governor for 
 life. These proceedings excited the jealousy of Napoleon, who sent 
 out an armament to recover the island. After an obstinate resistance, 
 Toussaint fell into the hands of the French, by whom he was conveyed 
 to Europe, where he was shamefully put to death. The blacks, how¬ 
 ever, rallied under John James Dessalines, who expelled the invaders, 
 and erected the western portion of the island, to which he gave the name 
 of Hayti, into an empire, assuming the government by the title of James 
 I. His despotism and cruelty having rendered him universally detested, 
 he was slain in an insurrection in 1806 ; and the country divided into 
 two states, the northern coast being formed into a negro community un¬ 
 der Christophe, who, in 1811, was proclaimed king, while the southern 
 plains became a mulatto republic under Petion. Continual war was 
 carried on between these two chiefs. After the death of the latter in 
 1818, he was succeeded as president of the commonwealth by Boyer; 
 
 41 * 
 
486 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 and Christophe having killed himself on the breaking out of an insur¬ 
 rection in 1820, the whole was united under his authority, which was 
 also extended over the Spanish portion of the island two years later. In 
 1825, an ordonnance was published by the King of France, in which 
 he formally recognised the independence of the island. Hayti has almost 
 ceased to be an exporting country ; but the population has nevertheless 
 rapidly increased, and exertions are made by the government to encou¬ 
 rage the settlement of whites and promote education. Though called a 
 republic, and ruled by a president, the government is properly a despot¬ 
 ism, the chief authority residing in the army. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The impiety which characterized the eighteenth century first chal¬ 
 lenged public attention under the regency of the Duke of Orleans, whose 
 palace became the resort of the freethinking wits of the day. In 1751, 
 De Trades, a priest, maintained at the Sorbonne a thesis which was re¬ 
 garded as the first public elfort of the sceptical philosophy. In the same 
 year were issued the first two volumes of the Diclionnaire Encyclopedique , 
 an immense compilation, which, according to the prospectus, was to be 
 a complete storehouse of human knowledge, instead of what it really is, 
 a magazine of irreligion. Voltaire was then in the full strength of his 
 varied genius, and by his sparkling yet natural style charmed all readers, 
 while he scattered the seeds of incredulity. The sophisms and idle 
 theories of Rousseau on education attracted the more serious; while 
 Diderot, D’Alembert, and other equally zealous disciples, supported 
 these chiefs of the philosophic school. Impiety became the fashion; it 
 pervaded the drawing-room and the theatre, and was above all predomi¬ 
 nant in the upper classes of society all over the Continent. 
 
 The suppression of the Jesuits, in what light soever we may view 
 the principles and practice of their society, is the first link in the great 
 chain of misfortunes that befell the Roman Catholic church during this 
 century. Clement XIV. long hesitated, and sought a thousand pretexts 
 for saving a religious body that counted 20,000 members, all devoted to 
 the supremacy of their spiritual head. This act, which was only adopted 
 at last (1773) as a means of reconciling the Roman Church with the 
 heads of the various Catholic states, became a signal for discord and 
 insurrection against the authority of the holy see. In Germany espe¬ 
 cially were the innovators most numerous, and the opinions of Febro- 
 nius (Von Hontheim), the apologist of the bishops against the Pope, 
 rapidly gained ground. Joseph II. substituted the normal for the eccle¬ 
 siastical schools, and, instead of the ancient chairs of theology, esta 
 blished seminaries independent of the bishops. A number of religious 
 houses were suppressed, and the others released from all obedience to 
 their superiors-general. It was, moreover, declared that the prelates 
 were no longer subject to the Pope. In Italy, also, Ricci, bishop of 
 Pistoia, adopted all the German innovations. 
 
 The death of Joseph restored peace between Germany and the Pope; 
 but the new irreligious doctrines were elsewhere destined to work out 
 their natural results. The men who had adopted them, and laboured in 
 their propagation, were raised to power in France, and the political his 
 tory of the Revolution has shown how far men will go in folly and 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 487 
 
 cnme, when unchecked by conscience and religious feeling. All the 
 established forms of worship were swept away, although, by a decree 
 of the representative body, the existence of a Supreme Being and the 
 immortality of the soul were finally acknowledged. The goddess of 
 Reason, under the form of a woman, was placed on the altars of the 
 living God, and received the homage of the insensate populace. 
 
 The Methodists.— This sect, which derives its name from the regu¬ 
 larity and strict method of its followers, was founded in Oxford by John 
 Wesley. It rapidly increased in numbers ; but its existence was shaken 
 in 1741 by the difference arising from the Arminianism of its author and 
 the Calvinism of Whitefield. About ten years after, the opposition be¬ 
 tween the Methodist preachers and the Anglican clergy led to a separa¬ 
 tion from the Establishment, though in 1788 the society was still eager 
 to proclaim its unity with the church in doctrine, and its reluctant differ¬ 
 ence on matters of discipline. Apart from the rash speculations of one 
 class, and the enthusiasm of both, there is much real piety and devo¬ 
 tion, which have greatly contributed to excite the exertions of the regular 
 clergy. We may imagine we see the visible hand of the Almighty 
 raising up this society as a new barrier against infidelity, when unbelief 
 was most abundant. 
 
 Consult: Lord Mahon’s History of England, chap. xix. 
 
 LITERATURE, ARTS, AND SCIENCES. 
 
 Great Britain. —The literature of the British islands during this century is 
 of great value and importance, and presents a vast number of successful 
 aspirants in every walk of inquiry or imagination. In poetry appear the names 
 of Prior, 1721, conspicuous for the graceful ease and vivacity of his productions ; 
 Young, 1765, author of the Night Thoughts , a work remarkable for the im¬ 
 pressive solemnity of its reflections; and Pope, 1744, who carried to the 
 highest perfection correctness of versification and splendour of diction, and 
 whose voluminous works are a treasury of keen wit and elegant satire. Thom¬ 
 son, 1748, is admired for the pastoral beauty of his Seasons ; Collins, 1756, for 
 his odes, particularly that on the Passions ; and Gray, 1771, for the exquisite 
 harmony of his elegies. The most natural poets of the period, however, were 
 Cowper, 1800, author of The Task, and Robert Burns, 1796, whose songs are 
 unrivalled for simplicity and real pathos. Steele, 1729, and Addison, 1719, 
 contributed to the drama; but their fame depends mainly on those remarkable 
 essays on men and manners published in the Tatler and Spectator, — a species 
 of writing of which they may be considered the founders. Vanbrugh, 1726, 
 and Congreve, 1728, cultivated comedy; Defoe, 1731, an extensive miscel¬ 
 laneous writer, wrote the favourite tale of Robinson Crusoe ; and Sterne, 1768, 
 is admired for the pathetic touches of his Sentimental Journey. As novel- 
 writers appear the distinguished names of Swift, 1745, Fielding, 1754, Richard¬ 
 son, 1761, and Smollett, 1771 ; while Goldsmith, 1774, whose Vicar of Wake¬ 
 field ranks him in the same walk, was also known as a poet and miscellaneous 
 writer. Philology received its most valuable contribution in the Dictionary of 
 the renowned Samuel Johnson, 1784, whose Lives of the Poets has procured 
 him a distinguished reputation in criticism and biography ; in history appeared 
 the great standard works of Hume, 1776, Robertson, 1793, and Gibbon, 1794; 
 Isaac Newton, 1719, perhaps the greatest man of his age, will ever be remem 
 bered in connexion with the theory of the planetary motions which bears his 
 name ; and Halley, 1742, has been justly celebrated in the same walk of 
 science. Butler, 1752, Sherlock, 1761, Warburton, 1779, Wesley, 1791, anc. 
 Paley, 1805, were conspicuous in theology ; and Blackstone, 1780, is well 
 known to constitutional writers by his valuable Commentaries on the Laws of 
 England. The science of political economy owes its origin to Adam Smith, 
 
488 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 1790, author of the Wealth of Nations; Hartley, 1757, and Reid, 1796, success¬ 
 fully cultivated metaphysics; Franklin, 1790, is highly esteemed as a writer 
 on economics, and for his electrical discoveries ; Priestley, 1804, attracted great 
 attention by his chemical investigations, and his writings on controversial 
 theology. In the fine arts may be selected the names of Hogarth, 1764, who 
 has been called “the painter of comedy;” Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1792, felicitous 
 in portraits, while his historical pieces are regarded as among the finest produc¬ 
 tions of the English school; and Gainsborough, 1788, the beauty of whose 
 landscapes has been generally admired. The manufacturing prosperity of 
 Britain received a signal impetus from the improvements effected in the steam- 
 engine by Watt, 1819, and the successive invention of the spinning-jenny, 
 spinning-frame, and power-loom, by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton. 
 
 France. —The eighteenth century in France, which the writers of the period 
 complacently regarded as the age of Philosophy, exhibits many striking fea¬ 
 tures. The character of this so-called philosophy was cold and heartless; and 
 its aim, while affecting to attack vulgar prejudices merely, seemed to be to cast 
 ridicule on the sublimest truths of religion, and by depriving man of all lofty 
 hopes and aspirations, to fix the sum of happiness in merely sensual indulgence. 
 The great personification and exponent of this era is Voltaire, 1778, a man 
 eminent in every walk of literature, and whose numerous works, notwithstand¬ 
 ing their sceptical character, still received a large tribute of admiration. The 
 same tendencies were in a nearly equal degree promoted by Rousseau, 1778, 
 whose celebrated work, Du Contrat Social, is believed to have hastened the 
 revolution. This philosophy was embodied in a systematic form in the cele¬ 
 brated Encycloptedia, published in 1751, of which the chief editors were Diderot, 
 1784, and D’Alembert, 1783, the latter also highly distinguished for his contri¬ 
 butions to mathematics and natural philosophy. Previously to these writers 
 appeared Le Sage, 1747, whose amusing novel of Gil Bias has been translated 
 into every European language. Marmontel, 1799, in the early chapters of 
 Belisarius, reminds us of Fenelon; in the Moral Tales he is more exposed to 
 censure. The period was strikingly deficient in poetical merit. A high place 
 among metaphysical writers is due to Condillac, 1780; and Montesquieu, 1755, 
 author of the Esprit des Lois , has the merit of making political science a 
 favourite study. Rollin, 1741, is celebrated for his Ancient History; De 
 Guignes, 1800, for a history of the Huns. Reaumur, 1757, an ingenious philo¬ 
 sophical naturalist, has associated his name with an important improvement in 
 the thermometer; Buffon, 1788, occupies the highest rank as a writer on 
 natural history ; Bonnet, 1793, and D’Aubenton, 1799, are well known in the 
 same path of research. The pneumatic system of chemistry owes its founda¬ 
 tion to Lavoisier, 1794; while mathematical and astronomical science present 
 the conspicuous names of Lalande, 1807, and La Grange, 1813. Among the 
 most eminent painters are enumerated Vernet, 1786, successful in marine sub¬ 
 jects; Vien, 1810, the restorer of the French school, and model of the great 
 masters by whom it is now illustrated; and Grenze, 1805, an elegant and 
 tasteful artist. 
 
 Italy. — Italian literature during this century assumed a higher degree of 
 vigour than it had displayed in the previous epoch. The comedies of Goldoni, 
 1772, effected a revolution in the stage; Metastasio, 1782, imparted poetical 
 vigour to the opera; and tragedy owes its creation to Alfieri, 1803. The 
 national historian, Muratori, 1750; Giannone, 1748, author of a history of 
 Naples; and Tiraboschi, 1794, who wrote the annals of Italian literature, 
 infused new vigour into their peculiar line of research. Political economy was 
 cultivated wdth success by Filangieri, 1798, and other able writers. Morgagni, 
 1771, is highly distinguished for his anatomical investigations ; astronomy pre¬ 
 sents the celebrated names of Cassini, 1756, and Boscovich, 1787. The in¬ 
 vestigations of natural history were successfully prosecuted by Spallanzani 
 1799; while the important discoveries of Galvani, 1798, and Volta, 1827, 
 raised electricity to the rank of a science. Italy, so long the nurse of the fine 
 arts, presented no longer that unquestionable ascendency she had formerly 
 maintained; but she still produced many respectable artists, among whom the 
 most distinguished were Lutti, 1724, and Battoni, 1786. 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 489 
 
 Spain and Portugal. —With the accession of the Bourbon family, the 
 literature of the peninsula began to be formed upon the modei of that of France. 
 Ignacio de Luzan, 1754, may be regarded as the founder of this new school, his 
 Art of Poetry having produced an important revolution ; the Portuguese writer, 
 Xavier de Meneses, 1743, author oi the Henriqueide, was also an esteemed 
 poet. A number of respectable historians appeared, among whom may be 
 mentioned. Ferreras, 1735, author of a history of Spain ; Velasques, 1772, who 
 wrote the annals of Castilian poetry ; and Munos, 1795 (?), celebrated for his 
 unfinished History of Spanish America. Feyjoo, 1765, who has been called 
 the Spanish Addison, is well known as a writer on ethics and criticism ; Ulloa, 
 1795. cultivated mathematics and various subjects of scientific investigation. 
 The natural history of the colonies attracted much attention at this period; 
 their zoology was attentively investigated by Felix d’Azara, also distinguished 
 as a traveller ; and i■ uiz and Pavon published valuable researches into the floral 
 productions of Peru. 
 
 Germany. —During this century Germany exhibited an extraordinary deve¬ 
 lopment of literary talent, offering a host of great men which it would be im¬ 
 possible even to enumerate. In imaginative writing appear the names of J. E. 
 Schlegel, 1759; Klopstock, 1803. the immortal author of the Alessiah ; Zim¬ 
 merman, 1795, whose work on Solitude has been extensively perused ; and 
 Wieland, 1813, successful alike in romance and poetry. Gothe, 1832, has been 
 regarded as a sort of divinity, and he is unquestionably the founder of modern 
 German literature ; hardly less admiration has been accorded to his illustrious 
 contemporary, Schiller, 1805, whose dramatic and historical works possess a 
 constantly increasing reputation. The profound metaphysical views of Kant, 
 1804. have created a wonderful sensation in Europe. Fabricius, 1736, was 
 renowned for his classical attainments; history has produced Struve, 1738; 
 Mosheim, 1755; and Schlozer, 1809. Gesner, 1761, and Ernesti, 1781, are 
 famed for their philological studies. Chemistry was cultivated by Stahl, 1734 ; 
 medicine by Hoffman, 1742, as also by the celebrated Swiss poet and physician, 
 Haller, 1777. The name of Fahrenheit, 1743, is well known in connexion 
 with the thermometer. Euler, 1783, rendered important services to mathe¬ 
 matical science ; Werner, 1817, has acquired a European reputation in refer¬ 
 ence to the comparatively new study of geology ; and Lavater, 1801, attracted 
 considerable attention by his fanciful work on physiognomy. The German 
 school of painting was illustrated by the splendid historical productions of 
 Mengs, 1779; it also presents many eminent landscape artists, among whom 
 may be mentioned Dietrich, 1774, and Gesner, 1788. The science of music 
 is perhaps mainly indebted to the composers of Germany. During this cen¬ 
 tury, she furnished the great names of Handel, 1759, Mozart, 1791, Haydn, 
 1809, Beethoven, 1807, and Weber, 1826. 
 
 Holland and the North. —Many eminent literary and scientific characters 
 at this time appeared in Holland, though her imaginative writers have attracted 
 less attention. Gronovius, 1716, celebrated for his classical attainments, wrote 
 an admired work on Greek Antiquities. A new theory of medicine was founded 
 by the illustrious Boerhaave, 1738, and further improved by Gaubius, 1780; 
 Van Swieten, 1772, prosecuted the same science. Among various distinguish¬ 
 ed philologists may be mentioned Schultens, 1750; Hoogeveen, 1794 ; and 
 Valckenaer, 1820. In Sweden appeared Dalin, 1763, an eminent historian and 
 poet; the renowned Linnaeus, 1778, whose sexual system of botany has been 
 generally adopted throughout Europe ; and Wallerius, 1785, known as an 
 mdustrious chemist and mineralogist. Denmark produced Holberg, 1754, 
 whose versatile talents were alternately turned to the drama, satire, and his¬ 
 tory ; Ewald, 1781, the greatest and most admired of modern northern poets ; 
 Suhm, 1798, author of a valuable history of Denmark ; and Pontoppidan, 1764, 
 celebrated for his natural history of Norway.. Pallas, 18x1, a native of Prussia, 
 is connected with Russian literature by his travels in the southern portions of 
 that empire, and his valuable contributions to its natural history. 
 
490 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Great Britain. —1801, Irish Union.—1802, Peace of Amiens.—1805, Victory 
 of Trafalgar.—1808, Peninsular War.—1810, Regency.—1812, War with 
 the United States. — 1814, Battle of Toulouse. — 1815, Waterloo. — 1820, 
 George IV. 
 
 France. — 1800, Marengo and Hohenlinden.— 1802, Peace of Amiens.— 1804, 
 Napoleon Emperor.— 1805, Austerlitz.— 1806, Jena.— Berlin Decrees.— 
 1807, Eylau.—Treaty of Tilsit.—Occupation of Portugal; Usurpation in 
 Spain.— 1809, Wagram. — 1810, Napoleon marries Maria Louisa.— 1812, 
 Russian Campaign.— 1813, Leipsic.— 1814, First Treaty of Paris.— 1815, 
 The Hundred Days; Waterloo.—Louis XVIII.; the Charter. 
 
 Spain. —1807, Treaty of Fontainebleau.—1808, Charles IV. abdicated.—Joseph 
 Bonaparte; Siege of Saragossa.—1813, Battle of Vittoria.—Ferdinand VII. 
 
 Portugal. —1807, French Invasion.—1808, Convention of Cintra.—1810, John 
 VI.—1821, Popular Constitution. 
 
 Italy. —1799, Parthenopean Republic.—1806, Joseph Bonaparte King of 
 Naples.—Battle of Maida.—1808, Murat King.—1812, Sicilian Constitution. 
 —1815, New federal Compact of Zurich. 
 
 Germany. —1805, Confederation of the Rhine.—1809, Battle of Aspern.— 
 Tyrolese War.—1815, Germanic League. 
 
 Holland. —1806, Louis Bonaparte King.—1810, Incorporation with France. 
 1815, William Frederick I. King of United Netherlands. 
 
 Denmark. —1801, Battle of the Baltic.—1807, Bombardment of Copenhagen. 
 1814, Cession of Norway to Sweden. 
 
 Sweden. —1809, Gustavus IV. deposed; Charles XIII.—1810, Bernadotte 
 Crown Prince.—1818, Charles XIV. 
 
 Prussia. —1797, Frederick III.—1806, Defeat at Jena.—1813, War with 
 France; Landsturm; Blucher. — Lutzen and Bautzen; Leipsic.—1814, 
 Restoration of Territories. 
 
 Russia. —1801, Paul I. assassinated; Alexander I.—1807, Friedland; Treaty 
 of Tilsit.—1809-1812, Turkish War.—1812, French Invasion; Burning of 
 Moscow.—1815, Kingdom of Poland. 
 
 Turkey. —1806, Insurrection of Janissaries; Mustapha IV.—Mahmoud II.—• 
 1812, Peace of Bucharest. 
 
 British India. —1803, Mahratta War; Battle of Assaye.—1813, Marquis of 
 Hastings ; Pindaree War.—1818, British paramount throughout India. 
 
 United States. —1801, Mr. Jefferson President.—1803, Purchase of Louisiana. 
 1812, War with Britain.—1814, Treaty of Ghent.—1817, Acquisition of 
 Florida. 
 
 Brazil. —1822, Declaration of Independence ; Don Pedro Emperor.—1824, 
 Constitution. 
 
 Spanish Colonies. —1810, Revolution in Caraccas.—1816, Buenos Ayres.— 
 1818, Chili.—1821, Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala.—1824, Victory of Aya* 
 cucho ; Final Expulsion of Spaniards. 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 491 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 The legislative union with Ireland, effected on the first day of the 
 present century, secured to that country most of the commercial privi¬ 
 leges which the people had long demanded : twenty-eight temporal and 
 four spiritual peers, with one hundred commoners, were admitted to the 
 British, now called the Imperial Parliament; while their proportion of 
 the public burdens was fixed by an equitable adjustment.* On the 
 Continent, the events of the campaign of 1800 were most unfavourable 
 to Austria; so that, in the beginning of next year, the emperor was com¬ 
 pelled to sign a peace at Luneville, by w T hich the French became masters 
 of all Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Adige. The Czar, 
 also, who had become a warm friend of Napoleon, seized upon all the 
 British vessels in his ports; while Denmark and Sw 7 eden appeared to 
 be on the point of joining him in a confederacy against England. In 
 these circumstances, Sir Hyde Parker w T as despatched w T ith an arma¬ 
 ment to the Baltic, under whom Nelson proved so successful against 
 the Danish fleet, as to reduce that country to a state of neutrality. 
 Further operations in that quarter were interrupted by the death of the 
 Emperor Paul: his son and successor, Alexander, immediately disclaim¬ 
 ing all hostile intentions, formed an amicable convention with Great 
 Britain. About this time, an army which had been sent to drive the 
 French out of Egypt, succeeded in effecting its purpose, though with the 
 loss of its brave commander, Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was mortally 
 w T ounded at the battle of Alexandria, March 21. Nevertheless, the 
 signal triumphs of France on the Continent, joined to the sufferings of 
 a famine which at this time bore hard on the great body of the people, 
 produced a general desire for peace; and in order to facilitate such an 
 arrangement, a new ministry had been formed under Mr. Addington in 
 the beginning of the year. A negotiation w r as accordingly opened, 
 w T hich terminated in a definitive treaty signed at Amiens, March 27, 
 1802; England retaining several of her colonial conquests, w~hile her 
 opponent remained unquestioned mistress of the Continent. 
 
 The public joy at this event was how’ever destined to be of short dura¬ 
 tion. Bonaparte, w 7 ho had now 7 , as First Consul, concentrated the whole 
 government of France in his hands, took advantage of several unsettled 
 points in the treaty, and show T ed a disposition so evidently unfriendly, 
 as to provoke the British to retaliate by retaining Malta, of which they 
 had obtained possession in 1800, and the war was accordingly recom¬ 
 menced in May 1803. The latter immediately laid an embargo on the 
 French shipping in their ports, and employed a naval force to occupy 
 such of the West India Islands as still belonged to the enemy; while 
 Napoleon, seizing upon great numbers of English visiters then in France, 
 confined them as prisoners of w r ar. He w T as able also to overrun Hano¬ 
 ver, and exclude British commerce from Hamburg; and wdiile an im¬ 
 mense flotilla w 7 as collected at Boulogne, for the avowed purpose of 
 
 * Notwithstanding the general fairness of this measure, however, the Irish viewed 
 with great discontent the abolition of their national legislature; and their feelings in 
 this respect led to a conspiracy in 1803, under Emmett and Russell, for seizing the seat of 
 government. After some tumults in the streets of Dublin, in which several persons lost 
 their lives, the mob was dispersed by the military, and their leaders, being seized, were 
 tried and executed. 
 
492 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 invading England. In April 1804, Mr. Pitt was again called to the 
 head of affairs; and next year that able statesman succeeded in organ- 
 'ziiig a new coalition, consisting of Russia, Sweden, Austria, and Naples, 
 to oppose the ambition of the French ruler. He, on the other hand 
 having become absolute master of Holland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 
 made every exertion to contest the empire of the sea. A combined fleet 
 of thirty-three sail, partly French and partly Spanish, met a British 
 squadron of twenty-seven under Nelson, off Cape Trafalgar, October 25, 
 and was totally defeated, though at the expense of the life of the British 
 commander. The exertions of the allies, however, could oppose no 
 barrier to the extraordinary fortune of Napoleon in continental Europe, 
 where the decisive victory of Austerlitz once more prostrated the 
 power of Austria, and enabled him to dictate a humiliating peace to her 
 monarch before the end of the year. This event produced much gloom 
 in the British councils, and proved a deathblow to Mr. Pitt, who expired 
 on the 23d January 1806. A new ministry was forthwith formed under 
 his great political rival, Mr. Fox; but that statesman dying on the 13th 
 September following, it was in the next year succeeded by another, of 
 which Mr. Perceval was the recognised leader. One of the first acts 
 of the new cabinet was the despatch of an armament to Copenhagen, tc 
 seize and carry off the Danish navy, which was expected to be imme¬ 
 diately employed in subserviency to France. The object of the expedi- 
 dition was easily accomplished ; but this attack on a neutral power was 
 very unfavourably regarded by foreign states, and the Emperor of Rus¬ 
 sia, in particular, having made peace with France, seized the opportunity 
 to recall his ambassador from London. Various expeditions had about 
 the same time been sent to the Dardanelles, to Egypt, and against the 
 Spanish settlements on the River Plate in South America, none of which 
 were attended with any advantage. 
 
 In 1808, nearly the whole of the Continent might be considered as 
 arrayed in hostility to England. The Austrians had been compelled to 
 yield a large portion of their territory to Napoleon; by the battles of 
 Jena and Auerstadt, he had annihilated the power of Prussia; Italy, 
 Spain, and Portugal were in his hands; Russia had made peace with 
 him ; and by his famous Berlin decrees, declaring Great Britain in a 
 state of blockade, he shut the ports of Europe against her merchandise. 
 But this signal elevation, and the tyranny which it produced, began to 
 awaken against the French emperor a spirit he had not hitherto encoun¬ 
 tered. Down to this period, the contest had been one more of govern¬ 
 ments than of people, and the triumphs of his arms were viewed with 
 no small degree of sympathy by many even in the subjugated countries; 
 but now he began to be regarded as the common enemy of mankind, 
 whose boundless ambition it was every one's duty to repress. The first 
 symptoms of this reaction were manifested in Spain, where the inhabit¬ 
 ants, exasperated by the usurpations of the French, roused themselves 
 to insurrection, and implored assistance from Britain. An expedition 
 of about ten thousand men was accordingly fitted out, under the com¬ 
 mand of Sir Arthur Wellesley, which, after some communication with 
 the Spanish leaders, was directed in the first instance to Portugal. This 
 force, having landed in Mondego Bay. soon afterwards defeated the 
 French under Junot at Vimieiro, August 21 ; upon which, a convention 
 was entered into with Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had subsequently taken 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D 
 
 493 
 
 the command, for the evacuation of the kingdom by the enemy’s troops. 
 The direction of military affairs was next conferred on Sir John Moore, 
 who arrived in the month of November with large reinforcements ; and 
 that general immediately led the British army into Spain, wffiere, how¬ 
 ever, he soon found himself unable to withstand the immense force 
 brought against him by Napoleon. * He w T as therefore compelled to 
 commence a retreat towards the port of Corunna, w hither he w r as closely 
 pursued by Marshal Soult, during wffiich, though suffering no material 
 check, the troops w r ere exposed to great hardships. In a battle fought 
 at this place for the purpose of protecting the embarkation, Sir John 
 was killed, January 16, 1809; but the French general being repulsed, 
 the British gained their ships in safety. 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley w 7 as again called to lead an army to the Penin¬ 
 sula, and in April he landed in Portugal with a considerable force. He 
 obliged his opponents to abandon Oporto, and then made a bold march 
 upon Madrid. On the 28th July, he repulsed a formidable army under 
 Victor at Talavera; and though compelled shortly after to fall back upon 
 Portugal, this partial success greatly elevated the hopes of the British 
 nation, and the general himself w r as raised to the peerage. About this 
 time, also, a formidable expedition wms sent to the island of Walcheren 
 under Lord Chatham, w T hich the unhealthiness of the climate and the 
 inexperience of the commander, combined to bring to a disastrous issue. 
 Austria, too, wffiich had again been overpowered, was compelled to seal 
 a peace b} 7 the marriage of Maria Louisa, daughter of the emperor, to 
 Napoleon. 
 
 In 1810, the French ruler largely reinforced his armies in Spain, and 
 gave orders to Massena to drive the British out of the Peninsula. Lord 
 Wellington posted his troops, eighty thousand in number, on the heights 
 of Busaco; and w T as there attacked, on the 27th September, by an equal 
 number of enemies. The combined British and Portuguese army be¬ 
 haved with great b r avery, and the assailants were repulsed with immense 
 loss; but the vie* jr nevertheless resolved on retiring to the lines of Tor¬ 
 res Vedras, where he remained on the. defensive. The intellect of 
 George III., which had already displayed several temporary aberrations, 
 gave way entirely at the close of this year, and rendered the appointment 
 of a regent indispensable. The Prince of Wales was accordingly in¬ 
 vested wfith that dignity; and though he had hitherto seemed to side 
 with the Whig party, whose proposal of Catholic emancipation he was 
 understood to favour, the same ministry was continued in office, and no 
 material change took place in the mode of conducting affairs. In 1811, 
 much hard fighting occurred in Spain, where the French under Massena 
 were again defeated at Fuentes d’Onoro, May 5. The town of Almeida 
 subsequently fell into the hands of the British, a body of whom, com¬ 
 manded by General Beresford, gained the bloody battle of Albuera over 
 Soult; wffiile another detachment under General Graham w r as victorious 
 at Barossa. Wellington, however, was forced to abandon the siege of 
 Badajos; and at the close of the campaign he retired once more to his 
 lines in Portugal. This year proved a period of unprecedented distress 
 to the English people. The decrees of Napoleon against their commerce 
 had provoked certain retaliatory orders in council, wffiich, however 
 harassing to the French, only increased the evil at home by interposing 
 
 42 
 
494 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 new obstacles to the trade with neutral powers; and much discontent 
 consequently prevailed among the manufacturing and mercantile classes. 
 
 On the 11th of May 1812, Mr. Perceval, the premier, was shot in the 
 lobby of the House of Commons by a man named Bellingham, who had 
 become insane in consequence of private misfortunes; and Lords Liver¬ 
 pool and Castlereagh, with several others, were called to the direction 
 of affairs. At this time the United States of America, now a powerful 
 nation, provoked by the orders in council, and by the right assumed by 
 the British to search for and impress English seamen on board their 
 commercial shipping, declared war against Britain. The events of this 
 contest were of little interest in comparison with that waged on the con¬ 
 tinent of Europe, consisting chiefly of encounters between single ships, 
 and some detached operations on the Canadian frontier and other parts 
 of America; and it ended in 1814 without settling any of the points in 
 dispute. 
 
 Meanwhile, the tide of success in Europe was beginning to change. 
 The fatal expedition to Moscow had annihilated the grand army of Na¬ 
 poleon; and early in 1813, the Emperor Alexander, now aided by the 
 King of Prussia and various minor princes, took the field against him in 
 Northern Germany, where they were speedily joined by the Emperor of 
 Austria. In the Peninsula, too, in the course of the year 1812, Lord 
 Wellington had gained the brilliant victory of Salamanca, and taken 
 possession of Madrid; and though again compelled to retreat into Por¬ 
 tugal, he had succeeded in inspiring his army with the highest degree 
 of confidence and enthusiasm, and was appointed by the Spanish cortes 
 generalissimo of their forces. Taking the field in May 1813, he soon 
 after totally defeated the French under King Joseph and Marshal Jour- 
 dan, at Vittoria, June 21; and, driving the fugitives across the Pyrenees, 
 entered France on the 7th October. In the spring of 1814, this gallant 
 army crossed the Adour, aided hy a naval squadron under Admiral Pen¬ 
 rose, and advancing to Bordeaux, were welcomed as deliverers; and 
 finally, in a severe engagement at Toulouse, fought on the 10th of April, 
 totally defeated the army commanded by Marshal Soult. The allies 
 also, who had steadily advanced through Germany, crossed the Rhine 
 early in 1814; and having gained a victory before Paris on the 30th of 
 March, took possession of that city the following day. Shortly after, a 
 treaty was ratified with Napoleon, by which he agreed to resign the 
 government and content himself for the future with the sovereignty of 
 Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean. On the 30th May, peace 
 was formally concluded with France, by which that country was reduced 
 nearly to the limits she had possessed in 1792, but received back her 
 colonies with a few exceptions ; England also retaining Malta, the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and the island of Heligoland. The Emperor of Russia 
 and the King of Prussia visited London soon after, and were received 
 with great rejoicings; while Wellington, now created a duke, was pre¬ 
 sented by the House of Commons with a grant of £400,000, in addition 
 to £100,000 previously awarded. A congress of representatives from 
 the various powers met at Vienna on the 2d October, and proceeded to 
 settle the limits of the different countries, disturbed by the casualties of 
 war. Throughout the whole arrangements, Great Britain acted with 
 the utmost disinterestedness; a course of conduct which could hardly 
 have been looked for, after the extraordinary sufferings and expenses she 
 had borne during the contest. 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 495 
 
 Early in 1815, these proceedings were interrupted by the news that 
 Napoleon had landed in France, where he was joyfully received by the 
 soldiery. To oppose him, the Prussian and British armies, of 100,000 
 and 80,000 men respectively, were quickly collected in the Netherlands, 
 while larger bodies of Austrians and Russians were approaching. After 
 various detached operations, and some severe fighting, in the course of 
 which Napoleon laboured to prevent that concert which was desirable 
 between the confederated generals, the force under his own immediate 
 command, amounting to about 80,000 men, was, on the 18th June, 
 directed against Wellington alone, who, with 72,000 troops, of whom 
 about 60,000 might be reckoned effective, had taken a position across 
 the road to Brussels, near a village called Waterloo. The battle, one 
 of the most obstinately contested that history records, consisted through¬ 
 out the day of a constant succession of attacks by the French upon the 
 British lines, attended with immense bloodshed, but in every case 
 repelled with the utmost fortitude. About seven in the evening, Napo¬ 
 leon brought up his reserve, the flower of his infantry, in the hope of 
 breaking the British centre; but the English guards, not waiting the 
 charge, rushed to meet them, and the enemy fled in confusion. At the 
 same time, the Prussians under Blucher came up, attacked the enemy 
 on the right flank, and decided the fate of the day. The baffled and 
 broken host fled in all directions, their disappointed commander taking 
 the route to Paris. Finding it impossible to restore the confidence of 
 his counsellors, he made a fruitless abdication in favour of his son, and 
 repaired to Rochefort, with the view of embarking for America; but, 
 perceiving that he could not escape the vigilance of the British cruisers, 
 he surrendered himself to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon, and was 
 soon after condemned by the triumphant allies to perpetual confinement 
 on the island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821. 
 
 Thus terminated this long and sanguinary contest, which had involved 
 every nation in Europe, and occasioned an amount of bloodshed and 
 devastation unparalleled in the annals of modern times. The shores of 
 Britain were happily protected from its ravages; but her national debt 
 was augmented to the enormous sum of ^£860,000,000, and she may be 
 said to have gained little besides the renown accruing from her great 
 achievements. Nevertheless, Europe was freed from the ambition of an 
 insolent and unprincipled dictator, whom nothing short of universal em¬ 
 pire would have satisfied; and the nations at large received the import¬ 
 ant lesson, which it may be hoped will not speedily be forgotten, that 
 an empire founded on injustice and aggression can never attain a perma¬ 
 nent existence; and that a comse of peaceful improvement, as it is the 
 only means of securing the prosperity of the people, should ever be 
 regarded as the chief aim and highest glory of their rulers. 
 
 George III. died on the 29th January 1820, and was succeeded by the Prince 
 Regent as George IV. Throughout the period from 1800, notwithstanding 
 the immense burdens of the war, the country on the whole presented the 
 appearance of prosperity, being able to preserve her commerce in consequence 
 of the superiority of her naval force, while great improvements were made in 
 machinery and agriculture. A remarkable event was the application of steam 
 to navigation, which was originally attempted in Scotland in 1788; in 1807, 
 Fulton launched the first steam-boat on the Hudson River in the United States ; 
 and five years later, a similar vessel was tried at Helensburgh on the Clyde. 
 Great exertions were made for the instruction of children by means of Sunday 
 
496 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 schools; and the educational improvements of Dr. Bell and of Mi Joseph 
 Lancaster were widely introduced. Various societies also arose, whose object 
 t was to circulate the Scriptures, and carry the blessings of the gospel, by 
 means of missionaries, to heathen countries. On the 11th June 1806, chiefly 
 through the persevering efforts of .Mr. Wilberforce, the African slave-trade was 
 abolished by the legislature ; and great exertions continued to be made for the 
 extinction of slavery in the colonies, which has since been happily accom¬ 
 plished. Numerous expeditions were also fitted out for the purpose of geo- 
 gr ipineal discovery ; while expeditious travelling by stage-coaches, and rapid 
 transmission of intelligence, became general throughout the kingdom. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 The important revolution which Bonaparte had the address to effect 
 in the government of France, actually vested in himself the sole autho¬ 
 rity, legislative and executive; and the 44 new constitution,” as it was 
 called, was solemnly proclaimed on the *24th December 1799. Latterly, 
 so little confidence had been felt in the directory, and so much confusion 
 existed in consequence of the weakness and vacillation of its members, 
 that this triumph of despotism was hailed with general satisfaction; 
 public credit was instantly restored, and even the disturbed districts of 
 La Vendee adhered to the new order of thino-s. The first consul now 
 made overtures of peace to England and Austria; but these being reject¬ 
 ed from a suspicion of his insincerity, he immediately turned his atten¬ 
 tion to the war against the latter country. Moreau, who had received 
 the command of the army of the Rhine, successfully prosecuted the con¬ 
 test in Germany; while Napoleon himself, at the head of that of Ital) T , 
 crossed the Great St. Bernard from Switzerland,—an achievement hith¬ 
 erto deemed impracticable. On the *2d of June 1800, he entered Milan 
 without opposition; and soon after met the Austrians on the plain of 
 Marengo. Here, on the 14th, he was attacked by General Melas, who 
 had at first so much the advantage, that Bonaparte at one period wavered; 
 but the battle was restored by the gallantry of General Desaix, who was 
 killed in the act of leading on a decisive charge of cavalry. A signal 
 victory was the consequence; after which the Austrian general obtained 
 an armistice, withdrawing his troops to the line of Mantua and the 
 Mincio, while the French retained the greater part of Lombardy. The 
 victor shortly after returned to Paris, having established provisional go¬ 
 vernments in Milan, Turin, and Genoa; and negotiations for peace took 
 place between Austria and France. These being broken off in conse¬ 
 quence of the non-adherence of England, the war recommenced, and the 
 Austrians under the Archduke John were defeated by Moreau at Hohen- 
 lin len, December 3. Another armistice followed ; and at length, on the 
 9th February 1801, the emperor signed a separate treaty at Luneburg, 
 by which he recognised the independence of the Batavian, Swiss, Cisal¬ 
 pine, and Ligurian republics, and the Rhine was declared the boundary 
 between the French and Austrian dominions. The King of Naples soon 
 after obtained peace; and even the new Pope, Pius VII., was acknow¬ 
 ledged by Bonaparte, who left him in possession of the greater part of 
 the church patrimony. Malta having surrendered to the British,anl the 
 war in Egypt being at an end by the capitulation of Menou, who had 
 succeeded Kleber in the command, the chief obstacles to a pacific 
 arrangement with that country were now removed. Preliminaries were 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 497 
 
 accordingly signed at London on the 1st October, and in the following 
 March tranquillity was restored by the definitive treaty of Amiens. 
 
 Napoleon seems at this time to have been sincerely anxious for peace, 
 in order to consolidate his position, and carry into effect several great 
 designs which he had formed. The extreme sections of the republicans 
 and royalists were still hostile to his dictatorship; and on the 24th Sep¬ 
 tember 1800, he had nearly fallen a victim to a conspiracy of the latter, 
 a wagon containing several barrels of gunpowder having been exploded 
 in a narrow street as he was passing in his carriage to the opera. Spe¬ 
 cial tribunals were after this established to try persons accused of trea¬ 
 son; while a secret police was skilfully organized by Fouche, having 
 informers of all classes in his pay. A general amnesty, with some 
 exceptions, was nevertheless granted, in April 1801, to all emigrants 
 who chose to return to France and take the oath of fidelity to the present 
 government. By a concordat with the Pope, published at Paris in 1802, 
 the Romish religion was re-established, though shorn of much of the 
 importance it had formerly possessed ; the sales of ecclesiastical property 
 which had taken place being sanctioned, and the Protestants not only 
 receiving full liberty of worship, but even the support of a public endow¬ 
 ment. A new order of knighthood was also established on the 19th 
 May, under the designation of the Legion of Honour. In January 1802, 
 Bonaparte assumed the title of President of the Cisalpine Republic, and 
 in the following August a decree of the senate conferred on him the dig¬ 
 nity of first consul for life. The independence and neutrality of Swit¬ 
 zerland were recognised, but the cantons were required to maintain a body 
 of 16,000 men in the service of France. The first consul also turned 
 his attention to the various branches of public instruction, though the 
 institutions which he framed for this purpose were entirely military in 
 their character, and contributed in a great measure to consolidate his 
 despotism. His most valuable gift to France was perhaps the promul¬ 
 gation at this time of the celebrated civil code which bears his name, 
 drawn up by a commission of lawyers under the presidency of Camba- 
 ceres, at whose meetings Napoleon himself frequently attended. 
 
 It soon became evident that the peace of Amiens would not be perma¬ 
 nent. In October 1802, Parma was seized and incorporated with 
 France, and a similar appropriation of Piedmont took place a month 
 afterwards; while the English, who had agreed to restore Malta to the 
 Knights of St. John, resolved on retaining that island. Hostilities were 
 recommenced in May 1803, by the issue of letters of marque by the 
 Cabinet of London, and an embargo on all French vessels in their ports. 
 In retaliation for this, a decree was promulgated, ordering that all natives 
 of Britain, of whatever condition, then in the territories of France and 
 Holland, should be detained as prisoners of war. At the same time, 
 the French armies entered Hanover, and took possession of it with little 
 resistance; while an immense force was collected at Boulogne, under 
 the designation of “ the army of England,” for the invasion of that 
 country—an enterprise, however, which Napoleon never found it con¬ 
 venient to attempt. 
 
 In February 1804, an extensive conspiracy was discovered at Paris 
 against the government, in which Generals Pichegru and Moreau, and 
 Georges Cadoudal, a Chouan chief, were implicated. Affecting to be¬ 
 lieve that the young Duke of Enghien, then living in the grand-inch v of 
 42 * 
 
498 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Baden, was concerned in this plot, the first consul sent a body of 
 gendarmes across the frontier to arrest him. The duke was accordingly 
 seized and brought to the castle of Vincennes near Paris, where, after a 
 mock trial, he was shot on the 21st March,—an act which affixes an 
 indelible stain on the memory of Napoleon, not the slightest evidence 
 of the charge having ever been produced. Pichegru was shortly after 
 found dead in prison, Moreau was banished from France, and Georges 
 was executed. Meantime a motion had been carried in the tribunate, 
 and subsequently passed the senate, creating Bonaparte “ Emperor of 
 the French,” and reinvesting him in that capacity with the government 
 of the republic. He accordingly assumed this new dignity on the 24th 
 May; and on the 2d December he was solemnly crowned by the Pope, 
 who had been induced to come to Paris for that purpose. To complete 
 his elevation, the ancient iron diadem of the Longobard kings was 
 offered him by his obsequious creatures in Italy ; and on the 26th May 
 he was formally anointed sovereign of that country, Genoa being muted 
 to his empire a few days afterwards. 
 
 These and other usurpations of the French ruler at length induced 
 Russia and Austria to listen to the solicitations of England; and in the 
 summer of 1805 a new coalition was formed. With his usual prompti¬ 
 tude, Napoleon in October burst into Germany, where he was joined by 
 the Duke of Wurtemburg and the Elector of Bavaria, who were rewarded 
 by his conferring on each the title of king. General Mack, allowing 
 hirnself to be surrounded at Ulm, was compelled to surrender his whole 
 force of 20,000 men on the 24th ; and the other scattered corps of Aus¬ 
 trians, being unable to offer any effectual resistance, the French entered 
 Vienna on the 13th November. On the 27th was fought the great battle 
 of Austerlitz, which ended in the total overthrow of the combined Rus¬ 
 sian and Austrian armies, and enabled the victor to dictate peace on his 
 own terms. By the treaty of Presburg, signed on the 26th December, 
 he was recognised in his dignities of French emperor and king of Italy, 
 as were also the titles of the newly made kings of Bavaria and Wurtem- 
 berg. Venice was ceded to France, and the Tyrol to Bavaria; the 
 Emperor of Russia withdrew his troops into his own territories; and the 
 King of Prussia received Hanover as a reward for his neutrality, and 
 perhaps also with the view of provoking a rupture between him and 
 George III. Britain now alone remained in opposition to Napoleon; 
 and the decisive naval victory achieved by her fleet at Trafalgar dissi¬ 
 pated all his hopes of invading that country. However, in February 
 1806, he sent an army to take possession of Naples, because the king 
 had allowed a Russian and English force to land in his dominions ; and 
 in the following March the crown of that countiy was conferred on his 
 brother Joseph. Louis Bonaparte was soon after made sovereign of 
 Holland ; various districts in Italy and Germany were erected into duke 
 doms, and bestowed on his principal marshals; while fourteen princes 
 in the south and west of Germany were induced to form what was called 
 the Confederation of the Rhine, and place themselves under the protec¬ 
 tion of France. 
 
 Notwithstanding the bribe of Hanover, this perpetual aggression on 
 the part of the French ruler had been viewed by Prussia with the utmost 
 alarm; and though afraid to break her neutrality during the late cam¬ 
 paign in Germany, she at length entered into a league with Russia, and 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 499 
 
 leclared war against him. Bonaparte instantly put his troops in mo¬ 
 tion. On the 14th October he gained the double victory of Auerstadt 
 and Jena, which at once laid the whole kingdom at his feet; and in a 
 few days he entered the capital. Here, on the 21st November, he issued 
 his celebrated Berlin decrees against British commerce, preposterously 
 declaring the whole of Great Britain in a state of blockade, and ordering 
 English property wherever found to be seized as lawful prize. He 
 soon afterwards marched into Poland against the Russians, who were 
 advancing to the Vistula ; but received a severe check at Pultusk on the 
 28th December. The sanguinary but undecisive conflict of Eylau fol¬ 
 lowed on the 8th of February 1807 ; and at length, on the 14th June, 
 the Russians were worsted at Friedland, and driven beyond the Aller. 
 The emperor Alexander then entered into negotiations, and a peace s was 
 concluded at Tilsit, July 7. By the terms of this treaty, Alexander 
 agreed to aid Napoleon in his designs against British commerce, and the 
 King of Prussia received back about half of his dominions : of the other 
 half, one portion was given to the Elector of Saxony, now honoured 
 with the title of royalty ; the rest went to aggrandize the new kingdom 
 of Westphalia, erected out of the dominions of Brunswick and Hesse- 
 Cassel, which w^as given to Jerome Bonaparte. 
 
 The French emperor had now attained such a pitch of elevation, that 
 he fancied he might dispose of the sovereignties of the continent at his 
 pleasure. In the month of October, the Moniteur contained the arro¬ 
 gant announcement, that “ the house of Braganza had ceased to reign 
 in Europe.” Marshal Junot was immediately sent through Spain with 
 an army to invade Portugal; the prince regent, feeling resistance to be 
 vain, quietly embarked for Brazil; and on the 30th November, the 
 French took possession of Lisbon. In the following year, the King of 
 Spain himself was compelled to resign his crown to the disposal of 
 Napoleon, who removed his brother Joseph from Naples to the throne 
 of that country, and raised his favourite general Murat to the vacant 
 dignity. Both Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand were brought to 
 France, and retained as state prisoners. The memorable events which 
 resulted from these nefarious transactions are noticed under Spain and 
 Great Britain ; it may therefore be sufficient to allude to the perse¬ 
 vering resistance of the Spanish nation as the first indication of that 
 popular awakening which eventually proved fatal to the dynasty of 
 Bonaparte. Meantime, a new war with Austria was on the point of 
 breaking out. That country, though humbled, w T as not subdued : the 
 emperor felt impatient under his past losses, and eager to redeem them, 
 while the warlike pride of his subjects writhed under the consciousness 
 of defeat. By great exertions their armies had been augmented to nearly 
 half a million of men; and in the spring of 1809 the Tyrolese threw off 
 the Bavarian yoke. The Archduke Charles commanded in Germany, 
 the Archduke John in Italy. The French monarch quickly assembled 
 his forces beyond the Rhine, advanced to Augsburg, and, by one of 
 his most skilful manoeuvres, broke the line of his antagonists, trained 
 
 • a ' o 
 
 the successive victories of Echmuhl and Essling, and once more took 
 possession of Vienna, May 12, 1809. The archduke now collected 
 his army on the left bank of the Danube; Napoleon crossed over to 
 attack him ; and though worsted in the obstinate battle of Aspern, May 
 21, he speedily reinforced his army, and on the 6th of July gained the 
 
500 
 
 MODERIN HISTORY. 
 
 famous triumph of Wagram. He then dictated a peace, styled the 
 treaty of Schonbrunn, which was ratified on the 14th October. 
 
 This extraordinary man now resolved to complete his elevation by a 
 matrimonial alliance with the most illustrious house in Europe. He 
 divorced the Empress Josephine, to whom he is believed to have been 
 always sincerely attached, and received the hand of the Archduchess 
 Maria Louisa of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Francis. The mar¬ 
 riage ceremony, in which the Archduke Charles acted as Napoleon’s 
 proxy, was performed at Vienna on the 11th March 1810; and the new 
 empress shortly after set out for Paris, where in the following year she 
 gave birth to a son, who was declared King of Rome. The entire con¬ 
 tinent was now to all appearance prostrate at the feet of the French 
 autocrat, who in fact controlled the destinies of eighty millions of people. 
 The brave Tyrolese had been abandoned to their fate. The Pope, long 
 dissatisfied, having at length excommunicated him, had been arrested on 
 the 5th July 1809, and carried prisoner, first to Savona, and afterwards 
 to Fontainebleau. Bernadotte, one of his generals, was elected succes¬ 
 sor to the throne of Sweden; and Louis, king of Holland, having con¬ 
 nived at a clandestine intercourse with England, was dispossessed of 
 his crown, and the Dutch territories were incorporated with France in 
 December 1810. 
 
 Bonaparte had now attained the crisis of his destiny, and the period 
 was at hand when the slumbering energies of the continental nations 
 were to be effectually roused. The commercial interests of all Europe 
 were fearfully injured by the effect of the measures taken to destroy the 
 trade of England, and every scheme was tried to evade them. The 
 Emperor of Russia, though he had hitherto adhered to the treaty of Til¬ 
 sit, repented a policy which was daily aggrandizing his overbearing 
 rival; and in the end of 1810, braving his resentment, he renewed his 
 intercourse with the court of London, and began to prepare for war. 
 Napoleon, on his part, made vast exertions for the approaching struggle. 
 In the spring of 1812, an immense host, numbering nearly half a million 
 of combatants, was assembled on the banks of the Niemen, the frontier 
 rf Russia, where, on the 22d June, he formally declared hostilities. 
 Crossing the river on the 24th, he soon after took possession of Wilna, 
 and arrived at Witebsk about the end of July. On the 16th August, the 
 two armies met under the walls of Smolensk; but that city, after a 
 vigorous contest, was abandoned by the Russian general, who continued 
 to retreat upon Moscow. At length, on the 7th September, a great 
 battle was fouo-ht at Borodino, a village near the banks of the river 
 Moskva, where, after fearful slaughter on both sides, the French had the 
 advantage. Kutusoff, the Russian commander, mwv resolved t<> aban¬ 
 don Moscow to its fate, rather than weaken his army by another con¬ 
 flict; and the invader accordingly entered that capital on the 14th 
 September. Here, however, was the limit of his advance, and from 
 this moment may be dated the destruction of that mighty host which he 
 believed to be invincible. The city was found to be deserted by all but 
 a few of the lowest class of people, and soon after the entrance of the 
 French it was observed to be on fire in various quarters. The soldiers, 
 flushed with success, were too intent on plunder to take any effectual 
 steps to arrest the flames, which, fanned by a high wind, raged on the 
 night of the 15th with fearful fury. On the third day the army was 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 501 
 
 compelled to evacuate the city, which it could not re-enter until the 21st. 
 Napoleon then took up his residence in the Kremlin; and it was found 
 that a sufficient number of houses had escaped the conflagration to afford 
 quarters for his men. Here, however, destitute of all other supplies, 
 they were compelled to subsist upon the flesh of their horses; and 
 Napoleon, despairing of his position, was compelled to sue for peace. 
 Kutusoff, to whom the proposal was made, nobly answered, that no 
 terms could be entered into while an enemy remained on the soil of 
 Russia; and at length, all hope of an accommodation being at an end, 
 the French army, though in the face of a northern winter, received orders 
 to retreat. 
 
 The main body quitted Moscow on the 19th October, followed by a 
 long train of carriages laden with spoil, and closely pursued by the 
 Russian forces. In a severe encounter at Malo Jaroslavetz, the French 
 had the advantage on the whole; but they were soon to bear the assault 
 of an enemy against which skill and valour were of no avail,—the snows 
 of winter began to fall on the 6th of November. From this period the 
 history of the retreat presents an unbroken series of calamities unparal¬ 
 leled in the annals of human suffering. Of 120,000 fighting men who 
 had left Moscow, hardly 12,000 reached the banks of the Beresina; 
 40,000 horses had dwindled away to 3000. Here, joined by 50,000 of 
 the reserve under Victor and Oudinot, Napoleon prepared to cross the 
 river; and in this enterprise, being opposed by the enemy, he lost one- 
 half of the army thus reinforced- Soon after, leaving the miserable 
 remnant in charge of Murat, he set out in a sledge for Paris, where he 
 arrived at midnight on the 18th of December, and where the news of 
 these awful reverses, which fell on the French nation like a clap of 
 thunder, had but shortly before preceded him.* 
 
 Napoleon made prodigious exertions to organize a new army; and 
 though fresh levies could but poorly replace the veterans lost in Russia, 
 he contrived, by the spring of 1813, to collect a force of 350,000 men. 
 The King of Prussia had now allied himself to Alexander, who was 
 also joined by Sweden; and the confederates advanced as far as the 
 Elbe. Nevertheless, the French emperor, still undismayed, repaired to 
 Germany, and on the 2d of May gained a victory at Lutzen, followed a 
 fortnight after by that of Bautzen. These battles, however, were not 
 decisive; and, on the mediation of Austria, an armistice was agreed to, 
 July 4, and a congress met at Prague to consider terms of peace. Bona¬ 
 parte, still confident in his fortune, would listen to nothing calculated to 
 limit his power; the armistice expired on the 10th August; and Austria 
 immediately joined the allies. After various desultory engagements 
 fought in the neighbourhood of Dresden and in Bohemia, during which 
 his enemies were constantly gaining strength, Napoleon retreated upon 
 Leipsic, where he determined to make a final stand. On the 16th Sep¬ 
 tember a sanguinary conflict took place, with no decisive result; but on 
 the 18th the French were signally defeated, and began a retrograde 
 movement towards the Rhine. At Hanau, the army, completely disor¬ 
 ganised, was forced to fight its way through the troops of Bavaria, which 
 had now joined their enemies; and on the 7th November, the emperor 
 
 * Of the immense force which crossed the Niemen at the outset of the campaign, it has 
 been calculated that 125,000 perished in battle, 132,000 died of fatigue, hunger, and cold, 
 and 193 000 were taken prisoners, including 48 generals and 3000 inferior officers. 
 
502 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 re-entered France with a remnant of only 70,000 men. About 80,000, 
 left to garrison the Prussian fortresses, now surrendered to the allies; 
 while Holland threw off the yoke, and recalled the Prince of Orange. 
 
 Nevertheless, the authority of the emperor, which was still great with 
 the French people, enabled him to procure a new levy of 300,000 men, 
 and he prepared with the utmost ardour for another campaign. Prince 
 Schwartzenberg, commander-in-chief of the Austrians, along with the 
 Russian generals Barclay de Tolli and Wittgenstein, were advancing 
 on the Swiss frontier with 150,000 men; Blucher, the Prussian leader, 
 was approaching with 130,000 from Frankfort; Bernadotte, with 100,000, 
 converged towards the Netherlands; and the English, under Welling 
 ton, were near Bayonne. The confederates crossed the Rhine at the 
 beginning of the year. In these circumstances, Napoleon had only one 
 chance of preserving his crown and empire. In January 1814, confer¬ 
 ences were held at Chatillon, when it was proposed to fix the limits of 
 France as they were in 1792 ; but to this he would not listen, and there¬ 
 fore lost all. At the end of the month he began a campaign, which has 
 always been regarded as the most striking proof of his extraordinary 
 military genius. The body of the French nation, exhausted by their 
 previous sacrifices, had at length become dissatisfied with the headlong 
 proceedings of their ruler, and both taxes and conscription were but par¬ 
 tially collected. Nevertheless, with a force vastly inferior in number, 
 he kept at bay the various hostile armies during two months, gained 
 several brilliant successes, and electrified all Europe by the rapidity and 
 skill of his movements. But the odds were too great; and while, by a 
 bold stroke, he threw himself in the rear of the invaders, they at once 
 marched to Paris, and on the 30th of March, after a severe contest, took 
 possession of the line of defence which protected that city. The follow¬ 
 ing day Paris capitulated ; and on the 2d of April the senate decreed that 
 “ Napoleon Bonaparte had forfeited the crown, that the hereditary right 
 in his family was abolished, and the people and army released from 
 their oaths of fidelity.” 
 
 On the Gth of the same month, Louis XVIII. was solemnly pro¬ 
 claimed ; while the deposed emperor, finding that his generals would 
 not join him in a last desperate attack on Paris, signed at Fontainebleau, 
 on the 11th, an act of unconditional abdication, and shortly after set out 
 for his new principality of Elba, where he was to enjoy a pension of six 
 million francs, and retain the imperial title. 
 
 Louis XVIII. made his public entry into Paris on the 3d of May, 
 having previously given his assent in general terms to a constitutional 
 charter drawn up by the senate. On the 30th, he concluded a formal 
 peace with the allies, by which the continental dominions of France 
 were restricted to what they had been in 1792; but England restored ah 
 her colonial conquests, except the West India islands of St. Lucia and 
 Tobago, and the isle of Mauritius. France thus obtained much bettei 
 terms than could have been expected, after the intolerable evils she had 
 so long inflicted upon Europe; and indeed, throughout all the arrange¬ 
 ments, every care seems to have been taken by the conquerors to spare 
 the feelings and honour of the nation. On the 4th of June, the king pre¬ 
 sented to the legislature a constitutional charter, on the basis of that 
 formerly drawn up by the senate, which was unanimously accepted, and 
 became the fundamental law of the kingdom. Notwithstanding this, 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 503 
 
 the boastings of the returned emigrants and various other circumstances, 
 soon gave rise to a suspicion, which seems, however, to have been with¬ 
 out foundation, that the court nourished the design of reverting to the 
 despotic principles of the old monarchy. The faction of Bonaparte, still 
 strong, and embracing the great mass of the soldiery, besides the im¬ 
 mense number of veterans recently released from foreign prisons, loudly 
 fomented the discontent; and at length a wide-spread conspiracy was 
 organized for the recall of their banished leader. He, on his part, gladly 
 responding to the invitation, left Elba towards the end of February 1815, 
 and on the 1st March landed at the small town of Cannes, with about 
 1000 men of his old guards. Advancing to Grenoble, he was there joined 
 by Colonel Labedoyere and the 7th regiment of the line; soon after, 
 Marshal Ney, who had been sent to stop his progress, went over to him ; 
 and by the time he reached Fontainebleau, nearly the whole military 
 force was once more under his standard. On the evening of the 20th 
 March he re-entered the Tuileries, Louis XVIII. having left the capita 
 early in the morning, whence he fled to Ostend, and afterwards to Ghent 
 With the exception of Augereau, Marmont, Macdonald, and a few others 
 nearly all the officials, civil and military, readily embraced the imperia 
 cause, and Napoleon once more seated himself on the throne, by one of 
 the most rapid transitions recorded in history. 
 
 After a futile attempt to negotiate with the allies, he made gigantic 
 exertions to maintain his recovered dignity by force of arms. He 
 endeavoured also to strengthen his popularity, by engaging to govern 
 as a constitutional sovereign; but as his chief resource lay in the army, 
 it was clear that, should he be able to maintain his position, matters 
 would soon revert to their former condition. The allies, on their side, 
 having declared the usurper out of the pale of national law, prepared 
 actively to oppose him ; and an army was speedily assembled in the 
 Netherlands under Blucher and Wellington. Bonaparte, desirous of 
 fighting them before their forces could be united, hurried across the 
 frontier at the head of about 125,000 select troops, June 15. On the 
 16th, Blucher, after a bold resistance at Liorny, retreated to Wavre, 
 while on the same day Marshal Ney attacked the English at Quatre 
 Bras.* Preparations were then made for concentrating the allied forces 
 at Waterloo, and on the ever-memorable 18th of June, Napoleon found 
 himself face to face with a soldier whose fame only yielded to his own. 
 This great battle has been already noticed under Great Britain ; at 
 the close of the day, the hero of Marengo, abandoning his army, escaped 
 with difficulty to Paris, the herald of his own discomfiture. The capital 
 of France was once more occupied by foreign troops; Bonaparte abdi¬ 
 cated a second time ; and after vainly attempting to escape to America, 
 surrendered to the English, and was sent by the allies to the island of 
 St. Helena, where he died on the 5th May 1821. 
 
 The eloquent Charming thus writes concerning this remarkable man; and 
 his opinion, as being a native of a country that never was engaged in war with 
 France, may be considered an impartial one :—“ Bonaparte was brought up in 
 a military school; his first political association was with the Jacobins ; his first 
 command he secured by turning his arms on the people. His campaigns in 
 Italy compel us to bestow the admiration due to a superior power. But mili- 
 
 * The Duke of Brunswick, son of him who had commanded the Prussians at the outset 
 of the Revolution, was killed in this battle. 
 
504 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 tary talent is one of the lower forms of genius; the office of a great general 
 not widely differing from that of a great mechanician, whose business it is to 
 frame new combinations of physical forces, to adapt them to new circumstan¬ 
 ces, and to remove new obstructions.—Bonaparte’s intellect was distinguished 
 by rapidity of thought. He understood war as a science ; but his mind was too 
 bold to be enslaved by the technics of his profession. His unforeseen and 
 impetuous assaults astonished and paralysed his enemies, and breathed into his 
 own soldiers the enthusiasm of ruder ages. The signal success of his new 
 mode of warfare had no small agency in fixing his character, and determining 
 for a period the fate of empires. To astonish as well as to sway by his ener 
 gies, became the great aim of his life. Power was his supreme object,—a 
 power to be gazed at as well as felt. In peace he delighted to hurry through 
 his dominions; to project in an instant works that a life could not accomplish, 
 and to leave behind the impression of a superhuman energy. His history 
 shows a spirit of self-exaggeration unrivalled in enlightened ages. He had no 
 sympathies with his race, and this was the chief source of his crimes. Trea¬ 
 ties only bound his enemies: no nation had any rights but his own France. 
 His original propensities, released from restraint and pampered by indulgence, 
 grew up into a spirit of despotism as stern and absolute as ever usurped the 
 human heart. Beyond the camp he showed no talent superior to that of other 
 eminent men. With regard to the scruples expressed as to the right of ban¬ 
 ishing him to St. Helena, there are great solemn rights of nature which precede 
 laws, and on which law is founded; there are awful periods in the history of 
 our race, which do not belong to its ordinary state, and which are not to be 
 judged by ordinary rules. Such was that when Bonaparte, by the infraction 
 of solemn engagements, had thrown himself into France and convulsed all 
 Europe ; and they are wrong who confound this with the ordinary events of 
 history, and see in Napoleon an ordinary foe to the peace and independence of 
 nations. Our sympathies are not for the inconveniences and privations which 
 he endured at St. Helena, but for the other and more terrible sufferings of 
 which he was the cause. We have no tears to spare for a fallen greatness, 
 founded on crime and reared by force and perfidy.” 
 
 Louis XVIII. once more returned to his capital on the 8th of July ; 
 and on the 20th of November a second treaty of Paris was concluded, 
 nearly on the basis of that contracted a year before, but with some 
 resumptions of territory by the allies on the boundaries of the Nether¬ 
 lands, Germany, and Savoy. The French frontiers were to be occupied 
 during three years by an allied force of 150,000 men, and 700 millions of 
 francs were to be paid as an indemnification for the last contest. The 
 monuments of art, which successive armies had torn from all parts of 
 Europe, were now restored ; and the bridge of Jena in Paris, when 
 already undermined by the enraged Prussians, was only saved Bom 
 destruction by the interference of Wellington. Louis XVIII., in reas¬ 
 cending the throne, conferred upon his subjects the most valuable of 
 gifts,—a free constitution. As embodied in the Charter, it had much 
 in common with its English original — a king with plenary executive 
 pow r er, and who was the source of legislation; responsible ministers; 
 a chamber of peers; and a house of representatives or deputies. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 The government of Spain continued till the close of 1807 to be 
 administered by the contemptible favourite Godoy, whose folly and 
 ambition made him a passive instrument in the hands of Napoleon. 
 The resources of the country W'ere placed almost entirely at the disposal 
 of the latter, internal improvement was neglected, and the disastrous 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 505 
 
 contest with England which this line of policy induced, annihilated the 
 foreign and colonial trade, and exposed the navy to signal reverses,— 
 the severe blow at Trafalgar, in 1805, being one from which her marine 
 has never recovered. In 1807, a secret treaty for the partition of Por¬ 
 tugal was concluded between France and Spain at Fontainebleau, by 
 which, among other stipulations, the provinces of Alentejo and Algarve 
 were to be erected into a principality for the favourite, in return for aid 
 to the French invasion of that country. But no sooner had the army 
 under Junot established itself in Lisbon, than the emperor refused to 
 ratify the conditions of the treaty, and immediately began to foment the 
 dissensions already existing in the royal family. Ferdinand, prince of 
 Asturias, had refused to marry a relative of Godoy’s, and addressed a 
 letter to his father, King Charles, exposing the abuses of the govern¬ 
 ment, and requesting to be allowed to share in it. The favourite im¬ 
 mediately took advantage of this circumstance to persuade the king that 
 his son had formed a conspiracy against his life; and on the 29th Octo¬ 
 ber, the latter was apprehended on this charge, and kept a close prisoner. 
 But the nation at large were not so easily deceived, and the junta con¬ 
 vened for his trial unanimously acquitted him. Meanwhile, the French 
 had been allowed to place garrisons in several of the principal fortresses 
 of the kingdom, and a strong division entered Madrid under Murat, 
 without experiencing any opposition from the king or the minister. But 
 the people of that city, driven to desperation, flocked to Aranjuez, where 
 the court then resided, and burned the palace of the obnoxious func¬ 
 tionary ; while the king himself, terrified at the position in which he 
 had allowed the country to be placed, publicly abdicated in favour of 
 Ferdinand, March 20, 1808. 
 
 This latter arrangement, however, by no means suited the views of 
 the French emperor. The country being now virtually in his hands, he 
 prevailed on the new sovereign to meet him at Bayonne, 15th April; 
 where he immediately threw off all disguise, treated the young king as 
 a prisoner, and insisted upon a formal cession of the Spanish crown. 
 Charles IV., his queen, and Godoy, shortly after arrived ; and Charles, 
 who declared that his abdication had been extorted by popular violence, 
 was easily induced to make the required surrender (May 5), an act to 
 which Ferdinand was after a brief space compelled to accede. In the 
 following June, Napoleon nominated his brother Joseph sovereign of 
 Spain, at a time when the spirit of the nation, exasperated by the inso¬ 
 lence of the French troops, had become thoroughly roused. An insur¬ 
 rection in the capital, on the 2d of May, was the signal for a general 
 rising all over the country; Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed king; 
 juntas were everywhere established to act against the invaders ; and 
 though the usurper Joseph was able, by the aid of French soldiers, to 
 enter Madrid on the 20th July, his power never extended beyond the 
 outposts of the armies by which he was maintained in his position. 
 The people, though nearly undisciplined and rudely armed, performed 
 prodigies of valour: a French squadron was compelled to surrender in 
 the harbour of Cadiz ; Dupont was forced to capitulate with 14,000 men 
 at Baylen; and the citizens of Saragossa, after sustaining a siege of 
 sixty-three da} r s, drove the troops of the new king from the walls, while 
 in a second siege, in 1809, the city was only reduced after immense 
 bloodshed. 
 
 43 
 
506 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 Aided by Britain, the people continued to maintain the contest till 
 1813, when the triumph of Wellington at Vittoria finally freed the Pe¬ 
 ninsula from its invaders. In that year Ferdinand VII. was set at 
 liberty by Napoleon, and immediately returned to his dominions, where 
 he was received with enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. The expecta¬ 
 tions which had previously been formed of his character, however, w r ere 
 soon disappointed. A meeting of the cortes, convoked at Cadiz by the 
 central junta at the close of 1810, had formed a liberal constitution for 
 the country, abolished the inquisition, and decreed various ecclesiastical 
 reforms. The restored monarch refused to take the oath to observe this 
 new constitution, dissolved the cortes, which he declared to have been 
 illegally assembled, and resumed the powers of absolute government. 
 The inquisition was of course re-established, and the liberty of the press 
 abolished; and the nation became once more subjected to the same 
 vicious system of administration from which it had already suffered such 
 manifold evils. 
 
 PORTUGAL. 
 
 The pacification of Amiens, i802, allowed Portugal to resume her 
 commercial intercourse with England; but on the breaking out of hos¬ 
 tilities in the following year, Bonaparte required, through his ambassa¬ 
 dor, that the ports should again be closed. After various attempts to 
 elude this ruinous demand, the prince-regent was compelled to purchase 
 exemption from it by the payment of d£40,000 sterling monthly to France 
 during the continuance of the contest. Tire neutrality thus disgracefully 
 obtained was permitted to exist until 1807 ; when Bonaparte, determined 
 that all Europe should acquiesce in his continental system, not only 
 insisted on the cessation of the trade with Britain, but on the confisca¬ 
 tion of all English property in the country. To this demand Prince 
 John could not be brought to consent; and Napoleon, declaring the 
 dynasty of Braganza at an end, sent Junot with an army to invade the 
 country. A British fleet in the Tagus was provided to convey the royal 
 family to Brazil; and as no measures whatever had been taken for the 
 national defence, the French general obtained possession of Portugal 
 without difficulty, treating it in all respects as a conquered province. 
 
 This state of affairs greatly exasperated the people. In the northern 
 provinces, numerous bodies took up arms in defence of national inde¬ 
 pendence; a junta was established at Oporto to conduct the government; 
 and on the 21st August 1808, the British auxiliary army under Sir Ar¬ 
 thur Wellesley defeated the troops of Junot, and prepared the way for 
 the celebrated convention of Cintra, and the evacuation of the country 
 by the invaders. The Portuguese were afterwards greatly distinguished 
 throughout the whole of the Peninsular war. 
 
 In 1810, on the death of Maria Isabella, the regent was called to the 
 throne as John VI.; but he still continued to reside in Brazil. The 
 peace of Paris, in 1814, gave little satisfaction to the Portuguese, w r ho 
 were obliged to restore some portion of French Guiana, which they had 
 conquered during the war, while several harassing disputes with Spain 
 also arose. The king, after an absence of nearly fourteen years, returned 
 to his native country in 1821, having previously to his landing confirmed 
 a constitution demanded by the people. 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 507 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Naples. —The kingdom of Naples did not escape the contagion of the 
 French revolution. After an ineffectual endeavour to oppose the pro¬ 
 gress of the invading armies, the king was compelled to make peace 
 with Napoleon in 1796, and close his ports against the enemies of 
 France. A popular insurrection, 1799, ended in the temporary establish¬ 
 ment of the Parthenopean Republic ,* but it was soon after replaced by 
 the old government. Ferdinand IV. joined in the coalition of 1800 
 against France; but his aid was of little value, and his continental terri¬ 
 tories were speedily occupied by hostile armies. In 1805, when these 
 were withdrawn to operate against Austria, a combined Russian and 
 British force landed at Naples, but speedily retired; a circumstance 
 which Napoleon made the pretext for sending a new army into the coun¬ 
 try, and conferring the crown on his brother Joseph, March 1806. It 
 was in Calabria that the revived system of attacking in column, so ad¬ 
 mirably suited for raw levies, and which had hitherto led to victory, was 
 found unavailing against a line of British soldiers, Sir J. Stuart with a 
 small force defeating Regnier at Maida, 4th July. On the transference 
 of Joseph Bonaparte to Spain, Murat became king of Naples, 1808, all 
 whose attempts to reduce Sicily were frustrated by General Stuart and 
 Admiral Martin. In 1812, Lord W. Bentinck was instrumental in form- 
 ino' a new and liberal constitution for that island. Murat, who had ne- 
 gotiated both with the allied sovereigns and the French emperor during 
 the hundred days, ultimately sided with the latter, and invaded the Papal 
 territories, threatening also Northern Italy. The rout at Waterloo de¬ 
 cided his fate: exiled from his throne, he perished in a rash descent on 
 Calabria, 1815; Ferdinand IV. having shortly before been reinstated in 
 his dominions. 
 
 Upper Italy. —During the contests of the Republic and the Empire 
 this portion of the peninsula became the theatre of great events, which 
 together with the changes undergone by its various states, have alread) 
 been incidentally noticed under France. The congress of Vienna 
 1815, again re-established the preponderance of Austria, and erectet 
 northern Italy into the following six governments: — 1. The kingdom 
 of Sardinia, under Victor Emmanuel, who regained the whole of his 
 continental territories except Savoy, together with the duchy of Genoa; 
 2. The Venetian provinces, with Mantua and Milan, were erected into 
 the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, and given to Austria ; 3. The 
 house of Austro-Este was replaced in the sovereignty of Modena ; 4. The 
 sovereign duchy of Parma became a principality for the ex-empress, 
 Maria Louisa; 5. The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria w T as reinstated as 
 grandduke of Tuscany; and, 6. Lucca became a sovereign state for the 
 ex-queen of Etruria. Sardinia was afterwards increased by the addition 
 of Savoy, taken from France at the second peace of Paris. 
 
 Switzerland. —This country underwent the same vicissitudes as its 
 neighbours, Italy and France. At last, after several petty revolutions 
 general tranquillity was restored, and a new federal compact formed a? 
 Zurich, 1815. The cantons were increased from nineteen to twenty-two 
 by the addition of Geneva, Neuchatel, and Vallais, all recovered from 
 France. 
 
508 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Francis II. succeeded to the dominions of Austria and the imperial 
 title at the period of the first war of the revolution, 1792, in which he 
 struggled long, and at last successfully, against a most formidable 
 enemy. By the battle of Marengo, 1800, and of Austerlitz, 1805, Ger¬ 
 many was twice laid prostrate at the feet of Napoleon. The main 
 result of the latter defeat was the establishment of the Confederation of 
 the Rhine, under the protectorate of the French ruler; and as this event 
 put an end to the old German or Roman empire, after a duration of a 
 thousand years, Francis assumed the title of Emperor of Austria and 
 King of Hungary and Bohemia. He now availed himself of an interval 
 of peace to repair the ravages which war had made in his dominions, 
 and felt bound to maintain neutrality in Bonaparte’s contest with Prussia, 
 while he made every exertion to augment his own financial and military 
 resources. The French monarch, on his part, effected various changes 
 in the constitution of the confederacy, conferring new titles on several 
 of the princes, while his own general, Murat, was created Grandduke of 
 Berg; and in order to complete the humiliation of the country, various 
 counts and princes were mediatized , that is, deprived of all immediate 
 government in their respective states, and their sovereign rights given 
 over to contiguous princes. 
 
 The embarrassments of the French in Spain in 1809, again induced 
 the Austrian government to make an effort for the independence of Ger¬ 
 many. The war which then took place differed in character from for- J 
 mer contests, inasmuch as the people generally took part against the 
 French, who were annoyed on all sides by vigorous and enterprising 
 corps of partisans under various leaders. The Archduke Charles de¬ 
 feated Bonaparte in person at Aspern; and though fortune again changed 
 sides at Wagram, the Austrians retired in good order to Bohemia, where 
 an armistice was concluded, followed by the peace of Schonbrunn. 
 Shortly after, Maria Louisa, daughter of the emperor, was married to 
 the Emperor of France. 
 
 By the treaty of Presburg, 1805, the mountainous district of the Tyrol 
 had been ceded to Bavaria; but early in 1809, the inhabitants com¬ 
 menced an insurrection under a native chief named Hofer, aided by the 
 Austrians. A murderous conflict was sustained against the Bavarians 
 and French with varying success, until the end of November, its ulti 
 mate issue depending on the greater contest decided in the two dreadful 
 days of Wagram. The cruel execution of Hofer and others of his 
 heroic associates, after an amnesty had been proclaimed, added another 
 stain to the reputation of Napoleon. 
 
 After the battle of Waterloo, the restoration of the Austrian monarchy 
 was effected at the congress of Vienna by means of the dissolved king¬ 
 dom of Italy, of the reconquered Illyrian provinces, and by the recovery 
 of the cessions formerly made to Bavaria. 
 
 The battle of Leipsic and the subsequent disasters of the French in 
 1813 dissolved the Confederation of the Rhine ; and the congress of 
 Vienna, after indemnif 3 r ing Prussia and other powers at the expense 
 of those princes who had most eagerly supported the invader, by an act 
 dated 9th June 1815, formed the German states, including portions of 
 the dominions of Austria, Prussia, and the Netherlands, with the free 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 509 
 
 cities, into a new federal relation called the Germanic League, This union, 
 which was left without any acknowledged head, has in view the preser¬ 
 vation of the security of Germany, and the independence of the respec¬ 
 tive states; the members of the confederation have equal rights, and 
 meet in diet at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. 
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 From 1795 this country continued in a state of hopeless dependency 
 on France, losing her commerce and colonies in constrained hostilities 
 with Britain. In 1806, the Batavian Republic was converted jnto the 
 kingdom of Holland, and Louis Bonaparte placed upon the throne. 
 This prince was of an amiable character, and really exerted tde little 
 power reposed in him for the benefit of his subjects. In particular, he 
 readily connived at the evasion of the decrees of his imperious brother, 
 prohibiting intercourse with England ; but this policy, so consonant with 
 the true interests of his people, soon exposed him to such a series of 
 reproaches as to render his position insupportable. In 1810, he abdi¬ 
 cated in favour of his eldest son; but this change not meeting with the 
 approbation of the head of the family, Holland was without ceremony 
 incorporated with France. At length the people, whose dreams of 
 liberty had been fearfully dispelled by the painful realities of despotism, 
 in the shape of the conscription and the most grinding exactions, rose 
 against the oppressor; the popular cry, “ Up with the house of Orange !” 
 once more resounded over the land ; and a provisional government being 
 formed at Amsterdam, William Frederick of Nassau arrived from 
 England, and w r as proclaimed sovereign of the United Netherlands in 
 December 1813. 
 
 In October 1814, a treaty of peace was concluded with Great Britain, 
 by which that country was allowed to retain the Cape of Good Hope, 
 Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, but restored Batavia, the Moluccas, 
 Surinam, and all other places taken from Holland during the war. The 
 congress of Vienna, by an act dated 31st May 1815, reunited the ten 
 provinces of the Low’ Countries, formerly subject to the Dukes of Bur¬ 
 gundy (now T the kingdom of Belgium), under the authority of William 
 Frederick, who thereupon assumed the title of King of the United 
 Netherlands. The government was declared a limited hereditary 
 monarchy, with a representative legislature. 
 
 ' DENMARK. 
 
 V 
 
 During the French wars, Denmark twice suffered from the arms of 
 Britain: her fleet engaged in the defence of Copenhagen w T as sunk, 
 burnt, or captured by Nelson, 1801; and after the bombardment of the 
 capital by an armament under Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, all 
 her ships of war w’ere surrendered, 1807. On the fall of Napoleon, she 
 was compelled to cede Norway to Sweden, in exchange for Swedish 
 Pomerania and the Isle of Rugen; but by the treaty of Vienna, June 
 1815, these districts were transferred to Prussia, the Danish king 
 receiving the duchy of Lauenburg as a trifling compensation. 
 
 43 * 
 
510 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 Gustavus IV. attained his majority in 1796; but his conduct showing 
 that he laboured under mental derangement, he was deposed in 1809, 
 and his uncle, Charles XIII., proclaimed king. The aristocracy took 
 this opportunity to effect several modifications in the constitution, tend¬ 
 ing to diminish the power of the crown; the general outline remaining 
 as settled in 1772. Charles now concluded the war which had broken 
 out with Russia and Denmark in the preceding year, ceding to the former 
 power the whole of Finland, with East Bothnia and Aaland ; an arrange¬ 
 ment which stripped the country of one-fourth of its territory and one- 
 third of its inhabitants. After this heavy blow, he joined the continental 
 system of Napoleon, 1810, receiving back, as a reward for his adherence, 
 the district of Pomerania, which had been wrested by the French from 
 his predecessor. In the same year, on the sudden death of Prince 
 Christian, who had been nominated to succeed Charles, the diet 
 elected Bernadotte, prince of Ponte-Corvo, one of the ablest of Bona¬ 
 parte’s marshals, as successor to the throne, under the title of Charles 
 John. 
 
 The crown-prince saw too clearly the real interests of his country to 
 allow it to remain long in the state of subserviency to France to which 
 it had been brought; and he was easily induced to abandon the conti¬ 
 nental system on the first favourable opportunity. In 1812, the Swedish 
 ports were again thrown open to all nations; and early in 1813, he 
 formed an alliance with England, and soon after openly entered the field 
 against his former commander. In return for the important aid thus 
 afforded to the allies, he was gratified by obtaining the valuable territory 
 of Norway at the peace of Kiel with Denmark in 1814, the natives being 
 permitted to retain their own constitution. The people, who were much 
 attached to their Danish rulers, made some opposition to this arrange¬ 
 ment, and set up Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark as their king; 
 but they were speedily compelled to yield. Bernadotte attained the 
 crown of the united kingdoms, as Charles XIV., in 1818. 
 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 Frederick III. succeeded his father in 1797, prudently announcing 
 his design to maintain the peace with France. He applied his attention 
 to the re-establishment of the finances, by introducing a wise economy 
 into all parts of the administration, hoping thereby in a few years to pay 
 the debts left by his father, and even part of those of Poland, with which 
 he had been charged by the last partition. After a long neutrality, the 
 country was rashly hurried into a war with Napoleon, when the double 
 defeat at Jena and Auerstadt, 1806, placed it at the mercy of an unspar 
 ing conqueror. By the peace of Tilsit, 1807, Prussia lost half her terri 
 tories: Westphalia w 7 as given to Jerome Bonaparte; Warsaw, erected 
 into a grand-duchy, was placed under the protection of the king of 
 Saxony; Dantzic was declared a free town; and the other remaining 
 ports were closed against the commerce of England. This last stipula¬ 
 tion was but the prelude to the most oppressive pecuniary exactions, and 
 every species of insult and degradation. In no one of the subjugated 
 European states was the insolence of the French domination carried 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 511 
 
 to a greater height, and in none did it produce so bitter a feeling of exas¬ 
 peration. Accordingly, in the beginning of 1813, the whole population 
 rose en masse at the call of their sovereign, resolving, in the emphatic 
 terms used at the time, that this new contest should end either “ in an 
 honourable peace or a glorious destruction.” The newly armed levies, 
 or landsturm , as they were called, filled with patriotic enthusiasm, de¬ 
 feated at the point of the bayonet 30,000 French under Eugene Beau- 
 harnois, at Mockern. The battles of Lutzen and Bautzen led to an 
 armistice on the 4th of June, during which a foul attempt was made by 
 Arrighi, a countryman of Napoleon’s, to cut off Lutzow’s free corps near 
 Leipsic, where Korner, the patriotic poet, was severely wounded. On 
 the resumption of hostilities, August 17, the Prussian arms attained a 
 series of brilliant successes. The renowned Blucher, whom his soldiers 
 afterwards styled Marshal Forwards , defeated Macdonald on the Katz- 
 bach, and drove him from Silesia; Vandamme was taken prisoner, and 
 his army annihilated near Culm; and Ney, to whom the crown of Prus¬ 
 sia had been promised, was totally defeated at Dennevitz, September 6, 
 and pursued to the Elbe. These triumphs, together with the storming 
 of General Bertrand’s fortified camp by Blucher, October 3, enabled the 
 allies to unite before Leipsic, and to contend for three days against the 
 emperor in person (16th, 18th, and 19th October), who never recovered 
 from the terrible blow here inflicted on him. France was now in her 
 turn condemned to be trodden down by invading armies, and the war 
 was prosecuted with varying but hardly doubtful success. Napoleon’s 
 forces were indeed increased, and from acting on an internal line, were 
 easily concentrated in overwhelming numbers on any point. The valour 
 of Blucher, however, at the battle of Laon, 9th March 1814, decided the 
 campaign, and Paris was soon after entered by the allies. Much of this 
 success must be attributed to the patriotic exertions of Baron Stein, 
 prime-minister in 1808, and to a secret patriotic association formed at 
 that time, called the Tugendbund (or bond of virtue), which led to the 
 formation of voluntary corps, as well as to the promise of political insti¬ 
 tutions in accordance with the spirit of the age. 
 
 By the congress of Vienna, 1814, Prussia recovered what it had 
 resigned at Tilsit, and in exchange for sacrifices in Poland, received 
 half of Saxony, and a considerable accession of provinces on the left 
 bank of the Rhine. 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 The odious tyranny of the Emperor Paul, which seemed to verge on 
 insanity, became at length insupportable to his subjects; and in March 
 1801, he met the fate of many other despotic princes, being murdered in 
 his palace by a band of conspirators. Alexander I., his son and suc¬ 
 cessor, began his reign by various judicious and patriotic measures; 
 while, by agreeing to an amicable convention, he put a stop to the im¬ 
 pending hostilities with England, consequent on his predecessor’s scheme 
 of armed neutrality. The peace of Amiens, 180*2, was the almost imme¬ 
 diate consequence; but the young monarch refused to acknowledge the 
 title of the French emperor, and, joining the Austrian coalition against 
 him, was present in person at the great defeat of Austerlitz. In 1806, 
 he endeavoured to continue the war in alliance with Prussia; but the 
 rapid overthrow of that power, and the severe losses of his own troops 
 
512 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 at Eylau and Friedland, led to an armistice in June 1807, during which 
 the two emperors met personally on a raft placed in the middle of the 
 Niemen. The result of this interview was an apparently warm friend¬ 
 ship between Alexander and Napoleon, and the celebrated treaty of 
 Tilsit, July 7, by which the former joined the continental system, and 
 soon after declared war against England and Sweden, the latter of which 
 countries was forced to cede, in 1809, all Finland, East Bothnia, and 
 Aaland. 
 
 Three years previously to this period, an alliance between Turkey 
 and France had been used as a pretext for declaring war with the former 
 state ; but the hostilities were languidly conducted till 1809, w T hen they 
 were resumed with fresh vigour. The Russians easily passed the forti¬ 
 fied line of the Danube; but the Turks, being strongly encamped at 
 Shumla in Bulgaria, were assailed without success, and the grand-vizier 
 routed one-half of the invaders, 1810. These last were then driven bad 
 across the Danube, when the vizier, having imprudently crossed in 
 pursuit, was surprised and defeated by Kutusoff, he himself escaping 
 with difficulty. Peace was soon after concluded at Bucharest, through 
 the mediation of England, when Turkey relinquished all claims on the 
 left bank of the Pruth, 1812. 
 
 Meanwhile, the effects of the continental system had become con¬ 
 spicuous in the ruin of the national commerce, and excited a universal 
 feeling of discontent throughout Russia. At the end of 1811, a dispute 
 arose with the court of Paris in consequence of the seizure of the terri¬ 
 tories of the Duke of Oldenburg by Napoleon; and it speedily became 
 evident that a rupture was impending. Accordingly, on the 19th March 
 1812, having previously formed an alliance with Sweden, Alexander 
 declared war against the French emperor, who on his part announced 
 his intention to drive back the Russian monarchy to Asia. The tremen¬ 
 dous contest that followed, so important for the independence of Europe, 
 has already been detailed under France. The steady valour and heroic 
 sacrifices of the Russian people saved their country and preserved the 
 liberties of mankind; and an unprincipled and insatiable ambition 
 received its most awful lesson amid the horrors which attended the 
 retreat from Moscow. After this period they experienced an almost un¬ 
 interrupted triumph, till, on the 31st March 1814, their victorious troops, 
 in conjunction with those of the other allies, took possession of the 
 French capital. Their sovereign obtained a considerable share of the 
 fruits of these signal successes. By the congress of Vienna, in 1815, 
 the city of Warsaw, with a large adjacent territory, was erected into the 
 kingdom of Poland, and annexed to his empire ; several provinces 
 bordering on Persia had previously (1813) been ceded to him by the 
 peace of Goolistan ; whilst the important acquisition of Finland, obtained 
 from Sweden in 1809, proved a source of great benefit and security to 
 his normern dominions. The remainder of his reign was passed in 
 various useful measures of internal improvement. 
 
 TURKEY. 
 
 The unprovoked invasion of Egypt by the French, and their subse¬ 
 quent successes, compelled Sultan Selim to form a defensive alliance 
 with Russia and England in 1798, and the great exertions of the latter 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 513 
 
 power at length restored that important province to the dominions of the 
 Porte. Meanwhile, the introduction of modern tactics into the army, 
 and the favour shown to the new corps disciplined after this manner, 
 which were known by the designation of the Nizam Djedit , had excited 
 the deadly hostility of the janissaries, who foresaw in the advancement 
 of this body a presage of their own downfal. In the midst of these dis¬ 
 contents, the intrigues of France so far prevailed in the Ottoman councils 
 as to precipitate a war with their late allies, England and Russia, 1806. 
 The latter power immediately occupied the provinces of Moldavia and 
 Wallachia; while an English fleet, under Admiral Duckworth, passed 
 the Dardanelles and approached the capital, but was speedily compelled 
 to retreat. A strong force being now sent under the vizier to the Rus¬ 
 sian frontiers, the janissaries seized the opportunity to give vent to their 
 long-cherished resentment, and with loud cries demanded the deposition 
 of the sultan. Mustapha IV., his nephew, was accordingly raised to 
 the throne, the whole authority, at the same time, passing into the hands 
 of the leaders of the insurrection, who conducted themselves with the 
 utmost insolence. This state of things, however, was speedily put an 
 end to by Bairactar, pasha of Rustchuk, who hastened to the capital at 
 the head of 40,000 Albanians; and though too late to prevent the assas¬ 
 sination of his former master Selim, whom he desired to reinstate, he 
 pulled the usurper from the throne, to which he immediately elevated 
 Mahmoud II. By way of avenging the death of the late sultan, the 
 usual barbarous executions, or rather massacres, now took place ; but 
 the janissaries still retained so much influence as to procure, some time 
 after, the death of Bairactar himself. In 18T2, the war with Russia was 
 brought to a close by the peace of Bucharest; and the sultan, now at 
 liberty to devote himself to the internal affairs of his empire, began to 
 display those qualities of energy, courage, and political talent, which 
 marked him as one of the ablest potentates of his time. He resolutely 
 prepared to reduce his rebellious viceroys in the provinces, abolished 
 the hereditary pashaliks, and at length entirely suppressed the insolent 
 janissaries, w’ho had so long held the capital in thraldom. The reduc¬ 
 tion of the Wahabees in Arabia was intrusted to Mehemet Ali, viceroy 
 of Egypt, w T ho had some time before made himself absolute master of 
 chat important province by a barbarous massacre of the Mamelukes; 
 and, after two years of dangerous warfare, his son Ibrahim entirely sub¬ 
 dued the enthusiastic sectarians, and took their chief prisoner. In 1820, 
 a struggle arose in the Morea, which, after ten years of warfare, terminated 
 in the independence of Greece,—in the first, instance as a republic under 
 the presidency of Count Capodistria, and eventually, in 1833, as a 
 limited monarchy under Prince Otho of Bavaria. 
 
 BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 The progress of the British power in Hindostan during the preceding 
 century, so marvellous in every point of view, is particularly striking 
 from the fact that it took place against the direct wishes of the govern¬ 
 ment at home; and that almost every successive war and negotiation 
 terminated, as it seemed inevitably, in that very extension of territory 
 which had been so anx’ously deprecated. Hardly, therefore, had the 
 conquest of Mysore freed the Company from a powerful enemy, and 
 
514 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 promised an opportunity of peacefully pursuing those commercial objects 
 which were always deemed paramount in importance, ere anoiher career 
 of conquest was opened up. This event arose from the jealousy of their 
 late allies, the Mahrattas, qow the most formidable native power in 
 Hindostan, both on account of the personal qualities of the chiefs who 
 ruled the confederacy, and from having French officers employed in their 
 armies. Scindia, one of these princes, had pushed his conquests so 
 successfully in the north, as to obtain possession of the provinces of 
 Delhi and Agra; and eventually, by the reduction of the city of the 
 former name in 1788, the person of the Mogul himself fell into his 
 hands, the conquered territories being placed under the government of 
 General Perron, a French officer in his service. The powerful chief, 
 having taken offence at a treaty formed by the British with the Peishwa 
 of Poonah, declared war against them in 1803, in which he was joined 
 by the Rajah of Berar. General Lake immediately took the field in the 
 north, where he was opposed by Perron; but having soon after captured 
 the important fort of Allighur, he succeeded in inducing that officer to 
 quit the service of Scindia, rapidly overran the northern provinces, and 
 took possession of Delhi and of the person of the Mogul. In the south, 
 where the operations were conducted by Major-general Wellesley (after¬ 
 wards Duke of Wellington), the success was if possible still more 
 decisive. At the great battle of Assaye, fought on the 23d September, 
 with a force of 5000 men, he totally defeated 60,000 under Scindia and 
 the rajah in person, gaining one of the most complete victories recorded 
 even in the annals of Indian warfare. A peace was the immediate con¬ 
 sequence, by which the victors obtained extensive territories in central 
 Hindostan, including Delhi and Agra, with the custody of the Mogul 
 emperor, who henceforth subsisted on a British pension till his death in 
 1807. 
 
 This treaty was scarcely concluded, ere a new contest broke out with 
 Holkar, another powerful Mahratta sovereign, 1804. He made a rapid 
 incursion into the Doab, and attempted to seize Delhi by stratagem, but 
 was gallantly repulsed; his infantry were defeated by Major-general 
 Fraser at Dieg, while Lord Lake, having pursued the cavalry to Fur- 
 ruckabad, took them by surprise, and routed them with great slaughter. 
 His territories were now speedily occupied by the British troops; but in 
 1805, in consequence of a change of policy on the part of the victors 
 and the removal of Lord Wellesley from the post of governor-general 
 nearly the whole were restored to him. 
 
 The pacific policy of Sir George Barlow and Lord Minto, the lattei 
 of whom devoted himself chiefly to the conquest of the French posses¬ 
 sions in the eastern seas, began to produce its invariable effects upon the 
 native chiefs, who increased in insolence in exact proportion to the 
 supineness of the British. Accordingly, the Marquis of Hastings, who 
 arrived as governor-general in 1813, felt the necessity for a display of 
 vigour in order to repress their encroachments. His first operations 
 were directed against the Gorkhas, a warlike people who had established 
 themselves in the alpine regions of the Himmalehs, whence they were 
 continually making encroachments on the Company’s frontier; and in 
 two active campaigns their territory was entirely subdued, and a large 
 mountain-tract permanently retained, 1816. The depredations of the 
 Pindarees, an association of freebooters, who were secretly aided by the 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 515 
 
 Mahratta chiefs, were next punished by several successive defeats, and 
 the utter dispersion of their hordes. The Peishwa of Poonah, Holkar, 
 and the Rajah of Nagpore, having taken part in this contest, were all 
 finally subdued, and their territories occupied ; so that in 1818, the power 
 of the British was extended over the entire peninsula, leaving only 
 some small states, too weak even if hostile to make any formidable 
 resistance. 
 
 Hindostan, or India within the Ganges, contains 1,280,000 square miles, with 
 a population of 134 millions; the immediate territories of the Company 
 amounting to 512,900 square miles, with about eighty-five millions of inhabi¬ 
 tants. This numerous people, besides various national distinctions, is divided 
 into two great religious classes, Mohammedans and Hindoos, in the proportion 
 of one to seven. The supreme deity of the Hindoos is the ineffable Brahm, 
 who is worshipped in the triple form of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva ; the two 
 last being believed to have undergone a number of avatars or incarnations, and 
 each successive avatar furnishing a new object of religious homage. Boodh or 
 Buddha is the ninth avatar, but he is worshipped in a different manner from 
 Brahma. Besides these deities, every object in nature has its presiding divinity, 
 and nothing is believed to take place without the intervention of some superior 
 power. The direct objects of Buddhist worship are a sort of heroes or demi¬ 
 gods—men of saintly life, who have been translated to a state of supreme bliss. 
 
 The people are divided into four castes or tribes : the Brahmins, teachers and 
 ministers of religion ; Khetries, magistrates or warriors ; Bice, merchants and 
 husbandmen ; and Soodras, artisans and servants of every class. There is also 
 a race of Pariahs, outcasts from their original rank, and who are in the lowest 
 state of degradation. 
 
 The government of British Hindostan is very peculiar, being under the direc¬ 
 tion of the East India Company and the ministers in England. Twenty-four 
 directors manage all the Indian correspondence and confer all the patronage; 
 the former being, however, subject to the Board of Control, nominated by the 
 sovereign, and the latter requiring the royal approbation of the selected govern¬ 
 ors and commanders-in-chief. Each of the three presidencies has a governor 
 and council, the governor-general residing in Calcutta. All the officers, civil 
 and military, except in the lower ranks, are Europeans, who go out in early 
 youth, and are frequently appointed to the most important charges, in propor¬ 
 tion to their merit, while others of the same age at home have scarcely left the 
 school or university. The united army amounts to upwards of 200,000 men, 
 partly Europeans, and partly natives called sepoys, under British officers. The 
 laws are Mohammedan, varying in each locality ; but the English system of 
 jurisprudence is established in certain districts. The revenues are estimated 
 at fourteen millions sterling. 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 During the scenes of violence and bloodshed which desolated Europe 
 at the beginning of this century, the United States, remote from the 
 scenes of warfare, and guided by the cautious policy of their rulers, 
 preserved a strict neutrality, and continued to advance steadily in the 
 career of commercial and agricultural prosperity. With the exception 
 of several unimportant civic disputes and contests between the two 
 great national parties known as republicans and federalists , which were 
 carried on, however, with considerable warmth, no event occurred to 
 disturb the internal tranquillity of the republic. In 1801, Mr. Adams 
 was succeeded in the office of president by Mr. Thomas Jefferson, cele¬ 
 brated as the author of the Declaration of Independence; and in 1803, 
 this statesman concluded a treaty with France, by which the immense 
 territory of Louisiana was ceded to the republic for a payment of fifteen 
 
516 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 millions of dollars. The number of states was also increased from se¬ 
 venteen to twenty-four, by the elevation of various western territories to 
 that rank; and by a census taken about this time, it was found that the 
 population had increased to five and a half millions, or nearly double 
 w T hat it was at the period of the revolt from England, while the exports, 
 imports, and revenue presented a still more gratifying result. In 1803, 
 a naval expedition was fitted out against the piratical state of Tripoli, 
 which had greatly annoyed the American commerce in the Mediterra¬ 
 nean ; and after several vigorous operations, the bashaw was compelled 
 to sign a favourable peace. 
 
 Unfortunately for both nations, causes of difference with Great Britain 
 now began to arise. That country claimed a right of searching the 
 vessels of neutral powers, with the view of ascertaining whether they 
 were not employed in carrying military stores for the assistance of her 
 enemies; and she also subjected American ships to a rigorous scrutiny, 
 in order to recover British seamen liable to impressment. These claims, 
 and the abuses to which they almost inevitably gave rise, were very 
 unwillingly acquiesced in by the republicans; and their feelings of ex¬ 
 asperation were excited to the highest pitch, when the decrees of Napo¬ 
 leon and the British orders in council virtually put an end to their 
 commerce both with England and the continent of Europe. At length, 
 in 1809, Mr. Madison being president, an act was passed by the federal 
 government, prohibiting all intercourse as well with France as with 
 Britain for one year, or until either country should recall her edicts. 
 This measure produced the desired effect with France before the close 
 of 1810, but England still adhered to her orders in council ; and finally, 
 after various unsatisfactory negotiations, and some hostile encounters 
 between ships of the two countries, war was declared against Great 
 Britain in June 1812. Brigadier Hull was immediately despatched with 
 an army to invade Canada ; but he was repulsed, pursued, and compelled 
 to surrender his whole force to Major-general Brock at Fort Detroit. A 
 second expedition for the same purpose met with no better fortune; but 
 at sea the Americans were generally triumphant. In consequence of the 
 superiority of their frigates in number of men and weight of metal, they 
 succeeded, when singly opposed to British “vessels of the same class, in 
 effecting several captures; while their opponents could only boast one 
 instance of naval victory, which was gained after a sanguinary encounter 
 between the ships Shannon and Chesapeake. The following year was 
 chiefly spent in conflicts on the Lakes and their vicinity, the preponder¬ 
 ance of success being there also in favour of the republicans; but in 
 1814, a detachment of British troops was sent to America under Major- 
 general Ross, who, co-operating with Admiral Cockburn, took the city 
 of Washington and destroyed its public buildings. At the close of the 
 season, however, another army of nearly 14,000 men, under Sir Edward 
 Packenham, which made an attack on the city of New Orleans, was re¬ 
 pulsed with great loss by an inferior force under General Jackson. A 
 few days previous to this event, a treaty had been concluded at Ghent 
 between the two powers, December 24, which, though it left the matters 
 in dispute undecided, was highly desirable for both parties. 
 
 In 1817, Mr. Madison was succeeded as president by Mr. James 
 Monroe, who shortly after obtained the cession of Eastand West Florida 
 from the Spanish government; which important districts were formally 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A.D. 
 
 517 
 
 taken possession of in 1821. The territories of the states now extended 
 from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific; their progress in wealth and population continued to be very 
 great, while their commerce spread over every sea. 
 
 BRAZIL. 
 
 When the French invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal family of Bra- 
 ganza removed, under British protection, to their transatlantic capital, 
 Rio Janeiro, where they remained until 1821, at which period John the 
 Sixth was recalled to Europe by the cortes. During his residence in 
 Brazil, that prince raised the colony to the rank of a kingdom; while 
 the ports were thrown open to all nations, and other efforts made to im¬ 
 prove the condition of the country. It soon became evident that a terri¬ 
 tory larger in extent than Russia in Europe, and far more richly endowed 
 by nature, could not long remain in dependence on so feeble a power as 
 Portugal, after the departure of the sovereign. John had left behind 
 him his eldest son, Don Pedro, to administer affairs in the quality of 
 regent, having shortly before his retirement agreed to a constitution 
 similar to that established in the mother country. But the cortes having 
 signified an intention to recur to the old system of monopolizing the 
 Brazilian trade, the colonists took the alarm; and on the 12th October 
 1822, they adopted the decisive step of a declaration of independence, 
 while the prince-regent, who had the sagacity to yield to the course of 
 events, was elevated to the dignity of emperor. He succeeded without 
 difficulty in compelling the Portuguese troops to embark for Europe; 
 and this important revolution was accomplished with no other blood¬ 
 shed than a slight skirmish at the town of Bahia. By a constitution 
 finally agreed to in 1824, Brazil was declared an hereditary monarchy, 
 with two legislative bodies, a senate and chamber of deputies, the one 
 appointed by the emperor, the other chosen by the people. The Roman 
 Catholic faith was established as the religion of the state; but all other 
 Christian sects are tolerated. 
 
 SPANISH COLONIES. 
 
 From the period of their first settlement till the end of the eighteenth 
 century, the colonists of Spain remained in a state of quiet submission 
 to the government of Madrid, which was carried to a pitch of despotism 
 almost beyond belief. From the viceroys to the lowest clerks, every 
 official situation was filled with persons sent from Europe, by whom 
 justice was unblushingly bought and sold, wffiile, in other respects, the 
 utmost venalty everywhere prevailed. Commerce of all kinds was 
 made a complete monopoly for the benefit of the home country, which 
 compelled the colonists to take its commodities in exchange for bullion; 
 and, in order to put an effectual stop to all improvement, intercourse of 
 every kind with other nations was strictly prohibited. After the sup¬ 
 pression of the Jesuits, the ranks of the priesthood were recruited by 
 monks of the lowest description from the Spanish monasteries, who, by 
 maintaining superstition and ignorance, formed the strongest props of the 
 degrading policy adopted by the ruling faction. As a matter of course, 
 printing and liberty of discussion were altogether unknown. 
 
 - 44 
 
518 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 But notwithstanding all this machinery of tyranny, the new principles 
 evolved by the American and French revolutions began to gain ground 
 even in those darkened regions; and, so early as 1806, Miranda, a 
 Mexican officer who had served under Dumouriez, attempted with a 
 small force to create an insurrection in Caraccas. This effort, which 
 seems -to have been premature and ill-considered, failed; but the dispo¬ 
 sition to shake off the tyranny of Spain continued to increase in strength, 
 till at length, in 1810, the liberals deposed the captain-general and 
 assembled a congress to organize an independent government for the 
 state of Venezuela. This conduct was soon after imitated at Bogota, 
 the capital of New Grenada. In the contests which now took place 
 with the European troops, the most frightful atrocities were committed 
 on both sides ; but the eminent abilities of Simon Bolivar, who com¬ 
 manded the liberating armies, eventually achieved the task of inde¬ 
 pendence. Buenos Ayres threw off the Spanish yoke in 1816; and in 
 1818 its example was followed by the patriots of Chili. Mexico, Peru, 
 and Guatemala were not declared independent till 1821. At length, in 
 December 1824, the united forces of the patriots, under Generals Sucre 
 and Miller, totally routed the Spaniards in the great battle of Ayacucho, 
 and placed the freedom of the colonies beyond further opposition from 
 that quarter. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that tranquillity is even yet far from being 
 established in these new republics. Throughout the contest, the diffi¬ 
 culties of the leading chiefs were greatly increased by disunion and 
 want of confidence, the great Bolivar himself being frequently exposed 
 to the most injurious suspicions ; and since that time, they have shown 
 themselves signally deficient in that political talent and moral worth 
 which are so necessary to secure the prosperity of states under every 
 form of government. 
 
 LITERATURE, ARTS, AND SCIENCES. 
 
 Britain. —The most striking feature in the literature of England during the 
 early years of the nineteenth century, is the splendid array ot poetical genius 
 which it displays. The severe but truthful delineations of Crabbe, 1832; the 
 glowing fancy of Shelley, 1822 ; the gorgeous chivalric legends of Scott, 1832; 
 the lofty but misanthropic muse of Byron, 1824; together with the contribu¬ 
 tions of other great writers, some of whom are still living, as Moore, Camp¬ 
 bell, Southey, and Wordsworth, present a combination unparalleled in any 
 former age. An entirely new character was imparted to the romance and the 
 novel by the genius of Scott, who produced a succession of works in this 
 department, wonderful alike for their masterly sketches of character and for 
 the extraordinary facility with which they were composed. Senatorial oratory 
 may also be mentioned here as a new department of English literature ; and in 
 the preserved speeches of Burke, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Erskine, Grattan, and 
 others, may be seen the revival in modern times of the glories of classic elo¬ 
 quence. Stewart, 1828, and Brown, 1820, though perhaps contributing little 
 to the researches of former writers, threw over the department of metaphysics 
 the refinements of literary taste and elegant composition ; Ricardo, 1823, and 
 Malthus, 1834, have contributed valuable assistance to the science of political 
 economy ; Playfair, 1819, and Leslie, 1832, were distinguished in the study of 
 mathematics and natural philosophy. To no other philosopher does the science 
 of chemistry owe such deep and manifold obligations as to Sir Humphry Davy, 
 1829 : Wollaston, 1828, was also celebrated in the same pursuit. Natural his¬ 
 tory, which was extensively prosecuted at this period, presents the distinguished 
 name of Sir Joseph Banks, 1820 ; medicine was cultivated by Gregory, 1821 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D. 
 
 519 
 
 and by many eminent coadjutors, among whom the highest place must be 
 assigned to Jenner, 1823, w'hose great discovery of vaccination has conferred 
 the highest practical benefits upon mankind. The interesting astronomical dis¬ 
 coveries of Herschel, 1822, belong also to this period. The most liberal pa¬ 
 tronage was given by all classes to the cultivators of the fine arts, who increased 
 beyond enumeration; among the most eminent may be mentioned the well- 
 known names of Lawrence, 1830, Wilkie, 1841, and the eminent sculptor, 
 Chantrey, 1841. 
 
 France. — The stormy period of the Revolution undoubtedly tended even¬ 
 tually to give a powerful impulse to the literature of France, which, since the 
 Restoration, has produced a vast number of eminent authors; but, during the 
 period here more particularly embraced, its effect was unfavourable, little else 
 besides journals and political pamphlets being in demand. Among the literary 
 characters who lived within the limits of this era, may be mentioned Denlle, 
 
 1813, whose poetry, however, belongs to the old monarchy; and St. Pierre, 
 
 1814, author of the well-known Studies of Nature , and several elegant and 
 beautiful tales. In the latter department may also be mentioned the names of 
 Madame Cottin, 1807, and Madame de Genlis, 1830. Another female writer 
 who has exercised a powerful influence on the modern literature of France, is 
 Madame de Stael, 1817, daughter of the finance minister Necker, distinguished 
 both in history and fiction. The travellers Volney, 1820, and Denon, 1825, 
 deserve to be recorded, the latter especially in connexion with the splendid 
 work on the antiquities of Egypt, compiled after the return of the French expe¬ 
 dition to that country. In mathematics appears the illustrious La Place, 1827 ; 
 Cuvier, 1832, possesses a European reputation for his researches in natural 
 history, particularly for many splendid discoveries among the remains of those 
 species of animals now extinct; and Jussieu, 1836, by his natural system of 
 botany, ranks among the most distinguished prosecutors of that science. 
 
 Germany. —The extraordinary development of intellectual power manifested 
 in Germany towards the close of the eighteenth century, continued to increase 
 in the nineteenth ; and at this moment the literature of that country presents a 
 spectacle of mental energy, activity, and genius, unequalled in any other 
 quarter of the world. In metaphysical research, a study in which the Ger¬ 
 mans are pre-eminently distinguished, the short period here embraced presents 
 the illustrious names of Fichte, 1819, Schelling, and Hegel, 1831, who have 
 conferred the highest reputation on their country. The researches of Dr. Gall, 
 1828, have excited great interest throughout Europe, as laying the foundations 
 of what is believed to be a new mental science — phrenology. In dramatic 
 literature the number of aspirants almost exceeds belief; and translations 
 besides exist of every eminent foreign author, Shakspeare and Calderon being 
 perhaps more extensively read and admired in Germany than even in their own 
 countries. In other departments of poetry and imaginative writing are found 
 the names of Korner, 1813 ; Chamisso, Heine, Schenkendorf, 1817, Tieck, 
 and Uland. Richter, 1825, is celebrated as a humorous and original novelist; 
 F. Schlegel, 1829, was successful alike in the novel, poetry, and history. In 
 this last branch the scholars of Germany have produced many great standard 
 works: Herder, 1803, Von Muller, 1809, were distinguished towards the end 
 of the eighteenth century ; Heeren and Eichhorn have written eminent works 
 both on ancient and literary history ; Niebuhr, 1831, is admired for his History 
 of Rome. Heyne, 1812, and Wolff, may be mentioned among a host of cele¬ 
 brated critics. The distinguished traveller, Humboldt, whose numerous works 
 have been translated into various European languages, is also a native of Ger¬ 
 many. In theology this country has produced an extraordinary number of able 
 writers, wflio have brought to their peculiar subject an immense amount of 
 learning and critical acumen. Olbers, the well-known discoverer of the 
 asteroids, and Blumenbach, 1840, are conspicuous among a vast array of emi¬ 
 nent scientific characters. 
 
 The other European communities, though possessed of many respectable 
 writers, offer nothing during this period to be put in competition with the litera¬ 
 ture of the three great dominant languages just alluded to. The United States 
 
520 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 are yet too young as a nation to possess a distinct position in this respect, apart 
 from that of England, though the histories of Bancroft and Prescott, with the 
 lighter works of Irving and Cooper, are creditable to transatlantic talent. 
 Italy can boast of Denina, author of a history of Italian Revolutions; Foscolo, 
 eminent in poetry and the drama; and the great sculptor, Canova, 1822. 
 Danish literature presents the name of Rask, a man of astonishing philological 
 acquirements; and Malte-Brun, 1826, well known throughout Europe for his 
 work on geography : the celebrated scidptor, Thorvaldsen, also belongs to this 
 country, the capital of which he has decorated with many fine specimens of 
 his genius. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 SUMMARY OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY SINCE THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 
 
 The important arrangements effected by the representatives of the 
 European powers at the Congress of Vienna, as well as the sufferings 
 and exhaustion consequent on twenty-five years of bloodshed, laid the 
 foundations of a lasting peace; and the era thus signalized affords a 
 fixed and definite point, at which the record of modern history may be 
 appropriately closed. Still, it may not be improper, by way of conclu¬ 
 sion, to take a rapid glance at subsequent events, many of which spring 
 from that awakening of the democratic principle, of which the revolt of 
 the British North American colonies may be regarded as the first strik¬ 
 ing indication, but which neither the fearful scenes of the French Revo¬ 
 lution, nor the sanguinary contests of the Republic and the Empire, 
 have been able to allay. This spirit, indeed, in whatever light it may 
 be regarded, is now the most active political element in civilized society, 
 and its progressive development in different states, constitutes the main 
 fact, as well as the chief interest of contemporary history. At no former 
 period of the world have the principles of civil and religious liberty been 
 more widely diffused, or their blessings more generally enjoyed; and 
 there seems good reason to hope, that, guided by the lessons of experi¬ 
 ence, a career of improvement, peaceful and gradual, will effectually 
 check those fiery ebullitions which have hitherto agitated and terrified 
 mankind. 
 
 The reio-n of Louis XVIII., after his restoration to the throne of 
 France, in 1815, presents no domestic event of importance, though tran¬ 
 quillity continued from time to time to be disturbed by growing disputes 
 between the royalist and liberal parties, to the former of whom the court 
 showed an obvious partiality.* In 1824, Louis was succeeded by his 
 brother, the Count d’Artois, as Charles X.; but this monarch, who was 
 decidedly inferior in ability to his predecessor, from the first identified 
 himself with the legitimists, and in 1829 placed the administration of 
 affairs in the hands of Prince Polignac, an extremely unpopular per¬ 
 sonage. On the 26 th July 1830, this minister, with singular infatuation, 
 induced his majesty to issue six ordinances, by which the liberty of the 
 press was abolished, and the constitution of the chamber of deputies 
 
 * in 1823, Louis, in concert with the allied sovereigns assembled at Verona, sent an 
 army into Spain, under his nephew the Duke of Angouleme, to aid Ferdinand in quell¬ 
 ing the political discontents of that country. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 521 
 
 entirely remodelled. These measures being a palpable subversion of 
 the character which the king had sworn to maintain, were not long in 
 producing results that might easily have been foreseen. The people of 
 Paris immediately rose in insurrection; and after a three days’ contest 
 in the streets, during which they were joined by several regiments of 
 the line, the royal forces were compelled to evacuate the city. A pro¬ 
 visional government having been formed, and the national guard placed 
 under the command of the veteran La Fayette, the deputies invited the 
 Duke of Orleans to place himself at the head of the government, by the 
 title of Lieutenant-general of the kingdom. On the 2d of August, 
 Charles was compelled to sign an act of abdication, and shortly after 
 departed for England; while, on the 9th, the chambers, after a thorough 
 revision of the charter, bestowed the vacant throne on the duke, by the 
 title of Louis Philippe, King of the French, declaring the succession 
 hereditary in the direct male line. Ever since, the new sovereign has 
 conducted the affairs of government with great firmness and ability.* 
 
 The second revolution, thus suddenly effected in France, produced a 
 powerful sensation throughout Europe. The Belgians, who had never 
 assimilated with the Dutch, judged the period favourable for dissolving 
 the union between the two countries. In the month of August, the 
 populace of Brussels rose against the royal troops, who were compelled 
 to retire to Antwerp, w r here they were subsequently besieged by a French 
 army, and forced to capitulate. Meantime, Belgium was declared an 
 independent kingdom, and so recognised by all the great European 
 powers. On the 21st July 1831, the crown was conferred on Prince 
 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. 
 
 The patriotic party in Poland, also, w’ere encouraged to attempt the 
 reassertion of their national independence. On the 29th November 1830, 
 an insurrection took place at Warsaw, headed by the pupils of the mili¬ 
 tary school. Being joined by the army, their efforts were at first suc¬ 
 cessful : a provisional government was formed; the army placed under 
 the command of Chlopiki, a veteran general; and the Grand Duke 
 Constantine, brother to the Russian emperor, compelled to resign his 
 authority. But immense bodies of Russian troops were speedily poured 
 into the country; and though the Poles, who were subsequently headed 
 by Prince Adam Czartoriski, behaved with great gallantry, they were 
 at length overwhelmed by superior numbers, their capital being entered 
 by the enemy, 8th September. The most severe measures were now 
 taken by the victors for extinguishing the national spirit, w'hile numbers 
 of the insurgents w^ere sent to Siberia, or retired into voluntary exile. 
 
 In Britain, during the first years of George IV., few T events of national 
 importance occurred. The year 1824 was signalized as a period of 
 extraordinary speculation among the mercantile community, and was 
 followed in 1825-1826 by an equally great amount of bankruptcy and 
 depression. At the same time, the public mind was violently agitated 
 by the question of Catholic emancipation; and at length, in 1829, the 
 Duke of Wellington being at the head of the administration, a bill was 
 carried through both Houses under his auspices, by which Romanists 
 
 * In May 1830, the Polignac ministry sent a formidable armament against Algiers, 
 which was taken possession of and declared a Colony of France. Much fighting has 
 Since occurred between the French troops and the natives of the country, who are yet 
 far from being subdued. 
 
 44 * 
 
522 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 were declared eligible to seats in Parliament, and to other civil and 
 political offices from which they had hitherto been excluded. 
 
 George IV. was succeeded in 1830 by his brother, the Duke of Cla¬ 
 rence, as William IV., the Duke of Wellino-ton beino* continued as 
 prime-minister. But the desire for parliamentary reform, long cherished 
 by the liberal party, had now r become so powerful with the nation, that 
 the elections to the new House of Commons were eminently unfavour¬ 
 able to a Conservative cabinet, and another administration was accord¬ 
 ingly organized under Earl Grey. Notwithstanding the most strenuous 
 opposition on the part of the Tories, this statesman, supported by the 
 general voice of the nation, at length succeeded, in 1832, in carrying 
 through Parliament the celebrated Reform Bill, by which the electoral 
 franchise was placed chiefly in the hands of the middle classes, whose 
 general influence has since been greatly augmented by reforms of the 
 municipal corporations in the three kingdoms. In the following year, 
 an act was passed for the abolition of slavery in the colonies, twenty 
 millions sterling being given to the planters as an indemnification for 
 the loss of property thereby occasioned. In 1837, King William was 
 succeeded by her present majesty, Queen Victoria, who, in 1840, mar¬ 
 ried her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The year 
 of her majesty’s accession was disturbed by a rebellion in Canada, 
 which was speedily suppressed; but the chief grievances complained 
 of have since been removed.* 
 
 The Peninsular kingdoms, during the whole period since 1814, have 
 presented a scene of great disorder. In 1820, an insurrection of the sol¬ 
 diery compelled Ferdinand VII. of Spain to abandon his absolute prin¬ 
 ciples and adopt the constitution of 1812; but the monarchical party, 
 aided by the monks, contrived so to foment disorder, as to afford a pre¬ 
 text for the French invasion in 1823. The patriots made a stout resist¬ 
 ance, but were eventually compelled to yield; and the appearance of 
 tranquillity was for some time restored. A still more sanguinary strug¬ 
 gle arose on the death of the king, who, having no male heirs, had abro¬ 
 gated the salic law in favour of his infant daughter Isabella, thereby 
 depriving his brother Don Carlos of the succession. The Queen-mother 
 Christina had also been appointed regent; while the disappointed prince, 
 at the head of a powerful party, prepared to maintain his pretensions by 
 force of arms. A dreadful civil war was the consequence, during which 
 the prisoners taken on both sides were frequently massacred in cold 
 blood; while the queen-regent, w T ho found her chief support in the libe¬ 
 ral party, after adopting various popular measures, finally embraced the 
 constitution of 1812. Her majesty received assistance, indirectly at 
 least, both from France and England ; the contest continued to be wrnged 
 with various success till 1839, when the cause of Don Carlos began tc 
 lose ground; and finally, in 1840, a general pacification was effected. 
 In the same year the regent resigned her authority, and the cortes con¬ 
 ferred that dignity on General Espartero, j duke of Vittoria, who, how- 
 
 * During the disturbances in Canada, the stream of emigration, which had hitherto 
 flowed into that country, was directed towards the islands of Eastern Asia. The pro¬ 
 gress made in the colonization of Australia, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand, has 
 been rapid beyond all precedent; and these distant but valuable dependencies now form 
 a most important field for the unemployed capital and population of the mother-country. 
 
 f General Espartero was a man of humble origin, who owed his elevation mainly to his 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 523 
 
 ever, retained his power but for a short period, being- driven into exile 
 in 1843, and the government reverting once more into that condition of 
 disorder and uncertainty which has for so many years marred the pros¬ 
 perity of this unhappy country. 
 
 The adjoining kingdom of Portugal has been a prey to nearly similar 
 commotions. John VI. survived his return to Europe nearly six years, 
 during which the country was distracted by the intrigues of the Infante 
 Don Miguel, who, at the head of what was called the apostolical party, 
 contrived, though contrary to the wishes of his father, to procure the 
 abrogation of the constitution adopted in 1820. On the death of his 
 majesty in 1826, the crown fell to Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil, who, 
 however, resigned his right in favour of his infant daughter, Donna 
 Maria, at the same time granting a liberal constitution to the country, 
 and appointing Don Miguel regent. But this prince was no sooner 
 installed in his new dignity than he began openly to aspire to the throne ; 
 and having assembled the cortes in 1829, succeeded in getting himself 
 proclaimed sovereign of Portugal. Don Pedro, on his part, prepared to 
 assert the rights of his daughter; and, having repaired to Europe, vigor¬ 
 ous preparations were made to dethrone the usurper, in which he was 
 aided by Britain and France. A sanguinary struggle of two years was 
 waged between the forces of the royal brothers, till, in 1834, a treaty 
 was signed at Lisbon between France, Spain, and England, for the ex¬ 
 pulsion of the younger from the Portuguese territories. The contest 
 was soon after terminated by the capitulation of Miguel at the conven¬ 
 tion of Evora, by which he gave up his pretensions, and was permitted 
 to leave the kingdom unmolested. The young queen was now firmly 
 seated on the throne, her father being appointed regent; but the state of 
 his health having shortly after induced him to resign that office, the 
 cortes declared Donna Maria of age, w T ho, having taken the oath to the 
 charter, assumed the exercise of the royal authority. The country has 
 since that time been comparatively tranquil. 
 
 The revolution in Greece forms another interesting episode in con¬ 
 temporary history. When the insurrection broke out in the Morea and 
 Archipelago in 1820, the cause of the Greeks w T as enthusiastically advo¬ 
 cated throughout Europe, and particularly in England, where the me¬ 
 mory of their ancient renown, as well as classical associations, induced 
 many to volunteer in their cause. A barbarous intestine warfare con¬ 
 tinued to be waged about six years, till in 1827, England, France and 
 Russia united to put a stop to its horrors. The Porte, however, refused 
 to accede to negotiations, and additional reinforcements were brought 
 from Egypt, under Ibrahim Pacha, for the final reduction of the insur¬ 
 gents. The armament of this chief, which consisted of ninety-two sail, 
 including transports, found itself intercepted off Navarino, where the 
 Turkish fleet was also at anchor, by a combined fleet of British, Rus¬ 
 sians, and French, assembled for the protection of the Greeks. An 
 armistice of twenty days was soon after agreed on; but in consequence 
 of an accidental collision, a fierce engagement ensued between the op¬ 
 posing squadrons, which ended in the entire destruction of the Ottoman 
 
 own exertions during the civil war. In 1836 he succeeded Cordova in the command of 
 the Queen’s armies, after which time his power and influence steadily advanced until 
 he was temporarily placed at the head of the government. 
 
524 
 
 MODERN HISTORY. 
 
 armament. The sultan now declared war against the three powers, and 
 a sanguinary contest took place between the Turks and Russians, the 
 latter of whom were finally successful. After a long series of internal 
 disorders, Greece was at length erected into an independent kingdom, 
 and its crown conferred on Prince Otho of Bavaria in 1833. In conse¬ 
 quence of the lengthened degradation and ignorance of the people, the 
 country cannot yet be said to be in a prosperous condition; but there is 
 reason to hope that a continuance of peace and regular government will 
 yet develop its great internal resources. As for the Turkish empire 
 itself, it is only prevented from falling to pieces by the mutual jealousies 
 of the great European cabinets. The province of Egypt alone, under 
 the able government of Mehemet Ali, seems to be advancing in civilisa¬ 
 tion; and though that prince has recently been compelled by the Chris¬ 
 tian powers to abandon his pretensions to supreme sovereignty, and to 
 acknowledge a nominal subjection to the Porte, the pashalic has been 
 declared hereditary in his family, and he still retains all the weight of 
 an absolute ruler. 
 
 The states of Germany, since 1815, have continued to advance steadily 
 in the career of prosperity. In 1833, an important commercial league, 
 called the Zollverein, under the auspices of Prussia, was entered into 
 by most of the governments, by which internal trade was freed from all 
 restrictions, and a uniform system of duties agreed on. This union, 
 though entirely commercial in its character, owes its origin in some 
 measure to a general desire for nationalization, and cannot fail to exer¬ 
 cise a material influence on the future destinies of the country. Prussia, 
 in particular, under the wise and paternal rule of Frederick-William IV., 
 has made a surprising progress in wealth and intelligence; while the 
 recent grant of a representative legislature (1842), though under great 
 restrictions, ranks her among the number of constitutional monarchies. 
 
 Events of considerable interest have also taken place in the East. In 
 India, in 1824, during the presidency of Lord Amherst, a war broke out 
 with the Burmese, who had for many years annoyed the eastern frontier 
 of the British territories. An expedition was sent to Rangoon, which in 
 the second campaign advanced nearly to Ava, the capital, and the Bur- 
 man government were glad to purchase peace in 1826 by the cession of 
 Assam, Aracan, and the Tenasserim provinces. In 1840, the necessity 
 of securing the western frontier from encroachment involved the Indian 
 government in a dangerous contest with the rude tribes of Afghanistan, 
 which has, however, been happily brought to a termination. 
 
 The opening of the China trade to all British subjects, by the aboli¬ 
 tion of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1833, gave rise to a 
 series of disputes with the native rulers, which at length led to open 
 hostilities. These disputes, relating at first mainly to the legal rights 
 and immunities to be enjoyed by the commercial superintendents ap¬ 
 pointed by the British cabinet, came eventually to be merged in the 
 greater question touching the traffic in opium, which had all along been 
 in some measure declared contraband by the Imperial government. It 
 was not, however, peremptorily prohibited till 1836; and even after¬ 
 wards, through the connivance of the inferior authorities, an active 
 smuggling trade continued to be carried on till 1839, when the Imperial 
 Commissioner Lin, determined on its forcible suppression, seized the 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 525 
 
 persons of the British merchants at Canton, and of Captain Elliot, the 
 superintendent. That functionary was then compelled, by threats of 
 personal violence to himself and fellow-prisoners, to issue an order for 
 the surrender of all the opium on board the vessels in the vicinity of 
 Canton, which, to the value of above ^£2,000,000 sterling, vras accord- 
 ingly given up to the Chinese, who destroyed it,—the captain at the 
 same time pledging the faith of the English government for compensa¬ 
 tion to the merchants. After various fruitless attempts to obtain satis¬ 
 faction for this outrage, or even an accommodation by which the regular 
 trade might be resumed, the cabinet of London resolved on hostilities. 
 These, which have since been vigorously prosecuted, have given the 
 Chinese a salutary lesson as to their inferiority to Europeans in military 
 science and discipline; and they have ended in a peace, signed August 
 29, 1842, by which the emperor agrees to pay twenty-one million dollars 
 by way of compensation, to open five of his principal ports to foreign 
 commerce, and to surrender the island of Hong-Kong to the British 
 crown for ever. 
 
 THE END 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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 /> . • . • ■• ;■ > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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/ 
 
 QUESTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 WHITE’S UNIVERSAL HISTORY, 
 
 / 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN S. HART, A.M., 
 
 Principal of the Philadelphia High School, and Profesaa* 
 of Moral and Mental Science, Member of the 
 American Philosophical Society, &c. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA . 
 
 W. A. LEAKY & CO. 
 
 No. 138 NORTH SECOND STREET. 
 
 1850 . , 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 #7Tiflfe 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
QUESTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 WHITE’S UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Into what three portions is Universal History divided? What are the 
 dates and events that mark these three periods ? How may Ancient History 
 be subdivided ? What are the dates and events that mark these four pe¬ 
 riods ? Give similar answers in regard to the subdivisions of the Middle 
 Ages and Modern History. 
 
 FORTY-FIRST CENTURY B. C. (Page 13.) 
 
 What are the leading events of this century as described by Moses ? 
 What account of creation is given by geologists ? 
 
 THIRTY-NINTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 14.) 
 
 Give the history of Cain and Abel. Describe the descendants of Cain 
 and Seth. What progress in the arts during this century ? 
 
 THIRTY-FOURTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 14.) 
 
 What was the great event of this century? Describe the Deluge. What 
 was one of the most remarkable consequences of the Deluge ? Describe 
 the progress of mankind after the Deluge. 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD CENTURY B. C. (Page 15.) 
 
 How was the world divided among the descendants of Noah ? Give an 
 account of the origin of Babylon. What do we learn from Scripture respect¬ 
 ing the Abyssinian empire. What was the probable origin of the Chinese ? 
 What nations have sprung from Japhet? What from Shem? What from 
 Ham ? What were the three primitive languages, and what have sprung 
 from each ? 
 
 TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY B. C. (Page 17.) 
 
 What is the character of early Egyptian history ? Give the substance 
 of what is known in regard to the first settlement of Egypt. Wi*h whom 
 does Egyptian history properly begin ? What have been the conjectures in 
 regard to Menes ? What is the account of him given by Herodotus ? What 
 was the leading doctrine of the Egyptian religion? What were its leading 
 deities? What are some of its extravagancies? What traits of Egyptian 
 superstition are found in subsequent Jewish history ? Give some account 
 of the government of Ancient Egypt. What proofs remain of the progress 
 of the Egyptians ? What is said of the hieroglyphics of Egypt ? 
 
4 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY B. C. (Page 19.) 
 
 When was Abraham born, and why did he leave his native country ? In 
 what military expedition was he engaged after settling in Palestine ? What 
 great catastrophe did he afterwards endeavour to prevent ? Give an account 
 of Ishmael and his descendants. What striking evidence of piety did Abra¬ 
 ham afterwards give ? When and at what age did he die ? Give his cha¬ 
 racter ? 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 20.) 
 
 What kingdom was founded in this century ? What great event of Egyp¬ 
 tian history is supposed to have happened in this century,? Give some 
 account of the invasion of the Shepherd Kings. What are some of the con¬ 
 tradictory statements in regard to these events ? 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 21.) 
 
 Give the character and history of Isaac. Give the history of Jacob and 
 Esau. How were the possessions of Isaac divided between them ? What 
 were the circumstances that brought the Israelites at this time into connec¬ 
 tion with the Egyptians ? What are some of the measures of Joseph while 
 governor of Egypt? Why was Goshen selected for the residence of the 
 Israelites ? What was the condition of Egypt at this time ? What other 
 nation besides the Hebrews had their refugees in Egypt during this cen¬ 
 tury? What elements of science and art did both the Hebrews and Greeks 
 derive from the Egyptians ? 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 22.) 
 
 Give the conclusion of Jacob’s and Joseph’s history. What change in 
 their mode of living was effected by their residence in Egypt ? What two 
 branches of the Pelasgic race first settled Greece? What is the origin 
 of the Ionians ? What is said of the Hellenes ? What barbarous tribes 
 occasionally mingled with these ? What was the character of the Scythians ? 
 What remains of Pelasgian architecture exist, and what is its character ? 
 What foreign influences gave the first impulse towards civilizing the Pe- 
 lasgians ? What became of the Pelasgians, or primitive Greeks, after the 
 settlement of the Egyptians under Cecrops and Inachus ? What other colo¬ 
 nies reached Greece during this century, and what was their character ? 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 23.) 
 
 What happened to the Israelites after the death of Joseph? Give the 
 history of Moses to the time of his divine appointment as leader of the 
 Israelites ? What distinguished patriarch flourished in Idumea about the 
 time of Moses? Give some account of Job. What are some of the con¬ 
 jectures as to the time that he lived ? What cities of Greece were founded 
 about this time ? What circumstances in Egypt added new colonies to 
 Greece ? Describe two remarkable inundations or floods that occurred in 
 Greece at this age. When and by whom was the Amphyctionic O uncil 
 established ? Give some account of this famous Council. What was the 
 most celebrated exertion of its authority ? 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 25.) 
 
 How was the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt accomplished ? 
 What signa 1 deliverance did they experience just after leaving Egypt? 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 5 
 
 What was the number of Israelites at this time ? Describe the events of the 
 first three months after their march. What happened at Mount Sinai? 
 Why did they not proceed at once to Palestine ? What was the penalty of 
 this disobedience? Wh it were the circumstances of the death of Moses? 
 Ho w was Moses esteemed by the ancients ? What is said of the Pentateuch, 
 and the institutions of Moses ? What evidence is given in the Pentateuch 
 of the progress of the arts among the Hebrews ? Give an account of the 
 entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, and the capture of Jericho and Ai. 
 In what manner did Joshua divide the land of Canaan after its conquest ? 
 What took place after his death ? What are the leading features of Jewish 
 polity and religion, as unfolded by Moses in the Pentateuch ? What great 
 Egyptian hero flourished during the wanderings of the Israelites in the 
 wilderness ? Give some account of the character of Sesostris. Where is 
 Phoenicia, and what was its oldest city ? What were some of the commercial 
 enterprises of the Sidonians ? What progress had they made in the arts ? 
 What was the great city of Phoenicia ? What religious festival of the Athe¬ 
 nians was instituted in this century ? Give some account of the Areopagus. 
 What other Grecian city was founded in this century ? What great event in 
 the history of Grecian literature occurred in this century ? What great 
 event in its religious history ? What great men and events were contempo¬ 
 rary with the introduction of the letters of Cadmus and the oracle of Delphi 
 into Greece ? Give some account of the Greek language and its dialects. 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 29.) 
 
 What were the leading features of the Jewish government after the death 
 of Joshua ? What is the character of their history for the next three or 
 four centuries ? What signal deliverance at the hands of a woman during 
 the fourteenth century ? What beautiful pastoral narrative belongs to this 
 period ? Give the story of Ruth. What famous lawgiver flourished soon 
 after the death of Moses ? What were the principal features of the legisla¬ 
 tion of Minos ? In what respects was the commonwealth of Crete similar to 
 that of the Hebrews ? Whence the similarity between the legislation of 
 Minos and of Moses ? What celebrated architect about half a century later, 
 and what extraordinary work did he execute ? 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 30.) 
 
 What deliverance did the Jews experience in the thirteenth century ? 
 What events succeeded the death of Gideon ? What are the circumstances 
 relative to the building and early history of Corinth ? What famous expedi¬ 
 tion occurred about this time ? What were the circumstances and the prin¬ 
 cipal adventurers in the Argonautic expedition ? What two Grecian heroes 
 were contemporary with Gideon and the Argonautic expedition ? In what 
 relation does Theseus stand to Athens ? What were the leading measures 
 in the administration of Theseus ? 
 
 TWELFTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 31.) 
 
 Give the story of Jephtha and his daughter. How is this event signalized 
 m Grecian fable ? What new deliverer appeared to the Jews soon after the 
 death of Jephtha ? Give the story of Sampson. What fabulous accounts of 
 other nations seem based upon the history of Sampson ? What celebrated 
 war occurred about this time ? What has given so much celebrity to the 
 Trojan war? What was the origin of this war? What was its result? 
 What was the subsequent career of its leaders ? What was its general influ 
 ence upon Grecian civilization ? 
 
 1 * 
 
6 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 ELEVENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 33.) 
 
 What distinguished personage appeared in Judea early in this century * 
 In what relation did Samuel stand to the judges and the prophets? What 
 change of government took place in Judea under the administration of Sa¬ 
 muel ? Give some account of the conduct and exploits of Saul, the first king 
 of Judea? What were the circumstances attending the succession of David 
 to the throne? What extensions did he give to the territories of Judea? 
 What were some of his domestic difficulties ? What general change took 
 place in the civil and religious polity of the Jews under the administration 
 of David ? What is remarked of the lyric poetry of the Jews at this period ? 
 Give some account of the life and actions of Solomon. What is remarked of 
 his political talent and performances ? Give some account of the return of 
 the Heraclidae to the Peloponnesus. What act of heroic patriotism in Athe¬ 
 nian history about this time? What change in the government of Athens 
 occurred upon the death of Codrus ? Give some account of the origin and 
 progress of Grecian colonization in this century. What was the condition 
 and character of the colonies in Asia Minor ? Enumerate the leading Gre¬ 
 cian colonies in the world at the close of this century. 
 
 TENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 37.) 
 
 What schism in the government of Judea on the death of Solomon ? What 
 were the leading events in the history of the kingdom of Judah from the 
 division of the kingdom to the end of the tenth century? What religious 
 deterioration did the kingdom of Israel experience after its separation from 
 Judah? What were the leading events in the kingdom after its separation? 
 What two great poets flourished in Greece about this time? Give some 
 account of the life and writings of Homer. Of Hesiod. What are the lead¬ 
 ing features of the Grecian mythology, as found in the writings of Homer 
 and Hesiod? What was the condition of Syria at this time? What was 
 the career of Hadarezer ? Of Rezon ? Of Benhadad I. ? Of Hazael ? 
 
 NINTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 41.) 
 
 What signal deliverance did the kingdom of Judah experience during the 
 reign of Jehoshaphat ? What particulars are related of his successor Jeho- 
 ram? What loss of territory was experienced in the reign of Jehoram? 
 What was the fate of his successor ? What circumstances are related of 
 Joash ? Of Amaziah ? What was the religious condition of the kingdom 
 of Israel at this time? What was the career of Ahaziah, king of Israel? 
 Of his brother Jehoram? In what manner was the siege of the capital of 
 Moab raised ? What remarkable deliverance did Jehoram subsequently 
 experience? What were the character and career of Jehu? Of Jehoahaz? 
 Of Jehoash ? Of Jeroboam II. ? What distinguished prophet flourished in 
 this century ? What famous Grecian lawgiver was contemporary with 
 Elisha? From what sources did Lycurgus derive many of the principles of 
 his legislation ? What was there peculiar in the mode of their introduction ? 
 What had he in view probably in some of the leading provisions of his con¬ 
 stitution ? What were the provisions of his constitution in regard to reli¬ 
 gion ? Honours to the dead ? Form of government ? Division of property? 
 Money ? Mode of living ? Children ? Education ? Dress ? Military 
 stratagems? Literature? What was the great defect in the legislation of 
 Lycurgus ? How was the population divided ? How were the powers of the 
 state distributed ? What was the condition of some of the social virtues 
 among the Dorian race ? What famous queen was contemporary with Ly¬ 
 curgus and Elisha ? Describe the origin and early history of Carthage. It* 
 
white’s universal history. 7 
 
 civil polity ? Its religion ? Its commerce ? What empire afterwards famous 
 traces its origin to this century ? 
 
 EIGHTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 45.) 
 
 Judea. —What successful enterprise did Azariah, king of Israel, undertake ? 
 What was his end ? What were the character and history of Jonathan ? Ahaz ? 
 What danger threatened Judah during the reign of Ahaz? How was it 
 averted ? What was the subsequent career of Ahaz ? What religious reforms 
 were effected by his successor Hezekiah ? What did the kingdom suffer 
 from foreign oppression during his reign ? What unexpected deliverance 
 did they experience ? What events succeeded the destruction of Sennache¬ 
 rib’s army ? What distinguished prophet flourished in the reign of Hezekiah ? 
 What was the general condition of the kingdom of Israel during the first 
 part of this century ? What are some of the leading events of its history * 
 What were the circumstances and the date of its melancholy termination? 
 Where were the inhabitants carried ? What was the origin of the Sama¬ 
 ritans ? 
 
 Greece, —What was the origin of the Greek Olympiads? Give some 
 account of the Grecian games. 
 
 Assyria.— What account is given in the Bible of the origin of Assyria ? 
 Give some account of the intervening history from Ashur to Ninus. 
 What conquests did Ninus achieve ? What great projects were exe¬ 
 cuted by his queen and successor, Semiramis ? What is known of the 
 Assyrian empire from Semiramis to Sardanapalus? What was the character 
 of Sardanapalus ? What was his fate ? How was the Assyrian empire di¬ 
 vided on the death of Sardanapalus ? Who was the first king of the Ninevite 
 portion of this empire, or the new Assyrian monarchy ? What steady line 
 of policy was pursued by Pul and his descendants ? Give some account of 
 his successor Tiglath-Pileser. Of Shalmanezer. Of Sennacherib. Who 
 was the first king of the Babylonian portion of the old Assyrian empire, or 
 the new Babylonian empire ? What doubts have been raised in regard to 
 Belisis and Nabonasar ? What else is known of the next Babylonian empire 
 in this century ?—[N. B. The third, or Median portion of the old Assyrian 
 empire, will be noticed in the following centuries under the title of Media, or 
 the Median empire.] 
 
 Lydia. — What are some of the traditions respecting the kingdom of 
 Lydia? With what monarch does the genuine history of Lydia begin? 
 What natural phenomenon is celebrated in this period of Lydian his¬ 
 tory ? What was the character of Croesus, and the subsequent history of 
 Lydia ? 
 
 Rome. —What are some of the earliest traditions of Italy ? What was the 
 origin of Rome ? What line of policy did Romulus and the Romans after 
 him adopt towards conquered nations ? Who was the successor of Romulus, 
 and what was his character ? Give the dates of the following personages 
 and events: Isaiah, Hezekiah, Sardanapalus, Gyges, Romulus, the captivity 
 of the ten tribes, the first Olympiad, the downfall of the old Assyrian em¬ 
 pire, and the building of Rome. 
 
 SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 53.) 
 
 Judea. —What disasters befel Judea after the death of Hezekiah? What 
 Ivas the conduct of Manasseh after being restored to the throne ? What 
 
8 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 deliverance was experienced by the Jews at the hands of a woman ? What 
 were the principal events of the reign of Josiah ? What ensued from the 
 death of Josiah to the captivity of Judah? 
 
 Assyria. —What were the principal events in the second empire of Nine¬ 
 veh, under the reign of Esarhaddon ? Saosduchin ? Saracus ? What were 
 the principal events in the second empire of Babylon, in the beginning of 
 this century ? In the reign of Nabopolasar ? What were the circumstances 
 of Nebuchadnezzar’s first expedition against Jerusalem? 
 
 Media. —What circumstances indicate the early importance and civilization 
 of Media? What is known of its history prior to Deioces ? What hap¬ 
 pened under Deioces ? Phaortes ? Cyaxares ? What has in all ages been the 
 character of Asiatic revolutions ? 
 
 Persia. —What circumstances are known of the early history of the Per¬ 
 sians ? What w~as their condition at the time of their subjugation by the 
 Medes ? What were their religious opinions and customs ? Give some 
 account of Zoroaster and his opinions. 
 
 Egypt. —What notices of Egyptian history are found from the time of 
 Solomon to that of Psammitichus ? By what means did the latter succeed 
 to the throne of Egypt ? What circumstances render his reign one of 
 peculiar interest? What great plan of conquest was undertaken by his 
 successor, Pharaoh Necho ? In what other great undertakings did he 
 engage ? 
 
 Greece. — What Athenian lawgiver flourished in this century ? What 
 were the character and fate of the laws of Draco ? What circumstances 
 led to the appointment of Solon as supreme lawgiver of Athens ? What 
 circumstances are known of the early history of Messenia ? What was the 
 origin of the quarrei between the Messenians and the Lacedaemonians ? 
 What were the principal occurrences of the first or twenty years’ war ? 
 What was the condition of the Messenians for the next thirty years ? State 
 the events and melancholy termination of the second war. What Grecian 
 colonies were founded about this time ? 
 
 Rome. —What military achievements were accomplished by the Romans 
 under Tullius Hostilius ? What works of peace were executed under his 
 successor, Ancus Martius ? What were the leading events in the history of 
 Tarquin the Elder ? 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 61.) 
 
 Judea. —What led to Nebuchadnezzar’s second expedition against Jerusa¬ 
 lem ? W’hat was its result ? What were the circumstances attending his third 
 expedition against the sacred city ? How and when did the captive Jews 
 return and rebuild the city and temple ? What change did the seventy years’ 
 captivity effect in the character of the Jews ? What change took place also 
 in their language ? What are seme of the facts in the history of the Jews 
 that go to illustrate the character of Divine Providence ? What interesting 
 episode in Jewish history occurred during the time of their residence at Ba¬ 
 bylon ? 
 
 Assyria. —What was the condition of the Babylonian empire under Nebu¬ 
 chadnezzar the Great ? W^hat were his conquests ? What works of peace did 
 he execute? What signal calamity befel him? What distinguished pro¬ 
 phet flourished at his court ? What were the character and history of Evil- 
 Merodach ? Nenglissar ? Belshazzar ? Queen Nitocris ? What were the 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 9 
 
 circumstances of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus ? What is the conjecture 
 of Dr. Hales in regard to the death of Belshazzar, and the succession of Cya- 
 xares, or Darius the Mede ? 
 
 Persia. —What was the career of Daniel after the capture of Eabylon ? 
 What further particulars of the history of Cyrus are gathered from the 
 sacred writings ? What are the origin and early history of Cyrus, as gathered 
 from the Greek historians ? Who succeeded Cyrus the Great? What are 
 the principal events in the life of Cambyses ? What events occurred under 
 his successor, Darius Hystaspes ? What change took place during this cen¬ 
 tury in the mode of life and policy of the Persians ? 
 
 Egypt.— In what manner did the family of Psammitichus in Egypt ter¬ 
 minate ? Give an account of the revolt of Amasis. What line of policy did 
 he pursue towards the Greeks ? What were some of the rest of his acts ? 
 What befel Egypt soon after his death? How does its subsequent history 
 fulfil the prediction of Ezekiel? 
 
 Greece. —What famous Athenian lawgiver flourished early in this cen- 
 tury ? What provision did Solon make respecting the relation between 
 debtor and creditor ? Where did he establish the sovereign power ? What 
 division of the people did he make ? How did his legislation compare with 
 that of Lycurgus? Give the character and history of Pisistratus ? What 
 events followed his death? What is said of Harmodius and Aristogiton? 
 What difficulties arose from the contentions of Clisthenes and Isagoras ? 
 What successes did the city obtain, notwithstanding its internal dissensions ? 
 What was the condition and history of Lacedsemonia at the same time ? 
 Enumerate the seven wise men of Greece. 
 
 Rome. —What wise measures were adopted in Rome by Servius Tullius ? 
 What was the policy of his successor, Tarquin the Proud? What were some 
 of his public acts ? What were the principal features in the constitution of 
 Rome as it existed at this time ? 
 
 China. —What account is given of Confucius ? 
 
 FIFTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 71.) 
 
 % 
 
 Judea. —What was the origin of the expedition of Ezra to Jerusalem ? 
 What was its result? What further is related of Judea? 
 
 Greece. —What led to the invasion of Greece by Darius ? What great 
 battle ensued ? What circumstances of that battle are given ? What was 
 the subsequent career of Miltiades ? What two individuals now took the 
 lead in Athenian affairs ? What more formidable invasion of Greece fol 
 lowed ? What particulars are related of the battle of Thermopylae ? What 
 great naval battle soon followed ? What were the particulars of this battle ? 
 What defeats did Mardonius experience after Xerxes returned to Persia ? 
 What were the general results of the Persian invasion upon Grecian affairs ? 
 What distinguished writers flourished about this time ? What was the ca¬ 
 reer of Themistocles after the victory at Salamis? What was the character 
 of Cimon ? What were some of his exploits ? Who was his rival ? What 
 dreadful catastrophe befel Sparta about this time ? What are some of the 
 particulars of that event ? What other imminent peril ensued, and how was 
 it avoided ? What was the character of Pericles ? What was the condition 
 of Athens under his administration ? What celebrated war grew out of the 
 rivalry between Athens and Sparta ? What were the real grounds of this 
 rivalry ? In the Peloponnesian war, what states were found on the side of 
 
10 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Athens ? What on the side of Sparta ? What was the great event of the 
 war ? Who were the great men engaged in it ? What great calamity befel 
 Athens during the early part of the war ? What distinguished leader died of 
 the plague ? What terrible domestic tragedy occurred at Lacedaemon at this 
 time ? What was the character of Alcibiades ? What was the origin of 
 the Sicilian expedition ? What were its results? What victories were won 
 by the Athenians after the recal of Alcibiades ? What great naval victory 
 was achieved by the Spartans soon after, under the conduct of Lysander? 
 How did Lysander follow up his victory? What terms did he prescribe to 
 the vanquished city ? What were the general effects of the Peloponnesian 
 war upon Greece ? What was the condition of literature and the arts in 
 Greece at this time ? What effort was made by Thrasybulus to restore 
 Athens to her former condition ? How did Alcibiades terminate his career ? 
 What mode of banishment existed at Athens ? What instances are given 
 of Athenian ingratitude ? 
 
 Persia. —What notices of Xerxes are given besides his expedition into 
 Greece ? What were the events of the empire under Artaxerxes Longima- 
 nus ? What were the particulars of the expedition of Cyrus the younger, 
 and the retreat of the ten thousand ? 
 
 Rome. —What were the particulars of the attempts to restore royalty at 
 Rome ? What contentions ensued between the Plebeians and the Patri¬ 
 cians ? What were the origin and object of the office of tribune ? In what 
 manner did Coriolanus distinguish himself? What was the origin of the 
 Agrarian laws ? To what controversies did they give rise ? To what new 
 office did these contentions lead ? What was the history of the decemviri ? 
 What was the general result of the disputes between the Patricians and Ple¬ 
 beians ? Give some account of the Volscian and Veientine wars. Give some 
 account of the twelve tables, and of the origin of Roman jurisprudence. 
 
 Carthage. —What is said of the extent of the Carthaginian possessions at 
 this time ? What contests between the Greeks and Carthaginians ? What 
 was the origin of the long contest between the Romans and Carthaginians ? 
 
 FOURTH CENTURY B. C. (Page 82.) 
 
 Greece. —What great philosopher flourished in Greece in the beginning 
 of this century ? What was the character of Socrates ? What was the 
 Socratic mode of philosophizing? On what charge and how did he die? 
 What were the two great schools of philosophy ? Into what sects was the 
 Ionian school subdivided, and who were the principal philosophers in each 
 sect ? Give a similar account of the Italian school. What was the character 
 of Agesilaus ? What were the principal transactions between the Greeks 
 and the Persians during his reign ? What new line of policy did Persia 
 adopt towards the Greeks about this time ? By what circumstances was 
 Thebes first brought into notice ? What was the career of Epaminondas ? 
 Give some account of the early history of Macedon. What led to the Sacred 
 War ? What were its consequences ? What course was pursued by De¬ 
 mosthenes in this war ? What was the first expedition of Alexander the 
 Great ? What terrible vengeance did he execute upon Thebes immediately 
 after ? What preparations did he make for the invasion of Asia ? Describe 
 the battle of the Granicus ? What were the immediate consequences of this 
 battle ? What are the particulars of Alexander’s progress through Syria ? 
 Egypt? His return to Persia? His last great battle with Darius? His 
 march to Babylon? To Persepclis ? What adverse events occurred in 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 il 
 
 Greece during this victorious career of Alexander abroad? How did Darius 
 finally die ? "What conspiracy was formed against Alexander’s life ? What 
 instances of ungovernable passion did he exhibit ? What means did he take 
 to consolidate and perpetuate his conquests ? Where and how did he die > 
 What was the condition of the empire after his death ? What commotions 
 arose in Greece after his death 7 What were the circumstances of the death 
 of Demosthenes ? What were the character and fate of Phocion ? Deme¬ 
 trius Phalereus ? Demetrius, son of Antigonus? How was the empire 
 finally partitioned among the generals of Alexander ? What account is 
 given of Grecian architecture ? Sculpture? Painting? Music? Poetry? 
 Writing? Eloquence? History? Philosophy? What errors have been 
 propagated respecting the character of Alexander ? What was the influence 
 of his reign upon the human race ? 
 
 Rome. —What was the condition of the Gauls when first brought into con¬ 
 tact with the Romans ? Give some account of the capture of Rome by the 
 Gauls under Brennus. What measures were taken to rebuild Rome after its 
 destruction by the Gauls ? What account is given of the Licinian laws ? 
 Of the wars with the Samnites ? What alterations were effected in the con¬ 
 stitution of the commonwealth ? 
 
 Judea. —What account is given of the crime of the High Priest Jonathan ? 
 Of the treatment of the Jews by Alexander ? By Ptolemy Soter ? By Pto¬ 
 lemy Philadelphus ? What is the history of the Septuagint translation of 
 the Bible ? Of the completion of the ancient Scriptures ? 
 
 Persia. —What account is given of the condition of Persia after the retreat 
 of the ten thousand ? Under Artaxerxes ? Under Ochus ? What was the 
 character of Darius III. ? 
 
 THIRD CENTURY B. C. (Page 95.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of Tarentum ? The war on its account 
 between the Romans and Pyrrhus ? Syracuse ? The origin of the first 
 Punic war ? The condition of Rome on entering upon these wars ? The 
 events of the first Punic war ? The conflicts between the Romans and the 
 Gauls? The origin of Hannibal ? His line of policy ? His victorious ca¬ 
 reer in Spain and Italy ? The conclusion of the war ? The subsequent 
 career of Hannibal ? His death ? The influence upon Rome of her contests 
 with Greece and Carthage? The state of the world at the end of the second 
 Punic war ? The affairs of Macedon after the death of Alexander ? The 
 expedition of the Gauls into Greece ? The Acheean League ? 
 
 Egypt. —What account is given of the affairs of Egypt under Ptolemy 
 Soter ? Ptolemy Philadelphus ? Ptolemy Euergetes ? Ptolemy Philopator ? 
 Ptolemy Epiphanes ? The general condition of Egypt under the Ptolemies ? 
 
 Parthia. —What account is given of the origin of this kingdom? Its 
 contests with the Romans ? Its political institutions ? 
 
 SECOND CENTURY B. C. (Page 101.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of the conquest of Macedon ? The origin 
 of the war with Antiochus ? The events of the war ? Its results ? The 
 renewal of hostilities in Macedon ? Their termination under Paulus iEmi- 
 lias ? The terms prescribed to the vanquished Macedonians ? The conquest 
 of Greece ? The origin of the third Punic war ? Its bloody termination ? 
 The character of the Spaniards ? The origin of the contest between them 
 
12 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 and the Romans ? The events of the war under Sempronius ? Cato T 
 Paulus iEmilius ? Sempronius Gracchus ? Piso? Nobilior ? Mummius ? 
 The victories and death of the peasant Viriathus ? The conclusion of the 
 war under Scipio iEmilianus ? The invasion of Italy by the Gauls undei 
 Hamilcar ? The success of the Romans ? The final conquest of Cisalpine 
 Gaul under Scipio Nasica ? The origin of the Ligurian war ? The conduct 
 of Popilius ? A remarkable incident in the conquest of Istria ? The effect 
 upon Rome of the downfall of her enemies ? The influence of Greece arid 
 the East upon Roman manners ? The efforts of Cato to revive the ancient 
 manners ? The oppression of the provinces ? The struggles for office among 
 the nobles ? The altered condition and character of the plebeian order ? 
 The struggles between the Senate and the Knights ? The circumstances 
 calculated to aggravate these disorders ? The condition and extent of slavery 
 in Italy ? The Servile war ? The origin of Tiberius Gracchus ? His pro¬ 
 ject ? His fate ? The measures of Caius Gracchus ? His fate ? The 
 measures of the aristocratic party after the death of the Gracchi ? The 
 Jugurthine war ? The invasion of Gaul by the Cimbri and Teutones ? 
 Their defeat by Marius ? His triumph ? His innovation in favour of the 
 lowest populace ? 
 
 Judea and Syria. —What account is given of the affairs of Judea under 
 Ptolemy Lagus ? The persecutions of the Jews under Antiochus Epiphanes ? 
 The sufferings of Eleazar and his seven sons ? The successful enterprise of 
 Judas Maccaboeus ? The subsequent struggles of the Maccabees with Anti¬ 
 ochus Eupator and Demetrius ? The death of Judas Maccabseus ? The 
 subsequent career of Jonathan ? Of Simon ? Of John Hyrcanus ? Of 
 Aristobulus ? 
 
 FIRST CENTURY B. C. (Page 112.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of the decline of Marius in popular favour ? 
 His intrigues to maintain his ascendency ? The progress of the democratic 
 principle ? The attempts of Livius Drusus to reconcile the parties ? His 
 fate ? The bloody struggles between the metropolis and the Italian towns ? 
 The character and resources of Mithridates ? His conduct towards the 
 Romans ? The struggle between Marius and Sylla ? The expedition of 
 Sylla against Mithridates ? Its result ? The outrage of the Marian party 
 at Rome during Sylla’s absence ? death of Marius ? return of Sylla ? His 
 revenge? His dictatorship? His resignation and death? The state of 
 parties in the republic at this time ? The popular faction under Lepidus and 
 Brutus ? The Sertorian war ? The servile war under Spartacus ? Its ter¬ 
 mination by Crassus ? The contention between Crassus and Pompey ? The 
 good fortune of Pompey? The character of Verres? His misconduct in 
 Sicily ? His trial and condemnation ? Pompey’s war against the pirates ? 
 The renewal of war by Mithridates ? The operations against Mithridates 
 by Cotta ? By Lucullus ? By Pompey ? The extraordinary project of 
 Mithridates ? His death ? The foreign and domestic condition of the re¬ 
 public on the downfall of Mithridates ? The character of Catiline ? His 
 conspiracy ? Its defeat by Cicero ? Cicero’s exile and recall ? The parti¬ 
 tion of power by the Triumvirate ? The death of Crassus ? The state of 
 affairs at Rome during Caesar’s absence in Gaul ? Caesar’s campaigns in 
 Gaul ? His policy at the close of the Gallic war ? The proceedings of 
 Pompey and his party against Caesar ? The hesitation of Caesar before 
 a crossing the Rubicon” ? His entrance into Italy ? His success in Spain ? 
 His pursuit of Pompey? His victory at Pharsalia? His subsequent suc¬ 
 cesses in Egypt and Spain ? His triumphs ? His promotion of the arts of 
 peace ? His death ? His character ? The conduct of Antony after the 
 
white’s universal history 
 
 13 
 
 death of Caesar ? The horrors of the second triumvirate ? The death of 
 Cicero? The defeat and death of Antony? The progress of Augustus to 
 universal dominion? The birth of Jesus Christ? The history of Roman 
 literature ? The policy of Augustus towards writers ? The writers of the 
 Augustan age distinguished for Eloquence ? Poetry ? Tragedy ? Comedy ? 
 Satire ? History ? Philosophy ? 
 
 Judea. —What account is given of the contentions between Alexander 
 Jannaeus and the Pharisees ? The interference of the Romans in favour of 
 Hyrcanus ? The establishment of Herod upon the throne of Judea ? The 
 extent of his dominions ? His cruelties ? The birth of the Saviour ? 
 
 FIRST CENTURY A. D. (Page 124.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of the extent and condition of the Roman 
 empire under Augustus ? His character ? The domestic troubles of his 
 later days ? The mode by which he perpetuated his power ? His adminis¬ 
 tration of the empire ? The contrast between him and Tiberius ? The 
 sycophancy of the Senate ? The cruelties and death of Sejanus ? The rapa¬ 
 city of Tiberius ? His death ? The death of Jesus Christ ? The foreign 
 wars of the Romans under Tiberius ? The character and reign of Caligula ? 
 The mode in which Claudius succeeded to the empire ? The beneficial acts 
 of his government ? The reign of Nero ? Galba ? Otho ? Vitellius ? 
 Vespasian ? The destruction of Jerusalem ? The events of the empire 
 during the reign of Titus ? The reign of Domitian ? The character of the 
 twelve Caesars, as described by Gibbon ? 
 
 Judea.— What account is given of the reign of Archelaus ? The reign of 
 Pontius Pilate ? The life of Herod Agrippa ? His remarkable death ? The 
 condition of the Jews under their various governors ? Their condition under 
 Claudius Felix ? The atrocities of Florus ? The origin of the rebellion ? 
 The conduct of the Christians in this emergency ? The progress of Vespa¬ 
 sian against Jerusalem ? The circumstances of its siege and capture by 
 Titus ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the life and death of the Saviour? 
 The progress of Christianity after the death of Christ ? The constitution of 
 the church ? The first persecution ? The second persecution ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the invasion and conquest of this 
 island ? The means taken by the Romans to perpetuate their conquest ? 
 The original inhabitants of Britain? Their condition, mode of life, 
 religion, &c. ? 
 
 SECOND CENTURY A. D. (Page 134.) 
 
 Rome.— What account is given of the mode of Trajan’s succession to the 
 empire ? His manners and administration ? His foreign wars ? The revolt 
 of the Jews ? The character of Trajan ? The character and acts of Adrian ? 
 The reign of Antoninus Pius ? The calamities of the empire under Marcus 
 Aurelius Antoninus ? The character and excesses of Commodus ? The 
 influence of the Praetorian Guards ? The events of the empire a^ter the death 
 of Commodus? The condition of the empire at this time ? 
 
 The Church.— What account is given of the spread of Christianity ? The 
 third persecution under Trajan ? The martyrdom of Simeon and Ignatius? 
 The fourth persecution under Marcus Aurelius? The reasons that led so 
 2 
 
14 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 humane a prince to be the most fatal persecutor of Christianity? The mar¬ 
 tyrdom of Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Pothinus and Blandina ? 
 
 THIRD CENTURY A. D. (Page 139.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of the rise of Septimius Severus to supreme 
 power? His cruelties as emperor? His death? The cruelties and death 
 of Caracalla? The character and fate of Heliogabalus ? The administra- 
 tion of Alexander Severus? The influence of his mother MammaBa and the 
 lawyer Ulpian ? The success of their attempts to maintain the vigour and 
 int egrity of the empire ? The origin and character of Maximin? His cruel¬ 
 ties and death? Gordian III. ? Philip the Arabian? Valerius? Gallie- 
 nus ? Claudius? Aurelian? Tacitus? Probus? The condition of the 
 common people during these frequent changes of administration ? The 
 great change in the form of government under Diocletian ? His abdication ? 
 Its causes ? 
 
 Palmyra. —What account is given of the origin of Zenobia ? Her capi¬ 
 tal ? Her contests with the Romans ? Her misfortunes ? The critic Lon¬ 
 ginus ? 
 
 Persia. — What account is given of the exploits of Artaxerxes ? The 
 restoration of the religion of the Magi? The character and reign of Sapor ? 
 The struggles of Chosroes, king of Armenia, and his son Tiridates, against 
 the Persians ? 
 
 Barbarian Invasions. —What account is given of the origin of the Goths 
 who invaded the empire under Decius ? their language and religion ? The 
 Franks? The Allemanni? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the fifth persecution under Seve¬ 
 rus ? The sixth persecution under Maximin? The seventh under Decius? 
 The eighth under Valerian ? The ninth under Aurelian ? The tenth under 
 Diocletian ? The cruelties of Galerius towards Christians? his death ? The 
 death of Maximin ? 
 
 FOURTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 147.) 
 
 Rome. —What account is given of the partition of the empire on the death 
 of Diocletian ? The elevation of Constantine to the purple ? The elevation 
 of Maxentius and Maximin? The administration of Galerius ? The admi¬ 
 nistration of Maxentius ? His overthrow by Constantine ? The overthrow 
 of Maximin by Licinius ? The progress of Constantine to the command of 
 the whole empire? The change of the capital? The domestic troubles of 
 Constantine? His partition of the empire ? His death? The administra¬ 
 tion of the empire under Constantine ? The state of the finances ? The 
 disorders of the empire on the death of Constantine ? The progress of affairs 
 till Constantius became sole emperor ? The conduct and death of Gallus ? 
 The education of Julian? His elevation to the purple? His apostasy 7 
 H is reforms ? His death ? His character and administration ? 
 
 Eastern Empire.— What account is given of the government of the Eastern 
 Empire under Valens ? The battle between him and the Goths at Adriano- 
 ple? The elevation of Theodosius ? His success against the Goths ? The 
 other events of his reign? His character? 
 
 Western Empire. —What account is given of the inroads of the barbarians 
 under Valentinian? The affairs of the Western Empire under Gratian ? 
 Valentinian II.? The condition of the Western Empire at this time ? The 
 settlement of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths under Aurelian ? The first ap- 
 
white’s universal history. 15 
 
 pearance of the Huns in Europe ? Their character and previous history ? 
 Their entrance into Europe ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the progress of the Church under 
 persecution ? The Arian controversy ? The constitution of the Church in 
 this century ? The errors of Arius ? The general councils on this subject ? 
 The assumption of authority by the Church of Rome in this century ? The 
 circumstances which tended to increase it? The benefits resulting from the 
 establishment of Christianity by Constantine? The errors of the Gnostics? 
 The Manichees ? The Carpocratians ? The Nicolaitans ? The Montanists ? 
 The names of the different heresies concerning the nature of Christ ? The 
 heresies respecting the will and original sin ? 
 
 FIFTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 158.) 
 
 Eastern Empire. — What account is given of the affairs of the Eastern 
 Empire under Arcadius ? The invasion of the Visigoths under Alaric ? 
 The administration of Pulcheria ? Theodosius ? Marcian ? Leo the Great ? 
 Zeno ? Anastasius ? 
 
 Western Empire. —What account is given of the successes of the armies 
 of Honorius, under Stilicho, against the Visigoths? The death of Stilicho? 
 The capture and sack of Rome by Alaric? The events of Europe after the 
 death of Alaric ? The progress and power of Genseric the Vandal in Africa ? 
 The progress of the Huns under Attila against the Eastern Empire ? Their 
 irruption into the Western Empire? The battle between the Huns and 
 Visigoths in Gaul ? Attila’s inroads into Italy ? His death ? The sack of 
 Rome by Genseric the Vandal ? The attempts of Majorian to restore the 
 empire ? His successors ? The peaceful measures of Odoacer ? His over- 
 throw T and death ? The change in the aspect of the world on the downfall 
 of the empire of the West ? 
 
 Venice. —What account is given of the origin of this republic ? 
 
 Gaul. —What account is given of the early inhabitants of Gaul ? The 
 inroads of the northern barbarians in the fifth century ? The settlement of 
 the Franks in Gaul ? The foundation of the French monarchy ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the contests between the Britons and 
 the Piets and Scots ? The occasion of calling in the aid of the Saxons ? 
 Their establishment in the kingdom? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the origin of Monachism ? Paul 
 of Thebes? St. Anthony? The propagation of Monachism by the disciples 
 of St. Anthony ? The causes which contributed to the rapid spread of 
 Monachism ? The excesses to which it led ? The conversion of the north¬ 
 ern barbarians ? The character of the barbarian converts ? The spread of 
 Christianity in the East ? 
 
 History of Literature. — What account is given of the Alexandrian 
 school ? The New Platonists ? Their suppression under Constantine ? Theii 
 revival under Julian ? Hypatia? Proclus ? Sacred literature ? Clement? 
 Origen? Justin Martyr? Tertuilian ? Irenseus ? Early translations of 
 the Scriptures ? Gregory Thaurnaturgus and Cyril of Jerusalem ? Cy¬ 
 prian ? The golden age of ecclesiastical literature ? The character of the 
 early fathers of the Church ? The character and writings of Athanasius ? 
 Eusebius? Basil? Gregory of Nyssa ? Gregory of Nazianzen ? Chrysos¬ 
 tom ? The other Greek fathers ? Arnobius and Lactantius ? Hilary ? 
 
16 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Ambrose? Jerome? Augustine? Dionysius the Little ? Profane learning 
 in the West? Claudian ? Priscian ? Ammianus Marcellinus? Gildas ? 
 Bede? Boethius? Philology? Poetry in the East? Romance? History? 
 Geography ? Philology ? Mathematics ? 
 
 SIXTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 173.) 
 
 The Middle Ages.— How many centuries are embraced in this period ? 
 How are the first five of these characterized ? What was the condition of 
 Europe about the middle of this period ? What common bond of union 
 among all the minute fragments into which the Western Empire had been 
 broken ? What great enterprise cemented this union ? What were the 
 leading national affairs from the Crusades to the Reformation ? 
 
 Greek Empire.— What account is given of Belisarius? His successes 
 against the Persians? His success against the Vandals in Africa? Against 
 the Goths in Italy ? His second command in Italy ? His services at Con¬ 
 stantinople ? His death ? Narses ? His expedition and government in 
 Italy ? His recall ? The factions of the circus ? Their excesses ? The 
 earthquakes in the time of Justinian ? The plague ? The introduction of 
 silk into Europe ? The Justinian Code ? The alliance of the Turks with 
 Justinian? The character of his reign? The reign of Tiberius? Of 
 Maurice ? , 
 
 Persia. — What account is given of the Sassanian dominion in Persia? 
 The reign of Chosroes? Of Hormisdas ? The general Varanes ? The 
 deposition of Hormisdas ? The succeeding events of the empire ? 
 
 Italy.— What account is given of Theodoric’s appointment to the kingdom 
 of Italy ? His success against Odoacer ? His reign ? His enlargements 
 of the territory ? His general administration ? The affairs of Italy under 
 Totila and Narses? The invasion of the Lombards? The circumstances 
 of the death of Alboin ? The subsequent events among the Lombards ? 
 The propagation of Christianity among them ? The origin of the feudal 
 system ? 
 
 France.— What account is given of the dominions of Clovis ? The other 
 provinces of Gaul ? The successes of Clovis against Syagrius ? Against 
 the Allemani ? The conversion of Clovis ? His expedition against the 
 Visigoths ? His investiture by the emperor Athanasius ? The affairs of the 
 kingdom after his death ? The civil wars of France after the death of CIo- 
 taire ? The Frank laws ? 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the invasion of Spain by the barbarians ? 
 The foundation of the Gothic monarchy in Spain by Ataulphus ? His suc¬ 
 cessor Wallia ? The power and success of Euric? The affairs of Spain 
 a fter the death of Euric ? Its conversion to Christianity ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the foundation of the Saxon Heptar¬ 
 chy? The character and exploits of King Arthur ? The disasters attending 
 the settlement of the Saxons in Britain ? The conversion of the Saxons to 
 Christianity ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the British Church previous to 
 the mission of Augustine ? The precise object of that mission ? The origin 
 and result of the fifth general council ? The rise of Gregory the Great ? 
 His character and administration ? The Benedictines ? Their condition 
 and discipline ? The services done by them to society ? 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 17 
 
 SEVENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 186.) 
 
 Greek Empire. — What account is given of the oppressions and death of 
 Phocas ? The accession of Heraclius? The assaults upon the empire by 
 Chosroes II. ? The invasion of the Avars ? The ignominious terms im¬ 
 posed upon Heraclius by Chosroes ? The subsequent successes of Heraclius ? 
 His triumphal return from the East? The exhausted condition of the em¬ 
 pire ? The first appearance of the Mussulmans in Europe ? Their successes 
 against Heraclius ? The affairs of the empire under his successors ? 
 
 Persia. —What account is given of the successes of Chosroes II. ? His 
 reverses ? His death ? His magnificence ? 
 
 Arabia.— What account is given of the Arabs ? Their political condition ? 
 Their religion ? The various attempts to conquer them ? The early history 
 and character of Mohammed ? His first converts ? The Hegira ? His 
 authority and influence at Medina ? His line of policy ? His successes in 
 Arabia ? His death ? The reputed origin of the Koran ? Its contents ? 
 Mohammed’s definition of his religion ? Some further particulars of its 
 doctrines and ceremonies ? Its progress under the first four caliphs ? The 
 conquest of Syria under Abubeker ? The capture of Arrestan ? The con¬ 
 quest of Egypt under Omar ? The capture of Alexandria ? The destruc¬ 
 tion of the Alexandrian library ? The progress of the Mohammedans in the 
 East? The Contest between Ali and the rebel Moawiyah? Its result? 
 The two great sects of the Mohammedans? The proceedings of Moawiyah 
 against the Africans ? Against the Greeks ? The Greek fire ? The com¬ 
 munications of the Arabs with China and India ? The conquest and con¬ 
 version of Africa under Hassan? 
 
 Italy.— What account is given of the exarchate of Ravenna ? The Lom¬ 
 bard kingdom in Italy ? The doge of Venice ? The other particulars of the 
 political constitution of Venice ? The establishment of its hereditary aris¬ 
 tocracy ? 
 
 France.— What account is given of the reunion of the French monarchy 
 under Clotaire II. ? The origin and powers of the mayors of the palace ? 
 The reign of Dagobert ? The Sluggard Kings ? 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of Gondebert and his successors ? The 
 proceedings of the fourth council of Toledo? The affairs of Spain under 
 Chintilla ? Recesvind ? Wamba? Erwuga? The conspiracy and subse¬ 
 quent sufferings of the Jews? The archbishops of Toledo ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the progress of the Eutychian 
 heresy ? The triple crown ? 
 
 EIGHTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 199.) 
 
 Greek Empire. —What account is given of the termination of the Hera- 
 clian dynasty ? The origin of Leo III. ? His successes ? His zeal against 
 image-worship ? The reign of Constantine V. ? Of Leo IV. ? The resolu¬ 
 tions of the second council of Nice respecting image-worship ? The career 
 of the empress Irene ? 
 
 Arabia. —What account is given of the attempts of the caliphs to extend 
 their dominions westward? The overthrow of the Omniades ? The eleva¬ 
 tion of the Abassides to the caliphate ? The family of the Omniades in 
 Spain ? The cruelties of Almanzor ? The persecution of the descendants 
 of Ali ? The elevation of Haroun A1 Raschid to the caliphate-? His war 
 with the Greeks ? His embassy to Charlemagne ? His cruelty to the family 
 
18 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 of the Barmecides ? His patronage of letters ? The condition of Arab civil, 
 ization in this century ? 
 
 Spain. — What account is given of the conquest of Spain hy the Arabs? 
 Their policy towards the conquered Christians ? The elevation of Abdalrah- 
 man to the caliphate of the West? The magnificence of Hassan I., caliph 
 of Cordova ? The affairs of Christian Spain under Pelayo ? Alphonso the 
 Catholic ? Fruela ? Alphonso the Chaste ? The salutary effects of the 
 residence of the Moors in Spain ? 
 
 Italy.— What account is given of the reign of Luitprand? The extinc¬ 
 tion of the exarchate of Ravenna ? The origin of the Pope’s temporal sove¬ 
 reignty ? The condition of the papacy under Gregory III. ? The elevation 
 of Astolphus to the throne of the Lombards ? The interposition of the 
 Franks in behalf of the Pope and against the Lombards? The bestowal of 
 the exarchate upon the Pope ? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the victory of Charles Martel over the 
 Saracens ? The division of the Frank dominions on the death of Charles 
 Martel? The elevation of Pepin to the regal authority? His efforts to 
 strengthen the kingly power ? The union of the entire Frank monarchy 
 under Charlemagne? His wars with the Saxons? With the Saracens? 
 His visit to Rome in defence of Pope Leo III. ? The extent of his domin¬ 
 ions ? The influence of his imperial title? His political reforms? His 
 literary character ? His private life ? The condition of the*Western Em 
 pire in his time ? The Eastern Empire ? The empire of the caliphs ? 
 Denmark ? Sweden, Russia and Poland ? Bohemia ? Spain ? Rome ? 
 Venice ? England ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the grounds of difference between 
 the Greek and Latin Churches ? The efforts of Leo the Iconoclast to abolish 
 images ? The result of the council of Constantinople ? The proceedings of 
 Gregory II., Bishop of Rome, in reference to the use of images ? The 
 council of the Lateran? The second council of Nice? The disposition and 
 conduct of Charlemagne towards the Church ? The conduct of the Gallican 
 clergy towards the Iconoclasts ? The several decisions in regard to the pro¬ 
 cession of the Holy Ghost ? The progress of the temporal power of the 
 Popes in this century ? The increase of their ecclesiastical power ? The 
 influence of Christianity in the earlier ages upon the arts ? The origin of 
 the pointed or Gothic style of architecture ? The destruction of public 
 libraries during the first part of the middle ages ? The service rendered to 
 literature by the monks ? 
 
 NINTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 212.) 
 
 Greek Empire. —What account is given of the reign of Nicephorus I. ? 
 Michael I. ? The disasters of Leo V. ? His subsequent successes ? His 
 administration of the empire? His assassination? Michael II.? Theo- 
 philus the Unfortunate? Michael III.? The origin of Basil I.? His 
 elevation to the empire ? His administration ? His death ? Basil II. ? 
 
 Arabia.— What account is given of the decline of Haroun A1 Raschid’s 
 power ? His death ? The state of learning under Almamon ? The war 
 between A1 Motassem and the Greeks ? The heresy of the Karidjies ? Of 
 Djead Ibn Dirkhem ? Of Achmet Ravendi ? Of Hakem ? Of Babek ? 
 The introduction of the Turks into the service of the caliphs ? The increas¬ 
 ing weakness and divisions of the caliphate ? The heresy of Abdallah and 
 the Karmathians ? 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 19 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the naval expeditions of the Saracens 
 under Hakem I. ? The sedition in Cordova ? The ravaging of Italy by the 
 Moors ? The successes of the Christians in Spain ? The career of Alphonso 
 the Great ? 
 
 France.— What account is given of the reign of Louis the Debonnaire? 
 The division of the empire after his death ? The reign of Charles the Bald ? 
 His coronation by Pope John VIII.? Louis III. and Carloman ? The 
 union of the French and German kings against the nobles and the North¬ 
 men ? The victory of Louis III. over the Northmen ? His death ? Charles 
 the Fat? The elevation of Eudes to the crown? His victory over the 
 Northmen ? The origin and religion of the Northmen ? Their earliest 
 incursions into Southern Europe ? Their ravages after the death of Charle¬ 
 magne ? The conversion of the pirate chief, Rollo ? His establishment as 
 Duke of Normandy ? 
 
 Germany.— What account is given of the struggles of Louis the German 
 against the Sclavonic tribes ? His other enterprises ? The division of the 
 kingdom on his death ? Its reunion under Charles the Fat ? His difficul 
 ties with the Northmen ? His deposition ? The vigorous measures of 
 Arnulph ? 
 
 Italy.— What account is given of Bernard, the son of Pepin? Louis, the 
 son of Lothaire ? The incursions to which Italy was exposed ? The mea¬ 
 sures of defence adopted at Rome ? The object of the Italian league ? The 
 false policy of Louis ? Its consequences ? His subsequent attempts to repair 
 the mischief? The temporal independence of the Pope ? The succession 
 to the empire after the death of Louis ? Disputes for the kingdom of Italy 
 between the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento ? 
 
 Britain.— What account is given of the formation of the Heptarchy under 
 Egbert ? The inroads of the Danes ? The accession of Alfred ? The con¬ 
 dition of the kingdom under his reign ? His legislation ? The literary 
 character of Alfred ? His private character ? The Anglo-Saxon consti¬ 
 tution ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the general decline of piety and 
 learning in the Church ? The elevation of Photius to the patriarchate of 
 Constantinople? The causes of schism between the Greek and Roman 
 Churches ? The rise of saint worship ? The increase of dangerous doc¬ 
 trines ? 
 
 TENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 225.) 
 
 Greek ExMpire. — What account is given of the accession of Constantine 
 VII.? His deposition by Romanus ? Restoration of Constantine? The 
 incursions of the Bulgarians ? Of the Russians ? The successes of Nice- 
 phorus ? The energy of the empire under John Zimisces ? Basil II. ? 
 
 Italy. —What account is given of the adventures of Adelaide, Lothaire’s 
 widow ? The condition of the papacy ? The interference of Otho in the 
 affairs of Rome ? The deposition of the pope, John XII. ? The demagogue 
 Crescentius ? 
 
 France. —-What account is given of the deposition of Charles the Simple ? 
 The usurpation of Rodolph ? The extinction of the Carlovingian dynasty ? 
 The elevation of Hugh Capet ? The consolidation of his power ? Robert 
 the Wise ? His difficulties with the Pope ? The character of Constance i 
 The origin of the feudal system ? The threefold division of the lands under 
 
20 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 that system ? The obligations of liegemen to their superiors ? The mea¬ 
 sures which abridged the power of the nobles? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the elevation of Conrad to the king¬ 
 dom of Germany ? His death ? Henry the Fowler ? His enlargement and 
 consolidation of the kingdom ? The successes of Otho the Great ? His 
 attempts to consolidate the monarchy ? His checks upon the nobles ? Otho 
 II. ? Otho III. ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the reign of Edward the Elder ? The 
 accession of Athelstan ? His successes? The growing importance of Eng 
 land ? Foreign refugees in England ? The foreign connexions of Athelstan? 
 His beneficent administration ? The miseries which succeeded ? The inter¬ 
 ference of the monks ? Dunstan and the princess Elgiva ? 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the Moorish empire in Spain ? The 
 administration of Abdalrahman III. ? His defeat at Simancas ? His sub¬ 
 sequent successes? Almanzor? The successes of the Christians under 
 Ramires II.? Their subsequent defeats and final triumph? 
 
 Arabian Empire. —What account is given of the condition of the caliphate ? 
 The office of Emir al Omra ? Obeidallah and the Fatimites ? Origin and 
 condition of the Egyptian caliphate ? The progress and conquests of the 
 Mussulmans in the East? The origin of the Turks? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the general character of this 
 century ? The extent of Christianity at this time ? The degeneracy of the 
 clergy ? The condition and claims of the papacy? The dispersion of monks 
 by the Normans ? Its influence upon learning ? The Benedictines ? The 
 panic respecting the end of the world ? The origin of penance ? Its ex¬ 
 cesses ? 
 
 The World. —What account is given of the Greek empire? The caliph¬ 
 ate ? The Frank kingdom ? France ? Germany ? Spain ? England ? 
 Italy ? Rome ? 
 
 ELEVENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 236.) 
 
 Greek Empire. —What account is given of the reign of Constantine VIII. ? 
 Romanus III. ? Michael IV. ? Michael V. ? Constantine IX. ? The in¬ 
 vasion of the Bulgarians ? The Comneni ? The elevation of Isaac by the 
 army? The short-sighted policy of Constantine X.? The war of Romanus 
 IV. ? The encroachments of Soliman upon the empire ? Deposition of 
 Michael VII.? The accession of Alexius Comnenus? His biographer? 
 His character? The difficulties with which he had to contend? 
 
 Italy. —What account is given of the first visits of the Normans to Italy ? 
 Their success against the infidels in Italy ? The difficulties between them 
 and the Pope ? The projects of Robert Guiscard ? His death ? The suc¬ 
 cesses of his brother Roger in Sicily ? Roger’s line of policy ? The origin 
 of the Italian republics ? Their condition ? Venice ? Genoa ? Pisa ? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the accession of Henry II. ? His 
 coronation at Rome ? Conrad II. ? Henry III. ? His interference in the 
 affairs of Rome? Henry V. ? Gregory VII. ? The controversy between 
 Gregory and Henry respecting the right of investiture ? The course of the 
 German aristocracy in this controversy ? Its result ? Subsequent troubles 
 of Henry ? 
 
 France. —What account is given of Robert, and the revolts of his sons ? 
 The persecution of heretics ? The character of Robert ? The accession of 
 
white’s universal history. 21 
 
 Henry I.? His contests with the duke of Normandy ? The reign of Philip 
 I. ? His quarrels with the Popes ? 
 
 Spain.—W hat account is given of the condition of the Moorish empire in 
 Spain ? The origin of the Almoravides ? Their expeditions into Spain ? 
 The Christian empire in Spain ? The successes of Ferdinand against the 
 Arabs ? The Cid ? 
 
 Arabian Empire.—W hat account is given of the conquests and policy of 
 Togrul-Beg ? The victories of Alp Arslan ? The reign of Malek-Shah ? 
 The condition of the empire at his death? 
 
 Britain.—W hat account is given of the succession of Sweyn to the throne 
 of England ? The reign of Canute the Great ? His character ? The cha. 
 racter and reign of Edward the Confessor ? The expedition against Mac¬ 
 beth ? The accession of Harold ? His expedition against the Norwegians ? 
 The invasion of the Normans ? The battle of Hastings ? The consequence 
 of this invasion? The capture of London? The general confiscation of 
 property ? Policy of William towards the Saxons ? His visit to Normandy ? 
 His expedition against Malcolm Canmore? The Norman constitution? 
 Doomsday Book ? The revolt of William’s son Robert ? The reign of Wil¬ 
 liam Rufus ? The phrase M benefit of clergy” ? The events of Scotland ? 
 
 The Church.—W T hat account is given of the character of the papacy and 
 the clergy? The character and policy of Gregory VII.? His controversy 
 with the Emperor Henry IV. ? The doctrine of transubstantiation ? The 
 order of Chartreuse ? The “ Truce of God” ? The disuse of the vernacular 
 languages in worship ? 
 
 The Crusades.—W hat account is given of the origin of the Crusades ? 
 The expedition of Peter the Hermit? The first crusading army ? Its num¬ 
 bers ? Its progress through Asia Minor ? The capture of Antioch ? Of 
 Jerusalem ? The new kingdom of Jerusalem ? 
 
 Chivalry. — What account is given of the institution of chivalry ? Its 
 objects and character ? 
 
 State of the World.—W hat account is given of the condition of Rome 
 and Germany ? France ? Spain ? England ? The other European states ? 
 The Greek empire ? The caliphate ? 
 
 TWELFTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 255.) 
 
 Greek Empire. — What account is given of the prowess of Manuel I. ? 
 The early career of Andronicus ? His elevation to the throne ? His cruel¬ 
 ties? His deposition? The reign of Isaac Angeius ? The capture of Con¬ 
 stantinople by the crusaders ? 
 
 The East.—W hat account is given of the Attabeks ? The power and 
 successes ofSaladin? 
 
 Italy.—W hat account is given of the attempts of Frederick Barbarossa to 
 establish his power in Italy ? The league against him ? Arnold of Brescia? 
 The Venetians ? The marriage of the Adriatic ? 
 
 Germany.—W hat account is given of the contentions between Henry V. 
 and the Pope about the right of investiture ? The origin of the Guelfs and 
 Ghibellines ? The plans of Frederick Barbarossa in Italy ? The close of 
 his career ? Henry VI. ? 
 
 France.—W hat account is given of the reign of Louis the Fat ? Louis 
 • Philip Augustus ? The early deliberative assemblies of the French? 
 The impulse given to the commons by Louis the Fat? The origin and his* 
 tory of the States General ? 
 
22 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the progress of the Christians in Spain t 
 The kingdom of Portugal? The military orders of Spain? 
 
 Britain.— What account is given of the progress of English liberty under 
 Henry I. ? The contest for the crown between Matilda and Stephen ? The 
 reign of Henry II. ? The progress of popular liberty in his reign ? The 
 character and exploits of Richard I. ? The early history of Ireland? The 
 early history of Scotland ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the advancing power of the pa. 
 pacy under Paschal II.? Adrian IV.? Alexander III.? Innocent III.? 
 The origin of the second crusade ? The march of the crusaders ? Their 
 successes ? The origin and leaders of the third crusade ? The siege and 
 capture of Acre ? The result of the crusade ? The parallel between it and 
 the Trojan war? The Assassins? The Druses? 
 
 THIRTEENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 266.) 
 
 Greek Empire. —What account is given of the interference of the crusaders 
 with the affairs of Constantinople ? The establishment of Alexius at Trebi- 
 zond ? Theodore Lascaris at Nice ? Michael Palseologus ? The contro¬ 
 versies in the Church ? Andronicus the Elder ? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the accession of Frederick II. to the 
 empire ? His contests with the papacy ? The interregnum after his death ? 
 The double election of Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Castile ? The 
 growth of commercial cities ? The election of Rodolph of Hapsburg ? His 
 reign? The Hanse towns? The evidence of their wealth and power? 
 
 Italy.— What account is given of the Italian republics ? The misfortunes 
 of the house of Hohenstaufen ? The Lombard leagues ? Their contests 
 with the emperor? The contentions in Italy after the death of Frederick? 
 The affairs of Florence ? The commercial advantages accruing to Venice 
 from the crusades ? The growth of the aristocratic influence in their con¬ 
 stitution ? The history and power of Genoa ? Of Pisa ? The contest be¬ 
 tween Genoa and Pisa ? The prosperity of the Italian commercial cities ? 
 The attempts of the Popes to wrest Naples from the empire ? The contest 
 between Charles of Anjou and Manfred ? Between Charles and Conradin ? 
 The subsequent cruelties of Charles ? The insurrection and massacre ? The 
 subsequent events of Sicily ? 
 
 France.— What account is given of the difficulties between France and 
 England ? The crusade against the Albigenses under Louis VIII. ? The 
 character and reign of Louis IX. ? The influence of his reign ? The in¬ 
 crease of the kingdom under Philip the Bold ? Under Philip the Fair ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the circumstances which led to the 
 adoption of Magna Charta? The value of Magna Charta ? The disasters 
 attending the close of King John’s reign? The character and reign of 
 Henry III. ? The rebellion of Leicester and the barons ? The character 
 of Edward I. ? His expeditions into Scotland ? 
 
 Spanish Peninsula. —What account is given of the wars between the Moors 
 and Christians in Spain ? The condition of Christian Spain at this period ? 
 The successes of Alphonso X. ? His subsequent troubles ? The successes 
 of Saneho IV. ? The events of the kingdom during the minority of Ferdi¬ 
 nand IV. ? During his reign ? The attempts of the kings of Arragon to 
 conquer the Balearic Isles ? The conquest and continued possession of Sicily ? 
 
 The East. —What account is given of the affairs of Egypt? The Mame¬ 
 lukes? The conquests of Ghengis Khan? The further progress of the 
 Mongol power ? 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 23 
 
 The Church — What account is given of the rise and progress of the 
 Franciscans ? The other mendicant orders ? The history of the Inquisition ? 
 The origin and persecution of the Albigenses ? • 
 
 Crusades. —What account is given of the fourth crusade ? The crusade 
 of children ? The fifth crusade ? The sixth crusade ? The seventh cru¬ 
 sade ? The eighth crusade ? The immediate effect of the crusades ? Their 
 effect upon the Church ? Their political effect ? Their effect on commerce 
 and industry ? Their effect on knowledge ? 
 
 FOURTEENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 286.) 
 
 Greek Empire. — What account is given of the continued losses of the 
 empire ? The diasters occurring in the reign of John Palaeologus ? The 
 narrow bounds of the empire ? The origin of the Ottoman empire ? The 
 establishment of the Janizaries ? The successes of Bajazet ? His cruelties ? 
 His defeat? The disorders of the Mongol empire? The early history of 
 Tamerlane? His eastern conquests? His contest with Bajazet? His pro¬ 
 jects for universal dominion ? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the affairs of Germany ? The origi¬ 
 nal condition of the Swiss towns ? Their first efforts at independence ? The 
 story of William Tell? The battle of Morgarten? The conduct of the fifty 
 exiles ? The heroism of Arnold Struthan in the battle of Sempach ? The 
 extent of the Helvetic confederacy ? The attempts of Henry VII. to restore 
 the imperial authority in Italy ? The contests between the Emperor Louis 
 and the Popes ? The Golden Bull? The other events in the reign of Charles 
 IV.? The condition of the country under Wenceslaus? The termination 
 of his reign ? 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —What account is given of the condition of Italy at 
 this time ? The attempts of the Romans to resist the political power of the 
 Popes? The condition of Rome during the residence of the Popes at Avig¬ 
 non? The revolution attempted by Rienzi ? The causes of its failure ? The 
 affairs of Genoa ? The condition of Venice ? The condemnation and exe¬ 
 cution ofFaliero? The interference of Venice with the affairs of Constanti¬ 
 nople ? The contests between Venice and Genoa ? The affairs of Tuscany ? 
 The affairs of Florence? The contentions between the Guelfs and Ghibel- 
 lines ? The contentions between the greater arts and the less arts ? The 
 affairs of Lombardy ? The affairs of Sicily and Naples under Frederick of 
 Arragon ? Subsequent events in Naples ? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the Flemish war ? The quarrels be¬ 
 tween the French King and the Popes? The destruction of the Knights 
 Templars ? The reign of Louis Hutin ? The Salic law ? The claims of 
 Edward III. of England ? The sedition in Flanders ? The battle of Cressy ? 
 The interposition of the Pope ? The arbitrary measures of the French King ? 
 The States General ? The battle of Poictiers ? The Jacquerie ? The peace 
 of 1360? The renewal of the war? The condition of the kingdom under 
 Charles VI. ? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of Gaveston, earl of Cornwall ? The 
 battle of Bannockburn ? The rebellion of Lancaster ? Rebellion of the 
 Pembroke party ? The deposition of Edward ? The first steps of Edward 
 III. after his accession ? The battle of Sluys ? The battle of Cressy ? Of 
 Poictiers ? The treaty of Bretigny ? The Black Prince ? The general 
 affairs of the kingdom ? The march of the earl of Buckingham through 
 France ? The condition of the kingdom during the minority of Richard II. ? 
 The rebellion of Wat Tyler? The expedition against Scotland? The de 
 position and death of Richard ? The great Plague ? 
 
I 
 
 m 
 
 24 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.— What account is given of the reign of Alphonso XI.? 
 The cruelties of Pedro ? His deposition ? The interposition of Edward the 
 Black Prince? The death of Pedro? The reign of Henry II.? His suc¬ 
 cessor John I.? The reign of Henry III.? The affairs of Aragon? The 
 
 affairs of Portugal under Dionysius? Under Pedro I. ? The subsequent 
 events in Portugal ? 
 
 The Church.— What account is given of the projects of Boniface VIII. ? 
 His controversy with Philip the Fair ? The “ Babylonish captivity ?” The 
 
 great schism ? The attempts of Wickliffe to reform the Church ? The 
 
 Flagellants ? The Bianchi ? 
 
 Inventions. — What account is given of the mariner’s compass? The 
 invention of paper ? 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 306.) 
 
 Greek Empire.— What account is given of the reign of John Palaeologus 
 II. ? Constantine Palseologus ? The siege and fall of Constantinople ? The 
 dissolution of the empire ? 
 
 Ottoman Empire and Turkey.— What account is given of the invasion of 
 Tamerlane? Subsequent successes of the Turks? The exploits of John 
 Huniades ? The abdication of Amurath ? His return to power and final 
 success ? His second abdication and return to power ? The exploits of 
 Scanderbeg ? The reduction of Constantinople by Mohammed II.? His 
 attempt upon Rhodes ? The siege of Belgrade ? The reduction of Athens? 
 The expedition against Rhodes ? The character of Mohammed ? The dis¬ 
 pute between Bajazet II. and Zizim ? 
 
 Germany.— What account is given of the attempt of Robert to re-establish 
 his authority in Italy ? The elevation of Sigismond ? The council of Con¬ 
 stance ? The Hussite war ? The policy and conduct of Albert II., duke of 
 Austria ? The concessions of Frederick III. ? His negotiations with the 
 Pope ? The affairs of Saxony ? The negotiations between Frederick and 
 Charles the Bold ? The consequences of the death of Charles ? The acces¬ 
 sion and marriage of Maximilian ? The decrees of the diet of Worms? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the condition of France under Charles 
 VI. ? The rival factions of Orleans and Burgundy ? The civil wars ? The 
 invasion of Henry V- ? The battle of Agincourt ? The cruelties of the 
 dominant party in Paris ? The assassination of the duke of Burgundy ? 
 The treaty of Troyes ? The death of Henry V. and Charles VI. ? The 
 accession and conduct of Charles VII. ? The condition of his kingdom ? 
 The character and early history of Joan of Arc ? Her success ? Her capture 
 and death ? The successes of Charles ? The consequences of the marriage 
 of Margaret of Anjou with Henry VI.? The policy of Suffolk? The vic¬ 
 tories of Dunois ? The character of Charles ? The accession of Louis XI. ? 
 The troubles from opposing factions ? The hostility of the duke of Bur¬ 
 gundy ? The manoeuvre of Louis to divert him from his purpose ? The 
 treachery of the duke towards the king ? His cruelty towards Liege ? The 
 interference of Louis and Charles in the affairs of England ? The reverses 
 of Charles ? His death and character ? The advantages of his death to 
 Louis? The history of his daughter Mary? The death of Louis? The 
 character and policy of Louis ? The regency of Anne ? The opposition 
 and revolt of Orleans ? Of Maximilian ? The marriage of Charles ? His 
 expedition into Italy ? His projects ? The coalition against him ? His 
 return to France? His victory and death? 
 
 Britain. —What account is given of the difficulties of Henry IV. ? The 
 accession of Henry V. ? His expedition against France ? The battle of 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 25 
 
 Agincourt ? His second campaign in France ? The treaty of Troyes ? 
 His death and character ? The progress of the war under the duke of Bed¬ 
 ford ? The siege of Orleans ? Joan of Arc ? The decline of the English 
 arms? The earl of Warwick? The feeble conduct of the king? The 
 rebellion of Cade? The usurpation of Richard, duke of York? His over¬ 
 throw and death ? The success and cruelty of the earl of March ? His 
 accession to the throne? His marriage and its consequences ? The conduct 
 of Warwick? Restoration of Henry VI. ? The intrigues and downfall of 
 Warwick? The death of Henry and restoration of Edward IV.? His sub¬ 
 sequent history ? Edward V. ? The usurpation of the duke of Gloucester ? 
 His reign ? The accession and marriage of Henry VII. ? The abolition of 
 “ maintenance” ? The origin of the “ Star Chamber” ? Henry’s invasion 
 of France? The insurrection of Perkin Warbeck ? The disorders of Scot- 
 land during this period? The policy of James III. towards the barons? 
 Their conspiracy ? The interposition of Gloucester in favour of Albany ? 
 The conduct of the nobles towards the king ? The revolt of the duke of 
 Rothsay ? The reign of James IV. ? 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —What account is given of the wars between the Anjou 
 and Durazzo families ? The elevation of Alphonzo to the throne of Naples ? 
 His character and administration ? The contests between Ferdinand and 
 his nobles ? The restoration of the Medici family in Florence ? John de 
 Medici ? Cosmo ? Pietro ? Lorenzo ? The downfall and bankruptcy of 
 the family ? The papacy ? The council of Basle? The pragmatic sanc¬ 
 tion ? The attempts to excite a new crusade ? Sixtus IV. ? Innocent VIII. ? 
 Alexander VI. ? The affairs of Cyprus ? The interference of Venice ? The 
 continental aggrandizement of Venice? The origin and rise of Sforza? 
 The history and aggrandizement of his son, Francis Sforza ? The affairs of 
 Genoa ? Ludovico the Moor ? The other Italian states ? The general 
 condition of Italy ? 
 
 Spanish Peninsula.— What account is given of the kingdom of Navarre? 
 The generosity of Carlos to his father, John II.? The birth of Ferdinand 
 the Catholic ? The intrigues of the queen against Carlos ? The successive 
 attempts of Carlos to regain his rights ? His death ? The death of Blanche ? 
 The feelings of the Catalonians towards John? The affairs of Aragon? 
 The affairs of Castile? The minority of John II.? The reign of Henry 
 IV. ? The rebellion of the nobles ? The concessions of the king ? The 
 marriage of Isabella ? The various tyrannical measures of the king ? The 
 contest for the crown at his death ? The reforms at the accession of Ferdi¬ 
 nand and Isabella? The war against the Moors ? Abulhassan ? Boabdil ? 
 The siege and capture of Granada ? The articles of capitulation ? The 
 persecution and expulsion of the Jews ? The family alliances of the mo- 
 narchs ? The affairs of Portugal? The reign of John I.? Alphonso V.? 
 His claims to the throne of Castile ? His disgust with royalty ? John II. ? 
 
 Discoveries and Colonies.— What account is given of the maritime entei- 
 >rises of the Portuguese ? The discovery of Madeira ? Its value ? The 
 Canary islands ? The Portuguese discoveries around Africa ? The Indies ? 
 The discovery and settlement of America by the Scandinavians? The pro¬ 
 ject of Columbus? His various repulses? His first voyage and return? 
 His second and third voyages ? His death ? His remains ? Americo 
 Vespucci. 
 
 . The Church. —What account is given of the great schism ? The council 
 of Constance ? The conduct of Martin Luther ? The council of Basle ? 
 The Pope’s opposition? The pragmatic sanction? The concessions of 
 Frederick ? The decrees of the council of Basle ? The persecution of the 
 Franciscans ? W ickliffe ? Huss ? The council of Constance ? The in- 
 3 
 
26 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 dignation excited by the execution of Huss ? The Taborites ? The council 
 of Florence ? The attempt to unite the Roman and Greek Churches ? 
 
 Appendix to the Middle Ages.— What account is given of the commerce 
 of Western Europe? The principal commercial marts? The trade with 
 India ? The causes of the decline of Venice ? The commercial routes ? 
 The progress of commerce in England ? The woollen trade ? The fisheries ? 
 The naval code ? Banks? Gunpowder? Printing? The Great Plague? The 
 Gipsies ? The revival of the arts ? The condition of learning after the death 
 of Charlemagne ? The languages of Europe ? The universities ? The Ro¬ 
 mance language ? The English language and literature ? The Italian ? 
 The influence of the downfall of Constantinople upon learning ? The do 
 mestic measures of the age ? The sumptuary laws ? The evidences of 
 domestic and social comforts ? The condition of agriculture in England ? 
 The prices of various articles ? The comparative value of money ? 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 350.) 
 
 Modern History. —What account is given of the inventions that preceded 
 and marked the era of this Reformation? The influence of race and lan¬ 
 guage ? The rise of the middle class and the decline of feudalism in the 
 different states of Europe ? The comparative condition and strength of the 
 leading European powers during the seventeenth century ? The leading 
 events of the eighteenth century ? Its close ? 
 
 Eritain. —What account is given of two important marriages at the be¬ 
 ginning of this century ? The accession of Henry VIII.? The conduct of 
 Wolsey ? The foreign politics of Henry? Crafty policy of Wolsey ? 
 Henry’s theological discussions ? The battle of Pavia, and consequent 
 treaty ? Henry’s passion for Anne Boleyn ? His proposals to the Pope ? 
 His treatise on his marriage with Catherine ? Policy of the Pope ? Dis¬ 
 grace of Wolsey? Advice of Cranmer ? Proceedings of Convocation and 
 Parliament in regard to the king’s marriage and the Anglican Church? 
 Subsequent proceedings of Henry ? The abolition of the monasteries ? The 
 death of Anne Boleyn, and marriage of Jane Seymour ? The discontents in 
 England, and their consequences? The “bloody statute” ? The death of 
 Jane Seymour, and marriage of Anne of Cleves ? The disgrace of Cromwell 
 and the queen ? Catherine Howard ? Catherine Parr ? Henry's attention 
 to Wales? The affairs of Ireland? Henry’s measures towards Scotland 
 and France ? His death ? His character? The minority of Edward VI. ? 
 The policy of Somerset ? Winchester? Proceedings of Somerset in Scot¬ 
 land ? The progress of reform ? The projects and death of Lord Seymour? 
 The downfall of Somerset ? The ambitious views and projects of Warwick ? 
 Lady Jane Grey ? The accession of Mary ? The intentions and policy of 
 Mary ? Her measures for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic reli¬ 
 gion ? Cardinal Pole ? The persecution of Protestants ? Death of Mary ? 
 Her character ? Education of Elizabeth? The pretensions of Mary Stuart ? 
 The restoration of the Protestant religion ? Elizabeth’s policy towards Scot¬ 
 land ? The oath of supremacy ? The thirty-nine articles ? Mary’s flight 
 into England? The duke of Norfolk? The bull of Pius V. ? Its effect? 
 Foreign and domestic troubles of Elizabeth? Death of Mary? Warlike 
 preparations of Spain? Successes of Drake? The “invincible Armada”? 
 Conduct of Elizabeth ? The preparations for defence ? Failure and destruc¬ 
 tion of the Armada? Irish affairs? James IV.? James V. ? Cardinal 
 Beaton? John Knox? The Scottish reformation? Troubles and vicissi¬ 
 tudes of Mary ? The union of Ireland with England ? Tlie influence of 
 Henry and Elizabeth upon Irish affairs? 
 
 France. — What account is given of Louis XII. ? His character and 
 policy ? His marriages? The state of the government and kingdom during 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 27 
 
 his reign ? His foreign alliances ? His Italian expedition ? His attempts 
 upon Naples? War with Venice? Gaston de Foix? Proceedings of 
 Francis I. ? Rivalry between Francis and Charles ? The Constable Bour¬ 
 bon ? The battle of Pavia ? Subsequent treaty ? Its violation ? Subse¬ 
 quent hostilities ? Interview between the monarchs ? Alliances of the 
 French and Turks ? Religious disturbances of Germany ? The history of 
 Henry II.? Francis II. ? The factions during his reign ? The conspiracy 
 of Amboise ? Charles IX. ? The Huguenots ? The first civil war ? The 
 second civil war ? The massacre of St. Bartholomew ? The policy of Henry 
 
 III. ? The Catholic League ? The “ sixteen” ? The “ barricades” ? The 
 assassination of the duke of Guise ? The disturbed condition of the king¬ 
 dom ? The assassination of the king ? The accession of Henry IV. ? The 
 proceedings of parliament ? The edict of Nantes ? The subsequent course 
 of the king ? 
 
 Italian Peninsula. —What account is given of the measures of Ferdinand 
 of Spain to get possession of Naples ? The subsequent events in Italy ? 
 The parties that favoured the French cause? Jerome Savonarola? The 
 difference between the French and Italian soldiery ? The condition of Italy 
 during these wars ? The affairs of Savoy and Piedmont ? The conspiracy 
 in Genoa ? Andrew Doria ? Affairs of Genoa after his death ? The coali¬ 
 tion against Venice? Its results? The affairs of Tuscany ? Alexander de 
 Medici ? Cosmo ? Ferdinand ? The condition of the states of the Church ? 
 Caesar Borgia? Julius II. ? Leo X. ? Clement VII.? Paul III. ? Paul 
 
 IV. ? Gregory XIII. ? Sixtus V. ? The affairs of Parma ? 
 
 Spanish Peninsula. —What account is given of the Spanish sovereigns ? 
 The character of Ferdinand ? The accession of Charles ? The cause of his 
 unpopularity among the Spaniards ? The subsequent discontents ? The 
 change in the Cortes ? The accession of Philip II. ? His severity ? Its 
 consequences ? The affairs of Portugal ? Sebastian ? The union of Por¬ 
 tugal with Spain ? The “ invincible Armada” ? 
 
 The Netherlands. —What account is given of the rise and power of the 
 dukes of Burgundy ? The union of the seventeen provinces with Spain under 
 Charles V. and Philip II. ? The revolt of the Flemings ? The proceedings 
 of the duke of Alva ? The prince of Orange ? The continuation of the war 
 under Louis Requesens ? The pacification of Ghent ? The formation of 
 the United Provinces under William, prince of Orange ? The affairs of the 
 Low Countries ? The interference of England ? Conclusion of the contest ? 
 The causes of the success of the Dutch against Philip ? 
 
 Germany.— What account is given of the reign of Maximilian ? The ele¬ 
 vation of Charles V. ? Hostility of Francis ? The league against him ? 
 His defeats ? His capture ? The Holy League ? The imperial forces in 
 Italy ? Sacking of Rome ? The treaty of Cambray ? Martin Luther ? 
 The progress of his doctrines ? The diet of Augsburg ? The policy of 
 Charles ? His brother Ferdinand ? The expedition of Charles into Africa 's 
 The Anabaptists ? French and Italian wars ? The second expedition into 
 Africa ? Renewal of hostilities between Charles and Francis ? The peace 
 of Crespy ? The plans of Charles against the Reformers ? His success ? 
 The subsequent revolt and success of the Reformers under Maurice ? The 
 abdication of Charles ? The reign of Ferdinand I.? Maximilian II.? Ru¬ 
 dolph II.? 
 
 Hungary and Bohemia.— What account is given of the early history of 
 these states ? The invasion of Hungary by the Turks ? The opposition of 
 the Bohemians to the Austrian dominion ? The origin of the Croats and 
 Pandoors ? 
 
28 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Poland and Russia. —What account is given of the early history of Poland ? 
 The reign of Alexander ? Sigismund I. ? Sigismund II. ? The Confedera¬ 
 tion of 1573? Henry? Battori? Sigismund III. ? The early history of 
 Russia? Ivan III. ? Vasili IV.? Theodore? Boris? 
 
 Denmark, Sweden and Norway. —What account is given of the early his¬ 
 tory of these countries ? Christian II. ? Gustavus Vasa ? Frederick I. ? 
 The Reformation ? Sweden and Denmark ? The recess of Colding ? Erik? 
 John ? Sigismund ? Charles ? 
 
 Ottoman Empire and the East. —What account is given of the internal 
 disturbances of the empire ? Selim ? The war with Persia ? The conquest 
 of Egypt ? Soliman I. ? The capture of Belgrade ? The reduction of 
 Rhodes ? The invasion of Hungary ? Khair Eddin Barbarossa ? Subse¬ 
 quent events by land and sea ? Domestic troubles of Soliman ? Amurath 
 III.? Sheikh Eidar in Persia? Ismael? Tamasp? Mohammed Mirza ? 
 Abbas ? The early history of India ? The Mohammedan conquests and 
 power in India ? The Ghoriar dynasty ? Tamerlane ? Baber ? Akbar ? 
 The early history of China ? The Han dynasty ? The Tang dynasty ? 
 The Song dynasty ? Kublai-Khan ? 
 
 Colonies and Discoveries. —What account is given of the West Indies? 
 Mexico? Peru? Brazil? North America? 
 
 [Discoveries and Settlements in North America. — What account is 
 given of the Cabots? Ponce de Leon? Varrazani? Gomez? Cartier? 
 Ferdinand de Soto? Ribault? Melendez? Frobisher? Sir Francis Drake 
 and the Oregon territory? Sir Humphrey Gilbert? Sir Walter Raleigh’s 
 first expedition ? His second expedition ? His third expedition ? His fate ?] 
 
 Colonial System. —What account is given of the condition of the Spanish 
 colonies ? The Portuguese dominion in the East ? Causes of its decline ? 
 Colonial policy of England ? 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the religious movements that 
 preceded the Reformation ? Indulgences ? Luther’s first opposition ? Eras¬ 
 mus ? Leo X. ? The progress of the new opinions ? The diet at Spires ? 
 The diet of Augsburg? Maurice of Saxony? The Helvetic Reformation ? 
 The progress of the Reformation in France ? In other countries ? The 
 council of Trent ? Its decrees ? The Jesuits ? 
 
 Letters, Arts and Sciences. —What account is given of the consequences 
 of the invention of printing? English writers ? French? Italian? Spa¬ 
 nish ? Portuguese ? German and Dutch ? 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D, (Page 400.) 
 
 Great Britain. —What account is given of the accession of James I.? 
 His character ? His troubles ? The Gunpowder Plot ? The oath of alle¬ 
 giance ? The pacification and settlement of Ireland ? Buckingham ? The 
 state of parties ? Death of James ? Accession and marriage of Charles I. ? 
 Ship-money ? Petition of right ? Laud and Strafford ? The Star Chamber ? 
 The Scottish Covenant ? The Long Parliament ? The parties in the civil 
 war ? Its issue ? Cromwell ? Death of Charles ? The Rump Parliament? 
 Montrose ? Ormond ? Charles II. ? The Protectorate ? The success of 
 British arms? Death of Cromwell? His son Richard? Restoration of 
 Charles II. ? His first measures ? His marriage and character ? The sur¬ 
 render of Dunkirk? War with Holland? The plague in London? The 
 great fire ? The persecution in Scotland ? The Test Act ? The Popish 
 Plot? Further measures of Parliament? Accession of James II.? His 
 character ? The rebellion of Monmouth and Argyle ? The attempts of 
 James to introduce the Catholic religion ? The accession of William, prince 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 29 
 
 of Orange? The influence of the revolution upon the internal affairs of the 
 empire ? The disposition of the Catholics towards William ? The proceed¬ 
 ings in Scotland? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the minority of Louis XIII. ? Con- 
 cini ? Luines ? Flight and insurrection of Mary ? Insurrection of the 
 Protestants ? The character and designs of Richelieu ? His measures of 
 foreign policy ? His domestic administration ? Mazarin and the Fronde ? 
 The war between France and Spain? The treaty of the Pyrenees? The 
 ambitious projects of Louis XIV.? The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle? The 
 preparations for war with the United Provinces? The progress of the war? 
 Its termination? The despotic character of Louis ? The motives which led 
 to the revocation of the edict of Nantes? The persecuting measures of 
 government ? Their_consequences ? The grand alliance against France ? 
 Progress of the war ? The treaty of Ryswick ? , 
 
 Spain and Portugal. —What account is given of the character and reign 
 of Philip III. ? Philip IV.? The disasters of his reign? The Portuguese 
 revolution? John IV.? Alphonso VI.? Peter II.? 
 
 Italian Peninsula.— What account is given of the influence of the Refor¬ 
 mation upon Italian affairs ? The contests of Venice with the Pope ? With 
 the pirates ? With Turkey? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the affairs of Germany under Mat¬ 
 thias ? Ferdinand II. ? The parties to the Bohemian war ? Its progress ? 
 The Protestant confederacy of 1625? Designs of the emperor upon the 
 liberties of the German princes ? His proceedings in Bohemia ? In Ger¬ 
 many ? Resistance of the diet of Ratisbon ? The preparations for war 
 under Gustavus Adolphus ? The progress of the war ? The defeat of Tilly ? 
 The defeat of Wallenstein ? Consequences of the death of Gustavus ? Pro¬ 
 gress of the war under Ferdinand III.? The peace of Westphalia ? The 
 accession of Leopold I. ? The confederacy of the Turks and Hungarians ? 
 The siege of Vienna ? The electorate of Hanover ? The kingdom of 
 Prussia ? 
 
 Holland.— What account is given of the contest between the Spanish and 
 the Dutch? The origin of the Synod of Dort? Its decrees ? The resump¬ 
 tion of hostilities with Spain ? Frederick Henry ? William II. ? The war 
 with England ? Humiliation of the Dutch ? Renewal of the war under De 
 Witt? William III.? 
 
 Denmark.— What account is given of the reign of Christian IV. ? His 
 participation in the Protestant League ? The war with Sweden ? The 
 reign of Frederick III.? Christian V.? The foreign commerce? Frede¬ 
 rick IV. ? 
 
 Sweden.— What account is given of Gustavus Adolphus ? The attempt 
 of Sigismund of Poland ? The interposition of the Czar ? The proceedings 
 of Gustavus in Germany ? The minority of Christina ? The part taken by 
 her in the treaty of Westphalia ? Her character? Her resignation of the 
 crown ? The reign of Charles X. ? His war with Poland ? With Denmark ? 
 The general pacification after his death ? The course of Charles XI. on 
 attaining his majority ? His domestic administration? 
 
 Poland. —What account is given of the interference of Sigismund in the 
 affairs of Russia? In the thirty years’ war? The general influence of his 
 reign? Ladislaus IV.? His relations with Russia? Turkey? The in¬ 
 fluence of the Jesuits? The reign of John Casimir ? Invasion of Gustavus? 
 Bad policy of Gustavus? The part taken in this dispute by the elector of 
 Brandenburg ? Relations with the Cossacks and Muscovites ? The acces- 
 3 * 
 
30 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 sion of Michael ? The invasion of the Turks ? The election of Sobieski as 
 John III.? His character and achievements? The domestic troubles of 
 Poland ? 
 
 Russia.— What account is given of the state of Russia? The invasion of 
 of the Swedes and Poles ? The elevation of Romanof ? His pacific policy ? 
 His internal administration ? The minority of Alexis ? His foreign rela¬ 
 tions and successes ? His domestic troubles? The rebellion of Razin ? The 
 internal administration ? The reign of Theodore ? Peter the Great ? 
 
 Ottoman Empire.— What account is given of the state of the empire? 
 The character of its sovereigns? Osman? Mustapha? Murad?- Ibra¬ 
 him? Mohammed IV.? The capture of Candia? The war in Hungary? 
 Soliman III.? Achmet II.? Mustapha II.? The treaty of Carlowitz? 
 
 The East. —What account is given of the affairs of Persia under Saffi ? 
 Abbas II. ? Hussein Mirza ? The origin of the Mantchoos ? Their rise 
 to supreme power in China ? The policy of Chun-tchi ? Kang-hi ? The 
 early history of Japan? Its form of government? The Catholics ? The 
 Dutch? The Mogul empire ? Its disasters under Selim? Jehan ? The 
 reign of Aurengzebe ? The Mahrattas ? Condition of the Mogul empire ? 
 
 Colonies.— What account is given of the origin of the British East India 
 Company? The extension of their powers in 1624? Their progress? The 
 African companies? The West Indies? The settlements in North Ame¬ 
 rica? The French colonies ? The Spanish ? Portuguese? Dutch? 
 
 [Settlement of the United States. —What account is given of the settle- 
 ment of St. Augustine ? Of Virginia ? New Plymouth ? Massachusetts ? 
 New Hampshire? Maine? Rhode Island? Connecticut? New York? 
 Delaware ? Maryland ? Carolina ? New Jersey ? Pennsylvania ? Georgia ?] 
 
 The Church.— What account is given of the origin of the Jansenists? 
 The hostility of the Jesuits ? The interposition of papal authority ? The 
 schism among French theologians ? The Quakers ? 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences. —What account is given of their condi¬ 
 tion in England ? France ? Italy ? Spain ? Germany ? Holland ? 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A. D. (Page 432.) 
 
 Great Britain. —What account is given of the Act of Succession ? The 
 grand alliance? Hostile movements of the French? Death of William ? 
 Incidents of his reign ? The accession of Anne ? The successes of Marl¬ 
 borough ? The taking of Gibraltar ? The Scottish Act of Security ? The 
 treaty of union ? The continuance of the war on the continent ? Trial of 
 Sacheverell? Accession of the Tories to power? Supposed intentions of 
 Anne and the Tories ? Accession of George I. ? His policy towards the 
 tories ? The Riot Act ? The rebellion in favour of the Pretender ? Its 
 suppression ? The Quadruple Alliance ? The South Sea bubble ? The 
 accession of George II. ? The policy of Walpole ? War with Spain ? The 
 affair of Portobello and Carthagena ? The war in behalf of the queen of 
 Hungary ? The rebellion of ’45 ? Its progress ? Its termination ? Its 
 consequences to the Highlanders ? The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ? The con¬ 
 dition of the British colonies ? The assistance to Prussia? The progress of 
 the seven years’ war under Mr. Pitt ? Accession of George III. ? The progress 
 and termination of the war under Bute ? His retirement ? The career of 
 John Wilkes ? The origin and object of the Stamp Act ? The ground of 
 opposition to it ? The concessions of the ministry ? The issue of the con 
 troversy ? The affairs of Ireland ? The national debt ? The difficulties 
 that beset the empire during the American war ? The parliamentary lead 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 31 
 
 ers ? The coalition ministry ? Elevation of Mr. Pitt ? His first measures ? 
 Warren Hastings? The regency discussion? The French revolution? 
 Commencement of hostilities ? The successes of the English ? The union 
 of Great Britain and Ireland ? The condition and resources of England 
 during the war of the French revolution? Her Indian possessions? Her 
 national debt ? Her commerce with the United States ? Evidences of 
 wealth ? Sources of her power ? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the question of the Spanish succes¬ 
 sion ? The will of Charles II.? The offensive alliance against Philip V. ? 
 The success of Eugene and Marlborough ? Embarrassed condition of Louis? 
 The successive victories of the allied powers ? The attempt at negotiation ? 
 Renewal of it? The change in European affairs? The peace of Utrecht? 
 The character of Louis XIV. ? His principles of government ? Iiis army 
 and revenues? The regency of Orleans? The Mississippi scheme? Its 
 plan ? Its extent ? Its result ? The majority and marriage of Louis XV. ? 
 The policy of Fleury ? The war against Austria and Russia ? Treaty of 
 Vienna ? The Pragmatic Sanction ? Its violation by Louis ? The war with 
 Austria? Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ? The subsequent events of his reign? 
 The state of the kingdom ? The accession and marriage of Louis XVI. ? 
 His character ? His first acts ? Treaty of alliance with the United States ? 
 The meeting of the Notables ? The proposition of Calonne ? The assem¬ 
 bling of the States General ? Measures of the Third Estate ? Formation 
 of the National Assembly ? Dismissal of Neckar ? Formation of the Na¬ 
 tional Guard ? Action of the National Assembly ? Attack of the palace at 
 Versailles ? Condition of the royal family ? Further proceedings of the 
 assembly ? Attempted flight of the king ? Dissolution of the assembly ? 
 Character and proceedings of the new assembly ? Action of Austria and 
 Prussia? Condition of Paris and the royal family? The National Conven¬ 
 tion ? Execution of the king ? Hostile attitude of the republic ? Progress 
 of the war ? First appearance of Napoleon Buonaparte ? The reign of ter¬ 
 ror ? Its atrocities ? Its impieties ? Downfall of Robespierre ? Military 
 operations of the republic ? The Directory ? State of the war ? Napoleon’s 
 campaign in Italy ? Political changes consequent upon the peace of Campo 
 Formio? Napoleon’s expedition into Egypt? Expedition into Palestine ? 
 His return to France? Downfall of the Directory ? Influence of the French 
 revolution upon English and continental politics ? Upon France ? 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the accession of Philip V. ? The war 
 of the succession ? Its results upon Spain? Alberoni and Elizabeth Far- 
 nese ? Their projects ? Internal administration of Alberoni ? The Quad¬ 
 ruple Alliance ? Abdication and resumption of the crown by Philip ? Sub¬ 
 sequent wars of Philip ? The policy and administration of Ferdinand VI. ? 
 Accession of Charles III. ? War with England ? Colonial losses ? Internal 
 administration? Accession of Charles IV. ? Godoy ? War with France? 
 Treaty of alliance with France ? War with England? 
 
 Portugal. —What account is given of the reign of Peter II. ? Relations 
 with England ? The character and reign of John V. ? Joseph I. ? Cha¬ 
 racter and measures of Pombal ? The earthquake of 1755 ? The expulsion 
 of the Jesuits? Accession of Maria? Her measures? Her melancholy 
 death ? 
 
 Italian Peninsula.— What account is given of the reign of Victor Ama¬ 
 deus II. ? Charles Emanuel III. ? Victor Amadeus III. ? The affairs of 
 Tuscany? Of the Two Sicilies ? Of Venice ? Church affairs under Cle¬ 
 ment XI. ? Benedict XIII. ? Benedict XIV, ? Clement XIII. ? Clement 
 XIV.? Pius VI.? 
 
32 
 
 QUESTIONS TO 
 
 Germany.— What account is given of the reign of Joseph L? Charles 
 VI. ? The treaty of Utrecht ? Successes against the Turks ? The Prag¬ 
 matic Sanction ? Reverses towards the close of this reign ? Claimants to 
 the sovereignty of the Austrian dominions ? Proceedings of Maria Theresa 
 and the European powers ? Election of Charles VII. ? Position and treaties 
 of Maria Theresa? Hostilities with Prussia in 1744? Elevation of her 
 husband as Francis I. ? Progress of the Austrian arms in Italy ? Internal 
 administration of the queen ? The seven years’ war? The reign of Joseph 
 II. ? Disputes about the electorate ? Character and influence of Maria 
 Theresa? Ambitious designs qf Joseph? His reformations in the govern¬ 
 ment ? Impolicy of some of his measures ? War with Turkey? Leopold 
 II.? His measures? Measures of Francis II.? 
 
 Holland.— What account is given of the position of William III. ? The 
 confederacy against Louis XIV. ? Its result ? The change in the govern¬ 
 ment ? The character and administration of the grand pensioner, Heinsius ? 
 Condition and progress of Holland after the peace of Utrecht ? Banishment 
 of the Jesuits ? The danger from the dykes ? The circumstances which 
 led to the re-elevation of the house of Orange ? The minority of William V. ? 
 Relations of the Dutch towards the United States ? Reverses ? Discontents ? 
 Interposition of Prussia in favour of the Stadtholder ? Invasion of the 
 French ? Change of government? 
 
 Denmark. —What account is given of the administration of Frederick IV.? 
 The salutary reforms of Christian IV. ? The prosperous condition of the 
 kingdom under Frederick V.? First measures of Christian VII.? His 
 marriage ? His travels ? Character and administration of Struensee ? His 
 downfall? The regency of Frederick ? 
 
 Sweden. —What account is given of the accession of Charles XII. ? Ag¬ 
 gressions of the neighbouring states ? Prompt measures of Charles towards 
 Denmark ? His successes over the Russians ? His measures in Poland ? 
 The Russian campaign of 1708 ? His defeat in 1709 ? The stay of Charles 
 in Turkey? His return, measures and death? Elevation of Ulrica Elea- 
 nora ? Subsequent treaties of peace ? Politic administration of Frederick ? 
 Factions of the Hats and Caps ? Rupture with Russia ? Its consequences ? 
 Measures of Adolphus Frederick ? Measures of Gustavus III. ? Dispute 
 with the army ? Subsequent events ? 
 
 Poland. —What account is given of the elevation of Augustus II. ? His 
 forced abdication ? His return to power ? Condition of the country ? Ele¬ 
 vation of Augustus III. ? His measures ? Election of Stanislaus ? Inter 
 ference of Catherine in Polish affairs ? The civil war ? The project for 
 partitioning Poland ? Its accomplishment ? Efforts of the Polish govern¬ 
 ment at internal reforms ? New interference of foreign powers ? Second 
 partition ? Effort of Kosciusko to regain national independence ? His fail¬ 
 ure ? Third and final partition ? Character of this transaction ? 
 
 Prussia. —What account is given of the origin of Prussia ? The title of 
 Margrave? The house of Brandenburg? Albert? Frederick William? 
 Assumption of the royal title by W’illiam I. ? Administration of Frederick 
 William II.? State of the country at his death? Character and accession 
 of Frederick II. ? The war of the Austrian succession ? Internal adminis¬ 
 tration ? Confederacy against Prussia ? Measures of Frederick in this 
 emergency? Progress of the war? Battle of Zorndorf? Of Kunersdorf? 
 Capture of Berlin ? Critical position of Frederick ? Death of Elizabeth ? 
 Elevation and policy of Peter III. ? Termination of the war ? Condition 
 of the kingdom at his death ? His character and policy ? Reign of Frede¬ 
 rick William II.? 
 
WHITE'S UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 
 
 33 
 
 Russia. —What account is given of the insurrection of the Strelitzes ? The 
 inferiority of the Russian soldiers in the war with Sweden ? The founding 
 of St. Petersburg ? Success of the Russian arms in 1709 ? Catherine Alex- 
 ina ? Her successful intrigues with the Porte ? Successes of Peter ? His 
 promotion of the arts ? His character ? Reign of Catherine ? Peter II. ? 
 Elevation and reign of Anne ? Of Elizabeth ? Peter III. ? Elevation of 
 the Empress Catherine ? Her character and measures ? Her contest with 
 Turkey? Internal administration? The Armed Neutrality? Further 
 encroachments and conquests ? Her Polish policy ? Measures of Paul I. ? 
 
 Turkey. —What account is given of the reign of Achmet III. ? The war 
 about the Morea ? Its result ? Persian conquests ? Elevation of Mahmoud 
 I. ? Persian affairs ? European war ? Reign of Osman III. ? Measures 
 of Mustapha III.? Accession of Abdul-Hamid? War with Russia and 
 Austria? Character of Selim III.? Progress of the Austrian and Russian 
 arms ? Interposition of the other European powers ? Condition of the em¬ 
 pire ? Attempts at reform ? 
 
 Persia. — What account is given of Mahmoud? Tamasp? Ashraff? 
 Nadir Kouli? His talents and power? Election of Abbas III.? Assump¬ 
 tion of supreme power by Nadir Shah ? His victories in Afghanistan ? In 
 India? In Bokhara? His tyranny and death? Condition of the empire? 
 Elevation of Kereem Khan ? His administration ? Lootf Ali Khan ? Aga 
 Mohammed Khan ? Shah Futteh Ali? 
 
 India.— What account is given of the accession of Shah Aulum ? Trou¬ 
 bles during his reign ? Character of Jehanda Shah ? Elevation of Moham¬ 
 med Shah ? Imbecility and misfortunes of his reign ? Invasion of Nadir 
 Shah ? Reign of Ahmed Shah ? Subsequent troubles ? Contest between 
 the Afghans and Mahrattas ? First collision between the French and Eng¬ 
 lish in the East? Project and measures of the French governor, Dupleix? 
 Counter movements of Lord Clive ? Growing importance of Calcutta ? Its 
 capture by Surajah Dowlah ? The black hole ? Successes of Clive ? Intrigue 
 with Meer Jaffier? Victory of Plassey? Its results? War between the 
 French and English in the Carnatic ? Decline of the French ? Deposition 
 and restoration of Meer Jaffier? Progress of the English power? Legisla¬ 
 tion of Parliament in regard to British India? Warren Hastings? Efforts 
 of Hyder Ali ? His defeat ? Administration of Cornwallis ? Shore ? 
 Wellesley ? 
 
 United States. —What account is given of the origin of the United States? 
 The government of the colonies ? Their growth and importance ? The 
 proceedings of the colonists in regard to the shipments of tea ? The Boston 
 Port Bill ? The Congress of 1774? Their measures ? Battle of Lexington? 
 Congress of 1775 ? Battle of Bunker’s Hill ? The appointment of General 
 Washington as commander-in-chief? Expedition into Canada ? Evacua¬ 
 tion of Boston ? The Declaration of Independence ? Successes of the Bri¬ 
 tish ? Capture of Burgoyne ? French alliance ? Movements of General 
 Clinton ? The British and French fleets ? Success of Clinton in the Caro- 
 linas ? Subsequent success of Greene ? Capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown? 
 Treaty of peace? Conduct of Washington ? State of the country? Con¬ 
 vention to form the constitution? Outline of the form of government? 
 Character and administration of Washington ? 
 
 Hayti. —What account is given of the history and condition of this island? 
 The state of public opinion concerning slavery ? Decree of the Constituent 
 Assembly ? Disastrous consequences ? Elevation of Toussaint? His over¬ 
 throw and death ? Revolt of John James Dessalines? The division of the 
 island ? Its reunion under Boyer ? State of the island ? 
 
34 
 
 questions to 
 
 The Church. —What account is given of the progress of infidel opinions? 
 Dictionnaire Encyclopedique ? Voltaire? Other French writers? The 
 suppression of the Jesuits ? Breaking down of the papal authority ? The 
 measures of the French infidels ? The origin of the Methodists ? Their 
 character and influence? 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences. —What account is given of Prior, Young, 
 Pope, &c. ? 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY A. D, (Page 490.) 
 
 Great Britain. —What account is given of the union of Great Britain and 
 Ireland ? Progress of the French on the continent ? Success of Nelson ? 
 Change of Russian relations? Events in Egypt ? Treaty of Amiens ? Re¬ 
 newal of hostilities? Designs of Napoleon? Measures of Pitt ? Battle of 
 Trafalgar ? Battle of Austerlitz ? The British ministry ? Carrying off of 
 the Danish navy ? Other acts of the new ministry ? Power of Napoleon .pn 
 the continent ? Reaction of public opinion against him? Events in the 
 peninsula under Wellesley ? Dalrymple ? Moore ? Recall of Wellesley to 
 the peninsula? His success? The Walcheren expedition? Position of 
 Austria? Battle of Busaco? Torres Vedras? The Regency? Progress 
 of the British arms under Wellington ? Distress of the nation ? Change of 
 ministry ? War with the United States? Successes of the northern powers? 
 Wellington’s campaign of 1812? 1813? 1814? Progress of the allies? 
 Abdication of Napoleon ? Proceedings of the allied sovereigns ? Renewal 
 of the war? Battle of Waterloo? Exile and death of Napoleon? Evils 
 resulting from his ambition ? Its lesson to nations ? Efforts for the im¬ 
 provement of the race ? 
 
 France. —What account is given of the elevation of Napoleon ? His pro¬ 
 position to England and Austria ? Progress of the war in Germany ? In 
 Italy ? Battle of Hohenlinden ? Treaties of peace ? Aims of Napoleon ? 
 Domestic troubles ? Re-establishment of religion ? Legion of Honour ? 
 General administration of affairs ? Hostile measures on both sides ? Mur¬ 
 der of the duke of Enghien? Coronation of Napoleon as emperor of the 
 French ? Coalition against him ? His invasion of Germany ? His suc¬ 
 cesses ? Terms of the treaty of Presburg ? His progress towards universal 
 dominion ? War with Prussia ? Activity and success of Napoleon ? Berlin 
 decrees? War with Russia? Peace of Tilsit? Arrogant proceedings 
 towards Portugal ? Spain ? Renewal of the war by the Austrians ? Its 
 result? His marriage ? Extent of his power? Preparations for war with 
 Russia ? Capture of Smolensk ? Battle of Borodino ? Capture and burning 
 of Moscow? Position of Napoleon ? Retreat from Russia? Attempts to 
 reinforce his army ? New victories? Reverses of Napoleon ? His retreat 
 to France ? New levy ? The allied forces ? Genius displayed by Napoleon 
 in this emergency ? Result of the campaign ? Elevation of Louis XVIII. ? 
 Terms of the peace? Discontents in Paris? Return of Napoleon? His 
 attempts to maintain his position? Forces under Blucher and Wellington ? 
 Battle of Waterloo? Character of Napoleon by Dr. Channing ? General 
 pacification at Paris ? 
 
 Spain. —What account is given of the condition of Spain under the admi¬ 
 nistration of Godoy ? Secret plot for the partition of Portugal ? Intrigues 
 of the French in Madrid ? Abdication of the king ? Forced cession of the 
 crown to France ? Nomination of Joseph ? Popular insurrection ? Inter¬ 
 ference of the British ? Restoration of Ferdinand ? His illiberal policy? 
 
 Portugal. — What account is given of the policy of Napoleon towards 
 Portugal ? The occupation of the country by the French ? Their expulsion 
 by the British ? Subsequent movements of the royal family ? 
 
white’s universal history. 
 
 35 
 
 Italy. —What account is given of the interference of the French in the 
 affairs of Naples ? The career of Murat in Naples ? The settlement of upper 
 Italy agreed upon in the Congress of Vienna ? Switzerland ? 
 
 Germany. —What account is given of the contest between Napoleon and 
 the Emperor ? The Confederation of the Rhine ? Humiliation of the Ger¬ 
 man princes by Napoleon ? Successes of the Archduke Charles? Settlement 
 of Germany established by the Congress of Vienna? 
 
 Holland. —What account is given of the French interference in the affairs 
 of Holland ? Character and policy of Louis ? His abdication ? Revolution 
 in favour of the house of Orange ? Settlement of the provinces by the Con¬ 
 gress of Vienna ? 
 
 Denmark. —What account is given of the affairs of Denmark ? 
 
 Sweden. —What account is given of the accession of Charles XIII. ? Ces¬ 
 sions to Russia ? Alliance with Napoleon ? Election of Bernadotte ? Al¬ 
 liance with England ? Settlement of the country ? 
 
 Prussia. —What account is given of the administration of Frederick III.? 
 Harsh terms of Napoleon ? His oppression? The popular feeling? Suc¬ 
 cesses of the Prussians under Blucher and others ? The Tugenbund ? Set¬ 
 tlement of the country by the Congress of Vienna ? 
 
 Russia. —What account is given of the character and death of Paul ? First 
 measures of Alexander ? Meeting with Napoleon ? Its consequences ? War 
 with Turkey? Hostile feelings towards France? Declaration of Napoleon? 
 The progress of the Russian arms ? Settlement of the Congress of Vienna ? 
 
 Turkey. —What account is given of the foreign relations of the Porte ? 
 The discontents of the Janissaries ? Hostilities with England and Russia ? 
 Elevation and deposition of Mustapha IV. ? Elevation of Mahmoud II. ? 
 His character and measures ? Mehemet Ali ? Ibrahim ? Greek inde¬ 
 pendence ? 
 
 British India. — What account is given of the policy ot the British in 
 India? The Mahrattas? Movements of Scindia? Successes of General 
 Lake ? Of Wellington ? The result of these victories ? New war with the 
 Mahrattas ? Policy of Lord Minto ? Proceedings of the marquis of Hast¬ 
 ings ? The extent and population of British India ? Religion of the na¬ 
 tives ? The government ? 
 
 United States. —What account is given of the condition of the United 
 States ? Political parties ? Increase of power, territory and population ? 
 Expedition against Tripoli ? Difficulties with England ? The non-inter¬ 
 course act of 1809 ? Its results? Declaration of war? Expeditions into 
 Canada ? Naval battles ? Proceedings of General Ross ? Defeat of Pack- 
 enham ? Extension of territory under Monroe ? 
 
 Brazil. —What account is given of the revolution in Brazil ? Its present 
 form of government ? 
 
 Spanish Colonies. —What account is given of the state of the colonies? 
 Attempt of Miranda ? Congress of 1810 ? New Grenada ? Bolivar ? The 
 rising of the other Spanish states ? Present condition of the South American 
 states ? 
 
 Literature, Arts and Sciences. — What account is given of Crabbe, 
 Shelley, Ac. Ac. ? 
 
 Conclusion. —What account is given of the Congress of Vienna ? The 
 progress of democratic principles ? General condition and prospects of the 
 world? The reign of Louis XVIII. ? Charles X.? Prince Polignac ? In¬ 
 surrection in Paris ? Change of government ? Elevation and administration 
 
36 
 
 QUESTIONS. 
 
 of Louis Philippe? Revolution in Belgium? Insurrection in Poland? Com 
 mercial reverses in Great Britain ? Catholic emancipation ? Accession of 
 William IV.? Administration of Earl Grey? Reform Bill ? Abolition of 
 slavery in the British West Indies ? Accession of Queen Victoria ? The 
 condition of the peninsula? Contest between Don Carlos and Christina? 
 Interference of France and England ? Appointment of Espartero ? Contest 
 in Portugal between Don Miguel and Don Pedro ? Interference of England 
 and France? Treaty of 1834? Majority of Donna Maria? The public 
 feeling in regard to the Greeks? Battle of Navarino? War between the 
 Turks and Russians? Present condition of Greece? Of Turkey? Of 
 Egypt ? Commercial league of Germany ? Condition of Prussia ? Pro¬ 
 gress of British power in India ? Origin of the dispute with China ? Pro¬ 
 ceedings of Lin ? Hostilities against the Chinese ? Treaty of commerce ? 
 
 2ND OF THE QUESTIONS 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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